Brisbane Masterclass 2008: The Knowledge

Attended Brisbane Masterclass last weekend. Too many things to soak up, too little time, too many glasses of wine, too many memories returning to my old university city. But here’s a summary of the good and bad, pluses and minuses...

+ Jeremy Strode’s brilliant, and brilliantly simple, Celeriac Salad (served with cured trout).

Celeriac Salad

Combine:

• 1 small celeriac, peeled and very finely sliced (a mandolin will do this well), then sliced into matchsticks
• 2 sticks celery, very finely sliced on the diagonal
• 3tbsp mayonnaise (Strode’s co-presenter, his wife, Jane, likes S&W mayo; she produces the Kitchen Sync range of products, which includes a smoked garlic mayonnaise … am going to look out for that)
• 1tbsp salted capers, soaked in water for 15 minutes and rinsed
• sea salt
• freshly ground white pepper

(And the curing of the trout a revelation too: a 400g trout fillet, deboned and cut into four fingers can be cured with a mixture of 200g table salt, 200g caster sugar, 1tbsp roasted coriander seeds and 1tbsp fresh dill in three hours — in the fridge, before being pan-fried until skin is crisp and trout is medium rare.)

+ Jeremy Strode’s reminder about How to Cook a Fillet of Fish: heat a frying pan (one with a handle that allows it to go from stovetop to oven). Add oil, heat. Fry fish skin-side down first for 2-3 minutes. Fry fish skin-side up for 1 minute. Place pan in oven to finish cooking for 2-3 minutes. Voila.

+ Jeremy Strode’s Memories of Cooking in France and London. One of the most entertaining presenters of the weekend, Strode talked about the romance of cooking in France, where staff lunch would be a baguette, rosé and a game of pétanque in the restaurant carpark with a backdrop of lavender fields. London was harder. Working at La Tante Claire, he’d work five days a week, 18 hours a day, Monday to Friday. Saturday would be sleep. Sunday he’d wash his chefs’ whites.

- Jane Strode’s reminder of The Wonder of Frangelico Over Ice with Fresh Lime. Brilliant at midnight on Saturday night in the hotel bar. Not so brilliant the next morning … sore head.

+ 2006 Olivier Leflaive Corton-Charlemagne: A white Burgundy from six different parcels of grapes growing on the slopes of the hill of Corton. Young and tight and closed, says Julie Leflaive. Could go for five to 15 years, she added. With its extraordinary long finish and mouth-filling flavours, I’d be happy to drink it today and tomorrow and the next day. It wouldn’t last a year if it were in my wine cupboard. $240 a bottle. Salmon, lobster and monkfish she suggested as accompaniments.

+ Visiting star chef Michel Richard’s Joke. The portly, French-born, Washington DC-based chef, owner of restaurants including Citronelle in DC, started his demo with a bit of banter. “Have you heard about the garlic diet?” he asked. “You don’t lose any weight but, from a distance you look thinner.” (Given his breathlessness throughout the session, some sort of diet for Michel might be advisable.)

- Michel Richard’s “Lobster Begula Pasta”. Sorry, but what a silly contrivance. Served in a caviar tin, the “caviar” is actually Israeli (mograbieh or giant) couscous, cooked like risotto with stock and wine, then blackened with squid ink. Then served atop poached egg, lobster and hollandaise to mimic the look of caviar. What a waste of time.

+ Martin Bosley, from the Wellington restaurant Martin Bosley’s, demonstrated a dish of poached fish, king prawn, green beans, young fennel à la grecque, milk poached garlic, oyster foam. Can live without all that but will take up his suggestion to use the oyster foam ingredients to make a simple oyster soup (haven’t tested this one: buyer beware):

Oyster Soup

100g celery
100g shallots
6 peppercorns
1 bay leaf
100ml Vermouth
2 litre trim milk
16 oysters
salt

Heat a saucepan over medium heat and dry fry the celery, shallots, peppercorns and bay leaf without scorching. Add the vermouth, reduce by half and pour in the milk. Bring to a simmer for five minutes then add the oysters and cook for two minutes. Blend until smooth and strain through a fine sieve (reckon you could leave the straining out). Season to taste (reckon you could add some cream at this point).

+ Martin Bosley’s reminder of How to Poach a Fillet of Fish, prompted by his comments that young chefs these days, accustomed to using sous-vide techniques, don’t have the first idea how to poach fish the old-fashioned way:

To Poach a Fillet of Fish

First, choose a fillet from a firm-fleshed fish.
Then, make a court-bouillon:

500ml white wine
150g carrots, roughly chopped
150g onions, roughly chopped
2 bay leaves
12 peppercorns
30g salt
10g parsley stalks
5 litres cold water
120g portion fish

Place all ingredients except fish in a pot and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain, discarding vegetables. Return the stock to the pan and heat to 85°C. Place fillet in hot stock and cook for five minutes.

