A nice, better butter rice

I've been noticing recently how many people/bloggers are making up their own recipes. I think this is incredibly clever, since I'm the type of home cook who has to follow a recipe to the letter - for a several times at least - before I even think of tweaking it slightly. Most substitutions I make are if I don't have an ingredient on hand or when leaving it out won't really make a difference.

Most of the recipes I post here are photogenic if nothing else. And most of them have been tried more than once before appearing. There's no reasoning behind this, except that the first attempt is usually too pathetic to write about or even photograph!

But here's an exception - this Butter Rice turned out perfectly the first time. It's similar to this easy Kedgeree recipe in that you cook the rice in some stock and let it stand for a bit before eating. This makes the rice more tender because it 'cooks' a bit longer off the heat. I'm hoping this winning dish will be the start of a wonderful run of luck in the kitchen for me *fingers crossed*

Butter rice

Serves 4 as a side dish

Ingredients

20g butter

1 tsp crushed garlic

1 tsp crushed ginger

1 cup jasmine rice, rinsed

2 dried bay leaves

2 cups chicken stock

¼ cup frozen peas

2 tblsp fried shallots

Method

1. Melt the butter in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until fragrant.

2. Add rice, bay leaves and chicken stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes until the liquid is absorbed.
3. Gently stir through the peas and remove from the heat. Cover and set aside for 10 minutes.
4. Remove bay leaves and serve the rice in bowls, sprinkled with fried shallots.

Recipe adapted from Super Food Ideas

Ingredients, including rice, bay leaves, lots of butter, chicken stock, garlic, ginger and fried shallots/onions.


This rice turned out surprisingly fluffy considering it's made in a saucepan rather than a rice cooker.
It's also incredibly tasty (that's all the butter in it), and would make a good side dish in a banquet.

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And for the cat that has everything - except a decent food bowl because her owner broke her previous one last year and hasn't been able to find a nice one until now:

It's also a consolation prize for having to put up with evil Henry.

This adorable bowl is from Ruche, where you can pick up vintage-y dresses and handbags as well as pet accessories. Sweet!

New Sucre, Balmain

I don't want to speak ill of the departed, but there once was a shop in Darling Street in Balmain that sold 'old wares', mainly clothing and knick-knacks. I don't like so-called vintage shopping at the best of times (give me nice, new, clean stuff anytime) and the smell emanating from this shop was abhorrent. Some people like it, but I don't. 

So it was a happy day when they announced that they were CLOSING DOWN! There are lots of 'For Lease' signs in Darling Street, so I didn't hold out much hope for anything decent to open in its place anytime soon. My dream is for a Gloria Jean's coffee shop to open (don't hate me).

Then, signs went up saying that 'Sucre, a new dessert heaven' was opening.

Sucre is a chocolate and dessert shop, sort of like Koko Black and Haigh's, and they serve desserts and coffee, etc . Oh, how we've been suffering withdrawals since the Zumbo cafe closed.

The best thing is that they are open past 6pm (Thu to Sat), which gives us locals time to drop in and pick up dessert. That's what I did, and here's what I got.

They have some fancy cakes in a cabinet, like citron tarts, and this looked to be the best of them. Blueberry Temptation ($6) is blueberry mousse and jelly on a chocolate cake base. The texture was good although the flavour is not very strong. Very pretty, though.

This gorgeous slice is cut from a massive cake. Chocolate Chambord cake ($5) is moist chocolate cake with rich Chambord raspberry liqueur running through it. It has chocolate ganache icing and chocolate shavings on top. I love this cake! It's not too sweet (except the icing) and the raspberry flavour is fantastic. This cake was so good that I went back the day after and got another slice.

They have a wall of packaged sweets such as chilli chocolate, chocolate with chunks of strawberry, white almond roca, jars of Brighton rock, humbugs and other goodies. The prices are high-ish (around $10 for a block of chocolate). I got a 200g bag of honeycomb covered with Belgian chocolate ($10). Sweet but moreish.

So that was my first visit to Sucre. On my second visit, I got talking with the one of the owners, Ian, who runs the store with Judy. They are Balmain locals with a passion for chocolate. He let me try some of their hot chocolate (sugar-free!) which was velvety and smooth, just made for dunking in some beignets. I'll be trying them on my next visit.

