Cooking for Can Too - Jenny and Kathy's Wine Tasting Event

Lechon Love

Blame the Hubby and Heston Blumenthal.   

I offered to cater for the 38th day party of my new niece T, and was in the midst of planning the menu.  I mentioned to the Hubby that I was thinking of having a centrepiece of sorts for the party, but wasn't quite sure what it should be.  We were watching the program "Feasts" by Heston Blumenthal, where he served a whole pig to his guests, complete with "intestines" made out of fancy sausages, when it hit me - of course!  Why not truly celebrate T's coming into the world with a lechon?   

And so the quest was born of finding a Victorian supplier for the much-loved Filipino feast specialty - a whole pig(let) roasted over hot coals and served whole, covered with the most delicious mahogany brown crackling that you can imagine.  It's a lavish dish traditionally reserved for very special occasions, and Filipinos will know well that nothing beats biting into that sweet, succulent flesh and seriously wonderful crackling. 

After Googling and a few phone calls to Apolo's Lechon, plus an almost clandestine rendezvous (worthy of a Tarantino movie) at a carpark marked by a Subway sandwich restaurant in an outer suburb of Melbourne, the 31-kilo and 1 metre long lechon graced T's party.  My brother-in-law was fit to burst with excitement, and so was I - it had only been around 15 years since I had eaten lechon, and the Hubby was chuffed that his idea worked so well.  The party girl T just greeted the whole hullaballoo with a yawn and a little "wah" while in the arms of her Mum - after all, she wasn't even going to get a taste of the pig. Her big brother J was too busy at the swings to give the piggy much thought, but the other kids around were incredibly curious and frankly fascinated.

M was given the honour of dissecting the pig with his beautiful Global cleaver, and with great aplomb and skill too (thank God for his chef's apprenticeship!) despite him feeling quite under the weather.  Thanks, M.  And to everyone's credit, despite some initial shock and feelings of being confronted with seeing where their meal was coming from, everyone dug in and had some lechon, with a few going back for seconds, thirds and even fourths.

There was other stuf to eat too, of course, including my Mum's Bicol Express (a wickedly hot chili dish) reincarnated as a canape on crisp wonton cups, and Thai-style prawn and chicken miang on betel leaves.

A particularly fabulous find at Melbourne's Queen Victoria Markets was Pimientos de Padron  - a chili that I always thought could only be grown in Queensland by Midyim Eco Growers, who had suffered previous poor harvests due to inclement weather. 

Suffice it to say I was beyond thrilled to see the pimientos available to serve at T's party, as I only ever know to serve it one way - sauteed in plenty of olive oil until charred with whole blanched almonds and plenty of salt, then on a platter to be picked at and eaten whole.  Also known as the Russian roulette of peppers, it's said that 1 in 10 Pimientos de Padron is seriously hot, the rest sweet as capsicum.  Absolutely perfect party food when there's lots of brave partygoers and alcohol to wash down the (potential) chili heat.

But back to the lechon - many Filipinos would agree that lechon leftovers are even better than the main event, in the guise of "paksiw na lechon" - an unctuous stew with soy sauce, vinegar, peppercorns, bay leaves, garlic and the leftover special lechon sauce.  Best served with lots and lots of steaming hot rice - yummo!

With remarkably only around 8 kilos of lechon left over (we only did have around 25 adults to devour the beast!), there were plenty of leftovers, and even enough for us to take back to Sydney. Absolute bliss!

Marvelous Maha Bar & Grill, Melbourne

I love Melbourne. There, I've said it.  Sydneysiders feel free to slag me off now, but I have to say that if there was any other city I would choose to live in Australia, it would be Melbourne. 

And yes, I think the food and service is better in Melbourne restaurants than in Sydney.  So much so that the Hubby and I chose to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary in Melbourne and with a very memorable loooong lunch at Vue du Monde with their Gastronome menu - a ridiculously decadent 10 courses with matched wines, and as it was Perigord truffle season we had that shaved over a few of our dishes as well. That meal currently stands as our best and most expensive to date.

So on the odd occasion that we do head over to Melbourne for a day or so, I do my research and decide which restaurants we should eat in - always a pleasurable but painful undertaking, as we only have so few meals and so many restaurants to choose from!  We could only fit in one dinner for this visit too, so that was seriously difficult.  After much umming and ahhing, it was a feature on Maha Bar & Grill and some of their recipes in a recent Gourmet Traveller issue that sealed the deal for me.  And I was very happy with the experience.

