Tetsuya's

I've been pretty slack at posting last week, somehow I either have something to do at night, or I'm too tired to do anything but to sleep! Finally here comes the weekend, when I can update some of my eating adventures in this month! 

May is a special month because it's my hubby's birthday!! To make it extra special I booked a table at Tetsuya's to celebrate his birthday! I actually booked the table 6 months ago, when I called up the restaurant, I felt pretty stupid calling up to make a booking 6 months in advance. But when the staff told me that 'oh, sorry, the tables are all booked out for that day, how about one day before that, we have a table.' After hearing that, I thought to myself 'OK, I'm not so stupid after all!' 

I'm sure that everyone of you have heard how good the food is at Tetsuya, but I always get put off by the price! However, when I divide up the price by the 11 courses, I guess it's not so expensive at all! Haha... Before I went,  my sister already warned me that there will be a lot of food (as she has been there a few times already), I better not eat much during the day, so I listened, and for lunch that day, I had a slice of raisin toast, and a cheese on toast! Lucky that I listened, cos there were alot of food, but not over the top! I've once been to a 8 course degustation and each of the courses were pretty big, too big to be called degustation! 

Anyway, get back to the food... My hubby was stoked when I brought him to the front door of Tetsuya's, because he never expected that! haha... And we were greeted with a number of friendly staffs when we walked in (yes... more than 1 staff at the front!) and then we were led to a section of the restaurant right by the window looking out to the little Japanese courtyard, and then the waitstaff came over and explained to us about the courses of the night! 

OK... I'll try to remember all the courses... testing my memory here! 

Our favorite wine - Gewurztraminer. However it wasn't as good as the one we had at KM's birthday, maybe because this glass we had was one of the cheapest wine on the menu by glass! haha.. no complaint! 

Warm sourdough bread with truffle butter! Yummmm... I love truffle butter! 

First course: Avocado Soup with Potato Ice-cream and Mountain Cavier

I'm not a big fan of avocado, so when this course came along I was actually a bit scared about this green soup! After the first sip, I actually didn't mind it, it was light and refreshing, didn't have that thick dense texture of avocado which I don't like. 

Second course: Warm Salad of Kingfish

I quite like the taste of it, wasn't too salty, and the kingfish was so fresh and the sauce has an Asian flavour. The only thing I didn't like about it was the oil, there was a bit too much oil to my liking. 

Third course: New Zealand Scampi with Tofu and Seaweed

I love scampi!!!! I love the sweet fresh taste, and together with the tofu, they just slipped straight down the throat! =) Loved it! 

Side Salad

Fourth course: Confit Petuna Ocean Trout with Konbu, Celery and Apple

This is one of Tetsuya's Signature dishes! And it was no doubt one of my favourites of the night! The fish was so fresh, felt like it was freshly caught from the ocean! The soft texture together with the spices on top was just delicious! However, I don't eat celery, and lucky that there were more apple than celery in the dish, and I managed to cope! But I was so amazed by how they can cut each stick of celery and apple to the same thickness and length! They just look identical, and I had difficulty of distinguishing which one is which. Must be years of practise! Towards the end of this dish, i gave some of my trout to my hubby reluctantly, because I didn't want to fill my stomach up too quickly and couldn't enjoy the rest of the food. But this dish is definitely something that we wanted more of! 

Fifth course: Grilled Fillet of Barramundi with Braised Wood Ear and Chestnut Mushroom

Another fish dish! Which I didn't mind because I love fish! Excuse my ignorant, but I have never heard of or seen chestnut mushroom before. The flavour leans towards the sweet side, and it's 'slimy'! Interesting but awesome! The fish was perfectly cooked, the meat just falls apart when you lightly slice it with your knife! 

Sixth course: Ox Tail with Sea Cucumber

By this time, I was starting to get full! Oh no! But I knew that I couldn't give up! OK... here comes some meaty dish! Wow... the ox tail was full of flavour, and it literally just melted in the month! Heaven! However, I think that it didn't quite gel with the sea cucumber, it tasted like a separate 'thing' on top of the beef, it didn't have the beautiful flavour like the beef and was quite bland unfortunately.

Seven course: Twice Cooked De-Boned Spatchcock

De-boned! Loved it! Not just that, the texture and flavour were just beautiful! This was my second favourite dish of the night! I just had no idea the meat of spatchcock could be sooooo tender, when you slice it, you still see the meat is still slightly pink. Just cooked! And somehow the chef managed to make it doesn't look a spatchcock, but a rectangular roll of beautifully cooked meat! Divine! I wanted more!!!! 

