Hello my pretties! Take my (severed) hand and let me give you a peek into my annual Halloween party. It’s an event that gets me going throughout the year. This month was particularly busy with the Sydney International Food Festival and before I knew it, it was the 20th of October and I hadn’t even sorted out my costume.
Luckily I had been planning this party even before last year’s finished (yes I’m an obsessive kind of person, can you tell?) and I had my menu sorted. I wanted to make different things from last year and I wanted it to be even more grisly than last year. I waited and waited and waited for my oven. It was about a month late and was on the way to me from the nice people at LG. It finally arrived and I can already see that she (and it is a she no doubt) is also something that loves dramatic entrances so we’ll get along just fine. I was set for my baking duties and so I had to get my costume together.
Bloody Brain Pannacotta and Shortbread Witch’s Fingers
I am not one for sewing. In fact the only craft I can muster up is really cooking. So I chose to buy my costume and there was one I had my heart set on, the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland (I even had the tiara ready for it). Now that I had my outfit sorted, I needed to turn my attention to the decorations. Places were selling out of their Halloween goodies and whenever I’d walk into a shop, there would be a gaggle of people amongst the Halloween section with adults and kids alike grabbing costumes and decorations.
I wanted to go more ghoulish and squeamish this year so I went with Donna the Dead, the moaning sensor activated animated moaning head. I picked up my charming severed head from The Party People in Sans Souci and discovered a treasure trove of ghoulish goodies. We got to chatting and they agreed to lend me some props for the party including these two charming mummies and a faux bloody brain and severed hand! Mr NQN dressed up as a surgeon gone psychotic and answered the door holding the body parts (he was originally to go as Hannibal Lecter holding a bottle of chianti, fava beans and a liver).
But enough dithering, let me show you the food which is always one of the most important parts to a celebration aside from the company!
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November 2, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
Happy Halloween Dear Reader! When I first saw Jenny from Picky Palate’s Mummy Dogs I think I actually giggled and clapped. Yes I do those sorts of embarrassing things. And yes this is why Mr NQN gets embarrassed by my behaviour and asks me not to sing while walking through the shops. Suddenly I’ll be singing and then notice that my hand is no longer clasped in his and he is walking several metres behind hiding his face in his shoulder. I shudder to think that if I become a parent, I’ll be that eccentric lady that embarrasses their children-who am I kidding? I know I will be. However looking at how much I love Halloween, if I don’t raise a little ghoul, then I will be surprised.
What I loved about these Mummy Hot Dogs was how relatively easy they were and how preparing them on the day took less than half an hour. I’m not including the time it makes to make the bread or pizza dough as of course that needs to be done ahead and all the better for a party I say. The less I have to do on the day the better for me.
Jenny’s recipe called for Pillsbury Dough which we don’t get here in Australia so I figured I would make a bread dough. But I was running out of time as I had events galore and things to do on Halloween and I recalled stashing some pizza dough in the freezer for emergency times such as these. I found that one dough round wrapped 4 of these frankfurters in an adequate way with a little left over dough. You could also try this with puff pastry too if you cannot get the pre-made bread dough which comes already rolled out which helps a lot but I found that with puff pastry, there were more joins as the pastry itself comes in a square and it is therefore shorter than the length that you can roll dough.
I know mummies’ wrappings are supposed to be more white than yellowed but I blame the distractedness on the fact that I didn’t hear the timer when it went off. If you watch it like a hawk then you can ensure that yours turn out only mildly yellowed like Jenny’s. Kids, both young and old love the novelty of these and just make sure that you have some tomato sauce…ermm I mean blood ready for them to dip these Mummy Hot Dogs in.
And look out for Monday’s story with a wrap up of my Halloween party! I promise that “normal” transmission will resume after then 
So tell me Dear Reader, what embarrassing habits do you have?
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October 31, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
One of the things I love about Daring Bakers is that it stretches me to do things that I normally wouldn’t. After co-hosting last month’s Daring Bakers challenge I was pleased to see how many felt the same way and I thankfully witnessed very few meltdowns. As I tell people, you join Daring Bakers to step out onto the proverbial baking ledge – or perhaps more appropriately, you step out on the ledge of a hot oven door. After all the name Daring does suggest doing something a little extraordinary.