We chose to go with the 5-course "soufra" menu - basically a tasting menu made up of their signature dishes.  I must say that the "tastes"were rather large, much more generous than your usual degustation style serves, but that would be my only complaint in an otherwise meal-perfect night.

We started off with an incredible starter soup - a white bean shourba with a venison kefta skewer.  It was so delicious, and the Hubby was happy with the white bean aspect of the dish as he is mad keen on anything bean-y or lentil-y. This was perfectly matched with an Efe Fresh Grape Raki.  It's an ouzo-like aperitif with a very strong aniseed flavour, and at 45% alcohol it's strong in another way so do take in small amounts.

This was followed by an array of cold mezze, comprised of:

• havouch-Turkish carrot and yoghurt
• fried cauliflower, tahini and walnuts
• olives-fel fel
• anchovy bastilla, tomato salad, feta foam
• pilaki-turkish carrot, bean and dill
• pickled eggplant with pomegranates

Yes, I know, all of that!  And it was delicious, with the anchovy bastilla (the one in the glass) and the eggplant my personal favourites.  It was interesting that this course was matched with a Chardonnay - Medina Girgentina D.O.K 2007 from Malta  Not being a chardie fan I was quite dubious, but it was quite a fine match considering the range of flavours on the platter.

The hot mezze was next, with two stand-out dishes: salmon, saffron, fennel and mussel doughnuts, and a family recipe of fenek stuffat,(braised rabbit) with potatoes and green peas.  The rabbit was particularly scrumptious - again, not a big bunny fan  as I have cooked with it only twice in my life and find it difficult to not think cute, white, fluffy bunny wabbit while slicing into it - but I don't mind it cooked for me and this was dish was superb. 

At this stage I was pretty full, and was a bit worried about stuffing two more courses in.  But I simply, simply had to have room for the grill course - the famed Maha Bar & Grill 12-hour roast lamb with shaved iceberg and kousa (preserved lemon).  It was, as expected, heartmeltingly tender. 

Not to be outdone in the melting stakes was the grilled butterfish in aleppo pepper butter sauce. It certainly lived up to its name as a butterfish!  Both dishes were served with a pine nut rice, and with a lovely red wine - Massaya Silver Selection from Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.

After all this beautfiul, beautiful food, the trio of desserts did not disappoint as the final course.  We were presented with the signature Maha doughnuts with a Turkish delight and pine nut praline, sweet corn cream and salted caramel with burnt butter ice cream (my fave!), and a quite interesting beetroot and chocolate sponge with chocolate mousse and milk ice cream.  We of course just had to wash it down with a Yarden Muscat 2007 from Israel.

Thank goodness our hotel was at least a 15-minute slow walk up the hill - I needed every bit of exercise after such an incredibly indulgent meal.  But hey, we're only in Melbourne once in a blue moon, and the dining experience in Maha Bar & Grill was well worth the wrath of my nutritionist! 

The only other thing to make this whole experience complete?  I'd like to know where I can buy aleppo pepper please!  It's quite integral to many of Maha's dishes, and I am dying to try the recipes out.  I have inquired into so many places for this, including Herbie's and the actual suppliers to Maha (Bas Foods), and still have no joy.  So if anyone knows where I can buy it, please let me know!

Champagne and Canapes - A "Welcome to the World" Party

One of our very lovely friends K & M has been blessed by the loveliest and most chilled-out baby that we have met, beautiful Amelia.  So the Hubby and I were more than delighted to cater for their "welcome to the world" party, with a special theme of canapes matched with champagne. 

We were also extremely lucky that one of K's friends is a very talented photographer.  So for the first time since Rachey started getting paid to cook, we have beautiful photos of some of our "signature" canapes.

Here's the menu and those amazing photos:

Smoked chicken & aioli in filo cups

Tartare of tuna and goat's cheese

Wild mushroom pate on mini Melba toasts

Roasted scallop with lime ginger butter on Chinese spoons

Sweet corn fritattas with creme fraiche & salmon roe

Also included in the menu were garlic prawn and/or chorizo mini skewers with gazpacho in shot glasses, and individual strawberry zabaglione with mascarpone and amaretti biscuits. 

So thanks K & M for supporting Rachey Cooks!  :)

Spanish Tapas Ole!

