Simply Gnocchi

Posted on 16 March 2012 by sheg4184

Grappa’s in Greenbelt 3 is my favourite Italian restaurant in Metro Manila.

Grappa’s originated in Hong Kong, and now has a very attractive second home in Makati. It is spacious without that canteen quality, and the service is excellent: we always get an enthusiastic welcome from all the staff as if we were old friends. A small dish of olive oil and vinegar is immediately brought to the table with a choice of herb, tomato or plain freshly baked rolls. We happily dip and nibble as we choose from an extensive menu. The best spot for a quiet tête a tête is up on the balcony overlooking the park.

Before I go any further, I have a confession to make. To write a professional and properly objective restaurant review it is necessary to make a number of visits and sample a wide variety of dishes on the menu. And therein lies my problem – I have yet order anything but the gnocchi. Melt-in-the-mouth gnocchi with a sinfully creamy sauce laced with tomato oil and a surprising layer of pesto waiting beneath. For me, it is main course and dessert in one.

So instead of a restaurant review, here I am, to introduce you to the simple gnocchi, this delicacy of classic Italian cuisine.

Gnocchi (nyoh-kee) is often mispronounced, and there is also some debate over the origin of the word. The singular form of this noun is gnoccho, which means dumpling, but is also slang for dunce. Some also suggest the word is derived from the word nocchio (a knot in wood) or nocca (knuckle).

There were also many contradictory opinions when I started looking into the history of this simple dish.

Some say a semolina based gnocchi was introduced by the Romans, who spread the word across the Roman empire. Eventually each country went on to develop its own type of small dumplings, with the ancient Roman gnocchi as their common ancestor.

Others say it is more likely to have arrived with the Arabs when they invaded Sicily in the ninth century. The Arabs kept control for 200 years and significantly influenced the local cuisine by introducing North African and Middle Eastern flavours, most notably pasta.

Another thought is that gnocchi originated in mediaeval Lombardy, a dish devised for the pre-Lenten carnival celebrations that soon became a staple festival food. In Ravenna, it was the custom to serve gnocchi when celebrating the birth of a son.

Pasta means dough made of flour and water, so gnocchi is part of the pasta family. Before potatoes were introduced into Europe until the sixteenth century, gnocchi was made from semolina. This is coarse wheat bran used for making pasta, puddings and breakfast cereals.

Gnocchi can be made from a variety of ingredients. Apart from semoloina and the commonly known potato gnocchi, pumpkin, beetroot, maize or chestnut flour are also used. They may then be flavored with spinach, saffron, and even truffles. They are boiled in water or broth and, like pasta, they can be decorated with many sauces such as pesto, tomato, butter, and cheese. In some regions they even come sweet, stuffed with dried plums or plain chocolate.

Like many Italian dishes, there are a huge variety of shapes, sizes and ingredients across different regions, not to mention the rivalry for the best gnocchi!

The Tuscan malfatti, for example are gnocchi made from flour, ricotta, and chopped spinach (malfatti means badly made!) In Trentino, the gnocchi are smaller, made with spuds and beetroot, and sprinkled with poppy seeds. Semolina gnocchi from Rome is topped with cheese and baked, and the gnocchi gnudi (naked gnocchi) from Tuscany, is made with ricotta cheese and spinach. One dish popular in the north east is gnocchi di pane (literally ‘bread lumps’), made from breadcrumbs. Sardinia’s malloreddus look like small ribbed shells. They are seasoned with saffron and served with tomato sauce, spicy sausage and feta cheese.

Gnocchi is also a very popular dish on the Dalmatian coast of Croatia, where the Italians resided for generations. Here gnocchi is typically served as a first course or a side dish with beef stew. There is also a French dish known as gnocchis à la parisienne, in which the gnocchi are made from choux pastry and served with Bechamel sauce.
A dish of gnocchi is a particularly popular prima piatta (first course) in northern and central Italy, but it can be heavy, bland, rubbery lumps of dumpling if not made properly. So here are some tips:

A fellow blogger warns that making gnocchi is not for the faint-hearted, as so many things can go awry.  At worst, gnocchi can become dense and soggy or just disintegrate in the boiling water. Making gnocchi apparently takes plenty of practice, patience and persistence.

When making gnocchi from potatoes, floury red potatoes are best, and the spuds must be as dry as possible or the gnocchi will be too stodgy. So bake them in their skins instead of boiling them. Beware of adding too much flour, or the gnocchi will become turgid and leaden.

Connoisseurs say that gnocchi should be soft and light: a plate of perfect potato pillows, best served au naturel with butter and parmesan. Others prefer accessorizing, and like a rich red sauce to go with it. Either way, each gnoccho should be grooved to better absorb the butter or sauce.

So, now my mouth is watering, how to find an excuse for a trip to Italy in May,when I hear there’s a 500 year old carnival in Verona celebrating the gnocchi…

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The Lane Vineyard: an afternoon to savour

Posted on 9 March 2012 by sheg4184

High above Adelaide, in the once dry yellow paddocks behind Hahndorf, The Lane Vineyard Restaurant perches like an eyrie above rolling hills now blanketed in lush velvety green vines. A huge panoramic view lies before us as we stand on the deck, crowned with a vast expanse of blue sky. A small dam nestles in the crooked elbow of two adjoining hills, and single white gum trees stand like sentinels across the landscape.

I have visited this sublime spot before, but my parents have not, and they are satisfyingly delighted with the outlook. The breeze is fresh and warm. Behind us there is a muted clatter of cutlery and clink of glass as waiters set the tables for lunch. We choose one with a good view, although no table has a bad view here, and wander up to the bar for a preliminary wine tasting.

