Extreme Refreshment

Miramar Semillon 2012

Sniffling and coughing away as I write this note, at least it will remind me of the aroma and taste of wine. No one likes a cold, but in the summer heat and being unable to taste properly I really hate it. The upshot is the chance to write up some jottings, of which this is one.

This is a wine for the hot weather, lovely and bright with great refreshment. This is also reflected in the pale brilliant colour. Nose of lemon, herbs and some tropical guava hints, even a grassy touch. This follows through on the palate with superb balance. There's more lemon zest on the front with grassy green, followed by the waft of tropical fruit and lemon grass. It's all nice and restrained and with underlying acid and minerality, has nice length and balance. There is even at this early stage a whiff of honey/lemon lolly peeking out, so you can expect this to age with elegance and interest.

It seems the winemaker is deft as ever, really approachable and easy to enjoy with hidden depths. 11.5% alcohol is also a big plus in the warm weather. 91 

Miramar Wines

Sweet In The Evening

Strawberry Lemon Brulee Tart

I thought it looked rather alright, despite the rustic photo!

I cannot lay claim to being an experienced or even competent pastry cook, so this recipe was somewhat of a leap for me.  It is rather easy to follow a recipe or create a dish where technique and process are familiar despite difference of ingredients or style, but then of course we would never get better or try new things in the kitchen.  This would be rather sad and the pleasure of new food, success and achievement would be missed.

It was decided I would attempt a sweet pastry dessert, recipes were perused examined and discarded; it's hard to decide what to make you know and always advisable to get a sense of the prevailing taste of your audience.  Chocolate, baked ricotta and fruit tart were considered, but in the end you just can't go past a Creme anglaise right!?  The recipe used appealed because I'm not the sweetest of palates and I like the lemon playing off the richness of the custard.  The strawberries were my own addition to the recipe I used, courtesy of sbs and Matthew Evans.

The recipe is available from the link, so I will detail my slight alterations and observations, rather than the whole.  The first of these being that I should have started earlier as I had the most interrupted afternoon!  Aside from this:

I topped with strawberries.  A 100g almond meal substitution was made in place of flour to the base, I always love the texture and flavour this gives.  A little vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon were added to the custard, as it's such a lovely accent with the strawberries.  The berries were also added after removal from the oven then grilled with icing sugar, I simply must buy that blow torch! 

For a first go I'm pretty pleased and I hope those who tried it were too.  I must also say thank you to my friend Catherine, for her sweet inspiration.

Close up on the plate...

   

Festive Delectables

Christmas is often a time of excess for many, which some of the time is a great thing.  Many dishes of rich food, sauced and puddinged to death, it's very clear it's the festive season.  So sometimes it's nice to enjoy the very simplest of foods beautifully prepared.  This dish certainly fits the bill and has the added bonus of being super easy but impressive; equally at home as a casual dinner or main course whilst entertaining.

Rare Seared Beef Fillet

Whole eye fillet

Thyme

Oregano

Rosemary

1 bay leaf

1 onion

Garlic, 2 cloves

Beef stock 100ml

White wine 100ml

Olive oil

Black Pepper

White Pepper

The Beef is prepared in two stages, first seared in a pan then finished in a very slow oven.  A sauce is rubbed and poured over the beef before baking.

For the sauce fry the crushed garlic and finely diced onion in a little oil until slightly coloured.  Throw in the herbs, stir and then add the stock, wine and seasoning.  Simmer briefly to combine all the elements and reduce the liquid slightly.  Set aside.

Rub the beef with a little salt and sear the beef in a very hot pan with a little oil, ideally you would like as much colour as possible, but a rough guide might be 1-2 minutes per side.  Once this is done place the beef in a baking tray and pour over the sauce, if your pan is oven proof you could just use that.

Bake the beef in the oven at about 100-110 degs for 30 min, the point being to gently finish the cooking process and retain the beautiful delicacy and flavour of the meat.