Every six or eight weeks, a group of our friends get together for a dinner.  I'd forgotten how the dinners got started, and our host Y reminded me that it started when we would come over to their house and cook dinner after their daughter and first child N was born - 10 years ago!!  My how time flies. 

Anyway, lately we've been theming the dinners against a cuisine.  Hosted by S & Y, they provide the house and some nibbles to start off, I provide the bulk of the main course with A & P if they are around, and T & M cook dessert.  

There was one dinner where we swapped it all around and I made dessert.  Baking is really not my thing but I do give it a go and do my best, and the Hubby is a much better baker than I am.  The dinner worked out well, but we all quickly reverted back to our old ways.  Yes, we are creatures of habit after all! And as S is vegetarian, it's always fun to come up with veggie dishes that don't feel like a big side dish or just a jazzed-up salad.

We decided this time we were going to go with Spanish tapas seeing that it was still summer, so here's some of the dishes we had, and all the fabulous photos were taken by Y - she's good with that camera!

 

 

Clockwise from the top right:

• baked eggs in braised chickpeas with tomato sauce
• albondigas - beef meatballs in spicy sauce
• chorizo with garlic and parsley
• stuffed eggplant

Wonder what the next dinner's theme will be?

 

Hungry Rachey on the Loose in Hong Kong - Part Two

So it's our second and last day in Hong Kong, which I'm sad about, but not too sad that I'm going to miss out on eating some seriously good food. 

As we were flying out to Sydney that evening, we thought it best to have a long and suitably lazy lunch at the Langham Place Mongkok's signature restaurant, Ming Court.  It was a bit of a bonus that it also happened to be one of Hong Kong's two Michelin-starred restaurants, so it was going to be our very first experience in a Michelin-rated eating establishment.

And it was a delight to learn half an hour before we went to lunch that we were upgraded to Business Class on our overnight Qantas flight to Sydney.  More on that later...

As we sat down, I looked around the restaurant and had this weird feeling I had seen it before, somewhere.  I wracked my brains, until I finally I realised where I had seen it - yup, this was the Chinese restaurant featured in last season's Masterchef when the finalists went to Hong Kong for their challenge.  Now contrary to what a lot of people think, I'm actually not a fan of Masterchef, at all.  I can appreciate how the show has changed the way people cook and think about food, but the commentary just irritates the hell out of me, and I find the contestants plain annoying.  It just so happened that I was watching this particular Masterchef episode set in Hong Kong, and found it more interesting that the others I had cursorily seen.  All I can say is thank God my well-meaning friends and family have stopped asking me when I was going to apply to go on Masterchef - once you're paid to cook, you're ineligible.  Whooopeee! 

Now where was I?  Ah yes, the food.  We decided to go with the special lunch menu which featured a neat 5-course meal designed to not be too filling, which was good as we planned to do the tram to the Peak and some last-minute sightseeing before heading to the airport.  We started off with a dim sim set featuring their famous har gao (shrimp dumpling).  This was the most refined yum cha we had ever had, and you could tell masters were at work on the food. 

We followed it with the silkiest chicken and sweet corn soup we ever had.  Again, a really refined version of what you would get in a suburban Chinese restaurant, with no gristly chicken bits and clumps of cornflour to ruin the delicate flavours.

My favourite dish in the course was next - beautifully stir-fried prawns and asparagus with a Szechuan style sauce.  The prawns were lusciously fat and juicy, and the asparagus crisp and bright, bright green.  The only downside was that the fried rice was served AFTER the prawns - it would have been so perfect to have had that rice immediately after each yummy mouthful of prawns and veggies.

Dessert was a not-very-attractive looking red bean "soup" - and no matter what I did, I just couldn't take an appetising enough photo of this dish.  But the taste was something else altogether - even though I wasn't a big sweet bean fan, this dish was a fitting way to end the meal.  The best way to describe it is a slightly watery "champorado" - a Filipino sticky rice and chocolate pudding-like concoction that my Filipino friends may well have fond childhood memories of, just like I do.

All up, our first Michelin-starred eating experience cost us a grand sum of...wait for it...AU$30 each.  Not bad really, considering that we easily get up to $50-$60 eating yum cha in Sydney. 

