Author: Alex

Coffee Ice Cream

- Alex Leave a comment

Of course, ice cream photographs badly … but I’m sure you get the idea!

A seriously underused cookbook in my collection is The Silver Spoon. This is the Italian cooking bible and covers absolutely everything. If you want to cook it and it’s vaguely Italian … you should find it in The Silver Spoon.

We were having some friends to lunch and, due to a hectic work/life schedule, we needed to choose a menu that could be prepared as much in advance as possible. As it was going to be warm, and our main course was going to be substantial, ice cream sounded like the perfect dessert.

I’m not sure how we decided on coffee ice cream but … decision made The Silver Spoon offered up a simple recipe so I borrowed the ice cream maker from mum and set about it.

Since my family discovered ice cream makers, almost 20 years ago, I haven’t bought commercial ice cream so I can’t be too sure on this point … but I’m willing to bet that a coffee ice cream from the shop will have a lot more than 6 ingredients.

The recipe says this will serve 6 people – in our case, it managed a lot more serves than 6, but in case you have voracious ice cream eaters to hand, let me tell you that it makes about 1L of the finished product.

Begin by scalding* 200mL milk (full fat, of course!) with the seeds that have been scraped from a vanilla pod. Or, if you have a pod left over from last time, just use the pod. Don’t be using vanilla extract/essence or the vanilla bean paste stuff. This is one time where you have to use the real deal.

Allow the milk to cool.

Beat 2 whole eggs with 150g of caster sugar until the mixture is light, fluffy and has expanded. You’re best off doing this with a stand mixer with the whisking attachment – it’ll be quicker and your arm won’t get tired! While beating, add 175mL of cooled extra strong coffee, followed by 200mL of cream (make sure you use pure cream, not the ‘thickened’ stuff) and finally the vanilla milk.

Ensure that everything is well combined and then pour into an ice cream maker and follow the machine’s instructions.

This ice cream doesn’t set super hard which is great because there is no stuffing around when you want to eat some. You can, literally, eat it straight from the container, straight from the freezer (er, we only did that when finishing it off … I promise!). I was a little unsure as to whether or not it was too sweet but everyone else assured me it was fine as it was. And indeed, there is a lovely balance between the bitterness of the coffee, the creaminess of the ice cream and the sweetness.

There are many different ways to put together an ice cream and what impressed me most about this recipe was the speed at which it can be made (I scalded the milk the morning and made the ice cream in the afternoon) and the fact that you’re not making a traditional custard, so you don’t have to worry about anything splitting. If you’ve ever thought about making your own ice cream and been scared for whatever reason: try this recipe!

* Bring the milk to the boil and remove from the heat immediately.

Dumplings R Us

- Alex 1 Comment

date of visit: Tuesday 13 March 2012

We ducked into Dumplings R Us for a quick (and extremely cheap) takeaway lunch. It sits on Rundle Street, near Brunelli and Red Rock Noodle bar, on the site of several ‘former’ venues. Before dumplings, it was a Japanese restaurant/café.

The menu is very reminiscent of Dumpling King and for around $9 you can bag yourself 15 fried pork dumplings. That’s enough to split between 2 people, unless you’re a very greedy chappy. There are a quite a few other dishes available but, given the emphasis on dumplings in the name I expect dumplings to be the star dish.

We turned up around half past 12 and the restaurant was quite busy but definitely not full. Placing our order took a little while and then we sat at a table to wait. This gave me a good chance to observe both the kitchen and waiting staff in action.

Waiting wise, things seemed pretty busy and I think if they’d had on one or two more staff then they’d have all looked a lot less harried. In the kitchen, things seemed under control. The dumplings do all seem to be frozen in bags of 10 or 15 (the two portion sizes) – and as they’re ordered they’re just dumped into pans for cooking. The restaurant also features an ‘Express Bar’ which had a few dumplings under a heat lamp but didn’t seem to be being used.

Back at work the dumplings were unpacked and shared out. We’d ordered fried and they were quite nice and crispy. In our bag we also had some sauces (including the really tasty chilli and onion sauce) so you’re not missing out on too much by opting for takeaway.

Flavour wise, the dumplings are nothing exciting. There’s nothing offensive or wrong with them, but there’s also nothing to make you sit up and take notice. Personally, if I were closer to Bank Street I’d be heading to Mandoo over Dumplings R Us. But if you’re around Rundle Street and you want dumplings in a hurry then Dumplings R Us will sort you out.

Perfectly decent for a quick, cheap lunch on a work day.