To serve, slice the meat and arrange on a platter.  It can be enjoyed with an array of sides, but simplicity is possibly appropriate as it allows the beef flavour to shine.  Suggestion; Oven roasted Kipflers, or steamed chats alongside some green beans (How about the courgette and bean salad) or leafy salad.    

Breakfast Variations For All Occasions, Or BLT Bliss, nom nom nom!

So in the interest of continued diversification and variety here's another first.  We seem to be having a few, but then these are such exciting times! It's a breakfast construction or “stack”, I use the term because it recalls the humour of a year or two ago (well it got to be funny), when everything you were served, be it in restaurant or more casual eatery was described as some sort of chimney pipe construction. “Stack of duck confit, green pea and kipfler” or “Beef with vegetable stack” and so it goes, you get the idea and one has to admit it is probably a better word than pile, though it can be a challenge to see the difference. Anyway, what matters is the product and the flavour, something good to chomp on! I think this is something along those lines.

*I confess it's only really a stack/pile because I opted for the open sandwich idea, keep that to yourselves though.

Breakfast is not something you really want to mess around with. Your a bit sleepy, at best a bit slow but feeling refreshed, at worst hungover and feeling about as good as last nights ashtray looks. You need a tea/coffee/juice and something to revive the long flagging blood sugar levels. Here's something to help, it might even impress if you have friends and hangers on present.

Suprisingly I took the photo...

I must call it a BACT really, I omitted lettuce and added a slice or two of cheese. Rationale? Who wants lettuce at 9am and you can't have enough tasty protein in this mix.

So to the recipe...

Sourdough Bread, sliced (I use my own, always wanted to say that!)

Avocado, sliced

Bacon (here use whatever cut/type you like or have, remember it is 9am)

Cheese (I used a bit of aged cheddar, but again personal preference and availability is king)

Tomato (I repeat the above statement)

Optionals

butter

garlic

Pepper

Sauce of choice (I'd like to say I enjoyed something sophisticated here, but my guilty pleasure is a dash of tomato sauce.)

Fry some bacon, as this cooks slice your avocado, tomato and cheese. When the bacon has nearly reached the level of cookedness (dodgy word there I know, so sue me) you like, toast the bread. At this point when the toast is done I give it a little rub with a cut garlic clove, not too much and it's very tasty. This is one of the options I suggest and you can also butter or not butter as you desire, I just felt with the cheese and avocado it didn't need it, but choice and free will are great things.

On the toast arrange the ingredients in as artistic or haphazard way as pleases. I did make mine look ok for the photo but I promise everyone that the whole cooking process, even the photography only took me about 15 mins and I made it early in the morning.

Eat it! Possibly with Coffee, Tea or a Bloody Mary depending on how desperate the circumstance.

Baby, You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To... or Mint Orange with Pomegranate Molasses

I'm not much of a dessert man if I'm honest. There isn't some particular prejudice towards dessert, I quite enjoy them and indeed have been known to have a second go at ones I particularly esteem; I even create them on occasion, it's just not a focus I have. Too savoury a palate, or maybe the title suggests I'm subconsciously in a hurry, I have no idea. Here we are anyway with a dessert, which is a first for musings.

Just a note at this point that I think pomegranate molasses the most amazing thing. It is so good in a variety of savoury and sweet situations because of it's beautiful intertwined sweetness and biting acidity.  Translating to a great counterpoint in a dish like this, or a tremendous flavour booster on the savoury plate.

A dessert most simple yet intoxicating, with a tantalising play of sweet and savoury, it could even be used as a palate cleanser if you intended to follow with a more "proper" dessert. Personally my choice after this little number would be a coffee and chunk of chocolate, simple tastes I know...

