Sydney Food Diary

Cucina Italiana

We haven't had a guest post in quite some time so we invited our friend Tom aka Tam aka Thomas Murray to write us a little blurb about his recent experience at a Cucina Italiana cooking class. We had no idea what we were in for. Tom's words (many of them) follow.

Hands-on Italian Lunch

Luciana Sampogna’s cooking will take you 10 grams closer to God. Just don’t forget your apron, and don’t be late.

Perhaps more than anyone, Italians embrace the social aspect of food. So it’s fitting that we find ourselves not in the stainless-steel bowels of some big restaurant, but here in Luciana Sampogna’s own Balmain kitchen (along with about 12 other wanna-be chefs) like one big happy ‘familia’. We’re here for our Hands on Italian Lunch, which promises a ‘full menu celebrating all that is important in Italian food’ ($99 a head with wine, but bring your own apron!).

What the website doesn’t mention is the bonus four-hour floorshow. Petite but passionate, Luciana holds centre stage. With much hand waving and an engaging Italian lilt, she draws on years of experience to keep the class bubbling along. And we’re straight into it making pasta from scratch. Luciana takes great delight in pointing out that “The cookbooks have it all wrong, wrong. Don’t believe them”. Apparently it’s one egg for every 110g of flour, not 100g. The extra ten grams is kept to one side while kneading the dough and is only added should the temperature and humidity deem it necessary. “This is God’s flour”, she explains simply. The class shares a smile.

We’re up to our elbows in dough when the front door creaks open. Two late-comers skulk in. Luciana accosts them with rolling eyes and exasperated Italian mutterings. Hmm, this is awkward. We all look at our shoes and hope our new classmates have at least remembered their aprons. But like all great teachers, Luciana dishes up criticism and praise in equal measure. Soon enough she’s bouncing around the big wooden table, taking time to show each of us the perfect kneading technique “No, don’t use fingers, just the balls of the hand. Perfect!”

The front door creaks open again, but this time it’s just Luciana’s husband, back from a late-morning jog. Phew.

With our pasta dough resting “it must rest!” we’re ushered upstairs to the lounge room where a huge communal table looks through glass doors onto a deck and the Harbour Bridge beyond. We drink in the surroundings (along with a complimentary Campari) while Luciana takes over the cooking. First up it’s Crostini Toscano. As simple as any bruschetta but far tastier, it’s gobbled up by the hungry horde. And before you can say ‘Borlotti Beans’ Luciana has whipped up a Semifreddo al Caffe, which she stashes in the fridge to set.

In the meantime, it’s back down stairs and back to work. We’re introduced to the pasta machine and soon enough we’re twisting, folding and stuffing like Italian mamas. Among others, we’re shown how to shape Tortellini, Orecchiette and Strozzapreti. But Ravioli seems to be the favourite and before long we have mounds of the stuff, all filled with a pumpkin and ricotta mix.

With the ‘hands-on’ portion of the class over, we head upstairs again and relax with a glass of wine or two. Luciana makes a simple sauce of butter and sage for our freshly boiled pasta and passes out equal portions. Which much oohhhing and aahhhing we all agree that we’ve missed our true calling. But the feast isn’t over. Luciana dishes up some Chicken Scaloppine for the whole crowd. It’s a little sweet for my liking but apparently that’s the way it should be “Don’t believe those cookbooks”, we’re reminded.

After a delicious slice of Semifreddo the class draws to a close. As a parting gift we’re each given full written recipes for all the dishes we’ve experienced and an invitation to phone Luciana whenever we need help. So with full bellies above our belts and a few new skills under them, we waddle back home and deem the day a unanimous success. Perfecto!

How to order food in a restaurant

These little nuggets can be a big help if you just don't quite know how to order a meal when you are oot and aboot...

"When you're out to eat with friends and family, it can be challenging to decide what to order off the menu. There are often too many choices on the menu, everything sounds good, nothing sounds good, you're unfamiliar with a particular type of cuisine, you'd like have what that woman over there is having but you don't know what that is, etc. etc.

Luckily, a group of authors has recently released a series of pop science books focused on solving this particular problem"

On kottke.org

Summer Seafood School

The Sydney Seafood School summer sessions are up and include some interesting classes including a multi-class stopover by David Thompson and a class with the most est-cellent Peter Doyle.

I know you might think that they are for tourists, but if you haven't done one of these great classes you really are missing out on a good time and some good food. We also find that most of the dishes from the classes we have done are user-friendly enough to both reproduce and expand on.

Incidentally, we are doing a class tonight with Peter Kuruvita from Flying Fish.

Cooking at Nilgiri's

We mentioned way, way, way back that we couldn't wait to do a cooking class at Nilgiri's.

Well, we finally found time (and available class spaces) and were blown away by how much we learned from the charming Ajoy Joshi about spices, the history and technique involved in the food and even about India in general.

