Cooking class at The Spirit House, Yandina (Australia)

So I mentioned that we went back to Australia a couple of months ago. We had lots of delicious Australian food - barbecues, fish and chips by the water, more Red Rock Deli chips than anyone should eat in a three week period. But the foodie highlight would have to be the cooking class I did with my Mum.

We decided on the Asian Home Entertaining class at the Spirit House in Yandina. The Spirit House is a beautiful mostly-Thai restaurant and cooking school set in picturesque rainforest-like surroundings on the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane.

If I'm going to do a cooking class, I like to do something that I don't know well and am not confident in. I don't really cook Thai food, so this class definitely appealed. The class was run by Annette Fear, the long-standing Head Chef at The Spirit House and co-author of three Spirit House cookbooks. Annette was fabulous - she is obviously well-travelled and hugely experienced and yet she was so friendly and approachable and not at all intimidating.

We started the class with a chat about the dishes we were going to make and Annette gave some background on them and told some lovely stories from her travels. We then all moved inside to start the preparation. My big take-away from the day would definitely have to be how much preparation is involved in Thai cooking. I think we spent most of the class preparing!

We were all given different jobs, from chopping piles of chillies to shredding green papaya and grinding fresh spices for a curry paste. Once all the ingredients were chopped and set aside in containers, the cooking began - although, to be fair, that part was quite quick!

Across the class, we made:

Steamed Prawn & Chicken Wontons with Avocado Salad

Spiced Crispy Rice Fish with Grapefruit, Fennel & Thai Basil

Massaman Curry of Duck with Caramelised Sweet Potato & Cashews

Young Coconut & Lime Sorbet with Red Papaya and Mint Salad

We started with the wontons, which were made with ready-made wonton wrappers (apparently, no Thai person would ever make their own - you would be specialised in this, so buying them is okay!). We had quite a production line set up to fill and fold the wrappers although I don't think Annette was too impressed with our technique!

The wontons were steamed in huge bamboo steamers and served with a light salad of avocado, tomato and cucumber and either soy or red rice wine vinegar for dipping. The wontons were excellent - really tasty, really impressive looking and deceptively easy to make. Great idea for a dinner party as you can largely make them in advance.

The finishing touches were then put to the main courses and we sat at the tables outside next to the pond to tuck into the whitebait salad and massaman curry.

I really enjoyed the whitebait - they were really tiny New Zealand whitebait and didn't taste super fishy. They were prepared simply, coated in rice flour and deep fried, so they were light and crunchy. They were served with a salad of grapefruit and fennel, two ingredients I am not all that enthusiastic about. They were nice enough in the salad, but even looking at the recipe now, I am struggling to get excited. It is a shame, as Annette was telling us that Thai salads are a really underrated side to Thai cuisine (except for the ubiquitous Thai Beef Salad!).

It was always up against stiff competition, but the salad did pale in comparison to the Duck Massaman Curry, which was - quite simply - wow! It is certainly not a low-fat meal, but the rich duck meat with the coconut curry sauce, roasted sweet potato and cashew nuts was a guaranteed winning combination. If you were making this yourself, it would be reasonably time-consuming, but again, is something you can make mostly in advance. You definitely need to serve this when there are more people to eat it with you - it was too good and too fattening to risk eating it all yourself!

Annette did explain to us that a Thai meal would normally be a number of dishes such as this curry and salad together. The different dishes balance each other out and means the Thai people don't eat enormous amounts of such a rich dish as the curry. It is quite a different approach to eating than we normally take in Western cuisines.


We finished up with a Young Coconut Milk and Lime granita served with Red Papaya. I've never liked papaya and still didn't like it now. The granita was very subtly flavoured, so this dessert was not all that exciting for me. Still, the granita is a flexible technique, which can be used to make lots of variations on a simple, light dessert that was appropriate after the curry.

All of this was washed down with a couple of glasses of wine, which combined with all that food, made the drive back to Brisbane then the Gold Coast rather long!

