Truffle steamed eggs

Simple breakfast of butter steamed eggs with pungent truffle oil.


Over a medium heat melt some butter and crack in a couple of eggs.


Place a lid over the pan so the eggs steam, this cooks the top quickly.


drizzle some truffle oil over the hot eggs.

Simple dinner

Sautéed potatoes.


Rump with red wine mushroom sauce.

Bay

Some fresh leaves tied up and hanging to dry.

A brisling brunch

Brisling sardines with rocket and simple dressing.


I find brisling sardines the best, the other canned sardines are too big and have developed too much bone.


Dijon mustard, lemon juice (and a little extra cider vinegar), salt, pepper and oil.

Duck Confit - prep

Getting ready to cure the duck, salt, thyme, bay leaves and duck.


Grinding the bay leaves, the smell is amazing.


All the ingredients in a bag ready for a short stay of 24 hours in the fridge. It looks so green because what I thought was dried thyme was in fact a fine powdered freeze dried thyme.

Nam on Willis st

Ventured out for a bite to eat after grocery shopping last night. I had stumbled across a review For Nam on Willis St on a blog (can't remember which blog sorry).

I got the Thịt Kho Hột Gà: Caramelised pork belly and whole egg, slow braised with aromatic spices until tender. Served with home-made mustard greens and steamed rice. It was to die for, each mouthful of the broth was spectacular, the only beef with it was not enough mustard greens on the side, but I'm nit picking.

My partner got Phở Bò Saìgon, which she enjoyed, and her only complaint was lack of fresh chilli on the side, but again just nit picking.

We had 2 starters, 2 mains and 4 glasses of wine between us, and it came to just over $80, very reasonable. We will be back.

Their website is: www.restaurant-nam.co.nz

Chicken and Red wine redux

I revisited my earlier post and cooked up another lot of red wine and chicken, and I wasn't disappointed. This is quite an image heavy post, so the rest is after the jump.


Chicken cut in half.

Laurel - part 2

Well this is not my "food-pairing" for Bay leaves. But I really wanted to try a cocktail involving Bay Leaf. I made an infusion of ground leaves and simple syrup (pictured above, left glass used dried leaves, right used fresh). Bay doesn't develop a full aroma/flavour until it has been dried for a good few weeks.

The Dried leaf syrup was very aromatic, almost meaty smell with a pungent eucalyptus aroma. The Fresh leaf syrup didn't have much of an aroma at all, and almost tasteless, finishing with a grassy after taste.


I made two identical cocktails (apart from the syrup) 2 dry vermouth, 1 syrup, shaken, poured over ice and topped up with soda.

It's a bit hazy, too much "testing", but from what I recall the dried leaf cocktail was almost savoury/meaty in flavour with a sweet finish, it wasn't unpleasant. The fresh leaf cocktail, had a grassy finish, and seemed to kill the flavour of the vermouth more than the dried, but didn't impart it's own flavour much.

Food pairing

I received this food pairing tree for Bay leaves (Click on the image for an interactive chart or here if you have a pop up blocker).

So the brainstorming begins, how to extract the flavor, and use it differently to how I normally do, unceremoniously chucking it in a pot. I think it's a herb taken for granted and I want to try to do some thing special with it.

Initial thoughts on extracting the flavor, are blitz it with some light olive oil (which it also pairs with) and use it as a dressing, make a stock syrup out with it (serve with some vermouth (another pair) over ice), make a tea from it, or turn it in to a powder to dust with.

As well as experimenting with Laurus nobilis, I'm trying my hand at sous vide slow cooker duck confit.

I have a couple of posts sitting in drafts at the moment, which would get posted except this computer refuses to open the edit posts page.

Books and pizza

Love finding old cook books at thrift shops, latest additions are Graham Kerr's Galloping Gourmet and Pearl L Bailey Foods: preparation and serving, which is more like a 1920s home-economics text book, still a good read and very informative.

On the way thanks to amazon On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee and one I've been wanting to get my hands on for a while Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman


I Finally bought a stone for the oven, I was pining after was a hefty $100 so I opted for the cheaper $20 model, but will see how often it gets used for bread baking and the like, then I might upgrade. My pizza recipe is here, and I highly recommend going for a mix of fine semolina (flour) and strong wheat flour.