Simple: Salt and pepper pepper squid

Today's little experiment was a red and yellow pepper sauce.

1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 eschallot
50mL heavy cream
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 cup sherry

For documentation purposes:

1. Slice peppers into thin strips and dice eschalot. Adding 2 teaspoons of salt, sautee until soft - add water if required.
2. Add sherry and deglaise the pan, add the sugar and cook for a short while until the deglaise coats the peppers
3. Reserving 1/4 of the peppers (optional), blend the rest with the cream, vinegar and the remaining sugar

The squid was fried for 2 minutes. Seasoned in Cayenne, salt and pepper with a cornflour base.

The first taste of summer

Tonights' steak dinner is another simple one. The refreshing combination of mint and cucumber is reminiscent of an icecream on a hot summers day.

$10 + for a hot dog!? Outrageous!

Now in the recently finished Pitt St. Westfields you can grab a mouth watering posh hot dog! The dogs here are definitely top tier but is the massive price tag attached justified? I sure think it is. They also sell some nice chips that go great with their sauces, but don't expect a cheap meal!


I have to say the bread is quite incredible.

Beef Horseradish - Grilled Wagyu sausage, caramelised onions, horseradish mayo on a soft poppy seed roll

Toulouse - Bungalow Pork sausage with sauteed onions, rosemary mushrooms and truffle aioli on a beautiful Brioche roll

New mushroom steak

For my dad's birthday I experimented a little with a new dish that combines several techniques I've learned over the year. Happy Birthday Dad :) Here are the results:

This was the first stage of the meat preparation. The steak was perforated with a chopstick to allow for an increased infusion rate of mushroom flavours which were to be introduced in the sous vide process.

Button mushrooms were marinated in butter, thyme and sage overnight. The butter was then used for infusion in sous vide. Mushrooms were pureed with cream and beef stock to make a sauce.

(Clockwise from back) Three textures of potato, Steak and mushrooms and creamed spinach

Ramen in Sydney

It is important to always keep in mind that food should always be evaluated for what it is and not what it should be.

Ramen is becoming increasingly popular along with the growth of Japanese in the restaurant industry. Is its popularity simply due to the hype of Japanese culture or is the food itself actually good?

In my short experience of all the popular ramen hotspots in Sydney I have to say I'm quite disappointed. I understand that the dish has undergone its transformations as it made its way across the waters to suit the tastes of Sydneysiders, but compared to the ramen in Japan the quality difference is as great as the Pacific Ocean. Most of these shops would look like instant noodle bars in Japan.

The means of comparison has been Chashuu ramen and Tonkotsu ramen (Pork ramen). I won't go into much detail as there are some not worth mentioning. 

Soup lacks some depth of flavour but overall decent

Menya ramen - Average in all aspects

Ramen Kan - Lean pork

Ramen Kan - Soup lacks flavour

Ichiban Boshi - Nice pork but the soup is really lacking viscosity and flavour

The ramen shown above hold their worth in Sydney and are a decent fast meal for under $15.

Then there is Ajisen Ramen. Which is basically a shop that sells overpriced instant noodles.

It isn't all bad here in Sydney, you can usually find something redeeming. In a dirty food court on Dixon St. there is some a shop that stands out from the rest.

Gumshara: A humble little kitchen. The chef tastes your order before service.

Dingy genuine sign for genuine food

Preference!

The fat glistens. The soup is unnaturally thick with flavour.

The soup clings to the noodles. The flavour clings to the noodles.

 Watching the Chef taste each and every bowl of soup before its' service every minute was one of the most reassuring signs that I had finally found a shop that would perhaps end my search. After having this ramen I had to take a step and re-evaluate everything.

This soup of this ramen has a lot to say. The flavour profile is absolutely incredible and perhaps overwhelming for the faint hearted.  By packing the soup with pig bone marrow the soup becomes thick with collagen and pungent with pork flavours, but this is done with far greater success than any other ramen shop.

Mashed potatoes

Hello! It really has been a while since my last update. But here's a really simple and easy method that I've developed to make mashed potato. Thank you Xavier for this recipe request! I'll post some photos when I get around to making this again.


