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We just got through day 13. I'm suffering from umbrella fatigue. Yes, it's been the 13th day of continuous rain in Sydney; from drought to drenching, the pendulum does swing both ways. And I guess now it's official, autumn is here, and I have to say a begrudging thank you for making it so obvious that you've arrived. Say hello to soaked hems, muddy feet and one constantly wet dog. I'll just try to think of it as one less bath I have to give him.
I know posting on the blog has been quite scanty of late, must be that crisp autumn air forcing me into hibernation. But the advantage of this is that my motivation for baking grows even the more as the weather gets colder. Keeping those oven fires burning is one way of staving off the chills.
Sydney houses, are notoriously known for not being able to stand up to the colder months. Many overseas friends living here who come from much colder climes always gripe about the inadequate amount of insulation in our houses. And coupled with the lack of central heating in most homes, it makes the winter months even more unbearable.
Our comparably mild winter probably doesn't warrant builders making houses with central heating a standard thing, but no matter where you're from cold is cold, especially at 6am when the dread of getting out of bed to take a shower overcomes you. I guess keeping the oven on is one way to get around this minor setback.
I made these cakes earlier this month but decided to give it an encore appearance at around day 7 of our marathon rainfest, while holed up at home just watching the spate of storms come and go. It was either build an ark or bake a cake and seeing as I was sitting on a pile of passionfruit, I made some cakes. If I was going to go down in a deluge, I might as well go down with cake.
With my priorities in the right place, I spent the better part of a day baking. With no central heating in our house, Jack (the dog) and I spent the rainy afternoon in front of the blazing oven, our makeshift fireplace. I'm sure he spends his time loitering around the oven just in case a rouge piece of food happens to accidentally fall out and magically land in his strategically poised mouth. He's quite the optimist, but it's still nice to have his company, no matter what the motives. He likes to think of himself as the sous chef, although most of the time he's more like the cleaner, mopping up spilled ingredients. He doesn't mind.
Right now, passionfruits are ubiquitous, so there's every reason for you to buy a whole lot. Here in Sydney we get the smaller round and wrinkled variety that have that distinct deep purple colour. They look quite strange and unassuming on the outside, and they weigh almost nothing but once you cut through that purple woody exterior there's a wonderfully rich and intensely brilliant daffodil yellow pulp inside.
By itself the pulp can be a little too tart to eat, but ripple a few spoonfuls through some vanilla ice cream or yoghurt and you have yourself a killer dessert. And if you are familiar with the Australian picnic staple, the pavlova, then you know that it's the passionfruit that gives it its bite.
The cakes are actually lime flavoured, but only subtlety. The passionfruit syrup is what gives the cake its kick. And like many other tangy fruits, a little bit of sugar takes this a dish a long way and livens it up a bit more. Add a dollop of whipped cream and you have all the insulation you need to get through a rainy day.
Baby Lime Cakes with Passionfruit syrup and cream
Serves 10
Recipe from Australian Gourmet Traveller
FOR THE LIME CAKES
125g soft butter
165g (¾ cup) caster sugar
2 tbsp finely grated lime rind
3 eggs
120g (½ cup) sour cream or plain yoghurt
150g (1 cup) self-raising flour
PASSIONFRUIT SYRUP
110g (½ cup) caster sugar
80ml (1/3 cup) lime juice
3 passionfruit, pulp only
PASSIONFRUIT CREAM
300ml thickened cream
1 passionfruit, pulp only (optional)
30g pure icing sugar, sieved
Preheat oven to 170ºC.
Beat butter, sugar and rind using an electric mixer until light and fluffy, add eggs and beat to combine, then add sour cream or yoghurt and beat to combine.
Fold in flour, then spoon mixture among 8 greased and floured 150ml-capacity dariole moulds and bake for 15 minutes or until golden.
Cool for 5 minutes then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.
For syrup, combine all ingredients and ¼ cup water in a small saucepan and stir over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves, then bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until syrupy. Makes about 1 cup.
For cream, combine ingredients and whisk until soft peaks form.
Refrigerate until required.
To serve, pour half the warm syrup over cool cakes and serve with passionfruit cream and extra syrup passed separately.
Don't be alarmed, I am still alive. Although, I've been experiencing the giddy highs related to the consumption of too many Adriano Zumbo pastries.
As cramped and as hole-in-the-wall his shop may be, people flock and people queue, in single file, just to be able to get to the front of the line to tell that person behind the immaculately styled glass counter what fares you are after. Usually it's a little piece of this and that, or perhaps a splurge on a decadent Zumbo dessert or a handful of macaroons if your budget will still allow.
