Sunday Ceviche Sessions

Sunday Ceviche Sessions



It is a gorgeous day. A beautiful blue sky contrasts gloriously with the golden sun, as a pacific sea breeze sweeps gently across your skin. Your anticipation has been building for days, although it seems much longer. A deliberately tiny breakfast has left you wanting. It is your first time. He stands before you with a knowing smile. And with great pride, places their crowning jewel before your eyes. Tentatively you lift your fork and slowly, ever so gently, place a piece into your mouth.



It´s fresh, sharp, yet cool, with a subtle chili kick. It literally melts in your mouth. Time stands still as your stare absentmindedly into the opposing wall, with a ridiculously stupid grin on your face. Welcome to a new world. You may wonder what has just happened, if it were a dream, perhaps a vision. No. It was real. Behold good people, the Ceviche experience. Welcome to Lima and welcome to Peru the reigning food capital of Latin America.




There are numerous food wonders to be experienced in Peru. I could waffle endlessly about tacu-tacu (a rice and bean mix usually served with fresh seafood in ricotta source...yum), sushi (it is amazing here), lomo saltado (a traditional meat, tomato and potato stir fry dish...a fusion of traditional Chinese Peruvians cuisine (note: a large number of Chinese people have been immigrating to Peru since the 19th Century) and tres leches (a simple yet addictive desert, satisfaction guaranteed). However for me, it´s all about the Ceviche, the most amazing seafood experience in the world, simple, fresh and perfect.







In order to be able to replicate this experience for myself, I enlisted the help of a local Ceviche addict to mentor me in the ways of the Ceviche. And so under the blue Arequipan sky, Ceviche Sunday was born.



On a basic level Ceviche is raw fish marinated in a lime based mix and served cold and fresh with boiled sweet potato and corn. Traditionally, Ceviche is a lunch dish and as such it´s an early rise for the freshest ingredients...First stop...Pascados Mercado's (fish markets). There are a number of fish varieties which can be used in Ceviche such as, Perico, Langueard, Corvina or Ojo de Uva. For those of you not living close to Latin American piscados, basically you need a fish (corvina, halibut, sea bass, tilapia, sole) with a strong texture, that won´t fall apart too easily and light flavor (so the fishyness (technical term) doesn´t overpower the lime/chili flavors). A trick is to cut the fish pieces (cubed approx 2 x2 cm) on an angle. Experts and addicts’ believe this assists in the absorption of flavors. Other ingredients include, a whole lot (about 10 limes) of freshly squeezed lime juice (3/4 squeezed, apparently you don´t squeeze the last bit of juice out of the lime as this is too acidic), garlic, red chilies (please remember to refrain from any none Ceviche related activities before washing your hands ;), a red onion, coriander, aji-no-moto (found in all good Chinese superstores) salt, pepper and boiled sweet potato's and/or corn to serve. While not going into the finer details of the recipe, I would strongly advise to drop via Lima (numerous restaurant recommendations can be provided) and taste before attempting this at home. I´m delighted to say that Ceviche Sunday was an absolute success! A very leisurely Sunday afternoon was spent on the rooftop of an inner city Hostel; gazing out onto the nearby snowcapped volcanoes, while enjoying ice cold beers and mountains of delicious Ceviche. Yet again the power of simple fresh ingredient's combines to create a national food obsession.

Note: Please excuse food presentation in all photos, as on each and all occasions I was unable to refrain from eating long enough to take a before shot.

Icecream

Considering how anal I can be about where ingredients come from and taking things back to first principles (irritatingly so), I completely suck at measuring for recipes. I just can't seem to grasp the idea. But with icecream I tried, I really did. I could think of nothing better than home made icecream, every person who'd made me icecream was held with the same acclaim as Greek Gods and it was all fantastic. I however, suck at icecream. Can never get the right consistency, never get in frozen enough, just not right.

So The Wife s away adding to the greater knowledge of the world this week and I felt like some desert. Comfort food. I threw a few egg yolks and some sugar and a touch of cornflour into a bowl and whisked it up. While the potatoes boiled I put another a dish over the top and heated some cream. Mixed it all together and put it back over the potatoes. As I mixed it thickened nicely and I threw in some sultanas, feeling some unnatural optimism in the way it was all progressing. There was some dark chocolate in the fridge so that went in too. It was really nice thickness now so I took it off the pan and whisked in a touch of rum.