When I saw this month’s challenge I was excited as I had never made Vol au Vents before. I’ve eaten my share of them often buying them from the supermarket but I’d made puff pastry (which is about a million times better than any puff pastry you will get at the supermarket). So whilst I was happy I wanted to try to do something that I hadn’t done before so I thought hard about a nice filling for my Vol au Vent and decided on a Quail’s egg salad and asparagus topped Vol au Vent with a fresh Hollandaise sauce to go with it. My friend Miss America had warned me about Hollandaise before, telling me that it was notoriously hard so I was suitably fearful. Thankfully it worked out just fine and I can cross another item off my list. Unfortunately as there was so much soft butter involved in my left hand and whisking in my right that I neglected to take any pictures of the Hollandaise although let me assure you that it’s much, much easier than I thought it was.
Le Puff
With the Puff Pastry, I dutifully watched the video of Julia Child and Michel Richard (no not Michael Richards or Kramer from Seinfeld 
) make it and after that it was absolutely clear. I know the instructions seem endless but please, do not let that put you off. I think if there’s one pastry that I think is so worthwhile making from scratch, it’s Puff. The reason is the layers, From one 4mm layer of uncooked puff dough you can get a rise of 5-7cms and if that doesn’t fill one with a sense of baking accomplishment I don’t know what will. Also using the best butter you can get your paws on will help – much like buying the best chocolate when making chocolate truffles, the best butter will absolutely show up in the flavour of the puff.
As for the taste? Ambrosial and buttery. Sure it’s not light on the calories given the butter in both the puff and the Hollandaise sauce but when you use good butter, you really notice the difference. I ate one and was moaning with pleasure so I ate another and another after that. I had to stop as I was dangerously close to having nothing to serve for dinner. Picture my dilemma: the pastry sits on my left shoulder saying “eat me” and a devil sits on my right shoulder also encouraging me to eat it saying “Yes you could whip up something quickly and no-one would ever know that you ate them all”. I did a quick calculation of the amount of butter in the entire batch and resoundingly frightened I put them down and set to work again. I also made a sweet version easily filling it with some rose flavoured mascarpone topped with a sliced strawberry which my husband adored.
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever eaten a whole batch of anything or come close to doing so? And what was the item?
Oh and my wonderful friend Duckie from A Duck in Her Pond has featured me as a Creative Woman of the Pond! She’s a master storyteller and a published writer and has just started a story that I love called “The Old House on Elm Street”. You can guess the theme right? 
The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.
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September 27, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
“How about a private class to learn Victor’s Famous Chocolate Chilli truffles?” my darling friend The Second Wife asked me. It took me all of 20 seconds to answer “Yes please”. Chilli and chocolate are two words that the world has gone crazy over and Victor Pisapia is the Chilli King and his Chocolate Chilli truffles are famous.
Victor Pisapia holding a picture of his former self “Mr P”
We arrive at his gorgeous Danks Street apartment (where he conducts his cooking classes) one sunny Sunday afternoon. I adore meeting new people and I was fascinated to learn about Victor’s history. Those of you may know him as the chef and partner at the former Rattlesnake Grill in Neutral Bay but you may not know that he was originally a teacher who worked in the real ghetto in Philadelphia – you know the one where violence is a real possibility. He was called “Mr P” and to avoid being targeted by students he came up with this hairdo which served more to make him look racially ambiguous (and one which made his barber father distraught). A survival mechanism by way of hair if you will.
Originally from the United States, he ran the very successful Back Porch Cafe in an area just outside of Washington DC called Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. They started on little more than enthusiasm and $7,000, 3 entrees, 3 mains and 3 desserts. They picked fresh strawberries from the field for the day’s desserts and built it up into one of the most successful restaurants which still stands today where it’s run by one of Victor’s friends. He has owned designer restaurants such as Blue Moon where designer beautiful bodies waitered. This was one of the first places to have beautiful people only waitstaff and each waiter cleared about $1,500 per night. He also opened up “dives” (albeit ones where designers were called in to make it look like a dive) such as Tijuana Taxi, a 1950’s diner. His restaurants centered around this beachside area of Rehoboth Beach where people from Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia would gather to visit during vacation.