Sucre is at 325 Darling St, Balmain, NSW
Website: http://www.sucre.com.au

Cakes! Black Star-Cupcake Factory-Zumbo

While waiting for the new Zumbo cake range to hit the shelves, I did something traitorous different and visited some alternative cakeshops...

Firstly, Black Star Pastry in Newtown:

Black Star Pastry (277 Australia St, Newtown, NSW. Open Tue-Sun 7am-5pm) is a tiny patisserie/cafe with some seating outside on the footpath and a nice selection of cakes, pastries and pies inside the shop. 

The ginger ninja is the famed gingerbread guy that comes with or without a chocolate ninja suit - the countergirl said that the chocolate ninja was better, which is why I got two - neither lasted the trip home, with some damage to the ninja's nether regions being done while waiting at Newtown Station...

The gingerbread ninjas (about $4 each) were sublime, with a soft, almost creamy texture, and a 'just right' hit of ginger.

Also purchased and consumed were two canelles and a little Persian fig cake with quince and pistachios (approx $4).  The canelles (approx $3 each) were only alright, as they were a bit too cooked for my liking.  The Persian cake, on the other hand, tasted as sweetly inviting as it looked. 

Not much later, I ventured into the Cupcake Factory:

This Cupcake Factory outlet is just inside Balmain Mall (298 Darling St, Balmain, NSW), and right next door to the Adriano Zumbo Cafe Chocolat.  I'd imagine it is ideally located to get some of the overflow from the Zumbo cafe though on the times I've walked past, it's been mainly empty.

But how are the cupcakes?  Are we over cupcakes yet?? Not if they're as good as these!

The store is filled with mini cupcakes ($1 each) and normal cupcakes ($3.50 each), on cupcake holders and in a cabinet.  I like the thoughtful tissue-lined carrybox, too.

I bought the strawberry cupcake because its head of strawberry chocolate curls reminded me of Mrs Thurston Howell III's bathing cap.  The caramel cupcake was topped with lovely caramel-flavoured buttercream and a jersey caramel. Both cakes, incidentally, are moist and vanilla-flavoured, which counteracts the sweetness of the icing.

There are lots of other flavours to try, and it's an ideal place to grab a well-priced snack if you couldn't be bothered with the queues at Zumbo's.

Speaking of which, I haven't been backward in sampling the latest Adriano Zumbo (Winter 2010) range.  And here is something to whet your appetite:

This is Mandarin and Rose. 

Others that I've had (and enjoyed very much) are:

Wheelie Woman

Lola

I'll get back to you, Barry

Blackcurrant

Shabalicious

Ginger

Grains

Black Pearl 

Hommus

What a great pear of... (aka Pear Perfection from Junior MasterChef finale)

I will be updating my tumblr site with more Zumbo cakes as I try them. 

Please try and keep up!

Visit to Bacco Wine Bar and Pasticceria - no longer alone

Isn't it strange (or is that ironic) when you don't see someone for years, then you bump into them several times in a matter of weeks?  So it was when I went back to Bacco Wine Bar and Pasticceria in Chifley Plaza - it had been ages since my first (lone) visit, then I ended up there twice in as many weeks.

So what you see here is a combination of the lunches that I had with some friends...

The Bacco Wine Bar is a cafe that is at the back of the foyer of the Chifley building.  It's a dark, inviting space with a preparation area to one side, where fresh pasta is rolled out, and a separate wine 'cellar' that has a door handle shaped like a bunch of grapes.

The menu is Italian, and is split into sections, including Antipasti, Formaggi, Salumi, and Pesci.  You also get bread with olive oil when you order.  On both occasions that I ate there, my friends and I stuck with the Primi pasta dishes (same menu both times).

First visit: The risotto con scampi ($24) was a reasonable serve of creamy risotto in scampi bisque topped with scampi pieces.  Slightly over-salted, but flavoursome, so I'm told. 

I had the gnocchi di rape rose ($23), which was beetroot gnocchi with calamari pieces and broccolini puree.  This was really good, with the small-sized  gnocchi being smooth and beautifully cooked. 

The tortelli di asparagi ($22) was tortelli filled with asparagus puree and fresh ricotta, served with 'montasio fondue', which was a cheese sauce.  My friend was hoping that this wasn't going to be a single tortelli, so was pleased when five fat tortelli arrived on the plate.

