Savoury Muffins

I really do prefer my muffins savoury as opposed to sweet. I don't know the why of it, that's just the way it is.

I wanted to try a different recipe, and found this one... I think it needs a little more tweaking. I found these more than a little bland, and they were in serious danger of being over-cooked before they got much colour in them. Next time I might try guyere, bacon and corn, and fry up the bacon well beforehand then use the fat as well... it won't be healthy, but I bet it'll be tastier!


Savoury Muffins
2 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp paprika or mustard powder
80g butter, melted and cooled
1 lightly beaten egg
1 cup milk, slightly warmed
100g feta, crumbled
100g ham, chopped finely
1/3 cup dried or semi-dried tomatoes

Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a 12-hole muffin tin or line with patty cases. Sift flour and paprika or mustard powder into a large bowl. Pour butter, egg and milk into a jug and stir well to combine. Make a well in the flour and pour the wet ingredients in. Stir to combine. Add the feta and ham and spoon until just combined.

Spoon into muffin holes to 3/4 full. Bake 20-25 minutes. Turn onto a wire rack. Serve warm with butter.

Quince Jam with Vanilla and Cinnamon

I've never actually SEEN a quince before. Well, until I went to the Collingwood Childrens' Farmers' market last weekend, that is. I have to admit, I had a ball. I drank some incredibly decent coffee, had an amazingly good breakfast, and bought some damn fine ingredients.

One of which was a bag of quinces. These little buggers are funny things to look at, but they smell divine. I've always liked the flavour when I've had quince paste, but decided in a moment of (seeming) madness to buy some fresh and see what I could do.

Well, I ended up being incredibly boring and making some jam.

I peeled and cored 5 quinces then sliced them relatively finely and threw them in a pot with a little water, some vanilla paste (as I didn't have any vanilla pods handy), a cinnamon stick, and about 400-450g of sugar. After simmering that for, well, quite a while, I ended up with this:


Little jars of, I have to admit, deliciousness. Not bad for my first attempt at using quinces, and I think I'm slowly getting the hang of making this jam stuff. Anyone wanna jar?

Maze Melbourne

Level 1, Crown Metropol, Southbank
P: 03 9292 8300

We went to Maze by Gordon Ramsay last night for dinner. I am so incredibly upset. I’m so disappointed. I can’t stand the man, or at least the persona he presents to the world, and I was fully prepared to dislike the meal. I was determined to find offence. Hence why I’m so upset.

It was frikken brilliant.

This will be a long post, so get comfy.

We wandered in a bit after 6.30pm and asked for a table. They told us they had one but we’d have to be out by 8.30. Sure, no problem. They led us to a table.

Initially I was happy – the place is so dim that my mother could have been sitting 3 tables away and I wouldn’t have been able to see or recognise her. I wouldn’t be able to pick our waitress out in a line up. J couldn’t read the menu. That is also why there are no pictures with this post. So I thought “Ah ha! First strike!” And I’ll admit my opinion of the lighting didn’t change. Sadly (I mean, “thankfully”), that was more or less the only bad thing I have to say about our experience.

Our thoroughly charming, knowledgeable and efficient waitress explained the way things work to us. You see, the menu is set up so you create your own little tasting menu which, if you like that sort of thing, works well (btw, I DO like that sort of thing. A lot. So choosing my own set of tastings certainly appeals). Dishes tend to range between $12 and $24. While we ordered and shared, I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing that, as each serving is really meant just for one person.

We munched on some skinny baguette-type smeared with some absolutely divine seaweed butter, with tiny salt flakes to sprinkle on top. I think I could happily have a meal of just this. By the by, later in the meal when we requested some more bread they were more than happy to provide.

We chose three “starter” dishes to share – marinated pink fur potatoes, Applewood smoked kingfish and Queensland mud crab. The potatoes came out as a few slices artfully arranged around a large bite of smoked eel with the blackened leeks and other bibs and bobs. No complaints about this one. I love potatoes any way you care to dish ‘em up, and the smoked eel was delicious (a word I may be using often in this post... I’ll use my thesaurus to try and come up with alternatives, though).

The smoked kingfish was goluptious (thank you, Macquarie Thesaurus). A mouthful of yummyness.

The Queensland mud crab was interesting... It arrived on a bed of pressed watermelon, with “stuff” on top (the menu says pickled ginger, but I can’t remember what it was), with a dollop of rockmelon sorbet on top. It was nice, but my mouth wasn’t quite sure what it was meant to be processing.

We initially ordered three mains, but enjoyed two in particular so much that we asked for them again.

First up we tried the pan roasted barramundi. It was served with a puree of butternut squash and pieces of cucumber. Oh. My. God. I believe the skin had been salted, and then the piece cooked skin-down to give an oh-so-crispy-and-tasty experience, while the rest of the flesh was done to perfection. This one we ordered again. By the by, the second time we had it the piece of fish was bigger. Whether that was luck or deliberate on the part of the kitchen staff I don’t know, but it was just as good the second time as it had been the first.