Eight course: Wagyu Beef with Foamy Sauce

I can't remember the sauce, but I do remember the thinly sliced wagyu beef was quite nice. Probably I was a bit overwhelmed by the fabulous taste of the spatchcock, and unfortunately I don't have much recollection of the taste of this dish! =P 

Ninth course: Cream Cheese Ice-Cream and Pear Sorbet with Walnut

Ice-cream is one of those food that I cannot resist! Cream Cheese Ice-cream! Wow.... a bit weird, but love to try it! However I couldn't taste the cream cheese flavour, but I do like the pear sorbet alot I must say! It can totally cleanse the palate after all the meaty dish! 

Tenth course: Cannellini Beans with Mascarpone and Soy Caramel

OK.... I'm no big fan of beans, although me being a dessert lover, beans in dessert is still not my thing! I had a mouthful of the soy caramel, and I handed the whole dish to my hubby! =P 

Eleventh course: Salted Sable with Lemon Scented Leatherwood Honey

This was probably my favourite dessert out of all three. The concept/taste is very similar to a macaroon, but a bit more 'looser'

Eleventh course (Hubby's version): Chocolate Fondant 

Being my hubby's birthday, I called up the restaurant the day before asking whether they could organise something special as dessert for him. And here comes the chocolate fondant with a candle on top! 

Assorted macaroon: Hazelnut, Cinnamon, and Rose

Half bitten rose flavoured macaroon with strawberry filling

The after dinner macaroon was very nice indeed, one of the best I've tried, the most important thing is, they're not too sweet at all! Hubby had a small bite of the rose flavoured macaroon, without knowing that it had a strawberry filling! haha... I didn't try it at all though, not because of the strawberry, but the rose flavour. I just don't like rose flavoured food in general. Otherwise I would have polished off the dish! 

Overall, I think the ingredients used in each dish were definitely the freshest that they could get. And the marrying of texture and flavour were marvelous, each dish was just a form of art! However, I reckon the dessert didn't have the 'wow' factor like the other courses. But we still enjoyed the night throughout. At the end of it, the wait staff took us into the kitchen and showed us how it runs and how the dishes are prepared just before it comes out to the table! I think this was definitely one of the most exciting parts of the night! 

Tetsuya's 

529 Kent Street, 

Sydney

Crepe with Figs and Cookies and Cream Ice-Cream

On Saturday, my hubby and I decided to go and get the DVD of Julie and Julia to watch at night. I wouldn't really say it's a very good and must see movie, but I did enjoy it! It's lighthearted, sweet, and inspiring and most importantly it's about beautiful food!!! The bit about de-boning a duck in the movie, I don't think I'd ever bother to do something so complicated! Julie was very brave and determined indeed! 

As a tribute to the movie, I decided to make dessert for the night. It's very rare that I make dessert for just the 2 of us!!!! I guess because the movie was quite inspiring, and all of a sudden my sweet tooth decided to wiggle inside my mouth!! 

To keep things simple, I made crepe! And I had a couple of figs in the fridge, which i thought it would go well with the crepe, at least better than the boring banana crepe! 

Ingredients: 

1 egg

160ml milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

75g plain flour

Whisk the egg, milk and vanilla extract together, then pour over the top of the flour, and whisk well. Lightly oil the pan, and pour in a ladle of crepe mixture. Cook until you've browned both sides. 

The crepe was nice, it's something small, and was just enough to satisfy my sweet tooth. But I think i can make it a little thinner next time! And maybe I can spread it with nutella, and sprinkle it with hazelnuts as well!!!!! =) Any suggestions witih crepe fillings?? Feel free to let me know! Recently I saw a bottle of cookies and cream sauce on the shelf, I wonder whether it will taste any good with crepes!!! 

Orange Chiffon Cake

Time for another fellowship birthday cake... what should I make this time?!?! Last month I made a pretty heavy cake - the chocolate cherry cake, this time, I want to make something lighter! As I was thinking what kind of cake I should make, I saw a post on my friend Alice's blog, she made a orange chiffon cake, and it looked pretty good!!!! So I went and ask her for the recipe, and she told me that it's actually Poh's recipe - her Malaysian favourite. Then I said to myself... I HAVE to try this recipe! I had a look at the ingredients and the steps, it didn't look that hard... PERFECT! 

Personally I like cakes that are quite plain and light, never really a big fan of mud cake or similar, cheesecake... ummm, ok with a small piece, probably prefer japanese cheesecake!!! So when I saw this chiffon cake recipe, I knew that I'd probably enjoy it! Now when I think back of all the cakes that I've made before, I actually don't remember making a chiffon cake, even if I did, it would probably be a long long time ago! 

