Dinner Party - Movida Theme

After some discussions with fellow food bloggers, Sarah and Duncan, I settled on the menu for the dinner party. I decided to attempt some recipes from my Movida cookbook, the only savoury cookbook I own. Note to self, never attempt recipes for the first time to dinner guests.

From left, Duncan, Sandra, Sarah, Jo and Kin.


Kin brought over some freshly shucked oysters for entree. Seeing as three of six people didn't eat oysters, that left double as much for the rest of us oyster fiends, score! I like my oysters with just lemon and tobasco when I don't have time to make a proper sauce.


Mains was the Pyrenese Chicken from the Movida Cookbook. It sounded easy when I read the ingredients, but I didn't read through to the end of the recipe of I would have seen how many hours of chopping and cooking it involved. Unlike a cooking show where I have assistants to chop everything and pre cook the sauce for me, this meant a very labourious afternoon. Having cursed my way through all the chopping the two hours of cooking the sauce, the final result was amazing and I would make it again. The chicken was moist and the flavours of the vegetable and paprika really shone through. The crusty bits at the top of the baking pan were delicious.



I made some roasted potatoes (they were seriously good, you gotta rough them up after boiling them) and a salad of spinach, fetta, pine nuts and a balsamic vinaigrette.


Here's the plated dish, not too bad if I say so myself.


Dessert was the Movida Chocolate Pudding. It is seriously rich, utilising a stack of chocolate for only a few serves. I overcooked them a bit and the centre wasn't as molten as I wanted, but still decadently delicious.


Pyrenese Chicken with Paprika, Tomato and Capsicum

INGREDIENTS
1.6 kg chicken cut into pieces (I used whole chicken thighs)
2 tbsp thyme leaves, roughly chopped
fine sea salt
185 ml olive oil
2 brown onions, finely diced
4 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
4 red capsicums, seeded, membrane removed and finely diced
6 large tomatoes, peeled and chopped (should have just used canned to make it all faster as Duncan suggested)
500 ml dry white wine (I used a Sauvignon Blanc)
3 tbsp Spanish sweet paprika

METHOD
1) Season chicken with thyme, few pinches of sea salt, 1/2 tsp ground black pepper. Cover and refrigerate until ready.

2) To make chilindron sauce, heat 60 ml of olive oil over medium high heat. Sautee onions, bay leaves and garlic for about 5 minutes until onion is soft. Reduce to low medium heat.

3) Add capsicum, cover and cook for 40 minutes stirring occasionally until capsicum is soft. Add tomato, cover and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4) Add the white wine and cook for 10 minutes. Add about 1 litre of hot water and increase to high heat. Once water is boiling, reduce to low heat, add paprika and cook sauce gently for 30 minutes. The mixture should still be quite liquid.

5) Meanwhile, preheat oven to 200 deg C.

6) Heat remaining olive oil in large heavy saucepan over high heat. Add some chicken pieces and brown skin. Add pinch of salt. After 4 minutes, turn over and salt other side. Cook for further 4 minutes. Brown all chicken pieces.

7) Put chicken in large roasting pan, leaving a bit of space between pieces. Cover chicken with chilindron sauce to come just to the top of the chicken.

8) Gently bake in oven for 1 - 1.5 hours. As it cooks, the sauce will evaporate, creating a dark crusty top on the chicken. The chicken is ready when the thigh flesh comes away easily from the bone.


Hot Ganache Chocolate Pudding

INGREDIENTS
unsalted butter, softened, to brush
plain flour, to dust
350 g dark couverture chocolate
4 eggs, room temperature
125 ml pouring (12-15%) cream
50 g unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 1 cm cubes

METHOD
1) Using a pastry brush, grease six 125 ml ramekins with butter and lightly dust with flour. Refrigerate until ready to use.

2) Melt chocolate over double boiler.

3) While chocolate is melting, whisk eggs gently. Bring cream to the boil over medium heat. Once boiled, remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

4) When chocolate has melted, add several tablespoons to eat and gently mix. Slowly add remaining chocolate. Add the cream and gently whisk. Add the unsalted butter and mix until all melted.

5) Cover mixture with cling film and let refrigerate for 1 hour, or until soft fudge consistency.

6) Spoon into chilled ramekins, filling almost to top. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

7) Preheat oven to 200 deg C.

8) Bake ramekins on tray for 15 minutes. When done the edges will be cracked and the centre of the top will be just soft and domed shaped, and just unset.

