Fiona Summerfield

There are so many great places in Melbourne to eat, it is difficult to choose but these were the three food experiences I remember most fondly from our trip in July.

The best meal would have to be at The Hungarian, 362 Bridge Road in Richmond. The food is fantastically Hungarian super filling and delicious – they do takeaways too. The menu is a great read with dishes such as “The secret of Buda, the secret is not out yet so DO NOT ASK! We make it, you eat it, full stop.” Though it did tell you at the bottom of the menu the ingredients of this dish. I ordered a noodle dish with salted cottage cheese, “violently smoked bacon”, sour cream and paprika. It had a long Hungarian name but handily had a little spot next to it to put your finger on rather than try and mispronounce the name of the dish.

The waiter warned me it was a big dish and I assured him I was very hungry. It was delicious and I very nearly ate it all. If you have spent a day walking all over Melbourne this dish is perfect to fill the appetite. Even though we had thoroughly enjoyed our mains we couldn’t leave without trying the sour cherry strudel. It was delicious, though Karl ate most of it because I was still full from my main dish.

On the Sunday morning we went to St. Kilda to do a cake shop crawl. We found this article on the internet before we left and it had sounded like fun. It was excellent because following someone else’s suggestions meant we tried different cakes than we might have chosen. The stand out favourite was Kugelhoupf from the Monarch Cake Shop and not all cakes were as we expected. The black forest cake from Le Bon Continental was completely different to what we expected. But when we put aside our preconceptions of what a black forest cake should be and just took it as a cake – it was light, creamy and delicious. The croissants from Europa were utterly different from the usual examples in New Zealand and delicious. The description of the baked cheesecake from Acland cakes was entirely accurate being “sensational”.

The other meal we really enjoyed was pastrami sandwiches from Daniel’s in the Jewish area on Carlisle street. We had gone there to get bagels from Glick’s Bakery because they are the best bagels we have ever tasted in our part of the world. We bought our bagels but were tempted by the pastrami sandwiches in the shop next door. We have watched and heard others rave about pastrami sandwiches in New York delis so we couldn’t walk past this opportunity. I was a little dubious on what it would be like with so many slices of meat in one sandwich. It was delicious. The meat is so juicy and salty, it made a very filling lunch but it wasn’t heavy. We forgot to take pictures of these sandwiches because they were so delicious we ate them.

Oh and I’ve just remembered we had the best Japanese dishes we have ever tasted at Shira Nui in Glenwaverley. Next post…

Helen Jackson

With Father’s Day yesterday, Daisy (9) decided she wanted to make homemade chicken tortellini followed by lemon meringue pie for Ed (I feel she has been watching too much Masterchef antics).
As she has been asking to make her own pasta for some weeks now I decided that Sunday afternoon would be an opportune time to do so.  Thankfully I didn’t succomb to the $10 bag of Italian strong flour that she thought she needed from our local NW.

After 15 minutes of scrambling around the corner in my pantry cupboard amongst more dadddy long leg spiders than I have almost ever seen and some shameful mouse droppings, I finally found the still boxed, never been used, pasta maker – bought around the same time as I entered my South East Asian phase and we switched from pasta to rice as our staple.

The Cooks Companion (Stephanie Alexander) has fool proof recipes for everything so we followed the recipe of 400g flour, salt and eggs.  The dough was quickly made and then wrapped to rest for 1 hour.  We then poached chicken breast fillets and pulsed them in the food processor with pesto, parmesan, a little butter and seasoning – the mixture tasted just fine.

The pasta maker we screwed onto the table and followed instructions of setting the rollers at 1.  Unfortunately I didn’t use logic of inserting the dough and “shoved” it in the wrong place initially which then jammed the rollers and took a lot of hot water and poking with a skewer to dislodge.  Unperturbed I then set it up again and was completely ready to start rolling perfect pasta.
The instructions said to roll it 5-6 times but by the 6th roll we were still rolling funny looking dough with lots of holes in it and all stretched and bumpy looking.  The pasta maker somehow was putting big black smudges onto the dough and there was flour and dough everywhere.  It looked nothing like the pictures!

A big pot of water went on to boil and the ready made pasta pulled out of the pantry.

I quickly made tomato pasta sauce and decided that the chicken filling from the ravioli would mix in nicely with the pasta sauce – result was very unattractive pink gloop!
Freddie (6) sat down to dinner and promptly said “Mum this looks like vomit you don’t seriously expect us to eat it do you?”