I then reclined on the couch and sampled some of the awesomeness that is Jason Statham taking his shirt off every five minutes to kick some badguys arse. I took the custard out of the freezer every ten minutes or so and gave it a bit of a stir. Heaps less stress than using an icecream machine. Strangely I seemed to be able to easily pick up the plot of the movie despite my absences.

Just before bed it looked to be just right. I tasted. I fell to the floor in rapture, thanking the O mighty Crema, goddess of puddings and sorbets, who must have been watching over me.

It was that good.


-- Post From My iPhone


-- Post From My iPhone

Food & Wine blogging tips

Apparently the recent Melbourne Food & Wine Festival included amongst its many offerings a special get-together for food-bloggers. While I only made it to a few token events (mainly the freebie ones) and definitely didn't get to this one - they do have some of the presentations available online thanks to the amazing interwebby thingie...

Just click here!

Get some pork on your fork

FRIDAY, APRIL 2
Doc Y here. I do a fair amount of weekend roasts because they're cheap, they're simple, and let's face it, the weather in the Deep South of NZ is usually conducive to it. The folks and bro are over here at the moment and I have a big leg of pork to do today, but the standard issue roast pork/gravy/apple sauce/roast veg combo isn't really doing it for me. Even crackling isn't selling it to me, even though once a man is tired of crackling, he is tired of life. So I'm going to have a stab at doing it Chinese style. Never done it before. Little idea how. It's another train wreck in slow motion from our series (if a series of one previous entry counts as a series) where Dr Yobbo liveblogs the assembly of dishes he has no idea how to make and everyone ducks and hides from the flying shrapnel.

This is a mashup of a bunch of Chinese roast pork dishes on the Magical InterGoogle; the authentic Cantonese dish is siew yuk (which sounds like a three year old's response to boiled sprouts) and is usually made with nice lardy pork belly. Here I'm also lacking a few other authenticators like rice vinegar and red fermented bean curd - your local Asian supermarket or the international randomness aisle of Woolies should see you right if you want to go proper legit like. I'm just going with the traditional Macgyver School Of Cookery approach where we bodge it together from whatever stuff is in the cupboard.

Pork
Leg thereof, a bit over 2.3kg. Around 6 grownups to feed, less one conscientious objector - it's Jesus-On-A-Stick Day after all. As such I've managed to annoy the Catholics, the Jews and even (given that this isn't particularly halal) the Islamabads with this dish, so if you have any friends with imaginary friends to cook for today, I might be giving this one a swerve.


Smashing together a marinade around midmorning - just in the baking dish the pork will eventually roast in, for want of a better location. It'll rest in the fridge most of the day. These are large volumes because it's a large slab of oink, reduce proportionally for smaller cuts.

3/4 cup soy sauce - half dark and normal, since that's what I had
1/3 cup honey
2/3 cup hoi sin sauce
1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce
2/3 cup dry sherry (here subbing for the rice vinegar, should result in a more caramelized flavour)
1 tbsp crushed garlic (say 3-4 cloves)
2 tsp crushed ginger
1 1/2 tsp Chinese five spice powder


Whisk it all up and drown the bastard. Chuck in the fridge, turning every hour or two.


Have a coffee while you're waiting.


While that's marinading I'll tell you about a recipe I bashed together with help from the old man the other day. By help I mean... well, we had plans to make a big lasagne and he said he was bringing over some Italian sausage to use for the meat. What he brought over was Italian flavoured supermarket sausages. Hmmm.

Worked, though. Helps that NZ supermarket mystery bags are actually pretty bloody good (as they'd want to be at $10 a kg or more.) The Italian ones are mostly beef (ish) with lots of garlic, chilli and spice in them. Grilled them for a little while just to firm them up enough to dice finely, then threw them in the electric wok with some finely diced onion, zucchini (bit of random greenery for fibre) and portabello mushrooms. Bit of mince to bolster the snaggage. Set all that aside, reduced some canned tomatoes with some pasta sauce and half a cup each of leftover cab sauv and pinot noir, reintroduced the goods, bit more chilli and garlic, chopped capsicum and fresh herbs as late as I could get away with, then once that was more solid than liquid, layered out a lasagne using a commercial bechamel (you can make your own if you want to waste your time pointlessly), Barilla lasagne sheets and grated cheddar/mozzarella, with a bit of grated parmesan to crisp up the lid.