This was quite a different cooking class to what I've done previously. The food was stunning and really different, but because it was cooked by the whole class of 20 or so people, individually, we didn't get to do that much or even see everything. It was less involved on the cooking front than other classes. Still, Annette was great, the food was excellent and the surroundings are idyllic.

Massaman Curry of Duck

For the curry
4 duck Maryland, jointed and drumstick trimmed (could also use chicken or stewing beef)
3 cups coconut cream
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
6-8 pickling onions or golden shallots, peeled
500g golden sweet potato, peeled, cut into 5 cm pieces and seasoned
3-4 tablespoons Massaman paste (see separate recipe)
2-3 tablespoons light palm sugar
2-3 tablespoons fish sauce
4 tablespoons tamarind water (see separate recipe)
1 large red chilli, de-seeded and sliced
1/4 cup roasted unsalted cashews, roughly chopped

Heat a heavy based frying pan and cook the duck pieces until well coloured. Set aside.

Open the coconut cream without shaking and separate the cream from the milk. There should be about 1 cup of cream and 2 cups of milk. Place the milk in a saucepan with the duck pieces, adding just enough water to cover if necessary. Set the coconut cream aside to use later. Bring the duck to the boil without covering and then simmer on a low heat for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. This duck can also be paced in a baking dish with the coconut milk and cooked uncovered in a moderately low oven (160 degrees). Once the duck is cooked, remove from coconut milk and reserve milk.

Meanwhile, place the seasoned sweet potato and onions in a large baking dish (with low sides) with the vegetable oil, toss well to coat and bake in moderate 180 degree oven for about an hour or until browning on the edges and cooked. Remove and set aside.

heat 1/2 cup of the reserved coconut cream in a wok or saucepan and simmer for about 5-10 minutes until the oil starts to separate. Add the curry paste and cook gently until the paste smells rich and fragrant. Add the reserved coconut milk, light palm sugar, fish sauce and tamarind water. Bring to the boil, then add the cooked duck pieces, sweet potato, onion and 1/4 cup of remaining coconut cream. Simmer for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Transfer to a serving bowl and garnish with the red chilli, cashews and remaining coconut cream.

To make the curry paste
12 large dried red chillies, seeded and soaked in hot water until soft then chopped finely
12 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 cup peeled and chopped onion or shallots
2 tablespoons galangal, peeled and chopped
2 stalks of lemon grass, trimmed and chopped
3 tablespoons coriander root, cleaned and chopped
1 tablespoon salt

Spice mixture
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seed
4 cm piece cassia (hard cinnamon stick)
8 cloves
5 cardamom pods
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon mace

Dry roast the coriander, cumin, cassia, cloves and cardamom pods in a fry pan over a gentle heat until just starting to color and smell toasted. Place in a mortar and pestle or spice mill with the white pepper and grind to a powder. Stir in the mace.

Place the paste ingredients in a mortar and pound to a puree. Mix in the spices. Store in a screw top jar or freeze in cubes and just thaw the cubes as required. Keeps for 6 months frozen.

Tamarind water
1 tablespoon of tamarind pulp
1/2 cup boiling water

Put tamarind pulp in a bowl, pour in boiling water. When cool, mash pulp with a fork and strain the liquid through a sieve. Retain this liquid, discard the tamarind seeds and skins.

The Spirit House
20 Ninderry Road
Yandina, Qld, 4561
Australia

The most amazing hot chocolate

I feel a bit like Gordon Ramsey – he always describes things as the most amazing. And possibly there are better hot chocolates out there, but this would have to be on the list. And it comes on a stick, so that’s quite exciting.

We bought these in Brussels ages ago and have only just got around to using them. It was one of those things where I always felt like I needed a slightly more special occasion to crack them out and there never was one. In the end, it was a random Sunday evening.

Basically, you warm a cup of milk and stir the great big lump of chocolate on the end of a stick into the milk until melted and enjoy. Really easy, really chocolatey, really good!