This class is hands off, but noses and eyes on - as the details and differences are carefully explained spices are sampled, sniffed and the development of dishes are closely watched ingredient by ingredient. We found the time (4hrs!) went by very quickly (we were scared) and now we are really keen to do another (likely Hyderabadi or Goan).

In our class (Southern Indian Vegitarian Delights) we learned to make (and ate) the following:

Poondu Rasam - A Southern Indian lentil broth with garlic and peppercorns
Paneer Bhurji - the famous Indian cottage cheese in a sauce of cumin and coriander
Pooris - to go with the above
Dal Mahkni - beans and lentils and yum
Vegetable Nilgiri Khurma - Seasonal vegetables cooked with coconut milk and a green herb 'masala' of fennel seed, mint, green chillies curry leaves and coriander
and
Takkali Sadam - a homestyle tomato flavored spiced rice

We highly recommend these classes to anyone who is interested in Indian cooking. "Anha datha sukhi bhava!"

Lunch and learn - Mahjong

Starting this weekend, for three weekends in August (14th-15th, 21st-22nd, 28th-29th), Mahjong Room in Surry Hills is serving up PlayLunch - a game of mahjong and dim sum lunch.

It costs a lean, flat $35 and runs from 12-3pm. Beginners are welcome and encouraged and a mahjong set will be provided (you can bring your own if you are an enormous nerd and don't mind us laughing at you).

Bookings need to be made in groups of 4, 8, or 12 people only, (it takes 4 to mahjong) and the sooner you book the better as space would have to be pretty limited in this little resto.

(We are keen to go next weekend, the 21st or 22nd. Who's up for it? Estee? Dani? Dan will you be back?)

Gravlax

Maybe it's because we are Canadian (and as such have had lots of access to good quality salmon) or maybe it's just because it's so easy to make and so damn tasty, but gravlax has become a bit of a comfort food for us.

Here's what you need:

1 Big slab of salmon filet, skin on (about a kilo or more)
1 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp fennel seed (crunched)
2 tsp juniper berry (crunched)
2 tsp groud coriander
1/2 tsp 5 spice or ground cloves
1/2 bunch of dill, chopped

and here's what you do:

1) Slap the salmon, skin down on a plate.
2) Bash the fennel and juniper berry in a mortar and pestle.
3) Mix in the rest of the spices and the salt 'n sugar.
4) Pile the mixture on top of the salmon fillet.
4.5) Add the dill to the pile.
5) Wrap it all up in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 days.
6) Remember that waiting is what makes it taste so good.
7) Scrape the mixture off and slice thinly on a bit of an angle.

Season to taste

"How many times have you read a recipe instruction that says: “Season to taste,” and wondered what exactly that means?"

The amazing French food resource that is A La Carte tries to explain.

Mark Jensen @ SSS

Vietnamese is the hottest food in Sydney right now and the hottest place for contemporary Vietnamese is Red Lantern Restaurant in Surry Hills. (Well, Cochin is pretty hot with us too but thats another post)

So naturally, when we saw that chef Mark Jensen was sharing some of his passion and a few of his dishes at the Sydney Seafood School we signed up straight away.

The demonstration part of the class was more interactive than than usual and Mark chatted freely as the dishes came together. It was truly an added bonus to hear about his recent travel experiences in Vietnam and although we didn't learn anything very new in terms of technique the recipes seemed unique and approachable.

Lovely ling fish marinated in turmeric and dill served up on vermicelli with fresh herbs and light and lively crab herb and green mango salad in a tamarind sauce really stood up to our group's amateur technique. They were straightforward, fairly easy, and best of all tasty.

Cooking classes at Nilgiri's

We are very excited at the prospect of learning to cook some of the uniquely wonderful Indian food which we ate at Nilgiri's.

There are lots of different courses on offer and the classes are carried out right in the back of their new St. Leonard's restaurant. We hope to take one soon and review it here so watch this space.

There is no online booking but the form is available for download here.

Chilli Crabby

Since Michelle is in Singapore eating fantastic chilli crab at places like No Signboard Seafood, I decided to venture down to the Sydney Seafood School at the Sydney Fish Market and take the chilli crab cooking class.

The class was structured (as most are at SSS) in two parts. The first part was a demonstration in a classroom setting which taught us how to work with the fresh crab, construct the sauce and of course how to cook it. The demo sent delicious aromas flying around the room and got my appetitite going.

The second part we split into groups and got down, dirty and hands on. Cleaning and portioning all 12 of our blue-swimmers was a snap and after a hot bath in some delicious sauce and herbs they came out a bold, fiery orange.

My group found it very difficult to decide which of the 2 types was our favorite: shallot and ginger with lively white peppercorns or the original chilli crab. On that issue, the jury is still out eating but the class overall was definately a winner.

If you haven't already taken a class at Sydney Seafood School, I whole heartedly recommend taking this one. We also greatly enjoyed our Tapas class and a class on Chinese seafood with Tam Wing Chung from Ying's Restaurant.