Tomato » Ingredients & produce

Contribute to the open source restaurant

Ed — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:37:20 +0000

Jeff Jarvis (via NYT) is twittering and blogging about an open source restaurant:

“I twittered that I was having fun writing the chapter in my book about what a restaurant run on Googlethink might look like (besides being decorated in gaudy primary colors)…
…I have lots of ideas about an open and transparent restaurant operation, experience, and community. If you have any ideas you’d like to share, please join in.”

I reckon we’ve had open source and transparent wine lists in Australia for sometime. It’s called BYO. And it is coming back. For example, BYO is available every night at Esposito at Toofey’s and Thursday nights at Libertine for a bargain $10. St Jude’s Cellars is doing something similar with its attached bottle shop where $15 is added to the retail price of the wine drunk at the restaurant.

Wine lists cause a lot of confusion with restaurants charging roughly 2.5 times wholesale price sometimes for the very stuff we drink at home. In Nobu’s case the mark-up is three times.

What about an open source menu? Could that work on a BYO model too? Diners turn up with ingredients, possibly home caught or grown, and leave it to the chef. Diners pool ingredients with other tables.

Perhaps, the restaurant has an iphone app which will identify what all the other diners are bringing to the table at the request of the chef. Each diner simple pays $10 for each course for preparation.

As with the internet the chef has to deal with a lot of crap.

Personally, I’ll turn up with a locally sourced Perigord truffle, some Tuna (but unlike Nobu I can’t source otoro direct from Port Lincoln), eggs from my neighbours hens and beets and salad leaves from my inner city veggie garden.

What will you bring and what do you want your open source restaurant to be like?

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Caravan Cafe serves the best burger in country Victoria

Ed — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:27:24 +0000

The Caravan Cafe in Seymour doesn’t look like much. And it really used to be a caravan when Stella Salakowski opened it back in 1956 after arriving from Poland a few years earlier.
Salakowski sadly died on Mother’s Day this year, aged 94. Her last visit to the cafe was in March in a wheelchair and she wanted to get up and help. I was going to say “flip” burgers that that would debase her artform, the one she performed under she retired at the age of 90 after a stroke.
The actual recipe for the pattie is so secret that even Salakowski’s priest wasn’t allowed into the room when she mixed it. She passed the recipe to her daughter Barbara Zegir, who at the age of 62 has worked in the cafe since she was ten years old and is now taking one year off.
From today Jenny Dee, who is related by marriage, is keeper of the secret.

This burger is the stuff of legend. I know people who would just drive to Seymour on a Saturday night to eat one or two. The key to this burger is in the balance of the egg, pineapple, cheese and pattie - plus the bun. The bun itself has a crisp slightly caramelised crust (not as much as the excellent Rockpool wagyu burger, the best in Melbourne).
The meat pattie is not to large or small. And that’s a key point. There are a lot of people out there who equate good with size and they are wrong. This burger leaves you wanting more rather than wondering when you will get to the end of it.
At $7 the burger with the lot gives Neil Perry’s $17 wagyu a run for its money. In reality the two burgers are completely different beasts eaten in completely different contexts.
So when you are driving up the Hume Highway go straight past the first service centre you see. Don’t even think of Maccas. Turn off and drive through the main street of Seymour. The cafe is on your left by the pub.
It is a five minute diversion that is worth the effort.
Friday lunchtime we had to queue behind eleven people. Be prepared.

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A new manifesto for meat eaters (and Bloggers meet version V)

Ed — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:46:48 +0000

Mark Bittman makes a lot of sense on the need not to give up meat but eat less. In the New York Times (via Lifehacker) he outlines a manifesto for eating less meat on which I’ve put my own spin below.

It’s also worth checking out Bittman on the excellent TED Talks.

Meanwhile, with Confessions of a Food Nazi we’re planning the vegan/vegetarian bloggers meet. I think we have six coming already.

