Hey it's your birthday - at Ocean Room Sydney

Every year, I ask him, ‘Where do you want to go for your birthday?’, the assumption being that it has to be a ‘nice’ restaurant (not too cheap) that has great food and a comfy atmosphere.

Every year, he replies ‘Ocean Room’.

Well, this year we went to Ocean Room for his birthday. Like we have for the past couple of years (except for last year, when we went to Becasse).

And as usual, we had the chef Raita’s Tasting Menu. There is an 8-course option for $70, but we had the 12 courses for $98 per person. Such fantastic value and beautifully presented dishes. But we already knew this, since we always have the 12-course tasting!

You can read about some of our previous visits to Ocean Room here and here.

Meanwhile, I’ll let the pictures do the talking. PS: It’s terribly dark (or romantically dusky) at Ocean Room, so the pics are a bit blurry.

To drink, we had Kaishun saké ($19) and Spinifex Rosé ($13/glass). Also a bottle of still water ($10).

Oyster Duo – Pacific oyster with granny smith apple vinaigrette + rock oyster with Yamazaki whiskey and white balsamic air. Served on a bed of LED-lit ice!

Tuna Tartare wrapped with nori

White Gazpacho – almond milk + tomato water

Anchovy + sorbet - an old favourite that's always on the menu

Uni tamago – semi-poached egg + sea urchin espuma

Calamari pops - like popcorn chicken, but better

Spanner crab bonito consommé – winter melon, agedashi tofu, shiso mochi

Ocean trout + avocado - this was my substitution for the consommé because I can't eat crab

Deconstructed ceviche – Crystal Bay prawn, Fremantle octopus and ocean trout

Loved the presentation of this. You pour over the yuzu vinaigrette from a test tube.

Saikyo miso cod – with ginger risotto and orange miso sauce. Perfectly cooked fish.

There was a bit of a wait for our next course, so the observant waitstaff brought us a round of drinks to compensate. I had a Gorgeous Geisha mocktail (cranberry, lychee, lemonade).

Sushi collection – three types of nigiri sushi and pickled ginger

Smoky Wagyu beef – table-smoked chargrilled beef + chimichurri sauce + potato ball.

How impressive is this? A wood-smoke-filled globe encompasses a chunk of marbled Wagyu.

Dessert plate – gorgonzola panna cotta + shoyu caramel, caramelised banana, poached pear

Overall, this was another solidly dependable meal from Ocean Room. The food is good without the wow! factor you get from hatted restaurants. I suppose the view of the Opera House opposite provides a bit of excitement if you're looking for it. There's no denying the great value for the tasting menu, though, and the staff are efficient and friendly.

A new menu is going to be introduced soon, apparently, so the dishes we had might not be there much longer. Never mind, it gives an opportunity for another visit soon, hopefully.

Ocean Room is at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, Circular Quay, Sydney.

ph: 02 9252 9585

http://oceanroomsydney.com

Chicken and Broad Bean Casserole...with Bjorn

Fudge, it’s cold – Winter has well and truly hit us here in Sydney town. 

You know how they say that Sydney is the coldest place in the world? Well, it’s because no one is ever prepared for the cool weather, so there’s no central heating in our houses, no double-glazed windows to keep out the drafts, scarves and overcoats are of the lightest weight because we think oh, it’s just a short cold spell that will be over by Wednesday, so man up, you wuss!

What this means is that the Bureau of Meteorology website is my favourite bookmark at the moment. I love looking at the radar map of approaching storms, and the prediction of ‘95% chance of rain’ for tomorrow, well, der, I already knew that, but it’s good to see it confirmed!

OK, that’s enough conversation about the weather for now. Here is another slow cooker meal that I did on the weekend, a smooth and warming Chicken and Broad Bean Casserole. It’s adapted from a dish that’s in this month’s (June) Australian Women’s Weekly. They used celeriac in their casserole, but there was none at the supermarket, so I used swede and potato instead. The rest is your usual slow cooker method of browning the meat first, then letting the flavours meld in the slow cooker while you enjoy your (cold) weekend.

