Night Noodles at Hyde Park, followed by Wine & Cheese in the Hunter Valley

After a great night out at the Night Noodle Markets in Hyde Market with friends (and a zillion other people, with huge lines to boot, but an excellent experience none-the-less) on Thursday night, we headed up to Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley wine region on Friday (via one cache on the way).  Approximately two hours drive from Sydney, the Hunter Valley comprises myriad vineyards and surprisingly (to me at least) lots of cheese dairies.

The Hunter Valley Cheese Factory was the first dairy we visited and we found a very high calibre of cheese.  I particularly liked their washed rind cheese (which had a nice bite to it) and their blue cheese (that was very light in blue flavour but lovely and creamy).

After checking in at our accommodation on Hermitage Road we headed along the road to Emerson’s at Pokolbin  for lunch. They have only been open for 3 weeks (according to the chef/owner) and are doing tapas style meals.  The duck liver pate was divine and one of the best we have had.  We also had garlic prawns and calamari, both of which were okay although lacked a wow factor.  We were impressed however that the chef/owner came out and asked us what we thought of the meals and took a genuine interest in our feedback.

We then ventured on to Piggs Peake for our first wine tasting and they were okay but nothing noteworthy.  They were very friendly and gave generous tastings.  I do wonder though whether since they were the first vineyard for the day and our first for this region whether I was being overly critical.

DenMar was our second vineyard and there was yet again nothing jumping out at me.  I also found that their Pinot Noirs weren’t to my palate, but I think that may be more so due to me being more in-tune with NZ Pinot Noirs.

Tintilla Estate was my pick of the vineyards on Friday, also helped by the exuberance of the wine salesman.  He was a member of the family and consequently knew lots about their huge selection of wines and was very open to all feedback.  I particularly enjoyed their Semillon 2010  and their Sangiovese 2009.  I also really enjoyed tasting their selection of fortified wines.

We then quickly grabbed a lovely cheddar cheese from Binnorie Dairy before they closed and had a taste of their washed rind cheese (which I enjoyed).  We will return tomorrow for a proper tasting.

Another glorious day in Sydney (but beware the seagulls)

We had another glorious day in Sydney today and started with a train trip out to Single Origin Roasters, which is a very busy little cafe hidden away in a side street in Surry Hills, where we had a lovely breakfast and superb coffee; Jane however wasn’t too fussed with her Chai Latte.  We would happily return.

We then walked along to Harmony Park and found a geocache before jumping onto the free bus that goes around the city and getting off at Circular Quay.  We spent some time people watching and enjoying the lovely day around by the Opera House before heading around to the Rocks.

The Rocks is one of those areas of Sydney I enjoy walking around the streets and looking at the old buildings.  It has a nice feeling, all-be-it quite touristy.

Our stomaches were craving some food so after deciding that most of the restaurants on the waters edge by The Rocks would be a bit too heavy on our wallet for lunch we went to Cruise Bar at the Circular Quay end of the The Rocks promenade and had a lovely lunch, whilst fending away the seagulls and narrowly missing being shat on.  We then were engulfed by hundreds of firemen/women who were preceded by a band.  We have no idea what they were doing there, but it provided a nice buzz.

They keep children in cages in Sydney (and other things we found out today)

After a nice bite to eat (and a good coffee) across the road from our hotel at Bluestone in O’Connell Street we ventured to George Street where Jane noticed that there was brail next to the button to cross the road.  Something so simple, I imagine can be extremely useful.

As were were finding our first geocache for the trip in Lang’s Lawn we even found that they cage children here.  We were however pleased to see that we weren’t the only people looking on very curiously.

We then wandered along to a board game store called The Tin Soldier at 40 York Street that is down in the basement of the building and has an excellent range, where we bought a card game (Backpacker) but may yet return to buy something else.

We then wandeWe then ventured along to the glorious Queen Victoria Building before it was time for Jane to spend ages and ages in a costume jewellery store; she eventually emerged with a couple of items.

Walking through an underground corridor we emerged at Myers and then wandered across to David Jones where the array of ladies shoes was mind-boggling.  After investing in some shoes for Jane we then watched a very serious chess match over at Hyde Park.  After 5 minutes we still hadn’t seen a move taken and the concentration was very intense.  I do like the idea of the outdoor chess set.

After a nice salad for lunch in the lovely Strand Arcade at Strand Expresso we then headed back to the hotel for a bit of R&R before I got bored and wandered along to Custom House (by Circular Quay) where there was a pipe art form just begging for photos to be taken.

I then proceeded from here along to the Opera House and got a bit trigger happy with the camera (as I’m sure most people do) and took the obligatory shots.

