Recipes

Summer of Riesling! 1. Food for riesling - XO Scallops »

January 7, 2012

I absolutely love XO sauce. My very favourite thing in a good Cantonese restaurant is XO pippies. But XO prawns, lobster, crab and scallops are all equally delicious.



I found a great recipe for XO sauce on the internet. It's one of Neil Perry's recipes which he uses at his amazing Spice Temple & Rockpool. It was really easy to make and just when I thought the sauce wasn't cooking properly it suddenly came together and turned the red colour Neil talks about in his method.

Here's the link to this great recipe. Rockpool XO Sauce Recipe.

Once the sauce was made and cooled, I lightly seasoned the scallops and tossed them in a hot wok with some snow peas and the XO sauce. Once done, I removed them from the wok, added a little more XO sauce to the scallop juices and tossed some noodles through this and then served.

Enjoy with a chilled glass of our beautiful 2011 'The Whip' Riesling.

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The green invasion »

December 31, 2011

I can remember someone once saying to me "you know you are living in the country, when you have to lock your car doors to stop people giving you zucchinis."

These prolific growers invade the garden every summer and supply us with an abundant crop for the restaurant and home. Like all our vegetables, our zucchinis are grown organically in large beds. They are so easy to grow but we give ours a boost by beautifully prepared soil enriched with our own compost. We also use some worm 'tea' supplied by a local biodynamic farmer. This helps to control mildew which zucchinis get on their leaves with too much wet weather.



We pick the zucchini blossoms daily; zucchinis seem to grow as you watch them. These beautiful flowers are always very popular on our menus.





Picking daily will ensure that you have a supply right through till autumn.



We grow a few different varieties of zucchini and squash including the Lebanese 'white' zucchinis and the beautiful yellow crookneck squash





There are lots of easy things to do with zucchinis. They are a favourite vegetable to grill on the BBQ. But with the abundance of produce we also have to preserve them into pickles and chutneys.

I love this chutney recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. He calls it

"Glutney"

You will need

• About 10 x 340 g jars (or enough jars to make about 3400 g of chutney)
  
• 1 kg of zucchinis diced
  
• 500 g onions diced
  
• 1 kg tomatoes (scalded, skinned and chopped)
  
• 1 kg apples, peeled and diced
  
• 500 g Sultanas
  
• 500 g brown sugar
  
• 750 mL white wine vinegar
  
• 1-3 tsp dried chilli flakes
  
• 1 tsp salt
  

and for the spice bag;

• 1 thumb size piece ginger
  
• 12 cloves
  
• 12 peppercorns
  
• 1 heaped teaspoon coriander seeds
  
• a few blades of mace
  

Put all the fruit and vegetables into a large heavy based pan with the sultanas and sugar. Make the wine vinegar up to 1 L with water and add. Add the chilli flakes and salt.



Make up the spice bag by tying the ingredients into a square of muslin. Then push the spice bag into the middle of the pan.



Heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved and then bring to the boil. Allow to simmer, uncovered for 2-3 hours, stirring regularly to make sure it doesn't stick (you may add a little boiling water if it is drying out too much).

The chutney is ready when it is thick, rich and reduced. You can test by dragging a wooden spoon through it. If it parts to reveal the bottom of the pan it is ready. Pot it into sterilised jars (using plastic lids so the vinegar won't react).

It should then mature for 2 weeks or ideally 2 months before using.

Enjoy it with a 'ploughman's' plate of good crusty bread, some cheddar, leg ham and a glass of our merlot!

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Vermentino and anchovies »

November 15, 2011

The Piazza Garibaldi, in the old part of Monterosso al Mare, lies buried under metres of rubble and mud. Wrecked cars are strewn in with the mire. The once luminescent azure sea, which lapped gently against the idyllic beach, has turned melancholy; it now resembles a potter’s slurry as it ebbs and flows beside the terracotta tones of the town’s buildings. On October 25th 2011, flash floods, causing landslides, ripped through the villages of the Cinque Terre. Two of them, Monterosso al Mare and Vernazza were badly damaged. 12 people are dead or missing (which is a surprisingly small number, given the extent of the devastation) and excavation crews and emergency workers are trying to restore services. The gentle people of the Cinque Terre are still in shock and wondering how this could have happened to their utopian little part of the world.

Just one month before the devastation, on a balmy perfect evening, the vineyard manager (AKA my husband) and I sat in a bar at the side of the Piazza Garibaldi, sipping on Aperol spritzers (a mixture of Aperol and Prosecco) as our children played in the nearby park. Our children couldn’t speak Italian and the local children couldn’t speak English, but for a good hour they had a tremendous time together in the pretty little park in the perfect twilight.