By the way, don’t you just love swede? It holds its shape so well during long cooking, and it has such a fresh flavour, compared to, say, potato. Can’t wait to visit Stockholm one day (swede, smorgasbord, meatballs, Stockholm... geddit?)

Chicken and Broad Bean Casserole

serves 4

Ingredients

6 chicken thigh fillets (about 600g total), cut into thick slices

2 tblsp plain flour + 1 tblsp extra

2 tblsp rice bran oil or canola oil

20g butter

1 medium onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, roughly chopped

1 medium carrot, peeled and roughly chopped

2 tsp crushed garlic

1 tblsp Dijon mustard

2 cups chicken stock

1 medium swede, peeled and roughly chopped

2 medium potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped

1 cup broad beans (frozen or fresh)

Method

1. Place the chicken and 2 tablespoons of flour into a large plastic bag and toss the chicken around so that it is coated in the flour. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat and cook the chicken until browned. Remove from pan and set aside.

2. Wipe the pan with paper towel, then add the butter, onion, celery and carrot. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the extra 1 tablespoon of flour, then the garlic and mustard and stir for one minute. Pour in the stock and bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes.

3. Put the swede and potatoes into the slow cooker, then top with the chicken and then the stock mixture. Cover and cook on Low heat for 5 hours.

4. Put the broad beans into a heatproof bowl, then pour over boiling water to cover. Leave for 2 minutes, then peel the outer covering from the beans. Add the beans to the cooker and cook for another 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving.

This is a swede. I will call him Björn.

Other veg includes carrot, celery and potato.

Condiments include chicken stock, garlic and Dijon mustard.

The partly cooked chicken, carrot, celery and onion are dumped into the slow cooker.

The colours of this casserole are lovely, almost like Spring rather than Winter.

Hope you are keeping warm, wherever you are!

Jam Drops - and the Bitey Cat Awards 2012

Just the facts, ma’am.

Please excuse the brevity of this post. I just need to push out a recipe (for Jam Drops, no less!) so that you don’t think I’ve abandoned you.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I also use this blog as my own personal library of ‘things I’ve cooked before and am likely to make again – someday’. It’s also great to look back on what I’ve written and have a giggle – or sigh – about what was happening back then.

 I did originally intend to collate the recipes into a folder, decorated using my heap of scrapbooking supplies – papers, embellishments, stamps, mists, and the like, but that idea is still a germ of an idea that refuses to develop…

Sorry to ramble on…back to this latest recipe. I found it in Real Living, a magazine I’m regularly seduced into buying. So many gorgeous interiors with similarly gorgeous young occupants draped over the replica Eames furniture. I suppose these Jam Drops have a bit of a retro vibe, but that sort of thing is IN right now.

Oh, and there is still time to enter my Slow Cooker giveaway, courtesy of kitchenwaredirect.com.au. I will hopefully have another lovely slow-cooked recipe for you soon, but in the meantime, please enjoy these dainty Jam Drops with a cup of tea.


Jam Drops
makes approx 20

Ingredients
½ cup rice flour
1/3 cup plain flour
¼ cup caster sugar
125g cold butter, chopped
pinch of salt
4 tblsp raspberry jam

Method
1. Preheat oven to 160C/320F. Line baking trays with baking paper.
2. Sieve the rice flour, plain flour and caster sugar into the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and salt, then process until the mixture forms a ball of dough.
3. Lightly knead the dough until it sticks together, then roll it out on a lightly floured surface to a ½ cm ( ¼ in) thickness.
4. Use a cookie cutter to cut shapes from the dough, and while the cutter is still in place, use the end of a wooden spoon to gently indent the centre of the cookie (keeping the cutter in place lets the cookie retain its shape). Re-roll out any offcuts, creating cookies until the dough is used up. Place cookies on the prepared tray, and fill the indent with raspberry jam.
5. Bake in preheated oven for30 minutes, or until light golden in colour. Cool completely on wire racks before serving. Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

recipe adapted from Real Living (May 2012)

Messy ingredients, including rice flour that comes in a box that doesn't seal properly, with the flour just loose in the box!

