Did you know that every glass of champagne has 21 million bubbles in it?

And did you know that there are 2000 million bubbles in the average bottle of champagne?

No? Neither did I until I attended Champagne Jayne’s Champagne class at Signorelli Gastronomia in Pyrmont.  And given that that it’s New Year’s Eve I thought it was the perfect time to tell you all about champagne. Champagne Jayne is a walking encyclopaedia of Champagne knowledge. Throw any question at her about champagne and she’ll give you the answer. And tonight she is holding a Talk and Taste session as part of the Sydney International Food Festival. We are to taste five sparkling wines and champagnes which are all food matched to little morsels of goodness from Signorelli Gastronomia’s chef Sarah Jewell.

Champagne Jayne

On each seat we have a folder with notes on the food we are about to eat and the champagnes and sparkling wines we are about to drink. Jayne starts off by explaining that we will be trying three sparkling wines and two champagnes. The prices of the sparkling wines and champagnes will be revealed to us at the end of the evening as she wants us to judge them on their taste.

First things first. How do you open a bottle of champagne without embarrassing yourself or taking out someone’s eye? A champagne cork releases at 90 miles an hour and Jayne tells us that there are six atmospheres in each bottle. So with this is mind, firstly you take off the foil. Then with a thumb on the top you twist the muselee (the metal collar) 6 times. Then with your hand on the top of the cork, twist the bottle until it is released with a pop.

Jayne explains the basic process of making champagne. Grapes are crushed and then react with the yeast outside of them  and this produces carbon dioxide and when this is done is an enclosed vessel this creates bubbles. Wine is made in open containers so that the CO2 disperses. Technically any grape can become champagne but in 1937 they chose three main grape varieties: pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay which make up Champagne today. Any grape variety can be made into sparkling wine though.

Jansz Premium Rose (Tasmania) matched with seared yellow fin tuna, prosecco sabayon and muscatels

Our first dish is a seared yellow fin tuna topped with a fluffy prosecco sabayon, muscatel puree and a clear dill jelly. Chef Sarah Jewell explains that the sabayon was actually done in a cream gun. When all of the elements are mixed in together it becomes balances with the fragrant dill in the unsweetened clear jelly and the thick muscatel puree.  The Jansz sparkling wine (pronounced “Yansz”) is a joint venture between Louis Roederer and Jansz. Since 2001 Natalie Fryar has been their award winning wine maker .

Valformosa Rose (Spain) matched with cured ocean trout mousse en crepe with pickled beetroot

The cured ocean trout mousse was a very interested dish indeed. Thicker than a mousse and with the consistency of a triple cream, it was buttery yet studded with small pieces of cured ocean trout. The crepe was thinly sliced into long strips and it is paired with a single sliver of pickled beetroot. Again when the elements are combined, it really comes together.

In between courses Jayne comes around and chats to people. She also tells us that taking a sip of cold champagne once poured gives a different taste from taking a sip of champagne that has been left to sit in the glass to warm up. More characteristics come out once it warms up and flavours can change. Chilling can also help mask faults with the champagne.

Lindauer Brut (New Zealand) matched with seared scallops, cauliflower puree & pancetta

Read More

Slow food and local are two terms that are increasingly popular nowadays. I recently visited Daylesford in Victoria where I was lucky enough to meet The Lake House’s Alla Wolf-Tasker and her daughter Larissa who told me that within a few kilometres they have five organic farms selling them produce. One thing however I didn’t realise was that for a Sydney restaurateur, this sort of access is rare and more often than not, quite hard work. Steven Krasicki is Altitude’s executive chef and putting together a Hat’s Off dinner as part of the Sydney International Food Festival proved a little tricky-like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, chef style.

He tells me “When it comes to local fruits and vegetables its more what’s at the market on the day so the difficultly was in the way that we did the dinner because it was a menu that was dictated by what was available. This means any last minute changes were inevitable due to the supply. i.e. when it comes to locally caught fish, when the seas are rough or there’s bad weather the boats don’t go out and there’s a lack of supply.”

Tonight I am dining with the lovely Joanna from the Shangrila Hotel. The room is spectacular with floor to ceiling windows to take advantage of that view. Oh yes that breathtaking view. There are three breads to choose from, a wholemeal ciabatta, a white ciabatta and rye. I do recall some fantastically experimental breads the last time I dined here like a blue cheese bread and a sun dried tomato bread and they were so good that I had several serves thus putting my main meal in jeopardy. These ones are good but I’m still kind of pining for the other breads (although my dresses are breathing a sigh of relief I suspect).