Ingredients:

5 egg whites 

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

75g caster sugar

5 egg yolks

7tbs coconut milk

5tbs orange juice 1 tbs orange zest

150g self raising four, sifted

400ml full cream

2 tbs icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g hazelnuts 

150ml full cream

200g good quality dark chocolate chopped. 

1. Preheat oven at 160C fan forced/180C regular.

2. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer till soft peaks. Add sugar one tablespoon at a time, beat thoroughly after each addition till you achieve stiff peaks. Set aside. 

3. In a separate bowl whisk egg yolks with caster sugar till fluffy. Add coconut milk, oil, orange juice, zest and self raising flour and whisk until combined. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture in 3 batches. 

4. Pour into a 22cm baba cake tin (do not use non-stick and do not grease). Bake 25mins at 160C fan forced, or till skewer comes out clean. 

5. When cake is out of the oven, immediately invert the cake still in the tin, and leave to cool completely. 

6. To make filling, whip the cream, sugar and vanilla till stiff but do not overbeat. Cover with cling film and refrigerate until required. 

7. Slice cake with a serrated knife into 3 equal layers. Spread a layer of the chantilly cream on each layer and sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts. 

8. To make ganache, bring cream to the boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, add chocolate pieces and whisk till chocolate has melted and emulsified with cream. Using a spatula spread evenly over the cake and sprinkle with chopped hazelnuts. 

The cake actually turned out perfect!!!!! It was tall and fluffy, although it was a bit messy when I tried to ice the cake. And it took me a while to figure out how to slide the assembled and iced cake from the cooling rack onto the plate in one piece without turning it into a leaning tower! 

However, I didn't get to taste the cake. =( I was actually looking forward to taste the cake at fellowship, but there were so many people that morning, and our dearest Mel cut some giant pieces of cake at the beginning, so a bunch of people didn't end up having a piece. So I've decided to make the cake again for this friday's Home Fellowship!!! haha... ummm... should I keep it as the orange chiffon cake or pandan flavour?!?!?! 

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Roasted Trout and Articokes with Almonds, Breadcrumbs and mint

Just trying to catch up on the post, this roasted trout was actually made for Mother's Day... ooppsss, I'm a bit behind! =P

I first tried this dish was actually at a friend's place. Shae is a fantastic cook/baker, she once organised a dinner party at her place, and I was lucky enough to be invited, and this was one of the things she made! And after the first bite, I absolutely fell in love with it! It has different layers of textures: the soft smooth texture of trout, the crackle of almonds, and the crunchiness of breadcrumbs! On top of that, there's the citric flavour from the lemon zest and juice, plus the beautiful fragrant of the herbs! 

Serve 4

8 trout tail fillets

handful of roasted chopped almonds

1 bunch of fresh mint leaves

1 stale ciabatta (or just the bought breadcrumbs)

zest and juice of 2 lemons

1 clove of garlic, chopped

16 marinated artichoke hearts, drained and sliced

4 rashes of bacon

sea salt and ground pepper

1 small handful of fresh thyme, leaves picked

1. Preheat oven to 220C

2. Lay 4 trout fillets skin side down on a foil lined tray, with a few pieces of strings under each fillet. 

3. Break up the bread in small bits and combine with almonds, ripped mint, lemon zest, garlic, artichoke hearts and 5 tbsp of olive oil with salt and pepper to taste. Mix well, and sprinkle the mix over each trout fillet. Place the other 4 fillets on top, skin side up, laying a bacon rasher along the top of each one, and secure with the strings. Sprinkle thyme over the top and any excess filling around the tray. 

4. Bake for 15 min or until the trout is golden and crisp. Serve with a drizzle of lemon juice. 

This is another quick and easy recipe with great taste and the goodness of the fish and almonds! Another alternative to the usual asian steamed fish! =)

Sukiyaki

We invited a friend over for dinner on saturday night, and initially I was thinking of making it a Japanese night with eel fried rice, takoyaki, japanese coleslaw salad, and slow cooked pork belly. But another dear friend of mine, Sera who just came back from HK for a short visit wanted to go for a coffee in the arvo, and therefore disturbed my plan of doing this 3hr of slow cooked pork belly. (Sera... I'm not blaming you... =P) So instead, I had to think of something quick to cook, knowing that by the time I come back home, it would be late...

*ding* 

Sukiyaki!!!! Quick and easy, no cooking required but yet still fitted in the japanese night idea! Also, what's better than a hotpot in a cold winter/autumn night!!! 

