Paper Chef #40 - Simplicity

This month's Paper Chef is hosted by April's winner, Bron Marshall. Paper Chef is a culinary challenge where cooks and chefs alike brag and boast showcase their cooking creations using 4 secret ingredients. Challengers have one weekend to star in their own kitchen stadium, like an Iron Chef, to cook for an international internet audience, and to write about their experience.

Bron, with the help of 2 beautiful fairies, randomly picked the secret ingredients:

Prosciutto
Floury Potatoes
Thyme
Mother’s Day

... the fourth ingredient selected for Mother's Day is STOCK. A good stock makes a great difference to a dish. Most people can identify with the labour of love that goes into creating the heart and soul of a meal. Stock making clearly reminds of a motherly figure bent over a stove carefully skimming off the fat. Without this skimming, we won't be light as fairies!

Since parents of baby boomers go through post war frugality, the dish presented for the challenge is titled Simplicity, a deconstructed vichyssoise, a French potato and leek cream soup. The dish is served as a creamy base with components of the soup: onion, leek, potato, thyme, and molded jellied stock (not shown here). The soup is usually served chilled, but can be heated. To serve warm, omit the jellied stock or set the stock with translucent starches like water chestnut or potato.



Soup
1 leek, cut into 2 cm lengths
2 floury potatoes, peeled
1 waxy potato, peeled
1 L chicken stock
1 onion
1 garlic
1 bay leaf
4 sprigs of thyme
1 teaspoon green peppercorn
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 pickling onion
1 cup milk (or 150 mL cream)
2 tablespoon butter (omit if using cream)

To make the soup, bring to boil all ingredients except milk and butter. Simmer for 1 hour. Remove the pickling onion, waxy potato and green leek parts after 15 minutes.

When the soup is ready, remove the bay leaf. Add butter and milk. Puree in a blender until smooth and creamy. Chill if serving cold.



For serving
1 stalk spring onion
8 slices prosciutto
1/2 cup jellied stock (boosted by pork rind)
1/2 teaspoon gelatin, if required
4 sprigs of fresh thyme

Cut the spring onion into decorative strips. Use iced water to curl.

Cut the prosciutto into 1 cm wide strips. Wind the prosciutto strips around a thin roll of baking paper shaped like a chopstick. Microwave on high for 30-45 seconds until crisp. Slide off the baking paper.

Heat the jellied stock, adding gelatin if needed. Pour into flexible ice cube molds and chill. Use star molds to appease Bron's fairies. Omit the jellied stock if serving the soup warm. The stock can also be set in water chestnut flour or potato starch to avoid melting.



Assembly
Pour the soup into shallow serving dishes. Add waxy potato cube, halved pickling onion, fresh sprig of thyme, molded jellied stock, and a slice of green leek. Place prosciutto chopsticks over the dish as shown. Garnish with spring onion.

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Paper Chef 37 All In One Terrine

Paper Chef 37: Liver, cheese, oregano, chestnut
Everything goes into a terrine, and there you have Paper Chef 37. Where's the challenge??

... still to come pate pastries. Sadly the challenge was abandoned due to the bush fires in Victoria. The liver pate recipe is given below.

Finnish Liver Pate
Adapted from The Worldwide Gourmet

500 g ox liver
salt, water
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1 cup (100 g) dried light rye bread crumbs
300 mL whipping cream or substitute with milk and cream cheese
100 mL milk
4 tablespoons (60 g) water chestnut flour
2 onions, chopped
2 tablespoon butter
2 eggs

Seasonings:
2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 teaspoon ground ginger, optional
1 teaspoon marjoram or substitute oregano, optional

1. Cut the liver in 5 cm cubes. Remove membranes and tubes. Soak in lightly salted water for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Drain and rinse well. Pat dry. Marinade in dry sherry for 30 minutes. Keep chill until ready to use.

2. Soak the bread crumbs in cream.

3. Whisk the milk and water chestnut flour until well blended. Strain into the soaked bread crumbs and mix well.

4. Saute the onion in butter until soft. Cool. Puree. Add to the bread crumbs mixture.

5. Puree the liver. Add seasoning.

6. Using a stick blender, blend the liver with the bread crumbs mixture.

7. Blend in the eggs.

8. Transfer the mixture to a terrine lined with baking paper. Place a cartouche over the terrine and then cover with foil.

