Is ramen addictive?  I think it maybe is.  There is something about the deeply savoury broth, slippery noodles and fresh toppings that results in me having withdrawal symptoms if I don’t indulge at least once a week.  I’ve had conversations with Weepix along the lines of ‘Well we could move back to the UK, but where will we get decent ramen?’.  Suffice to say I’m a bit of a ramen junky.

Before I even came to Australia I was drooling over blog posts about Sydney ramen shops and noodle bars.  Ryo's Noodles in Crow's Nest became almost like a second home when I lived just round the corner.  It was right between my apartment and the library; not much can compete with the double pleasure of a new book and a deep bowl of miso ramen.  

Alas we've now moved away from Crow's Nest and Ryo's isn't as regular occurrence as it once was.......so it's just as well that my office is five minutes from Ichi Ban Boshi in Galaries Victoria.  I take it as a good sign that both Ryo's and Ich Ban Boshi have long queues outside them every single day without fail.  A restaurant must be doing something right if people are prepared to wait for an undetermined period before being allowed in.  I've got to say it's a master stroke in heightening the anticipation; there we stand waiting for our number to be called, the smell of broth and tapping of chopsticks nearly driving us crazy.  As soon as you're called there is an instantaneous change of mindset from 'hurry the hell up!' to 'I'm going to savour every minute of this and who cares about those still waiting'.  If you want to witness basic human nature then simply observe the queue outside Ichi Ban Boshi. 

Despite the current quality noodle abundance I'm still worried that at some point in the future I may have to do without.  The only solution is to learn how to make some of the best dishes myself.  At Ichi Ban Boshi I'm a freak for the Tantanmen.  A quick Google search results in about a hundred definitions and recipes for tantanmen, but basically it's a spicy pork ramen (often tonkotsu) with sesame, pork mince and various veggies.  It's actually a Szechuan dish but usually served in Japan as ramen.

The recipe I used was a bit of a hybrid of many different sources and I've no idea how authentic it is, but the end result was not too shabby.

The Means

Stock:

• 900ml of torigara soup stock (or chicken stock)
• 2 Tablespoons of red miso

The Rest:

• 1 Tablespoon of sesame oil
• 1 minced garlic clove
• 1 minced piece of ginger
• 1 minced dried chile pepper
• 1/2 Japanese long onion, minced (substitute scallions)
• 200grams minced pork
• 1/2 of a small bamboo shoot, minced (I missed this out)
• 1 teaspoon tobanjian (Chili bean sauce)
• 2 teaspoons tenmenjian (Chinese sweet black miso)
• Noodles

The Method

First cook the noodles, drain, rinse well in cold water and set aside.  Then prepare the stock, add in the red miso, give it all bit of a stir and let simmer for a while.

Next you need to heat up the sesame oil and stir fry the garlic, ginger, chili and scallions.  Give them a minute or two and add the pork mince.  Stir fry until the mince browns and add in the tobanjian and tenmenjian and about 200ml of the stock.  Let it simmer for about ten minutes or so, until the mince is cooked through.  

To serve put the noodles in a deep bowl with your favourite toppings (I like corn, boiled egg, pak choi, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots....not generally all at once though). Pour over enough stock to cover the noodles and then add a few spoons of the pork mince.  

I'm afraid my lack of skill as a photographer is evident with these shots but the final dish was damn tasty.  It didn't have the depth of flavour of the store bought tantanmen but then they actually know what they are doing and simmer stock for hours.  I might try to make some genuine (free range!) pork stock next time and report back how it goes.

         

Click here to download:

Homemade_Tantanman_tag_Japanes.zip (3897 KB)

I was a vegetarian for about four years when I was a teenager; the result of an ill advised (or surprisingly progressive?) school trip to a battery chicken farm.  I think about half the class went veggie for at least a while after that one. 

Slowly I started to realise that it wasn’t the eating of meat that bothered me, but rather the journey that the meat took in order to reach my plate.  I don’t mind killing animals (even personally) in order to eat them, but I don’t see why that means they have to suffer before, or excessively during, slaughter. 

