Lobster anyone?

One of my friend's mother offered to cook us a lobster & crab meal over the Easter holidays.  Off I went with Mrs Lee to the Fish Market.  It was filled with people this Easter Saturday with busloads of tourists trying the oysters and seafood or heading off to the Chinese restaurant for Yum Cha.

Would you believe that most of the fresh lobsters had been sold out?  And.. they were quite expensive i.e. around $89.90 a kg...the price should drop after the Easter holidays.  Well, in order to pick lobsters, go for the red shells rather than the green shelled... something to do with the meat... The red shelled lobsters are usually from Tasmania and the meat is firmer.  The lobster should preferably be between 1.5 - 2.0kg and not more... if it is bigger than 2.0kg the meat would be tough.  Turns out that we were really lucky - after moving a few crabs and lobsters around in the tank, we got our 2kg lobster.  We then bought 3 mud crabs to go with the meal.

The cleaning of the lobster was interesting as I've never seen it done before.  A very sharp knife is required to chop the lobster on the base of the neck and turn the chopped parts of the body to drain out the urine.  The easiest is then to clean out the intestines, followed by the heart and the brains... ewww... The various parts are to be cleaned under water and left to dry.

In the meantime, Mrs Lee cooked the noodles to go with the lobsters and crabs.  The lobsters were to be served with the flat rice noodle while egg noodles were used for the crabs.  The egg noodels need to be cooked in hot water and then blanced in cold water to get the starch out.  Mrs Lee then mixed them with olive oil, Maggi seasoning, fish oil, soya sauce and sesame oil.  Smelt nice... The noodles can be eaten as it is but they should be pan fried prior to serving.  As for the rice noodle, the same marinade is used and left to soak up the sauces.  Prior to serving the lobsters, the rice noodle is then cooked in Mrs Lee's special stock.  The stock she used was some bacon, dried prawns and lemongrass which was boiled for about 30 minutes.  This stock smelt nice and was also used to cook the lobsters and crabs.

After 3 hours of preparation and cooking, the lobsters and crabs were ready... yum... not a sound to be heard....


Thanks Mrs Lee for cooking a feast and for opening your home!

Wurste??

Fancy bratwurst for breakfast?  My friend and I went to the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne last Sunday morning and thought we'd have our breakfast there.  Cindy had seen the bratwurst stall previously and it was always busy.  She had always wanted to try it.

After walking around the deli hall to see what was on offer for that morning, I, together with her decided that The Bratwurst Shop was the most appealing.  Cindy ordered their special of the day - black pepper sausage.  It came with either a white / multigrain roll and you can have your choice of sauces (there were plenty to choose from...) and you could also add sauerkraut, fried onions to it.  I picked the Weisswurst (white sausage with parsley).  It was delicious, hot and terribly yummy... so good that I forgot to take a photo until I'd nearly finished it.

It was very tasty and not oily at all.  It was so good that we decided to have seconds - but this time we'd forgo the roll and share the spicy sausage.  YUMMY... that is all I will say...  A MUST TRY if you are in Melbourne.

The queues outside this shop as well as the number of people eating along the walkway enjoying the live music was testament to the goodness of this wurste...
 
ps...We also bought coffee from this stall... but ... it lacks body...

For those who are not interested in having a sausage for breakfast... there are other options available such as the bakery which was also popular.

If you are in Singapore and have a craving for good sausages, you could also visit a branch of this outlet in Plaza Singapura.   

Time Out Sydney Taste Test

When my friend invited me to take over her husband's place for a cooking final on Monday night, I didn't know what to expect but it turned out to be a great way to start the week.


This event was organised by Time Out and it is the final event where the winner for the young apprentice chef will be announced.  Each contestant will present a dish each - there are 4 contestants overall.  We were then given a card to rate which of the dishes we liked from 1 - 4, 1 being the most liked dish.  Although there were 4 contestants, the organisers also invited 2 of the previous contestants back to present their dish as the results were so close.  However, these 2 dishes were non competing.

