Fish 349, North Hobart

Another visit to Fish 359, this time with my parents for a weekend lunch.

I had the fish and chips, and chose flathead with spicy dukkah from the fish options:


Mum had the basil & macadamia crusted salmon with spiced potatoes and tomato salsa, a lovely combination.

Dad also had flathead, grilled with olive mash, baby spinach and a capsicum pesto.

In the kitchen

A few bits and pieces that I have cooked in recent weeks.

Polenta with mushrooms, based on this recipe, but without the fennel and cheese. It was nice, but it definitely needed a sauce or chutney to offset the dryness of the polenta.



Cauliflower, potato and bacon soup, based on this recipe (but I used a whole small cauliflower). J's biggest food hate is cauliflower but he enjoyed this soup!



Cheesey homemade pizza using my new favourite dough recipe from here:



And from warmer days when things like tomatoes were still in season: homemade green tomato mustard pickles. I used my dad's recipe that I adore and made a couple of batches, this is one of them:



Spiced apple, pear and plum chutney. All the fruit came from our backyard!



Summer blackberries picked from the side of the road on the way to Binalong Bay. They were beautifully plump and sweet as-is, no alterations or recipe needed!

Sausage, lentil and silverbeet casserole with polenta

Adapted from this Taste.com.au recipe, I added silverbeet, used tinned lentils instead of dried, and tinned tomatoes instead of fresh. The polenta is simple: boil 2 cups of water with 2 cups of milk, remove from the heat, add 1 cup of polenta, whisk lots, season to taste (usually 1 tsp of salt is about right), then let it sit for at least 10 minutes.

It was a comforting and very winter-appropriate dish.



p.s. can anyone else see the smiley face in the sausage at the bottom??

Raincheck Lounge, North Hobart

A recent brunch at Raincheck Lounge. I've had breakfast there quite a lot, but haven't really tried many of their non-breakfast items.
Despite that, I still ordered a breakfast-y dish! I had an omelette that came with sourdough and relish, and was incredibly filling.


My friend had the calamari salad, which looked wonderfully fresh.

Heart Foundation Gala Ball

J and I were lucky enough to score tickets ($200/head!) through his work for the Heart Foundation's annual gala ball at Wrest Point Casino in the last weekend on June. The theme of the night was 'Dreaming under the Southern Stars' so everything had a very Aussie feel to it, from the food to the decorations to the entertainment (James Blundell!). We dressed up in our finest clothes, and had a great time!

Before we were seated, canapés were served, though we didn't get to try any. The menu listed chermoula-spiced prawn skewers with soy dipping sauce, tempura vegetables with mint yoghurt, and sweet potato tartlets with wilted spinach and pecans.

The appetiser was a "Bushman's Platter", consisting of cured wallaby with Tasmanian berry chutney, gumleaf smoked atlantic salmon tartare, and sweet potato panna cotta with micro herb salad. The wallaby (hiding at the back-right of the pic below) was fantastic, a lovely flavour with a nicely chewy texture. The sweet potato panna cotta was a bit strange at first, but I ended up enjoying it.

Our entrée was consommé of roasted tomatoes with smoked chicken, fresh basil and savoury snow eggs. The soup itself was nice but the snow egg was very strange indeed! Reading the menu I'd had visions of a fantastical Peter Gilmore-style snow egg, but it was basically just a sweet, soft meringue. On its own it was far too sweet but I found that having a tiny bit in a spoonful of soup was not so bad tasting... but still odd!
We were also served a damper-like bread with butter.

Main courses were alternate service. I had the seared lemon myrtle ocean trout with pickled cucumber, steamed wild rice, light tomato and curry leaf sauce. The trout was sublime - I was impressed at how perfectly it was cooked considering how many people they were catering for. The other elements of the dish were fine.

J had the plum glazed pork ribs with herb crushed potato, red cabbage and port jus.

The table set up was quite nice.

Dessert was also alternate service. J had the wild rosella flower and coconut cream mousse, with wattle seed shortbread and orange pepper berry sauce.

I had a very lovely chocolate and wattle seed pudding with vanilla ice cream and rosella compote. A delicious end to the night!

After dessert we were offered tea and coffee, which came with casino-branded plain chocolates that were quite awful - they tasted like compound chocolate.

During the dinner we thoroughly enjoyed the wines from northern Tassie's Holm Oak Vineyard. I tried the sparkling rose, 2009 riesling, 2010 sauvignon blanc, 2009 pinot noir and the 2010 botrytis riesling, all of which were very drinkable indeed! I'll be looking out for their wines in future.