I’m not going to pontificate about the treatment of animals during factory farming; there are hundreds of books out there all about it.  I recommend Not On The Label by Felicity Lawrence and Meat by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall if you want to read a bit about it.  Weepix recommends The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.   Suffice to say that most animals raised in factory farms have unnaturally short, brutal and undignified lives.

I don’t want to eat something that has been rushed to my plate as fast as possible with profit topping the list of producer concerns.

The upshot of me wanting to ensure the provenance of what is on my plate was this week’s inaugural meat order with Feather and Bone.  They provide a fine seasonal range of carefully sourced meat and meat products.  Is it more expensive than the supermarket?  Of course, but not by as much as you’d think and I’m happy to eat less meat in order to pay more for what I do have.

The first order comprised:

• A 2.2kg chicken
• 500g of aged chuck steak 
• 500g of pork mince
• 750g of chicken Marylands (legs and thighs)
• 1kg minute steaks (can’t beat a quick steak sandwich)
• 1.4kg of goat shoulder
• 500ml of chicken stock

The whole lot was about $110 which is not too shabby considering the volume.  It’ll last two weeks without breaking a sweat.

We cooked the chicken on the barbecue last night and I’m happy to say it was fantastic.  The meat is rich and intensely flavoured and a leg and thigh each is more than enough for dinner, which leaves us with enough for chicken sandwiches and a chicken and feta salad for later (recipes to follow!).  Deglaze the pan with some white wine, add in a bit of Dijon and sour cream and it also provides a fantastic gravy. 

The chicken sandwiches were incredible.  Spread some of the left over gravy across the bread, slice up one of the chicken breasts (still running with juice after a night in the fridge) and pile on some left over lettuce with peas and avocado.  Bit of homemade coleslaw on the side.  Sandwiches can be wonderful things.

The bird may have cost $30 but it’s giving us six generous serves and providing stock for another.  I can live with paying $6 a serve for my chicken, especially when it tastes this good.

Up next is Jamaican curry goat (never goat curry!). 

Now this is the sort of food story that gets me excited.  It’s got everything – wine, miniature sheep, clever sustainability, giant guinea pigs locked in combat with eagles – perfect. 

I worked in sustainability and waste management for several years and I’ve lost count of the number of businesses that want to ‘reduce their carbon footprint’ by continuing exactly as normal but planting a few trees to offset the energy they use.  Don’t get me wrong the trees are great, but not using the energy in the first place is even better.  Peter Yealands (who, just to make the story even better, has an awesome beard) obviously understands that and is doing something about it.

In order to provide the grapes with the best growing conditions, he needs to keep the grass on his 1000 hectare estate trimmed.  This requires a tractor to travel 3500 km a year, which costs NZ$1.5 million, releases a large amount of Co2, nitrous oxides, sulphides and particulates and, no doubt, takes a huge amount of man power.  What to do?  Bring on the sheep of course……well it is New Zealand.  Not conventional sheep, which are widely used, but can also eat the grapes, oh no, we’re talking specially bred miniature sheep.  Let them loose to take care of the grass (provide additional fertiliser?) and, trials going well, you’ve saved yourself a small fortune, saved a load of harmful emissions and reduced your workload.  I love it. 

Obviously you still have to invest time in animal husbandry and potentially spend some money for additional feed, winter shelter and vets etc, but, even if the scheme ends up breaking even in a monetary/time sense, you’re still streets ahead with the emissions……assuming miniature sheep don’t fart too much.  He’s also planning to sell the wool and the meat from his new sustainable lawnmowers, which generates even more income.  The man is my new hero. 

I’ve not tried Yealands wine before but I’ll certainly be looking out for it now.

You know that mood when you can’t quite place what it is you fancy eating but you know the perfect snack is out there?  It usually means I end up opening and closing the fridge a dozen times as if the answer will suddenly appear, tucked forgotten in the corner wrapped in paper.  Inevitably I’ll end up grabbing something that doesn’t really hit the spot and grumble ‘that wasn’t what I wanted at all!’.  The other day though was one of those times when inspiration struck and the solution was perfect;

Mushrooms on toast.