Leather jacket brandade served with Thomas Braemore Semillon, Hunter Valley

Our first course is a brandade of leather jacket fish served with delightfully smokey heirloom tomatoes and rocket. Steven uses a mixture of tomatoes including black russians and Oxhearts and they are smoked using gum tree leaves from one of the chef’s family property on the North coast. The brandade which is a purée of fish, oil, milk and salt is usually done with salt cod but this leather jacket version is very good indeed with small flakes of the fish interspersed through the creamy, velvety brandade. He tells us that when the delivery of tomatoes arrived they were all wrong, in that they were too firm so he called his buyer and they hand picked one box out of 20 or so boxes.

Ballotine of spatchcock served with 2010 Benwarin Verdelho, Hunter Valley

Our next course is a ballotine (boned, stuffed and rolled) of spatchcock which is stuffed with carrots is lovely and tender and sliced into rounds. There are also some purple and yellow carrots that are lightly pickled and crunchy and the pickled nameko mushrooms are a good match for the earthy spatchcock.

Grilled Coffs Harbour Snapper served with 2008 Phillip Shaw No. 11 Chardonnay, Orange

Read More

Merry Christmas my Dearest, Darlingest Readers! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas full of love and laughter and that you have had a chance to rest and recuperate from the crazy year that was 2010! In previous years I haven’t really written much about our Christmasses as we were often away without an internet connection  but this year I thought I’d throw the doors open and invite you into our Elliott family Christmas. We decided to theme it in a Finnish theme-as you may know Mr NQN is half Finnish and they are very proud Finns indeed. We merged my own family with Mr NQN’s and his aunt, uncle and cousin and before we knew it, we had over a dozen sitting at the table.

In the past we have gone away for a holiday and rented a house but this year, due to a multitude of reasons, we decided to stay put in Sydney. Unlike Halloween where I prepared all of the food, Christmas was a bring a plate affair with everyone bringing a plate for each person. The theme was red and white right down from everyone’s outfits to the red and white wax straws from Lovely Little Parties. Mr NQN and I made the red and white pompoms and hung little wooden Nordic birds from them.

This was the book that got me started on the whole Finnish theme for Christmas. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the Moomins Cookbook from the lovely Catty from A Catty Life. She had reviewed it on her site and because I consider myself part Finn insofar as Mr NQN is half Finn and I’m Finnish by association, I got very excited about the book. Lo and behold Catty kindly sent me a copy of it in October which I considered an early Christmas present!

Sisko with Aura Lily

As a compulsive feeder, I couldn’t help myself and went a little overboard making a crispy roast goose stuffed with mashed potato,  braised sweet red cabbage, Danish Christmas caramelised potatoes and finishing it off with some slightly sweet soft buns heady in cardamom with slivered almonds on top and sugar pearls on top of stollen, Swiss roll cottages, cinnabread cookies and cranberry and oatmeal cookies. And when I woke up on Christmas morning I thought “Oh no! The vegetarians won’t have enough to eat!” and quickly made a caramelised onion pie. It’s a sickness I tell you

We were literally overflowing with food and despite the fact that we had over a dozen people at a table meant to seat eight, we pretended that we were in a Finnish cabin in the middle of Winter snowed in. Except that it was actually Summer and we were really hot

We had enormous, plump, sweet cherries sent from our friends at Harris Farm. It’s not Christmas without cherries and these ones had everyone in raptures. They were huge, sweet and meaty and the whole box pretty much disappeared instantly.

And Lindt sent over a lovely range of their Christmas goodies-Lindor balls…*drool* my favourite. I’d like to bathe in the liquid filling….I kept saying to myself “Share them with others, don’t hog all the milk Lindor balls”. And I’m quite proud of say that I did. Although psst don’t tell them but I have a stash of the peanut butter ones that I’m keeping

We had delicious Danish Caramelised Christmas potatoes-yep they’re as good as they sound! Although not strictly Finnish, what’s a border or two and a sea when it comes to good food?

One of my favourite side dishes is red cabbage. Plus it’s low fat and good for you! I know, I know, Christmas is not exactly the time to think of low fat but trust me, it’s good…

Karelian rice pies

Sisko, Mr NQN’s aunt made these Karelian Rice pies which are served with egg butter. I ate about half a dozen of these as they are among my favourite Finnish foods and she was kind enough to humour my pleas for these. The pastry outer is made of rye flour and she tells us the traditional Finnish food was often using a limited range of ingredients as there wasn’t a wide variety of food available in Winter. These rice pies are simply made of rye flour, water, rice, milk and salt and the egg butter is eggs and butter mixed together.

Read More