The Cinque Terre (the five lands) is a part of the Ligurian coast (the Italian Riviera), between Levanto and La Spezia. The five villages of Cinque Terre; Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore date back to the late middle ages. In each village, compact, colourful buildings are stacked in a maze of narrow winding streets. The beauty of the Cinque Terre has inspired many famous artists, writers, poets and musicians; Shelley, Lord Byron and German composer Richard Wagner are amongst them. It is one of the most scenic landscapes on the planet and is listed as a world heritage site. UNESCO’s justification for its inscription ironically describes it as “a cultural site of outstanding value, representing harmonious interaction between people and nature to produce a landscape of exceptional scenic quality that illustrates a traditional way of life that has existed for a thousand years and continues to play an important socio-economic role in the life of the community.”


Monterosso al Mare from the train station

We arrived in Monterosso al Mare by train. This is the recommended way to visit the Cinque Terre. Driving in is difficult and cars have to be left outside the villages in expensive car parks (if there is space). We booked a room at the Hotel la Colonnina six months before our visit. Even with this time frame, we struggled to find accommodation, as there are only small family hotels and they book out very quickly.


narrow streets in the old village of Monterosso

The train station is in the new part of Monterosso and we wheeled our bags along the promenade down to the old part of the town. There was instant enchantment as we walked beside the incredibly blue Mediterranean and as we approached the old village it was a confirmed case of love at first sight! We meandered through the narrow streets until we found the shady garden courtyard at the entrance to the hotel. The delicate scent from the lemon trees was a further affirmation that we had already fallen in love with this magic part of the world.


Monterosso al Mare - old village

Dining on the Cinque Terre is of course focused on seafood. The jagged Ligurian coastline is very steep and there is not much land suitable for cultivation. Over the years, man has terraced it into an intensively farmed agricultural landscape. The vineyards are planted on these terraces and they spill all the way down to the sea. Fishing is the traditional activity and the sheltered little harbours of each village, are a bob with painted wooden fishing boats.


Vernazza

Ligurian cuisine makes use of every element from the sea and earth. There is very little meat as there is very little pasture to raise animals. Herbs are a central focus with sage, thyme, rosemary and marjoram used in abundance; but the unchallenged king of Ligurian cuisine is fragrant basil. Pesto hails from Genoa and it’s taste is defined by the excellent local olive oil. The mild temperate climate produces olive oil with a sweet fruity flavour. Even the most intense oils are not bitter.

On our first night in Monterosso we dined at the excellent Ristorante Belvedere. We were seated at a table right on the beach; it was a front row seat to a memorable evening.


View from the Ristorante Belvedere

For an entree we selected the mixed cold and fried seafood fritto misto. It cost 14 euros per person and we were amazed at how much food appeared; a beautiful salad of mussels, squid and clams - just lightly marinated in lemon and parsley; a scallop in the shell with cream sauce; anchovies three different ways (marinated, stuffed and served with salt and lemon); smoked swordfish with fresh peach slices; smoked tuna with tomato salsa and some fried fish, calamari and prawns.

We had heard about the famed anchovies of Monterosso Acciughe di Monterosso and in particular the stuffed anchovies. When we tried them, we were not disappointed. The stuffing is made with a mixture of ricotta, bread, parsley, marjoram and garlic. I managed to pick up a local recipe book on my travels in the hope that I could reproduce the dish back at home. Sadly the amazing fresh anchovies are not available. I did some ringing around and spoke to several fish wholesalers to no avail. Peter from Peter’s seafood at the Sydney fish markets, said that they are not commercially available here although occasionally an odd fish turns up in another catch. A suggestion was to use some small butterflied sardines as a substitute but they would not be quite the same.

The Belvedere’s house specialty is seafood in the amphora (clay pot). This was a mixture of fresh seafood in a tomato based broth; fish, octopus, crayfish, prawns, mussels, clams and squid. It was a huge serving and great value at only 45 euros for two of us.

We had a local vermentino to accompany our entrée and we tried several vermentinos during our stay. The wines here are quite delicate and the vermentino has little aroma. There is the grape’s trademark lemon acidity and some herbaceous notes that I would describe as salt bush or seaweed. We also tried several of the Cinque Terres; the wine named after the region. It is a blend of bosco, albarola and vermentino grown on the terraces surrounding the villages. The DOC regulations state that 60% (or more) of the blend needs to be bosco. The wine is quite simple and by itself is really just a very neutral white. But enjoying it in situ, accompanied by the local seafood, it finds more of a personality; that of a deliciously fresh, delicate wine with flinty lemon citrus and a subtle salty taste of the sea; oyster shells and coastal shrubs. It was absolutely perfect with seafood. The best examples of the style were from Riomaggiore.