Skylight Diner (New York)

Our last night in New York (which thankfully means my last NY post!). We went to a New York Liberty game at Madison Square Garden, where the crowd was full of hyped up children drinking giant cokes and eating hot dogs. I had the giant coke as well, so was also full of sugar and excitement at the edge-of-the-seat game and the energy in the crowd (well, sugar high at least!).

For the very last hurrah, I decided we needed to go to a diner. An American Diner. The Skylight Diner was only a couple of blocks away and was almost completely empty at 10pm on a Friday night. It really looked the part - long counter, bar stools, boothes, baseball on the TV behind the bar. According to the menu, the Skylight Diner was voted the #1 Diner in Manhattan by the New York Daily News. Lofty praise, indeed.

It mustn't have been for the service. We were served by an exceedingly grumpy old man, who was clearly upset that we had interrupted his baseball viewing. No cliched chirpy blonde waitresses with pony-tails in this diner!

I really wanted pie (said in an American accent - paih?). I really wanted cherry pie and it was on the menu, but apparently even though the menu listed about 10 different pies, in reality, they only had apple pie. That was okay, I like apple pie. I would have preferred it heated but grumpy old man was having none of that. Kyle ordered pancakes and I also ordered a hot chocolate.

The pie and hot chocolate arrived quickly and looked impressive. The pie was a gorgeous shiny pastry, filled with chunks of real stewed apple. It was delicious, but very sweet. The hot chocolate (one I removed the huge dollop of canned cream from the top) was actually surprisingly not too sweet and helped to balance out the sweetness of the pie.

Kyle's pancakes finally arrived and I was immediately jealous. Three thick, fluffy, steaming pancakes served with lots of whipped butter and maple syrup to dress them with yourself. This is where McDonald's got the inspiration for their hotcakes. They were so good! Luckily, they were really filling, so I sacrificed the end of my pie to help Kyle finish the pancakes.

The diner was really cool! I wish the service had have been better, but otherwise, I loved it! The food was lovely, huge portions for fairly cheap - all of this cost about $10. And they're open 24 hours. 24 hours of pie . . . as long as you want apple.

An awesome ending to our trip to New York (I prefer to think of it as the ending - the next day, we actually had the worst meal of the entire trip at Lindy's Diner - bad food, bad service, really overpriced). We had such a brilliant time in NY - so much to see, so much to do, so much to eat!

Skylight Diner
402 West 34th Street (at 9th Ave)
New York, NY 10001

Lombardi's Pizza (New York)

There is a lot of commentary on the internet around the best pizza in New York. The original plan had been to go to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and then go to Grimaldi's in Brooklyn, which is supposed to be very authentic. Unfortunately, the day we walked across the bridge was the day we had been to Bobby Van's for burgers and we were so full, there was no room to do any justice to pizza.

The back-up plan was Lombardi's on Spring Street in Soho. Lombardi's is the first official pizzeria in New York, first licensed in 1905. After a few hours of hard-core NY shopping, we rolled up to Lombardi's hot, tired, exhausted and in the mood for some pizza.

Lombardi's looks quite small when you first arrive and we queued for a couple of minutes, but it is bigger than it first appears. That being said, it was pretty busy at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, so I would imagine the queues on a Friday night would be significant.

The menu is pretty simple. The pizzas come in two sizes - 6 or 8 slices - with mozzarella, tomato sauce, basil and pecorino romano. There are then about 12 meat or vegetable toppings you can choose from at exponentially increasing prices. We decided to go reasonably authentic with just pepperoni.

The pizza arrived quickly and first appearances were good. The base was thin and crisp, with a few blackened bubbles that indicated a good hot pizza oven. The topping of melted cheese and crisped pepperoni looked and smelled delicious.

Luckily, the good first impression continued. The dough had an excellent chewy texture and yeasty taste and the topping was cheesy but flavoursome. I particuarly enjoyed the fresh basil, which give it a real burst of flavour. If I was going to criticise anything about this pizza, it could have had the topping spread out further to the edges. But that is really nit-picking!

In actual fact, it wasn't a million miles away from the Italian pizzas we have enjoyed in Italy, so to be honest, I'm a little unclear on the significant difference between New York and Italian pizzas. No bad thing - they're both excellent!