9) Remove from oven and let cool for 3 minutes. Turn out of ramekins and serve with ice cream.

Red Hill Wineries

Red Hill has some really nice Wineries, so when we decided on a day out, I suggested Red Hill.

It was a lovely relaxing day just driving from winery to winery sampling wines. I too suffer the same disease that affects many other bloggers, the "I have a huge backlog of posts and I can't quite seem to remember the details of the event anymore." So I present to you a post about all the wineries I visited that day at Red Hill but I can't tell you which ones they were. Here are a couple of photos, you can try and deduce where they are yourselves.






The only winery I remember was Hickinbotham because we ate lunch there. After a mondegreen moment where John thought the winery was called Higginbottom and some fruitless Google searching, we finally found Hickinbotham.

Hickinbotham supposedly do German food, although it was more a mish mash of things.

John and Mia both got very non German dishes of spaghetti Marinara and Lasagne. Dennis, who never appears in any photos also got the Spaghetti. The spaghetti and lasagne were fairly good.






I decided on the Bratwurst with Sauerkraut. The bratwurst was pretty standard and not bad, the sauerkraut not so good.


Desserts were a piping hot Apple Crumble and Peach Strudel. Both done well and very comforting on a rather cold day.




Finally, we dropped off at a quince farm where the smell was intoxicating. I bought quite a few kilos of the yellow gems.


Overall, an enjoyable day roaming around Red Hill. I must keep better notes in future or write the posts faster before the bloggers disease strikes and I can't remember any details.

Masterchef - Top 14 to 10

So I'm well and truly back on the Masterchef bandwagon and watching it closely. I still hate the group voted eliminations, but at least that's only ever second elimination.

From my last post where Julia won the celebrity cook off, it's back to more challenges.

A supermarket cook off where the losing team had to vote someone off saw Josh go. His supposed "kiddie mafia" aliance with Kate and Sam were not sitting so well with some people, hence he was made the scapegoat and voted off. I don't think it was the right decision but again, it's what the team voted.

An invention challenge to cook steaks saw Tom, Sam and Trevor in the bottom three making Sticky Date Pudding, the classic 80's dish. Supposedly their dishes were all so good that none of them deserved to be voted off. Rubbish! The show's just dragging out for another week because Nic left the show himself. If I was one of the other contestants who were safe that week, I would really feel peeved off. But such is the nature of reality TV that you have to expect some curve balls. At least they haven't bought back voted off contestants yet.

I'm really loving the celebrity cook offs. At first I thought it was a real gimmick to advertise various restaurants but all the celebrities have been really helpful to the contestants and taught them things. The fact that Julia won just makes it even more interesting. Chris did a good job again Alex Herbert, as did Justine against Guy Grossi.

A lost challenge at the Sydney Show saw team captain Kate voted off, voted herself off. How silly is that. I know there's such a thing as being humble, but isn't this taking it too far. If I was in her shoes, there would have been no doubt in my mind, I would have voted Sandra off. I would be there to learn more and to hopefully win the whole competition.

After winning the mystery box challenge with a delicious looking lemon cupcake, Julie stuffs up the invention challenge badly and finds herself in the bottom three with Aaron and Sandra. When the challenge dish is revealed to be paella, well, you would think that only two people had a chance of being voted off as Sandra is of Spanish heritage. Finally, Aaron's luck ran out and he was gone. I don't think he has done a really good dish all show and it was probably time for him to go.

Trevor suffered the same fate as many team captains whose team lost the challenges. Again, as I reiterate, the team captain is not self volunteered and carries all responsibility but no reward. Trevor's choice to use bait as part of the dish backfired badly and he was voted off.

Finally, the Top 10 cook off was between Poh, Chris, Julie and Tom as they did the worse in the pairs challenge. I can't believe how Poh managed to pull it out. She looked gone for all money and about to give up. Whereas the other three looked to be going great and yet faltered at the last step. Making a croquembouche is tough when you have two days, as Sarah wrote about. To never do it before and have to complete it in over 2 hours is unbelievably tough. The fact that they all managed to at least present something was very commendable. Unfortunately, Tom's efforts were deemed the worse and he was gone.