It’s the perfect snack; cheap, simple and quick to make and utterly delicious.

The Means

1. Mushrooms – I usually go for the big flat field mushrooms for this. 
2. Bread – I like sourdough or something wholemeal with loads of seeds.
3. Extra virgin olive oil
4. Butter – just a little
5. Parsley
6. Garlic
7. Lemon – optional

The Method

1. Heat up the oven (about 200°C/ gas mark 6 will do it) and put the mushrooms on a baking tray.
2. Put a wee bit of butter in each mushroom with some garlic (either microplaned or finely chopped).  Drizzle some oil over.
3. Bung in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.  They go nice and dark the smell will be great!
4. Chop up the parsley and mix it with a squeeze of lemon juice.
5. Put your toast on just before the mushrooms are done.
6. Put the cooked mushrooms on the toast, spoon over a bit of parsley and lemon and then scoff the lot.

I know, I know, it’s hardly haute cuisine but it’s damn tasty and really easy.  They’re fantastic as a snack, a light dinner or a side for the barbecue.  They can also be done them as a starter but take it easy with the portions or their won’t be….mushroom for anything else…..no?.....ok, I’ll get my coat.

So it’s been a quiet few weeks on Kitchen Decanted.   This was mainly due to assorted technical difficulties while visiting Europe and also a little bit of laziness on my part.  The reason that there was no blog build up to the trip is that it was a surprise for Weepix’s mum’s birthday. Her other half knew we were coming but our arrival was a complete surprise.

Who cares about technical difficulties though?  All the foodie pleasures of Tuscany, Barcelona, southern Spain and Edinburgh need to be reported.  So here we go.

Now that the trip is but a distant memory I can fill you folks in on the details.

First stop was a week in San Gimigiano, which is situated in the hills of Tuscany just outside Florence.  Following this we headed up to Milan (where a woman in her 60’s tried to seduce me) and we caught the night train to Barcelona.  We had a wee cabin with beds and a toilet and everything.  It was very James Bond……if James Bond travelled in cramped train cabins that have seen better days. We only had one day and night in Barcelona, but we crammed every spare second with food and wine.  From Barcelona it was quick hop down to Malaga and then a long drive up into the mountains north of Gibraltar where my folks run a guest house.  Despite a day in bed with a horrible cold we ate and drank to excess….chorizo, rioja, iberico jamon, manchego….it was a good few days

After a week at my folks place we headed off back home to Edinburgh to catch up with family and friends, before heading back to Sydney via London and Singapore.  It was a busy few weeks.

First stop in Italy after catching the train from Milan to Florence was the town of Poggi Bonsi on the way to San Gimigiano.  What’s the first thing you do when you get to Italy?  You have a pizza of course.  Not that pizza is very Tuscan, but we’d been travelling for about thirty four hours at this point and could not be trusted with cutlery.  And it was great!  A perfect thin base with a nice crunch was smothered with tasty tomato sauce and topped with mozzarella, anchovies and salami.  Throw in a carafe of perfectly lovely local wine for about €3 and I was starting to feel a little more human by the end of it.

As luck would have it there was a little food market right beside the restaurant and this was where we found our first truly Tuscan food offering:  truffles.  There was truffle butter, truffle sauce, truffle crostini topping, truffle salami and, of course, huge piles of actual truffles.  I’ve never had real truffle in an unadulterated form before so I wasn’t about to pass this up.  I bought two small black truffles each the size of a large marble for €10.  And this was mere hours after landing!  What a place.

Truffles are big business in Tuscany.  The best truffle locations are jealously (and I’m told violently) protected from other hunters and passed down through the generations.  The truffles in this region tend to be black and of two varieties; Black Perigord and Black Summer.  Most Italian white truffles are from Piedmont to the north and are much more expensive.  I didn’t know it at the time but I’d bought two Black Summer truffles, which have a subtler flavour and aroma.

