|
This page is a gallery of some of the What's Cookin' nights, celebrating the people, the food and the wine that make them such great fun. |
Scenes from 2005
November 4 , 2005 Director's Cut A short season of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, performed by the Stanthorpe Little Theatre at Jeff harden's Bungawarra Winery, is behind us. Those involved have but fellowship and memories left and so tonight's What's Cookin' made the most of both by inviting the director, Veronica Hammond, to do the honours for us. Veronica Hammond, director |
 |
|---|
 |
Veronica is an pretty amazing gal - taking on a Shakesperean play with a small amateur theatre group is no mean feat - just getting people to turn up for rehearsals was a challenge! But she had faith and, by golly she did it. Even though the first time the entire cast was together in one place was on opening night, the performances were sizzling and everyone involved had a wonderful time. Veronica confesses to be not much of a cook so chef took her in hand, transforming her suggested menu of beans on toast into a sumptuous curry night. Entrees:
Veronica pictured a couple of years ago as Alicia in Black Chiffon.. |
|---|
Mains:
Dessert
|
 |
Above: Samosas Right: A plate with just some of the curries we enjoyed. A highlight of the night was the competition - a choice of either re-writing the last five words of Pyramus' death scene (die, die, die, die, die) or to write a soliloquy using every Shakesperean quote you can remember. The winning entry, judged by Veronica, was Jim Armstrong's (who played Robin Starveling/Moonshine). The chorus is set to an old folk song. |
|
Di, di, di, di So bend your acts and glow me boys Di, di, di, di, We'll climb upon the Pyramus Di, di, di, di, So bend your backs and glow me boys Di, di, di, di, |
David Goebel and Trisha Armstrong's effort was worthy: Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though my sweet Romeo. I wish that my horse was as quick as your tongue, or as swift as a tartar's bow, or an honest puck. So look on me as your Spaniel, you saucy boy. Et tu Brute. Methough I was enamoured of an ass but the course of true love never did run sweet. Your French crowns have no hair at all so you shall be my sweet gentle puck (bubble, bubble, toil and trouble) grrr... (lion, that is) grrr... My love, asleep my love? I pray you gentle mortal tell me thou havest not a headache. You canker blossom! You acorn! You hellhound. Alas, poor Peter Quince, we are all met to die, die, die, die, die. We shall put a girdle about the moon and sleep no more. Expire, expire, expire. |
Or this from Tatiana Nader... When Shakespeare went to Oz, he wore 'is best codpiece Then he went to Ballandean to see 'is play performed Yea, Bill Shakespeare was backstage under moonshine's beam |
October 14 , 2005 Stylish and Summery Talented singer and actor, Pauline Leigh, was our celebrity chef this evening and presented a beautifully balanced menu that fitted the warm weather we have been experiencing. MC Lee Williams devised a cunning competition to write a verse for a musical about the Queen (of England and Australia), preferably including food references with highly amusing, unpublishable results. Pauline Leigh |
 |
|---|
All in all an excellent and well balanced meal. Well done, Pauline. The girl has style.