Mint Orange with Pomegranate Molasses

4 Oranges (navels may be the go, otherwise deseeding is an additional task)

Pomegranate Molasses

Mint, handful torn

Optional White Port

With a knife, top and bottom the oranges, then take the skins off. Slice finely crossways. Arrange on a serving dish as you please, throw some mint over and add another layer of orange. How you do this step all depends on the quantity your making, obviously you can make more and this would allow more layers. When constructed drizzle generously with pomegranate molasses. Refrigerate for 2hrs or so for maximum flavour. If you like, a drizzle of White Port (or favourite liqueur, Cointreau would work well) with the molasses adds further tastiness. Garnish with whole fresh mint leaves when serving.  It really is quite the delightful melange.

Despite the apparent simplicity, this really is a show stopper!

A Doubleheader, Cruickshank Cabernet Rosé 2011 & Shiraz 2007

I felt it only appropriate to complete the cycle of Cruickshank wines I have to hand in the current release.  We have already looked at the Cabernet and Chardonnay/Verdelho blend, but Cruickshank are well regarded for their rosé and indeed the Shiraz may be the best of their wines.

Rosé can often be a non event rather than the most beautiful of understatements.  They should not be in your face with acid, or overladen and sweet, but it's always such a plus when these wines whilst retaining delicacy and finesse, have depth and some complexity lurking. Here is one of those wines, there's something for all comers, meaning you could serve this to wine lover or casual friday night drinker alike and both would probably enjoy, if not demand another glass!

A beautiful pale red colour fading to rust at the edges. Smells of confectionary, strawberry and grassiness combined with lovely musk and perfume notes. Unlike some the wine has a nice fullness of body in the mouth, flavours of sweet fruit played off with sour cherry. My very minor quibble is that it could be a little tighter in the mid palate, but hey, very small complaint! Acidity and dryness really carries it through well anyway. Better wines of this style often improve with a bit of bottle time, obviously not really to age, but they settle down and integrate, so 6 months to a year and this might be even better. 89.

(As a postscript, I was tempted to up the score as time passed, pleasure impairing judgement in a good way I think. Also that the wine was indeed lovely the day after opening and probably more seamless.)

So to the Shiraz. I confess I was aware before tasting that this had received some pretty good reviews, but usually if anything I think this make me more sceptical. (Just to give you some background to tasting this, and how I see things generally I suppose). Getting to the point, this is a pretty good little wine.  It has style alongside varietal and regional character with full flavour and balance. It was even better a day after opening. I hope your getting the impression I really enjoyed it...

Bright fruit heads the lovely rich nose alongside oak and spice. When just opened, this shaded earth, straw and sweat notes which were peeking though, but came up more as the bottle was open. I still think the oak is too pressing, though not to the same extent as in the cabernet. Flavours of generous shiraz fruit and beautiful leather and earth, sweet but still savoury. Oak and white pepper also figure, whilst healthy tannins shape it nicely and the flavours persist nicely for a finish of some length. As mentioned it really came into it's own on the 2^nd day, so decanting may be helpful, as would stashing a bit away, if only for a year or two (that's also known as a clever move!).   92+.

Tasting the delights outside the Paris of the south... (Or a short segue to the Yarra Valley) Part 1.



The Boss...



Long overdue, but here it is.  I had a lovely jaunt to Melbourne a few weeks ago, it certainly was a pleasure to catch up with my dear friends Anthony and Andrew; in addition to their four masters Hebe, Lucy, Pixie and Millie.  If only landlords were as considerate as the boys cat bosses, and that's after one decided my luggage was an attractive place to relieve the bladder.  Just as well I'm not one to hold a grudge!

Anyhow amongst other activities Anthony and I headed off to the Yarra Valley to taste, rate, even gulp some of the local wines.  Things you should know at this point: Andrew didn't make it, he was “tired”/hungover.  The weather was balmy, a lovely 8 degrees in fact.  I had to break out the shorts! 

Sun cream packed  we motored north east, I dreamed of the Caribbean, working on the tan as Anthony got slightly lost...  A bit of my GPS later and all was back on track.  Laughter aside the locality itself really is a lovely part of the world, rolling hills, the resulting verdant vistas and... vines!  So we pulled in at a toilet block.



