Monthly Archives: November 2011

Welcome to The Great Australian Pavlova Blog Hop!

This post should really be called How Not To Make a Pavlova.

Let me explain.

A few weeks ago I was chatting with some Aussie food bloggers about food cravings and pavlovas on Twitter. So the five of us – myself, Delicieux, Dining with a Stud, The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader and 84th & 3rd decided to organise a pavlova blog hop so that we could all cook our versions and share them with each other.

So earlier this week I had visions of coming up with some kind of spectacular pavlova creation for The Great Australian Pavlova Blog Hop. I thought about using exotic ingredients and extravagant but tasteful decorations to create some kind of stunning and delicious masterpiece.

Unfortunately, I had the busiest week ever, was out every night, and then came down with bronchitis. Too many late nights had finally caught up with me.

So yesterday, when I grabbed a couple of free hours to bake, I decided to go with a fairly classic pavlova. However, I was feeling so unwell that when I tried to separate the eggs I broke egg yolk into the bowl of egg whites. It was a measure of my fragile mood that I contemplated sobbing into my tea towel for a moment. However, I decided to ask Mr Hungry Australian to separate the eggs for me instead, which he did with a bemused air.

As I hadn’t had time to experiment I used Stephanie Alexander’s wonderful pavlova recipe from The Cook’s Companion as a starting point. I had intended to dribble some melted blackberry jam over the whipped cream, and use a mixture of fresh blueberries and cherries, and dried cranberries, pomegranates, cherries and blueberries for the topping.

However, it was not to be. When I was lifting the pavlova out of the baking pan to place it on the cake stand, I asked my five year old daughter to help me by taking the baking tray away. She lifted the tray up to move it and smashed it straight into the bottom of the pavlova, cracking it into large sections.

I thought about sobbing into my tea towel again but controlled myself with some deep breathing. I had already regretfully cancelled my afternoon and evening engagements but I just didn’t have the energy to begin all over again.

Then I remembered a photo of a deconstructed pavlova I had seen on Twitter by the crew at Adelaide’s Grace the Establishment.

So I grabbed the largest unsmashed piece of pavlova, spooned over the whipped cream, and arranged it on plate. I then surrounded it with all the fruit and herbs I was going to put on top of the pavlova – the dried berries, the fresh blueberries and cherries, the mini chocolate melts and the mint leaves. I then dripped the melted blackberry jam straight onto the plate – if I had possessed a squeeze bottle I would have used that instead for a much neater effect.

As you can see, it all turned out OK. Better than OK, in fact.

I tell you this story not to elicit your sympathy but to demonstrate how easy it is to cook pavlova. If I can cook a pavlova whilst feeling utterly crap, and then salvage something useable after my daughter has smashed it into large pieces, then you can do it, too.

So I encourage you to check out all the amazing pavlovas baked by my fellow food bloggers by clicking on the link below. Be inspired, drool a little, and break out the egg whites to make your own magnificent pavlova creation.

INGREDIENT
4 egg whites, room temperature
Pinch of salt
250 grams caster sugar
2 teaspoons corn flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
300 mls cream
80 grams sugar
Fresh cherries and blueberries
1 packet of dried blueberries, cranberries, persimmon, and blackberries
Handful mini chocolate melts
A few tips fresh mint sprigs
A few spoonfuls of blackberry jam

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees fan-forced).

Cover a baking tray with baking paper and draw a circle on it approximately 20cm in diamater.

Beat egg whites with salt until it forms stiff peaks. Then add sugar, a quarter at a time, until the meringue is glossy and stiff. Sprinkle over corn flour, vanilla and vinegar and fold in to the mixture. Spread mixture over the drawn circle, smoothing up the sides and evening out the top.

Put the pavlova into the oven, immediately turning the oven down to 130 degrees Celsius (110 fan-forced). Bake the pavlova for 30 minutes and then turn the oven down again to 120 degrees Celsius (100 fan-forced) and cook the pavlova for another 45 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the pavlova to cool completely in the oven.

Whip the cream and sugar until firm.

Break the pavlova into large pieces (ask a small child to help you if necessary).