|
The salad was excellent, using mixed green salad leaves with filleted fresh sardines and thin strips of haloumi cheese grilled on the griddle. It was dressed with a salsa of chopped tomato, spanish onion, chilli infused olive oil, red wine vinegar, parsley and mint. Yum. Chef forgot to take a photo but will do so next time he makes the dish. Dessert was made with firm ripe Beurre Bosc pears, peeled and cored then poached in red wine with a cinnamon stick and sugar. When poached the pears are removed and the sauce reduced to a syrup. Serve with ice cream. Yum. |
| Squab Risotto With Swiss Brown Mushrooms |
 |
1 squab (pigeon) |
|---|
While this dish is relatively simple it pays to do it properly, so by careful preparation of the squab we made our own game stock. We skinned the squab (discarding the skin) and carefully removed the two fillets and reserved them for separate cooking later. We sliced off the legs and roasted them for 15 minutes with a little oil in a medium oven and, when cooled sufficiently, we separated the meat from them and put the bones into the stock pot with the skeleton, neck, giblets and wings of the squab plus 1.5 litres of water, a chopped carrot, a peeled onion, two peeled cloves of garlic, some celery tops, a couple of cardamom pods, a bay leaf, a few whole black peppercorns, three teaspoons of sea salt, a single clove, a sprig of thyme and two cups of good chardonnay. This was brought to the boil and simmered for a couple of hours, strained and the solids discarded. For the risotto: Take a large pan and melt the ghee or clarified butter. Cook chopped onions over a medium heat without colouring until they are soft and golden; add the rice and stir to coat well. Turn the heat up and add a ladle of the hot stock and cook, stirring, until the rice absorbs it. Add another ladle of hot stock and repeat the process. Do this until the rice is almost to the required al dente stage and has absorbed enough fluid (this is a matter of taste. Chef likes risotto to be milky and nutty but not runny. See the picture). Add chopped Swiss Browns and porccini mushrooms and the reserved flesh of the roasted squab and cook a further minute or so. Check seasoning. Set aside in a warm place. Working fast, in a pan with a little oil or butter, sautee the shitake mushrooms for a few minutes. In another pan with clarified butter, sautee the reserved squab breasts for about one and a half minutes each side until cooked to rare. Remove from the pan and slice these thickly. To serve: Spoon rissoto onto plates, top with squab breast slices and garnish with shitake mushrooms and shaved parmesan cheese. |
September 30 , 2005 A Stage-Managed Event John Draper is a quiet and modest bloke. Since retiring to Stanthorpe two years ago he has been a stalwart of the local Little Theatre, always there to manage staging, props and lighting. Tonight, he flaunted his Celtic roots as our celebrity chef with a wonderful and very filling menu.
John's extended family came up from Brisbane for the occasion and it was a great night. The meal was excellent, with simple but effective recipes, all of them authentic to the Celtic tradition (which takes in Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall and Brittany). The competition, to write a Celtic myth, produced several bawdy responses and was won by Rosemary Paget's table. |
John Draper |
The fish should, of course, have been Irish Sea cod but we made do with Nobby Snapper - yum. John used a simple beer batter - plain flour, beer and a spoonful of dessicated coconut. The chips were big thick ones, roasted for 30 minutes before being finished to a deep golden brown in the fryer. The fish and chips were served with lemon wedges. |
The Guiness Pie was made using sauteed onions, cubes of rump steak rolled in flour, and chopped bacon; this all soaked in guiness, covered in foil and cooked until tender (about 40 minutes) in a moderate oven. It was allowed to cool. Chopped parsley was added and it was made into individual short crust pastry pies and served with boxtie potatoes and vegies on the table. Boxtie potatoes are known across the Atlantic as hash browns. Use equal measures of boiled potatoes mashed and raw potatoes grated. They are mixed with flour and seasoned, the mixture divided and the little flat cakes are fried in ghee or butter until golden brown. Guiness Pie |
 |
|---|
 |
Apple and blackberry crumble 1/2 kg green apples, peeled, cored and sliced, soaked in sugared water with two cloves |