Word of warning this does not produce a perfect mashed potato, but produces the best taste for effort in my opinion.


The key to this method is constant tasting. Serves 10 (side).


You will need

• Large pot (Big is good!)
• Large wooden spoon 
• Knife

Ingredients

I highly recommend  you adjust these to your liking

• 1kg potatoes (I use yukon gold, red delight)
• 150mL Thickened / Heavy cream
• 25g butter
• Salt to taste

Process

1. Rinse and cut potatoes into roughly tennis ball sized chunks. Importance lies in having roughly even sized chunks. Add to pot.
2. Add water to keep all potatoes well under water
3. On medium high heat, let it boil until the skins blister and burst. The potatoes should fall apart when poked with a chopstick or a spoon. This may take up to an hour.
4. Discard the hot liquid and peel each potato under cold running water. They are very hot at this stage so be careful.
5. Rinse the pot and put the peeled potatoes back in. Return the pot to medium - medium low heat, using the wooden spoon to break up the potatoes, vigorously stir to mash.
6. Once excess water has left the potatoes pour in half the cream and stir till combined, then pour in remaining cream and add butter. Keep on heat and occasionally stir to prevent burning. 
7. Add salt to taste and reduce until the desired thickness is achieved.

Meet fresh

Meet fresh. A strange name to approach, I don't really mean to spoil things but nothing about this shop is neither meaty or fresh. I don't fully understand it's name but I think it's meant to be a taiwanese pun of some sort. Moving on :)

With the recent boom of quick-stop drink shops CHATIME and Easy Way it would be no surprise that more of these types of shops would move in. You could say meet fresh is more refined but the principles are the same. All food is pre-prepared and scooped out of buckets to serve, despite what the name of the shop says nothing except the shaved ice is fresh if that counts.

Here you can order a wide variations on crushed ice and syrup. Several chewy , subtly flavoured but very colourful taro and sweet potato starch balls with more starchy pearls depending on what you order. Other items on the menu include cold and hot drinks such as pearl milk tea.

Always expect a line around normal meal times. The wait is not justified by the quality or price of the food although it is quite refreshing. It's a great treat to have during summer especially during those sticky summer nights and it's a nice change from those heavy creamy western flavours of vanilla and chocolate.

Still on the hunt

More Chashuu to chew through and analysis to do

As promised I'm still trying out the Chashuu ramen around sydney. Stay tuned as the collection of critical analysis to making my ultimate ramen guide is growing!

Ramen Kan

Pizza at home

I guess a lot of people have wanted to try making pizza at home. So I tried it myself, making everything but the cheese from scratch.

As my first test I'm trying to use bread dough to form the base. It seemed like it would work up until I tried to hammer out some bases. I think I lack the technique to stretch the dough :(

3 cups bread flour, 1 1/2 cups water and extra virgin olive oil

After 18 hours of fermentation and rising

Ready for the oven (shouldn't have put the basil there yet)

Delicious! Lacking the crust but the elements are present

Notes:

• Basil should be added after baking
• Need a pizza stone to get right crust
• Learn to toss pizza dough
• Use better cheese

Din Tai Fung

THE WORLD'S TASTIEST! COULD IT BE?? (in world square)

Din Tai Fung is an internationally renowned Taiwanese best known for their dumplings. Although it feels incredibly strange trying to describe such an asian food in plain english, excuse the awkwardness. Let's begin our critical analysis.

 Like all simple foods, high quality control over each aspect and element of the final product is essential to provide a satisfying experience. The worlds' best must achieve an ideal level of perfection in each of the following areas according to my limited experience in asian cuisine:

1. Dumpling skin / "pastry". The dumpling skin should be thin opaque but thin enough to be illuminated by the reflection of the colour of the filling. Skin thickness should be consistent and the wrapping should be as above tapered off to ensure the whole skin remains moist and evenly cooked when steamed. The skin should not stick to the steaming apparatus and when pierced on the spoon it gleams and slips around once coated in the juices. 
2. Juices. The "juice" that comes flowing out of the dumpling serves several purposes. The first is to provide a large proportion of the flavour. The fattiness of the source contains a lot of the flavnoids of the pork and should be derived from pork skin and should be collagenous and therefore have a faintly thick fatty stickiness to it which lubricates the skin of the dumpling, providing a seamless transition between the flavours and textures of the skin and filling.
3. Filling. This is where the juice originates from, the fat and collagen melts during steaming. In other words this is the source of all flavour that isn't from the skin. The yin of the yang which completes the dumpling experience. The intense porky flavour is mellowed by underlying tones of ginger which fill the mouth and perfume the nose. Flavours can vary but pork is the general filling, seafood and prawn are possible fillings which sweeten the filling.

