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

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.

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May 12, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Reminder: The Banana Bread Bake-off ends tomorrow!

Currently with over 60 entries, I am amazed and overjoyed at the amount of entries and the creativity shown with the Banana Bread Bake-off. There are some truly spectacular entries. Don’t forget the prize: a DIY cupcake set that I’ve put together featuring 25 mini pleated souffle cups (like the ones I used here), 12 royal icing flowers, a cake tester and sprinkles. Shipped to anywhere in the world!

Just a reminder that entries are due midnight on the 12th May 2008 Australian Eastern Standard Time (see www.timeanddate.com) I can’t wait to share the entries with you, I think you’ll be as impressed as I am!

Love,

NQN

xxx

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May 11, 2008 by Not Quite Nigella

Mother’s Day Cupcake Bouquet

I was woken early by roadworks. And as I’m likely to do when I have some spare time on my hands, I baked. I have lost many hours of precious sleep to the roadworks happening outside my door and it makes me very cranky so something soothing like baking gives me the balance I need. I noticed that they parked this enormous contraption during the day (a road ripper outer-er?) alongside my building to use it at night when the road is less busy. If I lose precious more sleep, I may have to consider listing the enormous thing on ebay-”to be picked up between the hours of 9-4pm only”. That’ll teach them to wake me!

Anyway, on to more important matters: cupcakes. I have an issue with florists around Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, the flowers seem to die a lot quicker when you buy them on either of those days as I think they must buy them a day or two earlier than they normally would to ensure that they get enough stock for patrons. So I prefer to save my pennies and buy flowers before or after those days. It annoys me when they only last 3 days and you’ve paid a premium for them.