|---|
Pre-heat oven to 190 C. Place apples in a pie dish with blackberries on top. Add sugar and a dessert spoon of water. In a bowl, mix flour, oats, salt and butter and work together with a spoon or hands until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in sugar and sprinkle mix over fruit. Shake nutmeg over. Bake for 15 minutes and reduce heat to 180 C. Bake for a further 30 minutes. Serve with custard, ice cream or mascarpone cheese. Serves 8 |
September 16 , 2005 His Worship's Parsley Plot It was a great pleasure to introduce the Mayor of Stanthorpe, Glen Rogers, as our celebrity chef. In recent years, Glen, a career vegetable farmer, has become notorious for growing unimaginable quantities of parsley (most of which ends up as tabouleh) so we thought why not? Parsley featured in all of the courses. The competition for the table that could write the best by-law was won by Graham King and his wife who made a clever play on a recent council controversy involving manure storage! |
His worship the mayor in his parsley plot |
The menu for the evening was:
It was a lovely meal and, although it sounds odd, the parsley ice cream was surprisingly good. |
Parsley soup 4 cups of chopped parsley Put all ingredients except the cream and chopped almonds into a large pot and slowly bring to the boil. Simmer for fifteen minutes. Puree in a food blender and pass through a sieve. Return to pot and heat. Add the cream and the almonds. Correct seasoning and serve with crusty bread. Serves 6 |
 |
|---|
 |
Parsley ice cream Choose your favourite churned vanilla ice cream recipe and add chopped curly leaf parsley or slightly soften some pre-prepared ice cream and mix in the parsley and freeze. So, it is dead easy. The trick is not to chop the parsley too finely because the texture of it is very pleasant. Use plenty of parsley - the flavour is subtle so it needs some volume to rise above the sweetness of the ice cream. |
|---|
September 2 , 2005 A Sicilian Love Affair A packed house and our celebrity chef, Whiskey Gully Wines' property manager, Angelo Cutuli, served up a simple but really good Italian feast! He and wife Zina are well known for their great food so lots of their friends came. The table on which sweet-voiced Alexandra Derre sat won the competition for the best rendition of O Sole Mio Menu:
Firm fresh Italian ring bread was purchased and served with plump marinated green and black olives, along with chilli in olive oil and some extra virgin oil for dipping. The Minestrone soup was really good - simple but very tasty. (method follows). Right: Angelo Cutuli in the vineyard |
 |
The mixed grill was also good. Italian pork sausages with fennel that are a speciality of Mick, the local butcher and which we baked. We also had meatballs made of topside mince, flat leaf parsley, strong home grown garlic, breadcrumbs, grated pecorino cheese and beaten whole eggs to bind and seasoned to taste. They were cooked on the griddle between two fresh lemon leaves. Oil from the lemon leaves keeps the meat moist and the leaves prevent any burning. Finally, round steak beaten thin and coated with breadcrumbs, chopped green garlic and parmesan cheese then fried for a minute or two in a pan. This was served with two simple salads. The first was washed and broken cos lettuce leaves with cucumber slices dressed in olive oil and red wine vinegar. The vinegar we used was Angelo's own home brew and made from our own grapes. The second salad was chopped ripe tomatoes with extra virgin olive oil, garlic, dried oregano and salt. Angelo's wife Zina made the dessert: a three coloured cassata terrine made from ice cream, glace fruit and two types of chocolate - dark and mint. Zina also used a little green food colouring for the mint section. It was wonderful! |
Angelo's minestrone soup 2 desiree potatoes diced to 1cm cubes Place the cold water and poultry stock in a large pan and add potatoes, onions, beans and carrots. Bring this to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the pasta, return to the boil and and cook for around 12 minutes until pasta is al dente. Add garlic and peas and season to taste. It will need quite a lot of salt, so don't be shy. |
August 19, 2005 Luscious Pears What a wonderful night with celebrated Granite Belt artist carey-Lee Downs not only devising a wonderful menu but also producing some impromtu drawings that enthralled participants. Everyone had a go at drawing - first a bowl of pears and then our host Lee Williams. Brilliant stuff. Menu:
|
 |
 |
Pear and macadamia soup with grilled seafood Great recipe - chef managed to forget to add the macadamias on the night but it was brilliant anyway. The great thing about the pears is that they create a lovely consistency and body for the soup. The flavour needs to be built with a good fish stock. It took some fiddling to get it right but this is what we ended up with: |
|---|
2 onions, finely chopped Method: |
Carey Lee Downs at work |
|---|
(For our stock we used snapper and salmon heads with onion, carrots, celery, cardamoms, thyme, parsley, bay leaf, tarragon, whole white peppers and lightly salted. We poached the mussels for four minutes in a little extra dry vermouth and white wine over onions, garlic and celery. The stock from this was drained and added to the fish stock. We reserved the mussells for re-heating and we grilled the prawns and fish just before serving.) Sauté the onions in the oil over low to medium heat until they are soft and translucent but not coloured. Add the pears and sauté for 5 minutes. Add stripped peel, tamarind paste, coconut cream, stock, sambal oelek sauce and fish sauce and simmer for 20 minutes. Puree in a blender then return to pot and bring back to a simmer. Season to taste with sea salt, white pepper and lemon juice. Just before serving, add cream. To serve, pour the soup into bowls, arrange the seafood on top, garnish with crushed macadamias and the capsicum strips. (serves 6) |
Carey-Lee Pork This is adapted from Pork Frederick which uses figs or apples. We substituted pears to suit the theme. Figs are probably better but this was a refreshing innovation. We used some dried apples with the sauce. We plated the rolled pork with the boiled potatoes and sauce and served the vegetables in separate pots. Looks great and is rich without being too heavy. |
 |
|---|
Bring the apple juice to the boil, add the kirsch, then pour immediately over the dried figs or apples. Allow to stand for at least 30 minutes. Strain and reserve the liquid. Cut a deep pocket in the pork fillet being careful not to cut right through, and flatten it out on a board. Spread about 1 teaspoonful of the mustard along the length of the fillet and place half the pears on top of this. Place the brie slices over this. Roll up the fillet so that the filling is fully enclosed by the meat and secure the roll with heat resistent butchers elastic bands (ask your butcher for some. If you can't get any use toothpicks). Brown the pork on all sides in a pan and then place in a greased over dish and bake for about 20 minutes until pork is just cooked. Drain the pan, reserving the juices. Remove the bindings from the meat and stand it in a warm place while the sauce is being prepared. For the sauce: pour the reserved pan juices and the reserved apple juice into a pan and bring to the boil, stirring frequently and reduce by half. Add some additional mustard and the remainder of the pears. Serve with the pork. |
 |
Frangipani pear tart A really good dessert made 100% by Carey-Lee herself. We served it with grape berries and a dollop of mascarpone cheese. Pastry: |
|---|
Filling: |
Method: For the filling, cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl; add the eggs and beat until fluffy. Stir in ground almonds, ricotta cheese, lemon rind and juice. Beat until combined. Spoon filling into flan case and smooth over surface with palette knife. Arrange pear slices in a circular pattern on top of filling, pressing down slightly. Dust with icing sugar. Bake at 200C for 10 minutes then at 180C for further 35-40 minutes until light golden brown and firm in the centre. Cool before removing the flan ring. To serve, dust with extra sifted icing sugar. |
August 5, 2005 Nadia's Thai night Local journalist Nadia Cavallaro is a keen adventurer and a great supporter of the What's Cookin' Nights. She conjured up an excellent menu drawing on her experiences of a trip to Thailand. She is pictured here with Thai school children. |
 |
Owing to chef being totally absorbed by the lovely food Nadia devised, he managed to forget to take photos. However, the menu was:
It was a magnificent meal. We liked the fish cakes best. here's the recipe: Thai Fish Cakes Fish Cakes
Sauce