9. Place the terrine in hot water bath in an oven preheated at 180 degrees Celsius. Reduce temperature and bake at 110 degrees Celsius for 2.5 hours. Cool.

10. Chill until required. Serve with lingonberry jam, such as "Lingonsylt" jelly from IKEA.

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Paper Chef 31 - Another Fish Tale

Paper Chef 31 : walnut, chickpea, oregano and fish steak.

At "An Electronic Restaurant", where there is unlimited drama, the script continues...

The entry is just about done as Noodle Cook recalls some walnut oil, chickpea flour and oregano in the pantry. Just a dash to the shop for a piece of swordfish, and behold the Paper Chef entry??? URRrrgh, Noodle Cook opens the pantry and discovers stale walnut oil, chickpea flour in a falafel mix, and oregano, DRIED, which doesn't qualify or taste right with the spices in the falafel mix. Dial 000 for John to save the day evening. The swordfish ends up beautifully grilled and served with steamed beans and caramelized yam bean slices. A Paper Chef entry not to be.

Kudos: Owen (Tomatilla!) the inventor, Ilva (Lucullian Delights) the successor, Hank (Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook) July 2008 judge.

For all the monthly fun with a Paper Chef challenge where you star in your own kitchen stadium like an Iron Chef, check out the details in the Paper Chef Blog. This month's roundup can be found here. Read about the winner here.

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Life Without the Challenge of Paper Chef ....

... is like eating plain pizza and pasta everyday. Owen of Tomatilla has handed the reins to Ilva of Lucillian Delights. Look for Ilva's announcements in February 2008.

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Owen's Back with Paper Chef #24 Roundup

Thanks to Owen, the roundup for Paper Chef #24 is up. Check it out here! Just in case you missed out on starring in your own kitchen stadium just like an Iron Chef on the TV, check for updates at Tomatilla. This fun competition lets you create a dish (or even a menu) with four secret ingredients. You have a whole weekend to cook and to brag about your experience for a chance to win the Paper Chef crown for the month.

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Paper Chef #24 Shalom, Salaam, Salom

When Owen first announced the Peas/Peace in the Middle East theme, Noah's Pudding, also referred to as ashure (pronounced ashura) was already in the plan. This is a middle eastern (especially Turkish) dessert dish of wheat, rice, beans, chick peas, sugar (or other sweetener), dried fruits, and nuts in many variations. The dish does not normally have religious significance and is enjoyed by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. It is cooked in large quantities and offered to people as a good will gesture, of love and peace. Chick peas, the peas of the middle east is already in the dish, so Paper Chef #24 seems to be off to an easy start. However, on revelation of the four secret ingredients, things got tricky...

... rice, now that's universal, and most cooks can find some in the pantry and that's already in Noah's Pudding!
... coffee, well that can be served after the dessert like ultra sweet Turkish coffee with cardamom, but not much of a challenge. It's more adventurous with wattleseed, which has a nutty hazelnut, chocolate and coffee taste, as a substitute for coffee
.... chilli, in a dessert, whoops, that is getting really hot at 35 degrees Celsius in Perth. Ok, chilli chocolate is not that unusual in the shops..

.... and then the really wildcard PROSCIUTTO! That's PORK, which is forbidden in Muslim and Jewish cuisines! Italian prosciutto in a middle eastern dish? There can be no peace in this challenge. But on a closer look...

The Italian connection was already there, even before Noah and his family on the Ark ate the first batch of Noah's Pudding made from what ever leftover food, presumably grains and dried fruits, towards the end of the Genesis Great Floods. A dove sent out by Noah to find land came back with an olive branch. The dove and olive branch, individually or together, are symbols of peace. Poultry and Italian olives pair well together, as a main course to the Noah's Pudding dessert. However, the rainbow, another symbol of peace, which appeared at the end of the Great Floods seems easier to incorporate through a layered presentation of the dish.

Now it's off to a quick trip to Milan, thanks to internet, for more inspiration, this time from Leonardo Di Vinci's painting of the Last Supper. Disappointedly, there is no goblet with red wine. Nevertheless, red wine seems a good symbol of the promise of peace from bloodshed. Right now there is plenty of red grapes in the garden to put to some good use. Besides a parfait glass suits layering.

