Author: Alex

San Remo Diamonds Dinner

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Australia VS New Zealand
photo by Stanley Yeo

Disclaimer:  I attended the dinner as a guest of San Remo.

Last night, San Remo, one of the major sponsors of the Diamonds, Australia’s national netball team, hosted a dinner in the ballroom at St Mark’s College.  This was in honour of the Wednesday night Diamonds’ match against New Zealand in the current test series.

In addition to lots of sporty types, including the very tall Diamonds themselves, the winners of San Remo’s recent Diamond Dinner were in attendance, as were eight bloggers*, including me, from around Australia.

The evening began with drinks and canapés on the lawn outside Downer House. Despite weather in Adelaide being spectacular over the weekend, yesterday wasn’t quite so warm so we moved up to the ballroom quite quickly. I was sitting next to Diamond Laura Geitz and Stephanie Greene, the CEO of Netball SA. For someone whose PE reports used to read “Alexandra tries hard” this was pretty scary stuff! But thankfully most of the talk during the evening was on the food. Naturally, pasta was dominant!

The menu had been put together by Adam Swanson and had a very personal, family focus for him. The dishes were all ones he’d grown up eating and even the bread and incredible olives that were on the table were a family affair.

We started with a prawn cocktail served with angel hair pasta. This was a bit different because the pasta was served cold. I know that if I tried to serve cold pasta like it would stick together in one pasta like lump, but Swanson had no such problems. For main course, we had a choice of barramundi with pea and dill risoni or pork and veal polpette with ragu and bucatini. I chose the polpette (Adam’s nonna’s recipe) – this was quite possibly the largest plate of pasta I’ve ever seen! I made sure I ate my way through the tasty meatballs but was, unfortunately, defeated by rather a lot of the pasta.

Dessert was a perfect foil to the rich main course – a simple plate of fresh fruit served with blood orange gelato and almond bread. Now I’d describe myself as someone who really doesn’t like orange so this is something I’d never order, left to my own devices. But the blood orange gelato was amazing – tart, creamy and sitting perhaps more on the lemon end of the citrus scale than orange – and sat really well with the strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, rockmelon and watermelon. I would have been quite happy just having the gelato!

The evening wrapped up quite early – the Diamonds had only just flown in from Perth and have a big day of preparation today before their match tomorrow night. And I just needed to go home and snooze of that huge plate of pasta …

*The bloggers were: Lucy from Diminishing Lucy, Kelly from Be a Fun Mum, Sarah from Ah the Possibilities, Emily from Fuss Free Cooking, Catherine from Adventures with Kids, Cheri from Ms Critique, and, last but not least, Debbie from Adelaide’s own d bites.

Coopers Success at ALIA Awards

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South Australia’s own Coopers Brewery had a very successful night at the ALIA (Australian Liquor Industry Association) awards last week.  Coopers Pale Ale won three awards:  best full strength beer, best tap beer and best marketed beer.  It was also runner up for best liquor brand.  Coopers 62, Coopers Clear and Coopers Sparkling also garnered mentions, being runners up and highly commended.

I daresay most South Australians already know that Coopers produces the best beers – but here’s some proof for our friends interstate and overseas!

Asparagus and Bacon Tart

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This is a quick midweek supper: supplement it with a salad and make sure you don’t eat it all as it’s delicious cold for lunch the next day!

Asparagus has a short season – this was beaten into me while living in England when everyone (well, everyone interested in food) goes a bit mental banging on about the 6 weeks of the year you can buy English asparagus.  Anyway, it’s asparagus season now in Australia and you can should be able to pick some young tender stalks up cheaply.

This is another proper storecupboard meal – once you have your asparagus everything else you’ll probably have hanging around the house.

Begin by making your pastry (or, grabbing some pre-made shortcrust from the freezer).  I always make shortcrust because, with the aid of a food processor, it’s so quick it’s a shame not to.

My basic recipe is 150g of plain flour, 75g cold, unsalted butter, 1 egg yolk (use the white to make meringues!), a pinch of salt and cold water to bring it all together.  Rest in the fridge, wrapped in clingfilm, for half an hour or so.  This makes enough pastry for  a 23cm (or so) tart tin.  If you have the will, bake it blind – it does really pay off with a nice crispy base!

For the filling, chop and fry 2 rashers of bacon.  Spread this evenly over the base of the pastry case.  Now add your fresh, roughly chopped asparagus.  You might want to reserve 3 or 4 spears for decoration – you might not.  I used the best part of 2 bunches of young asparagus.

Whisk together 5 eggs, add a generous couple of tablespoons of thick cream, and season with pepper (no salt!).  Pour over the bacon and asparagus, top with some grated parmesan and some grated cheddar and bake in an oven preheated to 160°C fan (or 180°C normal) for about half an hour – until the egg is puffed up and the tart is golden.

You don’t need to serve this piping hot – as the warmer weather approaches, room temperature would be perfectly acceptable. The tart filling will sink back a bit as it cools, but it will still look – and tast – fantastic.