Seacliff Beach Hotel

February 11, 2013 - Alex Leave a comment

slightly anaemic salt and pepper squid

date of visit: Sunday 9 February 2013

I know we’ve visited the Seacliff Beach Hotel before – but that was way back in 2010 so I think our latest visit merits a few words.

This time we were booked in for Sunday lunch: a booking for 5 plus a highchair. When we arrived, there was someone at the bar and we were seated quickly. No high chair (sigh) but that did arrive quickly and we were soon set up and ready to go.

The menu at the Seacliff is one of those very standardised pub menus and you’ll find carbon copies (or near enough) of it at various pub venues around the country. There’s nothing to challenge you here and even the pricing is comfortable with most dishes (bar the steaks) under $20. In our group, we had fish and chips, salt and pepper squid (that was me), the chicken and bacon burger, and a bruschetta.

The salt and pepper squid was unexciting. It was tender, but flavour wise there was not a lot going on at all. The batter was reasonably light and it wasn’t soggy or oily. The squid was served atop some chips, a couple of very sad looking wilted salad leaves, and with a portion of coleslaw on the side. The coleslaw was ok – totally inoffensive, and totally too much of it. I wonder if any of those bowls of coleslaw return to the kitchen empty …

Of particular note were the chips, which were awful. They were thin, long chips, soggy, nowhere near golden enough – I’m guessing they were a great example of especially cheap frozen bulk chips. There is just no excuse for them being on a plate.

Service wise, things were a little uneven. At one point I went to the bar and it was unattended and the little group of patrons that assembled over time waited quite a while for someone to show up. But our food came out quickly and correctly. There was one guy wandering around who was great and should give all the other staff instruction in customer service. When he saw us settling our toddler into the highchair he came over, unprompted, to let us know where the baby change facilities were, and when he saw our group leaving he made a point of saying good bye and thanking us. These are two tiny things but they make you feel like someone is actually interested in you having a good time.

Of course it was cheap – you can eat for under $20 a head and we used our Entertainment Book voucher for a further 25% off.

I don’t know about you but I’d rather eat somewhere with good chips …

Pork Chops with Gremolata and Polenta

February 7, 2013 - Alex 2 Comments

Pork recipes are always hugely popular on Eating Adelaide for some reason. The most popular in the last month has been this super easy one pan pork fillet recipe. Today, let’s look at a slightly cheaper cut: the pork chop.

This is not so much a recipe, because all you do is pan fry the pork chop, but it’s more some ideas of what to serve with your pork chop to jazz it up a bit. I always remove the rind from the chops before frying: in the pan they never get crisp and it’s better to remove them, let them dry out in the fridge for a couple of days and throw them on the grill on the weekend when you do your bacon. Delicious!

In this meal, inspired by Delicious (UK), you serve your chop with polenta and gremolata. I added buttered spinach too, for some greens, but a salad would work well and give you a bit more vegetable variety.

For 2 people we find 100g of (quick cook) polenta, cooked with 400g of water, just a little too much. I always have plans to do something with it the next day (polenta crisps, Roman gnocchi) but it just never happens. But the rule is, four times as much water as polenta. Boil the polenta up on the stove, stirring it and keeping the heat under control. If it gets too hot, you’ll have little geysers of polenta exploding out of the pan and if one hits you, you’ll know all about it! HOT!

Cook the polenta until it’s done: and done is when it’s a silky consistency and it no longer feels grainy or gritty. I’ve never yet managed to overcook polenta and, if you find it’s ready a bit soon, you can turn off the heat because it reheats beautifully.

If you watched My Kitchen Rules last night, you’ll have heard Pete Evans mention that polenta needs seasoning. He is not wrong. Don’t be shy with the salt. At a minimum I add grated parmesan and salted butter to my polenta (both to taste or according to how much is actually left in the fridge!). If you have cream, or better yet, mascarpone, add this for beautiful silky smooth polenta. Seasoning is even more critical in a dish like this, where you don’t really have any sauce for the polenta to soak up. Taste as you go, and season by feel.

Gremolata is easy: chop parsely and add finely minced garlic, some chilli flakes and some grated lemon rind. Be careful with the garlic – as it’s not cooked it can easily become overpowering and hot, which is not what you want.

Serve the polenta on hot plates, top with a pork chop and sprinkle with gremolata. Serve extra gremolata on the side, along with some vegetables.

You’ll be able to do the polenta in the time it takes the pork chops to cook, which makes this dish extremely quick – as well as tasty and a pleasant change to a plain pork chop with salad.

Oh – and I’d recommend not serving it in a bowl. Because there’s no sauce you don’t have to worry about the polenta going sloppy and running everywhere and it can be tricky to cut a chop, and work your way around the bone, in a bowl!!!

Devilled Kidneys

February 6, 2013 - Alex 2 Comments

On Saturday night I caught the tail end of Jimmy and the Giant Supermarket on SBS. Jimmy the farmer was trying to produce a free range sausage that would hit Tesco’s ‘value’ range price point. In order to do this, he’d used various lesser cuts, including heart and tongue. Now, the heart and tongue are both muscles, as is, say, a piece of rump, so I was a bit bemused when Tesco insisted on telling its consumer panel that the sausages were 27% ‘meat’ and the remainder was heart and tongue. I was even more frustrated when the consumer panel, despite loving the flavour of the sausages, had something of a meltdown when heart and tongue were mentioned.

So I guess you can figure out that I like offal! One bone of contention in our household is kidneys. Unlike heart and tongue, kidneys are not a muscle, but Andy refuses to eat them, not on that ground, but because “they filter wee” (this is not really 100% correct but this isn’t a physiology blog so let’s let that one ride). And I love them.

And by coincidence, when I was at the butcher shop on Saturday afternoon, 2 lamb kidneys sat on the bench looking all lonely, so I rescued them, ready for the pot for Sunday morning’s breakfast.

Devilled kidneys on toast is one of the kings of a weekend breakfast, as far as I’m concerned. And this is how I make them.

For one person, take half an onion, finely sliced and sweat it down (in olive oil) in a pan with garlic and chilli to taste.

Prepare and chop the kidneys (you may need to skin them, you will definitely need to core them – which is taking out the sort of hard, fatty bit in the middle of the kidney). I personally like them chopped in smallish bite size morsels – they cook more quickly that way. Dust the kidneys in seasoned (plain) flour and then fry with the onions. You want the pan on a reasonable heat so that you get some colour on the kidneys and flour: this will mean you end up with a good sauce.

When the kidneys are looking mostly done (again, to your liking), crank the heat up a bit and add some water to the pan and give it a good stir. At first the water will boil off but judicious stirring and the slow addition of extra water, and maybe a touch more flour, if you want more sauce (I always do), will give you a lovely thick gravy. If you do add more flour, ensure that you give it a good cook out as you don’t that nasty raw flour taste.

Serve on thickly buttered toast, and season generously with salt and pepper. If you’re taking a photo for a blog post, then you can always garnish with some parsley.

I think this is delicious … but where do you stand on offal?