Reine's cooking adventures part 3

2 months in Adelaide, and three posts about my cooking! If all goes well there might be a part 4 as I really want to make kingfish ceviche, but alas no kingfish fillets yet! I may consider buying a whole fish...Anyway, so I'm finding that I'm actually getting bored of cooking, not because of the cooking itself, but trying to find inspiration for new experiments (dishes). I've gone through so many different animals/meats that I'm running out of proteins to play with. I'm deliberately avoiding quail because I have no way to debone it.Instead of boring text, onto pictures! Since I've moved apartments I've had to transition from gas to electric cooking with mixed results (undercooking kangaroo), but for the most part I still have some magical godlike luck/ability to make fantastic, medium rare meats.Following straight off from my last cooking post, this was kangaroo with leftover zucchini flower. I had two that I accidentally damaged so I figured they'd look just as good as petals.

Upon reflection, I didn't like the way my first version of tuna tataki turned out in terms of presentation. So then of course, I had to do it again! I like version 2's plating a lot better. Plus watercress always makes things fancy.

I then took on the challenge of salt and pepper squid, a dish that is very popular with my brother and myself. I bet this would make him jealous, it turned out much better than I hoped! I remember reading up on how to make salt and pepper squid, agonising over the fact that I only had spelt flour and wasn't sure how or if it would work with a mass of salt and pepper. I didn't even know why I needed flour in the mix, being the nub that I am. However my ability to "cook by panicking" worked out better than expected! I was incredibly proud of this dish, though I don't think anything can surpass the visual glory that was my salmon and stuffed zucchini flower, but this was close!

However, I'm not just all about super fancy, so I can actually make stuff that's a little more normal.

Stir fried satay chicken with mushroom, carrot, snow pea, onion, capsicum:

Porterhouse steak with basil, tomato, radish, cucumber, tomato salad:

Salmon and prawn plate:

I got bored of buying normal steak so I opted for some aged stuff, which actually is tastier. I was still struggling with the cooktop so it was slightly too cooked on the outside and undercooked on the inside. I did find corn and pomegranate and they are sooo tasty when added to a fennel salad!

I was craving tomatoes, and I think mixed heirlooms just aren't in season, so I had to settle for red, yellow and black (black russian). I can't believe how tasty heirlooms are, compared to normal tomatoes. I also got some basil, because TOMATO AND BASIL. I struggled with fish because I was too early and they didn't have snapper. I couldn't wait any longer due to work, so I rouletted and chose monkfish! Not that I have any idea what that was. I still prefer snapper, after this adventure.

During my shopping I saw some gruyere, and just absolutely could not resist buying some. Which then reminded me I had a tasty tomato and taleggio toast from Paddy's Lantern, so then I had to buy some taleggio to go with the tomatoes I bought. For some reason I had this bright idea to mix the taleggio and gruyere together in a "sauce" to put  on the tomatoes... so I double boiled it to mix and then added some olive oil for who knows what reason! This all seemed to work nicely when it was warm and homogeneous, but as soon as it was on my cold tomatoes for too long it semi solidified into the funkiest textured... glooby thing ever. Whoops!

Last of all is my Venison Project! The most epic of all! I decided for some reason I would try my hand at venison, probably because I have a friend who shares psychic waves with me and venison is a meat that is common enough that it had to be experimented with. When I asked them what kind of meat it cooked like, I was hoping to compare it to something like beef, or pork, something normal. Instead, after thinking about it for a while, the shop assistant said kangaroo. Great. That meant it was a tricky meat! GOOD THING I HAVE COOKED KANGAROO BEFORE. So then I tried reading up on some cooking tips, and figured I'd just go with salt pepper like I always do. But then that night I got home late, and was too lazy to cook meat, so I opted for mussels, which I both cooked and devoured in 5 mins.