Back to the problem with the prosciutto. That can be used as a piccolo garnish, but too late as rival challenger, the very talented Ilva in Tuscany (another Italian connection) has already done that in a rice pudding. With Noah's Pudding sitting a huge pot in the fridge, it was to late to change plan: it's either continue with the challenge or give up.

Then a solution vaporised. Why not curl the prosciutto less tightly and use them as curled streamers and scatter them with seeds on a serving plate, like confetti for a celebration. It will be a joy to celebrate peace in the middle east with Christians, Muslims and Jews comprising on their differences.

Finally the dish which celebrates the ever elusive peace in the middle east, Noah's Pudding with an Italian twist, deconstructed in layers (the rainbow peace argument above), and with symbolism of grape juice buried somewhere in it. The pudding is served with spicy wattleseed chocolate, confetti of pepita and sunflower seeds, and prosciutto streamers!

Unlike the peace process in the middle east, Paper Chef #24 with its challenges, reached a successful conclusion through persistence. So it's Shalom! Shalom! Shalom! until the next Paper Chef battle, or is it salaam... salom...

Noah's Pudding
1/2 cup couscous
1/2 cup risoni pasta (Italian)
1 cup arborio rice (Italian)
4-5 lemon myrtle leaves (or 1 strip lemon zest)
4-5 mountain pepper leaves (or try pinch of clove or cardamon)
2 slices of ginger
2.5 L water
1 can chick peas in brine
1 can white beans in brine

Boil for 1 hour until the rice is soft. Stir in the chick peas and beans together with the brine. Chill until ready to serve. This is a LARGE quantity, so use the leftover for soup or serve 40 neighbours to the North, South, East and West according to tradition reported in the local newspaper!

To serve 4 instead of 40:
2 cup of Noah's Pudding
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup dried longan in syrup, see below
1/4 cup winter melon candy (oriental store) or sugar
1/2 cup labneh made by draining yoghurt overnight
20 jackfruit seeds, boiled and sliced (or sliced almond)
1/4 cup glazed quandong halves (or dried apricots/peaches), see below
2 tablespoon sunflower seeds
2 tablespoon pepita/pumpkin seeds
spicy wattleseed chocolate, see below
prosciutto curls, see below

Stir milk into the pudding. Place in a parfait glass. Add longan and winter melon candy. Top with labneh. Arrange jackfruit seed on the labneh. Add the quandong. Put the parfait glass on a plate. Sprinkle the plate with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Add a few prosciutto curls. Serve with spicy wattleseed chocolate.



Glazed Quandong
1/4 cup dried quandong halves (native Australian peach)
1/2 cup grape juice concentrate (or red wine)
2 tablespoon raw sugar

Poach the quandong in grape juice and sugar for about 15 minutes to soften. Do not overcook. Reduce the juice to a thickened consistency to coat the quandong.

Grape Wine
4.5 kg red grapes
4 L water
1.5 kg raw sugar
21 g dry yeast (3 sachets)

Ferment for 3 weeks or until the plastic bag becomes limp. Strain. Bottle. Obviously this wine is not going to be ready for Paper Chef in 3 days! Instead, use grape juice concentrate.

Grape Juice Concentrate
4 kg red grapes
water to cover

Simmer till soft. Reduce by 50%. Strain. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.

Dried Longan in Syrup
85 g dried longan flesh (oriental store)
2 cup water
2 tablespoon sugar

Poached the dried longan in water and sugar for 30-45 minutes. Reduce to a thick syrup.





Spicy Wattleseed Chocolate
3 squares of dark chocolate
pinch of chilli powder
1 teaspoon wattleseed (coffee substitute)

Using an egg cup, melt the chocolate in the microwave. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Dip prosciutto curls in the melted chocolate and leave to set. Spread remaining chocolate on baking paper. Sprinkle with wattleseed. Cut the baking paper to shape using scissors. Drape over bowls to shape. Leave to set.




Prosciutto Curls
Place prosciutto on baking paper. Cut into 5 mm fettucine strips with sharp scissors. Curl the cut prosciutto around a 10 cm long roll of baking paper approximate 5 mm in diameter. For piccolos, overlap the prosciutto slightly. Microwave on high for about 15 seconds until the crackling stops. Remove the prosciutto by tightening the centre of the scroll of baking paper and sliding off. Dip the curls in melted Spicy Wattleseed Chocolate.

