revisiting april in winter (II)

Gembrook was our destiantion in the Yarra Valley, where we arrived in a sunny Saturday afternoon. We met Adrew, who was working on his coming 2011 shiraz, as his hands were showing.

Initially we discovered The Wanderer shiraz, while celebrating my birthday at Tetsuya's a couple of years ago. During this visit we were able to try all his new wines, including a nice pinot noir and a carinyena he makes in Girona, the Catalan province where elBulli or Celler Can Roca also happen to be located. For this Spanish adventure he very appropriately renamed his brand el Wanderer.

A very experimental mix for my standards produced my last meal of the day highlighted by shitake mushrooms, which have been one of my favourites for years, after trying them in Vancouver about ten years ago. Cauliflower, garlic, farfalle pasta, coriander, extra virgin olive oil, blood limes and parmigiano reggiano

The combination of flavours and quite distant textures provided a quite exciting ingestion. I will certainly try this recipe again. Last week, on Wednesday,  Kakawa's flavour du jour was orange and rhubarb, so I brought a few of their majestic bon bons. As always, it was a privileged gift of the gods. 

revisiting april in winter (I)

Last April we had one more memorable trip to Victoria. We were able to manage a quick escape to the Yarra Valley as well as another one to the Mornington Peninsula. In this second one we ended up at Main Ridge Estate's cellar door, in Red Hill.

There we met Nat, a civil engineer who happens to know what a great pinot noir is about. In particular we love his 2009 Half Acre, which we fully enjoyed yesterday, after letting it rest for almost four months.

I cooked salmon in the oven following Lyn's famous recipe with dill, asparagus and a stellar tzatziki we made for the first time with sheep yogurt.

Passion fruit and mango for dessert sounded like the right combination to finish our day. The only problem was we didn't have passion fruit or mango at home, so we replaced it with an "alter ego" created by the Kakawa chocolate masters.

beating the root

Beta vulgaris may suggest some useless pharmaceutical product, or even a  vulgar beta software update. It actually reminds me of the last album by QOTSA: "Era Vulgaris". Anyway, the truth is that it happens to be something much healthier, with an amazing deep colour, best known as beetroot. In addition to its very unique and moderately sweet flavour, I find it is always an extremely inspiring element to play with. Yesterday Lyn and myself were talking about having a day of "greens", so in that case I thought it should be a colourful one.

Only a few minutes of peeling and chopping before it all got together in the oven for about forty minutes. Easy and clean. Our colour palette was pretty impressive: deep purple, gold, orange and diverse tones of brown.

Dessert was totally unthinkable just a few days ago. It certainly kept the evening's main theme alive until the very last second. I am talking about an exclusive creation coming from the divine masters of chocolate in Syd City. 

Yes, it was their brand new beetroot rocky road marshmallow. Unfortunately at this stage it is not available in their creative temple, also know as the shop, on William. But there is an interesting restaurant in Pyrmont where fish seems to fly -not necessarily in a literal sense- and, if lucky, you may be able to taste it.

my jewfish baptism

I first tried jewfish (aka mulloway) at Sean's Panaroma in North Bondi last month, and I loved it. I had seen it in the fish market plenty of times, but I had no idea what to do with it. So, at this point it was time to give it a try; clearly a quite beautiful branchial creature.

The first question was how to cook it, and therefore how to cut it. I ended up going for the cutlets, which for some reason in the kitchen seem to be more manageable.

It looked like a good a occasion to explore new territories, so I chose a few unsual ingredients in our diet: Australian blood limes (a hybrid between Citrus australasica sanguinea -the red finger lime- and the Rangpur lime -Citrus x limonia-), and kaffir limes (a lime native to Indochinese and Malesian ecoregions in Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and adjacent countries).

Korean enoki mushrooms, broccoli, garlic, and continental parsley also were part of this suddenly experimental and multicultural equation. As always, this quasi sacramental exercise was going to be lubricated with nothing but a generous dose of Spanish extra virgin olive oil.

tortilla española brunch

Although you may be thinking about a Mexican gastronomic incident, this new  episode of our culinary highlights has nothing to do with it. In Spain the word tortilla only refers to this other concept. It took me along time, as well as leaving the once -roughly eighty years ago- Spanish republic, to realize there was something else also called tortilla, which had nothing to do with the ones I had been eating at home all my life.

It's hard to believe how a mere "tortilla de patata or "tortilla española" can become some sort of addictive meal, but it does when dealing with good ones. While in Spain it is a very common meal, ideally with a green salad, I think this was only the second or third time Lyn proposed to enjoy it down under. Potatoes, onions, eggs, extra virgin olive oil and a pinch of salt is all what it takes. 

Such a common Spanish feature has multiple forms and formulas depending on which corner of the Iberian Peninsula you happen to be in. My favourite is the "Betanzos style" one, named after the little Galician town where they make it this way. Its main characteristic are the runny eggs and fried potatoes, which make it juicy and ideal to maneuver with a fresh and crunchy piece of bread, and a fork; no knives are meant to be on the plate.

This sunny Saturday was probably the best day of the week to make it. We were able to keep all the windows open, so we didn't stink afterwards. Serving it on the balcony was with no doubt the best plan; for some reason outdoors it always tastes better, especially during the summer months.

A basic plate of sliced tomatoes under a moderate drop of virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar usually becomes a great counterpoint. "Pimientos de Padrón" (or Padrón peppers, also named after another small town in Galicia where they are grown) would have been the perfect addition, but spring/summer is more their season. The whole experience was matched by a cool 2008 Dalwhinnie Moonambel chardonnay, plus a crucially crunchy small baguette from Bourke St.

big brother is here

Finally the magnums from William Downie arrived last week. After placing our order in January, the 2010 Mornington Peninsula 1'5 litre pinot noir bottles made it all the way from Yarragon to Darlinghurst.

The grapes (MV6 clones) grown on the red volcanic clay loam soils of Merricks Grove (VIC) have proven to make one of the top pinot hits we have been lucky enough to discover while in Australian shores. It's very precise and detailed, but built for the long haul, according to Bill.

I wonder if we will be able to keep full any of these memorable urns of joy until, at least, 2025...

ox on the balcony

This morning I was dreaming about green thick juicy asparagus, but what I found later on at the grocery was kind of uninspiring. I saw spinach, which always works for me, and pak choy. I thought both could provide a little bit of a green variety on the plate and the palate. A few sliced tomatoes with extra virgin oil and balsamic vinegar would add a little bit of colour to the whole dinner ensemble on the balcony.

It felt like a good day for red meat, so we revisited the tender eye fillet of a grass fed ox from Hudson Meats on Crown. I like it rare, so the cooking was going to be minimal: a simple "vuelta y vuelta" technique.

A pinch of salt and the mandatory garlic were the only addition to start the cooking, which didn't even take twenty minutes. We were both exhausted after a  late night following another long dinner at Tetsuya's the previous day. Unfortunately I didn't have any energy to simply decorate the plate; too bad.

The ending cleanser was a colourful and incredibly tasteful passion fruit, which for some mysterious reason always reaches platinum status in our private ranking of amazing tastes.