Zum, Salamanca

Potato rosti with smoked salmon, spinach and hollandaise sauce. This was more like a potato cake than the sort of rosti than I am used to, but a very good potato cake nonetheless! The serving size was perfect for this rather rich dish.



Zum big breakfast. J enjoyed this.

Salamanca market haul

After a windy, rainy and snowy week it was wonderful to wake up to blue skies this morning - perfect for wandering through Salamanca Market.

Our haul, clockwise from top left:
- 3 more herbs for the garden: curly kale ($1.50), chervil ($1.50), mint ($3.50)
- Hartzview raspberry fortified wine ($18)
- South Country Cyder ($12)
- snow peas ($2)
- mushrooms ($8 for a kilogram)
- organic apples ($2.50/kg)
- Bruny Island Cheese Co's organic white sourdough with a dukkah topping
- coriander ($3)

Cookbook challenge, week 39: Curried cauliflower and cheddar soup

The theme for week 39 was TV Chefs. I have a few celebrity chef cookbooks, and decided to use Gordon Ramsey's Cooking for Friends as as his recipes haven't featured here as regularly as Nigella, Jamie and Stephanie. The recipe is for a curried cauliflower and cheddar soup, perfect for this time of year when the weather is cold and cauliflowers are plentiful.

4 tbs olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 medium cauliflower, cut into florets
1 tsp mild curry powder
300ml hot chicken or vegetable stock
300ml milk
100g grated cheese

Heat half the oil in a saucepan, and add onion and celery.
Stir over medium heat for 3-4 minutes.
Add the remaining oil, cauliflower, curry powder, and season.
Stir well and cook for a couple of minutes.
Cover the pan and cook for another 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the stock and bring to a simmer.
Add the milk and splash of water if the liquid does not cover the vegetables.
Return to a gentle simmer and cook for 10 minutes, until the cauliflower is soft.
Use a hand blender to liquidize the soup.
Stir in the cheese.
Adjust the seasoning and add a little water if the soup is too thick.


This turned out alright - it wasn't amazing but it was enjoyable enough! I've got a better recipe for cauliflower soup buried somewhere, though.




The theme for week 40 is apple, and I know exactly what I am going to make. It's another recipe from this cookbook that I also had my eye on as it sounds amazing... stay tuned!

Khaow Thai, Harrington Street

Prawn pad thai ($12.70). Nice enough with six large prawns and some big cubes of tofu. The addition of some crunchy peanuts would have been good.

Blue Eye, Salamanca

Blue Eye is a newcomer to Salamanca in the space previously occupied by the Mexican restaurant, Tacos, at the bottom of the silos. It's a sister restaurant to the very popular Flathead in South Hobart.

I perhaps made the mistake of ordering a vegetarian dish in a seafood restaurant, but it sounded so good on the menu that I couldn't resist: Roasted beetroot gnocchi, honey brown mushrooms, parsnip and parmesan cream ($22.90). What I got was tasty enough but a tad disappointing: a single square gnocchi that was crispy on the outside. It also seemed somewhat small, more of an entrée-sized serving. The mushrooms were delicious, however.



Other people at our table seemed to enjoy their meals, though; the chilli salt squid looked fantastic.

The drinks list is full of great value options, and I love their blue water glasses. Service was great and the place looks really nice. They should do well.


(apologies for the poor image - I have a new phone and am trying to figure out the best settings to use in low light)

Cookbook challenge, week 38: Gingerbread

The theme for week 38 was spice, and although cooking a curry or marinated meat was very tempting I decided to cook something sweet as it's quite some time since my last sweet recipe for the cookbook challenge (in fact, the last time was week 24!).
I chose a recipe from a new book, Cook's Bible by Lorraine Turner, which I found on special at Habitat recently. The recipe is a cake version of gingerbread.

Ingredients:
150g butter
175g soft brown sugar
2 tbs black treacle (I used golden syrup)
225g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarb soda
2 tsp ground ginger
150mL milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
2 apples, peeled, chopped and coated with 1 tbs lemon juice (I used 1/3 cup of date puree that I needed to use up)

Melt the butter, sugar and treacle/syrup in a saucepan over low heat and leave to cool.
Preheat the oven to 160ºC and grease and line a 23cm square or 22cm round cake tin.
Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarb and ground ginger into a bowl.
Stir in the milk, egg, fresh ginger and cooled butter mixture, followed by the apples/date puree.
Mix everything together gently, then pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface.
Bake for 30-35 minutes (my cake took 45 minutes).
Remove from the oven and cool in the tin.

It's a lovely, moist cake with a wonderfully zingy ginger flavour. It's great as is, but for a special occasion it would be fantastic with a thin layer of orange or lemon icing.

New Sydney Hotel, Bathurst St.

Some snaps of dishes from the New Sydney Hotel that my friends and I have enjoyed recently. I'm a big fan of this place, and we head here regularly.

Herb and garlic pub loaf ($8).



Quail scotch eggs with piccalilly relish ($10). This egg seemed to be way too big to be quail, but the yolk was nice and runny. The piccalilly was fantastic.



Pie of the week ($18), which was lamb and caramelised fennel this time. The pastry on their pies is wonderfully puffy and delicious.



Grilled chicken Caesar salad ($15).



Tasmanian salmon platter served 3 ways: tempura, house made gravlax and crispy skinned ($30).



Steak and Guinness Pie ($20).



A special - half crayfish with garlic butter (I think this was $30 or $32).



A pork belly special.



A semifreddo dessert - I think it was honey and pistachio flavoured, with biscotti.



Website.