The Elegant Sufficiency

A Late Livestrong Submission

Long past deadline, but there you go, I’m good at that. You want excuses? Where do I start? Still, hope Barbara at Winos and Foodies might give me some credit for my efforts.
This post is a contribution to her annual A Taste of Yellow blogging event in support of Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Day on May 13, an initiative to raise awareness and funds for the cancer fight. (You can donate here to my chosen cancer charity, the Mater Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, which is doing some really amazing work to find a prostate cancer vaccine.) 
Barbara's A Taste of Yellow demands of its participants that they cook and photograph something yellow with a yellow Livestrong band in the photograph somehow. “Please join me again as we remember those loved ones who are no longer with us, support those still fighting and celebrate with those who have won the fight,” Barbara wrote on her blog when she launched the 2008 Taste of Yellow a month or so back.
Dad is very firmly still with us and, if I have my way, he’s not going anywhere soon. (Although, if he were to eat this as I have done today — straight out of the jar — a heart attack would get him before the prostate cancer does.)
Well, what else are you to do with very very runny mandarin-lemon curd but slather it on sourdough toast as you would honey?
One of my roles at work is to be the editor of Sean Moran, of Sean's Panaroma. The lovely Sean writes a monthly column for us called “Fresh”: a seasonal ingredient, how to select it and store it, and what to do with that ingredient. Next column coming up in our June edition is about mandarins and one of Sean’s recipes is for mandarin curd. Loved the idea, thought it might be perfect for A Taste of Yellow.
Pity though, that I have a sad history of wrecking anything involving cooking eggs slowly into a dish. Custard, crème brulee — you name it, I mess them up. Impatience, incompetence — who knows? (Have been saving up the story of making crème brulee for the Belgian countess during one of my cooking jobs after finishing a Le Cordon Bleu course: my crème brulee was as eccentric as she was. But really, a temper tantrum over a curdled crème brulee? For heaven’s sake!)
Couldn’t get the ferocious, crazy Countess de la Laing out of my brain as I embarked on my mandarin curd. You’ll have to wait for the next the(sydney)magazine for Sean’s recipe, but suffice to say that, when my egg yolks very deliberately started to solidify in my butter-sugar-juice mixture, I could feel the countess’s wrath descending all over again.
Remedial measures were called for. The saucepan off the heat; the mixture strained to remove the cooked bits; a new egg yolk deployed in the now cooler mixture to compensate for the egg lost; back to the stove. Well, I wasn’t going to waste all that mandarin zest. Do you know how hard it is to zest a mandarin?
Of course, it was never going to be perfect, was it? One egg yolk wasn’t going to do the trick, and eventually, reluctantly, I admitted defeat, took it off the heat, poured the runny mixture into jars.
Sean’s recipe wasn’t at fault — my vagueness and impatience were the problem. The tangy, two-citrus flavour is divine and I’ll be attempting the recipe again soon, but in the meantime, I just can’t keep away from that jar in the fridge.

