Cushions.. Made from pastry! Genius.
This evening, we had pies for dinner. Round pies. Cutting round pie-lids from square pastry involves pastry offcuts. Delicious pastry offcuts.
This is the edges, cut into squares, placed into a woven lattice arrangement, brushed with butter, sprinkled with sugar; and baked in a 200C oven for about 15 minutes.
It’s a little bit on the bland side, though; but well suited to eating with ice-cream.
We went to the last supper club last night. And it was good. How good, you may wonder? Extremely good.
To begin with, it turns out that twinset was playing (Jazz trio); which was pretty sweet. I guess that may have been why it was a little on the busy side – we had a ten minute wait for a table; but that was all good. It gave us a chance to have cocktails!
Any place which has a cocktail menu is going to be a good place to get a cocktail.
The cocktails here, are divided into “books” – there’s the books of martini, rum and gin; along with the book of classics (margaritas, cosmopolitans et al), the book of inspirations (a curious collection), and the deadly sins (theme-ish cocktails).
While we were waiting, Cyrus had Envy from the deadly sins – a combination of vodka, lemoncello, sour apple and absinthe, strained in a martini glass. He found it… potent. I found it… a bit strong for my liking as well. I opted for Pride, again from the deadly sins. It was feijoa vodka with mint, lime and apple juice in a tall glass with ice. It was a much gentler sort of a drink, and extremely delicious.
Just moments after finishing off my pride, there was a table for us; so off we went. We ended up in a booth-like arrangement in the window; with nice comfy boothcouches.
Since I was now cocktail-less, I had no choice but to order another. This time around, I went with something a little less certain. I picked the Arch Angel, from the book of inspirations. It was a strange one – it was made from vodka, white cream de cacao and sour apple; with cream floating on top (and chocolatey powder/sauce). I’m not sure if I’d have it again; but it certainly was.. inspired.
From the menu, after much haranguing a gentle suggestion, we had the antipasto platter as an entree. This was a marvellous idea – even getting the small size, I reached the point where I was concerned about fitting in all of my main; and there was still a bunch of delicious antipasto goodies left.
For the mains, Cyrus opted for a slightly spicy dish, with udon noodles and honey/ginger/soy marinated chicken thighs. He seemed to enjoy it quite a lot, based on the Mmms he was making. I chose thyme infused rabbit, that was served with braised vegetables. It was extremely good – the rabbit was melty and extremely delicious.
It was getting late, so we opted out of having desserts; but next time, there’s a good chance we’ll make the time. There was a lemon tart that Cyrus had his eye on; and a decision that I didn’t want to have to make for my dessert.
Now that the food has been dealt to; I should mention the service – it was noticably good. Food arrived promptly, glasses were filled, and the staff were polite.
The Last Supper Club was fantastic, and we’ll probably eat there again. Just as soon as we can justify it (:
http://www.thelastsupperclub.co.nz/ / 21 Blair Street, Wellington
There’s a group on Flickr called What’s in your refrigerator?. I just added photos of the inside of our fridge; and, well, why not post them here too (:
Cyrus and myself have been eating our way through a pot of chili con carne. We used the Alton Brown pressure cooker chili recipe, sorta, as a general guide.
There were two principle differences: We didn’t make it in a pressure cooker; and we didn’t use chipotle peppers or adobo sauce (there are rumors that I may have forgotten to include tomato paste as well, except I don’t think it ended up being a principle difference).
Instead of the pressure cooker; we cooked the chili in my spanky le creuset casserole pot in a 170C oven for about 4 hours.
Instead of chipotles and adobo sauce, which we would have included if we had been able to find any, anwhere; we had two chilli peppers diced finely.
It’s definately something that we’re going to make again in future (:
It is really cold in Wellington at the moment. It’s really cold in our kitchen, which brings us to the so called great mystery of our time. Oil. More to the point, the difference between oils at cold temperatures.
Sitting on the bench, there are three bottles of oil. Olive, sesame and peanut. The olive and sesame oils are in opaque containers, and as such are hard to observe. The peanut oil, on the other hand, is in a clear glass bottle. At the moment, the contents of said bottle are an opaque shade of yellow; not dissimilar to lemon juice (And since the others are in opaque containers, it’s, well, hard to tell).
Sitting in the cupboard, there is the rest of the peanut oil in a clear plastic bottle; which has also turned to the colour and opacity of lemon juice. However, also lurking in the cupboard are three small bottles of flavoured oil (lemon, chilli and garlic from prenzel); and another larger bottle of basil infused olive oil. The flavoured oils, are all transparent.
So the mystery is this: are the flavoured oils clear because they are flavoured, or because their base oil is chemically different in some way which allows the oils to stay clear at lower temperatures?
My hunch, is that there is some kind of inverse relationship between smoke point and “turn opaque in cold” point. If I was more dedicated to science (and if the kitchen wasn’t so cold that oil was turning opaque), I’d experiment (:
Mmm. Delicious baked goods.
200g butter, creamed with 3/4 cup icing sugar; then add 1 cup cornflour, 1 cup ordinary flour and a 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, and mix to combine.
When the flour is being mixed in, it seems to get a little bit clumpy, then it gets all grainy; but keep on mixing, because it’ll come back together again.
Roll into little balls, squish with a fork, and cook for 20 minutes at 180C. Once cool, smoosh two biscuits together with icing.
Tonight, we’re having roast venison. The basic sort recipe that I’m following lives here; but I’ve made a few changes.
For the marinade, I went with a couple of glugs of oil, the zest and juice of a lime, a couple of generous pinches of freshly ground cumin, a small handful of juniper berries, a tablespoon or thereabouts of black pepper, a teaspoon or so of salt, and a couple of crushed cloves of garlic. (The cumin was added, lime switched in for lemon, and wine dropped). And for the rest of the ingredients… I didn’t bother.
Since it’s still in the oven, no pictures at this stage; but perhaps later on.
This is boeuf bourguignon, made using the recipe in the Les Halles cookbook; give or take. This is my second attempt at this, and both times it’s ended up with the liquid closer to brown than red. One of these days, I’ll figure out where I’m going wrong.
Roast Duck with Pomegranate Molasses (and rice pilaf).
This was delicious the first time around, when we made it last night; and the leftovers were just as good tonight. Instead of making a rice pilaf, however, we used the rendered duck fat to roast potatoes, kumara and mushrooms that turned out fabulous.
Cyrus and myself tagged along to the Food Show yesterday. The exhibitors were a bit meh; but we did go along to two of the food presentations. The first of them, was Ray McVinnie, which was okay. The second, was Hayden Wood, making cocktails; that was much, much better.
In any case, we bought his second book, the liquid kitchen – party drinks (signed, no less. Albeit to Syrus and Christine; but no matter). It’s more of the same kinds of things from his first book; without much in the way of overlap.
His website, at http://www.theliquidkitchen.com has a few cocktail recipes and other such bits and pieces on it. One of the drinks which is there at the moment, is Monaco iced tea. We haven’t made that particular drink; but the candy apple syrup that goes into it is delicious.
neato.co.nz 