A nice touch: the waitstaff place the plates with the Bacco insignia facing the diner.

Second visit: I wanted to have the beetroot gnocchi again, but decided to go with the fettucine al cervo ($22), which was pasta tossed with venison ragu.  While the fettucine and sauce were very good, I found the venison pieces a bit dry.  And while I was eating, I thought I tasted cleaning product - has this ever happened to you? You know, where you get a whiff of fragrance but don't actually taste it?  Strange.

Another strange thing - whenever someone at the table orders dessert, I have to have a dessert, too!  So we had a tiramisu ($12) and the cestino di ricotta alla Siciliana ($12). I was disappointed with my cestino - it was a pastry basket, according to the menu, with 'ricotta, berries and vanilla sauce'.  They must have run out of berries, because it came with a bunch of grapes, so I felt a bit ripped off.  The pastry basket had gone soft sticky so it was hard to snap pieces off it, so I left most of it.  The tiramisu was a much better option.

We also had a variety of coffees - another nice touch is that the ladies' coffees had a heart drawn into the foam...

All up, both meals were good, reasonable value.  The service is friendly and efficient, and you feel like you are being looked after.

On the way out, you have to walk past the Pasticceria, where there is an amazing array of cakes displayed in the glass cabinet.

Being quite satisfied from lunch, I bought some macarons to take away - can't remember what was what although the white one was coconut.  No discernible flavour (except sweet), but they did look good.  The Pasticceria remains a place to ogle the cakes and plan my next visit.  I might take bets on when that will be.

Bacco Wine Bar and Pasticceria is on the ground floor of 2 Chifley Square, Sydney, NSW.  Ph: 02 9223 9552

Visiting and Eating Melbourne - Part 2

Okay, it's Day 2 of my Melbourne sojourn.  Who said Sunday is a day of rest?  Not when there's so much to see and eat!

I had plans to meet fellow blogger Rilsta of My Food Trail for lunch, but unfortunately she was unwell on the day - sorry we couldn't meet up, sweetie, maybe next time.

So instead of Crystal Jade for yum cha, I went to Degraves Street for a typical Sunday brekkie of bacon and eggs.  Degraves Espresso is so quintessentially  Melbourne to me - little zinc-topped  tables in the narrow laneway, with patrons squeezed together for a weekend coffee.  I felt quite part of the crowd there.

Breakfast a la Melbourne - bacon with scrambled eggs on sourdough toast ($14.50); soy mocha (I think they forgot the chocolate, though - couldn't taste any choc at all).

After this, we bought ourselves a Sunday Saver tram ticket (a bargain at $3.10) and caught the tram to St Kilda beach.  There are some art and craft markets there on Sunday, mainly selling handpainted pottery, paintings, dog leashes, and the like - nothing special, if you ask me - so we stepped into Luna Park for a look. It's actually like stepping back in time, with the wooden rollercoaster, ghost train and dodgem cars.  And doesn't the face look like Bert Newton (is it supposed to?)?

Family fun at Luna Park

Then we took a walk along the Esplanade.  There were some rain clouds in the distance, but they stayed away during our leisurely stroll...

...And where did the leisurely stroll lead us to but the cake shops in Acland Street (phew, you think I was going to walk past them??).

These are proper European cakes and pastries, filled with cream and topped with fruit.  A traditionalist's delight!  We bought a wonderfully crisp cannoli filled with custard, a fat vanilla slice and a syrupy kataifi to eat later.

Cakes from Monarch Cakes, Acland Cake Shop and European Cake Shop

There usually aren't many restaurants open on Sunday night, so, again, I hadn't made any bookings, because I was hoping to make an early appearance at Longrain.  I know, the original Longrain is in Sydney, but I've never been to it.  And frankly, I am not a fan of Thai cuisine, given that our local Thai takeaway has horrible food.  But Longrain is in a league of its own, and I'm now a convert.

We arrived before 6pm, so there were heaps of tables available

Here is what we ate:

Betel leaf with smoked trout and prawns ($6.00 each); the famous eggnet filled with prawn, pork, peanuts and beansprouts ($27.50) was incredibly fresh-tasting - nearly every table ordered it

Twice-cooked Lamb salad ($38.00) and caramelised pork hock (half serve, $16).  Both were great, especially the fried crispy pork, which was served with caramelised palm sugar sauce.