The Edwards family has been farming this sumptuous land on Ravenswood Lane since discovering the plot in 1992. Once a potato farm, the gravelly soil now nurtures every grape used in their single vineyard wines, of which they produce an enormous variety: Sauvignon Blanc,Pinot Gris and Gewurtztraminer, Chardonnay and Viognier; Merlot, Shiraz, and Cabernet Sauvignon, not to mention the blends. Knowing we must drive back down the freeway at some stage this afternoon, we bravely resist the temptation of trying every wine on the list. My parents prefer red and finally settle on a glass of the peppery Shiraz Viognier to have with lunch, once we have practiced pronouncing it properly. “ Vee-on-yee-aye”. I flirt with the whites: a Pinot Gris, a Viognier, an unwooded Chardy, but the gleefully lay claim  to a semi-wooded Chardonnay that is pure heaven.

Properly armed with wine and warm bread rolls to dip in Spanish olive oil, we settle down to inspect the menu. It is no more  pretentious than many an Australian bistro menu these days (‘Hand dived Kangaroo Island wild scallops’?), but I have to admit, a pinch of pretension adds a significant amount of flavour to this indulgent afternoon.

Skipping over the tallegio and chive suppli and the beef tartare with pommes gaufrettes (the cheese balls and the raw beef with waffles), we agree to share a bowl of spiced fried whitebait and lemon aioli, and they are delectable. There are more than enough for three and the whitebait is perfectly crispy. Our lovely hostess explains that they are crumbed and spiced with coriander as cumin and we crunch appreciatively.

These were almost hors d’oeuvres or ‘tastes’ and the entrees sound equally good, but we soon realize that we won’t have room for everything. So we move onto the main course, leaving those wild scallops, gnocchi with shiitake mushrooms and a foie gras terrine for another day.

I regret not trying the lamb, pea and tarragon risotto, but I pride myself on a certain talent for risotto and refuse to be upstaged. Instead I choose a light, tasty Vietnamese seafood curry of King prawns and barramundi fillets, accompanied by deliciously dainty cubes of friend eggplant and a sauce that resembles a Thai green curry sauce. It is just the right choice for a warm summer afternoon. My father thinks so too. My mother decides on the Parmesan custard with  beef fillet, asparagus (white when in season) and tiny burnt onions.  Our hostess tips her that it is best cooked medium rare and she is spot on. There is a peaceful silence as we all concentrate on our plates. We are also encouraged to try the zucchini, mozzarella, mint and chili salad. My parents enthuse, but I find it a little bland, and long to liven it up with a dash of green mango.   Nonetheless we all but lick our plates clean.

Desserts are sorely tempting, but we are full to the gills and luxuriate with the last of the wine.  However, the offer of petits fours with our coffee is irresistible. A dish containing two small macaroons (coffee and pistachio), two tiny lemon curd tarts, incredibly sweet cubes of caramel fudge and a mini blueberry muffin, nonetheless divisible by three, eventually joins us and our coffees at the table, but not for long. I think we just inhaled.

We leave reluctantly, wondering what excuse we can use to come back again soon. The hostess, the sommelier, even the new trainee, nervous but smiling, already feel like old friends. And I would very much like to get better acquainted with the chef.

The Lane Bistro is open for lunch seven days a week. Visit their website on www.thelane.com.au and as the brochure says, you can also find the site on Google Earth for a sneak preview – although it will never be as good as the real thing!

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L’Affinage: the Latest Fashion in Cheesemaking

Posted on 5 March 2012 by sheg4184

By pure coincidence I was quizzing the staff at ‘Smelly Cheese’ in the Adelaide Central Market when the invitation arrived. Did I fancy going to a wine and cheese event, sponsored by Smelly Cheese? Did I? Of course! By 6.30pm I was ensconced in the Max Schubert Room at Penfold’s Winery, Magill, the wine cellar for the Magill Estate Restaurant.

Penfold’s is one of Adelaide’s oldest wineries, established in 1844 by Christopher & Mary Penfold at the foot of the Adelaide Hills. Today it is a delightful surprise to find such an expanse of vines stretching out amongst the eastern suburbs, and the view from the terrace is stunning, particularly at night, when the twinkling lights stretch to the sea.

Tonight, the cellar is set up with a runway of linen-covered table, already filling up with journalists and local cheese makers, keen to make the acquaintance of Frenchman Hervé Mons, visiting Fromager and Affineur. These terms were new to me, and perhaps you need some explanation too.

‘L’affinage’ is not a new craft, but it has become the latest trend in cheese making, following the boom in artisan cheeses and regional cheese  making. L’affinage is the aging period of a cheese, during which the cheese is brushed-and-scrubbed-and-washed-and-turned-and-turned-again until it has the perfect taste, texture and colour.

An affineur is an expert in the art of affinage or maturing cheese. Hervé Mons is a top artisan in this field, a third generation affineur who was awarded ‘Meilleur Ouvrier de France’ in 2000. Mons travels all over France looking for traditional cheese makers and showing them how to get the best out of their cheeses.

Mons has recently created his own rather extraordinary maturing cellar in an old railway tunnel, where he stores and nurtures nearly 100 tons of cheese.

Tonight Hervé Mons has brought along some of his finest cheeses to share with us, to be accompanied by some well-matched Penfolds wines. Our glasses are standing at the ready, the cheese platters are lying temptingly in front of our noses and our cheese knives are poised. So let the show begin.

We begin with a Hervé Mons’ Camembert, a cow’s milk cheese from Normandy, approximately 6 weeks old. To accompany it: a Penfold’s Cellar Reserve Chardonnay.