It's starting to get to the business end of the show. Unlike Idol or So You Think You can Dance, I haven't really gotten behind anyone. They all seem to be nice people but no one has really captured me yet. If I had to put money on someone, I'd obviously put my money on Julie as she is learning so much each day at Peter Evan's restaurant. I also think Chris has a good chance. Two dark horses could be Poh and Lucas. With the pressure constantly increasing, we'll start to see who can handle being a chef and who can't.

A Picture Tells A Thousand Words

A picture tells a thousand words...sometimes. If only it wasn't slightly corked.

Masterchef - Top 17, Top 16, Top 15

Ok, after my last rant about Masterchef, you would probably think I stopped watching right, wrong. I'm still hooked to the show. There are some elements that are fantastic and keep drawing me back.

I forgot to mention the departure of Nic in the last post, so I've made up for it this post and I'll just call him the top 17 evictee. Nic's departure has to be one of the all time classics in reality TV. Has there been a weaker explanation of why someone has to leave. It's not like he's on a deserted island freezing to death and starving and hence wants off the island. Nic couldn't bear to be away from his wife after only one week.
"
The eviction shows where they have the "mystery box", the "invention challenge" and then a "pressure test" is great. That's how every week's eviction should work, a pressure test where each contestant does the same dish. Michelle's efforts were slightly worse and hence she had to leave.

One of the highlights of the week was the cook off between Julia and Peter Evans. I, along with the rest of the contestants got the biggest shock when Julia won. I never thought a contestant would ever win. I thought the only good bit about that segment was seeing a top chef in action. Who would ever have guessed that an amateur (with a time advantage, but still a dish they have never cooked) could beat the pro at his own dish. And Evans' humble acceptance of defeat and offering to mentor Julia was reality TV at it's most gracious.

The team challenge was another eye opener. It shows what you can really do when forced. Despite having bought some strange ingredients, Kate's team pulled it off since they had to think outside the box. The subsequent vote off saw the other team vote off Josh. Again, I hate this element of the show as I think most of the others voted off Josh since they saw him in an alliance with Kate and Sam.

Lastly, the week finished with a masterclass. This part of the show I just love. I learnt lots about cooking squid and making a souffle. I'm going to give the souffle a go, having never attempted one because it looked so damn hard. But with those expert tips, I'm hoping my souffle will rise high and proud.

Masterchef - Top 19 and Top 18, Pathetic

As Dave "Hughesy" Hughes would say, "I'm angryyyyyyyy!" Masterchef is really pissing me off. Just when I thought it had turned a corner after the Top 20 round and got back to basics, it's done another about turn and totally pissed me off.

So after the Top 20 round where the losing team voted one of their members out and got me really mad, the Top 19 round was back to the basics of cooking, with the contestant with the worse dish being kicked out. Linda was eliminated because her Tarte Tartin was the worse dish. Fair enough, this is a cooking show.

But what have they gone and done again, got the teams to vote each other out. The Top 18 elimination is so fucking ridiculous, I wanted to hurl something at the TV. Brent, who had just won the invention challenge and done a commendable job again Martin Boetz from Longrain, was voted out when his team lost.

Firstly, Brent didn't chose to be captain, he was elected by the show. At least on The Apprentice, the contestants nominate themselves to be captain knowing the risk and possible reward. If their team should win, they are free from elimination for the next round should they lose. However, in Masterchef, the winning captain gets nothing more than the rest of the team. But should they lose, the captain is obviously the biggest target and scapegoat.

The reasons given by Sam, Kate, Michelle and Trevor were pathetic. Being captain means making decisions, but it doesn't mean the captain can control every single aspect of everything. The team need to back him up too and execute the actions. If you have all agreed on a set of actions, when you then lose, you can't retrospectively say that it was the wrong fucking decision. What a bunch of wankers. Brent was clearly starting to do well in the competition and could cook, whereas someone like Aaron has not produced any good dishes yet.

This has really put me off Masterchef and as many other food bloggers have said, Channel Ten has once again dug into the bottom of the barrel and tried to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Masterchef - Top 20

As I wrote previously, despite the problems I thought existed with Masterchef, I would continue to watch. Thankfully, it's gotten a lot better after the audition phase and I'm really getting into it. I'm even learning a few things food wise, bonus.

However, the latest eviction of one of the top 20 has irked me greatly. Neil from At My Table has already written about it, but I have to weigh in as well. What the hell is the show doing by making the contestants vote each other out. It has descended into a Survivor style contest. The focus now won't be on the food, but on building alliances and sabotaging each other.