That meant more time to think about venison! So while walking through Woolworths I decided I'd grab a herb mix packet thing - labelled for flavouring lamb - and would completely flavourfy my venison. This mix contained fresh rosemary, thyme and parsley. I never knew thyme smelled like it did! It reminds me of olives. Anyway, so I rubbed the whole bunch onto both sides of my venison leg steak, poured some olive oil in it and left it to marinate overnight. Now also during this time I figured I'd try making something called orange butter sauce. Upon research, it turns out this was a real sauce! So I bought oranges and butter. Then the next day I bought another packet of herbs, this time containing marjoram, sage, tarragon, rosemary and thyme. I put some of that with a couple of oranges I juiced with my fist, as my apartment didn't have an orange juicer and I wasn't going to pay $5 for the only one available in the shops. I simmered it and added butter randomly, without even measuring exactly how much butter I was adding. By the end of it, it was nicely reduced and glossy. And possibly too buttery but hey, butter is butter is tasty. I tried it and was pleasantly surprised that it was tangy and orangey!

So back to the venison. So I rubbed some coarsely ground salt and pepper on it about an hour before cooking, cause I then took an hour to prepare my salad and make the sauce. Yes, I am ridiculously slow and inefficient since I still claim that I don't cook - I mean I've only been cooking for 2 months, and only for myself! When I was finally ready to cook the venison I had no game plan - just a little while on each side, while playing with the heat and trying to wing it as best as possible. People have asked me how I test the "done-ness" of my meat but my only reply is "I don't time it, I just panic and hope for the best!" I guess I really do have some sort of food god watching over me, as wow, my venison project was an absolute winner. Tangy orange butter sauce, great salad, and medium-rare-not-tough-at-all-super-tender venison! I was amazed that it was neither under nor overcooked! Beginner's luck I say!

I'm still not sure that orange butter was the best match for the meat, but it made the salad taste amazing. The venison had enough flavour from all the marinating it had been through, so I was happy with it all round. There's another achievement for my ego.

Now the only thing left to do is agonise whether I want to try going to an 8 course degustation at a restaurant here called Celcius (the head chef is ex Noma, Marque and know knows what else!), and the only way I can excuse myself for not going awkwardly by myself and forking out $130 for dinner, is to make something as visually epic and remotely nice tasting as the vegetable garden that was part of their menu when they opened.

Well, I never know what I'm going to eat till I go shopping, so that's all for now!

FOOD NUB EXTRAORDINAIRE

Reine's cooking adventures part 1

Re-doing this blog so that I can actually post progress pictures and nice photos of how my cooking went.Part 1, my first real time actually experimenting with food. The house/cat-sitting time doesn't really count :PAfter the ceviche, the next thing I made was tuna tataki. There's this place called Central Markets and it's the best place ever! There's so many fruit and veg stalls, as well as several seafood shops. And lots of protein. Mmmm all kinds of protein!Anyway, so having never made anything that required paying a lot of attention, I think my tataki came out very nicely. As I hadn't explored every stall, my salad was still very basic, with quinoa everywhere!

I then found some duck to play with. Since I'd never cooked it before I had to read up about in case there was something special I had to do, and there was - in this case, I had to make sure I rendered the duck fat correctly! I also prepared some beans, and purple and orange dutch carrots. I hate carrots, but I wanted to eat some, so I figured I'd try and butter them up.

The only other thing I found out about cooking duck breast is that I had to twice cook it - first just grilling the entire fillet, but then once I let it rest and cut it, cooked the pieces a tiny bit more each to ensure they were all cooked.

On my next trip to the markets, I thought I'd step up to a bigger challenge: kangaroo.

I also found some loose wild asparagus so I bought some. I originally wanted to blanch them, but then I was too lazy, plus I remember eating raw asparagus at Cornersmith, so I decided to do the same here. I ran across some fennel, and I've always liked the idea of it, and never knew it was aniseed/liquorice! So I bought some, and that set in motion my memory of wanting to make an awesome "house salad" like Rockpool does. So rocket and radishes then got added to the mix. I don't even like rocket, but it belonged in this salad! So peppery but so tasty.