Walk too fast and you will almost miss it, that narrow, unassuming little piece of real estate on Balmain's Darling St. Walk too slow and you might not get there in time as the place is almost always cleaned out before close. You might be stuck with a quiche or a plain brioche if your not hasty, not that these aren't worthy, but the real spectacle are his speciality desserts, tarts and macaroons that change every now and then. The stuff way down the back of the shop, that's what the mob's all after.
I've long been touting Balmain as a food lover's mecca, pastries, breads, butchers, cafes and gourmet stores line it's main street and it's a wonder why they have only just decided to capitalise on all its gastronomic potential. I could literally eat my way through Darling St, and this week you are actually encouraged to. The Balmain Rozelle Food Week starts tomorrow the 21st of April until the 27th of April, so if you are lucky enough to be in Sydney, then head over down Victoria Rd or over the Anzac bridge and make your way down Darling St, sampling the finest fare these providores have to offer.
If you are interested in this event then download the whole program by clicking here.
And in case you were wondering what I got from Adriano Zumbo, there were the mandarin and chocolate macaroons. Worth their weight in edible gold leaf, oh boy were they good! And a Miss Marple, which is a crepe shaped into a cup filled with mascarpone creme, strawberries, oranges and some Grand Marnier topped with a glorious sugar lid. It's art you can eat.
Have a great week guys and and I hope to be back blogging with something almost as delicious very soon.
There's been a chill in the air of late. Autumn is well and truly here and although summer may well be done and dusted, some of it's late harvest has decided to stick around for a farewell party. Yes, stone fruits are something to look forward to come summer, but there's always enough left behind to tide you over till the beginning of autumn. In a last ditch effort to relive summer days, I suggest getting stoned.
Of course I'm not talking about sparking up a doobie and getting fried, but rather enjoying the last that summer has to offer in its stone fruits. I'm having summer weather withdrawals right now, seeing that we never really got to have a proper one on the east coast. So this was my way of sparking up some lost memories of summer.
And really, what's a summer without a peach? The quintessential image of biting into a ripe one, its juice dripping from the corners of your mouth, can make up for all the lucklustre weather we have had for months. They said it was going to last till March and it certainly did, and it looks like we just sailed right into autumn without even the slightest bump. Maybe there was the odd lightning crash and tree falling on one's roof, but other than that, as far as I'm concerned we've been in autumn since December.
So this is my long overdue swan song for the summer we never had- almond cakes topped with roasted peaches. There's only one way to bid her farewell and it's with the best she had to offer. So rosy blushed peaches was an appropriate choice for a goodbye offering.
I actually made this a few weeks back, although never had time to blog about them for a while. I found the peaches at the Entertainment Quarter Farmer's markets going for a song and couldn't pass them up. Then I happened upon a recipe for Almond cakes with roasted apricots on the Australian Gourmet Traveller website, and you know when you see a recipe that you simply must have right now, well that sheer impulse overcame me and I was bent on making this that very same day. I'm sure the droolworthy photograph on the AGT website helped in stoking the urge for them right away.
Seeing as I didn't have apricots but had a heap of cheap peaches lying around, well, you know what I did. When life gives you peaches, you can decide to make a cake.
Peaches, like many other stone fruits, roast very well and there's very little you can do to improve on its flavour. So you might as well stick to the basics, a little sugar and little bit of booze and you have yourself a top notch dessert. It's amazing what wine does to a syrup. The booze of choice for this fare was a Seppelt Rutherglen Tokay that we bought on our last trip to the Hunter Valley- a sweet, honey flavoured dessert wine that was ideal for a fruit based dessert.
I have to say that the almond cakes didn't turn out as dark as they were pictured on the website, so I was a little worried I had made a mistake. But after tasting the cakes, there wasn't anything to worry about. Not sure why there was a lack of colour, but at least it wasn't lacking on taste. Two thumbs up for this recipe and perhaps a better and less illegal way of getting stoned.
Almond cakes with roast Peaches and orange blossom fool
Serves 6
Adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: blowtorch (optional)
110g (½ cup) raw caster sugar
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
8 peaches, halved, stones removed
4 pieces of orange rind, removed with a peeler
80ml (1/3 cup) dessert wine
1 tbsp orange juice
3 tsp orange blossom water
300g crème fraîche
30g brown sugar, sieved
FOR THE ALMOND CAKES
120g (¾ cup) pure icing sugar, sieved
50g almond meal
35g plain all-purpose flour
¼ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp finely grated orange rind
2 eggwhites, lightly whisked
90g butter, melted and cooled
Preheat oven to 200ºC.
Using a blowtorch, scorch the peach skins until they blister. They should peel off easily.