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Paper Chef #24 Peace in the Middle East

Paper Chef #24 is underway! Check it out at Tomatilla! This once a month fun competition lets you star in your own kitchen stadium in front a world wide audience of food bloggers just like an Iron Chef. Instead of one secret ingredient, you use four. This month's secret ingredients turned out to be: coffee, rice, prosciutto and chillies. The theme is peas, peace or Middle East.

While Noodle Cook's choice of Noah's Pudding, a middle eastern dessert of wheat, rice, beans, chick peas, dried fruits, and nuts, fits the theme nicely, the remaining ingredients cannot be easily incorporated. Italian prosciutto in a middle eastern dish? Using prosciutto as a garnish is a possibility... and already used by the very talented Ilva! So its back to the drawing board for Noodle Cook to come up with another interesting dish and not another dessert with prosciutto curls!

What to do with a big pot of Noah's Pudding? Noodle Cook rushes behind the scene ....

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Paper Chef #15 A Love Story with a Twist

Paper Chef #15, the cooking challenge invented by Owen at Tomatilla, celebrates Valentine Day with the four secret ingredients of beets, pears, lime and aphrodisiacs. For this month, hosts and judges MagicTofu and Fufu at Slurp and Burp offer several fun categories: Super Saver, Indiana Jones, Picasso and Home Cook.



There was no love lost when Noodle Cook's computer went down just before the clock struck 12 midnight at the start of the New Year. The digital camera responded simultaneously in sympathy, with the battery dying....

This Paper Chef entry is an artistic representation of forging a bond, removing the nitty gritty problems and tying a knot in a relationship with a new computer, a Mac Mini, an unwanted baby with umpteen teething problems.

So here is the creation which words do no justice:

Lime jelly and oyster avocado mousse fused together as united hearts, and garnished with onion hearts (flowering stalks with buds) twisted in a knot. A chilled appetizer or cheese course served with a beet root fruit sauce and an oyster flavoured cream.



This is a French style dish which utilises Chinese ingredients like dried oysters, onion hearts, and Chinese celery. Perhaps these Chinese characters (extracted from AltaVista Babel Fish translater) closely describe the message in the dish:



General instructions follow, but please read the tasting notes before trying out the recipe.

Australian Desert Lime Jelly
125 g Australian Desert Limes in syrup
1 teaspoon gelatine

Drain the limes and reserve the syrup. Slice the limes in half. Pick over to remove the gritty seeds. Place the cut halves, cut side down, into ramekins or muffin tins. A flexible silicon try makes unmoulding easier. Warm the reserved syrup (about 1/3 cup). Add the gelatine and stir until dissolved. Gently spoon a little of the gelatine mixture over the lime halves. Tap out the air bubbles. Chill for 15 minutes to ensure the limes stay at the bottom. Add the remaining gelatine mixture to cover the lime halves. Chill until set.

Note: Glaced Australian Desert Limes can be found in selected Dewsons Supermarket or online. These specialty sweetened limes give a fruity, lime and pear aroma.



Avocado Mousse
1 avocado pear, pureed
1 cup yoghurt, drained overnight
1 tablespoon chopped Chinese onion heart stalks
3 tablespoon chopped Chinese celery
2 tablespoon whipping cream
2 tablespoon oyster essence (see below)
2 teaspoon gelatine

Combine pureed avocado, yoghurt and cream. Squeeze the juice from the chopped onion heart stalks and Chinese celery. Save the pulp. Add the juice to the avocado mixture.

Make the oyster essence using the residual herbs following the instruction below.

Add the gelatine to the hot oyster essence and stir till dissolved. Combine the dissolved gelatine with the avocado mixture. Adjust seasoning. Pour over the desert lime jelly, tapping to remove air bubbles. Refrigerate overnight or until set.

Note: For this challenge, the avocado pear acts as a twist to the required pear. Willow (http://www.willow.com.au) supplies the heart-shaped silicon muffin tray.



