So it turns out it’s not a good idea to watch a lot of shows with men in shiny suits, because spending money on suits as a hobby turns out to be really, really expensive! It also means I’ve acquired skills that I can’t really use myself. It turns out there are only 85 ways to tie a tie, so I should learn what the shorthand means and memorise them all, not.
So here’s a shiny dump plus a gigantic burger called the Big Moo from Moo Burgers. I wish I had better lighting but THIS IS ALL YOU GET.
Last part of my cooking adventures! My team gave me a techniques cookbook as a going away present so that makes me happy – I love it because techniques are much more valuable than any old recipe.
Anyway, so in my last weeks of Adelaide here’s some things I’ve whipped up.
I wanted to have a go at pickling, so I bought some carrots, apple cider vinegar, pickling spice mix, garlic, onions, and some chilli. I mixed this all in various quantities, and added salt and sugar to taste. I don’t think I got it quite right however it was still very tasty.
I also cut my carrots all different ways in case one was more visually appealing. Plus julienning is SKILL. Then I would also have carrots for some fantastic salad. I love making salad with access to a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables because it makes for incredibly varied salad.
Let’s get the random out of the way first. With three weeks to go, I had decided I do indeed need to get inspiration while I’m here. Sure, I cook amazing stuff, but I need to recalibrate what I think is amazing – so I booked a degustation with Celcius, apparently one of Adelaide’s top restaurants. From my research, the head chef there used to work in Noma and Marque and a few others I don’t remember off the top of my head. They do, essentially, modern Australian/Contemporary cuisine, which always causes me to giggle as the term is rather akin to what the English language actually is – a mash of other things all in one.
First, a picture of some new flower jars at Argo on the Square! I really liked the purple-ness.
Virtual Valentine
Pomegranate and rose water, coconut and orange blossom water jelly – raspberry sorbet – mint – pistachio crumbs
(more…)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.
I love mussels, so when I found some at another seafood store, I was YES PLEASE. I didn’t even know how much to get, so I started with 250g. Turns out this is about 11-12 mussels, and never enough! However when I was reading up on how to cook them, I also grabbed a baguette and butter as a side.
I had found a few different liquids suggested, and ended up choosing water first, with some butter. I did make one afterwards with white wine, but funnily enough I preferred the one with water.
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 😛
After 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!
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:
Hallo!
An interim post as I’m too lazy to actually put effort into making a blog about my Adelaide/Melbourne trip of caffeine.
So in the meantime here is my attempt at home cupping without any instructions! Plus some obligatory Zumbo pictures 🙂
Basically I bought some Proud Mary Brazil CoE (can’t remember which) in Melbourne, roasted on 18/10 – that’s on the left. Then today I went to Reuben Hills and got some Kenya Nyeri, also roasted on 18/10 – that’s on the right. Since I have no idea how to cupping (yes), I made it up by putting 7g of each in roughly 175mL water.
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