Combine the flours and sugar with the cold butter to form a dough.

The cookies are pretty when cut using a flower shape with a dab of jam in the centre.

The cookies are quite buttery, so the flower shape turns into a bit of a blob.

They taste fab, though!

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Tabitha vs Henry Update

The Bitey Cat Awards

The nominees are:

Tabitha cat (top)

Henry cat (bottom)

 

Henry cat will leap up to take food from your hand - even when you don't have any food to give!

And those teeth are sharp!

Tabitha is not lacking in the fang department, either, but it's her claws that will do the most damage.

She is odds-on favourite to take out the Scratchy Cat Awards, so keep a lookout for it soon.

Non-vintage Lamb Curry and WIN a Slow Cooker

What are the ages of ‘vintage’ and ‘antique’ items? I used to think that Antique was anything over 200 years old, Vintage was more than 100 years old, and anything less was just ‘second-hand’.

Then, Vintage got upgraded, you know, like when a lairy knit jumper from the Eighties is described as ‘vintage’ in those supercilious street-style photographs, as in “Darya wears a Yohji Yamamoto gilet, vintage sweater from a Paris flea market, Ksubi jeans, Chanel booties and her mother’s scarf”. Oh, how unbearably chic!

Well, in that case, my mother has a vintage slow cooker. I think it’s from the 1970s, and it’s hot orange in colour with a neat brown floral/leaf pattern around the base with ‘Crockpot’ written in a funky, hippy font. It is the coolest thing ever, although it used to be considered daggy. I suppose that’s when something becomes Vintage – when it turns the corner from eye-rollingly kitsch (but useful) to nostalgically coveted.

By the way, I have a NEW slow cooker and made this wonderful Lamb Curry in it. And you could have a NEW slow cooker, too. Just salivate over this recipe and enter the giveaway below.

Lamb Curry

serves 4

Ingredients

3 tblsp plain flour

500g diced lean lamb

2 tblsp oil

1 medium sweet potato, cut into 2cm chunks

1 brown onion, sliced

1 tsp crushed garlic

1 tsp grated ginger

½ tsp ground cumin

¼ cup Indian curry paste (Korma for mild, Madras for hot)

270ml reduced-fat coconut cream

1 tsp vegetable stock powder or paste

1 bay leaf 

chives or coriander, to serve

Method

1. Put the lamb in a plastic bag and add the flour and some salt and pepper. Close the bag and shake until the lamb is coated with the flour.

2. Heat the oil in a large non-stick frypan and add the lamb. Cook in batches until browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer lamb to a 3.5 litre slow cooker.

3. Add sweet potato, onion, garlic, ginger and cumin to the pan. Cook for 5 minutes, until onion is soft (the sweet potato will still be uncooked). Add curry paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

4. Add coconut milk, stock powder and ¾ cup of cold water and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and pour into the slow cooker with the lamb. Add bay leaf.

5. Cook, covered on Low heat for 6 hours. Remove bay leaf before serving with a sprinkle of chives and rice or naan bread.

recipe adapted from Super Food Ideas

Ingredients, including ginger and garlic, Korma curry paste, onion, sweet potato, light coconut cream, bay leaf, cumin; coat the lamb pieces in seasoned flour and brown in a pan before adding the other ingredients.

After 6 hours, the lamb incredibly tender. Liquid does not evaporate from a lidded slow cooker like it does in a pan on the stove, so there is lots of sauce left in the pot.  You should also make sure that the slow cooker is filled half to three-quarters full for best results, with liquid covering most of the lamb and potato.

Serve the curry with naan bread and accompaniments like yoghurt and pappadums.

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Fantastic Giveaway from Kitchenware Direct

Thanks to Brad from Kitchenware Direct for allowing me to review this Morphy Richards Accents Slow Cooker.