And what of our lovely upgrade to Business Class on the way home?  Well, suffice it to say that it was a very "Kath and Kim" moment, with the Hubby and I all goggle-eyed at being seated on the second level, in the very first row of seats behind the pilots.  Yes, pointy end of the plane indeed!  And they gave us the toiletries bag (his and hers), AND the Morissey all-cotton pyjamas. And the seats!  You could lie down, FLAT, and have a massage too!  Oh my... 

I just had to start off our flight with a couple of glasses of champagne - yes, the French stuff - followed by a sumptious Asian-style chicken dish courtesy of The Ponytailed One (a.k.a. Neil Perry) and a slice of wicked chocolate tart with a glass of Rutherglen muscat.  Oh, but all this only after we had selected our breakfast (creamy scrambled eggs, hash, fresh fruit and yonghurt), all individually prepared for all 24 of us in the special end of the plane by two very lovely flight attendants.  I would have taken photos, but it just would have been too, too gauche.  All I can say that it was a very fitting ending to a lovely gastronomic 48 hours in Hong Kong.  Noice!!!

Hungry Rachey on the Loose in Hong Kong - Part One

A long held dream of feasting my way in Hong Kong was realised when the Hubby and I spent a glorious couple of days last week. It was a stopover on the way home from Cebu City in the Philippines, and despite feeling unwell from a nasty cough and cold, I was determined to try out a few of the "foodie musts" as specified by a few blogs, Lonely Planet and a few wonderful friends.

Breakfast on our first morning was an interesting one. We decided to have a wander around the streets of Mongkok around our hotel (the Langham Place - highly recommended and with the best pool I've ever swum in) to search for where the locals eat breakfast.

We bravely ventured into a little noodle place that looked the deal - linoleum tables, plastic chairs, patrons noisily slurping from the bowls and chatting with friends or reading the paper. We were welcomed by the loveliest man who spoke minimal English but who still eagerly tried to describe what a local would have for breakfast.

We are happy to report that we thoroughly enjoyed our beef and noodle soup followed by eggs, a "breakfast sausage" and white bread with margarine and lashings of warm tea. I suppose that's the rough translation of the characters are in the menu below!

Beats Vegemite on toast...just!

Translation, anyone?

We also had a wander around the fresh markets near our hotel.  The rain didn't daunt us from having a browse among really beautiful fruit and veggies, and of course the more unusual ingredients that make up Cantonese cooking.  Suffice it to say the meat and fish were very fresh, and the chickens were a bit too fresh for my liking, what with clucking, feathers and all!  We also beheld a bit of a sight of a fish monger beating the crap out of a madly flopping fish on the floor - oops, sorry, I should have had a warning to animal lovers and vegetarians then.  Even I felt really sorry for the fishie.  Still, we must be respectful of how other cultures treat their food. 

Very fresh meat...

Even fresher chickens!

'

Beautiful dried meats...damn those quarantine laws!

For lunch we supped at two supposed institutions in Hong Kong. First we ate at the Luk Yu Teahouse on Stanley Street. In Lonely Planet's words, "Most of the staff have been here since the early Ming dynasty and are as grumpy and ill-tempered as the emperor desposed...but the dim sum is really quite delicious".

As recommended, we stuck with the classics like BBQ pork buns (cha siu bao) and prawn dumplings (har gao), and it was rather yummy. We didn't find the staff grumpy at all - I actually find staff in some Sydney Chinatown yum cha places worse - and it was helpful to have an English menu with prices.

We didn't want to get too stuffed, as I specially wanted to make room for "Hong Kong's best roast goose" as served in Yung Kee Restaurant just a stone throw's away from Luk Yu. According to Gourmet Traveller, this place serves on average 400 geese a day all of which they rear and roast themselves. The goose didn't disappoint, although I was expecting the skin to be a bit crispier. The yummy surprise was their house-made XO sauce - absolutely incredible and a perfect accompaniment to the simple stir-fried greens and rice that we had with the goose.

Yummy XO sauce!

We couldn't let go of our only full night in Hong Kong without more exploring, and after a bit of umming and ahhing we decided to brave the dai pai dongs (street food stalls) of the famous Temple Street market. The slight hesitation came from a news article we read that day about a number of acid attacks on Temple Street shoppers over the past few months, with acid apparently flung indiscriminately from the tops of the buildings along the street. We thought the chances of an attack on a not-so-busy Monday night would be slim, but nonetheless I cast a few nervous glances up at the buildings as we walked and I conscientiously tried to walk in the middle of the street to be a bit away from windows and rooftops.