Where: Lentil as Anything Abbotsford Convent. Afterwards at Handsome Steve’s House of Refreshment.
When: 12.30pm Saturday 26th July

1. Forget the protein thing.
Vegetables have protein too. Ditto nuts etc.

2. Buy less meat
Easy. Meat is becoming too expensive. $38 for an Organic chicken? $30 for a regular leg of lamb?

3. Get it out of the center of the plate.
Make vegetables the centre and meat a condiment, a treat.

4. Buy more vegetables, and learn new ways to cook them.
That’s the tricky bit. Try Antonio Carluccio’s Vegetables.

5. Make non-meat items as convenient as meat.
Vegetables are actually very easy to prepare. And grow.

6. Make some rules.
I’ll have salad instead of a burger one lunchtime this week.

7. Look at restaurant menus differently.
Tricky. Most are meat or fish based.

Any tricks or tips? Are you coming?

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First defrost your giant squid

Ed — Thu, 01 May 2008 00:01:07 +0000

Photo: Christina Simons
As the legend has it, at least the one I read, lobster a l’armoricaine was originally from the Cotes- d’Armor in Brittany. With time the name was bastardised to from armoricaine to amoricaine and finally americaine. That’s cultural imperialism for you. Now most of us don’t have the pocket for nearly a kilo of lobster in these troubled times. Instead and to celebrate the slow defrosting of the giant celaphapod by some New Zealanders (long term readers will remember that last time I did this was when Japanese scientists caught a giant squid) I thought I’d share my recipe for squid a l’armoricaine.
Remember it is my philosophy not to give long lists of ingredients and detailed quantities. The idea is to cook by taste and feel. For two people about 400kgg of squid is plenty. You’ll also need some good olive oil, an onion, a couple of ripe tomatoes, garlic, tarragon and parsley (fresh, of course), white wine, cayenne pepper, lemon and salt/pepper. If you are a wimp buy squid rings. If you are a real cook, buy a fresh monster from the deep. But you don’t want one that will make rings the size of tractor tyres.
If it’s fresh it should be purple and speckled. And you’ll probably suspect something if it has been lying around for days under a webcam defrosting - it will have a very acrid,fishy ammonia-like smell.
The book I have says to stun it by giving it a sharp blow on the head with a heavy instrument - I hope it’s not a giant. Ah, I see now that was for lobster so quite possibly the squid will already have been dispatched by the fishmonger. She (or he) who may also offer to prepare it for you. If not dispatched, avoid the snappy beak (which makes a great helmet) and I recommend protective glasses to avoid ink squirting into the eyes. As several minutes wrestling a la Jules Vern, strip the insides out of the squid (after ensuring it’s dead, of course). Cut below the eyes to remove the tentacles and remove the beak. Clean out the inside of its “head” and strip off the speckled skin. Wash thoroughly.Finely dice the onion and melt with crushed garlic in the olive oil until sweet and soft. Meanwhile, score the tomatoes at each end and blanche in boiling hot water. Peel, remove the pips and slice finely. Slice the squid into rings and seal in the pan. Add the tomato and finely chopped parsley and tarragon.Add a dash of white wine and a pinch of cayenne. Reduce for a few minutes, add more parsley and serve on a bed of rice. Enjoy with something like a Muscadet or an Anjou Rosé - that’s the stuff we almost always drank in Brittany.

adapted from original post September 2005

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Wagyu tasting offer for bloggers at Jamon Sushi

Ed — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:31:21 +0000

Wagyu really is wonderful. It is also expensive and one of the most mistreated meats in Australia.
Possibly the worst way to eat it is an a hunking great steak; possibly the best way is to prepare it with care in small quantities, even as sushi.
Charles Greenfield, the owner and chef at Jamon Sushi in South Yarra, has probably worked with more different types of wagyu than anybody else in Australia. And there are more pure and mixed blood wagyu herds here than you’d believe.
Once or twice a year he holds special wagyu weeks. Next week on Wednesday 30th April there is an opportunity for up to eight bloggers to sample what he does at his bar. Usually the cost is $250 but he is prepared to offer a slightly parred down menu for $120 plus drinks.