Mons describes his cheeses and his methods in French, and has a translator to hand with those of us (most of us) who are not so fluent in French as to understand cheese making technicalities in a foreign language. While he claims he doesn’t like to talk too much, as his cheeses have more to say than he does, the females in the audience are happy to listen to the purr of his o-so-charming French accent for as long as he likes.

OK, back to the cheese…

It is a rich, creamy Camembert, soft and ripe with a slightly chalky centre and a furry, mushroom-scented rind. My neighbor assures me it will reach perfection in about 4 weeks. The Chardonnay provides a refreshing, acidic balance that rounds out the flavour, and makes it hard not to keep reaching for another piece until the wine runs out.

The second cheese is a new model: a pasteurized sheep’s milk cheese with a washed rind from the Pyrenees. Hervé Mons’ St. Saveur has a strong nutty flavour and is served well by both a bone dry 51 Eden Valley Riesling and a Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon. Take your pick!

After sipping on several wines and enthusiastically enjoying the soft cheeses, we move onto a couple of firmer cheeses. However, in the muddle of heavy French accent and eager translator, (it’s nothing to do with the wine) I have missed the explanation that there are different age groups of these next two cheeses. It takes me a while to sort myself out, but eventually I realize that there are two different samples of the Ossau Iraty AOC, of two different ages that we are supposed to compare and contrast. Mmmm… I think… try another piece? Some more Cellar Reserve Pinot Gris? If you insist…

This firmer cheese is surprisingly moist and buttery against the roof of my mouth, with undertones of a sweet nuttiness. The younger version is slightly softer, and will become harder with longer maturation. Aged for up to 8 months in the railway tunnel, it combines fresh ewe’s milk from two regions of France in the West Pyrenees.

Hervé Mons’ Comté AOC is a mouthwatering, gloriously nutty and creamy cheese with a lingering finish. I am not surprised to read it is France’s most popular cheese, and wonder if anyone has noticed me gobbling up a third, fourth, and fifth piece. Mons provides us with three different stages of maturity: young, middle aged and old, the cheese growing stronger, more complex, more aromatic, grainier and to my taste more delicious as it ages.

Sitting at a table of experts, I learned a lot about making, maturing and tasting cheese and failed to comprehend a whole lot more. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to these talented cheese makers and connoisseurs holding forth in a language akin to wine jargon, as they described the tastes and textures, whys and wherefores of the cheeses we were sampling. I have tried to reproduce it intelligently here, but excuse the amateur cheese lover if I sometimes fall a little short in my fluency in this new language!

So, the grand finale has arrived: a deeply green-veined Roquefort AOC made from raw sheep’s milk and aged between six and nine months. Originating in the south of France, only those cheeses which have been aged for three months in the Combalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may take the name Roquefort. Hervé Mons then transfers this cheese to his own caves for further maturation.  This fine cheese is white and crumbly, with a sweet, slightly smoky flavour, and a salty finish. And of course showing off those distinctive veins of mould.

The recipe for Roquefort is apparently over 1500 years old. Legend tells of a young man picnicking on a lunch of bread and cheese, who is distracted by the sight of a beautiful girl passing by. Abandoning his meal in a nearby cave, he runs off to find her. Returning some time later, the mould (Penicillium roqueforti) had magically transformed his plain cheese into Roquefort.

Roquefort is best eaten with a tawny port, and Penfolds did us proud by presenting us with a glass of 25 year old Grandfather Tawny Port. Mons described it as the quintessential wine and cheese pairing, or as our winemaker put it rather more succinctly in passing: “it’s a bloody good match!”

Here’s to that!

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The Rising Sun Inn

Posted on 1 March 2012 by sheg4184

Tucked beneath a canopy of leafy green trees, the Rising Sun Inn has nestled into this suburban Kensington side-street for almost 170 years, and this small bluestone cottage with lead glass windows, open fireplaces, a small, intimate bar and a selection of cosy private and public dining rooms is now heritage listed.

The Rising Sun Inn was built in 1848 as an ale house with a “tap room” run by William Beck, a notable figure in early Kensington. In 1849 Beck began the first passenger cart service from the village of Kensington to the city of Adelaide.

In 1868, the inn was purchased by brewer and businessman Sir Edwin Smith who added the bluestone façade and a parapet. The Inn closed in 1883 when Smith transferred the licence to the “new” Rising Sun Hotel, a two story structure that cups the corner of Bridge Street and High Street. The original inn then became a private residence until 1951, when a Mr. Tilbrook began to manufacture motor cycles on the premises.

In 1983, a century after it had closed its doors as a hostelry, the building was at last restored to its original identity and recommenced trading as an inn and restaurant.

I first visited this beautiful old inn almost twenty five years ago, but while it has changed hands and menus over the years, this little gem continues to delight. The ambiance is warm and soothing, the dining room discreet and charming, the waitresses welcoming and knowledgeable, happy to pause for a chat, but discreet enough to know when to leave customers in peace. The menu changes regularly, but has never disappointed, with its emphasis on contemporary Australian cuisine with a Mediterranean twist. Both the wine list and the menu showcase some of the best wine and produce South Australia has to offer.

Celebrating our birthdays with one of my oldest friends, The Rising Sun was the perfect choice for a soothing and self-indulgent evening. I began with a lovely glass of Rockford’s Alicante Bouchet to set the mood, my friend with her usual vodka, lime and soda. We studied the menu eagerly.

The mezze platter was a delightful beginning, and we put chatter aside to concentrate on this special treat. ‘Roasted pork belly, sour cherry gel, pickled cumquat and apple star anise foam’ we read, as our mouths watered. This was presented as a delicious cube of firm, moist pork with a thick crust of crispy crackling, perfectly escorted by the fruity tartness of the cherry gel.