+ Steve Manfredi’s Parmesan and Caper Biscuits. I didn’t see Steve’s session (the former Sydney chef, now chef and kitchen gardener of Bells At Killcare) joined Super Tuscan winemaker Paolo De Marchi and Crittenden Wines’ Rollo Crittenden to trundle along a “Moveable Italian Feast”. I don’t think Steve will mind if I share his recipe from the Masterclass program, which just sounds damn good … (I’m tasting these biscuits’ nutty, savoury, salty characters as I type and snack on a cheap and nasty supermarket beetroot dip):

Steve Manfredi’s Parmesan and Caper Biscuits
(makes 30-40)

125g unsalted butter
250g plain flour
80g grated Parmesan Reggiano
2 tbsp salted capers, well rinsed and dried
1 whole egg
pinch of sea salt

In a food processor, mix all ingredients together until they are well incorporated. Do not overwork. Form the dough into a sausage about the diameter of a 20 cent piece (that’s about an inch), wrap in plastic wrap and rest in the fridge for an hour.
Preheat oven to 180°C. Cut the sausage into coins roughly the thickness of a 20 cent piece (that’s about half a centimetre) and place on a baking sheet. Cook for 10-12 minutes until a soft golden colour.
Allow to cool then serve or store in an airtight container.

+ The Home Coffee-Making Tips from Brisbane coffee titan Dean Merlo tucked away in the back of the program. For those with a stovetop espresso maker like me (mine is a Bialetti):
•    If you want one cup of coffee, use a one-cup-capacity maker; you can’t put less coffee in a big Bialetti and expect a good result.
•    Fill the base with cold, filtered water to just below the level of the safety valve.
•    Fill the basket with coffee level to the top. Tamp lightly and fill again until it reaches the top of the basket.
•    Place on a medium heat, facing the pressure valve away from you.
•    Remove from the heat when you hear the hissing noise, towards the middle of the filling process. (The rest of the water will come through.)
•    Warm your espresso cups/coffee mugs before use.

- The excessive self-promotion of William Wood of the Barossa’s Carême Pastry: I went into his “Pastry Magic” session expecting to learn about making better pastry. Instead, he demonstrated three dishes using his own pastry.

+ I had to take something away from his session … his recipe for a Fennel, Olive and Goats Cheese Tart was pretty fine:

William Wood’s Fennel, Olive and Goats Cheese Tart
(serves 6)

3 small fennel bulbs (or 2 medium)
1tbsp caster sugar
 30g butter
2tbsp Vincotto
100g black olives (stones removed)
grated zest from half an orange
salt and freshly milled black pepper
375g puff pastry
¼ cup fresh white breadcrumbs
150g soft goats cheese

Preheat oven to 200°C. Trim the fennel and cut into quarters or eighths if they are large bulbs.
Sprinkle sugar over the base of a heavy-based sauté pan. Over medium heat, caramelise the sugar. When the sugar begins to bubble, add the butter, then the Vincotto to deglaze.
Remove from the heat and add the fennel, olives and orange zest, season with salt and pepper and gently mix, coating the fennel in the sauce. Set to one side until cool enough to put in the fridge to cool completely.
Roll out the pastry on a floured surface to about 3mm thick. Cut to a 26cm round. Place the pastry on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and score a 1.5cm border from the edge. Rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.
Remove from fridge and scatter breadcrumbs over pastry, staying within the border. Place the fennel on the top, working from the centre out, creating a concentric circle. Bake for 25 minutes.
Slice goat’s cheese into 4mm thick rounds. Remove tart from oven and tuck the goat’s cheese among the fennel.
Bake for another 10-15 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown.
Serve warm with a radicchio salad.

+ The Picasso exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art. Exquisite. Picassos, plus works from the man’s own collection: Miró’s exquisite “Portrait of a Spanish Dancer”; Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin’s still life of a side of lamb; Edgar Degas’s ink-on-paper “In the Omnibus” (what a wonderful word!), Picasso’s mantilla-ed “Profile of Dora Maar”; Picasso’s “Erotic Scene”; the exquisite Renoir nudes; Matisse’s “Still Life with Oranges”; Modigliani’s “Seated Dark Haired Girl”; the brilliant ink and wash caricatures by Picasso and others; Renoir’s “Still Life with Fishes”. I’d return to Bris-Vegas soon just to get another glimpse.

- The Patagonian Toothfish dish demonstrated by Jason Peppler in a session with champagne house head Herve Augustin. Last time I looked, Patagonian Toothfish had a big unsustainable cloud over it.

+ The complete absence of any sessions that even touched on the food issue of 2008: sustainability. Good thing Michael Pollan is finally my bedside reading.

+ Lyndey Milan’s Goats Curd, Beetroot and Walnut Salad: a vinaigrette with a walnut oil component; beetroot roasted in tin foil, peeled, then halved or quartered; toasted walnuts; baguette turned into croutons; soft goats curd, beetroot, walnuts and rocket on croutons. Drizzle with vinaigrette.

+ Lyndey Milan’s Savoury Bread and Butter Pudding. Ask me another day and I’ll adapt the recipe for you. Great, but needed a bit more … something.

Postcript: a year ago I was at Melbourne Masterclass, see here for my ramblings about that.