Not Quite Nigella » The cooking, eating and travel blog of a hungry blogger from Sydney, Australia

Winter Warmer – Rosemary & Potato bread

Having made a sweet Rosemary loaf not long ago, I still had a lot of rosemary left which was just itching to be made into something else. I found this recipe on the Taste website and I loved the punk look of the Rosemary and potato slices on the top so it was on this superficial basis that I decided to make this.

And in this case, superficiality was rewarded. My husband who always complains that bread is too dry, loved this. Indeed, the little addition of rosemary embeds the whole loaf with a sweet aroma, much more than the tiny little sprigs would indicate. Serving this bread with some soup would do it justice.

Read on for the recipe

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May 16, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Catalonia Spanish restaurant at Kirribilli: Birthday dinner #2

Anyone that knows me knows that I am a Kirrbilli markets fan and every month I make my way there to buy whatever takes my fancy. And since November last year, every month I’ve walked past Catalonia, stopped by the menu and wistfully gazed inside. Call it an infrequent OCD ritual. This month, I’ve booked it for a birthday dinner, my second of three.

With a successful pedigree (the two owners are ex Salt Yard in London and Victoria Rooms in Darlinghurst) they serve not your run of the mill Spanish Tapas but a more modern, exotic and sumptuous version with ingredients like Wagyu, Zucchini Flowers and Truffle shavings. It seems that servings are a little bigger than the Tapas I’ve had in Liverpool Street although of course as they’re Tapas they’re not large by any definition.

We’re seated on a Saturday night upstairs in a rather cozy, very dimly lit, warm sunset shaded room with a lovely Pomegranate coloured wallpaper on one wall. Tables are a little small but given that the plates of tapas aren’t that big, it’s not so much of an issue. I wish some restaurants would give bigger tables, indeed a friend of mine always books for 1-2 more people than are coming as she hates being squished. And as the light was so low, I must apologise for the pictures, we did our best but didn’t want to use the flash too much so as to disturb other patrons.

There are 5 vegetarian Tapas meals and a good selection of meats including delectable sounding seafood. Indeed one of the vegetarian meals sounds so lovely that it makes it way onto the meat eaters order: the Zucchini Flowers with blue cheese mousse and honey.

Zucchini Flowers with blue cheese mousse and honey $14.50

Being tapas, the food arrives pretty quickly and in a timely fashion, with waves of 3 dishes so that it doesn’t overcrowd the table. The Zucchini flowers, 4 per plate with batons of deep fried zucchini underneath are as good as they sound. Actually, scratch that, they’re even better. Crunchy with tempura batter on the outside they are fried to perfection with an oozing mousse of blue cheese inside. If any dish could convince someone to turn vegetarian, it’s this.

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May 15, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Vegetarian burger blindfold taste-test

With my enormous box of Flemington produce I set about making the most of having fresh vegetables and thought long and hard about what I’d like to do with them. One of my favourite things is to do a blindfold taste test. I’m not daft enough to discount the visual appeal of a nicely presented dish but I like the idea of the taste being the primary focus.

I realise that a lot of people are incorporating more vegetarian food nowadays than their parent’s generation ever were by including at least one or two vegetarian meals in their weekly rotation. Be it for the health benefits or the fact that vegetarian food and recipes have improved vastly from the stodge that one used to get 10 or 20 years ago. Indeed, one of the items that I sometimes prefer to the meat version is a vege burger. Beef can taste fine but after reading “My Year of Meat” by Ruth L. Ozeki or watching Fast Food Nation, I was somewhat put off beef burgers. So my next thought was, what about a Vegetarian burger taste test? I would do a version with tofu, a version made of lentils and sweet potato (not as dull as it sounds) and a grilled vegetable burger, a homemade version of one which I enjoyed immensely many years ago at Burgerman. And of course who better than to give me their opinions but my favourite vegetarians, my family in law along with a hardcore meat-loving brother in law to add in his opinion on behalf of meat eaters everywhere.

Turkish bread ready to be baked

You can certainly use bought rolls, Turkish rounds or hamburger buns. But as you know me, you’ll know that I love any opportunity to make bread so I made Nigella’s Nigellan Flatbreads but with a little more yeast and made them into circles rather than the teardrop shape she had. They tasted wonderful, like soft fresh Turkish bread. And of course I’ve included the recipe at the bottom should you want to do a little bread baking of your own.

After I made each burger, I cut them up into quarters and fed the sections to each blindfolded person and got them afterwards to rate which one they liked most and why. And of course I served them with golden wedges.

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May 14, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Kazbah on Darling’s Breakfast Banquet, Balmain

I’d often heard of the Breakfast Banquet at Kazbah-legend has it that for the small sum of $20 per person, you will be plied with an unbelievable amount of good food. Actually it’s not legend, the menu is clear on the website but let’s not mention that I never saw that. The catch is, that you need at least 8 people for this (and if someone cancels, you’re stuck paying for their place). A service charge of 10% is also mandatory. We decided that Mother’s Day breakfast would be the ideal day to do this. A time to indulge the mums for all of the breakfasts that they made us and to stuff ourselves silly. Since it’s Mother’s Day, there’s a 2 hour time limit for the Breakfast Banquet.

It’s 9.30am, a ludicrously early time I admit. I actually got up at 7am to get ready in an effort to look semi reasonable. Isn’t it against the law to wake up before 9am on a Sunday? It’s the only time they can take us and considering how busy it is when we get there we feel lucky that we got a table. A group before us has arrived late for their booking (about 40 minutes late which admittedly is really quite late) and as they’ve got a 1 hour limit, the waitress clucks that she doesn’t feel that they’ll have enough time in 20 minutes to order and eat. Phew, we’re not that late. We’re seated at our huge but very squishy table. One of our party is ill so we remove one chair so we have a little more room although elbows are touching at all times and eating can get awkward.

There are crayons to draw with and I know my in laws, a family of artists will go crazy over these.

The crockery is pretty – laid out as alternating blue and red sets.

We are supplied with mint water (there’s no mint taste however, it’s decorative) and all other drinks are charged on consumption. We listen to some of the drink specials and they sound delicious. Some settle for coffee (there is also Turkish Coffee) and some for a juice special: Pineapple, mint and lime juice.

Pineapple, mint and lime juice $6.50

The Pineapple, mint and lime juice is lovely and full of real, fresh crushed pineapple with the pulp still there. I don’t mind pulp at all, it at least assures me that a real fruit was involved in the process. The mint is very mild and the lime gives it a little tartness.

Turkish coffee $4

The Turkish Coffee I am told is good, sweetened and thick, like it should be.

Latte $3.50

Date & Banana Porridge

Before we know it, the first three of the courses arrives: Date & Banana Porridge. It comes unsweetened but is thick and creamy and the dates give it a little sweetness. Sprinkling it with the brown sugar provided renders it delicious.

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May 13, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Wild Fig and Rose Ice Cream

I always swore that if I opened up my own ice cream store, this is the flavour that people would want most. I actually got this many years ago from Vogue forum’s food section by member afj, and made it straight away and kept making it over and over again. It is not an understatement that this will get you an ovation every time. It is so very delicate and unusual a combination but it’s also one that will have you thinking “Why isn’t this a more common combination?”

I’ll be frank, you don’t need Wild Figs for this although these happened to be the ones that I had to hand. You could certainly use those non-wild (tame?), sweet, juicy dried dessert figs although you will need less as these are larger than the small Wild figs. And even better, you don’t really need an ice cream maker to make this.