Merry Christmas - a very long lunch in Brunswick

Well, another Christmas Day is done with! I was sheepishly greeted by my daughter Imogen this morning with, ‘...only 364 sleeps till Christmas dad’. I certainly hope that this countdown does not have legs; she already has one for when she starts prep and her birthday is in March so three countdowns before New Year would not bode well here in Brunswickistan.

Yes, yesterday here in Brunswickistan was a massive effort; presents, more presents, mud crabs, prawns, smoked salmon, Champagne and then Grandma and Papa arrived with Aunty Meaghan with even more presents for a sugar hyped 4 year old and more wrapping paper for Henry’s first Christmas Day

As usual, when there is a get together at my place, I do the cooking, so yesterday, bar the Christmas pudding and one massive ham was all up to me. The menu sort of read like this:

BBQ Tiger prawns with a fennel and Chinese salad like coleslaw (inspired by Andrew McConnell)
Grilled zucchini and asparagus with truss tomatoes and chevre goats cheese
Singapore chilli mud crab
6 kg Bertocchi ham!
Tasmanian Smoked Salmon
Home made ginger bread men - Henry's favourite as you can see below with Grandma
Christmas pudding with brandy jelly

The eating started at about 2.30pm and wound down by about 7pm I’d say (the obligatory picking ensued of course). Now for me, you cannot not have a Christmas Pud on Christmas day; it is by far my favourite plate. Yet yesterday my fancies were certainly with the smoked salmon and mud crab (that’s if you could get some from Mum’s plate!) The chilli was just right without offending more sensitive tummies.


There was no real thought to the wine yesterday, with some favourites and crowd-pleasers making up the numbers:

Heidsieck & Co Monopole NV Champagne from Epernay
Pommery Brut Royal NV Champagne from Reims
Swings and Roundabouts Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2008 from Margaret River
Shaw and Smith M3 Chardonnay 2008 from Adelaide Hills
Majella Sparkling Shiraz 2001 from Coonawarra – Wine of the day!
Willow Creek Tulum Pinot Noir 2008 from Mornington Peninsula
Buckleys dark Bock ale from Healesville in the Yarra Valley

As I said, the Majella Sparkling Shiraz was the wine of the day, but it was the Buckleys dark Bock ale that was the obvious Susan for the day with an abundance of rich malt, coffee and raisin chocolate.

I am not going to bang on about the wines from yesterday cos’ I did not sit there with pen and paper jotting down notes on colour, nose and palate. Instead I sat back with my family and enjoyed the smiling faces of my two kids – that’s what Christmas day is all about. Now it’s time for leftovers for lunch and the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Summer BBQ time! - CookbooksPart 1: Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook

‘Nature forms patterns. Some are orderly in space but disorderly in time, others orderly in time but disorderly in space.’ - James Gleick ‘Chaos’

A few years ago I bought this book for a little bit of light reading over summer. It turned out that it wasn’t, and isn’t, the type of ‘light reader’ you look for over summer. Though it was while reading this last night that I came across the above sentence that made this post seem all so necessary.

It is sort of getting warmer here in Melbourne, and with that the BBQ is going to get rather busy. There was a time in my life when a BBQ meant burnt sausages and greasy onions, but these days, with a little bit of culture under my belt, I am lending towards a more ‘anything goes approach’ – the Chaos Theory you might say, where chaos begins, classical science – or in this case classical BBQ – stops!

It is with this in mind that I have trolled through some of my more worn cookbooks, and Maeve’s DVDs of ‘Food Safari’, and put together a taste of what will be prepared for the 2009/2010 BBQ season here in Downtown Brunswick. Let the drooling begin!

Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook
A personal favourite of mine with many of the pages stained with sauces. I have chosen three very classic French dishes, with all of them needing the BBQ in one manner or another.

Salade Niçoise – this one will have two versions; no bonjovies for Erin and lots for me and Imogen.
· Salt for cooking and to taste
· 170 grams haricots verts or green beans
· four small red bliss potatoes, scrubbed
· One garlic clove, peeled and crushed
· Extra virgin olive oil
· About three tbsp red wine vinegar
· Black pepper
· Bibb lettuce
· One green bell pepper, cored and cut into thin slices
· Anchovy fillets, white preferred
· 100 grams Niçoise olives. Get these bad boys from a very good deli such as the French deli at the Queen Vic markets for all of you Melbournians
· Four ripe Roma tomatoes
· High quality canned tuna or seared fresh tunaFour hard boiled eggs, peeled and cut length wise in to quarters.