Simply delicious

 I'd almost describe these as I did above. They are definitely very good! My favourite of this restaurant and the best dumplings I've tasted so far :)

Also some other things we had:

Shrimp dumpling - sweeter filling with thicker skin

A very clean and crisp wonton soup

White wonton rose

Pork bun - Pretty, but your average pork bun (not bbq style)

Classic beef noodle soup

 The beef noodle soup is quite the traditional noodle soup. The soup itself isn't made that well, it really lacks a depth of flavour but the noodles on the other hand were really nice. Everything we had paled in comparison to the dumplings, so if you ever find yourself craving some good dumplings you know where to look.

Mamak

Theres just something about watching my food getting put together that is truly captivating. The mesmerising flipping and spinning of roti (law-ti) dough, the smell and buzz of an open kitchen. I don't think theres really anything else that could make a restaurant experience more enjoyable for me other than the food itself.

The restaurant is always busy and is closed at around 2-5.30 in preparation for the dinner service. The line for lunch is fairly long, expect a 15-30 minute wait depending on the time. The line for dinner on the other hand is tremendous! A 30 minute wait is only normal if you don't get there early.

Closing up for pre-dinner preparation

Mamak is Malaysian for just about everything Indo-Malaysian. In other words when you walk in to Mamak  you walk in to a Malaysia tuned to the Sydneysider wavelength. Though true to those Malaysian flavours, the curries show signs of international influence and so do the roti.

Lunch at Mamak

Marinated chicken and satay

Lots of delicious, great colour - a good start to lunch

I can almost taste this with my eyes. Sweet, fragrant with peanut bits well incorporated. I can eat this by the spoon

Alright I can taste this one with my eyes

Roti Canai - the classic, all fluffed up and ready to go. Very delicate and crisp.

Buttery roti - a heavyweight version of the original. A little western influence.

Giant roti stuffed with a lamb omelet

So omelet, so little roti, so disappointed. My bad choice of order.

Banana roti with vanilla ice cream

 The banana roti was one of the most memorable of all the above. The way the sugars of the banana slices seeped through the roti and caramelised made it look spectacular, but above all the taste and the texture this created was absolutely amazing. A small short crunch of the buttery pastry is followed by a sweet rush of banana while the ice cream amalgamates and accentuates those flavours and textures.

Overall a good experience! I recommend you try Mamak. If spices aren't for you then just have the roti without the curry. Don't know what to order? For normal orders I recommend you try their roti canai and ayam goreng, you can't go wrong.

Nandos

I don't usually enjoy my eats at chain restaurants but there was this one time wonder of a burger I had at Nandos

A handsome crusty Portugese style bun, with the chicken, works and chips

Why not examine the sauce, enough fat and flavour to round off the lean, but still juicy chicken breast to complete the burger

The bread was simply fantastic, so flavourful - yet so light and fluffy in the centre but so carefully enveloped in a very thin layer of crispy crust. Sadly the same bread was not produced the next time I made the same order. To top it all off the chips were really nice and cripsy, and as a rare treat I got to have them with the vinegar dispensing bottles they had there. Yum, salt&vinegar hot chips!

$15 for a 'Portugasm'. Hmm, not bad.

My "Perfect" Wagyu beef steak

By perfection I can only mean the best so far, as I believe perfection is something that cannot be achieved - only strived for.

Sous Vide in a ~10% w/w brine sol. and seared with grapeseed oil.

Premium Wagyu

mmm extensive marbling!

The Sous Vide off the frying pan

On to the chopping board! Perfect medium rare

Amazing texture - explosively concentrated flavour

Dinner plate: Wagyu steak served with fondant potatoes