Gewurzhaus, Herb & Spice Merchants

How great is it when you stumble upon a wonderful shop, something that you never expected to find on your travels, despite all the research you did into the 'must-see' and 'must-do's.  I encountered this sense of delight when we, while trying to avoid the rain, walked through The Block Arcade in Melbourne (between Little Collins and Collins Street).  The first thing we saw was the long line of people queuing in front of the Hopetoun Tea Rooms.  I had no idea about this place either but I could see why they had attracted a crowd.

Hopetoun Tea Rooms, The Block Arcade, Melbourne

A gorgeous display of cakes and desserts, all presented with care, I had to see what all the fuss was about.  Instead of lining up for an opportunity to sit inside, I went straight in and ordered a slice of Apple Streudel to take away (possibly the only item in the window which didn't contain cream, so Brendan could enjoy it too with his casein allergy).  And while we were patiently waiting for this to be prepared, we looked around.  Directly opposite, something even better:

Gewurzhaus, Herb & Spice Merchants, The Block Arcade, Melbourne

Gewurzhaus, Herb & Spice Merchants.  Fill-yourself bins of pre-mixed herb and spice blends, featuring native Australian flavours, and salts from around the world.  The smell of the shop was amazing.

As in any great shop, I slowed right down and spent a long or longer moment surveying everything.  Either reading the list of ingredients or opening the lids of the herb and spice-blend bins and wafting the aromas towards me so I could purposefully inhale the complexities of the in-house-made blends.  It makes me hungry just recalling it! I decided I had to take something away with me.

I chose:
- Australian Bush Herbs (ingredients: Australian coriander, pumpkin, lemon myrtle, bush tomato, sea salt, onion, native thyme, aniseed myrtle, chives, chilli, garlic)
- Roasted Vegetable Salt (ingredients: Flake salt, rock salt, coriander, garlic, onion, caraway, oregano, pepper, thyme, ginger, lemon myrtle, marjoram, mustard seed, nutmeg, paprika, parsley, rosemary) &
- Salish Alder Smoked Sea Salt which has a wonderful intoxicating aroma from being slow-smoked over Red Alderwood.  The description tells me it is "especially great on salmon", and I have no doubt.

My selection of Gewurzhaus offerings

Whole baked kahawai

Fresh off the south coast of Wellington, my boyfriend picked up a nice little 45cm kahawai with the help of the Yogi Berry (the boat/dinghy) and it's captain.  Last night, without scaling (we were a bit lazy) we butterflied it as if to smoke it but baked it whole with a simple stuffing.

Before and after

Whole baked kahawai (serves 3 hungry people with sides)

Whole fresh kahawai, head removed, gutted and butterflied with back bone removed
2 inches white part of leek, as thinly sliced as possible
2 spring onion, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
2 Tbsp freshly chopped parsley
Juice of 1 lemon (however, I didn't have a lemon so we used lime instead)
1 tsp Maldon sea salt (I actually used Salish Alder Smoked salt, see following post)
1/2 c homemade breadcrumbs (I like using my own as it has more texture but any breadcrumbs would be fine)
Decent glug of grapeseed or olive oil

Preheat oven to 180deg on fan bake and place kahawai on prepared oven tray.  Mix all other ingredients together, incorporating oil as much as possible so when cooking the stuffing doesn't catch.  Spread evenly over the fish pressing firmly to help everything stay together.  Drizzle lightly with a bit of extra oil and bake for around 35-40 minutes (depending on size of fish), with foil placed over for the first half of cooking time.  Test for doneness at the thickest part of the fish at 30 minutes to gauge how much longer it might need as you'll want it just cooked.

Serve with pan-fried potatoes (parboiled, cooled and then fried in hot pan with a little oil) and salad for a great dinner.

Searching for Dumplings

I call a lot of things my 'favourite food' but there is something so perfect about a neatly formed parcel of meat (with sometimes a little vege) embedded with flavour, wrapped in dough and able to be captured in one concise mouthful.  Unlike the Italian ravioli, the Chinese dumpling is versatile in the different ways it can be cooked.  Boiled, steamed or pan-fried, it gives a myriad of sensual possibilities: from the flavour combinations, different seal-and-crimping methods (creating thinner and thicker parts within the join) to the texture which comes from the cooking technique.  (The Japanese gyoza is based on the pan-fried dumpling which, also known as 'pot-stickers', gain a chewy crust at their base while their tops are steamed - soft, with bite).

Google image search for "jiao zi"

Making and/or eating dumplings (or jiao zi, 餃子) is a long-loved tradition of mine for celebrating Chinese New Year.  Especially after moving out of home, I feel like I have to make a batch to share with friends every year, as if it was out of superstition.  Usually I stick to traditional Chinese flavours like minced pork with mushroom, garlic, chives, spring onion, soy sauce, sesame oil and some oyster sauce; or sometimes I'll add coriander, chilli, finely grated carrot and/or change the meat to minced lamb for a more Nepalese/Western Chinese flavour profile.  On the odd occasion, I've experimented with outright Western flavours like chicken, cranberry and brie (not bad), with the thought that you can pretty much package any great combination of flavours into a dumpling skin.