The ingredients follow very easily onto the plate, but a tip is do not leave the blanched vegetables sit too long; pat them dry when you remove them from water. I'd go for something like the Sorrenberg Beechworth Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2008.

Moules Marinières – this was a favourite when I was living in London all those years ago.

· About 150 grams of quality butter
· Two shallots, sliced thin
· 500 mL white wine, cooking – not drinking, yet
· 3 kg mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded just before cooking
· Flat parsley, finely chopped

Melt the butter off in a big pot over a medium flame and add shallots to cook for a couple of minutes. Pour in wine and bring to the boil and season. Throw the mussels in and pop the lid on to cook for about 10 minutes or until all mussels have opened – never force a mussel open; very, very bad for your tummy! Shake the pot as you go and keep the lid nice and secure so you don’t get any of the very hot juices scorching your private bits (always cook with your clothes on). Toss in parsley, stir some more and serve in a massive bowl is you have one. Open a Grosset Springvale Watervale Clare Valley Riesling 2009 with this one being a bit more flinty than the 2008.

Côte de Boeuf – this is the one from my Father’s Day post this year – super mucho fantastico!!!

· 1.5kg rib steaks, on the bone
· Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
· Olive oil, a couple of glugs

This is a big piece of meat, so it is going to be very cold when you pull it out of the fridge; get it out about 30-45 minutes before you put it on the BBQ so to bring it down to room temp.

I am not going to pontificate, but this is best cooked medium rare because it is so big. Only poke and slice until rested for about ten minutes or so. Eat with something like the Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2007 - masses of rich dark fruit combined with chewy tannins make this one a Susan.

I think it wise at this point to break this post in to instalments, otherwise I will be writing this, and you will be reading, until tomorrow. So off you go, clean the BBQ, get your gas cylinder re-filled and cook, cook, cook!

Jacob's Creek St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2004

“What do you mean this wine is $55, I can get this at Dan’s for $30” - but wait, there’s more. “Why don’t you have more wines that I like on the list? Really, a list like this makes me quite angry.”

Now for those restaurant people out there, the first quote is quite common. The second one, however is not, yet one fellow about six months actually said that to me while trolling through my list. It actually made him angry!

People are funny beasts when they have a winelist in their hands; I reckon there are three ways they will go – the safe bet, left field or leave it to the sommelier to choose. And it is the safe bet pick that this blog is about.

The safe bet is the wine on the list that is old school. And this is usually a label from the stables of Fosters, Hardy’s or Orlando. Wines that have been bobbing up for 20-30 years that are more of a house or Domain style rather than that of vintage specific. Now before you start thinking what a snob I am (this is true however), and how I am... well a snob I guess, these wines are what they are because the people who make them know that Bert and Terry and Joyce and Alice will buy them again and again and again. Why you ask? Because they liked it then, they like it now and they’ll like it tomorrow – too easy.

So, onto the wine.

This week, Erin and I opened a bottle of Jacobs Creek St Hugo Coonawarra 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (geez that was a mouthful hey). Now I bought this cos I thought that there was way too much Pinot going in here, and hey, Coonawarra Cab is good.

The wine to look at is big bright red, almost black in the middle with a bright pink hue. The nose is all ripe raspberries with prickly acid. Then the alcohol hits. Big hit – 14.5% to be precise. After that there is not much to pick up other that the booze which goes on for a while. I will say that over time, two hours, and the alcohol sort of blows off with a more eucalypt feel to it. In the mouth it is big, big and big with ripe fruit, quite acidic and in the end very astringent. In the end, just another JABS (see previous blogs).

Drinking old school is something that will happen more often than not considering the almost oligopoly that three producers have in Oz. So when you do, make sure that it is a variety that is suitable for the region, but most of all make sure you like it before you buy! And by the way, when a wine has the bottle number on it, this usually indicates a special release or small number production, but when the bottle number is 400,854, I can rest easy that it is certainly the safe wine that I have been writing about.
Toodaloo.

Drink till 2014
Drink with anything that has been cooked well! (That’s well done!!!)
14/20

Tete a Tete CDR 1998 Coonawarra Shiraz

Please do not think I am a Lush, but I am in a bit of a rhythmn so here goes.


I opened this wine in 2005 for the first time (still have 2 bottles left) and the colour was blood red; massive blood.


The nose was really developed; leathery and cedar coming through strong and proud. By jove it smelt good.

In the mouth it was gorgeous!! There was acid coming in strong and then... then praline, smooth praline. And just when you think it's done, ripe cherry comes pouring in.


So bloody nice

Drink with slow cooked game such as goat.

now (2009) till 2011





18.5/20