Immerse Cafe - February 2013

Immerse Café – February 2013  

Immerse is our favourite café and since we have just had Valentine’s Day, what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than go to a winery for lunch. In Dixon’s Creek, Immerse boasts great food and great wine, surrounded by amazing gardens and is the ideal place for a lazy Saturday or a wedding. Whilst we were sitting inside enjoying our lunch and the peace and quiet, there are plenty of others racing around getting ready for the wedding that evening. 

Once I had my glass of Oscars Reserve Chardonnay I then had the time to sit and relax, play a little with Archie (our 10 month old), with the only pressing thing deciding what to eat off a menu where everything looks amazing. Decisions made and Archie changed we sat and had some bread, oil and dukkah.

I had the pan fried gnocchi with prawns, roasted pumpkin and gemello and Roz had calamari, smokey eggplant, spiced chickpea crunch, lemon yoghurt, fennel and mint salad. I think the gnocchi was perfect with great flavours. Roz thought the calamari was melt in the mouth but thought the smoked eggplant was a bit strong.

For the main I had a pork belly with potato and fennel cream, apple salad and a cider and mustard jus. I’m a big fan of pork belly and have never found a restaurant that can make it this good, everything just works so well together and the crackling is so crunchy. I had it matched with Oscars Reserve Shiraz, and whilst not the recommended match, I was still more than happy with it. Roz had the Salmon fillet with zucchini, capers, raisins, pinenuts, potato and Persian fetta. It was perfectly cooked salmon, great crunchy skin, and apart from the rushing because Archie was getting tired, it was another great meal – matched with Oscars Reserve Chardonnay.

For dessert, I had the lemon verbena pannacotta, pistachio cake, raspberry sorbet and strawberries. The lemon in the pannacotta worked very well and was a nice fresh flavour with the raspberry sorbet. The surprise was the pistachio cake – I want the recipe. Roz had the warm dark chocolate fondant, with a salted caramel ice cream and raspberries. Amazing!!! The popping candy on top was a nice surprise and worked well, the fondant was perfect and just the right amount of ooze.

 I finished with a latte and a stroll around the amazing gardens with almost every variety of rose. The ducks were playing in the pond and apart from the heat outside would have made a lovely relaxing afternoon just sitting and playing in the garden on the grass.

Again, it remains one of our favourite restaurants in Melbourne and our favourite in the Yarra Valley.

Dan

Fresh Apples and Lemons

We were fortunate to be given some apples, zucchinis and chillies from a friend (thanks Nasty) that we have been using lately. I recently called home to let them know I was also bringing some prized Nasty Lemons. Here is a photo of Archie and Oscar waiting for me to get home with them.

Also a photo of Archie enjoying a fresh apple.

Easy Peasy Japanesey - Tempura Vegetables

We love Japanese food and there are many posts to come for that. First one is easy and tasty, Tempura Vegetables. Depending on the number of people you will have more options, but for the two of us 6-7 vegetables is a good variety without having too much food. For those that want to do fish, prawns and other meat these also work well.

Tempura Vegetables

Tempura Batter – (I used Nisshin Seifun)

1 Sweet Potato

1 Little Egg Plant

Cup of Beans

Mushrooms

Large Chilli

½ Yellow Zucchini

½ Green Zucchini

1 tsp Wasabi paste

3 tbs Whole Egg mayonnaise

Shoyu

1.  I make Tempura batter – 100g of the batter to 160mL of cold water – this is enough for two people and then put in the fridge for 30mins prior to use. Heat the oil in the deep fat fryer or pan to 180-190degC. Turn the over on to 60-70degC.

2.  Make sure all the vegetable are cut thinly, this will ensure that the vegetables are cooked without burning them.

3.  Mix the wasabi paste and mayonnaise in a small bowl. Put the Shoyu in a dipping bowl (you can mix in chillies, lime and or chives in if you like, we have done this before and it works really well).

4.  Dip the vegetables in the batter and fry each for 2-3 mins – You don’t need to wait until the batter drips off, just put it straight in and you will get more interesting shapes. I minimise the batches (maybe 6-7 pieces each time) then put out on a paper towel and then put in the oven on a tray to keep warm.

 We also got some sushi to mix things up a bit. It’s a very simple and quick meal but really enjoyable. 

 

 

Dan

 

Remember those schnitzels?

