Fish 349, North Hobart

I've eaten here several times, and it's been a bit hit-and-miss, but as long as you choose wisely from the menu you can find some rather tasty dishes.

Several months ago, J and I ordered the Seafood platter for two, and it was really disappointing. The components were all deep-friend and bland, with a boring accompanying salad. At nearly $60 we expected much better.

On our next visit, we had the Salt and pepper squid with rocket/watermelon/ginger salad, which was tasty and generous, and J had the red curry fish, which was amazing - such depth of flavour and nicely spicy without being too strong to kill the other flavours.

Most recently, it was another hit. I chose two entrees instead of a main.

Honey & sesame tempura prawn skewers with petite serve of saffron rice ($12.90)
Absolute highlight, and the best prawns I have had in ages. Crisp batter, just the right amount of honey and lovely fat prawns. The accompanying rice was nothing special, it tasted a bit like it had been cooked much earlier and was kept warm in the molds waiting to be used - the outside rice was a bit dry.



Tasmanian octopus pan seared with elderberry glaze and served with traditional bruschettina slice and hommus ($13.50)
This was enjoyable, although I compared it to the best octopus I've had locally (at the Republic Bar) and it wasn't quite as good. The glaze was nice and charcoal-y, and the octopus was tender enough. The dish was slightly marred by the old and somewhat dried lemon wedge.



My partner had the Moroccan spiced ocean trout on chickpea and lemon salad with mint and coriander pesto ($23.90).
He really enjoyed this dish, and scoffed it down pretty quickly!
It unfortunately also had an older wedge of lemon.



I do recommend Fish 349 for decent seafood dishes. Just don't get the platter!


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Cookbook challenge, week 8: Creamy rhubarb and vodka cocktail and Rhubarb bellini

Week 8 already - wow, I'm amazed how quickly these first two months have passed. I'm still really enjoying this challenge, but I'd like to evolve how I tackle each week. Currently, I've had either a recipe or a core ingredient in mind and scoured my cookbooks to find a suitable recipe. As the challenge progresses, I'd like to instead choose a cookbook - ideally one I haven't used yet - and find interesting recipes from each. Focus on covering all my books rather than the ingredients!

For this week's sweet theme, I made two recipes from Jamie Oliver's 'Jamie at Home'. Both are tasty alcoholic drinks with rhubarb as the primary ingredient. They were very refreshing in the recent hot temperatures that we've been experiencing here in Hobart!

Creamy Rhubarb and Vodka Cocktail ingredients:
500g rhubarb, trimmed and chopped
100g sugar
Juice of half an orange
2 shots of vodka
1/2 a shot of Galliano
1/2 a shot of cream
1/2 a shot of milk
a handful of icecubes

Place the rhubarb, sugar and orange juice in a small saucepan and put the lid on.
Simmer for a couple of minutes, then remove the lid for a few minutes more until you get a thick, compote consistency.
Pour the rhubarb into a sieve over a bowl and let the liquid drip through. It's this liquid you want (the leftovers in the sieve are lovely with custard).
Put two shots of the liquid into a cocktail shaker with the remaining ingredients and shake it about.
Strain into two cocktail glasses.



Rhubarb bellini ingredients:
300g rhubarb, trimmed and finely sliced
75g sugar
a bottle of bubbly

Put the rhubarb, sugar and a couple of tablespoons of water in a small saucepan.
Put the lid on and simmer for a couple of minutes.
Remove the lid and simmer for a few more minutes, stirring occasionally, until you get a thick compote consistency.m
Whiz up with a hand blender until you have a lovely smooth puree.
Leave to cool, then stir again and divide the puree between 6 glasses. Pour over your bubbly, stirring as you pour, until the glass is 3/4 full.
Top it up with bubbles and you're done.


Both recipes took longer to cook the rhubarb than the recipes hinted at, which might be a bit misleading for people that aren't familiar with cooking the stalks.
They also both specified a particular weight of rhubarb, 'trimmed and chopped'. It's not clear if the weight is pre- or post-trimming, and whether or not the leaves are present would make a significant difference to the amount of usable rhubarb left over. I used post-trimming weight, and the recipes tasted right, so hopefully that was the way to go.
The creamy cocktail specified double-cream, but our local shop didn't have this and I used thickened cream instead. This was fine, and I think you'd have to shake the ingredients heaps if you used double-cream to avoid lumpy bits!

I'll definitely make the bellini again - simple, tasty, and would be great to improve the taste of a not-so-nice bubbly ;)

The next theme: Berry

Gingerbread houses on cups!

How gorgeous are these mini gingerbread houses from Not Martha? I love them!

Gourmet Farmer with Matthew Evans on SBS tonight

This new show starts on SBS at 7.30pm tonight, and I'm certain it will be worth watching. Matthew Evans used to be a reviewer, and now lives in Tasmania. He (along with another guy, Ross O’Meara) makes artisan meat products under the name Rare Food, sold at Salamanca Markets at a stall shared with the Bruny Island Cheese Co.

Read more at his blog here, and be sure to watch the show tonight!

Following this show, is another episode of Oz and James's Big Adventure, featuring James May of Top Gear fame. It's very entertaining look at wines and the wine industry.