Oyster Essence
8 dried Chinese oysters
1/2 cup fish aspic (homemade using fish bones, celery, onion, parsley, thyme, lemon myrtle)
Residual herbs from the avocado mousse
1 teaspoon ground lemon myrtle (or kaffir lime leaves)

Soak the oysters in cold water for 1 hour, or until softened. Drain and rinse well. Gently poach the oysters in the fish aspic for 1/2 hour until tender. Top up with water as needed. Add the residual herbs and simmer for 2 minutes. Reduce to 3-4 tablespoon. Add the lemon myrtle. Remove from heat and cool. Strain the liquid for use in the mousse and the oyster cream. Save the oysters for another dish such as pasta with a low fat yoghurt and avocado sauce.

Note: Dried Chinese oysters, the aphrodisiac ingredient for this challenge, makes a cheap alternative to freshly shucked oysters. The amazing dried oysters enlarge to about 5 cm after cooking unlike fresh oysters.



Beetroot Fruit Sauce
1 small beet root (60 g)
1 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
1 fresh aniseed myrtle leaf (or pinch of aniseed, crushed)
5 mountain pepper berries, crushed (or juniper berries)
1 tablespoon Australian Desert Lime syrup
1/2 cup water or fruit juice, such as pear
1-2 teaspoon white wine vinegar to taste
1-2 teaspoon baby food thickener, optional (Paper Chef #14)

Pulverise everything except the last 2 ingredients in a blender and let stand for at least 15 minutes. Strain through muslin or coffee filter. Adjust with white wine vinegar to taste. Thicken if desired. Chill until ready to serve.

Oyster Cream
1 teaspoon oyster essence
2 tablespoon whipping cream, whipped

Mix well and chill until needed.

Serving
To assemble the dish, carefully remove the mousse and jelly from the mould and place on a serving plate. Pour beet root fruit sauce around. Add drops of oyster cream and run a tooth pick through to create trails of hearts in the sauce. Garnish with knotted onion hearts.



The Taste Test

After many hours of hard work designing the dish, the time has come for tasting. The lime jelly, although a bit stiff, smells and tastes like a combination of pomela, grapefruit and pear. There is a slight bitterness with the sweet and sour taste. The oyster aroma, which is overpowering in the essence, tastes wonderfully subtle in the mousse and works really well with the Chinese celery and onion hearts. The beet root sauce with its earthy taste when freshly made up, mellows on chilling, taking on a fruity quality with a good balance of sweetness and sourness.

With the usual "wow" factor, Noodle Cook's plated up Picasso masterpiece attracted no shortage of guinea pig taster. It was love at first sight, until the first bite.

The first taster enjoyed the mousse and the sauce, but felt the lingering tingling after-taste of the glacé lime, which is a bit like the cooling effect of cumquat and licorice, not pleasant. The next taster launched into the dish expecting a sweet dessert only to be disappointed by the strong oyster flavour of the mousse, although the sauce was enjoyed thoroughly.

It was up to John the Secret Reviewer to deliver the coup de grâce. John thought the dish tasted "quite good" overall, with jelly, mousse and sauce tasting great on their own, without the need for adjustments. However the combined flavours of the whole dish proved too complex and the discordance was really apparent, even after the effort to unify the tastes with the citrus flavours of lime and lemon myrtle. The suggestion was to serve the mousse and the jelly separately.

Needless to say, unlike Indiana Jones' adventure movies on the big screen, Noodle Cook's Paper Chef #15 cooking adventure in the home kitchen stadium did not end romantically. The oysters, the chosen aphrodisiac, did not have any effect on the finally outcome.

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Paper Chef #11 - Dessert

Chestnut, butternut and gingered custard parfait, served with a pear and mandarin coulis and an exquisite tasting five-spice, ginger and duck liver sausage melba toast. A stylishly presented parfait which balances sweet and saltiness with oriental flavours. The dessert is based on the Italian Monte Bianco, which takes its name from the French Alps, Mont Blanc.


Chestnut Vermicelli
150 g dried chestnuts
1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey

Soak the dried chestnuts in water for 1 hour. Boil for 1 hour until soft. Drain and puree the chestnut with the honey. Add enough water to make a dough.

Gingered Custard
3/4 cup milk
1 large egg
2 teaspoon sugar, to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoon constarch

Whisk all the ingredients to combine. Very gently cook on the stove while stirring until the custard coats the back of the stirring spoon. Remove from the heat and cool.

Butternut Cream
1 cup cooked butternut pumpkin, mashed and strained
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix together and rest for 30 minutes to allow the fennel flavour to develop.

