Well it’s been far longer than I was hoping before I got this posted. But here it is none the less, it is actually a bit less of an article than I was hoping to put up but circumstances has forced my hand somewhat. Circumstances being my camera shitting itself before I could get any really good pictures of the cooking process which was really the part I was going to focus on. But not to worry because in the end a nice dinner was had with two very good friends who seemed to enjoy themselves or at the very least are too polite to point out the flaws in my execution. So, marron was to be the king of the ingredients of this particular menu with the other courses (in my mind at least) working to complement and support the central flavour. For those wondering what marron is it’s a freshwater crayfish looking critter with a very soft and sweet meat and much more subtle flavour than the usual saltwater variety. These particular marron were purchased in Margaret River and transported back live so they could be consumed at peak freshness.
The menu in full was meant to be five courses, however the end of the fourth spelled the end of our will to continue eating as I’m still coming to grips with portion size. The first course was a simple assortment of oysters that I’ve wanted to put together for some time. There were four varieties which included;
- Sliced chilli, freshly diced ginger and squeezed lime juice.
- Red wine vinegar and spring onions finely diced.
- Mirin sauce and chives.
- Lemon juice, salt and capers.
I think these worked reasonably well with the chilli ginger and lime being the most powerful of the four owing to the incredibly hot chilli that was used and the fact it wasn’t de-seeded. My favourite was probably the lemon, salt and capers though the mirin sauce was quite nice. After the oysters the plan was for something a little different but still giving a seafood flavour to link back to the menu’s central ingredient. I love scallops but have never actually cooked one myself before. What I ended up doing was a very simple single seared scallop in butter and a hint of garlic served on the shell with a wedge of lemon. To go with this I thought that a simple yet elegant white tomato mousse would be perfect finished off with some roe for garnish. The idea for the tomato mouse came from a site called The Chef’s Pencil which I highly recommend to anyone remotely interested in cooking. The execution for this dish was very bad as there was far too much garlic in the mix (FAR too much, anyone who knows me knows how much I love garlic but this was making my eyes water) and too much gelatine. The process to collect a clear tomato juice is time consuming so that wasn’t an option but some careful folding of the mixture into more cream and crème fraîche seemed to save the dish and it provided a nice subtle blend of herb flavours and aromatics to the sweet scallop, at least I think so.
Through these two courses we sat on glasses of Riesling and a bottle of sparkling white that Serena brought with her despite being told repeatedly she DIDN’T need to bring anything. Unfortunately a couple of weeks have passed since the dinner and I can’t really recall much about these two bottles. I remember them being good, especially the sparkling (Jacobs Creek I think) being nicely rounded and easy drinking. I mention the wine now because we are about to move onto the main course, which is where I brought out the bottle of chardonnay I picked up Margaret River. This was an excellent chardonnay, and I say that not being a big fan of white wine in general, especially chardonnay. This particular bottle was picked up at Witchcliffe Estate which is the winery connected to the marron farm so it’s probably no surprise that their wine paired with the meal so wonderfully. I don’t think I can really do the wine justice in a line or two here but it was excellent with lots of fruit and long finish. Serena pointed out that while drinking it with the marron it seemed to leave a very creamy soft taste on the back of the palette which was a fantastic way of describing it as I was struggling to put into words the wonderful combination of tastes after a mouthful of marron and a good swig of wine. Well enough dwelling on that, if you get to Margaret River and you like your whites it would be well worth stopping my Witchcliffe as memory of the tasting was that it was all very good, but the chardonnay was very special.
Onto the main course, the inspiration behind the whole meal. I knew I would be coming back from Margaret River with some marron, and I knew I wanted to try them in crepes, but that was about it really. Once I got back I looked up some recipes online for inspiration but failing to see marron and crepes come back in the same Google hit I went and tried lobster and crayfish, the better known big cousins. I found this hit almost straight away and decided that it wouldn’t be the inspiration, it would be what I wanted try. It seemed like such an interesting and unique way of approaching such a revered and subtle meat that I had to try it, so I did. The flavours worked wonderfully together, hazelnut and vanilla adding even more sweetness to the protein while chilli and onion balanced it out and the crepe provided a nice vehicle for collecting as much sauce to indulge in with each bite. At the last minute I thought there was something missing from the whole meal in general with regards to texture so the crepes were served with a crispy noodle salad. I think it turned out reasonably well, but there were definitely areas for improvement. For one, the crepes were too thick and came out a bit rubbery, but that would not have been such an issue if the sauce wasn’t a bit too runny and bland. The intense flavours were washed out by the addition of too much cream and too much nutmeg was used which masked the hazelnut to an extent. Also the noodle salad didn’t turn out as well as hoped with there being too much oil on the greens and the noodles ranging from a little undercooked to burnt and everything in between. This is where controlled portion sizes went out the door as well with there being far too much protein in each crepe, too much sauce over each crepe and too much of the salad served with it. But from here we moved to dessert, which was for me the most fun to cook.
I’ve wanted to do poached pears for a long time now, specifically poached in red wine. In and of itself this does not immediately lend itself to a seafood menu. However this wasn’t any ordinary seafood, it was marron and it given the sweet taste of the meat and its smooth texture, a suitably creamy and sweet dessert was made with poached pears giving lots of sweetness and baked ricotta from Margaret River. Instead of a red wine I chose to base the poaching mix on a rose I found which looked nice and fruity and all in all I think it turned out well. Once the pears were nice and soft they were pulled out and I added a healthy amount of boysenberry mead liqueur to the pot. I really can’t say enough about this mead liqueur, or anything from Blackwood Meadery for that fact. In particular any of the liqueurs and the Old Mead Brew is worth the drive to pick up but the table wines are also excellent. Back to the point. This kick of boysenberry and honey was what I wanted to bring a touch of the south west to this dessert (while the baked ricotta may be from Margaret River it can easily be picked up here and isn’t particularly distinctive of the region). So in the pot there is lots of butter, sugar, wine and cinnamon, into this goes the liqueur and it’s good to sit there and simmer and infuse while it reduces into thick syrup. It didn’t take long to reduce to half the original volume and so it was time to serve up layers of ricotta and pear each given a generous helping of the syrup. Add to this a quenelle and the dessert was done. I have to say I probably enjoyed the preparation of this dish the most, it was simple enough to do while entertaining and it was fun. As for how it was, well I thought it was fantastic. Having said that it was really the kind of dessert that I love, fruity and creamy at the same time and with a good sweet dessert sauce. The plan was to have the bottle of chardonnay finished by this stage and move onto some of the traditional mead liqueur to have with dessert but there was still ample wine left from the previous course and it was so good we thought it deserved to be drunk in the one sitting.
So that was the meal, and I wish I had some photos to put up here but that’s alright, hopefully I’ve managed to paint a picture of the night here. At the very least I hope that I got across it was a lot of fun and there are some interesting things that can be done after a trip to the South-West. I don’t think I mentioned the mysterious 5th course, but that was a cheese platter and not really worth mentioning beyond that. My writing “style” tends to be a rambling stream of conscious thing so I’m not sure what I’ve covered and what I haven’t.
I’m not too sure what the next article will be as things have been catching up with me a bit. I had a really good birthday celebration which included a good meal, a better beer and the best cigar I’ve had to date (bold call, but damn it was good). Then there were my recent trips to Luxe bar which have been fantastic and a nice veal dish I prepared one night to see if I could. So I’m not too sure what’s coming next, or when it will be up, especially since I want to make this page a little prettier first but more content is on its way. Also, these are little more than first draft’s maybe a run over with Words spell checker if you’re lucky so sorry for the unrefined nature of the posts.
-Kevin
