Wednesday 30 January 2008

white wine poussin with grapefruit salad


The bird was sitting in white wine, lemon zest and lots of herbs for a couple of days in the fridge. I grilled it covered with foil (so it would cook through) and turned it a few times to get the skin crispy.


The dressing for this salad is cream based with grapefruit juice and herbs (no garlic).
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grilled prawns with butternut


Obviously these are the tiger prawns I was referring to in the earlier post, they're on sticks of rosemary and grilled. The butternut pumpkin is the more interesting element. I first chopped it into tiny pieces using the mandolin, fried them until they were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Then I shaped it into a ball and crusted it in the oven. Quite amazing.
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Sunday 27 January 2008

thyme snapper with tomato and olive tapenade


Again, I need to write this out before I forget what it is that I did. Today is the first day of eight that I'm home alone and I'm devoting all my moments of solitute to food and drink. I went to the South Melbourne market earlier today and bought a rib-eye (bone-in), snapper fillet, poussin, tiger prawns and a whole lot of roots, fresh vegetables and herbs. I have the now peeled and deveined prawns marinading in white wine, lemon thyme, garlic and parsley. In the meantime I washed, scored and removed the bones from the snapper, letting it sit to warm up a bit from the two degree fridge.


Then I peeled, deseeded and diced three tomatoes. Crushed one clove of garlic and mixed in previously prepared olive tapenade with newly added and freshly chopped corriander leaves, olive oil, lemon thyme, lime and pepper. I chopped up fresh thyme and finely diced a shallot. I gently placed the snapper in a pan with hot butter and olive oil and pushed the shallots and thyme into the pan to the sides of the fish once the skin on it started to crisp. I then spooned the shallots, thyme and hot butter/olive oil mixture over the fish while it all cooked. Once it was done I let the fish sit a bit and placed it on top of rocket and added a small piece of snow pea leaves.


Finally, I spooned some of the tomato mixture (which had been sitting in the fridge) over the top of the fish.


I harbour the thought of some top chef or trained chef in the making landing on this blog for some obscure reason. I imagine them laughing because I don't know the slightest thing about presenting the food well and obviously all my techniques come from my imagination and are not refined due to my lack of time. I take a mouthful of rocket, perfectly cooked snapper, tomato, olive and everything else thinking to myself, laugh away because this tastes absolutely marvellous. Maybe some capers too next time.
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Saturday 26 January 2008

eggs to die for


there are many pictures backed up, waiting to be uploaded, however, I just couldn't resist with these eggs (and also feared forgetting what I did with them)... the picture above shows two eggs lightly fried in grapeseed oil spooned over to whiten them, dropped on toasted soft white bread drizzled with olive oil and truffle infused oil then garnished with freshly cracked pepper, chives and spinach... I had these eggs yesterday and they amazingly good...

today, they were even better... I took away the chives and instead made a tomato dressing... I skinned and deseeded the tomatoes, diced them, then lightly cooked them in swiss brown mushroom butter made the other day, brown sugar and freshly chopped oregano... these may very well have been the best eggs I've ever made
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