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MENU SPECIALS
Lemon Myrtle Risotto
Plump al dente wheat berries in a creamy lemon myrtle and chicken risotto, served with a sprinkle of freshly cracked black pepper...
Banana Slice
Caramelized Banana Slice. Fantastic restaurant style dessert that even kids can make!
Savoury Mince and Vegetables
Savoury Mince and Vegetables. A successful family classic proven over time to thrill the worst food critics, beautifully showcased...
Sponge Cake
Baking with Ovalett Sponge Cakes Emulsifier. The good, bad and ugly of making sponges with an egg foam stablizer/emulsifier...
Masterchef Australia
MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA. The 2-minute Noodle Cook's hilarious National TV debut...

Thursday, June 09, 2005

The Secret Reviewer Unveiled

While My Little Restaurant gets underway with the menu design, along comes the the secret reviewer. His face cannot be shown for obvious reasons. According to rumours, he has more than 20 years experience in family catering, in the role of executive chef.


John the Secret Reviewer

John, the "stealth bomber" secretly left a comment about the menu in the guestbook: "I like the layout. How about some of the vegetable dishes which you are so good at". Previous comments include: "This dish lacks seasoning" and "where are the basics, like tomato sauce".

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Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Secret Ingredient No. 2

The next secret ingredient is truffle oil which does not really need introduction thanks to "My Restaurant Rules 2005" reality TV restaurants.

Truffle Oil

Three of the five restaurants use truffle (presumably the oil infusions) in their European style menu items, namely:

"Pink Salt risotto with green asparagus, snow peas, truffle & tomato coulis" from Pink Salt, New South Wales

"Truffled mashed potatoes" from Restaurant Louvre, Queensland

"Vincisgrassi Maceratesi, (18th Century recipe), cepe, proscuitto lasagna with white truffle oil" from the Greedy Goose, South Australia.

According to the local shops actual truffles are hard to get and are too expensive for day to day home cooking. So it's time to check the best authority on this matter, Stephanie Alexander's "Cooking and Travelling in South West France", 2002.

According to the book, truffles are AUD$1800 per kilo, two and a half times the French price, and Simon Johnson (gourmet food distributor) retails large 100 g can for AUD$275. Truffles are fungi, known for their potent flavour and intoxicating earthy perfume. Grown at the roots of certain tree species in France, the fungi are located by sniffer dogs and pigs.

Truffles are now cultivated in New Zealand, South Eastern Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. An electronic truffle finder called "E-nose" is being trialed. Truffle cultivation in Western Australian started in 1997, and in July 2003 The Wine and Truffle Co, Manjimup, Western Australia produced it's first crop of truffle. The following was reported in The Australian newspaper:

Temperamental little fungi
THE CURIOUS COOK
By Cherry Ripe
April 16, 2005
"The Wine and Truffle Company at Manjimup in Western Australia boasts what is claimed to be Australia's biggest plantation – 13,000 trees on 21ha. In the winter of 2003 it harvested its first truffle from under an oak tree planted in 1997. It weighed 160g, the size of a cricket ball. Last year it harvested 50 truffles (4kg in total), the largest of which weighed 480g – approaching the size of a rockmelon.

With barely enough to supply demand, the entire harvest went to local Perth restaurants (such as Frasers, The Loose Box and Jackson's) for $2000 per kilogram."

The questions are, how is truffle oil use and what does it taste like. Some health conscious diners indicate truffle oil is splashed too generously on top of the Greedy Goose's Vincisgrassi Maceratesi lasagna. Recipes often call for teaspoons to tablespoons of truffle oil for flavouring soups, salads, potatoes, eggs, pasta, roasts, and anything under the sun which is remotely French related. It goes back to earlier secret ingredient comment that if vegemite is to Australian, then truffle (and truffle oil) is to the French.

There is only way to find out about the taste and that is to test drive a few drops of white truffle oil in a Jamie Oliver inspired egg and bacon on toast breakfast. After many kilometres of driving around Perth, a 60 mL bottle of white truffle flavoured extra virgin olive oil for AUD$13.99 was located. Needless to say, the conclusion is that a few drops of the oil overpowered the flavour of the fresh egg!

Egg and Bacon

Truffle oil is definitely not something suited to home cooked food and is best left to the snotty diners at French or derivative restaurants. From here the case is put to rest for truffle fans to rave and rant.

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Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Secret Ingredient No. 1

It's time to unveil the first secret ingredient in the tradition of "Iron Chef", and it is.... Vegemite!

Vegemite

Vegemite is used in this unique oriental mushroom risotto made with red rice, in the first of a series of articles on "secret ingredients" for the iron hearted.


Risotto

Vegemite is an over-salted foul tasting black breakfast spread of Australian origin. It is like to Australians what truffle is like to the French. For most, Vegemite is an acquired taste. For the unfortunate few, it was forced into our mouths from when we were babies with promises of vitamin B replacement in processed rice. Fortunately, this childhood comfort food lends itself to sweet memories of bygone years. Today, having a teaspoon of Vegemite served in the risotto with celery mesclun is something to die for.



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2-minute Tip No. 1

Canned smoking wood chips are a convenient way to hold a barbecue in the comfort of the home kitchen. These muliple-use cans, obtained from BBQ shops or hardware stores can be used in a wok or an electric frying pan to flavour and reheat leftover roasts and cold meats. At AUD$0.95 from Bunnings, canned smoke produces flavoursome meals within 5 minutes without the mess and cleanup of an outdoor barbeque.



Mesquite Wood Chips

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Food for thought...


Sara Henderson

"It has toppled empires
and defeated the greatest armies.
It can put you on top of the world
or in the depths of despair.
It can inspire you to fight forever
or make you too weak to lift a finger.
It can cause disease
and it can cure disease.
It can alter your mind
and it has the power to destroy humanity.