Look at that sun!  We could be in Champagne.



It wasn't a public convenience, that's just what I told Anthony it looked like (James Halliday gave it 91 points and described it as unassuming, the cellar door, not the wines)!  No, here was St Huberts cellar door.

To be fair, the view from inside the building was good and the wines very good.  Chardonnay and Pinot were the stand out.  Bit disappointed there was no straight Cabernet to try, but you have to remember that the area was subject to smoke taint due to the terrible bushfires a little while back.  Thus many producers literally have nothing to release at this time as a result. 

As we drove away it still looked suspiciously like a toilet block, but on we went!  A pullover, sunshower and   u-turn later, we arrived at Oakridge.  I probably should mention at this point that this was the AFL grand final Saturday, thus we were amazed to find anyone actually at the cellar door.  For any international (or non Victorian readers, because they consider it a world sport...) AFL is a provincial and somewhat bizarre ball game, where players fumble around for the small version of what looks a rugby ball, occasionally trying to get the ball between a couple of pairs of sticks.  Anyway, being the truly international sport it is I was a amazed to find this place full of young women.



Slightly blurred map, after a tasting or two.



Had I been of sound mind we probably should have gone over and ingratiated ourselves, though  foolishly we concentrated on the wines.  All was not lost though as there was some good stuff on offer here. Quite deliberately I won't bore with tasting notes (serious reviews will come), go and try it for yourself!  But some observations:  I had a Pinot Grigio that was actually of some interest, very nice.  Chardonnays were again very good, lovely.  Cabernet from here was excellent, yum :)  Pinot was ok and our lovely pourer/server/bar attendant was beautiful and informative.  Which sounds like I was biased or distracted but she really was and I am most sorry I can't remember her name.

A couple of happy snaps later and we were back on the road.  Sensibly Anthony suggested we really must have lunch and thus it was decided we should head immediately to Medhurst Wines.  They had Wine and food!  (And were seriously good!)

Continued in part two, which is on the way...

The Sourdough Odyssey

It's been a little while between posts here; things have been busy and distracted.  All is Ok though, as I will be endeavouring over the next few weeks to make up for lost time!  I felt it timely to include the long promised update on my bread making, which has been an interesting experience of infinite variation.  These undertakings seem to be entered with a degree of naivety in that you think, "Well righto, I'll just make some bread".  Yeah well...

So to fill in the gaps, since I last posted about bread making I've been baking all my own loaves, there have been ups and downs.  The idea from the outset was to produce sourdough from scratch, no commercial yeasts; the beauty in simplicity of flour, water and salt.  To get to this point I made a sourdough starter and baked some loaves with commercial yeast to start getting a bit of experience whilst the starter matured.  The loaves with shop bought yeast were similar to those in the previous post, but I did play with the kneading process and fluid levels.  I'm deliberately not going into too many specifics here, rather this is more a reflection on how this baking is going.

I must say a big thankyou to Warwick Quinton, despite the fact that we have never met, his web postings provided me with inspiration, guidance and a start point.  If you want to see some recipe specifics (and these are what I began with), check out the link http://www.sourdoughbaker.com.au/ .  I'm now doing things much more by feel but this was and continues to be a great help.

Starter, well this stuff could drive you insane!  Basically you ferment flour and water to encourage the natural yeasts and bacteria, this acts as a leavening agent and imparts the distinct flavour of sourdough.  It takes a week or so to get it going and then you can try baking...  After this you have a new pet that lives in your fridge, needing love care and attention to thrive.

When you bake for the first few times, it's advisable to add a little yeast, cheating I know, but you need to give the starter a chance to stabilise and get stronger, and while this happens it needs a hand in the bread making process.  I have to admit in these first few efforts I had a disaster or two.  I tried bakng with no extra yeast whilst the starter was not very active, which effectively meant no rise!  I thought the first starter I made went off, abandoned it and restarted.  With hindsight I really should have kept it and simply refreshed it (more on that later) a few times to clean it up, my mistake here was not realising how active and alive a starter is once it gets going.  When you want to bake bread about half the starter is combined with your water, flour and salt to make dough.