Schnitzel, served with mushroom sauce
and coleslaw

Yes, it’s been a while since we regularly wrote in this blog but maybe this is a sign of things to come… more yummy dinners to be shared and more entertaining reading for those faithful followers of It’s Not Aeroplane Food.

Nine years ago I had just begun an adventure that would last a year travelling around the world. I had no real plans except for three things: See Petra, go on the Sound of Music Tour, and work in Scotland. Amazingly enough I did get to do all of those things (obviously plus a whole heap more), but who would have thought that my year, and my whole life, would have been changed by one of those things.

On February 9, 2004, I was staying in Vienna with a friend of a friend of a friend (!). She helped me book my train to Salzburg and my accommodation at a youth hostel. On Feb 10^th I arrived in Salzburg and booked my Sound of Music tour for the following day. I sat in the common room part of the hostel too excited to return to my room and itching to be able to talk to someone in English about what I was doing. My ears pricked up at the sound of English being spoken from a guy asking the girls at the desk about classical music concerts. I was too chicken to say anything to him. That night I couldn’t sleep thinking I would sleep through my alarm and miss the tour. (I know, how much of a geek am I!)

I woke up on time, ate breakfast, got ready…. Then missed the bus!! Luckily the hostel people arranged for the bus to come back and get me (and another young girl). From there we picked up the rest of the tour group (all 3 of them) including Daniel from Melbourne – the guy asking about music concerts from my hotel.

By the time we saw the chateau of where the Baron von Trapp drank pink lemonade, where Maria and the kids fell out of the canoe and of course the gazebo, I had introduced myself to Daniel from Melbourne so that he could be in a photo with me pretending to dance like Liesl and Fredrick did. Needless to say the rest of the day was full of clichéd moments like when it began to snow we took photos of ‘snowflakes on eyelashes’ and at lunchtime we had ‘crisp apple strudel’, all the time while the Do Re Mi song sounded out loud in our mini bus.

Fast forward 9 years and Daniel from Melbourne and I are married with a 10 month old baby boy, Archie.

In honour of our meeting in Austria on February 11^th I thought I’d cook schnitzels for dinner. Unlike the traditional Weiner schnitzels, which are made from veal, I used chicken.

To make the perfect schnitzel:

1. Make your own breadcrumbs. None of this packet pre crumbed bread. Pfft! Make your own when you need to use them.

2. Bash out your chicken. Put a trimmed chicken breast fillet in plastic wrap and bash with a hammer – one of those cooking ones would probably be best, rather than any old one from the shed. Make sure that the fillet is an even thickness throughout – somewhere around 1cm.

3. Flour, Egg, Crumb. Coat the chicken first in flour, then in egg and then finally in the breadcrumbs you’ve just made.

4. Use a big chunk of butter and olive oil to cook the schnitzel. The butter makes it delicious, the olive oil prevents the butter from burning.

That’s it. It’s not tricky. But it’s the attention to detail that makes it perfect.

When I was in Vienna and had Wiener schnitzel, it arrived at the table as two massive schnitzels on a plate and that’s it. I think I remember ordered some kind of side dish that included vegetables of some sort, but basically it was just a plate of meat. For this meal, as it was about 33 degrees outside and only a few degrees cooler inside I decided to accompany the schnitzels with coleslaw.

This also worked well for a little side challenge we have going at the moment. A friend of Dan’s has been supplying us with a heap of fruit and vegetables from his garden and has wanted to see what we use them all in. Well, I put apple in the coleslaw. J

We also used some of these apples for the ‘crisp apple strudel’ that was for dessert. You can’t meet on the Sound of Music tour and not complete tacky clichéd meals!

Unfortunately, the actual lyrics from the Do Re Mi song stipulate ‘Schnitzel with Noodles’ but that’s just weird.  J

You can't have an Austrian meal
without an Austrian beer!

Happy Anniversary, Dan. xx

Chicken Flautus & Margaritas

Ok. So it’s nearly 9 years since Roz and I met and I thought it would be a good trip down memory lane to remake the first meal that I cooked for her. Funnily enough we were in Paris, staying at a friend’s place and instead of making something French I decided to impress her with Mexican. (My food senses were much more naive then). 

In the rehashing of things past, I add something fresh – we were lucky enough to be given lots of fresh vegetables and fruit from a friend, (thanks Nasty) fresh from his garden.