‘Peking duck pies with lime sambal’ in fact looked more like mini puff pastry pasties. These were filled with rich roasted duck, no less stunning to the taste buds for the misnomer.

Seared scallops, brioche and bacon crumbs, walnuts and horseradish cream divided us. Elspeth loved them, but I found myself craving the simplicity of a Sydney scallop with no adornment

We agreed, however, on the garlic bread. Beautifully toasted and infused with roasted garlic and smoked cheddar –  a whisper of flavour – this was unexpectedly moreish. No girlish dicretion here. We ate the lot.

Last but not least, a thick slice of fresh, flavourful tuna carpaccio, that nonetheless necessitated a quick squeeze of lime juice stolen from the lime floating in Elspeth’s vodka!

Faced with a daunting selection of main courses, ranging from rabbit and mushroom pie, seafood pappardelle, to slow cooked venison, we both chose the irresistible char grilled rack of lamb, twice cooked neck in an orange and red wine reduction. Totally overdoing it, as usual, we ordered two side dishes: a salad of roasted beetroot, goats cheese, toasted walnut and rocket; and crisp green beans in butter with flaked almonds. All washed down with a lovely Grenache Shiraz blend from Barossa Valley: The Willows G7.

We were on a roll, and not prepared to overlook dessert. So a creamy, delicately flavoured white peach, saffron and cardamom crème brulée (mine), and a pungent Frangelico affogato (espresso, ice cream and liqueur) completed the meal and forced us to stagger home, swearing we would not eat for a week.

It was not exactly a cheap night out but it was a truly memorable birthday treat and worth every cent.

The Rising Sun is open for lunch and dinner, noon to 11.30pm Monday to Saturday. (Closed Sun Xmas Day & Good Friday).

Licensed, BYO, Corkage $7.50 bottle
Chef & Owner: Tom Savis

60 Bridge Street, Kensington SA 5268

Tel : +61 8 8333 0721

 

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A Treasure Trove of Dickens’ Women

Posted on 26 February 2012 by sheg4184

The Adelaide Festival Centre (a ‘mini-me Sydney Opera House) was completed in 1973, three months before the iconic Opera House opened in New South Wales. Lying on the banks of the River Torrens, the Festival Centre consists of three main venues: the Festival Theatre; the rechristened Dunstan Playhouse, and the Space, as well as an outdoor amphitheatre.

Back in the 1980s, the State Theatre Company offered special student passes to Playhouse productions. Throughout my university years, I immersed myself in Williamson and Lawler, Ibsen and Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett and Tennessee Williams, all for $5 a show. The best birthday present my parents ever gave me is to this day a year’s subscription to the State Theatre Company productions. Sadly, I am no longer allowed in for a mere $5, but when my trip to Adelaide coincided with Miriam Margolyes’ arrival, I wasn’t going to miss out, whatever the cost.

Margolyes is a surprise from start to finish. An English, Jewish, vertically challenged, and rather stout actress of seventy, she is tucked snugly behind a table signing copies of her book, a veritable Mrs. Tiggywinkle, with a voice like thunder.

‘Come and buy my book,’ she bellows, ‘only $20. And I’ll sign it!’

So I was hardly surprised to read this quote in an interview with Laura Barnett: ‘The worst thing would be if somebody said I was inaudible. Reach your audience’s ears – only then can you reach their hearts.’

And the pint-sized Ms. Margolyes reached both our ears and our hearts quite effortlessly.  For two hours, with enormous stage presence, she kept our bottoms glued to our seats and our eyes glued to her diminutive and decidedly cubic figure that so perfectly embodied Dickens’ many characters in this one woman show of impressive magnitude and skill.

Educated at Cambridge, where she read English Literature, Margolyes went on to research and write ‘Dickens’ Women’ for the 1969 Edinburgh Festival. Since then she has appeared in Black Adder with Rowan Atkinson, as Aunt Sponge in James & the Giant Peach, as Nursie in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, and as Professor Sprout in Harry Potter, to mention just a handful of her achievements. She performed Dickens’ Women to sell-out shows in Australia in 2007, and returns this year as part of a world tour to celebrate the bicentenary of Dickens’ birth.

And it is simply brilliant. Mixing performance, readings and informative chat, Margolyes brings to life the inimitable works of Charles Dickens, the women who influenced his life and his writing and, in particular, a wide range of his female characters.

I did wonder if I should have re-read a Dickens novel or two before I arrived at the Playhouse, but I needn’t have worried. Whether or not the audience was familiar with every character mattered not a jot. For those who were intimately acquainted, I am sure it was a wonderfully nostalgic journey through the best of Dickens’ women. For newcomers, Margolyes provides an inspiring and entertaining introduction that leaves you keen to dash off to the library for copies of everything.  Pottering about on a stage she shared with three chairs and a lectern, a grand piano and an unassuming pianist, she dipped out of one character and into another with barely a ripple.

The production begins with the portrayal of Mrs. Gamp from Martin Chuzzlewit, the character that first inspired Margolyes to consider a theatrical presentation of Dickens. Dickens describes Mrs. Gamp as a ‘fat, old woman… with very little neck’  an ‘unfortunate’ physical flaw Margolyes was aware she shared, but appreciated it might help her bring Mrs. Gamp to life on the stage.

From broad Cockney to upper crust Cambridge, she swept us along through the quirks of the English class system with her vivid portrayals of characters such as the ‘peony’ Flora Finching from Little Dorritt and the dwarf manicurist and hairdresser Miss Mowcher from David Copperfield, not to mention Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble from Oliver Twist, when she spent five minutes flirting with herself to the audience’s enormous delight.