I figured there was really only one way to eat your first ever truffles and that is to grate them fresh onto scrambled eggs.

The flavour of the summer truffles really was quite subtle and didn’t have much of the distinct truffliness I was after.  They were tasty, but I suspect I’m going to have to save up and get hold of some of those white ones at some point. 

           

Click here to download:

Truffles_In_Tuscany_tag_Holida.zip (9078 KB)

I worked in a burger restaurant located in a shopping centre food court when I was fifteen.  It was called Donny’s Diner and was kitted out like a 50’s American diner, complete with red faux leather booths and a jukebox at every table.  It had character.  Fake character for sure, but character none the less.  The food however was garbage.  I can say that unequivocally as it was me who cooked it.   I started out waiting tables, graduated to fries and buns and then, following the ‘chef’ (the owner’s grumpy brother) storming out in the middle of a busy Saturday shift, I got my hands on the grill……by which I mean big flat hot plate.

I flipped thousands of burgers that summer.  We did all the standard burger fare in addition to ‘glamorous’ burgers covered with chilli, Dianne sauce, peppercorn sauce.  I was also responsible for making these sauces, which I did without the first clue as to what was involved.  I shudder to think what we served up.

What has this got to do with the Grand Burger Showdown?  I’m glad you asked.  I suspect that the latest burger under the microscope was cooked by the same method I used to use at Donny’s Diner.  All the burgers at Donny’s were half cooked first thing in the morning, refrigerated and then finished off on the hot plate as the orders came in.  We got through several hundred burgers a day and this was seen as the most efficient way to manage the checks.  Now I don’t know for sure but I’d place a fairly sizable bet that my Pulse burger went through the same process. 

Pulse is a tiny little hole in the wall on Kent Street that has a huge turnover every lunch time.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen the place without a queue out into the street.  And the food is great!  They have a full burger range and some fantastic salads.  The Moroccan Salmon salad is one of my very favourite lunch time dishes and the organic chicken burger is huge and very tasty. 

For the burger challenge I picked one of the weekly specials – the Jalapeño Burger.  It clocked in at a hefty $11 and stacked up like this:

• Wholemeal bun
• The fairly small organic beef burger
• Jalapeños – and they had a kick!
• Caramelised onions
• Swiss cheese
• Gherkins
• Capsicum salsa
• Lettuce, tomato and aioli

First the good news:

The complete package is damn tasty.  The jalapenos have a real kick and the onions and capsicum salsa give it a great sweet and sour edge.   As I’ve said before I love wholemeal buns with burgers and this one is no exception.  The heat built as I ate but was never overwhelming.  All in all it would have been better without the actual burger.

The bad news was the burger itself.  For a start it was pretty small.  The taste wasn’t unpleasant as such but the burger was as dry as Oscar Wilde’s wit.  The texture was mealy and, when I took a bite, it didn’t come apart like a burger ought to.  It wasn’t good and it came with a texture and appearance I’m all too familiar with.  The burger did arrive in about six or seven minutes and I suppose that’s part of the price for fast food.  I’d just rather be given the option to wait a bit longer.

The overall flavour was miles better than the Big Mac, but then it should be at three times the price and the flavour was more to do with the accoutrements than the burger. 

It’s a damn shame because Pulse has always been better than this in the past.  If you’re in the neighbourhood then it’s well worth a visit to grab a s alad or a chicken burger, just maybe steer clear of the burgers during busy lunch periods.

Four down, one to go.

       

Click here to download:

The_Burger_Challange_-_Round_F.zip (4007 KB)

When Weepix and I decided that we were going to move to Australia our first choice of new home was Melbourne……stay with me Sydneysiders, for my story gets better.  Neither of us had ever been to Australia so we had no personal experience to draw upon.  When we consulted friends and various internet forums both cities got a great write up.  Both cities are often judged to be in the ‘Top Ten Cities’ in the world with regard quality of life.  Sydney is more beautiful people said.  Sydney has better weather said others.  You’ll get paid more in Sydney some suggested.  Melbourne has better food said most.

Melbourne it was then.

I’m not being flippant here.  Ultimately the decision to go for Melbourne over Sydney was made purely on the basis that we’d heard better things about the food in Melbourne.  Folk said that coffee was better, the café culture was more prominent and that Melburnians just simply cared more about their food.  When you’re making a blind move to the other side of the world you need to get your priorities straight.

As it turns out I was offered a job in Sydney and not Melbourne.  And you know, for a little while we were slightly disappointed by that.  Seems crazy, but we’d formed a bond with Melbourne based on restaurant reviews, foodie websites and reports of the Queen Victoria Market.  We hadn’t invested that time in Sydney.

Well we’re eighteen months in now and I’ve not been to Melbourne yet, but it would have to be truly sensational to trump the foodie experiences that Sydney has offered to date. 

The food here is cheap and of an extremely high standard.  The first time I bought a leg of lamb for $20 I nearly fainted.  It cost that in pounds back home (and it wasn’t as good).  We’ve gone from eating out maybe once a week at home to eating out two or three times a week here.  And why not when a good Thai meal in Sydney is about a third of the price we used to pay at home?  The range of cuisine is incredible; within five minutes walk of our apartment we’ve got Thai, Spanish, French, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian, Greek, German, Japanese, Vietnamese, Modern Aussie, Mexican, Chinese, American…the list goes on.  With several of these cuisines, Japanese for example, we have a choice of five or six places within walking distance.  Good job too as we both love Japanese food and in Edinburgh it’s a) rare b) crap and c) expensive. 

(I feel bad reading this first bit back as I’m painting a pretty bleak picture of back home.  That’s not my intention as the standard of food in Edinburgh can be extremely high; it’s just that when it is the price tends to be too.  We don’t seem to have the knack of providing high quality food for a reasonable price in Scotland.  That’s sad as the produce available is fantastic.)

Anyway, I’m going to start writing a bit more about my food experiences in Sydney as there have been loads of recipes of late and not a lot else.  To kick us off I’m going to wax lyrical about Japanese food and particularly nabemono, which is better known as Japanese Hot Pot and is one of my favourite discoveries since moving to Sydney.  It comes in a few different varieties but the basic idea is a big pot of tasty stock to which you add veggies, tofu, noodles and meat. 

The other night we went to Dontack, a little place just up the road.  We ordered the sushi and sashimi platter ($19.50) and a Sukiyaki hot pot for two ($35). 

The sushi and sashimi are great as always.  The sashimi (salmon and kingfish) is fresh as can be and the sushi is delicate with a good proportion of fish to rice.  A bit of wasabi and soy and it’s all good.  This is the sort of sushi and sashimi that would have had me dancing with joy 18 months ago and now I just accept it as par for the course.  How quickly we adapt.

The nabemono is why we’re here though.  The sweet sukiyaki stock is a mix of soy sauce, sugar and mirin and comes with a huge platter of thinly sliced beef. The big cast iron stock pot arrives at the table already stuffed full of veggies, noodles, tofu and the stock and is sat on top of a little portable gas burner.  Now we have to sit and wait as the stock starts to bubble and the veggies cook down a little.  The smell is so incredible that the wait is a real challenge, but as the veggies are raw and the pot stuffed to bursting point waiting is the only option available.

After ten maddening minutes, when there is a little room, the first few slices of beef are tucked into the stock alongside the veg.  It doesn’t take long to cook and is soon fished out and dipped into a little bowl of raw egg before being eagerly scoffed.

This moment right here is what makes the wait worth it. 

The taste of the beef, sweet stock and raw egg is, and I pick my word carefully, sensational.  The egg is rich and buttery in direct contrast to the savoury beef and the delicious sweetness of the stock.  It’s a hell of a combination.  Dig into some noodles and veg and then it’s time for more beef.  At this point I realise we’re eating in almost total silence.  Not in an uncomfortable way, we’re just both completely absorbed in the ritual in front of us.  That’s a sure sign of good food.

