Will Oxenham, Bar Manager at The Waiting Room recently wrote us a great speil on their gin training session – some folks get all the breaks! Take it away Will…

The session was a part of our fortnightly training sessions at The Waiting Room, where we cover everything, from beer, distillation, cocktails, food, or in this case, spirit categories. Today’s session on gin, was hosted by Jeremy Spencer and Jason Chan of The West Winds Gin. These guys have come up with a recipe for an all Australian product, using rainwater from the Margaret River region, and a whole bunch of locally produced and often native botanicals alongside the requisite juniper & citrus peels, and began bottling it and selling it nation-wide a little over a year ago… 

As Jason states on their website (http://thewestwindsgin.com/products.html)

“The Margaret River is home to a host of established producers creating exceptional wines, but more importantly for us, a pristine source of water and abundant natural otanicals. Hand selected delicate flavours such as wattleseed and bush tomato bring a flavor profile that is uniquely Australian and internationally unique.
The quality of the water serves to create a high purity in the final product.”

The session today was a great one, with the guys plying us with plenty of drinks, despite our early start at 11am (hic!), the highlight of which was a Gin & Tonic, made with their higher proof gin “The Cutlass”, (which is distilled with aforementioned bush tomato), and garnished with a slice of green capsicum. The capsicum, originally thought to be way too out there, was an absolutely inspired addition, as it brought out all the savoury aspects of the gin, and complemented the sharpness the Fever Tree tonic water spectacularly! 

Cheers boys for such an awesome session!

Pineapple and Ginger Puddings

If the roses are all sold out…and the pancakes flopped this morning – there’s till time…we reckon this pudding is just about the perfect way to say  I love you!

Serves 6

I love crystallised ginger and it is worth getting a good-quality brand for these puddings. If you don’t like munching on it all by itself, then it’s not good enough for this dish. These little baked puddings are very easy to make. They have a heavy texture, although the batter is made light by self-raising flour and baking powder. You could, I suppose, add the egg yolks separately to the white, then fold the whites through afterwards to make a soufflé effect, but part of the charm of this dish is its firmer texture, which makes it more like a pudding than a cake. In baking, when the word ‘cream’ is used in relation to the butter and sugar, it is very important that the sugar completely dissolves, as whole crystals will burn out during the baking process and create little air bubbles in the pudding. As this particular recipe has a heavy texture it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it would be if you were trying to create a light sponge. These little puddings are great served with vanilla or honey and cassia ice cream or with some lightly whipped cream or a little warm crème anglaise.

Ingredients

200g unsalted butter
115g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
25g ground almonds
60g self raising flour
125g crystallised ginger, roughly sliced

For the topping
100g brown sugar
6 slices fresh pineapple, about 5mm thick, cut in circles the same size as the moulds

Method

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Butter and lightly flour six individual bottomless moulds, about 5cm high and 7cm in diameter. Put the moulds on the tray and set aside.

To make the topping, dissolve the brown sugar in 60ml water and bring to the boil. Add the pineapple slices to the syrup and simmer for 5 minutes until tender, turning the slices over once. Remove the pineapple and leave to dry on a tray. Retain the syrup for later.

Preheat the oven to 190°c. To make the pudding batter, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs. The mixture may appear to split at this point but keep beating and it will come back together. Mix together the baking powder, almonds and flour and add to the batter. Finally, thoroughly mix through the ginger. Place a pineapple round in the base of each mould, fill the moulds two-thirds full with batter and bake for about 25 minutes, or until golden and springy.

Run a small knife gently around the inside of a mould and upturn onto a white plate. Remove the mould and repeat the process with the remaining moulds. Drizzle some of the reserved syrup over the top.

From ‘The Food I Love’ by Neil Perry, Murdoch Books.

So who’s cooking dinner tomorrow night? Allow us to suggest a beautiful accompaniment to a chilled bottle of champagne…happy Valentine’s Day folks x

Wood-Fire Grilled Asparagus Bruschetta with Tomato, Ricotta & Basil

Serves 4

Asparagus is best in spring and early summer. These local beauties are great boiled, pan-fried or eaten raw. Here they are grilled over our wood-fired pit. This can be simulated at home by simply barbecuing the asparagus. The dish itself is so simple and you can swap the ricotta for goat’s cheese, if you wish. You can also pan-fry the asparagus and the result will be just as pleasing.