Combine sugar and vanilla seeds in a bowl and scatter over the base of a roasting pan large enough to hold peaches snugly.
Place peaches, cut-side down, in a single layer in pan, pressing into sugar.
Turn peaches and scatter over orange rind.
Combine wine, orange juice and 2 tsp orange blossom water in a jug and pour around apricots.
Roast for 10 minutes or until just tender and golden.
Set aside to cool, then, using a slotted spoon, remove 4 peach halves from syrup and process using a food processor until smooth. Set aside.
MAKING ALMOND CAKES
For almond cakes, reduce oven to 170ºC.
Combine dry ingredients and rind in a bowl, add eggwhite and fold through until just combined.
Add butter, stir to combine, then divide among six shallow pie moulds, smooth tops and bake for 15 minutes or until golden and centre springs back when lightly pressed with a fingertip.
Cool in pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack placed over a tray.
Spoon a little apricot syrup over cakes and cool completely.
Combine crème fraîche, brown sugar and remaining orange blossom water in a bowl and whisk until thick and smooth. Fold through apricot purée to form a ripple effect. Top each cake with 2 apricot halves and a generous dollop of fool. Serve with syrup to the side.
I rarely ever do restaurant reviews on this blog as there are so many other blogs that do it so much better. Not one to impose on already well trodden territory I steer away from reviews not only for the latter reason, but simply because I don't eat out nearly as often enough as other bloggers who do reviews. Oh yes, and I'm unable to take a decent photo inside a restaurant for the life of me.
Reviews in my opinion are so relative and mostly based on comparisons from previous experiences and tastes of certain cuisine. I don't think I have gathered enough food mileage to be able to be an expert in anything. But sometimes in a serendipitous, fluky way, you happen to have your camera when you go out for a casual lunch and next thing you know, you are taking a photo of ever dish.
I may not be an authority on most cuisines, but I think I have eaten at enough Thai restaurants and eateries to be able to gather an opinion about the food. And I have to say that although there's an abundance of Thai places in Sydney, the bad far outweighs the good. Thai cuisine is usually marked by its depth of flavour; the beautiful cohesion of taste sensations and textures. It's usually a splendid symphony of sweet, sour, spicy and herby, put together with such harmony. There simply are too many Thai restaurants serving bland and watered down versions of the real thing.
Simply put, when the menu says, "this dish is very spicy", I want the dish to deliver on its promise. I want it to be flaming hot enough for me to be able to breath fire afterwards. There are just too many renditions of seemingly spicy dishes that just aren't that spicy at all. If my brow isn't sweating, then you really haven't done your job. And I'm not even one of those people with high levels of tolerance for capsaicin.
Which brings me to Chat Thai. Chat Thai is a little bit of an anomaly, as in that even in the midst of a million other Thai eateries in that part of Pitt St which has been affectionately coined Thainatown, there is always a line of people outise waiting to get in, even at 11:30pm. Spoilt for choice in the midst of Thainatown, there is something about Chat Thai that people are willing to wait in line, outside, sometimes in the cold and rain.
Some say that it's usually the most dubious looking eateries that are the most authentic and the best priced, and to some extent this has been proved correct. This however cannot be further from the truth when it comes to Chat Thai. Although a handful of their dishes take a short detour from the original, the flavours are truly Thai at heart. And when they say spicy, they mean it.
The restaurant's interior can fool you, it doesn't look like a Thai restaurant that would serve traditional Thai fare, and serve it well. It looks more like an uppity bistro than an Asian eatery. But nothing could be further from the truth, it's just a plus that the place comes with soft mood-lighting, modern brown tables, rustic brick walls and to my surprise, friendly staff that make up for the wait you have to make for a table during peak hours, which can be up to an hour and a half.
To be honest, I cannot recall what we had that day. I was too engrossed in the eating part, that I forgot to remember the dishes for the blogging part. Hence the reason why I don't do reviews. All I remember is that there was a pad thai somewhere in the mix, a staple at any Thai place. And if they can't get a pad thai right, then there's really no point in wasting your time. But the heartening thing is their pad thai was good. Good enough that every last morsel was scraped off the plate.
So if anyone is in Sydney looking for a Thai place whose kitchen doesn't close at 10, then head over to Campbell St and put your name on the list for a table. If you come late enough, you won't have to wait that long. Chat Thai has several other locations around the city although I've only been to the one in Haymarket. Weirdly enough, it's the only one not featured on the website.
CHAT THAI
20 Campbell St
Haymarket, Sydney NSW
Phone: (02) 9211 1808
Open: 7 days 11am-2am