So another NY junk food checked off the list and it was definitely good. As I mentioned, we were there in the late afternoon, which suited our plans, but the feel of the restaurant was a bit 'churn and burn', definitely fast food. I'm not sure this is the sort of place to linger over a meal! The service wasn't anything special and the restaurant itself was just okay. But, Lombardi's is what it is and I'm pretty sure no-one is going there for the atmosphere! Everyone is going for the pizza and luckily, the pizza is well worth going for.

Lombardi's Pizza
32 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012-4173

Katz's Deli (New York)

Next stop on the list of must-try NY foods - pastrami on rye. The most famous destination for this traditionally Jewish sandwich would have to be Katz's Deli on the Lower East Side, surely. Katz's is the site of the most famous scene from one of my all-time favourite movies, When Harry Met Sally. You know the scene . . . I'll have what she's having. Katz's does capitalise on this a little, with a huge sign hanging above the table in question and several photos of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal around the place. But Katz's was famous way before that movie and the reason is their pastrami on rye (as well as the slightly dodgy slogan "Send a salami to your boy in the army").

The deli is very authentic looking. A huge counter stretches the length of the restaurant, where you can either order directly from the sandwich makers or take a seat in the area marked for table service, which we did. We decided to split a pastrami on rye and a bagel with cream cheese and lox, another NY classic.

A plate of very disturbing looking pickles arrived first. Still not sure about these, but all thoughts of the pickles were gone the moment the pastrami sandwich arrived.

Wow. Now that is a sandwich. A pile of warm, thick-cut pastrami piled on on bread. That was it. Our authentically NY server (he was brilliant) gave us the mayo we asked for but with the caveat that we wouldn't need it, because the mustard is so good. I'm not a huge mustard fan, but he was right. The slightly spicy mustard perfectly balanced out the rich, juicy pastrami. So good.

The bagel arrived next and was also piled high, this time with rich, fatty salmon and slathers of cream cheese. It was really good, but let's face it, this one you can make yourself fairly easily, so it struggled to compete with the pastrami.

I've since read reviews that say except for the pastrami, the food at Katz's is pretty awful. To that, I say, who cares! If you make one thing that good, that is sufficient to justify your existance. That and being the site of the best fake orgasm scene in film . . .


Katz's Delicatessan
205 East Houston Street
New York, NY 10002

Bouchon Bakery (New York)

According to The S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants for 2009, the best restaurant in the Americas is Per Se in the Time Warner Centre in New York, run by Thomas Keller originally of The French Laundrey in California. The restaurant offers a 9 course tasting menu for $275 (there are also some additional courses including foie gras for $30 and Australian truffles for $75) and it is notoriously difficult to get a reservation. Needless to say, we didn't go. We did have a look though - very subtle.


Thomas Keller also owns the Bouchon Bakery on the third floor of the Time Warner centre (Per Se is on the fourth), where you can sit down to sandwiches and salads for around $20. We didn't go there either. We did, however, have coffee and cake from the 'takeaway' outlet of the bakery, which was a comparative bargain at only $10 and means in a remote and distant manner, I have partaken of the food of the best chef in America.

There are a few small tables around the bakery and some with an exceptional view out the full glass front of The Time Warner Centre across Columbus Circle and up West 59th Street. With some careful loitering, we managed to snag one of these tables.

The choice of cakes was impressive - beautiful macarons, croissants, pain aux raisin, tarts, muffins. It was fortunate the queue took a while, as I took a while to decide. In the end, I opted for a sticky bun and a fig and hazelnut croissant. The croissant was lovely - full of sticky fig paste in the middle, wrapped in light pastry but with a heavy hazelnut and almost streusel topping. The sticky bun, however, was glorious. It looked pretty ridiculous and over-the-top, but was somehow not too sweet, despite the cinnamon swirl, the caramel sauce and the huge number of pecans on top. Delicious! The super-strong coffee was the perfect accompaniment to some excellent sweets and one of the best views in New York.