For the sauce put the water, sugar and vinegar into a pan and dissolve the sugar over low heat. Bring water to boil for five minutes. Away from heat vadd chilli powder, peanuts and cucumber. Cool and garnish with fresh coriander. For fish cakes, mix all ingredients in a bowl until combined. Form small, flat cakes about five centimetre diameter and place on flour dusted board. Heat peanut oil in a pan or wok and, when it is hot fry the fish cakes until they turn a golden brown (2 - 3 minutes). Drain on kitchen paper and serve hot with dipping sauce in a bowl to the side. (makes about 40) Thanks, Nadia and well done. |
July 22, 2005 The Best of British. Our esteemed MC, the inimitable Lee Williams, got a bit upset when Mon le president Jacques Chirac, suggested recently that British food was not quite up to Olympic standard. "I'll show 'em," he said. So, for $25 a head our guests enjoyed Leek and Potato Soup, Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding, and Eton Mess. What a treat it was. Sure, Mon Chirac, it may be simple, but it is tres bon. The winning limerick of the evening was Kerry Marie's: There was a young woman from Ealing Ah, what a night. The main course was straight forward, though chef performed magic with the roast rump by slotting the fat and pressing in garlic and rosemary. |
 |
Roast rump of beef 1 kg rump For Onion Sauce To prepare the roast beef, use a sharp knife to make half a dozen slits in the fat. Press garlic and rosemary leaves inside the slits. Season with salt and pepper. Brown joint on all sides in a saucepan with a little ghee or olive oil. Place in an oiled roasting container and roast at oven mark 5 for 50 minutes to 1 hour for rare or until the beef is cooked to your liking. Remove from oven and rest in a warm place for 10 to 15 minutes before slicing. For sauce, bring stock and wine to the boil in a heavy-based saucepan and reduce by half. In a separate pan melt the ghee or butter and sautee the chopped onion on medium heat until soft and golden. Add flour and, stirring often, cook for a further three minutes. Away from heat, pour in the stock and wine mixture and stir vigorously to incororate the onion and flour. Add quince paste, tomato paste, balsamic vinegar and return to heat. Simmer for one hour or more. Season with French sea salt and cracked pepper. Serve generous slices of beef topped with the onion sauce, accompanied by roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and green vegetables. Serves 4. Accompany with 2002 Whiskey Gully Wines Black Rod Shiraz |
Yorkshire pudding 90g self-rasing flour Sift the flours into a bowl, make a well in centre and whisk in the beaten eggs. Seaon to taste and stand at room temperature for at least 20 minutes. Using muffin pans, place a teaspoon or more of beef dripping into each and place in a hot oven until the dripping is a very liquid. Carefull pour the batter into each tin until three quarters of the way up. Place the pudd9ings in the oven and turn heat down to gas mark 4.5 (225 C). Bake for 25 minutes until puffed and brown. Makes 12 puddings
Speak to me, oh pud. |
Leek Soup 1.2 litres chicken stock Melt butter in a pan, add the vegetables and cook over low heat for a few minutes without browning. Transfer to a saucepan, add the flour and gradually stir in the stock. Add the nutmeg and seasoning. Simmer gently for about 40 minutes. Pureé in an electric blender. Add chopped thyme. Place in a clean pan and heat through. Just before serving stir in the cream and garnish with croutons. This soup may be served hot or chilled. We served it hot on a cold (very British) night. Serves 6 |
 |
Eton Mess A traditional Eton dish 1/2 kg strawberries Reserve a few small strawberries, chop the remainder and place in a bowl. Sprinkle the Kirsch over the berries, cover and chill for 2 – 3 hours. Whip the cream until it stands in soft peaks. Gently fold in the strawberries and their juices and the meringues. Spoon into a glass serving dish and decorate with the reserved strawberries just before serving. Serves 4 to 6 |
|---|
July 8, 2005 The first ever What's Cookin' night with featured cook Sam Marino of Stanthorpe's popular Samuel's Gourmet Food and Kitchenware deli. (Au$35 p.p) MC'd by the erudite and sartorial Lee Williams, the night was rollicking with 30 people joining in and commenting on the food, the music and global poverty. The winning food melody of the evening was: "My Samosa" (Alec Piovesan and Ann Taylor) closely followed by "In the Gravy" (Robert and Shane Johnson's table). |
|
The cook
