FoodieChat

A rainy long weekend – what to do!  It’s not often that I have time to spend all day baking, so why not call the girls over for some high tea  - ahem, afternoon tea, and pull out the dainty tea paraphernalia.    High Tea  (as well call it in Australia, despite it technically being defined as a substantial meal early in the evening and what we have being called afternoon tea by definition), is generally at least $40 a person in most posh establishments such as 5 star hotels.  Having it at home, I’m quite positive it would be less than $2 per person.  For my tea, I made scones, mini Victoria sponges, mini choc mint madelines, and cucumber sandwiches.  Teas on offer were Lady Grey and English Breakfast (ie , whatever was in my pantry).  In fact, almost everything was in my pantry. All I needed to buy was a cucumber, soft fresh white bread, strawberries and cream.  Here’s how.

First up, make half a recipe of plain vanilla sponge cake.  The recipe I use is half of the following:  1/3 cup each of plain, SR and cornflour, sifted.  Beat 4 eggs until tripled in volume along with 2/3 cup of sugar.  Gently fold in the flours and bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes.  So basically, half of the recipe will fill 12 muffin tins, just 1/3 of the way, you don’t want the sponges to be too high or else they’ll be huge towers when you fill them with jam and cream.  Flours, eggs and sugar – pantry? Check.  I also wanted to test my mini madelines tin.  It was filled with less than half a recipe of the chocolate fondant recipe from masterchef, which involves butter, cocoa, chocolate, sugar and flour, again, all in the pantry/fridge.  I steeped some mint leaves in there for a mint flavour, but it didn’t work that well

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I stumbled upon this place by complete accident.  Walking over to Marigold, I noticed this completely open kitchen with food displayed in the window to make mouths water and pedestrians stop in their tracks.    And I certainly wasn’t the only one.  In front of the glass display of food and chefs was a long queue crouching beneath a solitary outdoor heater.  Mental note – MUST TRY!  

Well, try I did.  And it was even better than I expected.  From the window I actually had no idea what type of food it was – it was definitely Asian – in fact, it turned out to be Thai.  Home Thai – as in home cooked style food.  But I don’t know whose home has such amazing food every night – maybe a palace?  It was so hard to pick what to eat, but guided by the photos in the extensive menu, and sneaking glances at what arrived at other tables, we settled firstly on the Pad Thai. Did I mention this place is cheap??? $10.50!!  Authentically with sugar, peanuts and chilli powder on the side, fresh and cooked beansprouts.  And not oily but also not gluggy!  Did I mention the staff all use ipads to take your order?  A bit too cute – because it failed on our occasion and the waitress didn’t want to hand write our orders cos it wouldn’t go through.  Luckily it went back online after around 10 minutes. Oh , and also the waitresses wear LV side satchels.  Were they also from Thailand?

Highly recommended: the banana flower salad, topped with 6 gigantic prawns. It was text book perfect. Crunch, salt, sour, spicy all in one bite through fresh chillis, fish sauce, coriander, peanuts – YUM.  And the prawns were so generous.  Served on an artfully carved leaf too.

We finished off with two desserts – $6.50 for this mango (Fresh!) with sticky rice and coconut cream.  Umm… not sure if the kitchen mixed up the sticky rice, because it was salty  They also have sticky rice as a rice choice too.  So not really a fan of this dish.  Perfect texture of rice though.

And definitely couldn’t go past the dessert sampler. A steal at $5.50!  Banana fritters and various sticky rice and coconut puddings.

Another word of warning – don’t wear nice clothes, cos you will STINK afterwards!  But it is SOoooo worth it.  I can’t wait to go again.   Awesome food, and well priced too.  The Haymarket dining scene is looking up and lifting up in standards!

This is no ordinary sausage sizzle.  Fetes and festivals are characterised by a charity gristle sausage smothered in sauce on a thin piece of no frills white bread. onions if you’re lucky.  This works great – yummy, cheap, maximum profits.  However, when festivals turn foodie, such a charity treat is no longer enough – not when you can get gourmet sausage rolls.  Enter the chorizo roll, or for an even more upmarket gourmet version – the chorizo and garlic prawn roll!!!   For $10, you get a halved chorizo grilled on the BBQ, and half a dozen of garlic prawns smothered in spicy tomato sauce.  And garnished with fresh parsley.

The dude at the grill – the master BBQ-er has perfected the rhythm of turning, cooking, filling, passing.  I’m sure it’s a hot and smoky job, but we appreciate you!  The result is the most amazing juicy (huge) mouthful.  These guys also make an appearance the Entertainment Quarter markets in Moore Park.  But I sure am hoping that they will turn up at tomorrow’s Burwood Festival. I am counting on it!

Masterchef Australia should come with a warning.  Warning: Do not watch unless you have a well stocked pantry of food to satisfy guaranteed longings.  Well I luckily do have tonnes of stuff in my pantry and fridge, and today’s craving was for a warm tarte tatin.  That’s a French upside down apple tart.  The apples are caramelised then covered with a puff pastry blanket to cook (traditionally in a frypan), inverted and served with vanilla bean ice cream.  I wanted to make individual serves, so here’s the recipe for 2 people.  Step 1: Peel and slice one granny smith apple.  Step 2: Melt a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan, and a tablespoon of brown sugar. Step 3: Put apples in and cook until soft and some of the juices have come into the saucepan to form a sauce. Step 4: Meanwhile, cut two discs of puff pastry and preheat the oven to 220 degrees. 

Step 5: I lined two tart tins with baking paper but for the traditional way, just simmer off some of the liquid until the caramel is thicker, then lay a whole sheet of puff pastry on top and put it in the oven.  For my way, lay the apples nicely in a spiral, then simmer the sauce until it’s thicker, and then pour over the apples.  Lay the pastry on top.  Step 6: Bake in the oven until puffed and the edges are very brown and the sauce is caramelised.

Final step: carefully invert onto a plate and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Eat immediately whilst still warm and whilst the pastry is crispy.  Cooked and eaten in 40 minutes