I was really excited about this product because I wanted to have hot, ready-prepared meals to come home to (and I am too cheap to get takeaway). This slow cooker does not disappoint. It is a compact size (3.5 litres) that is perfect for 2-4 people and it doesn’t take up too much bench space. The burgundy ceramic pot is removable for serving and easy cleaning, it works like a dream and the instruction manual is mercifully to-the-point with useful essential tips (I always read the manual before operating appliances, and you should, too).

And Kitchenware Direct are also offering one of these fantastic slow cookers to a lucky Ooh, Look… reader (sorry, Australian entrants only). Just leave a comment on this post with the magic words ‘Please, Miss, I want a slow cooker’. Terms and conditions and closing date are below. Good luck!

Conditions of Entry

1. Entry to this contest is by a comment on this post containing the words “Please, Miss, I want a slow cooker”. Alternatively, enter by sending an email to oohlookbel2000 [at] gmail [dot] com

2. Entries close at midnight 10 June 2012.

3. Winner will be randomly selected

4. The prize can only be delivered to Australian addresses. Prize will be supplied and delivered by Kitchenware Direct.

5. Please include an email address or your blog URL in your entry so I can contact you if you win.

------ UPDATE ------ 

Thanks to everyone who entered this competition.

A winner has been selected:


Congratulations to Reemski.  I will email you.
Hope you enjoy the slow cooker from kitchenwaredirect.com.au.

Kiddie carrot muffins

Before we get onto the advertised Carrot Muffins, let me tell you how they came about. It was because I went to a local school fête last week and it brought back nostalgic feelings of school days and homemade cakes and toffees, and raffles and stuff.

The Birchgrove Public School fête held in the school grounds with a sunny autumn day, cake stalls…

…second-hand books, rides and giant sharks and tombola prizes (lollies in a jar).

When I got home, the school-hall fug still in my nostrils, I looked up this recipe from Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Project. It’s meant for children to pull carrots and parsley fresh from the garden and to whip a delicious batch of simple muffins with the ingredients.

Well, I’m not quite a child anymore, but these muffins are indeed quick and easy to make, and they are full of moist goodness that bring back memories of home economics classes, play-lunch and chasings. Isn’t it wonderful what a school fête invokes?

*ping!*

Back to reality now: there’s no way I want to go back to school, thank you very much, so a spot of kids’ cooking is a far as I’m going. Hope you will also give these a try!

Carrot Muffins

makes 12

Ingredients

1 medium carrot, peeled and grated

1 ¾ cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

3 tblsp chopped parsley

100g grated cheddar cheese

1 egg

¾ cup buttermilk

½ cup vegetable oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Line a 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Mix in the carrot, cheese and parsley.

3. In a jug, whisk the egg, buttermilk and oil. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture, and pour in the liquid. Mix lightly to combine.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tray, filling each case two-thirds full.

5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden. Cool on wire racks before serving.

Ingredients, including buttermilk, egg, grated carrot, cheese and flour + baking powder

Just bake until golden

Leftover muffins are also good if you reheat them in the microwave for 20 seconds.

Simply: chilled lemon delicious pudding

Going through some recent cooking magazines, I was struck by how inconveniently specific some of the recipe ingredients have become. From micro herbs, to jamon, to fresh burrata and Kashmiri chilli and ‘organic nasturtium petals’ (yes, really), they often offer no substitute ingredient, so if you can’t get your hands on some organic nasturtium petals – or even know what a substitute would be – then you’ve probably stuffed up the recipe already.

Apart from ‘special occasion’ dishes for parties and the like, I much prefer ordinary, just-find-it-in-a-shop ingredients in my everyday meals. It makes things so much easier when you feel like a rice pilaf and you can make it with items you already have in the pantry, instead of having to traipse across town to the specialist spice place that stocks Kashmiri chilli.

Of course, my definition of ‘simple’ may be different to yours; in fact, it probably is, because if it involves anything remotely complicated (like food that's hellishly deep-fried), then I’m a lost cause. I’ve also found that the simple dishes are usually the old-fashioned ones that originated in about 1950, that were made by a post-war frugal generation – well, at least anything that doesn’t involve dripping or lard is okay.