In the end we were glad with our decision, as we had one of the nicest meals. The beef brisket curry was melt-in-the-mouth and bloody spicy, and the lemongrass and garlic chicken wings were delightfully crunchy and tender. The steamed greens weren't half bad either!

The one thing that kinda disappointed us was how hard it was to a bar or pub that we could have a drink in. Not that HK didn't have any bars or pubs, but they were few and far between in Kowloon and around where we were staying. We were pretty much stuck to either drinking (expensively) in the hotel, or buying a few beers and drinking in our room. We opted for the latter and enjoyed a few bevvies while surveying our 35th floor view.

Tomorrow would be another day, albeit a short one as we fly back to Sydney in the evening, but who would have thought we would have our first Michelin starred experience, and an airborne gastronomic experience! But I'll leave that for my next blog post - promise! :)

Frostfest in Orange

Pre-Note:

On the day that I finished this entry, our darling dog Georgie suddenly died on 8 August 2009. She was only 9 years old. It has taken me a while to come back to this blog, as it brought back memories of that wonderful and awful last holiday day in Orange.

This is for you, my baby.

After missing out on Orange Food Week in April, I was determined that we were not going to miss out on the inaugural winter food festival, Frostfest.

Orange is a foodie's dream region that's 3.5 hours drivewest of Sydney - a lovely drive across the Blue Mountains and rolling pastures and green, green hills. It's a region well known for its cool climate wines (we've tasted beautiful sauvignon blanc and pinot noir from both Bantry Grove and Printhie wines) and fabulous produce that includes apples, cherries and hazelnuts.

We've been staying in a wonderful place called Keronga Park managed by Annie and Jim Simpson, and we and our doggies love it so much we're planning to come back very soon and hope to have many more visits in the future. The fact that they have a wood fired oven on the property is a huge drawcard (and yes, I did go a bit crazy cooking in the thing), but it's also the fact that the cottage is comfy, cosy and gorgeous set among their hazelnut and cherry orchards. Annie and I stayed up late last night plotting a 100 Mile Feast fundraiser potentially in February next year, so watch this space for more information as the planning gets underway.

We've been in Orange for a week, and only this morning did we actually get some frost on the ground. Still no snow - well, it kinda snowed for 2 minutes yesterday afternoon amidst a winter downpour but the hubby says it doesn't count - but I haven't given up hope yet.

Quite a number of the stallholders at the North Sydney Produce Market come from Orange, and we'd been getting invitations to come and visit the source of all this good stuff.

We've been bowled over by the hospitality of Fred, Zanzie and of course Raewyn of Trunkey Creek Pork. Fred gave us a detailed tour of their processing plant where we got a real appreciation for all the hard work that goes into a such a high quality product. The massive smoker machine was a revelation (they use beech wood to get that great flavour - I would drool every time I sniffed my jumper afterwards), and the hubby and I couldn't believe how bloody expensive vacuum sealer machines were (had to keep the hubby's itching hand from trying out the machine). We also got to see how the world-famous Trunkey Creek sausages were made - Fred offered to let me have a go, but I was too chicken to try as I bet it wasn't as easy as it looked!

We saw Raewyn at the Orange Farmer's Market where she made sure we got to meet all the stallholders, and get to sample their incredible bacon and egg rolls. Of all the farmer's markets we've been to, this one felt the most local, where everyone knew everyone and bought each other's stuff. Our haul included beautiful veggies, local bread from Anna's Cuisina (we ate four loaves between the two of us in the past week!), salt-dried Manzanilla olives that amazingly don't taste briny and olive-y, and sylvanberry jam (similar to blackberry) which was fabulous on freshly baked scones.

We're off to Selkirk's* tonight for their 4-course Wagyu beef dinner with local Twin Oakes Wagyu beef and local wines to round out a fabulous food-focused week. I think I'll be crying tomorrow when we drive down the Mitchell Highway back to Sydney, but will comfort myself with the thought that we will back very soon!

*We never managed to get to Selkirks that night. And yes, we were crying on the way home, but for very different reasons, and one which we didn't think would happen so soon. I've now since heard unconfirmed reports that Selkirks is gone, so that's one famed regional restaurant we need to take off our to do list.