Pear and Mandarin Coulis
2 tablespoon pear and mandarin, or favourite jam
1/4 cup water

Mix together and bring to boil. Reduce or thicken with cornstarch if required. When cool strain the mixture.

Melba Toast
4 slices thin white bread
2 teaspoon rendered and milled duck liver sausage
2 tablespoon peanut butter, made by finely milling freshly toasted peanuts
pinch of five spice
pinch of ground ginger

Remove the crusts of the bread and cut into triangles. Freeze the bread. Mix the rest of the ingredients and lightly butter the frozen bread. Bake at 150 degrees Celsius for about 15 minutes until golden brown and crisp. For extra thin slices, split the bread with a knive just when the top and bottom of the slices crisp up.



To serve
Place 1/4 cup of butternut in a parfait glass. Pour in 1/4 cup custard. Drizzle over some pear and mandarin coulis. Carefully press the chestnut dough through a sieve or colander over the parfait glass. Thin vermicelli strands will form in a pile resembling a mountain. Place the melba toasts in a side plate as shown. Eat with a parfait spoon until the butternut, then dip with the melba toast.


Related Articles
Paper Chef #11 - Menu
Paper Chef #11 - Entree
Paper Chef #11 - Mains
Paper Chef #11 - Dessert
Paper Chef #11 - Soup Dumpling Tribute
My Little Restaurant Rules!

Read more...

Paper Chef #11 - Menu

The Paper Chef #11 Deal
This month's Paper Chef #11 challenge (48 hours using 4 secret ingredients), the Iron Chef equivalent for internet savvy home cooks and professionals alike, is hosted by previous month's winner, Stephen of "What's For Dinner?" (Stephencooks.com). Owen the founding host at Tomatilla is challenging everybody else this time round (until he found out there is no duck). For a bit of extra fun in the judging, Stephen is engaging a panel of food bloggers, which includes the very comical Erica Ferencik of "Wakeup and Smell the Blog", but watch out as there is a scary list of criteria for success.

The Secret Ingredients
The four secret ingredients of duck, nut butter, pear and ginger come with the theme of "Favourite Fall Foods" which reflects the use of the abundant autumn produce from the Northern Hemisphere.

Last autumn's favourite foods included a very warming buttery french onion soup followed by a fusion confit duck dish at award winning Louisa's Restaurant in Bunbury (Western Australia). The occasion was a double birthday celebration. Bunbury was partly devasted by a miniature tornado one day after. From memory, the duck dish comprised fried szechwan or five-spice coated European style confit duck, pecorino cheese, prosciutto, roasted plums, beetroot and salad greens served with a spectacular hoisin drizzle. The taste was an explosion of Northern Chinese and Italian/French flavours.

For Paper Chef #11, it was decided to experiment with the fusion of tastes experienced at Louisa's Restaurant. Alas, it was discovered duck, even though frozen, was a bit rich at AUD$16, ending any plans for confit duck. The next choice of waxed duck (fermented) at about AUD$10 per leg was no better. In the end with budget in mind, it was decided Australian made fermented oriental duck liver sausages (at AUD$6.75 for 375 g) makes a good choice for this months theme: In a bygone era, duck liver sausages were made during autumn and air dried over cold winter months for use in spring as a delicacy when meat was scarce. The salty and mildly sweet duck liver sausage is very pungent and its use, after rendering the fat, is more as a condiment and as a flavouring, very much like using bacon, pancetta or proscuitto.



Not only is the duck "rich", and duck liver sausages just the same, so is nut butter, made from finely milled toasted oil-rich nuts, often with the addition of more oil. Since it is spring in Perth (Western Australia), the season is back to front, leaving some room for re-interpretation of nut butter such as using the healthier autumn butternut pumpkin, as a reverse of nut butter. The more expensive, but low fat, chestnut makes a good substitute for dessert. Dried oriental chestnuts cost only AUD$2.80 per 150 g.

The pear for this entry comes from a jam made last autumn using pear, mandarin, fruit juice and commercial pectin. This jam, which is more of a fruit paste, forms a really versatile base for many sauces, glazes and reductions, particularly for pork, duck, lamb and game.



The final ingredient ginger, a tropical crop, in time past grew only during the hot summers in temperate areas and would be not be available unless dried or in preserved forms like ground ginger or crystallied ginger. For this challenge, logic dictates taste comes first, with preference given to fresh ginger over preserved ginger.