Victor then moved to Sydney Australia and opened up the Rattlesnake Grill in Neutral Bay which served South West American food. Opening up a restaurant in Sydney is also different from the United States. Not only are there are an untold number of Sydney restaurants, U.S. customers tend to be more loyal to a restaurant whereas Sydney siders tend to like to try new things so gaining a loyal clientele is harder here.
As the “chilli king” (tomorrow he is judging the chilli category for the Royal Easter Show) he shows us his fantastic chilli collection full of Poblano chillis which become the Ancho chillies.
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The space for classes
But back to the truffles. They’re a gorgeous combination of a chocolate coating and a melt in the mouth interior. The chilli is a delicious tingly after thought, just strong enough but not too strong. Somehow the hours fly by and before we know it it’s 3.5 hours later and we were only meant to stay for 2 hours. Learning from Victor is like being taught by a soul generous in spirit and encouragement. The ideal teacher – afro or not.
Victor’sFood hosts cooking classes and team building exercises for corporates. They are also hosting a South Coast food tour with Masterchef contestant Michelle Darlington.
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September 21, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
So it’s Friday and what better thing to look forward to tonight or on the weekend than a cocktail. But it should be a perfect one no? I should subtitle this story, “What you didn’t know about ice”. I had Oliver Stuart, a Brand Ambassador for Russian Standard Vodka and Bartender of the Year in front of me and I was determined to find out how to make a great cocktail. Picture this setting: I was at Icebergs and I was sipping cocktails and eating caviar and someone made a remark “How is the ice?”. Oliver smiled and nodded “Yes ice is the most important part of a cocktail”. I put down my blini and was curious – ice? And so I asked him all about it in between sipping what I thought was one the best cocktails I’ve ever had – and yes there’s a recipe for it to follow.
Oliver, formerly of Flying Fish, Hemmesphere and the Victoria Rooms was named Bartender of the Year and now spends his time spreading the word about Russian Standard Vodka. It happens to hold the number 1 position for a premium vodka in Russia after Russia Billionaire Roustam Tariko decided that he would create a Russian Vodka as there was no premium Russian Vodka in Vodka’s homeland of Russia (and there was a bit of National pride in there too I would imagine). There are three types: The Original which takes on a brand such as Smirnoff, the Platinum which positions itself against Absolut and the Imperia against a brand like Grey Goosea-all in gorgeously stylish bottles and you know I had a fascination with the bottles right?
Mini Mary
We tried three cocktails: the Mini Mary which was a gorgeous yet well balanced and spicy mix with the Russian Standard Original, the Imperia Mist which is a chic martini made with the Russian Standard Imperia which has been filtered over quartz crystal and is finished with a spray from an atomiser of Martini Bianco and we finish with my favourite, a sparkling wine cocktail with soused cranberries. The canapes were delicious, particular the goat’s curd and beetroot tart and the smoked salmon caviar blini which melted in the mouth.
And what of the ice? As funny as it sounds, ice keeps ice cold so the more that you use and the faster you stir, the colder the cocktail will get. The best kind of ice is the ice that has the least surface area so that means the ice you make at home is better than the ice you buy from a gas station freezer as the hole in the centre creates more surface area which allows for quicker melting to occur and with a drink with 3 types of spirits and no mixer, it waters it down quicker and is much more noticeable. The ideal ice is a solid, large piece with smooth edges.
Canapes served to complement the three vodkas: caviar, squid sashimi, blini with caviar
The Japanese take their ice seriously and the Japanese brand Hoskazaki produces special ice makers with many of Sydney’s restaurants and bars such as Rockpool, Victoria Room, and Universal (who just won a Hosazaki) using these machines and the Beresford in Sydney apparently has the largest Hoskazaki in the state. Toko Sushi use a huge block of ice which they chip away at.
Other tips for making a good martini is chill the martini glass and mixing spoons in the fridge and don’t store your vodka in the freezer as the extreme temperature starts to undo the distillation process and overpowers the bread aroma seen in good vodkas. Instead chill it between 5c and 7c (41-44F).
I also took the opportunity to ask Oliver a few questions about cocktails.
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August 21, 2009
by Not Quite Nigella
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