In between these vivid portrayals of Dickens female characters, we are introduced to his less-than-pristine life behind the scenes: his cruelty to his wife of twenty one years, Catherine Dickens, his ‘pathological attachment’ to his sisters-in-law, and his wildly passionate love for a number of beautiful young women. In extraordinary juxtaposition to his narcissistic, bullying behaviour Dickens exhibits an empathy with the underbelly of humanity that is both astounding and unique.

Margoyles comments in her introduction that in this, his bicentenary year, ‘his writing, full of social observation and fierce criticism, remains as relevant as ever.’ Margolyes is keen to share her long-standing passion for this misogynistic but brilliant writer with her audience, which she does with immense care and understanding. And one cannot help feeling that she would have made a memorable Dickens woman herself.

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Diamond in the Rough

Posted on 23 February 2012 by sheg4184

It has become a tradition, whenever we are in Adelaide, to spend Tuesday mornings at the Central Market with my aunt, my cousin and her two small daughters. Together we wander through the alleys lined with greengrocers, gourmet cheeses and every ‘Fine Food’ imaginable, ending up at Lucia’s for a caffe latte and a babycino for the girls.

I rediscovered the market only a handful of years ago. My younger son and I had developed a passion for The Cook & The Chef, an ABC cooking show out of the Barossa Valley in South Australia, that featured the bizarre pairing of local celebrity cook and restaurateur Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant, a chef in black leather and chains from the UK, then working at the Hilton Hotel in Adelaide.

We were the archetypal armchair chefs, wallowing in the glory of observing someone else achieve miracles in the kitchen. Then, one day, Simon wandered out of the Hilton kitchens and into the Adelaide Central Market to search for cheese. Our son was instantly riveted.

‘Mum! Where’s that?” he asked in awed tones.

In fact, the market is only ten minutes from his grandparents’ house, but during all our visits to South Australia I had never thought to take him there. So the next time we popped in, we made a point of driving into the city to explore. Walking in from Gouger Street, Fergus was transfixed by the scents permeating the air: coffee, roasting nuts, freshly baked bread.

Since that day, a visit to the market has become a regular feature of trips home, following the now three year old Audrey whose hands are permanently raised for small snacks of fruit and cheese, a baby bird with beak wide open to be fed, as she has done every week since she travelled the aisles in a papoose.

The Adelaide Central Market has been around for generations. It evolved from a gathering of market gardeners who first meet to sell their produce at 3am on Saturday 23rd January 1869, at a spot between Gouger and Grote Street. Over five hundred people showed up that day and all stock had sold out by 6.00am. The rest is history.

Today there are more than eighty stalls selling multicultural cuisine and fresh produce five days a week, from Tuesday to Saturday, under the arched roof of this nineteenth century market building. We wander in leisurely fashion past colourful displays of fruit and vegetables, cakes and chocolates, nuts and dried fruit, coffee beans and cheeses. There are a number of fruits, once unknown in Adelaide, that I know from the tropics: dragon fruits, mangoes, pineapples lying beside the stone fruit of my childhood: apricots, peaches, nectarines and cherries.

Greek migrant Steve Zaharis opened a fruit and vegetable stall in the Central Market in 1977. Steve provides fresh produce which is not perfectly shaped and comes in odd sizes, or contains slight skin blemishes, but he sells it at bargain prices. The days of the dollar box may have passed on (a highlight in my husband’s student life) but there are always bargains to be found. And yes, for those of you familiar with 80s Australian comedian, Mark Mitchell,  there really is a Con’s Fruit & Veg!

Mushroom Man’s Mushroom Shop stocks locally grown mushrooms and exotic truffle oils and salts he makes himself from Tasmanian truffles. And there are several cheese stalls to choose from, including Smelly Cheese, boasting locally made cheeses such as a Limestone Coast cloth cheddar and an unusual chili pecorino, as well as French blues, Victorian bries and Tasmanian Tilsits.

Bakeries include Doyley’s Patisserie, Baker’s Tray and Dough, where we found a tasty selection of freshly baked sour dough breads flavoured with walnuts, Kalamata olives, fig and fennel, soy and linseed, or sunflower seed amongst the baguettes, french pastries, sweet and savoury muffins, tarts and friandes.

Butchers, such as Barossa Fine Foods and Feast @the Market sell all the usual non-vegetarian fare: steaks, lamb chops, kebabs and chicken breasts. Look out for the amazing wild game stall, Wild OZ, where we found the most delicious marinated kangaroo fillets lined up beside crocodile steaks, buffalo, venison, camel, goat and ostrich.

Charlesworth Nuts arrived in the Adelaide market in 1934 and is now a third generation family business. Customers are lured in – as we were – by the daily smell of roasting nuts, to try the “Best and Freshest Nuts, Dried Fruits and chocolates in Australia”.

For those with a sweet tooth, The Old Lolly Shop, originally Blackeby’s Sweets, has been based in the market since 1906, and they still manufacture many of their sweets at their Mile End factory. Hagues have a small shop at the Victoria Square end of the market, and a chocolate fountain resides at the western end.

Also at the west end of the market, a modern mall containing specialty shops full of trinkets and souvenirs and an Asian supermarket provides a segueway into Chinatown, with its ever-present archway.

Dodging shopping bags on wheels and prams, infants, the elderly, young parents and the middle aged, there is no fixed demographic at the Adelaide market. It is enjoyed by all and sundry. Stallholders are a really mixed bag too – but I am delighted to find the archetypal Italian grocer still loudly and enthusiastically spruiking his wares outside the Seven Brothers Green Grocers.

Maggie at Cocos passes small Audrey a bag of odd grapes and a piece of banana. One friendly stallholder offered us a selection of ready-made salads and antipasti, as we shared notes on variations of pepperonata. Another spent some time taking me through the various fresh cheeses and the differences between them. Haloumi, ricotta and feta: would I prefer Danish, Australian or Greek? Sheep, goat’s or cow’s milk? Of course I always come away with twice as many bags as I need and get teased by my parents for over-indulging.