Strange Settlements

Melbourne is atwitter. A massive, wrap-around advertising billboard has sprung up in my neighbourhood showing a leggy model in frock and hat astride what looks like a child’s rocking horse or a carousel horse. It promotes a large shopping mall’s fashion offerings, but the oddly kinky image of the model on the horse is transfixing. Passing a local milliners this morning, I got a glimpse of a woman inside trying a frothy, blue-net confection on, tossing her head and preening. My local betting shop was packed; no fashion here, just the intense, the rough-around-the-edges, the addicted, the tense, the mutterers, the screamers.
The Spring Racing Carnival, the highlight of the Australian social calendar, is upon us. It’s the Kentucky Derby, Royal Ascot, Hong Kong Cup and Prix de l'Arc Triomphe rolled into one and tied up with a sleek bow. The highlight of the Spring Racing Carnival is the Melbourne Cup Carnival, four race days – Derby Day, Melbourne Cup Day, Oaks Day and Stakes Day – at Flemington race track.
At this time of year, in the Members’ enclosures at various points around the track, strange little settlements spring up – the Birdcage, the Nursery, the Rails, the Champagne Lawn. Like a tented refugee relief camp, the white marquees go up overnight. The decorators come in, bringing their rolls of fabric and carpets and flowers and their bits and pieces to create their themes (antiques and gilded mirrors for a Victorian theme; some chinoiserie for the Oriental look; some blond-wood furniture for a Scandinavian do-up). The caterers are next, in a flurry, with their flutes and platters and their elegant, expensive little tastes of Wagyu beef cheek on horseradish crème, or Berkshire pork belly with green apple jelly, or the merest slivers of chicken sandwiches, or whatever.
These contrived little settlements have developed a miniature political system, where status and power and influence are everything. To be anyone in this system, you must, at the very least, have a pass to the Birdcage. To be a person of considerable status, you must have an invitation to the Emirates marquee in the Birdcage. But to be in the highest echelons of power, you must have an invitation on Derby Day to the Emirates marquee in the Birdcage. If you make it that far, past the heavy-duty security personnel at the tent flap, and few do, you’ll rub shoulders with actors and celebrities and corporate titans and sports stars, be served as much champagne (not sparkling) as you can drink, and as many elegant, expensive little tastes as you can eat, and you’ll give your bets to slender women dressed in racing silks, and probably not see a horse all day.
I fell from invitation lists a long time ago, and reckon that the Birdcage-Emirates Marquee-Derby Day trifecta is one that I’ll be waiting a very long time to come in. But I feel sure I'm going to cope. Because I have:

1 A funky hat that I’ll wear regardless but which surely would be sniffed at in the Birdcage;
2 A chicken sandwich recipe that should be patented but which in its photographed incarnation here is substantial and rustic rather than elegant and expensive;
3 An invitation to an exhibition opening at a friend’s gallery that I’d like to share with anyone who’d like some artistry mixed in with their spring racing.

1 The Funky Hat



2. The Elegant Sufficiency Chicken Sandwich

Poached chicken:
4 skinless, preferably organic, chicken breasts
2 large onions
2 sticks celery
2 sprigs thyme
3 bay leaves
2 cinnamon sticks
1 lemon
1 ½ teaspoons white peppercorns
1 ½ teaspoons allspice berries
Chicken sandwiches:
160ml good mayonnaise (S&M or Best’s – more if necessary)
½ cup chervil, lightly chopped
½ cup parsley, chopped
½ cup chives, chopped
a few leaves of basil, chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 cob-style loaf of white bread, crusts removed (Babka’s Casalinga is brilliant but not evenly shaped, so if using Babka bread, your chicken sandwiches will necessarily be rustic! Babka: 358 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Melbourne)
unsalted butter

To poach the chicken: Put the chicken and aromatics in a large saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer gently for 7 minutes. Turn off the heat and leave for about 25 minutes in the hot stock to complete the cooking. (I've stolen this brilliant poaching technique from a recipe for Upside-Down Chicken and Eggplant Pilaf featured in Greg and Lucy Malouf's Saha, Hardie Grant, 2005)
To make the sandwiches: Remove the chicken from poaching liquid and lightly chop. Combine with mayonnaise, chopped herbs and salt and pepper.
Remove crusts from bread by using bread knife to saw off each of six sides. Slice and butter fairly thinly. Spread chicken mixture on slices to form sandwiches.
Slice sandwiches in desired shapes (triangles, fingers, squares or something fat, satisfying and rustic as here) and serve sprinkled with finely chopped chives.

3. The Invitation

Andy Dinan of [MARS] Melbourne Art Rooms invites you to the launch of ‘The Cup’, a collection of ceramics and paintings inspired by the Melbourne Cup by Kate Dorrough

[MARS] Melbourne Art Rooms
418 Bay Street Port Melbourne
   
Tues 31 Oct, 10.30am - 12noon
 
Morning tea, including cupcakes, Cinzano cocktails and the Elegant Sufficiency chicken sandwiches, with a parade of 'Cups You Can Wear' by Kitty K

RSVP Essential to Andy Dinan by Mon 30 October
9681 8425 andy@marsgallery.com.au
(Exhibition closes Sun 12 November)