Margaret River Gourmet Escape

Cape Naturaliste

This past weekend was the Margaret River Gourmet Escape. An annual food festival that consists of two days of "Village" Life - hundreds of stalls, exhibitors and presentations at the Leeuwin Estate Winery, as well as a host of "Satellite Events" over 3 days. These satellite events are mainly meals hosted by various locations in the Southwest. Chefs from all over the world come to take part in this Food and Wine Extravaganza.

The Gourmet Village at Leeuwin Estate Winery

There were so many events I wanted to go to, and so many events that having seen photos, I am disappointed that I didn't get to. But given logistics and funds, I limited myself to one satellite event, and a day at the Gourmet Village. The choice of Satellite Event was a no-brainer for me - From Catch to Cape, a seafood feast at Cape Naturaliste Winery, with chefs from Stokehouse. If you have read this blog often, you'll know how much I love Cape Naturaliste wines. This was a meal I had to attend.

A girlfriend and I headed down to Molloy Island on Thursday night, spent Friday wine shopping and eating our way around the South West. I picked up some Venison Chorizo, some Margaret River Dairy cheeses and wines for both the weekend, and to stock the fridge back home. And stopped off at Boranup Gallery for coffee and cake!

Friday my husband came down straight from work, then he played taxi for our lunch on Saturday. Dropping us off at Quindalup Boat Ramp early in the morning, then picking us up from the winery after we'd eaten and drunk to our hearts content. Our day consisted of a Whale Watching Cruise, followed by a Seafood Meal cooked by Chef Oliver Gould and a team from Stokehouse paired with Cape Naturaliste wines. I thought he got the raw end of the deal, just being taxi. But he in the meantime had himself the degustation at the recent WA Good Food Guide Regional Restaurant of the Year Award winner - Wills Domain!

Me and my partner in food on the boat!

Blue Swimmer Crab Tart, Eggplant Puree, Salmon Roe, Baby Chervil

Kingfish Crudo, cucumber, mussel vinaigrette

Baked Scallops, citrus sabayon, pistachios, fennel cream

BBQ Gummy Shark, green chili and ginger salsa verde 

Baked Dhufish Fillets, tomato, red onion and caper sauce, green beans, kipfler potatoes in anchovy butter

Chef Oliver Gould and Owner Craig Brent-White

Sunday we ate our way around the Gourmet Village, and watched several of the presentations. A highlight for me was watching Rick Stein show us how to prepare and squid, and take the meat out of a lobster. Rick Stein's Seafood Odyssey was one of the first cooking shows I ever watched and he is such a charming man in real life.

Crispy soft shell crab tortilla with smokey corn salsa, chipotle mayonnaise - Pork shoulder cooked in aBahen & Co. Chocolate sauce with adobo and jalapeno chilis with avocado salsa

Smoked Ocean Trout with green mango salad, nim jam 

Rick Stein

Chef Sam Ward from El Publico teaching us tortilla skills

For all of my photos from my time away, check out my Facebook Album

Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce

Sometimes, you have multiple things to celebrate in a short space of time. Like having an award winning Chocolate Beer Jam. Or having it confirm that your recipe will be included in a cookbook. Or having a birthday. And all of those things individually might require a toast…but together, they definitely do. And sometimes, you somehow are left with a half bottle of bubbles when such an occasion arises. I am a little funny about drinking bubbles after the day I open them. Even though we have an incredible re-corking stopper, it’s just something I don’t enjoy as much after the fact. And so I was left with a little champagne (in reality, sparkling wine, but I’m gonna be fancy and call it champagne) that I couldn’t bear to waste. Well, cooking with it seems like the best use!

I’d seen (and eaten) quite a few champagne cupcakes in the last few months. Seems like quite the trend in Perth at the moment! But I wanted dinner, not cupcakes!

My next thought went to my gin and crab pasta, and then to the good deal of seafood pastas with vodka sauces over the years and thought that a seafood pasta sauce was definitely the go. But, I wanted the flavour of the champagne to shine through. It’s not as strong a flavour as the gin, so I didn’t want a thick creamy sauce, so I went with a buttery base. I added some delicious Shark Bay Prawns, and some finely sliced yellow squash for a mellow, summery addition. All complimentary, but subtle flavours. And here’s the kicker. Vanilla. Adding a vanilla bean to the reducing champagne takes this from tasty to next level delicious. It adds a sweetness that you can’t quite put your finger on, but you’d immediately notice it’s absence. Trust me on this. Then you’ll probably want to open another bottle of bubbles to drink with the dish. And you might end up with a little leftover…

This is a very simple dish with very few ingredients, so it pays for them to be good quality. I recommend using fresh spaghetti if you can, and although my champagne was day old, it was still good champagne. You can use anything you would ordinarily drink. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but given the scope of sweetness and dryness you get in sparklings, make it something you enjoy drinking.

Oh, and the last note I will add is that this dish comes together really quickly once you start cooking. I’d say it’s maybe a 15 minute meal. So prep all your ingredients first, get your pasta water boiling (especially if you have dried pasta) and then begin cooking. I used salted butter as that’s what I had, so I needed less salt than you will if you use unsalted.

Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce 

1 ½ cups champagne (sparkling wine)

2 shallots, finely diced
3 small cloves garlic, minced
1 vanilla bean
125g butter, cubed.
Salt and pepper
500g fresh pasta
250g peeled prawns
4 yellow squash, very finely sliced
Chopped parsley to serve
Red chilli flakes (optional)
More champagne to drink with it!

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.

In a large sautee pan, pour in the champagne, shallots and garlic and a little pepper. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the pan, then throw the pod in too. Bring to the boil over a medium heat and keep it simmering until it’s reduced by half. Add the butter, a few cubes at a time, and whisk well after each addition to blend into the sauce. Stir well for a further 1-2 minutes to thicken the sauce, then discard the vanilla pod and add the squash slices and prawns. Check for seasoning.

Put the fresh pasta into the boiling water.

Stir the prawns and squash into the sauce well, coating in the sauce and allowing to cook through. 2-3 minutes. At this point, your pasta should also be cooked, using tongs, pull the spaghetti into the sauce, allowing some (not too much) cooking water to come with it. Stir well to coat all the noodles in the sauce and blend the cooking liquid in.

Serve with some chopped parsley and some chilli flakes, if you’d like

Macadamia Salted Caramel Tarts

My mother in law has a crazy prolific macadamia tree. It’s so awesome. She gave it a huge haircut a few months back, and just from the branches she cut off, Lance and I salvaged a whole ice cream container of macadamia nuts. I’ve got a few macadamia recipes coming up over the next few weeks as I’ve tried to create some dishes that do these delicious, buttery nuts some justice. In the meantime, we’ve just planted a baby macadamia tree in our yard. I can’t wait til we start getting our own. On a side note, our mango tree has just started flowering. I was concerned because the first mango flower photos were being posted on Instagram by other Perth folk almost two months ago! I was worried that after our haul of 50 mangoes last year, this year our tree was going to give up on us!

Now to today’s recipe. This recipe can be made as a big pie, but mini desserts are always more fun, yeah? I like making small desserts for gatherings, rather than a big cake. Little things you can pick up and eat with your fingers. No knives and plates and whatnot. And often I’ll make a few things so you can sample all the desserts without feeling both ridiculously full, and having to do that awkward ‘just a *teeny* piece please’ thing…with accompanying hand gestures to indicate how teeny you want it. I have made these gorgeous little tarts a few times now and they never fail to impress. They are so moreish. The perfect mix of salty and sweet. And the macadamias add such a decadent richness to the whole situation.

 The base itself can be made just as biscuits, or like this, pressed into a pie shell. It’s a really simple food processor dough made using pretzels and macadamias. Not overly sweet, but delicious nonetheless. The filling is an adaption of a recipe I was given to test for the Recipes and Ramblings Cookbook – and it’s a basic caramel panna cotta. So likewise, the filling can be served by itself as a panna cotta. Together, their forces combine to be a wonderful portable dessert.

They are best made the day of serving, as the base can go a bit soggy (still yummy though!). But remember that the caramel will need about 2-4 hours in the fridge to set. So the base doesn’t soak up too much of the caramel, ensure the biscuit base is cool. And sprinkle the fine sea salt on just before serving, so it doesn’t dissolve and you still get the delightful flakey texture. Then try not to eat all of them before your guests come!

Macadamia Salted Caramel Tarts

Macadamia Pretzel Base

1 cup macadamias
1 cup pretzels (loaded fairly full)
2 tbsp raw sugar
2 tbsp butter
1 egg

Preheat oven to 175C

Pulse the macadamias, pretzels and sugar in a food processor until fairly fine, but some chunks still remain for texture. Pulse through the butter until well mixed. Then add the egg and process until it comes together into a dough.

Spray mini muffin tins with cooking spray, then press a heaped teaspoon or so into the tin, creating the pie base. As you add the caramel as a liquid, it needs to be a solid base without gaps.

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden. Check around the 7 minute mark. If they have puffed up a lot, gently press back down and finish baking. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.

Caramel Filling

330mL cream
85g caster sugar
5 grams leaf gelatin
Fine sea salt flakes

Soak the gelatin leaves in a shallow bowl of cold water.

Place the caster sugar into a large pot over a medium-high heat. Stir gently with a wooden spoon to encourage the sugar to melt. It will become a clear liquid, then leave over the heat and stop stirring until it goes a caramelly golden colour, but watch carefully to make sure it doesn’t burn. 

When it’s golden and it smells caramelly and delicious, carefully pour the cream in. It will spit a bit, so be careful. This will make the caramel turn hard and crunchy. Stir the cream constantly to dissolve the caramel. When all of the caramel is melted back into the cream, gently squeeze the excess water from the gelatin leaves and dissolve them one by one into the cream. Stir for a further minute then strain through a fine sieve into a jug.