Arrange the pieces of pavlova artistically on a plate and spoon over cream. Decorate with dried cranberries and blueberries. Then arrange fresh blueberries and cherries, tiny chocolate melts, dried blueberries, cranberries and blackberries, and fresh mint tips around the pavlova, to your liking. Melt a few spoonfuls of jam in the microwave and dribble them artistically around (alternatively, using a squeeze bottle will give you greater control and make you feel like a rockstar chef).

Stand back and gaze in awe at your pavlova still life. Eat it, celebrating your triumph over disaster.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Alternatively, visit Delicieux for detailed instructions on joining the Great Australian Pavlova Blog Hop.

I miss Shanghai. It’s a big, brash, frontier city where buildings go up seemingly overnight, hundreds of new restaurants open every week and you can buy virtually anything at 9pm at night. Want a foot massage in your apartment? Someone can be there in 10 minutes. Need a haircut? You’ll also enjoy a vigorous arm and  shoulder massage and a complimentary ear cleaning. OK, that last service takes a bit of getting used to…

My husband and I lived in Shanghai for three years, from 2004-6. We moved there on his job, with a Danish engineering company, but I found an amazing job there, too, helping Australians do business with China.

Shanghai is a work-hard, play-hard kind of city for foreign expatriates, especially if you don’t have any children, as we didn’t then. The opportunities were everywhere and the possibilities endless, so everyone worked long hours, often under intense pressure. Many people travelled constantly around the Asia Pacific region, as Mr Hungry Australian did; at its most ridiculous, he was travelling 80% of the time, making only ‘guest appearances’ in Shanghai.

When he was travelling, I would rarely bother cooking. If I didn’t have an evening function on, I’d eat out or buy takeaway on my way home from work. One of my favourite takeaway suppers was six lamb skewers, a hot salad and a serve of rice from our favourite Xinjiang restaurant.

Xinjiang lamb skewers are marinated with cumin and liberally sprinkled with chilli, garlic and Szechuan peppercorns. They’re incredibly fragrant and very, very moreish. Like cloves, Szechuan peppercorns have an anaesthetic effect so your lips and mouth will go slightly and pleasantly numb as you eat, which only adds to the charm of these lamb skewers.

While Xinjiang restaurants can be found throughout China, there are not that many Xinjiang restaurants outside China. So I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve never come across Uyghur food before. Or if you have, ignored it in favour of the more familiar Cantonese, Szechuan or Hunan style of Chinese food.

But if you like spicy food, this is one heck of an introduction.

INGREDIENTS

800 grams lamb shoulder
2 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cumin
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 teaspoons ground ginger, or one 3cm piece fresh ginger, peeled
1 tablespoon chilli flakes (for medium-hot heat skewers)
1 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns
1.5 -2 teaspoons sea salt flakes
Freshly ground black pepper

METHOD

Go to your butcher for the lamb shoulder. I specify the shoulder because you want the fattiest part of the lamb.

Trim the sinews but keep the fat. You can trim it from the meat if you prefer but keep the fat as you will thread these randomly onto the meat skewers for extra flavour. When you’re handling the raw fat, it may not look very appetizing but believe me, it’s unbelievably tasty once it’s grilled.

Cut the meat into 3cm chunks, trying to keep them all about the same size so they cook at around the same rate. Then put all the lamb into a mixing bowl and add oil.

Meanwhile, prepare your spice marinade by putting all the remaining ingredients into a mortar.

Smash the ingredients with the pestle until they are completely pulverised. This is very satisfying.

Spoon the marinade into the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly into the meat.

Cover and refrigerate, leaving it for at least a couple of hours or overnight.

Soak skewers in water for at least half an hour to help prevent them burning when you cook the lamb. (Mr Hungry Australian also put foil under the skewers on the BBQ so they wouldn’t burn, which I personally thought was unnecessary but let it go as he likes being in control of the BBQ. Boys and their toys, eh?).

Thread the lamb onto the skewers, using around four pieces of meat for each stick.

Grill or barbecue the lamb skewers until cooked to your liking. If you like your lamb pink try 4 minutes on each side. If you prefer your meat well done, try 6 minutes on each side. Make sure you test a skewer  to see if it’s done to your liking – cooking times obviously vary enormously on BBQs.