Dessert of vanilla tapioca and lychee with coconut biscuit and cacao sorbet ($14.50) - we shared this but I could have had one on my own.  Incredibly good.

This visit to Longrain has made me want to visit the one in Sydney (natch).  It was soooo good, and a really eye-opener for me in terms of what this type of food can be like.  I hesitate to say 'Thai food' because I don't really know what it's like.  I just know I like this, even with the quite expensive prices!

Longrain is at 44 Little Bourke St, Melbourne.  Ph: 03 9671 3151 (no bookings except for large tables).  Open Mon-Sat 6-11pm, Sun 5.30-9pm

Our final full day in Melbourne is coming up next.  Hope you can keep up!

In the beginning, there was Victoire, Balmain

Lately, I've been Frustrated.

The success of Adriano Zumbo's cake creations After MasterChef has meant queues out the door and down the street every weekend. And when you do get to the front of the queue, there are only a couple of 'Tiger' cakes and some macaron crumbs remaining. Denied.

I do need my cake fix, and salvation comes in the form of Victoire. Adriano Zumbo actually worked for Victoire (doing the pastries) before he started his burgeoning empire, and what a fabulous place in which to hone your skills.

While it does not have the exotic, colourful creations of Zumbo, Victoire does provide the breads for Rockpool restaurant, among others, and the bread products are still the mainstay of its business. The walnut loaf is to die for, and I really recommend the levain ficelle if you want a crisp-outside, meltingly-soft-inside bread experience. The 'rustic' loaves are also excellent, being a long thin breadstick with sourdough texture, but 10 times more delicious (especially the olive one).

To relieve my Zumbo withdrawal symptoms this weekend, I got the olive rustic loaf together with a rhubarb tart and an apple tart.

The apple tart has apple puree topped with thin slices of apple in a shortcrust shell.
The rhubarb tart contains silky soft red rhubarb underneath a top that is sprinkled with sugar.
Both are divine!

Victoire is located in Darling St, Balmain. It is diagonally opposite the Zumbo shop. So check it out next time you're in the vicinity (though I hope that Zumbo also has what you are after!).

Le Pain Quotidien - a Zumbo backup

Not a good Saturday for me, as I didn't manage to get to Adriano Zumbo's patisserie. Probably just as well, as by all accounts, all cakes were sold out by mid-morning.
But good on him for the chocolate mousse cake @MasterChefAu auction that raised over $1000 for Westmead Children's Hospital!

I did find an alternative, though. Check out this Chocolate Espresso Tart from Le Pain Quotidien. The Bondi Junction branch of this bread chain has some delicious-looking tarts, jams, spreads (including Belgian Praline!), and breads, of course.

This tart is crumbly shortcrust filled with bitter coffee and chocolate ganache. It's brilliant, and a most suitable runner-up when Zumbo is all gorn.

My lone visit to Bacco Pasticceria

Bacco Pasticceria is located in the foyer of Chifley Plaza (cnr Elizabeth St and Hunter St in Sydney CBD). So amidst shopping at the swish shops there, you can fortify yourself with a coffee and cake at this Italian-inspired café. And, as there’s an office tower above, you can line up with the office workers for the privilege.

Bacco has been open for a while, but I was prompted to visit only when I bumped into some work colleagues, each carrying one of its cake boxes. “Ooh, what have you got in there? Where did you get them? Why didn’t you ask me to come with?”. After being bombarded with questions like this, they were probably glad they didn’t ask me along to what was a spur of the moment visit (so they said). I immediately made a beeline (alone) for the Chifley building.

There is a wine bar alongside the café that serves food and drink and is very popular at lunchtimes and after work. The café is staffed by a little team of baristas who churn out the lattes and dish out the cakes. The selection of cakes is impressive – lots of cream-based gateaux and some macarons.

I ended up with a ‘Zuppe Anglais’ (shouldn’t that be 'zuppa Inglese'?) which was layers of orange jelly, strawberries, sponge and sweetened cream in a plastic cup. Tastes better than it sounds. It was moist and flavoursome and just enough to push me through an afternoon’s workload.

I also got two macarons (strawberry with caramel ganache, and blue with chilli chocolate ganache). These definitely tasted better than their lopsided shapes suggest. The chilli chocolate was a surprise and a nice one, too.


