J and I are on holidays for 10 days in the lovely New Zealand. This is my third trip to NZ and J’s sixth! We’re off to Blenheim in the Marlborough region tomorrow but tonight we stayed in Christchurch.
I did a bit of research before we left Brisbane and found a new restaurant close to our hotel that had been favourably reviewed. The prices were mid-high end, but the AUD is fantastic at the moment, so they are really very reasonable.
We’ve just come back from a 3 course meal at Edesia and I cannot recommend it highly enough. As this is a food blog, I thought I’d give you a quick run-down of our meals.
Firstly, we were favoured with an amuse bouche of a pumpkin ravioli with toasted almonds, capers, baby basil leaves and goats cheese. This was a delight – each element complemented the others, and the goats cheese in particular helped cut through the sweetness of the ravioli. A delightful, and unexpected start to the evening.
My entree was tortellini filled with slow-braised ox tail and served with broccoli, some kind of purple flower leaves, parmesan and more capers. I could not stop raving about this dish. The pasta was clearly fresh and beautifully made, the ox-tail just melted as you cut into the tortellini. The capers cut through the richness, and importantly weren’t too salty. Broccoli is one of my favourite vegetables, so I was always going to love that part!
J enjoyed the prawns, with a sweet corn puree sauce, sweet corn and avocado salsa and finely grated parmesan. I stole a bite and it was also incredible.
For main I enjoyed the mushroom risotto, which was from the “light mains” menu. Perhaps this was the boring option (although it was also amazing!) as I am always drawn to mushroom risotto! J was more adventurous and enjoyed some NZ lamb, cooked two ways and served with pumpkin and minty peas.
I often find that dessert is where restaurant’s let me down. It is sometimes like dessert is an afterthought – something chefs are required to provide but don’t really enjoy making. Fortunately at Edesia, the dessert lived up to the rest of our meal.
I had a beautifully cooked chocolate fondant. It was served with a cocoa flavoured sugary confection – sort of like fairy floss, as well as peanut brittle pieces, a peanut paste spread across the plate and a milk sorbet. I savoured every rich bite, and left feeling content but not stuffed.
J had a boysenberry “tartare”, so-called because it is piped through a sieve, and frozen with liquid nitrogen. It was served on a sponge, with a spoonful of sherbert and topped with an egg y olk. No, not really, it was actually mango nectar in a casing designed to look (and act) like a runny egg yolk. It was very unusual and cleverly presented. It was a reasonably small portion (especially compared to mine!) but perfect after J’s larger meal.
In case you can’t tell, this was a wonderful dining experience. If you’re ever in Christchurch, make the effort and head here. It’s a bit off the beaten track, tucked away in a business estate, but take the time and find it!
Edesia
12 Show Place
Addington
Christchurch
03 943 2144
I will just provide you with the link to this recipe – I found it on the NY Times website.
We bought several kilos of prawns (green, unshelled) over Christmas and we have slowly been working our way through them. My appreciation for prawns developed quite late in life, particularly surprising given I’m a Queenslander and appreciating seafood is like breathing for most of us! However, I have come to appreciate those succulent little morsels, but like most shellfish, they result in an overabundance of leftover shells. The great thing about this recipe is that it actually uses the shells to make a prawn stock, which provides a fundamental base layer of flavour to the dish.
This dish is very “prawn-y” so I don’t recommend it if you are not a fan. However, if you like prawns I feel sure you’ll love this dish. It is not overly complicated, although it does require a fair bit of stove time. The leek adds a subtle sweetness and the rice texture and depth. You will feel like you are eating a far more indulgent dish then you actually are. We wiped our plates clean with thick slices of white tiger bread and sat back, replete.
In a moment of weakness a few weeks ago, I ordered several cookbooks from Amazon. One of my purchases was Ainsley Harriott’s “Fresh and Fabulous Meals in Minutes”. It is no coincidence that I had been watching Ainsley’s show on tv earlier in the day.
I hardly need more cookbooks. I’m fairly certain that if I was to cook every recipe in every cookbook I wouldn’t duplicate a recipe for 20 years. However, there’s something about Ainsley’s cheeky and relaxed style that sucked me in. And I have no regrets, if even half the recipes are as good as this one.
The mushrooms are meltingly tender. If you cook them in the same pan as you just cooked the bacon, they take on the flavours of butter and bacon. If there is a better marriage of ingredients I don’t know it! The garlic, added later in the cooking process, doesn’t have time to crisp up and turn bitter and instead mellows with the addition of the creme fraiche. The thyme, my new favourite herb to use fresh, cuts through the richness of the dish and adds body to the flavours.
Make this dish for a loved one and they’ll be beating a path to your door. And it is simplicity itself to put together – providing you with even more time to spend with said loved one.
Ingredients - 40 grams Butter
- 350 grams Mushrooms (I used button)
- 1 tsp Fresh thyme
- 1 clove Garlic crushed
- 2 English muffins
- 3 tbsps Creme fraiche
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- 50 grams Bacon crisped up in the pan first
- Salt and pepper
Directions
- Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Be careful not to have the heat too high as the butter will burn.
- Add the thickly sliced mushrooms to the pan and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring gently. The mushrooms should start to soften.
- Add the thyme and garlic and continue to cook for another 3 minutes, until the mushrooms are tender and juicy.
- Meanwhile, split and toast the muffins.
- Add the creme fraiche, mustard and salt and pepper to taste to the mushrooms.
- Allow the creme fraiche to melt, mix to combine and let bubble for about 30 seconds until warm through.
- Crumble or roughly chop the bacon and add to the pan.
- Arrange the muffins on a plate and top with the creamy mushrooms.
- Serve immediately and prepare for lip smacking and moans of enjoyment.
