Lady Lunchalot

In the red corner is 1+1 Dumpling Noodle, a member of the Footscray culinary elite - a Chinese food heavyweight, if you will. With thousands upon thousands of handmade dumplings under its belt, and a rope of noodle long enough to stretch to outer Mongolia and back, this Xingjian noodle house has proven itself to be a stalwart member of the cutthroat Footscray food scene.

In the blue corner is the newcomer to the ring, Spicy Bar. They’re threatening to take over 1+1 Dumpling Noodle’s monopoly on Xianjian food in this neighborhood. With 1+1 moving down the road to larger premises, Imelda and the Spicy Bar team have taken over their old shopfront in the Footscray market, and they’re offering the same style spicy, meaty, hearty Xianjian food fron the heart of western China.

Is this town big enough for the two of them?

Last night I stopped in at Footscray on the way home, expecting to find my usual beloved 1+1 Dumpling Noodle in its usual place. Instead, there was Spicy Bar. They weren’t quite open yet, but were preparing the place for their launch on Saturday and were road testing a new chef. Imelda welcomed me inside and decided that I would be their guinea pig (I loooooove being a food guinea pig!).

I started with the barbecued lamb skewers. I only ordered one, out of curiosity (and because I looove those charcoally grilled hunks of meat) but three somehow appeared on my plate. They had that beautiful smoky charcoal flavour with an excellent kick of chilli, as well as a few other levels of Asian spices which shall are destined to remain a mystery to such a devoutly European cook as yours truly. Imelda was worried they were a little too salty, but they were perfect to me. The hunks of meat at 1+1 are bigger and meatier than Spicy Bar’s, but as an entree to what inevitably becomes a huge meal, smaller chunks were fine.

Next up was the lamb with noodles. Imelda asked me if I’d like more veggies or more meat, which was a fantastic question, as I had been neglecting my greens for the past few days. I was also asked how spicy I would like it, and I was able to show off the Chinese (Cantonese? Mandarin) that O had picked up on his travels a few years ago and passed on to me. (”Bu yeow” means that you don’t want something.)

It was the perfect level of heat and the meat-noodle-veg ratio was spot on. I will even go so far as to say that it was less oily than 1+1 Dumpling Noodle’s lamb and noodle dishes.

Yes, I know it’s a big call.

As any dyed-in-the-wool dumpling lover would, I took it upon myself to conduct a taste test. Imelda tells me that their specialty is dumplings, while 1+1 really focuses on the noodles.

That sounded like a challenge if I have ever heard one!

I was pretty full, but Imelda was insisting that I try them, and who was I to refuse my gracious host? Their chief dumpling maker whipped up a batch of the best pan-fried seafood dumplings that I have ever had.

There. I said it.

In comparison with the competition, the dumpling skin was finer and the seafood was really fresh (I got the occassional crack of a teensy shrimp as I was eating them). The best part was the crunchy part of the skin where they had been sitting in the pan. And they weren’t oily at all. Though in all fairness, they could have been cooked for a smidge longer, as there were a few that were slightly underdone.

And the even better part is that I couldn’t eat them all so Imelda packed up my leftovers to take home. So there’s more for me to enjoy tonight!

After that meal it looks like 1+1 Dumpling Noodle is facing some stiff competition from the new kids on the block. And the bell rings on Saturday morning, when Spicy Bar officially opens its doors for the first time.

Mankind has seen the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Cultural Revolution, the Sexual Revolution and the Digital Revolution. Each of which has had a profound impact on humankind. And each of which pales in comparison to the revolution that has taken place in our kitchen in the past few weeks. I have come to refer to it as “The KitchenAid Revolution”.

Not only did Jeremy and Quim fly all the way from Barcelona to see O and I get married a few weeks ago, but they also gave us a killer wedding present.

A KitchenAid Mixer.

I have been building a long term fetish interest in this appliance for the past six months, even going so far as to carry a KitchenAid brochure around with me in my handbag so I could drool over the pictures read about these fascinating appliances.

The boys from Barcelona surprised me at the hairdresser the day before the wedding, turning up with a bottle of champagne, some brie and crackers, and a beautiful brand spanking new, shiny red KitchenAid mixer.

Wow.

I managed to take it for a spin on Saturday, whipping up a quick sponge cake (with the Berry Berry Black Cherry Jam I’d made the night before). I moved through the gears slowly at first, watching the beater slide effortlessly through the batter like Ian Thorpe winning an Olympic final, or a Ferrari snaking along the clifftops of the Cote d’Azur.