Second was citrus cured king salmon with soy salt, corn (“succotash”), bok choi and wee little asparagusy bits. This was almost as good as the barra. We ordered this again as well, because dang it all, it was bloody tasty. The salmon fell apart under the knife, and the soy salt on top added a salivary-gland-kick-starting tang. And that succotash... I’m going to have to learn how to make that. I can just imagine cooking it up to have on toast on a Sunday morning.

Lastly we had lamb cannon and shoulder. Two pieces of lamb on the plate, both perfectly cooked and tender, one falling apart when you so much as waved the fork at it. A dollop of cauliflower puree with a piece of anchovy on top and a small mound of wilted stinging nettles topped with a slice of cauliflower floret completed the plate. Don’t get me wrong, just because we didn’t order this one again doesn’t mean it wasn’t divine.

From there we moved to the desserts. First up we had a coconut and white chocolate pannacotta, with a slurry of mango puree and a granita of some description on top, and a dollop of black olive caramel. This dish was probably the lowlight of the meal. Not that it was bad; it just didn’t seem to mesh together. Once we removed the caramel and just attacked the rest it was quite nice, if unspectacular. I think the caramel was simply too strong in flavour to work with the rest of the dish.

Next we ate the chocolate cremeaux. It came out as a splodge of decadently rich and creamy chocolaty sauce (which is handy as “crémeux” is French for “creamy”) with pearl barley ice cream next to a two-bite mini loaf of banana. The banana bread was uninspiring, but PHWOAR - the chocolate sauce was rich as sin, and the pearl barley ice cream was a wonderful wheaty-honey-malty piece of coldness. The itty macadamia halves on the side tasted as though they’d been dunked in a salted caramel. This was REALLY good. J very nearly didn’t get a look in on this one.

Lastly we come to the Granny smith apple parfait. A rectangle of what could have been green apple sorbet sat on a thin biscuity base (which, frankly, I think they should get rid of – the base, I mean). This all sat on a bed of oh-so-finely shaved green- and red-skinned apple slices, arranged to make the prettiest pattern. Opposite sides of the parfait rectangle had a very thin wafer of what appeared to be finely diced and pressed red apple skin attached. On top of all this was a granita of beetroot and blackcurrant. I drool just to remember it. It was the perfect way to finish off the meal. Words really can’t describe it, or at least not MY words.

So yeah, it was a wonderful meal. I definitely plan to go back, partly to see if this trip was a fluke, and partly to sample what else is on the menu. I think next time I’m going to go for the Chef’s menu, which I didn’t notice on this visit as it was so dark I didn’t realise there was more to the menu than what our waitress opened them to!

Which reminds me, the only other problem I had with Maze – if you don’t like seafood and mushrooms, there’s little left on the menu for you. There is a lot of seafood on the menu, which is fine for us, however J can’t eat mushrooms, and I’m not a big fan of them, so quite a few dishes were out for us. There again, I hope that a place of this calibre would be able to work with you, and modify some dishes. I don’t know. Give ‘em a call and find out.

Goat Curry and Apple, Pear and Blueberry Crumble

A few weeks ago Mel told me about a curry she'd made on the weekend that was a HUGE hit. I was curious to try it. I finally made my way to the Vic Market yesterday and bought a few choice ingredients. Namely, goat. That place is brilliant.

I'm sure that, for many people, eating goat is not a big deal. Me, I've never had it, so I had NO idea what to expect. Mum told me to think of lamb, and J said imagine a game-y type of lamb. I was more confused than ever!! However, having now made the curry and enjoyed it IMMENSELY, I'm a convert. I'll now happily try goat in almost anything. I was surprised at how lean it was, and how well it worked with long, slow cooking.

This was a deliciously rich, incredibly more-ish dinner that sure as hell had us licking our lips. J went back for seconds... and then finished off the rest a couple of hours later. Sadly, the picture I have here really doesn't do it justice, which of course means that you're going to have to go and make it for yourself. I think this would work well with any red meat.

I could link you to the recipe, but websites have a habit of disappearing, so here it is, with the variations I made due to either lack of ingredients or lack of equipment. What I can tell you, though, is that I can't imagine the flavour lacked anything for my changes.


Goat Curry (adapted from Steve Manfredi's recipe that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, 10/10/08)

Cube 500g of goat. I used top-side. Heat some oil in a large heavy-based saucepan, then add 1 diced brown onion, a cinnamon quill, and 5g of curry leaves (or a couple of stalks-worth) and a table spoon or so of chilli powder. Then add a tablespoon of fennel seeds, 5 crushed cloves of garlic and a few vigorous shakes of ground ginger (the original recipe called for the fennel seeds, garlic and fresh ginger to be pounded together in a mortar and pestle till they became a paste, but I don't have one of those. This still worked out well) and stir fry gently for a few minutes.

Add the goat and fry over a high heat for a few minutes till the meat is browned. Add a cup of water and simmer that over a low heat for 30-40 minutes. Cue good smells.

