Author: Alex Prichard

Balthazar Cafe

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Balthazar Cafe

date of visit: Thursday 4 July 2013

We first ducked in to Balthazar Café quite soon after it opened and while we’ve been there a few times it has only been for a restorative coffee and cake after a shopping trip.

The food has always looked pretty good and we have meant to time a shopping trip so we could do an early dinner, but somehow we’ve never quite managed it. We’re either there a touch early or we’ve just bought something highly perishable for dinner.

However, a couple of weeks ago, the planets aligned and we were finally able to try out the food. We were so early we certainly didn’t have to worry about finding a table and soon we were all settled in, with the toddler happily demolishing a babycino and us tucking into the complementary (and very good) bread.

Andy chose one of his pub favourites – no, not a schnitzel with gravy, but the seafood platter: salt and pepper prawns, petite whiting (what on earth is that?) and chargrilled calamari, served with salad, chips and tartare sauce. At $22 this is not only cheaper than many pub seafood platters but Andy announced that it was significantly better. It was a generous plate of food – even if he did have to share his chips with the toddler.

Balthazar Cafe

Because I figured the toddler would be very interested in Andy’s plate of food, I ordered the penne al gamberi: penne with prawns, crab meat in a chilli, tomato and cream sauce. This was a very generous plate of food and the prawns were big, fat and juicy and not stinted on. The sauce had plenty of flavour and the chilli was obviously there without being overpowering. I did think that the pasta was a touch overcooked (do bear in mind that I prefer my pasta very al dente) and I thought there was a bit too much sauce. This was a shame because the crab meat was in the rich sauce and unless you like scooping up sauce just by itself you’ll miss out on some of the crab. I’d put these down as very minor criticisms.

The service was, as previously, excellent. The staff are efficient while being friendly and the café is very family friendly.

I’m pleased we tried the food because for a family meal while out doing the shopping, it definitely hit the spot.

I still haven’t tried a siphon coffee so I guess we’ll just have to head back in future …

Balthazar Cafe on Urbanspoon

Pumpkin and Ginger Soup

- Alex Prichard 2 Comments

Pumpkin & Ginger Soup

For Christmas Andy gave me a very cool book called The Flavour Thesaurus. The book goes through almost every ingredient you could imagine and covers obvious and less obvious food pairings.

I’ve read through it but haven’t had the time or opportunity to play around with some of the ideas. However, with half a butternut squash to turn into soup I turned to The Flavour Thesaurus in the hope that it would provide me with a more interesting idea than just chilli. And while I don’t think that pumpkin and ginger is exactly an out there or novel combination this was still a good way to do something I wouldn’t have normally.

Of course, it turns out I really can’t do anything without chilli, so we finished the soup with chilli oil which added a good kick and, surprisingly, the sesame oil added to the spice warmth of the dish. However, the following day (when I was eating leftovers for lunch) I added a teaspoon of sambal oelek – which was an even better idea!

As with all soups, this is ludicrously simple and quick. Serve hot, with crumpets.

Print
Pumpkin and Ginger Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, chopped
  • quarter of butternut squash (or pumpkin) ~ 300 g - peeled, seeded, diced
  • 1 large potato, peeled and diced
  • 2cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
  • 500mL water
  • ½ pot of stock concentrate (vegetable or chicken)
  • (or ~ 500mL of stock)
  • chilli oil (to serve)

Instructions

  1. Heat some oil in a large saucepan and sweat down onion.
  2. When onion is soft, add pumpkin, potato and ginger, and cover with water or stock.
  3. Cook until the pumpkin and potato are soft.
  4. Blitz with stab mixer until smooth and adjust seasoning.
  5. Serve piping hot, topped with a little chilli oil if desired.
https://eatingadelaide.com/pumpkin-ginger-soup/

The Sweet Swap: Espresso Fudge

- Alex Prichard 6 Comments

IMG_3266all packed up & ready to go!

A while back, Sara, of Belly Rumbles, and Amanda, of Chew Town, got in touch about a blogging project they were setting up called The Sweet Swap. For a small entry fee, which was donated to ChildFund Australia, each participating blogger was matched with three other bloggers. Once you had received your matches and chosen the sweet to make, you’d package it up and send it off, while waiting for your own sweet treats to arrive.

Now, you may have noticed that I am not, exactly, a confectioner. Apart from chocolate, I don’t really like sweets. So in this instance I knew I was not only going to have to choose something that would post well (a challenge in itself!) but most likely something I don’t like eating.

I had a practice run making marshmallow and thought that it might be fun to make rocky road (fun for Andy and our workmates – even with chocolate marshmallow is still going to be gross).

I’m really sorry if any of my matches would have preferred rocky road: just as I should have been in the kitchen making marshmallow my toddler decided it would be fun to have temperatures spiking 40°C for a few days and ended up in hospital. There needed to be some seriously quick revision of plans and, in what can only be blind panic (the deadline for posting had passed!) I chose to make fudge.

Now, I have never made fudge before and I couldn’t even claim to have eaten enough to call myself a connoisseur, so I was really winging it. I chose to make this espresso fudge because I like chocolate and coffee.

I wasn’t happy because the recipe was a bit vague (temperatures for the different stages would have made me happy) but I was out of time and there for nothing for it but to hit the stove.

My inability to focus on stirring turned out to be a blessing: if you over-stir fudge it turns out grainy, but this, my first effort was dense and creamy with a solid, but not overpowering, hit of coffee.

I probably sound really pleased with myself, and I am. But I’m sure it’s all beginner’s luck and I’ll never be happy with another batch of fudge ever again!

IMG_3271heart attack inducing size pieces of fudge

Print
Espresso Fudge

Ingredients

  • 1 tin sweetened condensed milk (395g - the standard size in the shops)
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 2 tbsp glucose syrup
  • 180g dark chocolate, broken up
  • 3 tsp instant coffee (strong will do, espresso if you have it)

Instructions

  1. Place the condensed milk, sugar and glucose syrup in a pan over a low heat and wait for the sugar to melt, stirring only occasionally. This takes quite a while so be patient.
  2. When the sugar has melted, turn up the heat (medium - high) and bring the mix to a simmer. Be a little more attentive with your stirring. In time the mixture will start to thicken and come away from the sides of the pan. If you are using a good non stick pan (and you really should) the mixture will come away from the sides quite quickly but you need to keep stirring until it thickens up.
  3. Take the mixture off the heat and mix in the chocolate and instant coffee. Mix until the chocolate has melted completely and then pour into a greased and lined baking dish (I used one that is approx 20cmx20cm). Allow to cool and then refrigerate. Overnight is best.
  4. Cut up: this is very rich so small squares is a good idea. For serving you may wish to dust with cocoa powder, but the fudge is so rich it doesn't need it. A cup of coffee on the side could be considered essential though!
https://eatingadelaide.com/sweet-swap-espresso-fudge/

I think there might have been a slight glitch in the Sweet Swap because I actually received FOUR sweets, not three.

From Gareth at Humble Crumble I received some black forest fudge – chocolate fudge studded with cherries. From Joanna at The Hangry Bitch sacher tortingtons – a quirky take on lamingtons, stuffed with a homemade orange marmalade, iced and decorated with flaked coconut, Aga at At Matter of Taste sent Polish biscuits that her grandmother used to make and Amy at Melbourne Food Snob sent chewy coconut caramels. Quite a little haul (and some of which is still being eaten, which is a massive win!).

My fudge went Aga, Billy and Leah. Aga quit sugar just before the Sweet Swap (really terrible timing) but I hope Billy and Leah enjoyed the fudge and my apologies for the delay.