Meanwhile I had raced to the garden, picked spinach, made spinach and feta triangles for Ed and I in record breaking time and got Daisy organised to get a lemon meringue pie into the oven.
Dinner for the kids was essentially dessert that while eaten it wasn’t quite what Daisy thought she was making – she was hoping for a cake!

After a massive cleanup and into bed feeling quite shattered – Ed then says “It is really quite amazing how much mess you can make when you cook…..”
AAAARGH!

Anyone got any tips on making pasta?  We need them!

Helen Jackson
Although yesterday involved a 4.30am start to get myself to Wellington in time for Good Morning I was still home in time to attend the inaugural Good Egg Awards as initiated by the RNZ SPCA and Compassion in World Farming. Presented by restaurantuer Peter Gordon and a clucking Bob Kerridge the inauguarl awards are a sign of good things to come with an increased acknowledgement and support of those farming with humane practices.

In essence the Good Egg Awards applaud those who are not only rearing their hens by approved humane methods of farming but also the retailers, restaurantuers, takeaway shops and cafes who are making the choice to buy these eggs.

While Farro, Moore Wilson, IE Produce, Ripe Delicatessan, Logan Brown, Sky City etc… are probably the businesses you would expect to see there it was also great to see some of the bigger chaing stores taking action. The takeaway restaurant award was presented to a second generation McDonalds franchise holder from Christchurch who mentioned that although there was no research to substantiate an increase in sales profitability for their business he was still committed to buy and use only “good eggs”. In fact the Traill Group of McDonald’s stores based in the South Island – they use 1.9m free range eggs each year but charge no more.

While they are more expensive than the battery farmed eggs and people will use that as a reason not to buy, Peter Gordon made an interesting point last night about food waste and how much we throw out – if we managed our food consumption better and didn’t waste so much would we then be able to justify our purchase of cage free eggs?

I made a conscious decision years ago to stick by my cage free philosophy and even with our recipe testing for nz woman’s weekly where I could use 3-4 dozen eggs each week, I always buy cage free. Henergy is the brand we buy and I am pleased to see that they have the Blue Tick and were also given an award for “Good Eggs”.

Judging was done by

New Zealand Good Egg Award 2011 recipients

Retail Sector:

Huckleberry Farms Ltd Auckland & Online

Moore Wilson Fresh Wellington

I E Produce Auckland & Online

Down to Earth New Plymouth

Hill Street Farmers’ Market Wellington

Farro Fresh Food Ltd Auckland & Hamilton

Lievito Bakery Dunedin

Arcadia Organics Shop and Café Motueka

Chantal Foods Ltd Napier

Café Sector:

Ripe Deli Ltd Auckland

Queenies Lunchroom Auckland

The Luscious Foodstore Auckland

The Good Earth Café Ltd Dunedin

Ella Café & Lounge Auckland

The Library Café & Function Venue Auckland

Eggsentric Café & Restaurant Flaxmill Bay – Coromandel

Triniti of Silver Café Auckland

Bloom Café Auckland

Ti Kouka Café Wellington

MEOW Wellington

Restaurant Sector:

SKYCITY Entertainment Group – Dine by Peter Gordon, Rebo Café & Bar, Terraces Restaurant at the Grand Hotel Auckland

Andiamo Restaurant & Bar Ltd Auckland

Logan Brown Wellington

Southern Cross Garden Bar Restaurant Wellington

The Commercial Hotel Murchison

Clearview Estate Hawke’s Bay

Reslingonnay – Coromandelns and producers ing commitment to educating their customers but also for theirards. This included

Farmer/Producer Sector

Wyenova Organic Farm Christchurch

Sunset Free Range Poultry Auckland

FRENZ Free Range Eggs Auckland

Kirkfield Family Farm Gisborne

Henergy Cage Free Masterton

Wairarapa Eggs Wairarapa

The Flying Fox Whanganui

Food Manufacturer/Service Sector

Kokako Nationwide

The lovely little food co – I love pies Nationwide

Julie Biuso Auckland

Takeaway Restaurant Sector

McDonald’s Traill Group of Restaurant – South Island (Merivale McDonald’s, Riccarton McDonald’s, Hornby McDonald’s, Hillmorton McDonald’s, Northlands Mall McDonald’s, The Palms Mall McDonald’s and Westfield Riccarton Mall McDonald’s) South Island

Wendys Old Fashioned Hamburgers Nationwide