I have a new hobby: Cheesemaking.
This is the first part, of my first third cheese (I’ve made paneer and mascarpone before; but nothing too far into the realm of cheesemaking). I’m making a chevre (or fromage blanc) from goats milk. The recipe that I’m using lives at http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/chevre.htm. I’m curious to see how it pans out (:
I got the out of the ordinary cheese ingredients from Curds & Whey who are based in Auckland, NZ.
And soon I’ll have the magical pixie dust to make some.
And now we are happy and fed (:
So I don’t forget; here’s a quick overview:
Glass of Bubbly (Quartz Reef Chauvet)
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Zeroth Course – Amuse Bouche: Beef Tartar (raw beef) with a poppy wafer and relish
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First Course: Citrus dressed scallops and prawns with tartare sauce + mesclun salad
Second Course: Seared tuna with endive, pear, popcorn shoots and honey+rosemay dressing paired with Odyssey Viogner
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Third Course – Soup: Kumara (sweet potato) with smoked paprika
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Fourth Course: Duck+Snail tartlet with ratatoullie jus and salad paired with Chateaux Des Ertes (something (: something red)
Fifth Course: Seared lamb with sweebreads, served with tomato couli and saffron infused cauliflower puree with Puriri Hills something (another red.. I think this one was 1/2 cabernet franc, 1/2 merlot; or perhaps this was the Chateaux Des Ertes… Argh. I’m sure I was paying better attention at the restaurant.)
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Sixth Course – Cheese: Triple cream brie with HNNGGHH! we’ve forgotten. A couli of some description. Dark red, sweet and tart. I had a Spanish dessert red to accompany, Cyrus had Armagnac.
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Seventh Course – Refresher: A white cranberry beverage infused with orange essense and thyme
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Eighth Course: White chocolate panna cotta with espresso mascarpone, served along side macadamia butter parfait.
Ninth Course – Petit Fours: Valrhona bittersweet kiss (think hersheys kiss, but bittersweet rolled in cocoa), rice-bubble slice and ginger kiss.
Yeah. Nine courses. Yet just the right amount of food… I will endeavour to fill out more details tomorrow when I’m feeling less festive (:
This evening me and Cyrus went to Café Bastille with Vivian, Sam, Ami, and Cyrus’s Nana, Olive.
Cyrus had Veal tenderloin with a mushroom and cognac cream sauce and pommes frites. Judging by the way he decimated it, he enjoyed it (:
I opted for homemade sausages with potatoes, onions and a rich jus… also delicious.
For dessert, Cyrus had crepes with an orange caramel sauce; whereas I opted for chocolate mousse. The chocolate mousse was pretty good in the grand scheme of things.
A++ would dine again (:
We had a thing with tofu for dinner tonight! It involved…
1 package of firm tofu, 1 capsicum, 1 red onion, 6 button mushrooms, a small handful of sugar snap peas, most of a bunch of silverbeet, and teriyaki sauce (Equal parts mirin, soy sauce and brown sugar).
The tofu was sliced, wrapped in paper towels, and squished for about 40 minutes. Then diced and marinated in the teriyaki sauce until the rest of the veges were prepped.
The capsicum, onion and mushrooms were sliced thinly; and the sugar snap peas and the silverbeet were chopped a little more chunky.
I heated a wide pan with a coating of peanut oil; and browned off the tofu. Next, the capsicum and onion were added until mostly done. At this point, the remaining teriyaki sauce was added to the pan. Next, add the mushrooms and sugar snap peas; and when those are almost done, add the silverbeet and continue cooking until just wilted.
And that’s it (:
But first, what we had for dinner!
It was just a simple ol’ green Thai fish curry with rice. It was made as follows (serves 2): Put three handfuls of rice into a medium pot. Cover by a finger-joint depth of hot tap water. Put on the stove on high.
Take a wide frypan, and add about a teaspoon of peanut oil. Put on medium-high heat. Once it has warmed up; add a heaped teaspoon of green curry paste. Stir it around to distribute.
Chop up two smallish fillets of fish (Terakihi in our case) into biggish chunks, and add to the curry paste. Once the fish has browned off a little, add a small can of coconut cream; and simmer gently until the rice finishes cooking, adding additional water if required. Pile rice into bowls, and top off with curry.
Mmm. Yummy and delicious!
This was my first time cooking Tuna! And subsequently, I seem to have overcooked it; so instead of a nice rare interior, it was… not.
Anywho, put two tuna steaks, in the hottest pan you can muster; and cook for about a minute on each side.
We had rice and spinach to accompany. Aside from the not-rare-enoughness of the tuna, all was good.
Sometimes you take photographs of what you’re about to eat. And sometimes none of the photographs turn out as you’d hope. Sometimes, there’s carnage that is just about worth taking a picture of.
This (was) part of a frenched pork roast. There wasn’t anything done to it that was especially special; but gosh, it was delicious and marvellous to carve.
Becks & Posh is running Utensibility week; wherein food-bloggers everywhere will wax lyrical about their utensiliest utensil.
I’m a little undecided on what constitutes a utencil: certainly a cooktop or oven isn’t a utencil; but what about a knife (I love my Global 6-1/4-Inch Heavyweight Chef’s Knife
Alas, I don’t have any of the more common Utensibility worthy candidates; although it must be said that a bright red Kitchen Aid stand mixer is certainly on my wishlist (but not something I can really justify getting with my current kitchen layout – there’s nowhere to put the thing! It’s just not physically possible to fit one into any of the cupboards in my kitchen.)
Although, I do have a hand whisk! And a marvellous hand whisk it is too. It’s like an like an ordinary hand whisk, with a marble in a mesh ball that gives it superpowers. Whipping cream is easy with this whisk. Making custard is easy (in so far as making custard is easy; but that’s a whole other story. It must be said, however, that every time I’ve made custard with this whisk…. success!).
I had coveted (a little.) (perhaps.) (okay maybe a lot.) the WMF Ball whisks; but I’d always felt a little bit unsure about them. Would they work, I often pondered to myself? Or would they end up being another piece of worthless junk (I had a WMF flour sifter. It broke within a couple of months. I was so mad! Mad, I say! However, I digress). But on one fate-filled day, wandering the aisles of a kitchen store, I saw this whisk. And it made sense. And it saved me close to $30. So I took it home with me.
neato.co.nz 