I don’t know where we’ll head to for dinner tonight.  We had an excellent meal at the Bavarian Bier Cafe in O’Connell Street last night, with a schnitzel that was ridiculously large finished off with schnapps (a cow bell was even rung as the schnapps arrived, which is apparently tradition).  Perhaps we’ll go to the Japanese restaurant the concierge has recommended.

Salmon & Ricotta Ravioli Recipe

Last night I made what Simon concluded was 'the best pasta I've made yet'.  I wasn't sure how well this one was going to work out - while I was scouring the web for similar recipes, I was surprised to find that pretty much all the salmon ravioli recipes called for smoked salmon and not fresh salmon.  But in my head it seemed to me be do-able, so I went with it and I'm really pleased with the result - and I'm very glad I have leftovers for lunch today!

Note: the photo is of the leftovers that I cooked up today and unfortunately I hadn't dried them sufficiently before storing them, so they're not quite as plump and attractive as last nights, but still a reasonable depiction.

Ingredients

Pasta Dough
Refer to this post for details of my dough, make for 2 people (note I now make it in the food processor rather than all that upper-arm toning kneading - it's just so much quicker).

Filling
300g skin-on, tail end salmon fillet (or about 270g if you buy it skinned)
275g fresh ricotta (I used a handmade ricotta from the grocers at the fish market rather than the much denser supermarket mass-production style)
about 2 tsp fresh dill
1 fresh lemon
salt & pepper

Sauce
Good quality EVOO (extra virgin Olive oil)
1 clove garlic, crushed & finely chopped
part of the lemon from the filling

Instructions

• First make your dough as per the instructions referenced.  Leave to sit for about 30 minutes while you make the filling.
• Skin the salmon then slice and then re-slice into small pieces - I ended up with mostly 10mm by 10mm by 5mm pieces or perhaps a smidgen smaller.  Place in a mixing bowl.
• Add the gently drained ricotta - I just poured off the liquid trying not to lose any of the actual chesse
• finely chop the dill and add to the bowl
• finely grate about 2/3s of the lemon rind and add
• mix gently and then add salt & pepper to taste
• Get a pot of water on the element so that it is boiling by the time your raviolis are filled
• And place the sauce ingredients (including the remaining finely grated rind of the lemon) into a pan ready to gently heat and infuse prior to serving.
• Now roll your pasta through the pasta machine doing the usual process of going through number 1 and folding and back through number 1 and folding several times until the dough is smooth, then eventually rolling it through to number 5.  I did this in several batches - such that I filled a tray of ravioli before rolling the next lot dough.
• Place the dough over your ravioli tray (after my 1 exasperating attempt at making ravioli by hand I refuse to do it without my raviolamp tray ever again). I'm using a tray that does 12 good sized ravioli.
• (probably a good time to begin heating the oil over low heat now)
• Place a spoon of the filling in each depression then cover with another layer of pasta and use the rolling pin (and your fingers) to seal the edges then remove the ravioli from the tray.  Repeat until all your filling has been used.
• Place about 12 ravioli in the pan of boiling water at a time and cook for 4 minutes with a dollop of oil to prevent them sticking.
• While the ravioli are cooking, agitate the oil a couple of times - you're not aiming to bring to a high temperature here, just to warm it and release some of the flavour from the lemon & garlic.
• Drain the ravioli then serve in pasta bowls, dressed with the infused oil.

We enjoyed this with a beautiful oaky Clearview Estate Chardonnay.

Short Crust Pasty recipe (for Cornish Pastys)

Last night I made Cornish Pastys again, this time however I also made the pastry instead of buying it ready-rolled, and for the first time ever I used the (apparently) traditional short crust pastry instead of flakey-puff. I'll now continue to do so!  The result was fabulous and very very yummy.

Short Crust Pastry
for 2 main course sized pastys

200g plain flour
110g butter
pinch of salt
2-4 Tbsp cold water
extra flour for rolling