Chicken Flautus

2 Chicken Breasts

80g Feta (I used Danish)

12 Corn tortillas (you can use flour tortillas if you can’t find corn)

1 Brown onion

1/2 Red onion

4 Tomatoes

3 Chillies (I used different types)

1 Bunch of Coriander chopped

1 Lime juiced

1 yellow zucchini

1 green zucchini

1 dash of Tequila

Peas

Firstly, I cooked the chicken in a water bath until it is fully cooked, but still moist inside and not dried out. After letting it cool a bit, I shredded the chicken until fine (Archie also manage to get some shredded chicken for his dinner). Then I browned the diced brown onion in a pan and mixed it with the chicken and crumbled feta in a bowl until it was consistent. Season.

The zucchinis were sliced using a large peeler into long lengths (they don’t need to be cooked) and mixed in a bowl with the dash of tequila, 1/3 of the lime juice and a small handful of coriander. Set aside so that the lime juice softens the zucchinis (about 10mins).

To make the salsa I diced the tomatoes into a bowl and mixed with the red onion that was finely chopped. Add the chopped chillies, rest of the lime juice and coriander and season.

Heat the tortillas in the microwave for 30 sec to make them soft. Spoon a mixture of the chicken onto the tortilla at one end and roll them up. Once they are all filled, either deep or shallow fry for 1-2 mins each until the tortilla is a light brown, as it takes a few batches I leave the tortillas in the oven on 60degC just to stay warm. Cook the peas. Then serve. Either all together on one plate in the middle of the table or individually.

I also decided that an excellent accompaniment to a great Spanish meal is a Margarita. I love the ones I make (no ice) and it’s quite often a hit or miss when you go out. The closest we have found to the ones we make at home were sitting in Miami at a bar near the beach (perhaps that’s a story for another time).

Margarita

1 ½ shots of tequila

1 shot of Cointreau

1 shot of Cachaca

Squeeze of fresh lime, salt

Cut a lime in half and rub it around the top of a glass, dip in salt until the ring of the glass is coated – don’t make it too thick. Put the tequila, Cointreau and Cachaca into a shaker over ice. Pour over a slice of lime in the glass. Drink with pleasure and keep them coming.

Harvest Lunch 2010 - Five Oaks Winery

We saw this on An Australian Kitchen and thought it would also be useful publishing it here. Roz and I had a great day out with Anna and Adrian at the Harvest Lunch at Five Oaks Winery in Seville (The Dandenongs).

Link here to Anna's post.

Christmas Special 2012

Ok, so its been a while since we have been on. Whilst Roz was quite diligent about her posts and the competition I got wrapped up in the details and ended up cooking and never got around to doing the posts. So for me the challenge was a fail and I need to bow my hat to Roz.

Anyway....lets move on. Every year I make a ginger bread house of some description and sometimes it can take large amounts of time. Now that we have a wee one, little boy 8 months old (at the time), called Archie I thought there should be a time limit as the criteria. So the criteria is this, gingerbread house, something that is impressive but doesn't take too long to make and decorate, something that somehow represents the year 2012 and something that is large enough to take to work to please the minions.

Being a fan of LEGO the Tower Bridge provided inspiration in the Olympic year, so I had a template, but how to make it edible and make it quickly. After a few rough calculations I knew that it would be approx. 10kg, so as I progressed in my plans it needed to support its own weight and I needed to be able to transport it to work easily without it collapsing, and living on a dirt road makes the additional shock and vibration all that more challenging.

So I have a wee plan. Over early December, I start to make the list of all the ingredients I will need. Working out how many batches of ginger bread, caramel, chocolate, icing, biscuit and lollies I would need. It come to mind that I still haven't figured out how to span almost 40cm between the two towers and still make it edible, any cake or biscuit would collapse under its own weight, and whilst solid chocolate would probably work, I had already decided to use Kit Kats for the road and bridge, I wanted something different.

Ginger bread recipe
125g Unsalted butter
1/2 cup of compacted Brown Sugar
1 egg yolk
2 1/2 cups of sifted plain flour
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda
3 teaspoons of ground ginger (you can add more or less depending on your taste)
3-4 table spoons of golden syrup - you may need a little more

1. Cream the butter and sugar together
2. Mix in the egg yolk
3. Sift in plain flour, bicarbonate soda and ground ginger. Mix until it is even.
4. Add the golden syrup at intervals until the mixture just binds together
5. Roll it out to required thickness. For the lower levels I roll it to about 1.5cm thick and about 1cm thick for the higher levels. Or cut into the desired shape.
6. Bake in an oven at 160degC for 10-15 mins until it is a light golden brown
7. Let it cool on a rack - this is important, so that it goes hard is capable of support

In a stored sealed container I find it lasts for a few weeks, however certainly for a few days over the period required to assemble it.
 