Serve with a hot salad and pita bread or potato salad.

PS This last photo is a bit flat because I shot it outside in the late afternoon shade. I wanted to do it again, setting it up properly with better lighting, but hungry guests and young children were waiting to be fed. So I resisted. Sometimes you just have to put the camera down and eat.

The other day, I returned home to interrogate my husband with the age-old question: “how much do you love me?”

“Out of ten? Maybe an eight,” he said.

‘*An eight?! Is that all?” I shrieked. “Try again.”

“OK, maybe a nine when you’re not being horrible to me,” he conceded. “Why?”

I told him that I had a plus one invitation to attend a Cheese Appreciation Masterclass by The Smelly Cheese Shop (TSCS).

His eyes lit up and he quickly back-tracked. “Did I say nine? I meant, twelve. Twelve out of ten – that’s how much I love you.”

Huh. Men. The way to their hearts is definitely through their stomachs.

So it was that Mr Hungry Australian and I found ourself at The Smelly Cheese Shop’s headquarters in Wright Street last Monday night.

We are welcomed by The Smelly Cheese Shop’s Valerie Henbest, whose horrible job involves travelling the globe sourcing the best cheeses for TSCS and Lulu Lunn, a highly experienced cheese maker who can be found behind the counter sharing her expert knowledge with customers. Both women are whippet thin – a fact that convinces all of us in the class (perhaps erroneously) that we need to add more cheese to our diets.

Firstly, Valerie takes us into the Cheese Cooling Room. It feels like a bank vault – secure, temperature controlled and housing items of great value: the cheeses surrounding us would collectively be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of the wheels weigh 40kgs – at around $100 a kilogram, that’s $4,000 worth of cheese in that single wheel.

But the prices these cheeses fetch are not outrageous when you understand how they are made. For example, I’m astonished to learn that it takes 12 litres of milk to make one 250 gram Camembert. Mr Hungry Australian made a lovely fresh cheese a month ago using only 2 litres of milk (see how to make fresh cheese), but a soft ripened cheese like Camembert is of course considerably denser and much more complicated to produce.

And then there is the ageing process. The most famous of all hard cheeses is Parmigiano-Reggiano, which cannot be sold for at least 12 months after it is made, although an ageing period of three years and longer is completely usual. This ageing process requires an investment of storage and time by the cheese maker, who must plan years ahead to ensure regular income.

Then it’s back upstairs to learn about the history of cheese and start the cheese tastings.

Legend has it that cheese was discovered by a nomad, possibly an Arab, who stored some milk in a saddlebag made from the stomach of a young animal. As he rode along in the blisteringly hot sun, the enzymes in the saddlebag separated the milk into curds and whey.

The first recorded cheese was a Gorgonzola, making an appearance in 879. This was followed by a Roquefort in 1070 and a Gruyere in 1115. Cheddar was recorded in 1500 and Camembert in 1680.

To whet our appetites, Lulu treats us to some Goats Cheese Mozarella, which she makes right in front of us. She firstly kneads the goats’ milk curds, before covering them with just boiled water, cutting the cheese and then stretching it and manipulating it into balls, which she squeezes off through her fingers.

Then Valerie begins the tasting by offering us some Buffalo Mozarella from Victoria. It’s creamy, buttery, and delightfully moist; pressing it softly yields drops of milky whey. It’s a very mild-tasting cheese and would be perfect with some vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh basil leaves on sour dough bread.

We are then invited to try the Coulommiers Truffes from Ile de France. A white mould, soft-ripened cow’s cheese, Coulommiers is similar to a Brie, with the same gorgeous runny texture. But the Coulommiers has a very special feature –  a paste of black truffle and triple cream cheese sandwiched in its centre.

The Coulommiers’ smell is magnificent, heady, and rich with truffle. I smear some onto a cracker and bite into it. I’m in love. Instantly. Irrevocably. The room seems warmer, the colours brighter. I have visions of flying to France and marrying the man who made this cheese so I can eat it every day before I remember that my husband is sitting next to me. I wonder what will happen if I leave him a Dear John letter along the lines of “the heart wants what it wants.”