The proposed dishes for Paper Chef #11:

Entree
Butternut pumpkin soup, and duck liver sausage and shiitake tortellini served with a mildly spicy pear and mandarin dressing. The crisp texture and the intense aroma of the tortellini nicely contrast the mild coriander, ginger, butter and caramelised onion flavours of the soup. Peanut or cashew nut butter cream works well with this soup.
Read article >>



Mains
Shiitake mushroom risotto with white truffle oil, served with a warm salad of bok choy, butternut pumpkin and crispy duck liver sausage dressed with a mildly spicy pear and mandarin reduction. The risotto which utilises red rice, tastes wonderfully complex with rich flavours of duck liver sausage render, shiitake mushrooms, caramelised onion and wine. There's just a subtle hint of ginger.
Read article >>



Dessert
Chestnut, butternut and gingered custard parfait, served with a pear and mandarin coulis and an exquisite tasting five-spice, ginger and duck liver sausage melba toast. A stylishly presented parfait which balances sweet and saltiness with oriental flavours. The dessert is based on the Italian Monte Bianco, which takes its name from the French Alps, Mont Blanc.
Read article >>



Parfait Design
The crux of this Paper Chef entry was the unique flavours of the parfait. The interesting thing about the design was the layering of the flavours so as to progress from sweet to savoury or vice versa to enable dipping of the savoury melba toast. It was decided to keep the chestnut vermicelli top sweet using honey (or maple syrup), followed by a sweet and sour pear and mandarin coulis, then a barely sweet gingered custard, and at the end of the parfait, a savoury butternut puree with fennel. In this configuration, the melba toast was eaten last using the butternut as as dip. Chocolate tasting wattleseed, although not used this time, makes a great addition to the chestnut vermicelli for the bush tucker version in the future.

The melba toast was a bit of tongue in check over Owen's suggestion of "peanut butter and jam" will get you nowhere as a Chef entry. Toasted bread ("melba toast"), with ground ginger, toasted duck liver sausage, peanut butter and pear jam (with mandarin), is a valid entry on its own as long as there is creativity!

The Verdict
After 4 hours of intense cooking, it was up to John the "secret reviewer" to pass final judgement on the first two courses. Since John does not eat desserts, the parfait was prepared on the next day.

The beautiful aromas of onions, shiitake and toasted duck liver sausage in the tortellini made the rather sweet butternut soup extra special. A freshly made roasted peanut cream made the soup deliciously smooth. The bok choy and crispy duck liver sausage slices looked wonderful, without the butternut which accidentally ended up pureed with the soup. The butternut in the salad photograph came from the dessert the next day! As for the risotto, the beautiful aromas did not translate too well on the palate, mainly because the dry white wine tasted stale, like acetone, which was really disappointing. Perhaps dry sherry or rice wine should be used instead. Overall the flavours were rather intense and very different although not overly spectacular in combination. The conclusion was that both the entree and mains were edible, with adjustments needed for the latter.

Paper Chef #11 started with a grand vision of a warming soup and delicious confit duck, like what was eaten last autumn during the double birthday celebration. There was also hope that somebody else did the cooking. As with the reversal of seasons with the northern hemisphere, the vision was totally reversed when John the "secret reviewer" pointed out to whom "we" referred when it was announced "we" were doing the Paper Chef #11 challenge since he wasn't doing it. Noodle Cook ended up with the cooking instead of John!

Note: The recipes can be accessed via the hyperlinks below or in the proposed menu.

Related Articles
Paper Chef #11 - Menu
Paper Chef #11 - Entree
Paper Chef #11 - Mains
Paper Chef #11 - Dessert
Paper Chef #11 - Soup Dumpling Tribute
My Little Restaurant Rules!

Read more...

On the Trail of Fresh Local Produce

The banner to this blog mentions "fresh local produce", a term intended as "tough in cheek" over reality TV restaurants insistence for menu items featuring local produce, often with brand names. Unlike the reality TV restaurants, the "local produce" at My Little Restaurant comes from the fridge and pantry!