Then I got cheeky, slipping on the whipping attachment and sliding it up from second gear into third, my pulse racing as I pulled the lever into fourth.

By now my the motor was really revving, the whip circling relentlessly through the batter over and over and over. No sponge cake of mine has ever had that much air!

Biting my lip, I slipped it into fifth to see what this baby could really do.

My heart was racing as I watched the batter thicken and stiffen before my eyes. Ribbons of mixture lay on the surface for a split second before the beater came around again to submerge it as another ribbon would appear in its wake.

Holding my breath, I pulled the lever back to neutral and the KitchenAid lulled into silence, the only trace of the revving machinery that had been roaring only a moment before was my throbbing pulse and sweaty palm resting on the machine’s warm red neck.

Needless to say, it was pretty hot stuff. And my morning’s kitchen shenanigans resulted in the perfect sponge cake for the girl’s lunch that afternoon!

Then today, I found myself home alone again, and could hear the KitchenAid beckoning me from the kitchen bench. I decided to test the dough function and make a bready-pizzary-sausage-shaped creation that I’d been imagining for ages.

I started with a fairly basic bread dough (flour, yeast, water) and added a healthy splash of olive oil. The KitchenAid was a maestro with the dough hook, and I couldn’t help thinking how much hard work it would have been to knead the dough by hand. I let it rise in the bowl for a couple of hours (the kitchen was nice and warm because I was also making lasagne), knocked it back and kneaded again for a couple of minutes. Then I rolled it out to a big rectangle and added some salami, provolone, anchovies, whole roast garlic cloves, fresh basil leaves, a few hard boiled eggs and a smear of tomato paste in a big red stripe down the middle of the dough sheet.

Next I rolled it up into a long sausage, shaped it in a circle and popped the roll into my biggest springform pan to rise near the warm oven for another couple of hours. When it was ready I baked it in the oven with my lasagnes for about 30 minutes.

The bread was perfect - definitely the best bread I have ever made with a fine loose crumb and a crunchy crust.

The KitchenAid has certainly lived up to its reputation. My kitchen will never be the same again.

Many thanks to the Barcelona Boys! Muchos gracias!

It’s arrived! It’s arrived! It’s arrived!

*Ahem*

Allow me to explain. Several months ago I took part in Blogging By Mail, a food bloggers event run by The Happy Sorceress at Dispensing Happiness. Food bloggers from around the world register with The Happy Sorceress and send a food parcel to another food blogger somewhere else in the world. I sent my package off to Europe, however the person who was meant to send one to me vanished mysteriously. The Happy Sorceress felt bad that I missed out, so she put together the mother of all food pacakges and sent it to me via seamail.

Needless to say, it took a while to get to the other side of the planet, and with all the excitement of the wedding and the honeymoon, I forgot it was coming, so it was a great surprise to receive it.

But it’s here now and it’s wonderful! The Happy Sorceress said that she’d tried to give me a taste of American life, so there were lots of sweets and sugary stuff, many of which I had heard about on TV and in movies (yay US cultural imperialism) but had never tasted. There were so many things in the package that I won’t list them all, but here are some of my favourites:

• Junior Mints (These made an appearance in an old Seinfeld episode, and are pretty yum)
• Animal Crackers, yes, like the old Shirley Temple song
• A CD of The Happy Sorceress’s favourite cooking music
• An assortment of Wonka sweets
• A can of chipotles, wich I opened to taste and am wishing I hadn’t as we will be having a bbq for new years eve and would have been great in a marinade
• BBQ sauce
• Pappy’s Sassafras tea Concentrate (this one intrigues me)
• Tang
• Milk Duds
• Tapatio Hot Sauce
• Some American food mags
• Annie’s Bunny pasta (Macaroni cheese)
• Taffy (I have no idea what this one is. Sounds like the name of a cartoon character if you ask me).
• A cute little handbag-shaped notepad.
• Some lavender aromatherapy spray.

So to the Happy Sorceress I say a big resounding THANK YOU from Australia! Your generosity has touched my heart. It’s a beautiful thing to receive such a thoughtful present from a total stranger on the other side of the planet. I’ll keep you posted on the creations I make with your gift.

Thought I might show you some pics from the reception. These were kindly taken by the lovely Kathryn and Tim. Thanks guys!

And many thanks to The Provincial Hotel, in particular to Kelli. The staff at The Provincial produce some truly outstanding food, and it was so wonderful for us to be able to have our wedding in such a beautiful room, with such delicious food, great service and a fantastic wine list. I can’t overstate how highly I recommend The Provincial for any functions you might have, or even to pop in for dinner. (And no, I did not receive any kickbacks for saying this!)

