Author: Alex

Crush Wrap Up

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Johnston Oakbank

With Crush‘s main day taking place on the Sunday of the recent long weekend I binned my plans to hold a BBQ for friends (sorry!), coerced Andy into coming along (by offering to drive) and set about planning an itinerary.

I wanted to visit wineries I hadn’t visited before and keep things as close to home as possible. Since having a child I’ve learnt to be less ambitious when planning so I decided that three wineries was enough.

Our first planned stop, Johnston of Oakbank, was chosen on the basis of its published menu and the promise of an afternoon of African entertainment. One thing I noted was that very few wineries went in to much detail, either in the Crush brochure, or on their own websites, about food or prices. Quite a few wineries recommended booking for lunch, but I didn’t have time to be ringing around to find out what they were offering and for how much, so we decided to start at Johnston and see what happened.

We arrived at Johnston early but the bar was open and everything was set up and ready to go. There was plenty of seating and shade and the cellar door was open, so you could sit inside too which would have been essential had it been a hot day. I’m not sure what happened to the African entertainment but early in the piece a band called The Sunset Lounge started up and food started coming out.

As the toddler loves lamb we chose a plate of harissa marinated lamb kebabs with preserved lemon, pearl couscous and yoghurt. For $15 it wasn’t a particularly large portion but it was really good. We didn’t actually get to try too much of it, as the toddler loved it and was most keen to ensure that we stayed away.

Harissa & Preserved Lemon Kebabs

We spent quite a while at Johnston, soaking up some sun, chatting and, of course, people watching. We were also photographed for the Adelaide Hills magazine so who knows – you might spot us in the next issue!

Time for moving on, we abandoned our sketchy plan, and headed to Verdun Park Wines. By the time we arrived, the beautiful shady area (under a giant tree) was already very busy. There were no chairs free but, with a toddler, you’re never afraid of sitting on the ground, so we nabbed ourselves a good spot near the band and Andy headed off to investigate the food and drink.

Verdun Park Wines

It turned out Verdun Park wasn’t serving any food that was going to be the hit the lamb kebabs had been, so after a while sitting under the tree and watching the toddler burn off quite a lot of energy, we had a think about what to do next.

At this point, we were pretty peckish and it was also quite late. We decided that the best plan was probably to find a pub and have a proper sit down meal. You’ll hear about lunch another day!

What we saw of Crush was well organised, though I’d love to see more detail about food offerings. I suspect that next year we’ll be committing ourselves to a booked lunch somewhere, because winging it ended up being just too hard!

If you’re in SA, love wine and you missed Crush, then get yourself ready for the Cellar Door Festival, coming up 22 – 24 February!

Adelaide Hills Crush Festival

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Not only is this weekend a long one, the weather looks like it’s going to be fantastic (once we get past today’s forecast top of 38°C) AND the Adelaide Hills is playing host to its annual Crush Festival.

Cellar doors across the Hills are putting on a range of events with, naturally, a strong emphasis on food and wine. The main day is Sunday 27 January but some venues are extending their participation across the weekend. Some events are ticketed and at some wineries booking for lunch is recommended but there’s an awful lot you can just rock up and enjoy on the day.

While you can download a map and brochure from the Crush site, there’s nothing quite like the interactive and immediate nature of a google map to help your designated driver navigate the wineries. To that end, over at cellared.com, my baby wine blog, you can find a Crush 2013 wineries map. It is a public google map (Crush – Cellared Guide) so if you use google maps on your smartphone you should be able to use it on the go.

The participating wineries are all marked, along with their opening times and details such as whether or not booking is required or if they’re holding ticketed events.

As cellared.com is new I’ve not quite got around to setting up email subscriptions (or making it look amazingly pretty!), but you can follow using RSS or Facebook. I won’t be putting wine reviews on Eating Adelaide in future – they’ll all be going on cellared.com.

Cheers to the long weekend ahead!

Sesame Crusted Pork with Stir Fried Noodles

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With the new year and no car, we’re back in the swing of doing proper meal planning again. While this sounds totally boring it has plenty of advantages. Principally, fewer trips to the shops means you spend less money. However, added bonuses are that I no longer hit 3pm and start to panic about the toddler’s dinner, I don’t have to rely on being able to get to the shops at a particular time and I make better use of both my cookbooks and bookmarked recipes.

Pork recipes are always popular on Eating Adelaide (if you missed Colin’s roast pork in a fry pan you should check it out!) and we all love pork so we tend to eat it once a week. It’s no surprise then that I would eventually get around to cooking this sesame crusted pork, which first appeared in Good Taste magazine many moons ago. As usual, I departed from the recipe …

Begin by taking your favourite Singapore/Hokkien egg noodles and prepping them. We use the ‘fresh’ packet ones (that you find in the refrigerated section of the supermarket), so I put them in a bowl and covered them with hot water.

I used pork fillet (or tenderloin) which I cut into three pieces. I pressed each piece into some sesame seeds, so just the one side had them on and then fried them, sesame side down, in a hot, oven proof fry pan. I could have left them a little longer: my sesame seeds have just the hint of tan, when really a bit more golden would have both tasted and looked better.

While the pork is cooking (after it’s browned up, pop it into an oven heated to 180°C to finish), heat some oil in a wok and add a finely sliced red onion, along with garlic, ginger and chilli to taste. Once the onion has softened, add one carrot, peeled and julienned, followed by the drained noodles and stir fry for a couple of minutes before adding 2 tbsp soy sauce and 2 tbsp of oyster sauce*. Make sure you cut your carrot finely – you want it to soften a little while still retaining some bite and texture. If you wish, mix the remainder of your sesame seeds through the stir fry (or, if you can be bothered/have time, lightly toast some!).

Roughly chop a generous handful of coriander and stir this through noodles, before serving in hot bowls. Slice the pork fillet on the diagonal and serve on top of the noodles, with a garnish of extra coriander.

The verdict?

Using chunks of pork fillet adds to the cooking time, so if you’re in a rush, use a different cut, such as loin steaks, or even finely slice the meat and stir fry it with the sesame seeds before doing the noodles. We really rated the use of the sesame seeds though – both on the meat and in the stir fry. Definitely something we’ll do again.

The noodles were OK. They needed beefing up with the chilli and garlic (neither of which was specified in the original recipe) but they were very quick and easy to do and would serve as a great base for a more flavour rich protein component.

So while we rated both pork and noodles individually, together they were both just a touch too bland. Bland feels like too harsh a word, because it almost makes the meal sound unenjoyable – which it definitely wasn’t. I guess that in this case I’d say the sum of the parts was actually greater than the whole.

* I always imagined oyster sauce to be ‘oyster flavoured’ but most oyster sauces contain either oyster or fish (or both) and hence are not suitable for vegetarians. If you are catering for vegetarians/vegans then make sure you source some which is vegetarian.