Bouchon Bakery
Third Floor
Time Warner Centre
Ten Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019

Grand Central Oyster Bar

The Grand Central Oyster Bar is located in the beautiful Grand Central train station on East 42nd Street. The station is a restored early 1900's building, seemingly packed with as many places to eat as trains, but the famous one is the Oyster Bar with its long counter where you can watch the oyster shuckers do their thang. Unfortunately, as you come into the restaurant, it is so overwhelmingly enormous, that we somehow ended up being seated in the main restaurant section and missed out on the oyster bar.

The main restaurant was packed and loud on a Wednesday evening, with people around us tucking into huge plates of oysters, lobsters and crabs. It still strikes me as a little unusual going to a train station for your special seafood meal!

We were there primarily for one reason - the New England Clam Chowder. But first, we decided to try some oysters . . . we were in an oyster bar, after all. There were some 30 different types of oysters on the menu, which is updated daily according to what is available. The oysters all came from North America, with quite a few from the New York area. Unfortunately, we didn't recognise any, so just had to pick randomly. We chose two Plymouth Rocks (Massachussets), two East End (Long Island, NY) and two Wellfleet (Massachussets).

They arrived quickly (before our drinks even) and were nicely presented on a bed of ice, with lemon wedges and little tubs of ketchup and vinegar. I must admit, I'm not a huge fan of oysters. I tend to find they are best eaten quickly without concentrating too much, particularly on the texture. For that reason, I usually prefer smaller oysters and the Plymouth Rock ones were pretty huge, so definitely not my favourite. The other two were smaller and were really fresh tasting and not unpleasant at all.

But as I mentioned, it was all about the Clam Chowder. When it first arrived, I was a bit concerned - it didn't really look that exciting, but luckily, tasted delicious. Thick, rich and creamy with chunks of clam thoughout. Although this wasn't the best example I've ever had, clam chowder is a strong contender for the best type of soup, I think.

We weren't at the Grand Central Oyster Bar for long (we had had a huge lunch at Gramercy Tavern earlier, so weren't particularly hungry), but it was one of those NY foodie adventures that are fun to experience.

Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant
Lower Level, Grand Central Station
East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017

Wine tasting in Ontario, Canada

I have to admit, I know scarily little about Canada. I know it is big, there are lots of lakes and it gets very cold in Winter. Unfortunately, that is about it - a bit embarrassing really! We were heading to Toronto for my lovely friend Tenille's wedding, so spent a few days getting to know this fabulous town. One of the things we realised when planning the trip is that Toronto is very close to Niagara Falls, surely a tourist must-see! We hired a car and after some extensive faffing around (our luggage was delayed overnight in Chicago, but then turned out to have been delivered to the hotel already etc etc), we picked up our hire car and headed towards Niagara Falls.


One of the things I absolutely had not realised about Canada, is that they have quite a wine industry. I knew about Ice Wine, that complicated wine made when the grapes stay on the vines until they are frozen to around a temperature of -10 degrees, but had no idea at the extent of the industry. I picked up a wine map of the region and was shocked to see at least 100 wineries around the Niagara Falls area! Tenille had mentioned that her favourite is a winery called Thirty Bench, so with no other influencing factors, the decision was made.

We were greeted by the extremely effusive Janice. She started to tell us a little about the winery - small lot producer, hand-picked grapes, hand-made wines, Silver Award at the Riesling du Monde in France for the 2007 Triangle Riesling etc. She eventually drew in breath to say she was expecting some other guests for a 1pm tasting and would we mind waiting 10 minutes until then? We were happy to wait, sipping on a taste of the 2008 Winemaker's Riesling (light, refreshing, only slighty sweet, very drinkable) and wandering around the winery.

The winery itself is very beautiful, even in the unseasonable foggy cold weather we were experiencing. Apparently, on all but about 10 days a year (including the one we were there on), you can see Lake Ontario beyond the vineyards of the winery.