The Adelaide Market is always a joyous experience. Bright, bustling and heavenly scented, it is a hive of activity. And for the true food enthusiast, a website provides information on butchery classes, cooking classes, foodie tours and music events. Go forth and savour.

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Adelaide’s Own Willy Wonka

Posted on 20 February 2012 by sheg4184

‘It is well-established that humans have an innate preference for sweetness and every culture has some sweet food source.” So says food historian Allison James. For many, that source of sweetness is confectionary or, more specifically, chocolate.

I don’t have a very sweet tooth, but I do love good quality truffles, so when I heard about Haigh’s factory tours, I was determined to squeeze in a visit. It was an hour well spent.

Haigh’s has been part of every Adelaide family’s chocolate experience for ninety seven years. Its history begins with Arthur Haigh, our own Willy Wonka, who set up his confectionery shop in 1915 on the corner of Rundle & King William Streets, the now iconic Beehive Corner. Handed down through four generations, Haigh’s is still firmly in the  family. Our tour guide Jo told us a lovely story about current Chairman John (grandson of Arthur) who joined the family business at nineteen and decided there was room for improvement. So he wrote to ten Swiss chocolatiers to ask if they would teach him their chocolate-making secrets. Obviously keeping their secrets as heavily guarded as Willy Wonka’s own, only three bothered to reply, and only one of those in the affirmative. So John travelled to Switzerland and spent a year with Lindts to learn the ropes, before coming home to apply what he had learnt at Haigh’s.

Today Haigh’s have expanded into six stores in Melbourne and one in Sydney and they export their famous chocolates all over Australia. When we first moved to Sydney, I was delighted to discover Haigh’s on the corner of the Strand Arcade on George Street, where it has a very similar ambience to the original Adelaide store. I would pop in for a quick truffle fix and inevitably leave with my arms (and mouth!) full.

Yesterday, feeling like Charlie Bucket heading off with wide eyes to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory, I arrived at the Haigh’s Visitors Centre on Greenhill Road, and found myself looking around for Veruca Salt and the Oompa-Loompas. Unable to spot them, I did however find a veritable treasure chest of chocolates.

The source of chocolate is a small, evergreen cacao tree (theobroma cacao) that hides shyly beneath the humid rainforest canopy of Central America.  The cacao bean is harvested from the yellow pods of this small evergreen. Today cacao trees are grown in many tropical countries: Haighs source their beans from Ecuador, Papua New Guinea and Ghana. Cocoa beans look like large coffee beans or almonds. The raw bean is incredibly bitter, until it has been roasted at a very high temperature. This not only subdues the bitterness, but brings out the flavour, changes the colour and removes any moisture. Then it is ready to be transformed into chocolate.

We followed the steps on large picture boards and then turned to see the process on the factory floor through large glass windows – they were taking no chances with any of us falling into the chocolate waterfall and being sucked up the tube like Augustus Gloop! The beans are winnowed and ground into ‘nibs’. The resulting cocoa liquor is blended into a paste with extra cocoa butter, vanilla and icing sugar. This is further refined into a powder, before more cocoa butter is added  and the paste is then agitated and aerated in the conching tank for up to 72 hours, until it acquires the perfect texture and taste.

Chocolate was originally a drink devised by the Aztecs, the name a corruption of chocolatl, which has Aztec roots. Apparently Montezuma’s court went through 2000 jars a day, mixing it with honey or purple flower petals, chili, cloves, vanilla, nuts or allspice. The cacao bean has even been used as currency. The Spanish conquistadors in Mexico developed this ancient process of making chocolate and added sugar and cinnamon to sweeten this bitter beverage.

In seventeen century Mexico, chocolate was made into a savoury sauce with chili, cinnamon and coriander to accompany turkey. It was exported to Europe as a beverage and was adapted into a solidified form by the Dutch in the nineteenth century.

Haigh’s has developed that solid chocolate into an art form. And the selection at High’s is nothing short of overwhelming. Every variety of chocolate coated nut, bars of apricot or cherry, marzipan or nougat, peppermint or ginger. In recent years a selection of Aussie flavours has been infused into the truffle bar: lemon myrtle creams, pepperberry ganache and mango fruit. I found chocolate aniseed rings for my mother-in-law who adores licorice, champagne truffles for my bubbly-loving sister-in-law and chocolate frogs for my sons, just because…

While wandering around the store, I noticed that Haigh’s is committed to supporting several environmental projects. Not only is packaging recyclable, factory processes aim to be environmentally friendly. Proceeds from the sale of Haigh’s large golden Murray cods are donated to Healthy Rivers Australia to support the survival of this rapidly declining native freshwater fish. Recently, Haigh’s also joined forces with the Adelaide Zoo, and the Giant Pandas breeding program is sponsored by the sale of chocolate pandas.

For Easter, Haigh’s have replaced the traditional chocolate bunny with the now popular chocolate bilby, in order to support this tiny native that has been hunted almost to extinction by introduced species such as foxes and cats, not to mention being ousted from its habitat by our unquenchable rabbit population.

And of course, the other native Australian, the original chocolate frog, has been found on the shelves at Haigh’s for generations, and now comes in three sizes and flavours: the original; the midi, and the 375g Super Frog in milk, dark or peppermint chocolate. Part proceeds of chocolate frog sales are donated to Amphibian Ark, an international campaign to protect our waterways and our frogs.