So to the present.  I now have a liquid starter that is doing well, which I refresh every 5-6 days as I bake a couple of loaves, some of which I freeze or give away, using the other as my bread for the following week.  Over time I've been trying some subtle variation of mixture, knead and proof times to gain experience and feel.  At the moment I've been finding a wetter dough better for getting a lighter loaf, and the humidity and temperature in the oven are key to good crust.  Flour and water quality are also critical to results, amongst other things... ;)

To close this post I must say it is an immersive and rather addictive process which you enter into at your own peril, but the rewards are really there with good results achievable if a little patience is applied.  Patience may indeed be the biggest thing, as you really have to go with the process and allow things to happen at their own pace, rather than dictate a time frame.  The dough will rise when it wants to, may need more/less time etc.  Happy bread baking!          

What does it all mean; Some ideas, rather than just another boring tasting note.

I appreciate and have various opinions about wine, so do a lot of people. I don't think my palate is too bad on a good day, but then realistically, thousands of others are in possession of the same if not better instruments of taste and judgement. In the same way I can write a note about all the wines I ever come across, taste, drink, even tip down the sink, in the end it will be similar and a repetition of most all the other commentary on a wine. All these notes have a place to help guide and categorise in what is such a bottomless murky vat of vino, but it sort of misses the point. We drink wine because it is evocative, with a glass of wine we can travel to different places, we can voyage through time, ideas and emotion, good wines are an art form, provoking and seducing us in the same way that film, writing or music can.

When we talk about taste and flavour, really we are mainly referring to aroma, our noses for the complex parts, our tongues provide us with the more basic, but no less important foundations we think of as sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami. Smell is the key, it's a fascinating sense in many ways, perhaps the point that captivates me the most here is the association between our sense of smell, primitive brain, and memory. Research now indicates odour and aroma can act as powerful triggers for memory, often ones which are deep in the unconscious. Intriguingly the resulting recollection can be incredibly vivid and amazing in it's clarity despite the passage of time, think about this as it obviously differs for all individuals, but everyone can recall examples of this occurring I'm sure. I for example, find the subtle odour of cooking gas (in a good way!) reminds me of childhood visits to my grandparents. This may not seem the most obvious of associations, but that's the point, sometimes it is the most obscure, even bizarre odours that trigger some memory and often you have no prior concious recollection of either the aroma or the memory, until your nose has a chance encounter. Returning to drinks, wine has this tremendous ability of associative power, with the millions of aromas and tastes possible from the differing varieties, styles, regions and production techniques. Sometimes the association may be the context in which a particular wine is consumed, such as a birthday, or other milestone being connected henceforth with a particular wine. In other situations we may be reminded by the power of the olfactory association, of thoughts, memories and emotion. All this engenders discussion of the wine and ideas, of life. This makes it absolutely no surprise then that wine is and should be a shared experience with others, and from here we gain inestimable pleasure and enjoyment. Take this idea further and perhaps wine can help us to experience or envisage something of places and time we have not yet been to, tantalising indeed.

Assuming a wine is not a complete mass production job, we are hearing something from the winemaker as well, reflective of their experience and self. Making the wine the producer obviously has a goal in mind regarding the end product, using technique, knowledge and intuition to bring us the eventual alcoholic beverage in a bottle. There is much talk of the variety or clone used, of the terroir, or even the barrels used to age the wine; it is hardly a surprise though that alongside all these factors, wines are shaped and change, dependent on the individual/s behind them. It's nice to think of wine making as something akin to writing or playing music, in that an individual can create something, but it becomes more alive and changes again as others sip upon it, pondering and talking about it, enjoying the experience.