Cookbook challenge, week 7: Fried rice

The theme for week 7 was soft. I was thinking of making something along the lines of a pannacotta but after the excesses of the Christmas season, sweet dishes just didn't appeal at all! So instead I made fried rice - it's soft, tasty and a good way to use up leftovers.

I used the notes in Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion. It's found in the margin of the book - where there are notes for cooking a dish instead of a specific recipe. I used this for inspiration, but cooked it sort of backwards to the way Stephanie suggests... my version is below! The quantities are a rough estimate, nothing here really needs to be accurately measured. I've used fairly standard fried rice ingredients, but anything goes!

Ingredients: peanut oil onion, diced crushed garlic crushed ginger red chilli, diced spring onions, finely sliced frozen peas frozen corn prawns eggs dried shiitake mushrooms, rehydrated then drained cooked, day-old rice (for the quantities of other ingredients shown in the pic, I used 3 cups of uncooked rice) soy sauce sesame oil

Heat 1-2 tbs peanut oil in a wok.
Fry the rest of the ingredients in the following order, stir-frying each for 1-2 minutes:

• onion
• garlic, ginger, chilli
• spring onion
• peas and corn
• ham
• prawns
• mushrooms

Make a well in the center of the wok as shown in the picture below, and turn the heat down. Crack the eggs into the well and mix them together to break up the yolks. Gently heat and turn to cook, then mix into the rest of the ingredients.
Add rice.
Add soy sauce to taste (I probably used ~1/3 C).
Add ~2 tsp sesame oil and mix well.
Serve!

Taste of Tasmania 2009/2010

I love the Taste of Tasmania festival, and go there as much as I can during the week or so that it's on. I love the opportunity to sample local produce and new foods, and it's a great opportunity to run into and catch up with friends after Christmas too.

Below are the dishes I sampled this year.


Thorpe Farm produce platter, $30
Starting with the cup, going clockwise: a salsify and oyster fricassee, with bread. Tofu and coriander/garlic pesto on bread. Lamb kofta and venison sausages (one has already been eaten!). Lamb on roast potatoes. Venison on mashed potatoes.
One of my favourite dishes this year!



Island Berries summer pudding, approx $7
I get this every year - I love their summer pudding so very much!



Huon Aquaculture taste plate, $10
Clockwise from top: Potato salad with cooked fish, salmon blini, smoked salmon around rice, a salmon dip on cos on bread, breadsticks,
The raw salmon on the blini was definitely the highlight of this plate. It had a beautiful, buttery fish flavour.
Unfortunately the rice in the salmon rolls was a bit dried out.




Two Metre Tall cider, $7 for a cup. After going off beer in the last couple of years, I've turned into a cider lover! This cider was lovely and dry. Cups were served from a keg - the bottles will be available from bottleshops in late January.




Bruny Island Cheese Co's ploughman's platter, $20.
I forgot to take a photo of this until after we started eating it. It was wonderful, of course. The platter included 3 cheeses - O.D.O., 1792 and Tom - I think, as well as spiced cherries, two slices of sourdough bread, pickled beetroot, boiled (and pickled?) egg and pork rilette (which I am guessing was from Matthew Evan's Rare Food produce company?).


Black forest cake cup from Strawberry Ave, $8
I didn't really enjoy this, I should have followed my instincts and looked for a plate of fresh berries! It had a square of unappealing chocolate cake in the bottom, covered with icecream, cream, cherries and chocolate flakes. I picked out the cherries and left most of everything else.



Taste catering paella, $15 for medium and Venison and wallaby pie with crème fraiche pastry, $5
The paella was enjoyable and filling (shared between my partner and I), but we weren't too enthusiastic about it. The spicy chorizo livened the dish up. I was a bit worried to see the staff splitting open with a knife the unopened, cooked mussels then serving them!
The pie, however, was fantastic with rich herb flavours, and the pastry was divine.



Cullen's Bakery & Deli mussel chowder and bread, $8
A lovely, creamy soup with salmon and potato as well as mussels. Not too rich as chowders can sometimes be, it was just right.



Waji's Cajun calamari
This was chewy with the focus seemingly being on the batter more than the calamari - but I loved it. Nicely spicy with a fresh dressing.




Finally, a shot of the herb and vegetable gardens they had in drums between the shed and the back marquee. I wish my herbs were growing this well - I wonder what their secret is!

Falls Festival 2009/2010 eating

Happy new year! I celebrated at the Falls Festival held at Marion Bay. I was particularly impressed with the range of food available at this festival - heaps of surprisingly interesting foods to choose from and all were reasonably priced.

Below is my favourite dish - a feast plate from the Hare Krishna stall ($10). Royal rice, mixed vegetable curry, savoury kofta balls with tomato chutney and a sweet, semolina-like dish (halava) with what I think were dates.



Other highlights included delicious noodles with plenty of fresh herbs and vegies, breakfast burgers, moroccan baby burgers ("now with even more baby!") and more that I have forgotten.
My food shame: a dagwood dog and frozen coke for breakfast on new year's eve. All the other stalls had long queues and my tummy needed recovery food, and fast!