George Bernard Shaw once claimed smugly that ‘I never resist temptation, because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.” Lucky man! Few of us can be so circumspect about temptation, particularly when it comes to chocolate. At least at Haigh’s it is possible to assuage the guilt with the thought that one is helping the survival of several endangered native species.

So I didn’t win the golden ticket or inherit a chocolate factory, but I left with hands full of the new scrumdiddlyumptious lemon and lime white chocolate balls and a recipe for chocolate fondue. Here’s to chocolate!

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Eating with the Seasons at Restaurant 101

Posted on 10 February 2012 by sheg4184

Shrimp Bruschetta

Eating in our time has got complicated. So says food historian Michael Pollan. The latest food trend attempts to uncomplicate things by going back to basics: eat locally grown produce and eat with the seasons.

Restaurant 101 is backing this philosophy with its Market Menu. Available from Monday lunchtime to Saturday night, this new menu, with its focus on seasonal and local ingredients, changes every two weeks to keep up with market availability. The Market Menu is the baby of new Enderun chef Nicolas Cantrel. Chef Cantrel only arrived in Manila last August, but already he is making a great impression.

As the application restaurant of Enderun Colleges, Restaurant 101 is an elegant and attractive dining room. Compared with the noise pollution that overwhelms many modern restaurants these days, Restaurant 101 is a haven of peace. There is an innate hush that is soothing to the senses. The waiting staff are student trainees, who are being taught the excellent serving skills we have come to expect in five star international hotels. The culinary team is trained by the Alain Ducasse Formation, a training and consultancy service established in 1999 by renowned French chef Alain Ducasse that embodies his unique culinary methods. In 2007, ADF formed an academic partnership with Enderun Colleges in the Philippines called ADF+Enderun.

Chef Cantrel has spent many years working with Alain Ducasse in a number of his Michelin starred restaurants, including Aux Lyonnais in Paris, Le Louis XV in Monaco and Mix in New York.

Cantrel’s Market Menu is imbibed with the Ducasse philosophy and style, into which he injects his personal touch, combining classical French techniques with local flavor, by replacing many European products with those he can find in the Manila markets. He schedules visits to the Farmer’s Market in Quezon City and the Central Market in Pasig every two weeks, and thrives on experimenting with the new ingredients he discovers there. He also loves exploring the street food and says he much prefers the back street restaurants of Mandaluyong to hanging out in the trendier malls and restaurants of Makati.

Cantrel’s culinary education has been as eclectic as his culinary tastes. His initial inspiration to cook came from his grandmother, who owned a small café in Normandy. At fifteen, he began a four year apprenticeship. Later, on completing ten months compulsory military service, Cantrel joined the Ducasse team in Paris, and hasn’t looked back. Cooking for Ducasse restaurants in France and Monaco were followed by two years with Ducasse in New York, before he finally decided to expand his horizons. The next six years saw Cantrel working as Executive Chef for three renowned restaurants in New York: Bobo, Bagatelle and Beaumarchais. In January 2010 he was invited to become an Iron Chef America Challenger, and he won!

A year ago, while contemplating a move to Manila with his Filipina wife, Cantrel bumped into his old mentor Alain Ducasse. The result of that timely meeting was a job offer: teaching Culinary Arts at Enderun Colleges and creating the menus for Restaurant 101. He accepted with alacrity.

Cantrel seems very much in touch with the culinary preferences of his new home and is more than happy to adapt his dishes to suit the tastes of the individual diner. He says he likes to create menus with his local diners in mind.

“I always try to include at least one local dessert” he tells me.

Risotto Escargot

The Market Menu is excellent value. Two courses cost only P650, or P780 with a glass of wine. Three courses cost P860 (P990 with wine).  This week’s menu had a wintery theme that included such delights as shrimp bruschetta and risotto escargot entrees, and  for main course, grilled tuna with prosciutto and sweet peppers, or a pan-seared hanger steak, both cooked to your specifications. Desserts included a deconstructed apple pie that whispered of apple Danish and a creamy panacotta with fresh mango.

I can only suggest that you go with someone who is happy to share – you might just want to try everything!

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Delving into Manila’s Markets

Posted on 6 February 2012 by sheg4184

The first time I visited the Farmer’s Market in Cubao, Quezon City, I went too late in the morning and I thought I would keel over and die from heat exhaustion. Since then I have learned to drop in early – no later than 9am – and the experience has been far less ennervating.

The Farmers Market is located just off EDSA, on General Macarthur Avenue, and if the traffic is not too thick, you can do it from Makati in 20-30 minutes. The car park is cheap (30 pesos for 2 hours) and accessible from EDSA. Don’t forget your Esky, and crushed ice is available from vendors with huge ice chests behind the fish stalls. Shopping trolleys are free of charge, but they do require ID, and they can be collected and returned by the pedestrian crossing at the front entrance of the market, opposite the car park.

Practicalities sorted. Now let’s move on to the fun part. The Farmers Market is an enormous warehouse on two levels. The top level is choc-a-block with flowers, fruit and vegetables, while down below in the wet market there is a huge variety of freshly butchered meat and fish.

There is plenty of competition for your business, which keeps the prices down and means shopping here is definitely cheaper than Rustan’s or SM and the quality is so much better. Confronted with a myriad stalls, it is sometimes hard to know where to start, but prices are much the same wherever you go – at least until you develop a relationship with a favourite stallholder or suki. Choose any one you want and keep going back there. Eventually you will notice that prices drop for a regular customer.