But for now I have to concentrate on the next cheese. The Sainte Maure Frais Cendre from Poitou in France is an ash covered log of goats cheese. Valerie tells us that the ash would have originally been used to help protect the cheese but nowadays it’s mainly for decorative purposes. The Sainte Maure is tangy, full-flavoured and assertive. This is not a cheese for the faint-hearted, or those who aren’t really keen on ‘foreign food.’ It’s a cheese to make you sit up higher in your chair. I love goats cheese and enjoy it baked in the oven and served on crusty bread with a salad.

The Beaufort D’Alpage AOC from Savoie in France is next. It’s a very likeable semi-hard cheese, and similar to gruyere in taste and appearance. There’d be nothing shocking or risky about serving this cheese to unfamiliar guests; with a slightly nutty flavour it’s a real crowd pleaser.

The Luigi Guffanti Taleggio from Lombardy in Italy is next. This washed rind cheese is my least favourite of all the cheeses today. Not because it’s bad – it has an interesting, slightly grainy texture, and a mellow taste – but because I find the others more interesting. On the other hand, Mr Hungry Australian adores this cheese and pronounces it to be his favourite. As he eats the Taleggio, he keeps making whimpering noises and while his eyes roll back in his head. I’m slightly embarrassed to be seen with him.

But then a washed rind cheese, the Soumaintrain from Burgundy in France, is next, and now it’s my turn to whimper. I love this strong-smelling cheese. It’s voluptuous and dreamy, oozing languorously on my cheese board like a starlet draped over an unmade bed in a Vanity Fair shoot. It has a delicate, slightly sweetish flavour and is the kind of cheese that I would eat non-stop until forcibly restrained.

We finish with a bang. A bleu bang, that is. The Herve Mons Roquefort AOC is a fitting finale to what has been an extaordinary selection of cheeses. We’re big fans of blue cheese – we regularly buy another blue, the Blue Castello, which is a creamy, mild blue cheese.

But the Herve Mons is in a different class altogether. It grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shakes you around while turning out your pockets in a civilised, European way. It’s ferociously strong and tangy – Valerie suggests teaming it with honey or pear to tone it down a little or crumbling some through a salad. I am reminded of the sensational Gorgonzola Dolce I recently ate at Kingley’s Steak and Crabhouse in Sydney (see review here), which was served with honey, fresh apple, walnuts and toasted fruit bread.

Top cheese tips:

• For a cheeseboard – have segments of one soft, one hard or semi-hard and one blue cheese as a minimum. Add a washed rind for interest. Alternatively, serve only one complete cheese as a centrepiece. If you do, go for something really spectacular – the staff at The Smelly Cheese Shop can advise.
• Take your cheese out of the fridge an hour before serving it so it can warm up to room temperature. This greatly enhances the taste, aroma and texture of the cheese.
• Arrange your cheese on the board from mildest to strongest, and let guests know in which order to eat them. For example, once you’ve eaten a blue cheese your taste buds can’t really cope with anything else so save this for last.
• Serve with crackers and/or fresh bread and quince paste, dried figs and slices of fresh pear or apple.

The Smelly Cheese Shop’s Cheese Appreciation Masterclass has been a fantastic experience. I have a newfound respect for cheese-makers and a solid appreciation of just how much work goes into making an artisan cheese. I’ve learned about the different types of cheese, sampled some excellent fromage and learned how to select and eat cheese at home.

So with Christmas just around the corner, a gift voucher for a 2012 Cheese Appreciation Masterclass (usually $70 per person) would make a fantastic present for any cheese lovers you know.

As for my husband, well, if he keeps behaving badly then he will get a pair of socks this year. However, if he is good, I know just what to buy him: a hunk of Luigi Guffanti Taleggio.

The Smelly Cheese Shop
Shop 44 Adelaide Central Market
Gouger Street
Adelaide SA 5000
Phone: +61 8 8231 5867

Every year I cook something as a Christmas gift for family and friends. My daughter usually helps, and we spend a fun couple of hours baking and wrapping. Last year we made snickerdoodles, those lovely cinnamon and sugar encrusted butter cookers, but this year I’m toying with the idea of making rocky road instead.