Chinese cabbage, white raddish, tofu, assorted mushrooms, seafood stick, udon, prawns, and most importantly beef! I love the beef in the Korean butcher, they are evenly marbled and full of flavour. Definitely better than the sliced beef you get from the chinese butcher or grocery! 

Besides the beef, the next important ingredient in a sukiyaki is the soup base! I don't normally buy those ready mixed bottle of sukiyaki sauce, because I've found them too expensive, you pay something like $5-$6 for a small bottle. And I can easily make it with just a fraction of the cost, since I have got all those ingredients at home anyway. If any of you want to save some $$, here's the mix: 500ml dashi, 125ml Japanese soy sauce, 80ml mirin, 1.5 tbsp sake, 2 tbsp sugar. Just bring everything to boil, and there's your soup base! 

Sukiyaki + Sapporo Beer = perfect match on a cold saturday night!

Scrambled Egg with Tetsuya's Truffle Salt

Here comes the weekend!!! Yay!!! Looked out of the window, and it was beautiful outside! Thank God for his amazing creation! To 'celebrate', I've decided to make a big breakfast/brunch on a saturday morning!

How can we go without eggs with a big breakfast, especially when my hubby loves eggs so much! How about scrambled eggs with truffle salt! yes, truffle salt from Tetsuya! I opened up the jar, oh my goodness, that beautiful smell of truffle was so strong that it filled the whole kitchen, and I'm not joking! It did fill the kitchen, and the smell lingered for the rest of the day!!!! I think this is THE product that is definitely worth investing in! 

Every mouthful of the scrambled eggs, I could taste its creaminess, and smell the pungent fragrant of the truffle! I can definitely sit there and have this scrambled egg all day long! ummm... maybe I'm exaggerating! =P But I think this is a must try! 

My big breakfast included scrambled egg, freshly made bread with mixed seeds and dates (thanks to the bread machine), sauteed mushroom with freshly chopped mint, and peaches. On top of that, my hubby also had bacons and his favourite baked beans! 

Mother's Day Dinner: Rosemary Pannacotta with Plum Sorbet

Well... how can you go without dessert on Mother's Day!?!?!? To prepare a big dinner, it is important that you choose a couple of dishes which you can prepare beforehand, so you don't run into panic on the actual day thinking that you're running out of time for preparation! And since the dinner menu was considered to be quite heavy, so I picked a couple of desserts that are quite light to palate! Rosemary pannacotta with plum sorbet and raspberry mousse. Why made two?!?!? Because my hubby doesn't eat any sorts of berries (fussy!) so I always try to sneak in a berry dessert when I have dinner parties, plus making a non-berry dessert as the alternate menu. 

When I left my old work last year, my team bought me Pier - the cook book! Wow... all the dishes inside the book looked fantastic, and very artistic!!! And most of the dishes required a lot of technique, ingredients and preparation. Probably 80% of the recipes in the book are 2-3 pages long! One day... I think one day I'll get around to it! But randomly, when I was flicking through it I saw this Rosemary Pannacotta with Blood Plum Granita - Creme Fraiche & Plum Sorbet which was comparatively easy, but different! Never had rosemary pannacotta before, usually it's either vanilla, white chocolate or dark chocolate! And to make this recipe even easier, I've cut it down to Rosemary Pannacotta with Plum Sorbet! Haha... It might not have as much texture as the original, but I thought it's still a very good combination!

Rosemary Pannacotta

Serves 4 

Ingredients:

4 gelatine sheets

280ml milk

2 heaped tsp caster sugar

1 rosemary sprig, leaves picked and chopped, plus extra to serve

280ml pouring cream

1. Soak the gelatine in a small bowl of iced water until softened. Remove from bowl and squeeze gently to drain excess water

2. Warm the milk, sugar and rosemary in a saucepan over low heat, stir to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat, cover with lid and let the rosemary to infuse for 15-20 min. 

3. Return the saucepan to heat and re-warm the milk. Add gelatine and stir to dissolve. 

4. Place the cream in a mixing bowl and strain the milk mixture through a fine sieve onto the cream. 

5. Pour into 4 glasses and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. 

Plum Sorbet (I didn't use the Pier recipe because it requires an ice-cream machine which I don't have =( so I used a raspberry sorbet recipe I've got and changed it to plum!)

Ingredients:

1 cup water

1 cup caster sugar

600g plum (after stone has been removed)

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 egg whites

1. Stir the water and sugar in small saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer, uncovered, without stirring, 5 minutes; cool.