The other guests arrived and we commenced the wine tasting. The tasting cost $10 each for approximately 4-5 wines. Janice suggested we share the wines between the two of us, so we could taste the full range. The tasting lasted for about an hour, during which we tasted the winery's three remaining Rieslings - Triangle, Steel Post and Wood Post. I am not typically a fan of Riesling, still scared about the potential sweetness of the wines, but there was nothing sweet about these. They were incredibly light in colour, but packed a powerful citrus punch, in the case of the Steel Post, it was really too powerful, leaving a slightly unpleasant lime tang in the back of the throat.

We moved on to the Chardonnay, which Janice had us try out of both regular Riedel tasting glasses and then compared with Riedel Chardonnay glasses, which were squat, round and had a very open top. The difference was quite astonishing! The first one you would pass over as quite pleasant, if somewhat indifferent. In the correct glasses, the wine opened up in flavour, tasting buttery and yeasty, almost reminiscent of the flavours in Champagne.

We then tried the Thirty Bench Rose, which was a disturbing bright pink colour, but tasted better than it looked. It would have been the perfect picnic wine (with more appropriate picnic weather!). Next up was the Pinot Noir, which was probably my favourite of the still wines we tried - light in texture, but packed full of fruit flavour. We then tried the Merlot and two back vintage blended reds, both of which I thought were a little dusty in flavour.


Finally, we came to the grand conclusion - the Riesling Ice Wine and the Cabernet Ice Wine. Canada is the world's largest producer of Ice Wine and the region around Ontario is considered perfect - long warm Summers followed by very cold Winters. These wines were not cheap - $75 and $90 respectively (about £50 and £60) for 375ml bottles, but they are exceptional. Janice advised to hold the wine in your mouth for about 13 seconds 'until it changes'. That is actually reasonably difficult to do, but the wine did change in your mouth as it warmed up, becoming fuller and richer. To be honest, I didn't really like the Cabernet version (Kyle did), finding it a little too acidic, but the Riesling version was exceptional and like good tourists to Canada, we left with a bottle of this wine. Now we just have to work out an occasion good enough to open it for!

This area was absolutely stunning and the wines were impressive and varied. If you're ever in the area to see Niagara Falls, leave some time to visit a local winery, as I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised. Oh, and of course, the Falls were absolutely spectacular too!

Brighton rocks!

Apparently, the thing to eat by the English seaside is not ice-cream, it's not watermelon, it is . . . rock. What??


Rock is basically just really hard boiled sugar candy, as far as I can tell. This one was pineapple flavoured, but a little bland. Crunchy, sticky, sticks to your teeth. Odd beachside tradition, but perhaps inspired by the beach?

Deep-fry by the seashore in Brighton

Brighton has long been on the list of places to visit in the UK, so we headed there for the last two days of the first May Bank Holiday weekend. The weather was, at best, patchy and largely just cold, but the place was pretty crowded.

After a marathon and unpleasant bus trip down (never again), we finally found ourselves at a pub about to partake in some deep-fry. The standard would, of course, be fish and chips, but it was already nearly 3pm and the thought of fish and chips didn't really appeal. But as a close second, whitebait, calamari and chips (with some salad to minimise the deep-fry guilt).

To be honest, it was actually pretty good. Washed down with a couple of coronas by the English seaside, wrapped up in coats and scarves . . . aaahhh! And of course, watching the interesting Brighton population wander past.

Another one of my favourite Italian foods

Pizza, pasta, prosecco and . . . gelati!

It was gelati weather only at a stretch, but I couldn't go to Italy without having an ice-cream. Lemon sorbet and berry. Bring on Summer!

Rialto food markets

We really didn't plan this very well. One of the things I was most looking forward to seeing in Venice was the Rialto market and the fish market in particular. We arrived in Venice about 2pm on Saturday (market already finished) and left for the airport about 8am Tuesday (too early to visit the market). Of course, the market doesn't open on Sunday and Monday (no fishing), so we missed out :(We did get to see some of the fruit and vegetable market though, all the colours were very impressive.
This horse butcher, which appeared to be selling exclusively horse-based products, was also an interesting addition to the culinary scene!