Reine's Xmas 2017 cooking

Because I realised I still haven't posted this. So here is the cooking I did during Christmas in 2017. Played a lot with my live marron, whose names were Tiffany and Jake, and Jake was the feistier one.Mainly just a photodump now since it's too late to actually write about it lolThis is Tiffany the marron with scrambled eggs. I had Saint Peter's marron scrambled eggs on my mind when I made this one!I was gonna make just roast quail, but got bored, so these ended up with tea bags stuffed inside them!Kombu!Drink time!Tea "smoked" quail!It's Jake!!!Oyster mushrooms with saltbush and duck egg.Coconut yoghurt with summer fruits!Cooked Jake :DJake's tail!Cheese and meat plate!Made my own beef patties with onion, garlic, herbs.Jake in seafood broth!Making tomato soup!CAPRESESalads! I tried making a dish similar to "oysters and lettuce" from Dier Makr. It didn't even come close :DSpice haul!Yeeah comonOriginally I was gonna just make rice and eggs, but since my visit to Kisume, I changed it to mushroom rice and eggs! This was my test sample, which I gave to my flatmate and she approved!Mushroom rice and eggs - with trout roe, salmon roe, sturgeon caviar, and gold foil for overkill.And a cheap nebb, cause Perth has no nebbs. 

Yo, does Reine even cook anymore?

Why hello 2017, and yes, I certainly do! It's mainly one pot wonders since my time demands more compression than ever before.So since I have a bit of time to travel for ingredients, here's some Christmas and New Year fare. Tasmanian oysters, cooked Exmouth tiger prawns, salmon sashimi, Yarra Valley hand milked salon caviar. That caviar was expensive but so worth it! Not as expensive as blue scampi caviar though...Jamon, eggs and caviar on a toasted baguette. I had to use up all that caviar somehow, right? Eggs and caviar works, eggs and jamon works, so yeah, the whole thing works!Honey mustard roast duck with Reine's house salad v.D20.16: purple cauliflower, purple broccolini, radish, corn, rocket, carrots. Because there were no rainbow carrots or fennel anywhere.And some glorious caprese salad (with burrata, I love spoiling myself).YAY FOOD

(Early) Christmas Roast Duck

Several weeks I signed up to a local farmer's duck mailing list - they had plenty of chickens, but were waiting for the ducks to grow up and had limited supply, so they said I could put my email address down to express interest for a duck. I really had no plans to fork out $$$ for a lovingly hand raised duck, but it turns out their ducks were cheaper than their lovingly hand raised chickens! So I said yes to one when I found that my inbox contained this wonderful news, and picked one up - an added bonus being that this one still had its head attached, how cute! I just wish it also had its feet... oh well.I was a little disappointed that it came frozen instead of fresh, however, that turned out to be a good thing since I didn't plan to cook it till the week after. I had spent the next 5 days agonising on how to prepare this delicious being - halved, and cooked two ways? Lightly seasoned and just roasted? But then I remembered one of my favourite restaurant brands had a gorgeous roast duck dish - and I decided to take a chance and make my own version. For the first time in a long time, I've also managed to take progress pictures to be able to document this pretty feat of kitchening!It all started with a duck. A very happy duck!This guy was then salted and set aside for a few hours.I made a wild rice stuffing in the meantime (I had to use up my rice somehow) - a mixture of wild rice, brown long rice and red rice. Cooked the rice with some Italian herb mix first, let it cool, then chopped up some pancetta and cherries and mixed it all up. For some reason the flavour of the cherries got lost in this dish - I wanted it to add sourness and sweetness, but it didn't quite get there. I wouldn't have used more though, since I didn't want sweetness to overpower the mixture.Next up, honey mustard glaze! After consulting the good old internet, I decided to completely ignore most of what I found and made this up as I went. Honey, dijon mustard, wholegrain mustard and rendered bacon fat (yessss!) went into this.Once it was all ready, into the oven it went! I was also super forgetful and didn't end up buying kitchen twine, but managed to improvise leg-tying with some strips of foil.  For those who are also super attentive - yes, a duck neck doesn't bend like that. There's a toothpick holding its head into that position!I felt very lucky to have obtained a herb haul from the markets! Rosemary, sage, thyme. With flowers too! They smelled so good!The still happy duck :)And the plate up and photoshoot. I also baked some kipfler potatoes in the residual fat, but it turns out mixing in thin slices of pink beetroot wasn't a good idea as their colour got lost. Should roast them separately next time.And the angled shot!The end result? Was very happy with my efforts, though the oven wasn't very great at being consistent, so while the breast was cooked, the marylands weren't as done as I would have liked them to be. I calculated it at my chicken cooking times; 40mins per kilo, and then added time for the fact that this was quite dense and had stuffing in it (though the stuffing was already cooked, and I knew it wouldn't overcook, yay for wild rice). I did have a problem with the glaze and bird beak/wings starting to burn due to the uneven heating of the oven (I never exceeded 180 degrees), but due to my limited time, I couldn't roast this the way I had originally planned (3+ hours cook time at a lower temp).Nevertheless, it was tasty, the glaze was fantastic, and the stuffing tasted good too! Very happy with my efforts!DUCK DUCK GOOSE?!

Pretending to be a chef: More random market hauls

So I've got a tiny bit of downtime. Finally! That's what happens when I decide I should take up an active hobby while still cooking, writing, drawing (ok the second two not so much), eating, coffeeing.It seems there's a whole range of interesting things lately, some of which I've not seen before or just didn't have the marginal propensity to spend on. Plus it's not good when I think that Tasmanian winter truffles are so affordable that I've ended up buying more truffle this year than any other time. First of all, a giant Coffin Bay oyster! I bought two to increase my chances of getting one that was visually appealing, because when you get something like this, you have to play dressup.I guess I should start up oyster dressing sessions? This one was meant to represent the beachside, since it has ice plant and sea blite. I thought it was pretty! But the oyster is just too big, so I didn't actually enjoy eating it as much as I do the smaller versions.I didn't dress these ones though. These have noticeably round shells, and were creamier, but wasn't as sweet, so I didn't like them. It was a good experience tasting them though, because I've never had oysters like these before!I also decided to make "not anmitsu" round 2. I'd found some coconut milk at the markets, cold pressed and hideously expensive at $7.99 for a 750mL bottle. Well, I guess that's cheaper than Pressed Juices. Fresh orange slices, orange baked rhubarb. I really like baking rhubarb! It's the lazy way of doing things, though it's probably not kind towards my electricity bill.Another lucky find at the markets: Port Lincoln blue fin toro. Leaving this out made the fat glisten, though it wasn't specified what grade of toro this was. After buying this, I went into this small, crazed fit of really wanting to acquire some sea urchin, just so I could make a toro-uni-truffle ship. But alas, no urchin. So instead, I got to pretend to make a nigiri.Don't mind the ice plant that almost didn't make it in this picture, I found it was just annoying and out of place. The size and shape of the toro I bought meant it was also difficult to get slices large enough to go on top of the rice. Solution? To make the rice smaller. These were super bite-sized as a result. I also didn't want truffle shavings obscuring the actual sushi, so I placed them on the side like so:Isn't it pretty? Marbling everywhere!Now to simply idle by till I find more interesting things...

Pretending to be a chef: Truffle steak tartare

I promised myself last year that I wouldn't buy truffles again - they are so fragrant, but so expensive! And I can't afford to be poor right now. But trufflemania is on, and having watched Chef's Table, I couldn't resist buying some again. I had my eye on some Tasmanian winter truffles, but when I went and asked, they were all sold out! So I asked about the WA truffles they had and how they were different. The shop owner mentioned that this was the first time they stocked WA truffles because they were of a good quality for their price this year. He explained that previously, he didn't buy them because the supplier mixed all different regions into their stock, so it was impossible to tell where the truffles were from, and therefore the quality.He also mentioned that I had to use more than I would for a Tasmanian truffle, but it was also $1000/kg cheaper than a Tasmanian truffle. I love how truffles are described in thousands of dollars per kilo, it's hilarious! So, I was satisfied and more educated as a result of his explanation, and could comfortably buy these knowing they weren't as good as other truffles I bought, but that they were good for their value. And he got me (almost) whole ones from a jar full of truffles, and I could smell the aroma from the other side of the counter! It was so lovely!Very happy with my truffles and planning to add them to pasta, I figured it was also time to once again test my knife skills and make some steak tartare. First of all, I had to confirm my condiments: pickled beetroot, cornichons, red onion, seeded mustard, chives. An egg on top was a must, and it would then be showered in truffle shavings. For the starch, I bought both potato and jerusalem artichoke, unsure of which I would use - it would come down to how they crisped up and I would choose the prettier one. Turns out it also has an impact on taste!Step one, pickled beetroot puree. I had cut up beetroot and pickled them overnight in rice vinegar, sugar, salt and pickling spices. Then, I boiled them so that they could be mashed. To ensure that the flavour wasn't diluted, it was boiled in the same pickling mixture, but because I had extra beetroot pickling away, this was a fresh batch (otherwise the whole pot would have been red!)This was the result of double fork action!I added some of the pickle water to the mash, then ran the whole thing through a sieve. That way I got a coarse puree, but it would do.Next up, onion versus knife. It's amazing just how much difference a sharp knife makes, cutting through this was very satisfying compared to my standard kitchen knives!Sharper is definitely better. I wasn't super consistent, but they were pretty thin.Purely by slicing, they became this small and this cute!I elminated any large chunks by then chopping it further. I was very happy with this result!I originally wanted the crisps to curl so that I could make a flower shape arrangement around my tartare, however most of my potato slices were still too thick for that. Also, I'm not that great at controlling the mini-grill I have and I didn't want to waste electricity on powering the oven for just a few crisps, so they went in as-is.I managed to get four good pieces out of the lot! Some burned and others didn't crisp up in time (yes, I was impatient). The jerusalem artichokes went in a second batch, but I was already fed up with the time it was taking for them to dehydrate without burning! But this is how thin the perfect ones were. And they crunched, so I was pleased.I bought some eye fillet beef and cured it quickly to "disinfect" it, before dicing it in the same way as the onions. I wanted mine to be relatively fine, as I was thinking back to my experience at Fix St James. I mixed a small amount of chives and onion through it just to give it flavour.And the plate up! It didn't look at all like how I envisioned it, but I still liked the way it looked! This was also the perfect excuse for me to use my gold leaf as luxury overkill. It wasn't as difficult to handle as I thought, and I had actually pulled off a bit too much. The crisps held up very well, and I shouldn't have put the beef back into the fridge after shaping as it actually was too clumped together as a result - I would have liked it to have fallen apart a little better. The truffle didn't stand out until after I had eaten it all, but the fragrance was there at least. I also found that there was a slight imbalance towards vinegar, as the mustard I bought contained vinegar, the cornichons were in vinegar, then my beetroots were also vinegared. More onion would have helped, and more potato chips would have too.After the photoshoot I dumped all my extras/leftovers onto this, so I got to try the tartare with potato, and with jerusalem artichoke. The potato adds savouriness, while the artichoke adds sweetness and nuttiness. I personally liked the potato better, and so I wouldn't get the artichoke as a just in case next time.I'm glad to have made this dish, now I'm waiting out the 24 hours to make sure I didn't poison myself with this!"All that glitters is black"