Although rocky road is hugely appealing to kids I actually think of it more as an adult’s chocolate treat. It’s perfect to accompany a cup of coffee, to snatch between errands, or to treat yourself after dinner.

However, rocky road is full of sugar so if you’re the type that has 10 different recipes for no-sugar fruit balls, then this is not the recipe for you. Look away, and visit again another day when I am cooking something healthy.

The quantities below make enough for 21 muffin cups, which is enough for three Christmas gifts assuming seven pieces per gift.

If I was making it for a children’s party I would make 60-70 pieces and serve them in mini cupcake cups. I may be relaxed about my kids having some sugar but I’m not certifiable.

Continue reading →

My dear friend Eli once cooked me a delicious rice salad when we were both living in London in the early 2000s.

As an Australian-born Chinese, I’ve eaten a lot of rice. I’ve had it steamed, fried, and boiled until it collapsed into a congee (jook jook). I’ve had a glutinous dough form of it wrapped around sweet bean pastes and rolled in shredded coconut and sesame seeds. I’ve had it infused with coconut milk (nasi lemak) and cooked in Chicken stock (Hainanese chicken rice).

But I’d never eaten rice cold in a salad before. The thought had never even crossed my mind as the only rice salads I’d come across had looked drab and unappetising – they seemed like afterthoughts rather than the main event.

So Eli’s rice salad with nuts, seeds and fruits was a revelation.

I was reminded of her salad at the recent lunch to celebrate the Spencer Gulf Prawn Fisherman’s MSC certification. As one of the sides to the spectacular barbecued Spencer Gulf King Prawns, we were served a lovely saffron rice with orange zest, cranberries, sunflowers seeds, parsley and chives.

So today when I was thinking about sides to accompany some barbecued hoison pork strips and lamb sausages, I immediately thought of making a rice salad.

I wanted my rice to be similarly golden-hued but used turmeric instead of saffron, bumping up the Middle Eastern flavours with cumin and coriander. I then sprinkled over fresh herbs, seeds, nuts, dried fruit and diced vine-ripened tomatoes on top, finishing it off with a tangy lemony dressing.

My rice salad was lovely to look at – the brilliant colours make me feel instantly perkier – and it was wonderfully tasty, too. As I ate I took in the different flavours and textures of the ingredients – the tang of the vinegar and lemon, the sweetness of the sultanas and apricots, and the crunch of the pumpkin seeds and pine nuts.

So next time you’re wondering to make to serve with barbecued meat or seafood, take a walk on the wild side and make a rice salad.

Your taste buds will thank you.

INGREDIENTS

2 cups of rice
Water
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon coriander
4 medium vine-ripened tomatoes
1/6 diced Spanish onion
30 grams pumpkin seeds
30 grams pine nuts
40 grams sultanas
50 grams diced apricot pieces
4 spring onions, finely diced
1 handful fresh herbs e.g. basil, parsley and mint
3 tablespoons garlic infused olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
1-2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt & pepper

METHOD

Cook rice according to your usual method (I use my rice cooker) with your usual amount of water, adding turmeric, coriander and cumin to the cooking water. I figure out the quanity of water required by adding it until it reaches the first section of my pointer finger so I’m afraid I can’t be more specific about how much you’ll need in your rice cooker or saucepan.

Once the rice is cooked, leave it to cool, spreading it out in a wide dish to hasten the cooling process.

Dice tomatoes and then scatter over the rice, along with the onions, pumpkin seeds, sultanas, apricot pieces, spring onions, and fresh herbs.

Make a dressing by combining the garlic olive oil with the red wine vinegar, honey and lemon juice. Grind fresh pepper and add a teaspoon of salt flakes. Sprinkle over the rice and then mix thoroughly. Taste and adjust seasoning if required.

Serves 6.

Are you a food blogger? Do you love pavlova, that iconic Australian meringue and cream dessert? Have you ever been curious about making one?

Well, we’d love you to join us for The Great Australian Pavlova Blog Hop on November 27th!

A couple of nights ago I was on Twitter when I tweeted that I was eating peanut butter out of the jar with a spoon. A BIG spoon.

This led to some friendly banter with other tweeting food bloggers about food cravings. Jennifer from Delicieux asked if I was going to cook a peanut and chocolate cake for my blog and I told her I was actually thinking about a pavlova. Then Nic from Dining with a Stud, Heather from The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader and JJ from 84th & 3rd all joined in with stories about their favourite pavlovas.

So the five of us decided to organise a pavlova blog hop* so that we could all cook our versions and then share the recipes and photos with each other.

And if you’re a food blogger, we’d love for you to join us, too!

You don’t have to be an Australian food blogger to join in either – this blog hop is open to food bloggers world-wide. So if you’ve ever wondered what a pavlova was all about, here’s your chance to give it a go.

Here’s how it will all work.

On Sunday 27th November (Australian Eastern Daylight Time) food bloggers keen to take part should post their pavlova recipe and photos on their own blog. They should then visit Delicieux, which will feature The Great Australian Pavlova Bake Off invitation post. Bloggers can submit the link to their pavlova post via this post and obtain The Great Australian Pavlova Bake Off link code to share on their own blog. This way, each blog involved will show everybody’s pavlova submissions.

You are encouraged to share your post/entry into The Great Australian Pavlova Blog Hop with your fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter, using the common tag, #pavbloghop, when tweeting.

And that’s it. Too easy.

So what are you waiting for? Start separating those eggs now!

And we look forward to seeing everybody’s brilliant pavlova creations on November 27th.

The Great Australian Pavlova Blog Hop
Sunday 27th November, 2011 (Australian Eastern Daylight Time)
Post entries at Delicieux.

Last Wednesday I joined Neil Perry (Rockpool, Spice Temple and The Waiting Room), the Spencer Gulf and West Coast Prawn Fishermens Association, the MSC, the WWF, national and local media, bloggers, and seafood industry heavyweights for lunch  to celebrate the first MSC certified sustainable Spencer Gulf king prawn catch of the season.

Why the  fuss? Well, MSC is the Marine Stewardship Council, an international body recognising and rewarding sustainable fishing. When a fishery has received the prestigious MSC certification it means that buyers can be assured that the fishery meets strict standards regarding sustainability and traceability.

The certification covers the fishery’s 39 vessels, which use the otter trawling method to catch around 2,000 metric tonnes of King Prawns each year. The wild caught prawns are sold mostly to markets in Australia and America, and also to South East Asia and the EU.

Australia-wide there are only a handful of fisheries to be MSC certified, including SA’s Lakes and Coorong Fishery, which was certified in 2008. But more significantly, the Spencer Gulf Prawn Association is the first prawn fishery to be MSC certified in the Asia Pacific and the first king prawn fishery to be certified in the world. So the Spencer Gulf prawn fisherman have every reason to be proud of their latest achievement.

Continue reading →

As the final official event of Eat Drink Blog 11, the second Australian Food Bloggers Conference, we have dinner at Kingley’s Steak and Crabhouse at Wooloomooloo. Deciding not to go to my hotel between the conference and the dinner, I catch a taxi to the restaurant with Jan from Dinner in Ten Minutes, Jo from My Delicious Blog and Ashley from I’m so Hungreee.

We have about 45 minutes to kill before dinner so we order drinks. It is a perfect evening for a Mojito.

Continue reading →

Last Thursday, I was thrilled to receive an email asking me if I was interested in a last-minute spot at Eat Drink Blog 11, to be held that Saturday in Sydney. I immediately responded ‘yes’ and did a happy dance to the tune of Bobby Brown’s ‘Can’t Touch This’.

What was I so excited? Well Eat Drink Blog 11 was only the second Australian Food Bloggers Conference, following up from the inaugural conference in Melbourne last year. It’s an invite-only conference and only 80+ spots were offered Australia-wide, so I was extremely grateful to be invited, especially as The Hungry Australian is so new. (As it turns out, I was only one of two bloggers from Adelaide to attend, the other being Amanda from Lambs Ears & Honey.)

Eat Drink Blog 11 was organised by an amazing volunteer committee, including Jen from Jenius, Trina from The Gourmet Forager and Simon from The Heart of Food, who spent hundreds of (unpaid) hours putting together an event with an incredible lineup of speakers and sponsors.