I love the idea not just of consuming wine, but that along with wine making, it is something that connects us with a collective past and future. Wine has been produced and consumed (and written about!) for thousands of years. The process, the pursuit of perfection in it's production and drinking of wine is something we share with others through the ages. We can see the importance and thought that surrounded wine, for example in the writings of Ancient Romans such as Pliny the elder or Culumella, but evidence of wine consumption is apparent throughout the ancient world and over time to the present day. Into the future I am sure wine will be something produced, savoured and contemplated so long as grapes are grown.

So it seems what we need to consider is that the scoring of wine and looking at it in technical terms of quality and standard, as the main aspect of consideration very much misses the point. If we assume that the quality of a wine (from a technical point of view) is good, mere comparisons between wines are somewhat superfluous, even useless. To appreciate them we need to be more in the moment, then the wines should mean and reflect something, suggesting to us there place of birth but also interacting with there location and time of consumption. Thus there is something magical and special about going to the vineyard and trying the wine looking out over the vines, or savouring a wine with fine food and friends. Clumsily put as something like: wine is place and place is wine. Think about your own experiences and I'm sure this will ring true. Looking at it in this way it seems ridiculous to suddenly talk in terms of a 90+ wine exhibiting dark fruit, spice and hints of chocolate! It is so much more and these sorts of descriptors take away from it. Ratings and technical talk have their place, but let us celebrate the diversity and individuality of wines for all their differences, savouring them. If we merely score them like it were some sort of school exam, or raw comparison to declare a winner we should probably give up.

Tomato Marinade Roast Pork Belly

For the baste I used a basic pasta sauce I often make, well it was actually the remainder of one I had made earlier, but I wanted to try this with the belly.

Marinade

1 tin whole tomatoes

3 cloves garlic

1 small onion

½ tsp cumin

1 tsp mixed herbs

chilli flakes

2 tsp soy sauce

olive oil

75ml red wine

S & P to season

Pork Belly (Size depends on servings, 700g will feed 4 or 5)

Vegetables to roast

white wine

Heat oil and toss the finely chopped garlic and onion in. When this is golden throw all the herbs, soy, tomatoes and wine in. Give it a stir and bring to a simmer. Season and allow to reduce by ½ or more, quite thick is good. Really, cook as you would any rich tomato based pasta sauce, the more time you have, the better to reduce the liquid and intensify the flavours.

This part of the recipe can be prepared in advance and put in the fridge or freezer for later use.

Pork

It is desirable to get the Pork fat to crackle, how far you want the process to go is up to the cook. For a softer crunch you can reduce the length of high temperature cooking at the start of the roasting, keep an eye on it.

Reserve about a third of the marinade.  Use the rest on the meat.

You can scald the fat side with boiling water to assist the crackling process. Personally, I don't know that this is an absolute must, try it both ways! If you do scald it, dry well before continuing.  Rub down the heavily scored fat side with salt and olive oil, you can be fairly liberal with the salt. Work the marinade into the meaty side and rub a little into the fat side, though the salt is the main bit here. The whole piece can be placed in the fridge for several hours, overnight would be ideal. Before roasting a little more salt can be rubbed into the fat to ensure the crackling has crackle!

Roast in an oven at 220 C for 1/2hr (this depends on the oven and how crunchy you like the crackling) then turn the heat down to 165 for a further 1 ½ hours. 

At the point where the oven is turned down add Potatoes, carrots, sweet potato or your other favourite vegetables to roast in the pan.  (If you like these a little more crispy and crunchy, they can be put in at the very start of the roasting, but don't add the wine until you turn the oven down.) These should be cut into hearty, rustic slabs. I added white wine to the pan as well to keep it moist and form a sauce, with the wine put the rest of the marinade over the vegetables. The volumes depends on the pan, you want a good covering, but you don't want to swamp the meat. Cover* Take the lid off for the last 10-15min.

*I'd suggest using a roasting pan with a lid to make this easy, and it also has steaming effect, retaining moisture and delicacy.

Slice the belly and serve with the vegetables and some of the delicious sauce. I'd also suggest a green/garden salad on the side to counter the richness of the dish.