12 spears green asparagus
juice of 1 lemon
extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
4 x 2 cm thick slices sourdough bread
1 garlic clove, halved
2 vine-ripened tomatoes, thickly sliced
12 basil leaves
100 g fresh ricotta

Trim the bottom 3 cm from the asparagus spears and peel the bottom half of each spear. Heat a barbecue or chargrill pan to medium and cook the asparagus, rotating with tongs, until tender. Cut each asparagus spear in half and place in a bowl. Drizzle with the lemon juice and olive oil and season to taste with salt.

Toast the slices of sourdough on the grill, then rub each side with the garlic clove. Drizzle with olive oil and season to taste with salt.

Arrange the tomato and basil leaves on top of the toast and season to taste with salt and pepper. Lay 3 of the asparagus bottoms on top, then place 3 of the asparagus heads crossed over the bottoms. Top with some ricotta and drizzle with olive oil to finish.

Rockpool Bar & Grill by Neil Perry, Murdoch Books, photography by Earl Carter.

 At Spice Temple Melbourne, we are taking it to a whole new level – the country’s best ingredients, cooked with love, passion and a good old fashioned dose of flair. As always, the focus is on the produce – from David Blackmore’s wagyu to Tasmania’s Cape Grim grass fed beef, Wangara Game ducks and Fremantle octopus to the stunning Otway Farm pork.

The menu has been painstakingly created by Neil Perry and Spice Temple Head Chef Ben Pollard – a labour of love indeed, featuring items such as Nanjing salt water duck 南京盐水鸭, White cut chicken steamed bun with salted chilli and pickles 素鸡包, Braised lamb shoulder “pot sticker”  羊肩锅贴 , Steamed pork ribs and black olives on rice rolls  米粉蒸排骨, White Jade rolls with crab sauce  蟹酱白玉卷, Chicken feet with black beans and chilli 香辣凤爪,  Crispy roast pork  香酥猪肉 and 8 Treasure rice pudding  宝饭…and of course a  great selection of teas such as Jasmine Pearls  茉莉珍珠茶 and Dragon Well Lungchin 龙井茶

Word from a few already-satisfied customers…sounds like they’ll be back!

 Absolutely fantastic Yum Cha today @Neil Perry’s Spice Temple at Crown. First day of their Yum Cha Menu and can’t recommend it highly enough. The food is magnificent and not in anyway your ordinary yum cha ….not expensive either…. and what a treat (am a huge fan) to be seated two tables from the great man himself. Treat yourself it’s well worth it!!

Hi Neil. Had the pleasure of being your first covers at Yum Cha @Spice Temple today. Thanks for taking a minute to say hi. The food was brilliant. I love the idea and experience of yum cha esp but so often the food is same old, same old. I guess a lot of the dumplings etc are purchased in bulk frozen. The lightness and balance of your dishes really made them sing. Prices are pretty reasonable too so I cant recommend it highly enough.

 Daily – from 12 midday till 3pm

We look forward to seing you over a dumpling or 2!

Spice Temple Melbourne

Crown Complex, Southbank, Victoria

Phone +61 3 8679 1888

We served up mushroom soup courtesy of Qantas Catering (Qantas being the major sponsor), a main course of the chefs choice (with help from their CEOs of course) and stunning Manna from Heaven tarts accompanied by ice creams from the divine Maggie Beer who was on hand to serve up and later spotted swinging her hips to the inimitable Jimmy Barnes who took to the stage after dinner.

Guests were fed by the likes of  Neil Perry, Peter Gilmore, Guillaume Brahimi, Bill Granger, Sean Moran, Cheong Liew, Teage Ezard, Poh, Adam, Matt, George, Julie and more from Masterchef and a further cast of thousands.

Truly a great night and hopefully the start of an annual event. We raised close to $1 million which means it is  OzHarvest’s  biggest fundraiser ever – that means one million meals will now be served to those in need.

Thanks to Qantas and the 120 CEOs, thanks to Liquid Ideas, thanks to our wonderful and grateful guests and thanks to Ronni Khan. We look forward to being a part of it all again next year!

 Neil Perry and the team from Spice Temple Melbourne will launch a brand new yum cha menu on Wednesday 8 February 2012.
 