Continue reading →

Seafood is one of my ultimate feasts. It’s both a must for extravagant celebrations and everyday family life. However, it must be fresh and it must be top quality.

Luckily, I live in Adelaide, South Australia (SA), where our seafood is amongst the finest in the world, largely because our waters are pristine and well-managed and our growers take immense pride in their work. Our seafood commands premium prices in Hong Kong, China and Japan: buyers and restaurants love our seafood because of its exceptional quality.

So you can imagine how happy I was to attend the industry launch of the Eyre Peninsula Seafood Guide at Jolley’s Boathouse last Monday.

The Seafood of the Eyre Peninsula is a beautifully designed, step by step guide explaining what to look for when buying seafood and how to clean and prepare it. Designed to educate and inform chefs, kitchen staff, restaurant managers and retailers, it features stunning shots of seafood by local Adelaide photographer Randy Larcombe.

If you’re a professional or student chef or restauranteur, I urge you to get your hands on a copy of The Seafood of the Eyre Peninsula. See the Seafood Frontier website to download a copy or have one sent to you.

Before the official proceedings begin, we are treated to a delicious selection of Jolley’s Boathouse canapés. It’s an extravaganza of SA seafood.

Firstly, I have to try the Angasi oysters supplied by Pristine Oysters on behalf of the South Australian Oyster Growers Association. Our original natives, Angasis were fished to extinction in the late 1800s and replaced with Pacific oysters – Australian growers have only recently been producing them again. Angasi shells are much rounder and flatter than the Pacifics with beautiful caramel and coffee tones. Brendan Guidera from Pristine shows us the correct way to shuck them – apparently, it’s all about the 2pm knife position.

I add a spritz of fresh lemon, then tip the shell up so that the Angasi oyster slides into my mouth. I savour it for a minute, chewing gently before letting it slide down my throat. While Pacific oysters are creamy and fresh tasting, Angasis have an earthier, more full-bodied flavour. I fall instantly in love with them.

Then it’s onto the King George Whiting ceviche (whiting courtesy Port Lincoln Fresh Fish) and Southern Bluefish Tuna crudo (tuna courtesy Southern Water Marine Products). Both are immaculately fresh and tangy with citrus and vinegar.

One of Jolley’s chefs prepares exquisite sashimi and crudo from Hiramasa kingfish (supplied by Cleanseas Tuna) and snapper (supplied by Port Lincoln Fresh Fish). The fish is exquisitely delicate and flavoursome. The chef grates fresh wasabi from a whole wasabi root to accompany the sashimi and the taste is a revelation. I will never, ever go back to eating that lurid green ‘wasabi’ paste again with my sashimi. If that means I have to move the family to Japan then that is what I will do.

Next up, blue mussels by Kinkawooka Shellfish and Boston Bay Mussels are covered with a creamy sauce and breadcrumbs before being placed under a hot grill. They’re amazingly tricky to eat – there is simply no graceful way to place a whole breaded mussel in your mouth – but amazingly delicious, too.

Next come some Chinese spoons filled with stir fried abalone supplied by Streaky Bar Marine Products, shiitake mushrooms, garlic stems and oyster sauce. Like most Chinese, I adore abalone’s distinctive and delicate flavour, and silky smooth flesh.

I next spot some interesting looking snapper tartare made from snapper supplied by Port Lincoln Fresh Fish.

It’s now time for the speeches. Mark Cant (Regional Development Australia Whyalla and Eyre Peninsula), Tony Ford (Boston Bay Wines), John Susman (Fishheads Seafood Strategy) and Stacey Fallon (RDAWEP) deliver some surprisingly relaxed, passionate and even occasionally witty speeches. It’s clear that this is a tight-knit industry where everybody knows each other very well. Then the Hon. Gail Gago, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, declares The Seafood of the Eyre Peninsula to be officially launched.

Shortly after, I make my way home, full to the gills with what feels like a kilogram of exceptional seafood. Despite my discomfort, I’m already thinking about what I am going to cook for dinner tomorrow night.

One thing’s for sure: SA seafood will definitely be on the menu.