There’s plenty more where these came from, so I’m going to plan a weekly visit to try the different offerings. And maybe my colleagues can be convinced to come along – if they’re lucky, haha!

Guess the Macaron (maker)

Here is a quick quiz:

Look at the picture of macarons below. Who are they created by?
a) Donna Hay
b) Adriano Zumbo
c) Someone with a vivid imagination and tastebuds
d) Don't know


Here is another look...

Have you worked it out yet?

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Answers are:

Donna Hay's are traditional but yummy. Adriano Zumbo's are...Zumbo. The salt and vinegar macaron is 'interesting' to say the least. And answers b) and c) are interchangeable. How did you do?

Scoring:
4 correct - You should be on MasterChef. Have a macaron as a reward!
3 correct - Getting there. Must eat more macarons.
2 correct - You need to get out more. And eat more macarons.
0-1 correct - You're not trying hard enough. You don't deserve macarons...oh, alright, you can have one...

A weekend of cake (so what's new?)

The new Zumbo chocolate café is due to open 11 October, according to the signs in the cake shop window. Can’t hardly wait!

In the meantime, here’s a ‘Boom!’. Not quite ‘da bomb’, but an explosive mix of meringue and white chocolate crust, passionfruit mousse, and rhubarb and strawberry jelly. I love these fruit-infused creations.

The weather this weekend was a perfect taste of summer (even though it’s spring). So perfect that we caught the ferry to Circular Quay and played at being tourists (‘ooh look, there’s the Bridge, take a photo of me in front of it! Ooh look, there’s the opera house, take a photo of me in front of it! Ooh look, there’s a seagull. Eeewww!’).
Also paid a visit to La Renaissance patisserie in Argyle St in the Rocks. The cakes looked a bit traditional compared to Zumbo’s, but the macaron flavours included rose, vanilla, jasmine and chocolate. Here are the rose and jasmine.

The rose was pleasantly rose-scented, but the buttercream filling was strangely stiff. The Jasmine did not really have any flavour except of eggwhites and sugar, and the macaron itself was a bit hard. Pretty, but no cigar… However, I highly recommend Nougat Limar (stall at the Rocks Market), a soft, creamy nougat chock full of cherry, cranberry and pistachio.

yummy biscuits (not Zumbo!)

The Hawkesbury Harvest Farmers/City of Sydney markets are a new food and produce market on the local food scene. The markets are held 10am-3pm every Friday in the forecourt of St Mary’s Cathedral. I would have visited sooner, but last Friday was the first Friday since the markets started that wasn’t windy, rainy, squally and stormy.

So, I popped along at lunch time and who should be there but the sweet chocolatesuze, at her Biscuit Tree stall.
I got a selection of goodies, and I tell you what, it’s all I can do to not eat them all at once. The shortbread is incredibly buttery (gorgeous!), and the biscotti are wafer thin, crisp and very classy. Race you there next week!

Don’t try to say it, just point to it

Just try to pronounce ‘sfogliadelle’ through a mouthful of the said pastry. Suh-fog-leeah-dell-a. It’s not that hard to say, but it’s pretty hard to chew. Sfogliadelle is a pastry that looks like a clamshell, and it’s made from pasta sheets, which gives it some ‘tooth’ (just be careful not to break a molar on it). The filling is orangey custard with bits of orange peel. I’m not a fan of citrus, so for me, I’d stick with the zuccerati for now.

Viva Zuccerati

And to prove that I am happy to play the field when it comes to desserts, here is one of my favorite weekend treats. It is a zuccerati from Bertoni Casalinga (Balmain), which is basically an Italian donut filled with either ricotta or custard. Deliziosa Zuccerati (sorry, I can’t do the accent).

…Mambo Italiano

Bertoni Casalinga is just across the road from Adriano Zumbo, but a world away when it comes to coffee culture and noisy bustle. Bertoni has customers at a big wooden table inside and spilling onto the footpath outside, on milk crates .
The food is also different, with lots of mama’s homemade meatballs, pasta, and a fantastic orzo salad.
Sitting on the counter today were Italian donuts, just like ‘normal’ ones, but double the size and with no hole. Had one split, spread with Nutella and toasted. Results below.