Masterchef Australia, Audition Dish - Chinese Style Octopus Carpaccio with Chilli and Snowpea Tendrils (served with Green Nam Jim)

This is a little dish is my investion. I came up with for the auditions for Australia's Masterchef. The judges loved the dish... however, it seems that the executive producers didn't love me, which is why I'm not on TV as we speak. Oh well, there is always next year.

This dish in influenced by two of my favourite chefs. Teague Ezard, who often cooks with a masterstock and loves his asian flavours. It's also influenced by an Italian octopus dish, which I had at Fifteen, Melbourne, which was handmade by the one and only Jamie Oliver. This dish is basically a fusion of both.

When you purchase your octopus, see if you can get octopus which has been in the tenderiser for a few hours. It's basically rolled around in a dryer like drum with some weights and beaten until it's tenderised.



1 Large Octopus, tentacles only.

Masterstock:
3 litres (6 pints) water
250 ml (9 fl oz) light soy sauce
500 ml (16 fl oz) Shao Xing wine (Chinese cooking wine)
200 g (7 oz) yellow rock sugar
40 g (11⁄2 oz) fresh ginger
5 cloves garlic
3 cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
10 g (2 teaspoons) dried mandarin peel

Spices for bag
4 whole cloves
4 star anise
1 teaspoon sichuan pepper
1 teaspoon licorice root
1 teaspoon dried chilli
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds

Garnish
Finely chopped chillies
Snow pea tendrils
Finely sliced kaffir lime leaves

Place all of the spices into a piece of muslin cloth and tie into a bag. Put the spice bag along with all of the other ingredients in a large stockpot and bring to the boil. Simmer gently for 10 –15 minutes to allow the spices to infuse.

Once your masterstock is ready, bring it to a simmer and place your whole octopus in the pot. Cook the octopus for 3 hours on a gentle simmer. Cooking for this time will help make the octopus as tender as possible and also help the octopus to release it's gelatine like properties. This is important later.
Allow the octopus to cool in the stock, until it's cool enough to handle. Gently take the octopus out of the stock and lay the tentacles along side each other on top of a long strip of glad wrap.
VERY tightly roll up the tentacles in the glad wrap to make a big long sausage. Once tightly wrapped up, help the octopus sausage stay tight by wrapping some elastic bands around the sausage. This will help the octopus keep it's shape when sliced. Place the sausage in the fridge to allow the octopus to set overnight.
The next day you can remove the octopus from the fridge, also removing the elastic bands and glad wrap. The Octopus should hold it's sausage shape while it's cold, so you need to work very quickly and carefully.
With a extremely sharp knife, thinly slice the octopus and place each slice on a plate. This is where you will see the beautiful pattern that tentacles make.

Serve the Octopus with a Thai Green Nam Jim dipping sauce.

Strawberry Salad with Speck and Halloumi

I saw Jamie Oliver do this recipe on his new show, where he has the insanely big garden, huge house and best of all, a massive woodfired oven!
I love the idea of food with a twist and mixing ingredients together that seem a little unusual. This salad has definately got that vibe. Although it might sound a little strange to have strawberries in a salad, the taste is actually really (for lack of a better word) 'zingy'.
My local deli didn't have any Speck, but I'm sure you could find it in Melbourne if you looked hard enough- so I used some nice thin Prosciutto instead. Make sure you use some good Balsamic vinegar for this recipe, otherwise the final product will be rubbish. My favourite is from Simon and Johnson, which is about $20 a bottle- but lasts for ages and is definately worth it for the taste.

Ingredients

300g strawberries, hulled and cut into one quarter cm slices good-quality balsamic vinegar the juice of half a lemon extra-virgin olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper olive oil a few sprigs of fresh basil, leaves picked 250g halloumi cheese, cut into 8 thin slices a few sprigs of fresh mint, leaves picked a handful of mixed salad leaves, washed and spun dry 8 slices of speck In a bowl, drizzle the sliced strawberries with a good splash of balsamic vinegar, the lemon juice and some extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. This will draw out and flavour the lovely strawberry juices. Preheat a large non-stick frying-pan to medium hot and add a splash of olive oil. Press a basil leaf on to each slice of halloumi. Place the slices, leaf side down, in the frying-pan and fry for a minute. Turn over carefully and fry for another minute until the halloumi is light golden and crisp. Get yourself four plates and place a couple of pieces of the crispy halloumi on each. Put the mint, the rest of the basil leaves and the salad leaves into the bowl with the strawberries and toss together. Pile some of the strawberry mixture in the middle of each plate and drape the speck over the top. Finish with more salad leaves. To serve, drizzle with balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.