2. Process the plum, juice and sugar syrup.

3. Push mixture through fine sieve into cake pan; discard seeds. Freeze for about 3 hours or until almost set. 

4. Chop the mixture coarsely. Process with egg whites until smooth. Return mixture to pan. Cover. Freeze until firm. 

When you're ready to serve, scoop a ball of plum sorbet to go on top of the pannacotta. The contrasting colour of the reddish pink and the white looks beautiful! The 'real' Pier recipe includes granita as well, which I think will add another layer of texture to it, but I'm satisfied with this '2-tier' dessert already! =P Will definitely try to do the granita next time! 

I quite like this rosemary flavoured pannacotta! It's different, and full of fresh herb flavour, which helps to freshen and spice up the dessert even further! I think I can do with a little less gelatine to make it more wobbly! The flavour of the plum sorbet was actually not very strong when compared with the rosemary, which I don't mind otherwise the two flavours will just be fighting! (Not sure whether the Pier recipe has a stronger plum flavour or not though) At the end I think this dessert still tasted wonderful with a smooth and silky texture!!! It might look better if I garnished it with either a leave of fresh mint or a small sprig of rosemary, but I didn't think about that when serving, therefore looking quite boring at the end, I'll definitely jazz it up next time! 

Mothers Day Dinner: Roast Loin of Pork with Peaches

This year, instead of going out for a dinner, I've decided to cook up a storm for Mothers Day! Done all the shopping, and made the dessert on saturday. And sunday is the big day! Started preparing in the kitchen after church, I especially started early (3pm) in the hope that I can squeeze in an hour nap in between (afternoon nap is my must do thing on a sunday arvo!!!!). Maybe I was being too optimistic, and I ended up staying in the kitchen till 7pm, which was when dinner supposed to start.

Menu for the night:

Oven baked wonton wrapper with eggplant and capsicum dip

3 leafs salad with roast pumpkin, fig and walnut and balsamic dressing

Roast loin of pork with peaches

Roasted trout and artichokes with almonds, breadcrumbs and mint (especially for Stephen the vegetarian)

Risotto with lemon thyme and proscuitto (my sister's request after she saw one of my posts earlier)

Raspberry mousse

Rosemary pannacotta with plum sorbet

The crispy wonton wrapper and dip was a bit random, I threw this in just to lighten up the meal of the night, since having roast and risotto together, that's pretty heavy! Preparing a dinner, it's very important to have a good balance in terms of heavy and light dishes, strong and light taste, crunchy and soft texture. I'm glad that everyone seems to enjoyed the meal, and my sister brought over a beautiful bottle of moscato! It's light and sweet, perfect with the roast pork!

I ran into trouble straight away when I went shopping on sat! I usually do my meat shopping in Eastwood at the Chinese butcher. I went in there, took a number and it's '00', then I looked up on the number screen, it says '51'.... OK... I've got 49 people in front of me, great! I weaved through the people trying to look for a rack of pork loin, and they were no where in sight! They have the individual cutlets, but not in a whole rack. So I gave up, didn't want to wait for the 49 people in front of me anyway. So I went next door to the seafood shop, and again I tried to bash my way through the people trying to find the ocean trout fillet, and again, could not see any except for salmon cutlet! Gave up! So I ended up leaving Eastwood and did the shopping at the good old Woolies and the butcher near home. After saturday's experience I've realised that Chinese's cuts of meat is different to the Western cuts!

Ingredients:

1x 7 rib loin pork

1 bunch of fresh thyme, leaves picked and chopped

150g butter

salt and freshly ground black pepper

8 fresh peaches, halved stoned (I used canned peaches, because fresh peaches are not in season anymore unfortunately)

1. Preheat oven to 220C. Score the skin of the pork. With a knife carefully part the meat from the ribs.

2. Rub the thyme into the butter with seasoning.

3. Rub a little of the butter mixture into the gap between the ribs and meat. Push in as many peaches as you can fit. Pack the rest of the butter on top.

4. Tie strings around the pork to keep all the fillings together.

5. Place on a roasting tray with veges such as potato and parsnips.

6. Roast for 1 hour and rest for 10 min before serving.

When I have dinner parties, I always plan an oven dish, because it's easy! Stick the food in the oven either to roast, bake or grill, and you don't have to worry about it while you go on and do other dishes!

The roast turned out perfect, tender and juicy inside, 1 hour of roasting was just enough! The skin was of a golden brown and it crackled, inside was just cooked with very small hint of pink! Pork is just delicious when cooked with fruit - apple, peach, apricot, currants etc. The sweetness of the fruits helps to break down the fatty taste of the meat. This is actually a pretty easy roast to prepare, the hardest bit was trying to keep all the peaches inside the gap without falling out! Mine fell out from either side, i just had to push them back in slightly just before I put into the oven! You just need to be VERY gentle, and unfortunately that isn't me!