Add 125ml of coconut cream (or more if you like), a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, and the juice of 1 small lemon. Cook this over a low heat until the liquid reduces to be fairly dry and any sauce coats the meat (this can take a while... I think it took a couple of hours for me). Stir it occasionally. And if little bits "caramelise" (ahem) on the bottom of the pan, scrape them up and keep on going. It all adds to the flavour! I had hoped this would serve the two of us and leave me some for lunch today, but I have to admit that, even though I was a tad heavy with the chilli, it was pretty fu... um... it was pretty damn good. And there were no leftovers. At least I know hubby-to-be likes my cooking!

After a meal like that I couldn't think what to serve up for dessert. After such a rich meal I wanted something relatively simple. Cue a treat that I don't think I've made since grade 10 Home Ec: crumble.

Oh yum. Sadly, as I made this up as I went along, I don't have exact measurements. I only made about 2.5 people's worth of it (lucky I did that extra .5.... J cleaned it all up again!).


Apple, Pear and Blueberry Crumble

Melt some butter and grease a small ovenproof dish. Core and peel 2 medium Granny Smith Apples and 1 large pear, then cut into thin slices. Line the base of the dish evenly with half the apple slices. Layer the pear slices. Throw in a handful of frozen blueberries. Sprinkle a little brown sugar or honey around, then layer with the remaining apple slices. Preheat the oven to 180C.

How much crumble to make depends on a couple of things, like how big your dish is, and how much you like crumble. I ended up with some left over, even though I made what I thought was a tiny amount. Put 1/4 cup plain flour, 1/8 cup brown sugar and 1/8 cup of oats into a bowl. Add 25g of cold, cubed butter and rub it all together until it looks like fine breadcrumbs (alternatively, you can use a food processor). Naturally, if you need more, increase the amounts. Sprinkle this over the top of the fruit to the depth you like, pressing it down lightly. Bake for 30-40 minutes.

I had planned to make custard to have with this, but then realised that I had no custard powder left, so ended up using store-bought instead. So it wasn't quite all home-made, but it was still good.

I have to admit, if I may without sounding completely up myself, that that was a damned good meal. I done good :-)

Prime Restaurant, GPO Sydney

GPO Sydney
Downstairs from the foyer, 1 Martin Place
P: 02 9229 7777

A month or so ago we went north for a weekend, staying in Sydney overnight. We asked the concierge where he’d recommend for a great steak, since we were in a carnivorous mood. He suggested Prime Restaurant, also advising that it was difficult to find. And it was, until we worked it out.

Prime feels like a cave under the GPO, albeit a nicely turned out cave. Its stone walls, arched doorways, curtains and dim lighting all contribute to the feeling of being in a hidey-hole, possibly doing something illicit.

We were squeezed around a centre booth-style table, with the table having to be moved for us to get seated (and no, not because of monumental girths; even a supermodel would have had trouble getting into the seat without moving the table at least half a foot), and menus were presented. That’s when we realised exactly how dim the lighting was – we couldn’t read the menus. We tried tilting them towards the (fake) candle on the table, still with little success. Finally I got my phone out and used the screen to provide enough light to read by, and squinted my way through the menu. This is also why there are no pictures to go with this post. They must have switched the lights on to full-power for the pictures on the website.

Chewing on some particularly good bread (from memory, slices of a brown sourdough loaf) while we decided what to eat, we thought that while we were feeling steak-y, we weren’t overly hungry, so figured we'd share an entree before moving onto our mains. I don’t recommend doing this if you like more than a taste of each of the cured assiette of air dried wagyu and Kurabota pork served with pickled vegetable and onion marmalade. A beautifully presented plate contained one small artistic coil of each of the meats, with a small pile of the said vegetables. Half of each coil really wasn’t quite enough to fully appreciate what was, in actual fact, some really nice wagyu and pork. There was a sizeable dollop of the onion marmalade, which was equally tasty, and which we piled onto our bread to enjoy more fully.

From there, onto the mains. Steak orders come with roasted cherry tomatoes, potato one of two ways (pureed, or a frittata-style wedge), and sauce. I chose the 220g Black Angus fillet, apparently from Glen Innes in Northern NSW (good country up there!) cooked medium-well, while J had a different cut... I can’t remember... possibly the sirloin on the bone, cooked well. We also ordered a side of something... possibly vegetables... sorry, my memory has, as always, failed me. In any case, you know the food is good when conversation stops entirely once it arrives. All you could hear from our table was “mmmMMMmmm... try this!” and variations thereof for a good 5 minutes or more. The steaks were cooked perfectly, and so tender that you could have cut them with a butter knife. The potato puree was smooth, creamy, and rich with flavour. Similarly the other serving-style of potato was delicious, with a beautiful flavour.

Despite feelings of fullness, desserts were ordered. We ordered two different flavours of sorbet each, and these were well-done without being remarkable.

Prime is also apparently a top choice for wagyu, although I can’t comment on how they do it (maybe next time). I notice they also offer an express lunch menu which looks interesting. Unfortunately its just a little too far away for me to make it for lunch during my workday.

I’d definitely eat at Prime again. Prices are a little high, but the food is superb, and the staff are friendly, cheerful and helpful. I’ll just have to remember to take a torch.