Menu for the Week - 23 to 29 March 2009

One of the reasons why I decided to start this blog was to keep track of the weekly dinner menus. It's been a bit of a ritual for the past few years - pretty much every Saturday morning, I lay out the latest editions of my food magazines and a selection of cookbooks, look at what's in season (or what I bought from the markets) and plan what we'll be cooking and eating over the next week. I then compile our shopping list - grocery separated from fruit and vegetables, with special sections for the butcher, bakery and deli when required.

I now have around 8 notebooks (handwritten) of weekly menus and most of our dinner/lunch party menus. People seem to find it strange that I do this, whereas I just cannot imagine NOT doing it. Imagine how long it would take to do the shopping! And I just couldn't bear the thought of visiting the shops *every* *day* to get what I need for that night's dinner. Ugh.

We aim to cook five to six times a week, with a day or two for either a take-away or eat out. Sure, there are weeks when I just can't be bothered and we end up taking away or eating out more times that we'd like, but most weeks I like to be good and use up what we've got in the fridge and pantry.

So I suppose one way to make sure I keep this blog regular is to put in our weekly menu. Yeah, some people might find this wanky or just plain weird, but what they hey - I'm really doing it for me, so there. :)

Here's what we're cooking this week:

• Pork cutlets (on bone) salt-rubbed with parsley, grape and chorizo salad with stir-fried snake beans and oyster sauce
• Fish fillets (lightly spiced) with almond basmati rice with cinnamon and green salad OR sauteed cavolo nero with pistachios
• Pecan crusted Scotch fillet steak with sauteeed nicola potatoes with garlic and mixed cherry tomato salad with purple basil mini cress
• Thai-style sweet pork with stir-fried sambal water spinach (kangkung) plus steamed long grain rice and extra Asian veggies
• Boiled lamb shanks with star anise broth with pearl barley or couscous salad
• Beetroot tagliatelle pasta with pork and fennel Italian style sausage, lemon and nutmeg with salatini salad and mixed cherry tomatoes

So 'til the next post, happy cooking and eating!

My Forays into Baking (or My Pecan Nut-Fest)

I'm really not that into baking. It's fiddly (all that measuring and weighing), it's messy (I can't believe I've used all those bowls and implements!) and I have had spectacular failures (the attempt and accompanying tantrum to make brazo de mercedes - a classic Filipino meringue and custard concoction - still gets talked about in my household).

However, for the past couple of weekends, I've been bitten by the baking bug and have produced three very different baked goods.

It started with the challenge to do an American-themed dessert for a get-together with friends last weekend. I normally cook the mains, but this time, someone (yes, I'm looking at you, Tim) decided it would be fun if we mixed it up a bit and everyone cooked what they normally didn't cook. So I got lumbered with dessert.

After a few weeks of agonising, looking through my back issues of Fine Cooking magazine and lots of Googling, I decided to go with pecan pie. It helped that one the recent episodes of SBS Food Safari had a video demonstration of a pecan pie recipe. What didn't help was the recipe text got the measurements of a couple of fundamental ingredients wrong - no way can y0u make a pastry with 10 grams of butter (it was 110 grams) and you'd end up seriously gluggy pie filling with one cup of corn flour (corn starch) which from the video looked like it was more like a tablespoon. Attempts of the Hubby to help by digging out Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food:Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking book and looking through Stephanie's Cook's Companion were appreciated but made me somewhat confused when I made my first pastry dough and got all the measurements wrong. It was so disgusting I couldn't bear to take a photo of it. I decided to trust my instincts this time and made a second dough which came out perfectly. I had buggered up shortcrust pasrty before so was very apprehensive, but breathed a sigh of relief when none of the thick pecan pie filling oozed out from the pastry. Success!

I was so buoyed by confidence that I decided to make double-chocolate brownies with pecans (I mistakenly ordered two kilos of the buggers so need to use up as much as I can!). I have made brownies before so was reasonably confident it would turn out o.k., and they did.

What wasn't o.k. was I left out the box of Dutch cocoa powder which still had around a tablespoon of powder left in it out of the kitchen bench, and we left the doggies the run of the house while we were out to dinner. Bloody Labradors! We got home to a demolished box and smears of cocoa all over the beige carpet (disturbingly looking like poo...) The Hubby was extremely upset with me, not because of the carpet but because of the possibly lethal ingestions of cocoa that the dogs may have had which of course leads to theobromine poisoning. Needless to say, the dogs are all right, although Georgie was mighty thirsty in the morning and was apparently a bit hyper in the park.