Set aside to cool for 5-10 minutes, then carefully fill each tart base as high as you dare. Slide the tray into the fridge to set.

Just before serving, sprinkle a few salt flakes on each tart

P.S. The Beaufort Street Festival is on November 15th where you can buy the Recipes and Ramblings Cookbook!

Inauthentic Deliciousness- Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

When Lance and I were dating, he took me to an Indian restaurant in Vic Park. Both of us particularly liked the Mango Chicken Curry at our local Indian takeaway, and so it was one of the dishes we ordered that night. It was served up in one of those beautiful copper bowls, which was sat on a plate. I accidentally knocked the plate and threw Mango Chicken Curry all over me. ALL over me. Lance just shook his head and laughed. “I can’t take you anywhere!”

That story isn’t hugely relevant to this recipe, but I wasn’t too sure how to start this post and that story came to me. I guess it’s because the Mango Curry is a sweet, fruity and mild curry, and this is too. Lance isn’t a huge fan of banana (unless it is in a chocolate peanut butter smoothie), but he still really enjoyed the fruitiness it added to this curry. The secret is to use ripe, but still ‘hard’ bananas. You don’t want them to break down too much, or be too sweet. The rest of the flavours are just normal curry spices. I don’t know a great deal about cooking curries, I only know I enjoy eating them. So it’s in no way traditional, but it is incredibly flavoursome.

So, if you’re clumsy like I am, and you can’t be taken anywhere, at least you can still have a good curry

Pumpkin, Chicken and Banana Curry

2 tsp salt
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp cumin seeds, ground
1 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 brown onion, diced
thumbsize piece ginger, peeled and finely grated
1/2 butternut pumpkin, 2 cm dice
1 chicken breast, chopped into 2cm chunks
1 red capsicum, 1cm dice
1 tin coconut cream
2 firm but ripe bananas, peeled and cut into 2cm chunks
to serve
black rice
cashews
chopped coriander leaves
 Heat a large pot to medium heat and place the dry spices in. Cook until nice and fragrant – around 1-2 minutes. Add a good splash of olive oil, then the onion, garlic and ginger, stirring well to coat in the spices. Cook for 10 minutes until the onion is translucent.

Add the chicken pieces and stir to brown, 5 minutes. Add in the capsicum and pumpkin, the coconut cream and rinse the can out with water (about 3/4 of the tin), adding that to the pot as well. Stir well, then put the lid on and simmer 15-20 minutes until the pumpkin is almost cooked through. 

Add the banana pieces in for the last 10 minutes of cooking so they heat through, but don’t completely break down.

Check for seasoning, then serve with black rice and cashews and coriander leaves, if desired

Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan

My friends and I like playing a game called “What’s your favourite cocktail” with bartenders when we go out. And, it’s as simple as it sounds. If you don’t have a hankering for a specific drink, then you let the decision lie in the hands of the bartender by asking them to make you their favourite drink. Since the small bar licence regulations changed, Perth has cultivated some of the best cocktail makers and it makes the game so rewarding! Often, they’ll make you the most amazing concoction, not off their lists…just because they love the creativity of it. Mixing different flavours to create something unique. It’s so much fun! A common question back, to make sure they make you something along your taste lines is – what do you normally drink. Fair enough. Giving an Old Fashioned to a Cosmo drinker is not going to make you popular. I have a few different answers, depending on what style of drink I’m leaning towards that night, but my most common cocktail is the Manhattan. A Manhattan is a mix of Rye Whiskey, sweet vermouth and a cherry. I am a sucker for that cherry. It’s a punchy, strong drink that relies on the quality of the ingredients, because there’s only a few of them. You can’t hide inferiority behind sweet mixers and sugar syrup. Vermouth has an annoyingly short shelf-life. Once opened, it should ideally be used within a few weeks. Which, for the home bar, isn’t really ideal. But, Vermouth is a form of wine spirit, fortified and aromatized with herbals to get it’s flavour and sometimes hide inferior wine (I learnt all this at one of The Classroom's Spirit Faculty's!). In this version, instead of Vermouth, I use a Muscat. Which is also a form of fortified wine but is more of an after dinner drink than an aperitif and relies on raisoned grapes for it's flavours. Monty’s Fine Old Muscat is from my favourite winery – Cape Naturaliste, and it does the job here making this Manhattan a Mont-hattan. This Muscat is aged in oak, and the fermentation is stopped using cognac which gives it a delicious smokiness that really plays well with the rye. For the rye, I've gone for Rittenhouse as it's my go-to "top-shelf" rye.

As a side note - the only martini glass I own is a novelty plastic one I got when I went to see Wicked the musical! Hence the disco photos!

Monthattan

1 1/2 shots rye whiskey
1 shot Monty's Fine Old Muscat
2-3 dashes Angosturra bitters
maraschino cherry
Ice

Fill a shaker with ice. Add the rye, muscat and bitters. Add the lid, shake then strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a cherry (and eat another couple whilst you make it!)

As another side note - this drinks really well with spiced nuts as pictured. But possibly even better with Chilli Lindt Chocolate.