Regarded by Perry to be one of the city’s best quality and freshest yum cha offerings, the menu will feature a selection of over 40 dishes and the who’s who of high quality suppliers.
 
“Everything on the menu will be sourced from our line up of reputable suppliers and made in our kitchens – from the delicious ‘sriracha’ style chilli sauce and the paper thin cheong fun (rice noodle rolls) to the variety of classic dumplings such as har gow and wu gok. 
 
“We will also be using the wood fire grill upstairs at Rockpool Bar & Grill to make our delicious BBQ pork buns and the char siu pork for our cold cut plate,” says Perry.
 
Spice Temple Melbourne will also offer a selection of other larger style dishes using outstanding produce such as Spencer Gulf prawns, tripe from Greenhams in Tasmania, export quality chickens’ feet, mussels from Kinkawooka in SA and octopus hands from Fremantle in WA.
 
Some of Perry’s signature yum cha dishes on the menu will include:
Har gow
King prawn and bamboo fresh rice noodle
White jade rolls with crab meat sauce
Lamb and salted chilli pot stickers
Pork curry puffs
Crispy pork, pickles and salted chilli sliders
‘World’s best’ egg tart
 
“We consider Spice Temple to be one of the best examples of modern regional Chinese cooking in Australia and we’re excited to be presenting this new yum cha menu, which will demonstrate the skill and diversity of our chefs and give our customers more reasons to return,” he says.
 
Yum cha will be served daily from 12 noon – 3pm Monday to Sunday.
 
For bookings or further details contact Spice Temple Melbourne on (03) 8679 1888. 

Breakfast at Lady M, by Catherine Adams

Cake and cream happen to be probably my all-time fav, haven’t quite determined whether it is the cake or the cream I like best, so I was pretty happy with Lady M, loved the austerity of it, loved that nothing was sugary sweet, especially loved that they know how to bake pastry properly, the puff in the banana cream pie was delicious and cooked! If this was within 100 km of where I lived  it would probably be my second home

 Staring at the brekky spread above, on the left front we have banana cream pie. Behind that is crepe cake,vanilla. The table on the right, across the back starting at the left is strawberry shortcake, then chestnut crepe cake, then an éclair. In the front is an apple and vanilla mousse tart and next to that a caramel mirroir. Oh…And 3 cups of mint tea.

Banana Cream Pie - a puff pastry tart case filled with cream , banana, and a layer of sponge, topped with pieces of puff pastry. The pastry was amazing, flakey and delicious…

Crepe Cake – 20 crepes layered with their special cream filling, keep at just the right temperature so they crepes don’t go cold and hard. perfect balance between filling and crepe…

Strawberry Shortcake – three layers of tender light sponge layered with fresh strawberries and cream, simple and delicious.

 Chestnut Crepe Cake – 20 crepes layered with chestnut filling, again yum yum. 

Éclair – dipped in tempered chocolate this éclair had a nice crisp crunch and with my favourite filling of plain cream keeps it from being too rich and heavy. 

Apple and Vanilla Tart – roasted apple topped with a light vanilla mousse and finished with a caramelised glaze. 

Caramel Mirroir - a cakey, fudgy chocolate base with a deeply flavoured caramel mousse on top and finished with a caramel glaze, great balance between the chocolate and the caramel without one dominating the other.

Lady M, 41 East 78th Street

 Catherine

Lei Garden is another restaurant that has been around for many years, serving classic Cantonese food. From humble beginnings they have now expanded to more than 20 restaurants across Asia, with several here in Hong Kong. Besides the delicious food, Lei Garden’s biggest claim to fame is that it was the birthplace of XO sauce back in 1981. We stopped in for some yum cha.

Menu – thankfully with English!

Fresh bamboo shoots with soy sauce – simple, sweet and tasty.

These were really good – flakey pie pastry filled with barbecue pork (I know, pork again..!)

Turnip cakes.

Gelatinous chicken feet with black beans – very succulent. If you’ve never tried chicken feet, I would urge you to give these a go next time you are at yum cha.

Beancurd skins with pork, prawn and some vegetables.

Rice noodle rolls with sesame paste and soy. Great texture.

The perfect lunch.

Manor Seafood Restaurant

Last stop on our gastronomic tour was to Manor Seafood Restaurant – but here it’s not all about seafood.