The baking bug bit again this weekend and I made a cranberry, zucchini and pecan bread to have for Sunday lunch. The photo in the March edition of delicious. magazine was so yummy looking that I had to make it. It took a lot longer to bake than the recipe said though (that darned skewer just didn't want to come out clean) - more like 1 hour 45 minutes than just an hour or so, but good things are worth waiting for. It was seriously yummy, with smearings of King Island triple cream cheese, slices of salami and ham and the leftover roast lamb we had last night with a green salad for lunch.

To bake or not to bake...I still have 1.5 kilos of pecan nuts to go so the baking forays may not be completely over yet!

The Half (House) Warming

So why a half-warming?

Because our fab friend Mike is half as old as he used to be when he first had his housewarming 15 years ago - that is, when he bought his house the first time around, then bought it again last year. Naturally, such a spesh occasion needs a spesh menu.

This was quite a fun challenge on a few fronts. It would be the second biggest group we would cook for (the biggest is 80 for my bro-in-law's 30th, which is also notable as we fed all of them on around $300. Apparently the guests still remember the oven baked beef ribs and the cheat's sushi with wasabi suprises - amazing really, considering the copious amounts of alcohol consumed that night!)

It was also the kind of party where the 35 or so people would drop in over the whole day, so we had to stagger out the food plus have a cold and hot selection for the canapes and possibly the lunch mains. Oh, and did I mention that today was one of the hottest days in Sydney, hitting the high 30s in the City and mid 40s in the west? Thank God for airconditioning! So we had to make sure the food was going to be hot and humid-friendly and still manage to be appetising.

A few lessons learned:

• The K.I.S.S. principle (keep it simple, stooopid!) applied more than ever. Take advantage of pre-made stuff - the rare roast beef on multigrain pepper crackers with beetroot and a tiny dollop of horseradish cream topped with a sprig of parsley was made completely with store-bought ingredients but looked and tasted fabulous.
  
• Big is beautiful - I was amazed how the 4-kilo ham cooked the way my Mom cooks it just disappeared, and the roasted whole sides of ocean trout with walnut and coriander salsa worked really, really well


• One (or two) unusual dishes adds a bit of "wow" factor, and gets people to try new tastes and textures - the ajo blanco in shot glasses did the trick


• A pail-ful of punch was essential on such a hot day
  
• Don't let a seeming failed dish get the better of you - the slightly fermented vodka-fed watermelon ended up in the punch, which was quite fabulous

So the next big one to cook for is a house and another two-thirds warming and an even number! Note: possibly only nerdy maths types will get this.

Food Finds at the Market

Every third Saturday morning of the month is sacred on our calendar - it's when the North Sydney Produce Market is on. I have been known to organise our holidays to make sure we don't miss the market, or that we make sure we go to the market to stock up on quality produce before we head off.

Today was pretty special, as not only was it the first market of 2009, but I went earlier than I have ever been, as the Hubby was off to do an early run and I wanted to still be able to have brekkie with him afterwards. I arrived at 7:00 a.m., just when most of the stallholders had just finished seting up. The normally bustling lanes between the stalls were quiet still, and there was a really lovely camaraderie as the stallholders helped each other put up signs and exchange Christmas holiday stories over steaming cups of coffee. Naturally, the coffee stands were among the first to be set up.

So after getting my own cup of coffee from Whitham's, I proceeded to shop and chat with all the stallholders (good thing I didn't have the Hubby getting impatient by my side!) and found some real gems amongst the beautiful produce that was around.

First stop (as always to make sure the mesclun and choice herbs don't run out) was at the Darling Mills stall. Amongst my usual purchases, I found the most amazing bunch of Thai basil that I have seen. The bunch was big and lush, with every single leaf in pristine condition. Usually, bunches of this herb are pretty sparse and wilted, with lots of tell-tale black spots on the leaves that say this ain't a fresh bunch. I'm planning to try out David Thompson's mussels with Thai basil and possibly sneak in a few leaves in an orange curry with prawns.

These beautiful mixed berries were just too good to give a miss. It's the height of berry season at the moment, and I've lately been addicted to Whisk and Pin's Summer Muesli with cinnamon and honey yoghurt and strawberries. I can't wait to have breakfast with these berry gems sprinkled on top!