 To make the required Gingerbread for the towers I worked out the dimensions of each level, internal walls, floors/ceilings and I ended up making 10 batches.
It took about 6 hours to make, and was a long day, I roughly measured out all the shapes required prior to cooking so as to minimise the waste, it only left final trimming once the gingerbread had cooled. As you can probably tell, this left quite a bit of egg white, something I luckily noticed whilst making my shopping list, so I decided to make a meringue bridge covered in a tempered chocolate.
Another thing I had to consider was that I wanted to break up the gingerbread and chocolate a bit, so in the base I embedded a coconut biscuit and some caramel, and then surrounded that with a layer of chocolate to provide the strength.

Coconut biscuit recipe
125g Unsalted butter
1 cup of sifter self-raising flour
1 cup of compacted brown sugar
1 cup of desiccated coconut

1. Lightly grease a pan and put in greaseproof paper, 30cm by 15cm, gives two 15cm squares to use as a base.
2. Melt the butter and combine all the ingredients in a bowl.
3. Use a metal spoon to press down the ingredients in the pan.
4. Cook on 180degC for 10 mins.

Caramel recipe
30g Unsalted butter
395g Nestle Sweetened condensed milk
2 table spoons of golden syrup

1. In a pot on medium, melt the butter and golden syrup and then add the condensed milk.
2. Stir constantly until it starts to bubble (note: you may want to wear gloves as the bubbling caramel can burn).
3. Turn down to low immediately and continue stirring for 5mins .
4. Spread over the cooked biscuit base. Cook on 180degC for 10 mins.
Note: I like put crushed walnuts between the two layers for some extra texture and flavour.

Once the caramel and biscuit has cooled (about 2 hours) then I cut it in half ( the greaseproof paper makes it easy to lift out. Find 2 appropriately sized lunch box container – melt some milk chocolate (I used about 700g) and pour some in each one to coat, then put in the biscuit and caramel and cover in the remaining chocolate. Don’t put it in the fridge; let it set at room temperature. Now you have two bases.
After making all the ginger bread and cutting all the walls and floors I had taken about 9 hours. It took another 2 hours to assemble all the ginger bread with royal icing. It was important to ensure that each cut was level or I might have the leaning tower of Pisa. As I was assembling the 3^rd level I coated the internal walls with royal icing and covered the walls in mini icing Christmas trees – it had a great effect that looked like wall paper.
Once at the top, I put a white chocolate covered marshmallow at each corner and then constructed a central tower out of 4 pieces of Toblerone, one for each tower.
This brings us to the spanning section between the two towers.

Meringue francaise au chocolate recipe (thanks to Adriano Zumbo’s tanzanie recipe)
100g egg whites
100g caster sugar
80g pure icing sugar
20g cocoa powder

1.  Line a tray with greaseproof paper, turn it over and mark 3 x 40cm x 2.5cm rectangle. Turn back over.
2. Put the egg whites and 1 tablespoon of caster sugar into a mixer and mix on medium for 20sec. With motor running add the rest of the sugar until meringue has formed soft peaks (about 5mins).
3. Sift icing sugar and the cocoa together mix in half the meringue gently. Softly fold through the other half.
4. Fill a piping bag with a 8cm nozzle with the meringue mixture. Pipe long straight lines of meringue onto the lined tray so they are just touching.
5. Bake for 3 hours on 110degC to produce a crisp, dry meringue.
Note: I turn the over off and open the door at the end so it cools down slowly.
After covering the meringue in a thin layer of tempered chocolate, I let it set at room temperature which is really quick. After checking that it slots into the slots I made in the towers, all is good and there is only the decorating left. This is a ‘what looks good’ exercise. I used bullets for the balcony on the bridges, jersey caramels for the tiling effect on the corners and around the windows, liquorice straps for the suspension cables and various other lollies, trying to keep a variety of colour and type.

All up it took about 13 hours over a weekend, not bad considering previous years I’ve spent upwards of 50 hours on much greater detail, but this year it was the size over detail. I know it got devoured quickly so it must have tasted alright. I hope you like the photos.

Dan 
4 Feb 2013