And now you see why! How good does the crispy skin look on that suckling pig? They cut the crackling into squares for you, and then..

They serve you these great little steamed bread circles, which you then..

Top with the crackling, add some shallots, a pinch of sugar and some hoisin sauce. But it gets better – the remaining pig gets whisked away back to the kitchen where the chefs chop it up, then it returns so you can eat all the remaining meat off the bones.

A really great crab and vermicelli noodle dish cooked in the clay pot – it had a nice pepper hit to it.

Crab close-up.

Chicken stir-fried with dark soy and pepper.

This was really good – baby abalone cooked with celery, shallots and spices. I loved the textures.

Pork hock braised with Chinese five spice until the meat falls off the bone and the skin turns soft and gelatinous.

And some deluxe fried rice to finish off our meal.

The end of another great meal, and the last one for our HK trip.

After venturing out of the great Four Seasons Hong Kong, first place on my wish list was Chong Fat. Fuchsia Dunlop, who has more knowledge about Chinese cuisine than anyone else I know gave Sam and I this tip, so we had high hopes. And they weren’t let down. Chong Fat is a very, very local-type restaurant – there’s not much English on the menu, so for us there was a lot of pointing! But the food was really delicious.

Succulent fried prawns – eaten shell and all.

Really nice sole with ginger and shallot – a classic.

Stir fried garlic chives – really tasty, but not too sure what the carrot was doing in there!

Steamed local crabs.

Tiny little kitchen. They did some vegetable curries take away as well, but we’d definitely had our fill by then.

On our way out they had just taken delivery of some bay bugs, which they took out onto the street and washed off before putting them in their tanks. You don’t see this back in Aus!

Dynasty

Next stop was Dynasty, the Michelin Starred restaurant in the Renaissance Hotel.

I know I said that the char siu in the Four Seasons was the best, but upon reflection I think they may be tied with Dynasty. Soo delicious.

Black fungi and gluten – sounds weird, but a textural masterpiece.

Salt and pepper silken tofu - so good forgot to take a photo of it before we tucked in.

Stir fried razor clams with XO sauce and sugar snaps – tasted as good as it sounds.

Crispy skin chicken – how perfectly golden is it?!

Quite the spread, and it was all delicious.

Yung Kee

Next stop, the one Michelin starred Yung Kee. Yung Kee has been trading for 60 years (albeit in three different locations), and has built up a reputation for its roast goose.

And here it is, mixed with a bit of char siu pork (starting to think that I have a thing for char siu). A very tasty bird indeed.

Steamed pork bun and dumpling.

These were really yummy. Rice noodles with chilli and sesame, I just love the texture of the noodles and the chilli kick was great. Making me drool as I write this.

This was a kind of dan dan noodles, also really tasty. Love the chilli oil floating on top.

In the next post, more yum cha and some amazing suckling pig… stay tuned.

Grilled Snapper Fillets with Spiced Sweet Potato Salad and Yoghurt

Serves 4

2 lemons
1 cup Greek-style yoghurt
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
4 x 200g snapper fillets
Olive oil

Sweet Potato Salad
500g sweet potato, peeled and cut into 2cm dice
Sea salt
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 large brown onion, coarsely chopped
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground paprika
½ tsp chilli powder
Juice of ½ lemon
12 green olives, pitted and roughly chopped
2 tsp finely sliced flat-leaf parsley

To make the salad, place the sweet potato in a large pot and cover well with water. Bring to the boil, season with salt and cook until tender. Drain and carefully place on a plate lined with paper towel.

Heat 3 tbsp olive oil in a pan. Sauté the onion until tender, then add the sweet potato, spices and a little salt, and toss to incorporate. Add the remaining oil, lemon juice, olives and parsley and toss again until evenly mixed. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

Squeeze the juice from 1 lemon and cut the other lemon into quarters.

Place the yoghurt in a small bowl with salt, pepper and a little lemon juice, to taste.

Preheat a grill or pan to hot. Season the fish fillets with sea salt and drizzle with a little olive oil. Cook the fillets, skin side down, for 3 minutes, then turn over and cook for a further 2 minutes or until done to your liking.

Place the sweet potato salad on a serving platter, top with the fish and season with salt and pepper. Serve with yoghurt on the side and lemon quarters for squeezing.

This recipe appeared in the Good Weekend Magazine, Saturday January 14th