So when food bloggers, originating from the USA, decide to get together to eat only local produce from within 100 miles (about 160 km) for the month of August, it seems a great opportunity to check out the source of local produce with the view of incorporating the produce into a menu item for Paper Chef Challenge #9. The aim is to encourage a "green", environmentally sustainable approach to meals. In the home kitchen, economics often dictate the source of local produce. Otherwise with such a close proximity to the Swan Valley and Peel Region vineyards, it would be wine, cheese and chocolates for August!

The challenge of finding locally grown produce becomes harder when it becomes apparent there is no easy means of figuring out whether fresh produce, from the nearby shops, food factories, and commercial markets, is grown within 100 miles, imported overseas or from interstate! Also many locally made products such as chocolates contain imported ingredients.

After many hours of research, the following is a list of local Perth produce which in many instances can be found in supermarkets like IGA, department stores and the commercial markets at Canning Vale (open to the public on Saturday for clearance).

West Australian Grocers
The Herdsman
The Grocer of Nedlands
Margaret Riviera - shop front for Margaret River produce
The Mezz at Mt Hawthorne - Shopping centre with gourmet shops
Licorice Gourmet Foods - Carine Glades Shopping Centre

Beef
Harvey Beef - 140 km South West Perth CBD
Dandaragan Organic Beef - 180 km North Perth CBD

Chicken and Poultry
Mt Barker Chicken (Organic) - 350 km South West Perth CBD
Inghams (Halal) - local poultry farms
Mahogany Creek Poultry, Game and Bushtucker (WA distributor)

Pork
Linley Valley Fresh - Albany free range producer

Seafood
Kailis Bros Fish Market and Cafe, 101 Oxford Street Leederville WA 6007
Western Rock Lobsters, from off Dongara, North of Perth
Cambinata Yabbies
Catalano Seafoods

Snails
Scargol - Perth grown snails. (08) 9228 2000 or (08) 9279 4187

Dairy
Swan Valley Cheese Factory Company, using Busselton milk, 640 Great Northern Highway, Herne Hill, WA 6056
Mundella Foods Pty Ltd, soft cheese & yoghurt (including Kosher range) , 46 km South of Perth, 46 Randell Road, Mundijong WA 6123
Blue Cow Cheese Company, importer& distributor of Aust. cheeses, including ricotta & bocconcini from the Darling Range in Perth, and Cloverdene Dairy Ewes milk products, PO Box 952 Cloverdale WA 6985
Casa Dairy Products Pty Ltd, distributor, 27 Carrington Street, Nedlands, Western Australia, 6009
Margaret River Cheese Company, 250 km CBD, PO Box 8, Cowaramup, Western Australia 6284 Borrello, Italian style cheeses, 20 km South of Perth, 59 Rice Rd, Oakford Western Australia 6121
Harvey Cheese , mediterranean cheese, 140 km South of Perth, Lot 36 South Western Hwy, Wokalup, Western Australia 6221
Kervella Goat Cheeses, Gidgegannup, Western Australia 6555, 50 km east in the Perth Hills, "Darling Scarp"
Kytren Goats Cheese, Gidgegannup
Cambray Sheep Cheese, Vasse Highway, Nannup
Ringwould Goat Cheese, Albany

Bread
New Norcia Bakery, 132 km North of Perth

Wine
Lamonts, Swan District, WA, 85 Bisdee Road, Millendon 6056

Olive Oil
York Olive Oil
Kailis Organic Olive Oil
New Norcia Olives (Benedictine monks care for the groves of over 100 years old)
NJoi Australian Olive Oil (Several olive producing regions around Australia)
Eagle Bay Olives - Dunsborough
Olio Bello - Margaret River
Vasse Virgin - Margaret River
Fini Olives - Gingin
3 Drops - Mt Barker

Chocolate
The Margaret River Chocolate Company, 25 mins from CBD in Swan Valley, 5123 West Swan Road,West Swan. Also at Margaret River, at Cnr Harman's Mill Road and Harman's South Road
Willyabrup

Truffle
Wine and Truffle Company, at Munjimup, 293 km South of Perth

Honey
The House of Honey, Swan Valley

Nuts
MacNuts, Baldivis

Fruit & Vegetable
Perth Markets, distribution centre for overseas, interstate and local produce from market gardens or orchards on the northern, hills, and southeastern outskirts of Perth.
Apple and Pears, Perth Hills & Donnybrook/Manjimup
Swan Valley Strawberry Farms
Wanneroo Strawberry Farms

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