J and I rarely have big breakfasts, however a few weekends ago we were in the mood. I had some mango in the freezer that needed to be used, so I decided to throw together some mango pancakes.
My inspiration came from a Women’s Weekly recipe for apple and cinnamon pancakes with maple syrup, found in “GoodFoodFast”. Here is the recipe with my adaptations. It’s actually fairly healthy if you don’t have ice cream!
Ingredients - 1 cup self-raising flour
- 0.25 cup Firmly packed brown sugar
- 0.5 cup Skim milk
- 1 Egg yolk
- 0.5 cup Coarsely chopped mango
- 2 egg whites
- 1 cup Mango to serve
- 1 cup cup Ice cream to serve
- 2 tbsps Maple syrup to serve
Directions
- Combine flour in a large bowl with sugar, milk, egg yolk and chopped mango.
- Beat egg whites in a clean bowl with an electric mixer on the highest speed, until soft peaks form.
- Gently fold egg whites into the flour mixture.
- Heat a fry pan over medium heat - grease if not non-stick.
- Pour about 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake.
- Cook until bubbles form on the top. Flip and brown on the other side until cooked through.
- Serve pancakes with mango, ice cream and maple syrup.
I love to entertain as I love to cook for people. However, I am often overly ambitious, and my perfectionist nature makes me difficult to please. So, of course, when I entertained for 6 people (including myself) I hopelessly over catered and spent all weekend in the kitchen! Next time I would probably cut back on the number of dishes I put together.
This gathering was Spanish themed, so I prepared about 8 different tapas dishes. All of my tapas dishes for the evening came from a book called “From Tapas to Meze” by Joanne Weir. I’ve had this book for years but haven’t made a lot from it. It is split up into countries and simply focuses on “small bites”. All my recipes were adapted from the Spanish section.
I will only put in a couple of recipes, which represent the best of the bunch.
Firstly we have Spanish meatballs. These were probably the easiest dish to prepare and I was very happy with the final product. Little morsels of deliciousness!
Ingredients - 500 gs Beef mince
- 500 gs Pork mince
- 1 cup Dried breadcrumbs
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 2 tbsps Parsley chopped
- 1.5 tsps Coriander seeds ground
- 0.5 tsp Nutmeg
- 0.5 tsp Cumin
- pinch Cayenne
- 0.5 tsp Salt
- 0.25 tsp Black pepper ground
Directions
- Preheat oven to about 170*C. Grease a baking tray (I used baking paper).
- In a bowl, combine all ingredients.
- Form the mixture into small meatballs (about 1 inch/2 cm). You should get about 30+ meatballs.
- Place on the baking tray and bake in the oven until cooked through, about 20-25 minutes.
- Remove from oven and serve.
Secondly, stewed chickpeas with chorizo. This dish is a bit more time consuming, but not much of that is actual hands on labour – it just takes a while to cook. This was very tasty, and the quality of the final dish will directly correlate with the quality of the chorizo that you use.
Details
- :
10 min - :
120 min - :
2 h, 10 min
Ingredients - 2 cups Dried chickpeas
- 1 small Yellow onion quartered
- 3 Cloves
- 1 Bay leaf
- 1 Cinnamon stick
- 1 pinch Dried thyme
- 6 sprigs Parsley
- 3 tbsps Olive oil
- 1 medium Yellow onion chopped
- 3 cloves Garlic minced
- 2 Chorizo Prick with fork
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1 pinch Pepper
Directions
- Drain soaked chickpeas.
- Place in saucepan with quartered onion, cloves, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, thyme, parsley and enough water to cover by 2 inches.
- Simmer, uncovered, over medium heat until the skins just begin to crack and the beans are tender. This takes about 40 to 45 minutes.
- Discard the onion, cinnamon stick, bay leaf, parsley and cloves. Reserve chickpeas with the cooking liquid.
- In a large frying pan, warm the oil over a medium heat.
- Add the chopped onion, garlic and whole chorizo.
- Cook, stirring occasionally and rotating the chorizo sausages, until the onion is soft, about 7 minutes. Be careful not to have the temperature up too high or you will burn your garlic!
- Add the chickpeas and cooking liquid and simmer slowly over a medium to low heat until the liquid is almost gone. This takes about 40 minutes.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Remove the chorizo from the pan and slice on the diagonal into thin slices. Return to the chickpeas and heat thoroughly for another 3 to 4 minutes until hot. Serve warm.
One of my favourite food blogs is Smitten Kitchen. The food pictures are amazing and I’ve yet to make a recipe I didn’t enjoy.
J and I cook nearly every night, but often the weeknight recipes aren’t that exciting. However, on Tuesday we had mushrooms and rhubarb that needed to be used, so I turned to the interweb for inspiration.
Both of these recipes are available in full on Smitten Kitchen.
For our main course we enjoyed Mushroom Bourguignon. This recipe is vegetarian unless you use beef stock like we did! I also added celery in with the carrot and onion – I think it added nice texture and it’s pretty hard to go wrong with onion, carrot and celery – I believe that’s considered the holy trinity in some parts! If you like mushrooms give this a try – I promise you won’t miss the meat!
Our decedant dessert was Rhubarb Cobbler. This was phenomenal. I actually halved the “cobbler” dough and I found that was plenty. We got two nights dessert out of this one, but we might be gluttons 
I have never made cobbler before – we’re more used to crumbles in my familiy. I was very impressed with the dense yet moist texture of the “biscuits” that cover the rhubarb. The dough comes together so quickly and easily if you have a food processor. The rhubarb is cooked with plenty of sugar to counteract the tartness. Served with a scoop of vanilla bean icecream this was a delight to my tastebuds. It was quite a treat and I will definitely make again, maybe with different fruit.
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