I thought Masterchef would be better than that and rely on the food aspect to draw an audience. But, they have descended into reality TV staple of people attacking each other to get on top. I agree with Neil that the judges should be the ones voting people out. Isn't that what they're there for. Otherwise I don't see them serving much purpose. There is already a host on the show, why do we need another three people standing around trying to look serious. The show needs to change this around so that the focus is back on the contestants trying to learn as much about food and cooking and become the "Masterchef", not the "Master Manipulator".

Masterchef - Auditions

So Masterchef has finally started and of course I'm watching. I love food, hence this blog, and I love reality TV (trust me on this, I'll prove it later in the post). So when the two are combined, I'm salivating with my texting fingers poised at my mobile ready to vote.

So far, I have to say that I'm actually quite bored. My opinions are similar to that of Matt from Abstract Gourmet, who went and auditioned even. Here is what I think is wrong with the show so far

1) Like Matt, I found the sob stories all a bit too much. "Oh my mum had cancer and I cooked for her so that's why I like to cook." Somehow, these sob stories seem to be the norm in audition style reality shows now. Look at Australian Idol and So You Think You Can Dance. There were more tears in those shows than at Princess Diana's funeral. While watching Masterchef, I kept yelling (trust me, I really was yelling out loud) at the TV and saying, "what's up with all the sob stories". It was infuriating. Why can't they just show passionate people who like cooking but don't have some dramatic story. I guess that doesn't make good TV. I understand that the show needs some characters, but this was too much.

2) I haven't warmed to the host or the judges. I find Sarah Wilson's deliver to be so laboured. Couldn't they have found someone with a more natural prescence. I don't particularly hate the judges, nor do I like them. I loved George Calombaris when he was on Ready Steady Cook, where he was allowed to be himself and let his personality shine through. Here, he seems to be inhibited. Gary Mehigan, I don't really like or hate, and that's never a good thing in reality TV. It's better to be hated by viewers than have viewers not care. Matt Preston is again not mean, but I find him annoying.

3) Unlike Idol or Dance, we, the viewer can form our own opinions about whether they're good or not. With food, I just have to trust the judges. A dish may look great, but taste awful, how can I tell. I don't have smell-o-vision. Therefore, how do I know if the judges are being harsh or fair.

4) The editing and pace for these early audition rounds is really slow compared to other reality TV shows. For example, why do we need to waste time seeing the judges walk up to the plate, sample some, then walk back. Just edit out the walking and show then there already tasting it. Do we need to see every contestant wheel their trolley from the outside kitchen to the judging room, can't we just cut to them already in the room.

I'm going to keep watching and hope it gets better. I really hope they focus more on the food in coming episodes and the personalities of the people should naturally shine through if they are truly passionate about food and cooking.

To finish with some interesting info. I caught quite a few glimpses of Jackie from Eating With Jack, who I have met a few times. Jackie's accounts of the week up in Sydney are a definite must read. It paints a picture very different to that portrayed on the show. Joel from Global Gobbler was also on the show, and I met him once at the Melbourne Bloggers Meet Up recently.

And finally, to prove what a hardcore reality TV junkie I am. During episode two, with the auditions in Perth, there was an 18 year old guy called Robert who cut his fingers chopping herbs. George then helped him cut it. Robert made the cut (pardon the pun) and when he went outside, two girls hugged him. The girl on the left with brown hair was no other than Courtney from Make Me a Supermodel. See how obscure that show was and I still recognised her from the three short shots they showed of her. I told you I like reality TV. :-)

Trunk - Bar Menu

275 Exhibition Street
Melbourne 3000 Vic
Ph: 9663 7994

Thanh: Where should we go eat?
Dennis: I don't know, you choose.
Thanh: I don't know either, what cuisine do you feel like.
Dennis: Italian.
Thanh: Hmmm, where is a good Italian restaurant?
Dennis: Let's use Urbanspoon and let it decide.

So that's what we did. We shook the Urbanspoon app on my iPhone and let it pick out an Italian restaurant for us. We said that whatever came up first, we would go. So when Trunk came up, we decided to go there. We weren't really going in too blindly as I remember reading Agnes review of Trunk.

But anyway, neither of us had tried it and didn't even know where it was. So following the Urbanspoon links, we found out where it was and off we went.

We were greeted by this garden front restaurant/bar hidden away between office buildings. It was ultra ultra dark inside both the bar and restaurant. I really really dislike ultra dark restaurants. I could understand a bar being dark, but hate it for a restaurant. The Trunk space is rather strangely divided and it didn't feel like a bar or a restaurant. A request for a table came back negative but we were happy to eat from the bar menu.

So we got ourselves drinks and ordered Antipasto, Pizza and Chips to share. The Antipasto was very nice, with a mixture of pickled vegetables, fresh tomatoes with cheese, cured meats and bread. The chips were quite good, but tasted great with the garlic aioli.


The pizza was very good, a crispy based thin pizza with thin strips of prosciutto, cheese and basil. A very well executed pizza.


The meal was very nice and I would definitely go back to eat at the bar. I'd like to try the restaurant part as well next time. I might bring my own flashlight.

Thai Taste

92-94 Johnston Street
Collingwood 3066 Vic
Ph: 9495 6694

Previously, if I wanted great cheap Thai food, the first thought turned to Ying Thai on Victoria Street. However, now there is a serious challenger, Thai Taste on Johnston Street.

Kin recommended Thai Taste as he had been there previously. He kept raving about the pork hock. I was thinking it didn't sound very traditionally Thai and that the food probably won't be so good. How wrong I was to be.

Thai Taste is a rather non-descript restaurant hiding away on the Collingwood end of Johnston Street. It was actually rather hard to find it as they did themselves no favour by having the wrong restaurant name displayed on upper most street signage. Once we did find it, we were greeted by a rather dark and dungy rectangular space separated by a wall into two areas. We saw everyone had a pitcher of Thai milk tea on their table so we got that too while deciding on our orders.


The menu, a tacky (physically and metaphorically) plastic double side lamented sheet provided a wealth of choice, some items displayed with photos. We actually decided to go with a lot of the house specials that had rather enticing photos that made our mouths water. It's strange that only cheaper Asian restaurants tend to have photos of the food. I wonder why it's not done in fine dining establishments for some items. It would help to ease the disappointment that sometimes comes with just reading a description. Anyway, I digress.

So we started with an amazingly fiery and tangy Green Papaya Salad. Thai food is so great with their salads. A combination of crunchy vegetables melded with even crunchier condiments like peanut and dried shrimp, lavished in the most addictively acidic spicy sauce you can imagine. This had us all gasping and grasping for more water, and then more salad. Thoroughly addictive and enjoyable.


The Soft Shell Crab in Sour Soup was also a house special and seen on almost every table. Beautiful golden pieces of battered soft shell crab was served in a metal pot bubbling over a flame. The sour soup housed an assortment of vegetables such as kang kung, carrots and onion. This dish worked very well with the contrasting flavours and really helped to whet the appetite.


The Fried Barramundi with Apple was again a great display of combining sweet, salty and spicy. The crisp barra skin housed the juicy soft flesh of the fish. The tart green apple combined with the salty spicy sauce to draw out so much flavour from the fish.


Finally, the masterpiece we had been hanging out for. The Fried Pork Hock was a heart attack waiting to happen but boy was it good. The extremely crispy skin was not hard to the point you couldn't chew it, and the gloriously gelatinous and unctuos fat inside the hock was insanely good. There was large amounts of fat with some meat. There was a dipping sauce but it tasted better just as is. Definitely a dish to share and not consume by yourself.


The only dish that wasn't a spectacular highlight like all the others was the Red Curry Chicken. We had wanted the red curry duck but there was no duck left. So instead, we settled on the chicken. It was clear this was the least favourable dish as it was too sweet in flavour and left till last by everyone.


Dessert was just simply durian served with stick rice, a perfect way to end a great meal.


Service, was typical of many cheaper Asian restaurants, serviceable without being good. The waitresses fulfilled our requests and were friendly enough but many things should have been done without asking.

The ambience was a buzz all night. The full restaurant had patrons happily chatting away. I really wished they would turn the lights brighter, but that's my personal pet peeve. There was some live music right at the end of the night playing in the background. The singer was doing very original covers of Western Pop music and was so good we thought it was a cd.

Overall, a fantastic restaurant serving delicious Thai food at a great price.

Overall Rating: 15/20, Food is excellent and great value for money.

Scores: 1-9: Unacceptable, don't bother. 10-11: Just OK,some shortcomings. 12: Fair. 13: Getting there. 14: Recommended. 15: Good. 16: Really good. 17: Truly excellent. 18: An outstanding experience. 19-20:Approaching perfection, Victoria's best.