• Chop the butter into small cubes (about 1cm), add flour & butter to bowl of food processor with metal blade.
• Pulse until it resembles fine-breadcrumbs (briefly wonder if that slightly electrical smell is the beginning of the end for my student-days food-processor.... and keep going anyway )
• Add 1Tbsp of water at a time while running the food-processor until the dough comes together
• Remove and knead briefly, then roll into a ball (processor survives to be used another day, phew!)
• Cover in gladwrap and chill for at least 15 minutes
• tick tock tick tock tick tock........tick tock DING
• remove from the fridge, sprinkle your clean bench surface with a little more flour, and a little on your rolling pin
• gently shape the ball into a flatish rectangle with your hands then begin gently rolling out until you can cut 2 dinner plate sized rounds from the pastry
• and do so (cut the dinner plate sized rounds)
• at this point Simon offerred to make a J and an S from the left over pastry, so he did that while I filled the pastry with the pasty filling, rubbed the edge with milk, folded over, formed the crimp and brushed the resulting pastys in milk.  
• add the initals (this point is optional in case you were wondering!) and brush them with milk too.
• (oh - for the filling recipe, see my Cornish Pastys post - note I got the spelling wrong on that post - I have since searched on google for pasties and realised what a mistake this was and will never do it again.)
• Bake for 45 minutes at 220°C.  (actually, this is a bad idea.  it's what I tried to do last night, but I ended up having to turn it down to 160°C at about 30 minutes, and managed to get another 8 minutes out of it before I decided I really had to rescue the pastys.  So, I need to experiment with this - my original method was 1 hour at 180°C - next time I'll try 45 minutes at 200°C - I feel pastry ought to be cooked hotter than 180°, however I want to give the skirt steak as long as I can to achieve a slightly more tender result.)
• Serve with my dad's delicious tomato relish and devour while admiring your handiwork with that delicious golden, crusty pastry outer.

Monk Fish Ceviche recipe

Several months back we had a hankering for a raw-fish style meal and tried to find a quick and easy recipe.  I'd remembered watching a Jamie Oliver episode where he made ceviche in a matter of minutes with minimal marinating time, so was really surprised to discover pretty much all the recipes I found online required marinating the fish for a minimum of 2 hours.  This is simply not a style of cooking that is compatible with my naturally impatient approach to meal preparation!

We came up with something and I must have hastily scribbled down the recipe, because when I came to make it again tonight, Simon found the piece of paper scrawled with red pen and I spent the next 10 minutes while I prepared dinner, and then again at random intervals for the next couple of hours going " 'SMASH', what on earth did I mean?" as there is a commandment in the middle of the page in solidly printed capital letters  - SMASH.  Weird. And there are ingredients in the list that don't feature in the instructions, then things in the instructions like 'add garlic' when there is no garlic in the ingredient list!!! [later: I re-read the recipe and found garlic powder] I have no idea what was going on there. 

To ensure I have an easier time of it next time, I am going to record how I made tonight's rather delicious ceviche.

For 2 people:

1 fillet of Monk Fish
juice of between 6 and 8 limes (need enough to cover the sliced fish)
2 fresh red chillies
salt (I'm currently using Himalayan  rock salt)
1 spring onion sliced thinly (I would have used a red onion, but didn't have any)
leaves from 3 stalks of coriander
small clove of garlic

• Rub the fish in salt, then rinse under cold water (apparently this makes the fish 'thirsty' for the marinade. Who knew?)
• peel and gently crush the garlic clove enough that the inner flesh is exposed, then rub the bowl with the garlic.  finely chop a small amount of the clove - I used about 1/4 - and add to the bowl
• Chop the chillies finely, removing the seeds, unless you want a lot of heat, add to the bowl
• add about a teaspoon of salt (yes, a whole teaspoon), then (and this is where that commandment comes in) SMASH. Hehe.  So in more helpful terms, use the back of a spoon to smoosh the ingredients together - I have no idea why, maybe it helps release some of the flavour from the chilli.  It's fun anyway, so just do it.
• Add the lime juice, stir then taste to check the salt level.  You'll be surprised at how much it tastes like lime and not like salt!  Add salt if necessary until you can pick both flavours easily, but no so that it tastes powerfully salty (not very helpful here am I?)
• Add the chopped fresh coriander and spring onions (or red onion)
• Slice the fish into thin strips and add to the marinade, check the salt level again then  leave for 1-2 minutes.
• Serve! Yep, it's that easy!

(For my future reference - the scrawled recipe from the 1st time says to rub chilli around the bowl - not garlic, and the instruction to 'add garlic' comes after the commandment to SMASH, along with pepper (a pinch).  'dash garlic powder' is in the ingredient list.  There is also a celery stick in the ingredient list, but it's not in the instructions. And I do wonder if I may have used a mix of lemon and lime juice the first time around.)

Cooking, such an adventure.

Tomorrow night, I'm making salmon & ricotta ravioli because a friend told me she remembers once having ravioli with some sort of divine salmon filling when she was in Aussie once and it was so good she can all but still taste it.  Random inspiration. It sounded like a challenge.  I can't resist a challenge.

Wine Review: Clifton Road Sauvignon Blanc, 2007, Hawkes Bay

With passionfruit and light kerosine to the nose, this light gold coloured wine is big and bold to taste with passionfruit being the dominant flavour.

It is an enjoyable wine to drink that has a long aftertaste and is drinking well now.