The kangaroo was pretty much rare, though I was aiming for medium rare. It was still very tender and tasty since I got it marinated with herb and garlic. As a result, I ended up getting kangaroo two more times!

I ran across fresh sardines on my next visit to the markets, so I had to grab some, as they are very tasty and nutritious. Aren't they so cute???

I pan grilled them with salt and pepper, and placed them on my leftover salad.

Living the radelaide

So work has called me to Adelaide, to like, do things and stuff, including eat, cook and explore. Oh, and actually work.But during non work hours it turns out I really don't have time to work on the story that will never end. Instead I'm constantly debating where and what to eat, which cafes to go to, and whether I can find enough food to cook up something and somehow save money.So my experiment has been living without "sugar" (have honey and agave syrup instead), making wholemeal spelt pancakes and messing with other things, such as undercooking fish :)Here are some of the things I've done. I wish I had a nice picture of some food from a cafe called A Mothers Milk - they make some amazing baked eggs mmmmmmmmm but instead all I've got is a very bad shot from the outside:

 And Coffee Branch was a little espresso shop, which features a single and a house. I tried both, their single was a yirgacheffe natural, but that was so Sydney months ago! Not my normal preference, but when I had the two side by side, I preferred the single.

During my first week there Bar 9 also had a "twilight supper" where they were screening Spirited Away  - it was in English but it was still awesome because I got loads of coffee and some truffled popcorn! By the time I finished work to get there, they were actually all out of the truffled stuff so they charged me a couple of dollars less, but there were still remnants of truffle oil in it!!!

When my brother came over to visit, there was also lemon curd, orange, vanilla bean mascarpone, macerated strawberries on english muffin to be had!

Also visited the Coffee Barun, who did an awesome "Barun breakfast". They had a huge variety of espresso roast beans for sale, but alas, only yirg natural for their filter so this made me sad.

And what do I order at a place called Argo Espresso? A filter, of course!

Also went to First Pour and Paddy's Lantern, but no pictures of that. First Pour is interesting because they don't really do food; just pastries. Paddy's Lantern is cute (love their logo) and the one thing that I learned was that cold brew is something different from cold drip! I tried some and realised that it was different, so then I asked them how they made it, as when I was drinking it I noticed it had that liqueur tone so it was definitely brewed via a cold water method for a long time, but they just chucked grinds in water and let it sit rather than going through a drip, which explained the colour and sediment. It's a nice easy way to make something like cold drip!

I also managed to stumble upon Nic & Rocco's dessert shop (from My Kitchen Rules) bought some macarons and tiramisu etc. They were cute and nice, but sadly, I think Zumbo and Cre-Asion are both better, and more true to the flavours that the macarons are (e.g. real strawberry instead of tasting strawberry flavoured).

And now to home cooking 101! And how I miserably fail at it. Actually, I'm probably better than I think, but at the same time nowhere near as fantastic or genius as I think. A general rule is that I only do savoury, not sweet, as sweet has too many rules and measurements. However my spelt pancakes are pretty good.

Anyway, so I finally got to try my hand at ceviche! I've always wanted to make it, and turns out the only mistake was that I chickened out and didn't buy any chilli.

My recipe was basically:

- Snapper marinated in lime juice for about 45min (cause I only had a little bit)

- Cucumber

- Heirloom tomatoes

- Coriander

- Red onion

And some salt and pepper. Here are pics! It turned out quite tasty, just needed more heat.

Don't mind the knife, it was there for something else. I used a new knife that cut the fish quite nicely!

With this being the final result:

Then I used the rest of the fillet for a hot cooked dish! I bought some seaweed and had to use it somehow!

The next night I made the leftover vegetables into a quinoa salad.

And here is a picture of Bubbles/Butters/Ruby/Harry the Eclectus Parrot my boyfriend got! She's super young and still being trained :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS