About once every month, a group of people with little in common aside from a shared love of food and an interest in blogging/tweeting about it meet up for dinner. You might remember I posted about my first such dinner at Tognini’s a few months ago. Tuesday night was the first time I’ve been able to get back to one of these dinners. As always, the food was delicious and the company entertaining.
The Gunshop at West End kindly put on a Queensland Tasting Menu – six courses, some of which feature regularly on the menu, and some of which are new items. As there was a large group of us, we each only had to pay $40 for a fantastic array of food. What I really loved about it was the focus on Queensland, seasonal ingredients. In fact, they were careful to advise us that the oysters were actually slightly before their peak, which will be in about 2 weeks time. The Gunshop was recently named Delicious Magazine’s “Australian Cafe of the Year” – and if dinner is anything to go by, that is a deserving title.
Several other bloggers have already posted about this meal – in particular I agree with Gastronomy Gal’s assessment. I should mention that I was particularly impressed by the wild boar – especially as I’m not usually a big pork fan (except for bacon of course!). Another highlight was the new season peach souffle which was delicate and perfectly risen.
Without further ado, here is a run-down of what we ate:
- Stradbroke island rock oysters, tomato and 50 year old sherry vinegar
- Seared Hervey Bay scallops, salmon pearls, persimmon (foam) and squid ink dressing
- West Queensland wild boar, Moreton bay bug, ham (jammon foam) and pineapple
- Goondiwindi lamb rack, salsify puree, Toowoomba olives and fresh peas
- Selection of Queensland cheese and accompaniments
- Witches Chase cloth wrapped 18 month aged cheddar
- Kingaroy Bunya Black brie
- Atherton Tablelands Gallo Washed Rind
- Gympie Farm ash rolled cherve
- New season peach souffle, raspberry ice cream and QLD vanilla creme anglaise
The Gunshop
53 Mollison St
West End
Ph: 07 3844-2241
Web: http://www.thegunshopcafe.com/
I have a confession to make – I don’t really like cauliflower. I love its cousin broccoli, but cauliflower leaves me cold.
I’m usually all about letting the flavours of vegetables shine through. I try to serve vegetables with every meal, and I’m happy to just have plain steamed greens most of the time. Plain steamed cauliflower, however, has me wrinkling up my nose in disgust.
The flip side is that I’m trying to limit the amount of waste we produce – including food waste. So when we got a half head of cauliflower in our Food Connect box I knew I had to find a way to make it palatable.
Enter the SBS website! Cauliflower pancakes was the starting point for inspiration. I served with a robust salad and a perfectly poached egg. Add a dollop of J’s grandma’s mango chutney, and a dollop of natural yoghurt and you have a simple, healthy and delicious weeknight dinner!
Ingredients - 1/2 head Cauliflower, broken into little pieces
- 2 tbsps Olive oil
- 1 cup SR Flour
- 1 tsp Salt
- 2 tsps Ground coriander
- 2 tsps Ground cumin
- 180 mls Milk
- 1 Egg
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180*.
- Toss the cauliflower florets with olive oil.
- Roast in oven for about 20 minutes, until tender.
- Prepare batter by beating together flour, salt, spices, milk and egg.
- Add cooked cauliflower to batter and stir.
- Heat a dash of olive oil in large frypan over medium-high heat.
- Add spoonfuls of batter. You may need to smooth the pancakes out slightly depending on the size of your cauliflower pieces.
- Cook for 2-3 minutes on each side until golden brown.
- Serve with a poached egg, salad and condiments of your choice. Some coriander or shallots sprinkled on top is also nice.
I have been a bit uninspired in the kitchen of late (yes, it happens to us all). I’ve been cooking, just nothing terribly interesting.
However, I did have this one in my drafts folder, and thought it worthy of a post. I love Moroccan food, and we even lugged a tagine home from Morocco in our carry-on luggage! So, I gave the tagine a soak overnight and we made this dish the following day: Chicken tagine with preserved lemon and green olives.
Serve with cous cous.
A note about preserved lemons – we used lemons preserved by J’s sister. I have yet to preserve my own (limited pantry space at the moment – once we move and summer arrives stay tuned for some serious jamming and preserving!), however I understand it is incredibly easy. Here’s an easy recipe from Poh’s Kitchen.
Upon the recommendation of our good friend D, we had lunch at the Salopian Inn whilst we visited McLaren Vale. I’m glad we did, although perhaps my jeans weren’t so happy about it.
The place was packed for Sunday lunch and we didn’t have a booking but we were fortunate enough to grab the last table.
We had learnt our lesson (somewhat) from previous meals in SA, so passed on bread and entrees. Ultimately we passed on dessert too. Our mains (with a side of beans) turned out to be more than enough to keep us full until dinner.
Beef cheek is one of those fantastic cuts for slow-cooking. When it’s done well, the meat almost dissolves in your mouth. The chef at Salopian Inn knows how to cook beef cheek! And the accompanying duck-fat potatoes and parsnip were delicious. I couldn’t pinpoint what was in the sauce accompanying the beef cheek but it was so good. It’s times like these that I realise the inadequacies of the English language (and my own skills!).
J had twice roasted duck, pink peppercorn, baked quince, beetroot, witlof, pomegranate sauce. I’m not a fan of duck, so I didn’t taste his dish, but he assures me it was wonderful. We now understand why Salopian Inn came so highly recommended and was so busy. And the wines from the adjoining cellar door (Gemtree and Dowie Doole) weren’t bad either!
Salopian Inn
Cnr McMurtrie & Main Rds
McLaren Vale SA
Ph: 08 8323 8769
Web: http://mvbeer.com/the-salopian-inn.html
Maggie Beer is a food legend, and a personal icon of mine. Unfortunately, Maggie was in Brisbane the weekend we were in Adelaide! The next best thing was visiting Pheasant Farm and Maggie’s Farm Shop in the Barossa.
I couldn’t visit the farm without trying Maggie’s pheasant pie (or terrine as it was served). This was as delicious as expected – and the sour cream pastry was beautiful! I believe it was served with Maggie’s “Cabernet sauce” which is amazingly good – so good in fact we brought a bottle of it home with us! We also enjoyed the “picnic basket” with vegetable pate.
We stuck around for a cooking demonstration – featuring Maggie’s favourite ingredient – Verjuice (the juice of unripened wine grapes). I was quite excited because the demonstration was held in the kitchen featured on Maggie’s tv show “The Cook and the Chef”. I even had a nerdy photo taken of me in the kitchen!
Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop
Pheasant Farm Rd
Seppeltsfield SA
Ph: 08 8562 4477
Web: http://www.maggiebeer.com.au/home/
This one is truly delicious and a great winter dish. We’ve made it once before with rosemary lamb sausages and a stronger beef stock and I found it a bit overpowering. I think this version is a good balance of flavours. If you’re not a sausage fan, the lentils on their own are delicious. If you’re vegetarian, you could omit the bacon and perhaps add carrot or celery to give the lentils added depth.
I am a huge fan of puy lentils (and lentils generally). I’m trying to become more adventurous and experiment more with different grains, seeds, beans and lentils. I added chopped kale while the lentils were cooking, and topped with cherry tomatoes at the end. You could try broccoli, spinach or silverbeet in place of the kale. Although there are tomatoes cooked into the lentils, I think the cherry tomatoes added a nice sweetness and lightness to an otherwise very hearty dish.
Unfortunately I can’t credit the original version of this receipe – J transcribed it into a notebook some time ago and didn’t make a note of where he took it from.
Details
- :
30 min - :
90 min - :
2 h, 0 min
Ingredients - 1 tbsp Olive oil
- 8 Beef sausages
- 1 large Brown onion, diced
- 4 Bacon rashers, chopped
- 2 cloves Garlic, crushed
- 2 cups Dried puy (green) lentils, rinsed
- 2 Bay leaves
- 3 cups Stock (I used beef)
- 4 Tomatoes, chopped
- 1/2 cup Parsley, chopped
- bunch Kale, chopped
- handful Cherry tomatoes, halved
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180*.
- In a large dutch oven or casserole dish (that you can use on the stove) heat the oil over a medium-high heat.
- Cook the sausages, turning, for 5 minutes until browned all over. Remove from the casserole dish and set aside.
- Add the onion, bacon and garlic to the casserole dish.
- Cook over medium-high for 5 minutes or until soft. Be careful not to burn your onion or garlic.
- Add the lentils and stir to coat in onion mix.
- Add the bay leaves and stock.
- Bring to a boil then add the sausages back into the dish.
- Cover and cook in the oven for 1 hour.
- After 1 hour, remove from oven and add tomatoes and kale. Add some more liquid if necessary.
- Cover. Cook for another 30 minutes or until lentils are tender.
- Discard bay leaves. Stir in parsley and season with salt and pepper.
- Garnish with cherry tomatoes.
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