It’s a wonderful way to eat and, when you’re not staring in silence into the depths of the stock pot, very social.  Despite the large amount of food we left feeling sated as opposed to stuffed and that has to be the best way to end a nice meal.

                   

Click here to download:

Japanese_Hotpot_at_Dontack_tag.zip (10205 KB)

If I’m being totally honest; this is the one I was looking forward too.  I was determined to still judge it on its merits, but how could a foodie not be excited by the prospect of a 600 day grain fed Wagyu beef burger?

Wagyu is not something you see much of in the UK, well, not outside London anyway.  I’ve been reliably informed that it’s starting to creep onto menus here and there, but it’s at UK prices plus a premium.  When I first arrived in Sydney I was stunned to find that you can buy it pretty much anywhere.  It’s available in every butcher I’ve been to and it features on at least eighty percent of the menus I get my hands on.

First time I tried it was at the Japanese place just up the road (another thing that is wonderful about Sydney is the sheer number of good Japanese restaurants.  Edinburgh has two).  I was expecting some tasty beef but not prepared for the taste sensation that ensued.

Wagyu is special.  Not special in that ‘foodie’ ‘oh it’s tastes of rainbows and honeysuckle pixies’ way, but really properly special.  It has a higher percentage of monounsaturated fats than normal beef and yet it manages to taste like it’s been dipped in butter.  It’s rich, velvety and smooth.

But does it make a good burger?

Yep.  Damn skippy it does.

It was a sunny afternoon so we, me and five hungry colleagues, phoned in an order for six Wagyu burgers.  Happily Plan B is just over the road and right next to a nice little garden, which is a bit of a rarity in the city centre.  It’s a perfect place for lunch on a sunny day.  The burgers are a bargain at $10 a pop. 

Twenty minutes after picking up the phone we went and collected our burgers and headed for a spot in the sun.

The burgers aren’t huge.  That’s a good thing.  They are a decent size and the burger is almost round, like a mini cricket ball.  It comes on a toasted brioche with a thin slice of cheddar, some lettuce, pickled beetroot, caramelised onions and a dollop of mayonnaise. 

The full recipe can be found here – make your own Wagyu Burgers.

The wagyu has great depth of flavour.  One of my colleagues, Tom, mentioned it had a bit of a clove flavour to it, which I agree with, but they are nowhere in the recipe.   The beetroot is quite subtle and the onion is sweet and adds a little sharp twang. The bun works really well, providing a bit of sweetness and yet it’s lighter than a normal bun and doesn’t overwhelm the wagyu.  Nothing could overwhelm the wagyu.  As I bite into it the fat runs down my chin.  I can’t help but grin.  It’s rich, filling and spicy. 

Even a strong black coffee back at the office doesn’t quite cut through the fat coating my mouth.

I asked the guys to rate the burgers out of ten taking only flavour into account as much as possible.

Dom – 9/10 – needs to be bigger! 

Tom 1 – 7/10 – Not bad, better than the last one.  Tastes a bit ‘clovey’ and could do with being bigger.

Simon – 7/10 – Tasty but not as good as the burgers at Silks.

Matt – 8/10 – Liked the sweet buns, but I suspect he just wanted to say ‘sweet buns’ a lot.  Wanted a sausage roll when we were done.  Fat git.

Tom 2 – 7/10 – Bun a bit soggy but otherwise not bad.  Could be bigger.

And what did I think?  Well it was better than the Big Mac!  Big surprise, eh? It really was though.  Admittedly it’s twice the price but it’s also easily  an<script type="> ced/langs/en.js?1254614361" type="text/javascript"> twice the burger.  It looks nice for one thing.  The ingredients are quality, which means they are starting from a position of strength straight away, but I think the real difference is that a bit of effort has been put into it.  The Big Mac was relatively inoffensive fuel; it’ll keep you alive....probably.  The wagyu burger was to be savoured (although not at the speed Dom ate his!).

Sorry if it’s a bit predictable but that’s the way it goes sometimes.  The wagyu burger is going to be tough to beat.

       

Click here to download:

The_Grand_Burger_Challange_-_R.zip (2015 KB)