Crumbed calamari entree

Lamb shanks (O’s favourite)

Prosciutto-wrapped chicken breast

Our beautiful wedding cake from my favourite bakery, The French Lettuce in Carlton. It was a chocolate mud cake and it was soooo beautiful. I’m still getting compliments about the cake weeks later!

Oh my goodness.

O and I are a little different after our return from a week in New Zealand. Firstly, we are now Mr and Mrs, though to be fair, that change took place the day before we left for the land of the long white cloud. We are both substantially more relaxed than when we left; the type of relaxed that only a week’s worth of mountain air can bring. And of course, we are both substantially rounder and softer than when we left!

New Zealand food is incredible! I don’t understand why it isn’t marketed as a serious food destination. O and I ate like hobbits for a solid week - we basically grazed and grazed (breakfast, morning tea, then elevenses, followed by lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper - you get my drift) until we had to be rolled onto the plane home.

My wonderful husband (!) had organised for a private food tour around Christchurch for the first day of our trip. Food writer Mavis Airey took the two of us on a personal tour of a number of producers in the area. I highly recommend this tour if you are ever in the region. Mavis is a fantastic guide, and took us to places we never would have found on our own.

First stop: A Cracker of a Nut
Ever thought about how a walnut comes to arrive in your Christmas nut bowl? Neither had I. But we found out anyway at the Cracker of a Nut walnut farm, where they grow and process walnuts into walnut paste, oil, and chutney. Nothing goes to waste here. The shells are ground up to use as an abrasive cleaner for machinery, and the pathways into the factory were layered with walnut shell gravel!

We were able to taste the difference between varieties of walnuts, including the unique bright NZ Purple walnut, which is actually from Europe, but they claimed and renamed it anyway.

Giesen’s Wine
No food tour to New Zealand is complete without a trip to a winery. We stopped in at Giesen’s for a tasting where I was reintroduced to Riesling. It made me realise I had been drinking Marlborough sauvignon Blancs for so long, I’d forgotten what other white wines tasted like! So I’ve now ruled our sauv blanc from my repertoire for a while.

She’ll be apples
After wine tasting came apple juice tasting! We stopped in at Dunsandel Store to taste some single variety apple juices. These apples are grown on the premises and milled within 24 hours of picking. We tasted Royal Gala, Cox’s Orange and Braeburn, and each one was as unique as a bottle of wine. We also tasted some cider made from Kingston Black’s that really had a kick.

This was the lunch stop. For my first official New Zealand meal, I couldn’t go past the roast lamb, served with braised capsicum and potato gratin and O had an exquisite piece of pork belly with a soy and star anise sauce, rice and bok choy. We also tasted some prosciutto from some pigs who lived on the orchard and lived on a diet of apple pulp from the juicing. Mmmm… appley pork…

Airborne Honey
From single variety apple juice on to single variety honey. Airborne makes honeys derived from single variety flowers. No, they don’t have tracking beacons on every bee. They simply test the pollen type of each sample of honey and if it is over a certain percentage from one flower it classifies as being single variety. We compared nodding thistle honey with clover honey, thyme honey, rata honey and of course New Zealand’s famous Manuka honey. And of course, we left with a few samples which we were happy customs was ok with! Mmmm…

Aquahaven
My favourite stop was Aquahaven, a processing plant for eel, salmon and mussels. We saw how the fish is turned into pate, smoked salmon, fresh salmon. We say trays and trays of eel being smoked in huge smoking cabinets. I’d never tasted eel before, but I definitely will again. It had the texture of a dense fish, with a delicious light smoky flavour.

I learned a tip on filleting salmon too. The best salmon to debone is a couple of days old, not fresh from the water. Apparently it makes a better shaped fillet if the rigor mortis has had a chance to set in before the fish is cut up.

Billy Goats Gruff
Gruff Junction was the home of a herd of well fed goats who produce the milk for a range of goats cheeses. This is a father and daughter operation, with dad experimenting with yoghurt and milk products, and daughter looking after the cheese manufacturing.

Hot stuff, Japanese style
I’d never been much of a wasabi fan. In fact wasabi and pepper are pretty much the only foods I don’t eat (besides offal, but that’s another story). So the idea of a wasabi farm as our last stop didn;t really ring my bells at first.

However we learned that most sushi-shop style wasabi (the type that comes in little tubes with your sushi) is usually mostly horseradish rather than actual wasabi. We also learned how to control the heat from wasabi - breathe in through your nose when it gets too hot. This trick really helped me enjoy the wasabi and ham sandwiches a lot more than I usually would.