Bloody noice.

I'll be back to finish the Chinese roast pork story later today or tomorrow, but til then - The Doctor is OUT.

_______________________

SATURDAY, APRIL 3
Howzit. Dr Yobbo here, taking up the story from where we left off yesterday.

So, get your big slab of pork out. Of the fridge. Drain off the marinade, keep it for basting purposes. Get the oven preheating - you'll need to keep the roast temp down a little to account for the burnable sugars in the marinade, it'll inevitably blacken a bit but if you shove it in at 180 it'll look like the BBQ snag which fell into the campfire and was forgotten until sunrise. 165-170 (Celsius) should do it, figure 40 mins per half kilo at that temp, basting regularly with the residual marinade. You can reduce it down into a glaze for serving if you want to.


Vegies to go with? I went with red kumara, which I understand isn't as common in Australia as it is over here (or as is the more prevalent orange varieties.) This has a deep brown-red-magenta skin and a creamy yellow flesh, often with purple vein structures through it. It's a little less sweet and starchy as the orange varieties, and tends to be cheaper as well. Given that the pork locked us in to a lower roast temp than maybe you'd want, I went for fairly large bits, basically just halving them. Gave them a bit of a slosh-around in some oil with paprika and salt - more typically I'd go for olive oil, garlic, rosemary etc but didn't figure that'd work with the Asian elements of the pork - and in for about an hour or so. That, and some nice broccoli to offer a bit of greenery.


Verdict: Went well. If I was to do it again I'd probably roast it at lower temp for longer - outer edges were quite dry, yet not entirely cooked at the bone - and add vinegar to the marinade to aid penetration and bitter-up some of that residual sweetness. That said, there were no complaints. Put it this way - even the conscientious objector decided to forget it was Good Friday for the purposes of this lot. Mother Focaccia - food worth going to hell for.

The Doctor is OUT.

Fat Belly Everyone

The Wife's dad turned 60 last week and we all headed off to Brunswick Heads to stay together in a house, drink beer and coffee, eat and generally celebrate the occasion in a low key way. At least thats what Neil wanted. The Wife knows how much he likes seeing his family and friends though, so using the fully operation awesome power of Facebook, organised for them all to be in Brunswick for dinner on the Saturday night.

The Wife organised dinner at fatbellykat, which by pure fluke happened to be across the road from our house. Kat's is a greek resteraunt, with a strong emphasis on shared food, so after much consultation The Wife decided on the following menu.



Entree
1. Natural Oysters
2. Hand-made Spring Onion Flatbread with Dips
3. Smoked Fish Fritters with Tomato Marmalade + Creme Fraiche

Main
1. Layered Dish of Marinated Pumpkin, Eggplant Chips + Herbed Sheep's Milk Labna
2. Confit Duck & Kipfler Potato Dolmades with Orange Yoghurt
3. Shredded Lamb Filo Pastries



Dessert
1. Kataifi Crema topped with mastic flavoured custard and finished with cream, cinnamon and almonds
2. Greek donuts soaked in honey syrup served with hand-made vanilla bean icecream and praline
3. Chocolate Mousse

At this point i'd like to point out that The Wife, who after 10+ years of scientific training can make a chinese military unit look disorganised and the head of the spanish inquisition feel like he can't get a question in, was very impressed with the level of service and the speed of response times. Little things like a suggestion to change from on big cake to three small desserts showed an attention to detail and understanding the individual customers needs, that you don't always get.

On to the food!

Having grown up with oysters straight off the rocks, I don't have the love affair with them that some people do. The consensus was that they were very fresh and had great flavour. The fish fritters were light and very tasty, but the winner of the entree and for me, the whole night was the flatbread. The texture! The flavour! The dips, mmm oh so garlicy. I will be having a crack at flatbread again and again till i get it right, because i could think of nothing better than having a few mates round with some cold beers and getting stuck in to a plate of this.




The mains sharing plates came out and i hit the only down note of the entire evening. I love pumpkin, especially when you slow roast in and caramelise all those natural sugars. I'm not sure what the marinade was but it just didn't sit well with the pumpkin, though to be fair this might be traditional greek combination and other people on my table loved it. The duck confit dolmades were a win, but then you'd be pretty hard up if you ruined something with confit in it. I loved the soft lamb in the crunchy filo pastries, though a few people weren't fans, but i thought they had a great balance of flavour and i love the texture of a good filo done right.