This Time Out event was sold out in 25 minutes!!  Awesome.  My friend, Iolanda, was one of the lucky ones to get the ticket - she is always very lucky with competitions.  It costs $60 per head and there were about 100 diners there.  We were seated with two other couples, one also a food blogger but the other just loves their food.

Each young apprentice had to persuade their head chef to nominate them.  The other event was last week and tonight was the final night for the young chefs to present their dish.  It was hard for the est. head chef to reshuffle the roster as 3 of the 6 apprentices were from est.

Upon arrival, we were served either a Cointreau Blush (Cointreau, Fresh Lime, pink grapefruit juice and soda water)  or a champagne.  I opted for the Cointreau Blush which was really refreshing.

First up was Stephanie Coupland from est. Her dish was Sashimi of yellowfin tuna, wasabi sorbet, coriander and shiso pearls.  Shiso pearls? What are those?  It turns out that Shiso pearls are Japanese Basil leaves where Stephanie pounded up, then added milk, thereafter straining it and adding agar agar to it to set.  The little droplets formed by pouring this mixture over frozen oil.  Stephanie also served her sashimi with Wasabi sorbet which was really refreshing.  It took her 7 attempts to get the consistency right and the sorbet was served on a bed of finely cut chives.  She must have used a really sharp knife as they were really fine!  Her dish was a real taste sensation and nicely decorated with fine pansies.

It was Ryka Johnson's (Rockpool) turn next.  Ryka initially wanted to do a desert dish but felt that he was not very good at it.  So, he decided to serve a vegetarian dish instead as most of the restaurants do not do justice to vegetarians.  This dish is a Pumpkin and Celery salad with sweet, salty and sour dressing.  He also served it with pomegranate.  I was not sure about this dish...to be honest but am sure the vegetarians in the room would have liked it.  It had a soury taste probably from a fish sauce blend to go with the sweet pumpkin.  In addition to the pomegranate, he also included some nashi pear and coconut as a garnishing.

Daniel Sturman from est. was next with his Grilled white scallops and cuttlefish, apple, witlof, hazelnuts, mache.  This dish is currently on the menu at est.  The consensus from our table was that we did not really like this dish as some thought the scallops were overcooked and the cuttlefish was a bit chewy.  Must say the mache didn't really do much for this dish.  Nevertheless, maybe should go to est. for another go at this dish.

The next two dishes were non competing.  Firstly Alex Keene from Ormeggio presented a Sultana and thyme infused poached rabbit, potato and parsnip puree, marsala reduction.  It is a pity this was non competing as it was lovely - the rabbit had a nice texture and was moist and the taste blended well together.

This was then followed by a dessert selection from Zen Jay Ong from Aqua Dining.  He presented it well, as you can see.  His dish - a compressed fruit salad, cinnamon sand, raspberry caramel, vanilla creme fraiche, micro basil.  A pleasant enough dessert although we could not really taste the cinnamon in the "sand".

The final dish came from Michael Mu Sung from est.  It was a Chocolate and raspberry cake, white chocolate mousse, almond soil , blueberry sorbet, lemon espuma.  Michael hoped that we would enjoy this "simple" dessert.  It was not simple by any means judjing from the various combinations.  I was a bit skeptical at first as I thought the chocolate and raspberry cake would be dry but I was proven wrong.  It was really nice and moist and again, had the right combination of tastes which he had brought together.

It was time to cast our votes...boy, was it hard to decide between no 1 and no 2.  They were both equally as good.  They had to count the votes twice as the results were so close!

Anyway, Stephanie Coupland was the clear favourite (which coincided with my choice!).  She deserved it as her dish was very well thought out and took a lot of work.

What a night - so enjoyable.  There are clearly some talented young chefs in Sydney.  Would be interesting to follow them and see what they get up to next.

For more information, check out:
http://simonfoodfavourites.blogspot.com/2010/03/time-out-sydney-taste-test-final-winner.html (Simon Leong took a quite a few photos, much better than mine which was taken from my blackberry.  Also check out the video of the kitchen pass too!)

http://www.timeoutsydney.com.au/restaurants/time-out-taste-test-2010--results.aspx