Berries, honey and yoghurt, oh my!

No-one could dispute that berries, honey and luscious Greek yoghurt are a win-win-win combination. Add chia seeds, oats and coconut flakes and you've got an extremely nutritious breakfast.

Overnight Berries & Oats (serves 1)

As the berries defrost overnight this will help to soften the oats and ready them for eating.  I have no doubt that an additional half banana sliced would go nicely too (I'm just not a big fan). 

2/3 c wholegrain oats (I'm sure rolled would work too)
Handful of frozen berries
1 Tbsp honey (I use manuka for extra health)
1 Tbsp chia seeds
3 heaped Tbsp Greek yoghurt
2 Tbsp coconut flakes (optional)
1 Tbsp flaxseed (linseed) (optional)

Into a breakfast bowl, add everything and combine.  Set aside in fridge overnight, and that's it!

In the morning, I usually try to remember to take it out of the fridge before having a shower so it can come up to room temperature.  Then I sprinkle some flaxseeds over and enjoy. (And yes, this is an exception to my need for a savoury breakfast.)

A most versatile dish

Quiches are great.  Egg, bit of cream, a myriad of different flavour combinations, pastry... What's not to love? Cooking one at home however, that pastry base always puts me off.  One part is being too lazy to make one, while the other is having the mindset that if I can go without it, I should.  The solution? The frittata.

Google image search for "quiche"

Besides the pastry, they have only a few differences. The quiche is French (arguably), while the frittata is Italian. The former is cooked entirely in the oven, while the latter is cooked in a skillet, started on the stove and finished in the oven (though if need be, can be done entirely in the oven, too).  I would also suggest that the egg mixture of the quiche requires cream, whereas the frittata is more similar to an omelette which uses water.  So for all intensive purposes, they're really very similar.

Google image search for "frittata"

To compensate for the lack of pastry, the common frittata (also similar to the Spanish tortilla) often uses slices or chunks of cooked potato as part of the base recipe to help hold it all together.  As a rule of thumb, it's a great place to start as most flavours that go with egg fend similarly with the potato.  From here then it's all about the flavour combinations of the other fillings.

And in my opinion, the ideal circumstances to conjure up an occasion for the frittata are leftovers.  Christmas is perfect: ham off the bone, roast vegetables, cheese platter remnants... you couldn't ask for better.  If after a Sunday roast, make the most of the leftover chicken with some cherry tomatoes, stuffing and basil; or, maybe you simply need to use up what's in the fridge: a bit of bacon, black pudding (if you are that way inclined), with a few sliced green onions and grated cheddar could be all you need.

The Food Lab

There are so many great food blogs out there.  It's easy to lose hours and hours reading the threads of different flavour profiles and then the great blogs that other great blogs love themselves.  My favourites usually have a focus on whole foods and fresh seasonal ingredients, often with a vegetarian bent, illustrating the type of food that I'd like to cook more often (alongside cuts of meat that have been lovingly braised for hours, don't get me wrong). Some of these are:

• My New Roots
• 101 Cookbooks (as mentioned previously here)
• Sprouted Kitchen
• Green Kitchen Stories
• Good Things Grow; and,
• La Tartine Gourmande.

All complete with gorgeous photography, they are always a joy to scroll through.  But today, I want to share a blog that I think is even better than pretty photos and lovely recipes: The Food Lab.  Part of Serious Eats (which is a great online food resource in itself, especially if you live in the States as they have city-specific forums), The Food Lab is committed to "unravelling the mysteries of home cooking through science".

Screen shot of The Food Lab homepage

While J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is also the Chief Creative Officer at Serious Eats, on The Food Lab he creates all of his recipes from laboriously testing every element, with the home cook in mind.  He investigates simple foods like grilled cheese sandwiches and crispy smashed potatoes to more complex recipes like taco al pastor and traditional Vietnamese Pho (or the best Pho possible within an hour) providing evidence of what each key step of the recipe means for the resultant dish.  Recently, he has also opened up his blog to reader's questions on cooking and preparation techniques, which he answers by similarly  testing the theories through a clear scientific methodology.  For example, recently he's answered: "Can I start my pasta in cold water?" or "Do I need to preheat my oil?"

Understandably, not everyone is interested in the why or how or what (making Kenji's early "Get Recipe" links at the top of the page very convenient) but I love learning about the chemical processes and cause-and-effect of the techniques used in our every day cooking. Gaining this kind of deeper understanding about food is what I think makes me a better home cook, and probably the reason why I spend more time reading cookbooks than cooking recipes word-for-word out of them.  For me, it's not about doing what I'm told but figuring out the principles so I can tap into these when I'm cooking, often with whatever is lying around.

Knowledge is power!

And I hope you'll get as much out of The Food Lab as I do.  If not, Kenji's dogs may keep you amused:

From 'This Week at Serious Eats headquarters', photograph by Robyn Lee.