I then found a bunch of water spinach, also known as Siamese watercress in Thai cooking, and kangkong in Philippine cooking. I know, it's sad, but I got pretty excited as this veggie can be hard to find outside of say Chinatown and Asian fruit and veg shops. It also reminded me a lot of home, as I was quite fond of it when I was a kid - one of the few veggies that I actually ate and enjoyed. Mind you, I best enjoyed it with the leaves battered and deepfried - almost tempura-like in texture, so it's not a big surprise I loved it. I'm still deciding on what to do with it, but will quite likely keep it simple as a stir-fried side veggie to one of the Asian dishes on this week's menu.

The Hubby and I are tomato freaks, so I can't really go past punnets of really, tiny baby toms when I see them. I specially pounce on yellow tomatoes when I see them, as again they can be hard to find. They are a bit more common now than they used to be, but still a real taste and sight sensation when you've got them through a simple garden salad or through orechiette pasta with feta cheese, or even through couscous.

Finally, I found something I've never seen before: Spanish bulb spring onions! I'm a bit funny with onions - I only tend to cook and use red Spanish onions. I just prefer their flavour - they're sweeter and milder, and they're pretty versatile across cuisines. On the odd occasion I will buy brown or white onions, and of course, white bulb spring onions but only if the dish *really* needs them. So it was such a delight to see these gorgeous Spanish bulb spring onions. Problem is they're so gorgeous, I just want to look at them rather than cook them! I'm still looking for a way to use them, and will let you know how I go.

Of Cookbooks and Suckling Pig

Went cookbook shopping with the Hubby on the weekend and realised that we hadn't bought a new cookbook in *ages*! We often get given cookbooks as pressies, so really haven't had the opportunity to buy any in recent years. A book voucher as a Christmas present (thanks, Little Grannie) presented an opportunity to go shopping.

And go shopping we did - we ended up with not just one but two cookbooks out of the seeming millions of titles that were on offer. Quite overwhelming actually - the cooking section spanned half a dozen shelves that wrapped around a corner of the bookshop, not to mention the tables of cookbooks on discount or specially featured. I frankly found it a bit deflating rather than exciting, seeing so many titles and authors (many so-called "celebrity chefs"). Don't know really know why - maybe it was a classic kid in a lolly shop with indigestion syndrome.

In any case, we were mighty pleased with our selection - we got Michel Roux Jr's "The Marathon Chef" cookbook which will inspire me in feeding the Hubby good food while he trains for the Can Too half marathon in May. It was only when I read the book at home that I realised he is the Michel Roux of Le Gavroche in London so that was pretty cool, and his recipes are really interesting - can't wait to get cooking.

And I capitulated to finally getting Anthony Bourdain's "Les Halles" cookbook. I've kinda been resisting buying his cookbook, as we are quite avid readers of him since "Kitchen Confidential" and even went to see him speak at a previous Sydney Writers' Festival. I didn't want to come across as too much of an Anthony Bourdain tragic or food groupie. But his writing was too much to resist (the entry for making hollandaise sauce was hilarious), plus I can't wait to make his steak with bone marrow - mmmmm.... I hope Sarah my nutrionist isn't reading this! I am supposed to be aiming to lose 15 kilos in the next 6 months or so. I'll have to make more of Michel's recipes then and occasionally splash out with a classic French recipe from Anthony once a month!

Aside from cookbook shopping (and speaking of nutritionists - stop reading now, Sarah), another highlight of the weekend was cooking a shoulder of suckling pig. I just couldn't resist - I walked into my current favourite butcher Hudson Meats on Friday and saw the beautiful pre-marinated shoulder of suckling pig just crying out to be taken home and roasted for 2.5 hours in 150 degrees C. It was such a find, as normally Hudson requires a week's notice for the suckling pig as they source it from a specialty producer. How can any self-respecting foodie not pounce on such an opportunity? Unless you happen to not like pig, which would be such a shame.

And I have to say the pig was so beautiful and worth the wrath of Sarah - the marinade of rosemary, thyme, chili, garlic and olive oil just worked an absolute treat, with the skin crisping up deliciously and the flesh so tender and moist. We devoured it with baby potatoes pre-boiled and chucked into the roasting pan for the last hour of cooking, and with steamed baby green beans and sliced zucchini. The pork didn't really need the salsa verde that I whipped up, but it was nice to have it on the side anyway. I am a bit of a lily gilder after all!

Suckling pig prior to cooking

Slicing the piggy-poo

Pig, potatoes and greens plated - yum!