Schiacchetrà is the regions famed botrytis dessert style. Sciacaà means ‘crushed’ in the local dialect and the grapes are dried on special grids in the sun. Figs, honey and spice are abundant in this golden amber wine. It’s fantastic with the local anise biscuits, which are crunchy yet crumbly.

After dinner you can find a view of the ocean and enjoy a digestif – perhaps a small glass of the local Limoncello? It is made in abundance here. Lemons are grown in almost every spare pot.



There are several ways to move between the five villages; train, boat or the famous Cinque Terre walks. We decided to walk to Vernazza from Monterosso, which turned out to be a brilliant idea for about the first thirty steps! Before our travels, a friend described the walk as doing a gruelling step class at the gym for a couple of hours. As my past experience with gyms was making donations to them and not using their facilities, I didn’t quite understand exactly what this meant. Just a short time into the walk I was cursing the fact that I had spent the past ten days in Italy stuffing myself with food and wine. Once we were at the very top of the hill, which took about an hour and a half, the rest of the walk was a slow climb down. Once the captivating views of Vernazza appeared, the pain was forgotten; I even started to thoroughly enjoy myself and would recommend it as a ‘must do’ part of the Cinque Terre experience. Go early in the morning, before the heat of the day; take plenty of water with you and take your time.



As we approached Vernazza we came across an elderly gentleman sitting at the side of the path under a tumbling purple bougainvillea, playing ‘Volare’ on a saxophone. He had the tourist gig perfectly rehearsed and it was impossible not to be charmed by the total cliché of it.



A long lunch, seated at an al fresco table by the harbour, soothed away the aches of the morning’s walk. Incredibly sweet salty mussels were a highlight, with generous amounts of bread to soak up the tomato based soup. Vernazza is a true jewel of the Mediterranean; the turquoise sea sparkling in the sun, the colourful buildings, the food, the wine, the café owner in his white apron throwing treats to the waiting gulls, baskets of giant yellow lemons and gelati as we explored the village – a truly memorable experience.



The clean up in the Cinque Terre will continue for several months. The only small mercy in this horrible event is that its timing coincided somewhat with the end of the high tourist season. As it slips into the winter months, the Cinque Terre quietens down and many places close until the start of the new season. The old part of Monterosso and Vernazza have some time to try to restore their infrastructure. Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, and the new section of Monterosso are already running normally.

The family run businesses of this area need visitors to keep their economy afloat. If you have ever had any wanderlust for this part of the world then please go in 2012. They will be very pleased to see you and knowing the huge community spirit they will have their picture perfect villages back to normal ready to make you fall in love with this slice of the Mediterranean.

Aperol Spritz

Aperol is an aperitif that is bitter, citrusy and herbal. Its citrus blood orange tang makes it a great cocktail ingredient. The traditional way to drink it is the Aperol spritz and it is very refreshing

• 3 parts Prosecco (sparkling wine)
  
• 2 parts Aperol

  

Pour over ice, add a splash of soda and garnish with a slice of orange

The following recipes adapted from the recipe book “The Cuisine of the Cinque Terre and the Golfo dei Poeti”

Pesto

100 gr Basil leaves
1 Clove garlic
50 gr pine nuts
5 shelled walnuts
2 tbsp freshly grated parmesan
2 tbsp freshly grated pecorino
150 gr olive oil
Pinch sea salt

Place basil leaves in a mortor with salt and start grinding them. Add the garlic, pine nuts and walnuts as you pound the basil. Crush the ingredients against the walls of the mortor with the pestle. When ingredients have been thoroughly mixed, add the cheeses, a little at a time. Mix well and then slowly add the olive oil. Continue to stir until you have a soft sauce. If you don’t have a mortor, tou can process the ingredients separately in a food processor then combine them, add olive oil & salt – mixing in with a wooden spoon.

Stuffed Anchovies (substitute small sardines) – serves 4

600 gr fresh anchovies
200 gr ricotta
1 egg
1 bunch parsley (flat leaf)
2 sprigs marjoram
½ clove garlic
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
80 gr day old bread (without crusts)
100 mL milk
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 180C. Soften the bread in a bowl with milk. Clean the fish and remove heads and innards. Cutting from the stomach side, open them up without separating the two halves. Remove the backbone, wash and gently pat dry. Finely dice the parsley, marjoram and garlic (you can process together in a food processor for ease). Drain the bread from the milk and squeeze out excess moisture. Crumble the bread into a bowl and add the ricotta, the herb mix and the egg. Stir well and season with salt and pepper. Using an oiled baking dish, place half of the fish on their backs (with fillets open). Spread mixture evenly over them and then place the other half of the fish (fillet side down) on top. Bake in the oven for about 6 minutes and serve immediately.

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