Here’s an old-fashioned favourite, Lemon Delicious Pudding, but chilled for make-ahead convenience.

Chilled Lemon Delicious Pudding

serves 6

Ingredients

40g (1½ oz) unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup caster sugar

3 eggs, separated

60g (2oz) self-raising flour, sifted

350ml (12oz) milk

Finely grated zest of 2 lemons, plus 1/3 cup lemon juice

Icing sugar, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Grease a 1.2l (5-cup) capacity ovenproof dish with a little of the butter.

2. Beat butter and caster sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale, about 10 minutes. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each yolk is added.

3. Add a third of the flour, beat well, then add a third of the milk, beating again. Repeat until all the flour and milk has been added.

4. Add lemon zest and juice and mix until a smooth batter forms.

5. In a separate bowl, beat the eggwhites until soft peaks form. Gradually fold the eggwhites into the batter until just combined.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared dish, then place the dish into deep roasting pan and fill with enough hot water to come halfway up the side of the dish. Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for a further 30 minutes or until the pudding is golden.

7. Turn off the oven and allow the pudding to cool in the oven for 30 minutes (to stop it collapsing). Transfer pudding to the refrigerator to cool completely.

8. Serve with icing sugar dusted over.

recipe adapted from delicious (Nov 2011)

Various stages of preparation, including whipping the eggwhites before folding into the egg yolk, butter and sugar mixture.

The pudding is then covered and placed in a water bath before baking.

Like a typical lemon delicious pudding, a lemony sauce sinks to the base of the pudding, ready to be scooped out with the spongey top.

Make sure you get some sauce with the cake.

 A warm lemon delicious recipe is here.

Actually, I found that the cooling of the pudding made the sponge cake a bit dense, so I prefer the warm version. You can't beat the taste of either method, though. Very lemony and certainly delicious.

Bacon broccoli beans - and quinoa (fritters)

I was pleased to see this recipe for Fritters in the recent Donna Hay magazine. With virtuous quinoa, no less, so how can you go wrong? Slight discontent, however, when the relatively short recipe in the magazine ended up taking ages to make – because of the prior preparation, such as cooking the quinoa, mashing the beans and steaming the broccoli.

However, as chippies all know, you should measure twice and cut once. Or, to translate into cooking terminology, measuring and organising everything you need beforehand (I think it’s called mise en place) makes the actual cooking much easier and error-proof.

Of course, having a food blog that features recipes that you just have to photograph every step for, well, it pretty much doubles the time it takes to prepare dinner, but it does make you focus on all the ingredients and prepping and making sure that the final result is worthy of blogdom. Hmm, not sure about being worthy, but this recipe is okay, nonetheless.

Bacon, Broccoli, Bean and Quinoa Fritters

serves 4

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa

400g tinned cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 small head of broccoli, florets removed

4 rashers bacon, chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten

¼ cup basil leaves, chopped

salt and pepper

1 tblsp olive oil

Method

1. Cook the quinoa in 1½ cups of boiling water for about 15 minutes, until the water is absorbed, then set aside to cool slightly.

2. Mash the cannellini beans in a bowl and set aside.

3. Steam or microwave the broccoli until just tender, then chop finely.

4. Heat a non-stick frying pan over high heat and cook the bacon until golden, about 5 minutes.

5. Place the cooked quinoa, mashed beans, broccoli, egg, bacon, basil and lots of salt and pepper in a large bowl and mix to combine. Take 2 tablespoons of the mixture and shape into fritters. Place onto a plate and refrigerate for 20 minutes to firm.

6. Heat the oil in the frying pan over medium heat and cook the fritters for 4 minutes on each side, until golden. Serve.

recipe adapted from Donna Hay magazine (issue 62)

Ingredients, including cannellini beans, quinoa, broccoli, bacon, egg and basil

The prepared ingredients are mixed together to form fritters.

Serve au naturel, or with corn relish or chutney