By the time dessert came around I was pretty full, but the dainty three desserts on the plate were tempting enough to dig in. The mousse was first and it was light and rich, then i tried the honey soaked donut. WOW. I need that recipe. It was something else, not sickly sweet, with a fantastically doughy texture, I polished it off and sadly the custard was left behind.



The staff at fatbellykat were superb, there is no other word for it. When i ran The Alley and we were on form it was like this, the staff genuinely wanted to make your night as enjoyable as possible, Damian made sure that we had everything we needed and it all ran smoothly, he even encouraged The Wife to get up and do a speech. We weren't the quietest bunch, but the staff and owners obviously enjoyed the communal atmosphere, there were no dirty looks or a feeling that we should tone it down.



The food was great, thanks Kat, the staff and the night were likewise, if you are in that part of the world, check it out!

Comfort Food

I have a new Asian cookbook, purchased to find the recipe of the legendary Sichuan Crispy Pork Ribs. Unfortunately it didn't contain the right recipe and the whole book is freaking me out a little, mainly because I have about one in ten of the ingredients and can recognize about four in ten. With The Wife invalided with the flu and feeling the start of it myself I went with something for dinner that I can cook blindfolded, comfort food.

Comfort food is a pretty broad church. Could be a uplifting Asian broth or fried eggs on toast. As long as the flavours and experience are like and old treasured coat, welcoming and soothing of the soul.

I cooked lamb meatballs in a tomato sauce. Lamb mince, with thyme, ginger, garlic, a blitzed bit of bread, onion, an egg, lots of cumin, chilli, tomato paste and salt, all mixed up into little balls then fried off in a heavy casserole dish until brown. Take them out and whack in a diced onion and some mushrooms, sweat off a little then hit it with a good slosh of red wine. Put the meatballs back in and a tin of tomatoes then bake for half an hour. Tear some mozzarella over the top and turn the heat up in the last five minutes. If you have access to buffalo, spend the money on that beautiful silky cheese. Serve with mashed potato.

Best when crook or living in Tasmania or NZ.


MF from the iPhone

Looking at cooking...

I haven't posted anything here for a while, what with moving house and everything.  However the big move across town has meant a couple of delightful changes.

One thing is that we are now able to drop into Footscray pretty regularly for a big bowl of pho (pronounced 'fur') at a huge range of Vietnamese places. To date our favorite is called Dong Que VN on the main drag there - it has that really authentic feel without being grotty. There are always a couple of older guys sitting there eating who look like they were ARVN regs who escaped the fall of Saigon on the last chopper out as well as some babealicious younger Vietnames hotties. Plus you just can't fault a place when their spring rolls are just totally awesome. The pho is delicious as well, coming out with a huge pile of bean sprouts, fresh basil and chopped up chili and lemons that you add to your fragrant beef broth.

Another is that we are also very close to the fantastic Station Hotel (also in Footscray) which has to have the best steaks in Melbourne. I had the most enormous and delicious angus t-bone there on my birthday in February, washed down by some very nice Torbrek shiraz.

The best thing though is that after having 'made do' with an electric stove for the past 2 years we once again have a gas cooktop. We still need to put some time, effort and money into building a new kitchen but we decided that we could probably live with the existing 1930s-40s era cupboard size set-up for a while. We needn't have worried - the old stovetop puts out a ferocious heat and works a treat. I don't know how I lived without gas for so long - it just makes cooking better somehow...

On the weekend I went to the Footscray Markets and picked up some fresh salmon and prawn meat and then we went to a pretty fabulous farmers market at Williamstown, so I don't think we will be suffering in the food supply department.

Unfortunately the new homeowner cash flow situation  has meant that I haven't been able to take in as much of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival program as I would like. There are  a few freebie events but most of the activities require an outlay ranging from 50-100 bucks per person and we can't justify that at the moment. We have a weird installation type thingie in front of work and had a pretty good event today with a bunch of people talking about different eras in food in Melbourne. Guy Grossi from Florentinos was ths stand-out talent, I went to his restaurant last year for Sweet Thang's birthday and it was truly excellent.

On another note I thought that this sounded like a pretty good cookbook (pictured)  for the person who has everything - although I have to admit that I still haven't cooked anything from my Kinky Friedman cookbook - so never sure how useful a novelty cookbook actually is...