I often experiment with various unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, and stallholders are usually happy to let you taste before you buy, which is great. Today I came home with an ampalaya,  or bitter gourd. It looks like a very wrinkly cucumber. The small version is more bitter, but peeled, sliced and salted, the larger one can work in salads much like a cucumber. I am testing it out tonight, so I will get back to you on how it tastes. We also found a crinkly pear-shaped vegetable known, amongst other things, as a chayote or choko. It originated in Mexico and is another type of gourd. I would guess it was introduced to the Philippines by the Spanish during the Galleon Trade in the eighteenth century. Apparently, it can be cooked al dente to retain a crispy texture, or eaten raw, marinated in lime juice and used in salsas or salad.

Local greens are, for me, still largely an unknown quantity, and, it would seem, many modern Filipinos are almost as ignorant as I am. At a recent Filipino food workshop I attended, quite a number of locals failed to recognize many weed-like samples of native greens. So I started asking at the market. “What is this? How is it used?” Inevitably they answered “in sinigang”!

According to renowned Filipina restaurateur and food writer Amy Besa ‘sourness is at the heart of sinigang’. It is a light broth soured with anything from tamarind or tomatoes to green mango or kalamansi, (a tiny but very juicy native lime, excellent with gin) and containing almost any seasonal vegetables, and any meat, except chicken.  With all sorts of variations across South East Asia, including Thai tom yum, it is more representative of Filipino taste than the overworked adobo. It is also easily adapted to all tastes, budgets, and seasonal availability.

Malunggay is a leafy local horseradish which makes a really healthy tea full of protein, iron and Vitamins A and C. It also encourages milk production for breast feeding mothers. A friend used malunggay to make made me a delicious pesto, with loads of garlic. You will find that garlic comes in cloves or ready peeled in plastic bags . Just be careful what you order.  I wrote ‘2 x garlic cloves’ on my shopping list, which our driver Gerry translated, in his infinite wisdom, as TWO KILOS! Anyone need garlic?! Also, Aussies take note: if you wanted minced beef, ask for it to be ground or it arrives cubed and may not be what you had in mind for that meatloaf or spaghetti bolognese!

I usually visit the wet market last. While Gerry goes off to collect ice for the Esky, I rummage amongst the dripping fish stalls, the aisles awash with bloody water and pieces of discarded fish (another good reason to come in early as this can become rather gruesome later in the day). If you are expecting the sterility of a Coles or Woolworths refrigerator section, forget it! This is real life. No cling film. No Styrofoam. Just tubs of gasping fish and twitching crabs to choose from. I usually ask to have the fish gutted and descaled, and they will even fillet it for you, but don’t be surprised if it is not very thoroughly done – Filipinos think you are quite mad throwing away some of the best parts of the fish, and will often leave you with heart and lungs still attached, in the fear that they have misunderstood you. But it is definitely fresh!

The meat section is also a  fascinating arena. After fish, the favoured meat in the Philippines is pork, of which every part is eaten bar the squeak.  In the wet markets, tongues and trotters, intestines and stomach lining, ears, snouts and sometimes whole faces hang beside more familiar, if rather fatty cuts of meat.  Spit-roasted suckling pig – lechon de leche – is the meat of choice for entertaining and celebrating, and is ideally cooked to the point where it can be cut with a saucer. Guests are offered the first bite, and it helps to know that etiquette requires you to pluck a piece of flesh from behind the ears or tail with your fingers before the animal is carved up for everyone else.

I took my thirteen year old son there earlier this year. He was a little thrown by this exposure to the reality of butchery, but I was very proud of him. While he was not so keen to think about eating the offal displayed at eye level, he was highly amused by the sight of the hogs rump and tail hanging from a hook like that slab of armadillo grooms cake in the 1989 film Steel Magnolias.

I was regularly taken aback by the lack of flies hovering around this freshly slaughtered, open-air display. Then one day I took a photograph and perceived thin blue bars across the camera screen – apparently some kind of ultraviolet light that keeps unwanted visitors at bay. I have examined the shed regularly since, but am yet to discover the source of this mysterious but effective magic trick!

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“The wonders of technology!”

Posted on 3 February 2012 by sheg4184

Once upon a time, when I first went overseas, I relied on snail mail to transport my weekly aerogrammes home to my parents. These inevitably crossed  over in the middle of the Indian Ocean with the most recent one from my mother to me, so that we never quite linked the conversation. I saved coins for weeks to make birthday calls home, that were swallowed up faster than you could say “Hip Hip Hooray”.

Eventually, email sped the process up a little, but it took a while for everyone to invest in a home computer and then how to discover their email addresses?

Today, my children are able to talk to their old friends in Australia, the UK and the Czech Republic on Skype on a daily basis. I have found friends on Facebook I have not seen in fifteen years, and assumed were lost to me forever. Now, our families in Australia may know faster than the average Filipino of bomb scares or typhoons in Manila. We have got so used to the immediacy of communication that I panic if the kids don’t respond to a text message in 30 seconds! And yet, twenty five years ago, I could disappear for weeks on a train through Europe, and my parents had to trust that I was safe.

Modern technology is utterly amazing, and something we are all inclined to take for granted. Today, I was able to watch my sixteen year old son play rugby  using a live online feed from his school in the Philippines while sitting with a caffe latte an outdoor coffee shop in South Australia! I told my friends about it on Facebook, had responses from all over the globe within the hour and texted the results to my mother.

Expat life can be having your children scattered around the world so that you often feel the need to be in several countries at once. As I write this in Adelaide, where I am helping our daughter move back into college, I am also watching our son in Manila play rugby with a team from Taiwan, sick that I cannot be there for both of them.

Yet, even as I wait for my daughter to get her eyes checked at OPSM in Rundle Mall, I am watching my son score a try from 5,600 km away, as the entire school lines up along every balcony railing, roaring and cheering in support of their school team, green and gold pom poms dancing in the stands – while texting Hannah to hurry back and bring me her headphones so I can hear the commentary properly. Go the Bearcats!

 

 

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