This time around it is Sher wagyu with a fat marbling score of 9+.
Although this seems expensive it is a bargain bearing in mind the price of the meat. A while ago I was lucky enough to sample his work with Wagyu. You can see here what I wrote on it for The Australian and the pictures here on this blog.
Sitting at the bar as Greenfield prepares the dishes is an educational experience. I’ve probably learnt more about Japanese food eating here than anyhere else although Greenfield’s approach is not traditional.
You’ll find yourself comparing the textures and tastes of different cuts, cooked and raw. And you’ll get to smell that special unmistakable smell of wagyu cooking.
If you are interested let me know in comments. First come first served. And I’m at the front of the queue, which means there are seven places left. And yes, I am paying my way rather than taking a free meal which brings the price down for you.

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The Jamon challenge at $475 a kilo

Ed — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:15:41 +0000

To the left are five slices of the jamón ibérico de bellota. They weighed 88 grams and cost a shocking $41.80.To the right are five much larger slices of San Daniele ham from Italy weighing 142 grams and costing $17.04.One sunny afternoon, before I joined Febfast, we sat on the front veranda surveying the 4 sq m of garden that I cultivate while quaffing a crisp white wine and sharing pieces over the fence with my enterprising neighbours.We were split down the middle as to which was best.The jamon was thought to have too strong a flavour by two of us. Personally I was disappointed with the texture of the ham at the edges, tough slices that could have been carved off an old belt. It would be more appropriate to cook with rather than eat unadorned. The Jamon allegedly gets its flavour from feeding on acorns. I doubt this. I find it difficult to believe that the flavour of flesh can be influenced by what one eats. I would imagine, and I can find no science to back this up, that the flavour is created by the bacteria that effect the chemical processes and change the nature of a leg of pork into the ham (similarly, minerality in soil doesn’t create minerality in wines. It’s the yeasts that ferment it that do).In presentation the San Daniele is much better, pinker in colour and softer in texture - as well as flavour.Both hams are good, very good. Personally to eat with melon, figs, in a sandwich or alone the San Daniele wins hands down, especially when price is taken into account.The Jamon tastes good, very good and is best in small doses for more reasons than the price alone.Food fascist- try the Serrano- taste test Audtralian-made proscuitto

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Billy the stinky goat (cheese)

Ed — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:19:03 +0000

This photo really doesn’t do the Billy Hard Cheese from Tasmania justice. In real life I couldn’t describe it. It’s somewhere between a artisan soap and fossilisedice hockey puck.

It has a nutty flavour and a nice whiff of goat about it. This is a welcome change to the pristine cheeses made locally that only really taste creamy. Full marks.

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Me, Nigella and dill

Ed — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:29:57 +0000

There are two things that I don

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Mass genocide in the kitchen.

Ed — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:17:56 +0000

Yabbies: those beady little eyes watched me to the end.

Children, the elderly and the emotionally unstable should stop reading now as this is about the death and destruction I have brought upon the animal world, sometimes with my bare hands (in the case of game).
I am a fan of my produce being fresh (but dead) and if I can get hold of certain live ingredients I will. I

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Who moved my cheese?

Ed — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 05:43:25 +0000

Italian buffalo mozzarella

I’m not going to even go there and tell you about the agro I’ve been giving a friend for entering our house and taking the remainder of the last cheese I posted here. It turned out my neighbours were coveting it too and were contemplating breaking and entering.
Anyway Steve at Kirkfood, who got wind of my missing cheese, and by way of thanks for mentioning him in my Herald Sun column raced around in his souped up ute and delivered the superb mozzarella above and a replacement for my missing La Clarines.

When not revving his engine outside my house, it turns our Steve is a keen cyclist and is attempting a brave Le Tour de Fromage on his own blog to celebrate the upcoming Tour de France. He kicks off with Stinking Bishop.

When I write about people I don’t usually expect gifts but thanks mate. Much appreciated.

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