What can it be?

Power? Money? Sex? Sin? Greed?
Pestilence? Plague? Disease?

No, it's none of the above.

It's FOOD."


Sara Henderson, "A Year at Bullo", 1997.

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From Cow to Delicious Roast

...to be continued


Seemingly unpopular cuts of meats used in grandma's kitchen take a makeover in this segment, starting with the rolled beef rib roast.

Rolled Rib Roast


Grandma's cuts are unpopular because of:

- high fat content needing a lot of effort to de-fat prior or during cooking

- toughness requiring long cooking times, and used primarily in stews



Having stew everyday and in hot weather will not appease the discerning diner or the cook for that matter. How does one makes grandma's food appealing? Enter 2-minute Noodle Cook, and with the help of "The Food I Love" by Neil Perry of RockPool, there is a "quick" shortcut, using the slow cook, low temperature method. Such a method is used in Rockpool's signature dish "Slow Roasted Aged beef" which is "roasted in one piece for 4 hours at low temperature and served rare". Although, the signature dish uses quality tender rib with professional aging, and not a tough stewing cut or potroast. Regardless, it is this low temperature cooking which tenderizes and minimizes shrinkage of tough meat.



Is 4 hours quick? Yes, considering it takes 10-12 hr for 1 kg rolled rib roast at 75 deg C during winter! The trick here is that there is absolutely no preparation, other than perhaps a sprinkle of herbs, spices and seasoning. Oiling is not necessary as the temperature is too low to produce extra flavour. The oil however does help to seal the surface and to allow the heat to transfer better, thus shortening the cooking time.



Just pop the roast into the oven and forget. For rare beef test the meat reaches 55 deg C. For well done, there is no need to worry about burning or overcooking. At the end of cooking time, there is a choice of temporarily increasing the oven temperature or searing in a hot frying pan. The roast can also be barbequed instantly using Noodle Cook's 2 minute tip.



The outside of the roast browns naturally while the inside remains pink and juicy. As there is little shrinkage, a 1-kg roast which normally feeds 4 when pot roasted, now feeds 8 at a dinner party.




Cooked Rolled Rib Roast



Cooked Rolled Rib Roast Closeup


To serve, try Noodle Cook's "Paper Chef #7" creation, of slow cooked rolled beef rib with parsley-garlic buttermilk spatzle, wilted greens, semidried tomato, baked honey glazed apples, poached red date, apple salsa, and soya sauce, balsamic and red wine vinegar reduction.



To make full use of the oven while slow cooking at 75 deg C, the following are suggestions:


Semidried tomatoes (2-3 hrs)

Confit tomatoes (1-2 hrs)

Confit onions, celery or vegetables of choice (4-5 hrs)

Slow cooked corned beef 1 kg (5-6 hr)

Slow cooked corned beef 1 kg in oil (4-5 hr)


Dried tomatoes

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Monday, June 06, 2005

Classic Australian Cuisine moving with the times

From its humble beginning as tripleN (3N's for Nilly Nellie's Nosh) which operates out of a home kitchen, My Little Restaurant has adopted classic dishes like its precursor. These dishes are modernized to suit changing tastes and artistically presented to fine dining standards. For example, the frugal bully beef is electronic remastered into more palatable versions such as rare slow cooked low salt corned beef served with seasonal vegetables and potatoes complemented with celery and fennel pesto. The corned beef is served in thin slices or as pan seared steaks.



Rare slow cooked corn beef slices



Rare slow cooked corn beef steaks



Will this restaurant which serves "grandma's" food, survive the eastern Australian food critics, who align themselves with trendsetters like Neil Perry's Rockpool or Tetsuya Wakuda's restaurant of the same name? Perhaps not. However, anything is possible in electronic reality.

In the coming weeks, Noodle Cook will recreate dishes with international influences to appease the wider dining audience....

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Saturday, June 04, 2005

Contact

To send a message, please write in the guest book. Remember to tick the private box if you do not wish to leave your message at this website. You can also access the form from the "Contact" option on the menu at the top of this page.


Post Message

View Messages

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Friday, June 03, 2005

Menu



the rations

all meals come in wholesome servings,
complemented by a range of side dishes,
allowing for the adventurous to savour the explosive endings




bread & dripping

Bread

fresh or toasted home-leavened sourdough bread with choice of:
mushroom pate, chicken liver parfait, baba ghanoush, or
macerated tomato, red onions and celery or
vegemite, creamery butter and cheddar or
coddled egg, ham, tomato and asparagus

pizza of the moment






mains

Fish and Chips

bully beef, slow cooked, rare or well done
with seasonal vegetable, potatoes, and pesto of celery and fennel

slow cooked rolled beef roast, recommended rare, with honey glazed baked apple, poached red dates, and seasonal vegetables served over a bed of parsley spatzle, complemented by apple salsa, and balsamic and red wine vinegars reduction

"fish of the moment" with chips, salad, pesto of mint and coriander

herbal pork rillette with
rice, shitake mushroom and wilted greens or
crackling and red dates

oriental mushroom and vegemite risotto served with celery mesclun

savoury sweet-potato perogies with chunky apple sauce
and caramelized onions

tandori chicken, toasted paneer, pureed spinach,
salad and lemon basmati rice





sides

Salad

garden salad
caesar salad
oriental vegetable with oyster sauce
potato wedges
baked potatoes
fried rice





sweet endings

Custard

banana and berries fruit salad
cheese and olive platter with wasabi spinach dip
macadamia tart with seasonal fruit
fruit platter in an attractive arrangement
fruit jelly with seasonal fruit, fruit coulis and yoghurt
ice cream dessert of the moment

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Menu for Dinner

Fish and Chips

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