Sam Marino is well known in Stanthorpe as the enthusiastic proprietor of Samuel’s Gourmet Foods and Kitchenware. He is a cook who loves to look in the pantry and see what’s there. “Then I love to make something up on the spot. That’s the way we were brought up,” explains Sam. “Good, simple ingredients and making something even better out of them.” Sam says that when he was young his family ate a lot of game: casseroles of rabbits and birds, for example. As well as traditional pasta dishes his mother used to do great things with lamb, veal, beef and pork. “Rolling it and stuffing it. That sort of thing.” What does Sam favour for desserts? “I like simple, sweet, fruity desserts,” says Sam. Ooh. So do we. |
 |
This dish was served with 2004 Whiskey Gully Wines Zing |
The Entrée Queensland Sea Scallops with Spinach and Ricotta Cappelletti For the cappelletti: |
|---|
Sift the flour onto a clean surface and make a well in the middle. Pour in the eggs and oil. Add a pinch of sea salt. Gently work flour into the liquid to form a crumbly dough. Kneed until a smooth dough forms. Set aside. While the dough rests, in a small mixing bowl mix the ricotta cheese, pine nuts, spinach and chopped parsley and season with white pepper and sea salt to taste. Rolling the pasta: Forming the cappelletti: Scallops and sauce: Heat the fish stock to simmering point in a pan. In a separate heavy frying pan, melt ghee over medium heat. Sautee scallops for about 15 seconds per side. Raise heat to high and add vermouth and white wine. Bring to the boil and poach for thirty seconds or until the scallops are just cooked. Away from heat, scoop out scallops with a slotted spoon and keep in a warm place covered with plastic wrap. For the sauce: Add the hot fish stock to the wine and juices in the pan and boil over high heat to reduce by half. Add cream, return to the boil and reduce a little more until sauce is a good consistency. Season to taste and add chopped tarragon. To serve: Place four or five cappelletti in the centre of each plate, top with four of the scallops and spoon a little of the sauce over. Garnish with a sprig of tarragon. (Serves six) |
The Main Roast lamb cutlets with salsa, creamy polenta, fennel and warm potato and beetroot salad For the warm salad (can be prepared in advance): |
This dish was served with 2002 Whiskey Gully Wines Black Rod Shiraz |
|---|
When ready to serve, gently toss the beetroot, potato and eggs together using a little of the beetroot juices as a garnish with some chopped flat-leaf parsley. Season to taste and put in a low oven for five minutes to warm. For salsa (can be prepared in advance): For the lamb: Place the racks in an oiled baking container, spread the garlic and thyme over and dob butter over the racks to keep moist while cooking. Bake in a pre-heated Mark 5 oven for 20 or 30 minutes (depending on whether you want rare or medium cutlets). Rest in a warm place for at least ten minutes before serving. Just before serving, separate the cutlets using a sharp knife. For fennel: Trim the fennel bulbs and slice them. Sautee in ghee over medium heat until just tender (10 – 15 minutes). Season to taste. For polenta: To serve: place a large spoonful of creamy polenta in centre of plate and arrange four lamb cutlets on top. Sprinkle a tablespoon of salsa on top. To one side place a portion of the sautéed fennel and to the other a scoop of the warm potato and beetroot salad. (Serves six) |
This dish was served with 2004 Whiskey Gully Wines Nectar |
The Dessert Warm Apple Cake with Butterscotch Sauce For cake: For brandy butterscotch sauce: Mascarpone cheese to serve |
|---|
Preheat oven to Gas mark 3 (moderate-slow). Grease and line base and sides of two 8cm x 25cm cake pans. Beat butter and sugar in small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, beating until combined between each addition. Stir in sifted flours and milk. Share the mixture between the prepared pans. Peel, core, halve and then slice the apples. Push the slices gently into surface of the cake mixture. Brush the tops with jam. Bake the cakes for about 40 minutes. When finished, stand for 10 minutes and turn out and place apple side up on a wire rack to cool. For the brandy butterscotch sauce: combine ingredients in small saucepan. Stir over heat without boiling until sugar dissolves. Bring to boil and reduce the heat to simmer, uncovered, for about 3 minutes or until mixture thickens. To serve: Place a slice of warm cake on each plate and drizzle with the brandy butterscotch sauce. Place a little mascarpone cheese on each plate. (Serves 8) |