Poached Salmon, Pea and Risoni Salad

Ok, you could possibly call me a hypocrite. First I was bagging out Bill Granger and his terrible cafe, then I was telling you how good they are. Now I'm telling you how good his cook books are. Bill's books aren't filled with the most adventurous dishes, but they are perfect for someone who's just getting into cooking or for us seasoned 'foodies' who want to eat some proper home-cooked food after a long day at the office.
This recipe is from his most recent book - Holiday, but I have also found it online here.
I'm no nutritionist, but this is a pretty healthy meal as far as I'm concerned and highlights how fast food, doesn't have to be burgers and chips. Poached salmon has got to be one of the best ways to enjoy salmon, as it's so moist, with little chance of overcooking and when cooked, it simply flakes apart for this little salad.
I didn't have any Dill as the recipe asked for, so I used some Mint in it's place. Mint goes perfectly with Peas and Salmon, so give it a go if you prefer. Such a great Spring Salad.

Pear, Pomegranate and Walnut Salad with Yarra Valley Persian Fetta

This is my twist on the old classic Pear and Walnut Salad, which, don’t get me wrong, is great, but I thought I’d try it with 2 of my favourite ingredients; Pomegranates and the deliciously creamy Yarra Valley Persian Fetta. This cheese is so smooth, it’s almost like silk, it’s marinated in various herbs and is one of my most favourite products from my beloved Yarra Valley. Give this salad a shot, it’s fantastic!

Ingredients:

1 cup of Walnut Kernals
Juice and Seeds of 1 Pomegranate
½ a Garlic Clove
Zest of 1 Lemon
125ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
300g Rocket
2 Ripe Pears (not too soft)
150g Yarra Valley Persian Fetta or similar

Put the Walnuts, Olive Oil, Garlic, Sea Salt, Grated Lemon Zest into a blender, which will form part of the dressing for your salad.
Toss the rocket in some of your pomegranate juice and a dash of olive oil.
Core your pears and slice them thinly, a v-slicer helps with this, if your knife skills aren’t up to scratch.
Arrange the pear on a plate with your Rocket.
Crumble the Fetta in and around the Rocket and sprinkle your Pomegranate seeds over the salad.
Drizzle your Walnut dressing over the salad and you’re ready to enjoy! Nice!

Carrot and Coriander Salad

This is the easiest in the world to make, it takes no time to make and is so, so tasty!

Ingredients:
1 Carrot
1 Bunch of Coriander
Juice of 1 Orange
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
1 Small Chilli
Black Sesame Seeds to garnish

Method:
Finely julienne your Carrot, I like to use a Julienne grater which I picked up down at Minh Phat in Victoria St for $7


Roughly chop your Coriander.


Vigorously mix your orange juice, chopped chilli, olive oil, salt and pepper (add olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.)


Mix your Carrot and Coriander and add your dressing.
Plate up your salad and sprinkle over your sesame seeds to garnish.

Sunday Family Lunch

It was another perfect Summer's day in Spring on Sunday, which called for a Family Lunch. I thought I'd invite the parents over for a quick lunch and then I could head out for a game of golf afterwards. By the time I'd finished shopping down at Victoria St, Richmond, I was already running late and I realised, it wasn't going to be such a quick lunch!

First up I served a Papaya and Chicken Salad from Marie Claire's 'Kitchen' Magazine. I couldn't actually find Papaya in Victoria St, so I used few sweet, ripe mangoes instead. A delicious replacement and so cheap too! This salad has summer written all over it. The spring onions make it crunchy, the roast chicken breasts are soft and the mango slippery. The dressing consists of tamarind, soy sauce, palm sugar, ginger, chilli and cumin. A few crushed peanuts, some fried shallots and chopped mint thrown into the salad and there you go - summer salad!

For the main course, I bought everyone a whole Snapper each. I bought 6 of them in Victoria St, and they totalled $25. Not bad considering a whole Snapper at a reputable restaurant would set you back at least $40. I cut slashes in the side the fish, then I marinated the Snapper in chilli, garlic, ginger, soy and olive oil. I then deep fried each Snapper until they became golden and crunchy. Once ready I dressed the fish with a mixture of Soy, Lime, Coriander, Peanut Oil and Palm Sugar. Served simply with some steamed asian greens and some lemon.

Finally, dessert. The ultimate Summer fruit. Peaches. Soft ripe, sweet Peaches! I could eat these things all day long. For lunch, I poached them in a vanilla sugar syrup. I used vanilla bean paste, which still gives you those little black dots, but ends up working out much cheaper than buying beans. 1 tsp = 1 bean. After about 5 minutes I took them out and left them to cool a bit, so I could remove their skins, leaving that gorgeous yellow/pink flesh exposed. Continue to simmer the sugar syrup until it's thickened and then add juice from 1 lemon. Leave the syrup to cool. Pour over the peaches and serve with some mint and ice cream. Unfortunately the 36c heat melted my ice cream before I could take the photo.