Dumplings R Us on Urbanspoon

Mesa Lunga

- Alex 12 Comments

 

 

date of visit: Saturday 3 March 2012

After our very happy start to the evening (at Cork) we headed off to our 8:30pm dinner reservation at Mesa Lunga. I’d rung to book at the last minute and been offered a choice of 6pm or 8:30pm. I’m always a little bit nervous about later reservations (even though that’s when I prefer to eat) because there’s plenty of opportunity for tables not to turn as quickly as the restaurant expected and that will mean I’ll end up standing at the bar.

While this wasn’t the case for us, it was for the couple in front of us who, reservation-less, were offered the chance to hang around and wait for a table that might be 30 minutes or so away. All credit to them for doing that (I certainly wouldn’t have!) but it did mean that front of house took far too long to acknowledge us and get us seated.

Mesa Lunga’s layout is based around two long tables which can be divided by low pot plants. I guess that what they’re aiming at is the Spanish communal style of eating while acknowledging that people can be a bit funny about being sat next to strangers. Be aware that this means a reservation for 2 will mean you’re sitting next to each other. Some people can find both of these things a bit off putting … but not me, I like it.

From the outset (that’d be the hanging around to be seated part) service at Mesa Lunga was best described as chaotic. I’m not sure whether they were short on waiting staff or just really disorganised. We had to wait quite a while to place a drinks order (not only bad service, but also bad for the bottom line) and when we did order our bottle of Albariño it couldn’t be found … The waitress explained that they either didn’t have it in stock, or they couldn’t find it and the Spanish wine manager (not sure if the individual was Spanish or perhaps he/she manages only the Spanish wines) was on holiday. But we could have the other Albariño at the same price. Absolutely fine (of course!) but we probably didn’t need the complicated story …

The internet reports that the tapas at Mesa Lunga is very good but we were hungry and went the entrée-main course route. We started by sharing some charcuterie and boquerones which was very good. Obviously, it’s quite hard to stuff up slicing some sausage but the anchovies were served layered between some house made potato crisps with some salsa and they were really very good.

For main course, Andy chose the seafood paella and I opted for the fideuà. Fideuà is sort of paella but made with fine pasta instead of rice. I’ve only had it once before, in Barcelona, where the dish was a lot drier than that produced by Mesa Lunga. Mesa Lunga’s had the sloppiness of pasta coated in a tomato sauce. I have no idea which is more authentic (I’m sure there are tons of chefs in Spain who produce less than authentic dishes) but at Mesa Lunga I felt a bit like I was just eating pasta. If I’d wanted Italian I would have ordered a pizza (yes, bizarrely, Mesa Lunga does offer a pizza selection) or even gone to an Italian restaurant. On the plus side, the dish was topped with 3 or 4 massive scampi that were perfectly cooked, juicy and sweet.

There were no complaints about the seafood paella. I will say that both of us could have done with a finger bowl …

Wrapping up our main courses our thoughts turned to dessert and coffees. To be honest, I’d been lining up the churros from the time we looked at the menu. Unfortunately, dessert really was the icing on the bad service cake.

We ordered and our coffees arrived while we were still finishing our wine. And then we managed to finish our coffees before the churros arrived. Then there was the exciting first bite into the churros – the expectation being a gorgeous crispy hot doughnut, with a delicious chocolate sauce. Oh dear. Even with my piece of churro being doused in chocolate sauce I could tell that these little babies hadn’t been cooked in clean fat. In fact, Andy pronounced it positively fishy. We looked at each other in dismay. Andy had a further mouthful, I tried another mouthful or two both with and without the chocolate sauce … and then we gave up, leaving all but one of the churros untouched.

Well, the meal was over. Service around us was as chaotic as it had been at the outset and Andy had to wave someone over to get the bill. She saw the untouched dessert but I guess she didn’t notice it because she never asked if there was a problem. When the bill arrived, our card sat on the table for what seemed like an age, as unloved as the churros. Finally, Andy decided we needed to just get up, pay and leave.

Our main waitress was at the till and took our account. We commented that the churros had been cooked in less than fresh oil. She looked disappointed and said we should have said something and she could have dealt with it. But how long would we have had to sit, staring at our churros before someone checked if everything was OK?

We left full, but not particularly happy. While there are things to recommend Mesa Lunga (an interesting wine list is definitely one of them) we’re not in a hurry to go back. And if we do – I’ll be sticking to tapas and steering clear of dessert.

Mesa Lunga on Urbanspoon