Edible Balcony - First Potato Flowers

With potato plants all the excitement is centred on the roots or tubers - the potato.

But how pretty are potato flowers?

These little white and yellow delicate chaps emerged this morning.

The potato plants are proving to be very happy balcony edibles. Straw, manure and blood and bone in a free-draining planter bag, a regular watering and the rest has been up to them.

The four varieties are now about two metres high.

I'll know when I can harvest my first new potatoes when the bottom leaves begin to yellow.  That should be in about 4 weeks time.For older, bigger spuds I'll leave them in for a little longer.

Does anyone have any favourite spud recipes?

MUMU Grill - Gundooee Wagyu 7 ways

Vegetarians look away now. This is a story of how meat made men. Only the toughest survived to tell the tale

The setting was MUMU Grill in Crows Nest - Sydney's only sustainable meat steakhouse. Chef/owner Craig Macindoe is a barrel of a man who is the walking embodiment of the grass-fed meat his restaurant specialises in.

Tonight he is featuring Rob Lennon's, of Gundooee Organics, Angus cross-Wagyu in a sumptuous dinner.

Rob is a great mate. Saucy visited his free-range farm near Mudgee at Easter where he and his wife Anita have battled droughts to produce some of the best free-range beef you'll ever taste.

Tonight Craig, his chef friends and several cooking-class apprentices have designed a 7 course death-by-meat extravaganza featuring Rob's Wagyu like he's never seen it before.

First up is a tartare of wagyu on cassava chips. Beautiful combination. The wagyu is silken.

Craig talks to guests about the importance of sustainaible meat production and that cattle aren't necessarily the climate change enemy they've been portrayed as.

From the look of the faces of diners he's preaching to the converted. These people clearly live for meat.

Next is a carpaccio of wagyu with zucchini, radicchio, shaved fennel and parmesan

melt-in-your-mouth

Rob gives us a little background about what makes his wagyu special - grass-fed on native perennials, certified organic, rich in flavour and nutrition, environmental and ethical.

..... and you can certainly taste all that special rearing

Osso Bucco Ravioli in beef consomme is next. The broth is so deeply-flavoured. Mind-blowing.

but wait there's more.... a crunchy zingy Thai beef salad

Rob is used to just throwing his wagyu T-bone on the barbie. I don't think he can quite believe this is still his wagyu.

I'm starting to lose a bit of steam now. Groan. Just enough room to squeeze in a few bites of my favourite of the evening - Slow roasted sirloin with king prawn, asparagus and flying fish roe. An ethereal reinterpretation of surf and turf.

you really need to taste this dish

This is where I peter out and the real meatlovers continue the marathon.... organic wagyu brisket with pickled watermelon salad and sambal.

And then the last course - a crazily ginormous rib eye roast with coffee teriyaki, endamame salsa and braised witlof.

Again superb but surely we've eaten our yearly meat allowance in 4 hours !!!????!!

But I look around the room at diners sucking the bones and realise I'm just out of my league.

Recipe - Chocolate fondant with lavender flower cream

 The perfect spring dessert

Yay for Spring! The lavender is out, the bees are dropping in again and the balcony plants are bursting back into life.

The lavender variety I'm growing has large soft lilac flowers with a gentler aroma than the tight hedge variety. The flowers are perfect stirred through some cream and served with a luscious oozy chocolate pudding.

Recipe: Chocolate fondant with lavender blossom cream

Ingredients:

350 g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

50g soft butter

150g caster sugar

4 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons plain flour

For lavender blossom cream

1 cup of thick cream

1 tablespoon caster sugar

5-6 lavender flower buds

Method:

To make the lavender cream: beat the cream and sugar with a whisk until it is thick. Stir in the lavender flowers and set aside in the fridge for the flavours to infuse.

Grease 6 dariole moulds and place them on a baking tray.

Melt the chocolate by placing a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water making sure the bowl does not touch the water.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs. Add the flour and mix well. Add the melted chocolate and beat to form a smooth batter.

Divide the chocolate mixture evenly between the 6 moulds. At this stage the fondants can be set aside in the fridge for up to a day.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

Place the fondants in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes. Check them by inserting a skewer. They should still be gooey and runny in the middle. They should be cooked at least a 1cm in from the edge.

When ready, turn the dariole moulds on to a plate and serve with a dusting of icing sugar and a large dollop of the lavender cream.

If the word fondant made you break out into a cold sweat in the past you have got to try this recipe.

Fail safe, delicious .. your friends and family will swoon...

Sydney - Vin de Champagne Awards

Every two years one of the most highly anticipated invites arrives the old-fashioned way - in my snail mail mail-box. 

The Vin de Champagne Awards celebrate the best champagne palates in the country in the student, amateur and professional categories.

This year's event was held at Alliance Francaise on Clarence St for canapes.. and then across the road at Becasse Restaurant.

 And of course champagne flowed throughout the night... matched to a six course meal designed by chef Justin North

Justin's creations are more like works of art. Marinated blue fin tuna with a salad of octupus, abalone and scallop with a mandarin and soy emulsion looked painted on the plate

 It was matched with a Charles Heidsieck Brut Vintage 2000 and a Henriot Brut Millesime 1998

 Next was caramelised pork belly, confit prawn, cauliflower puree and aged pork jowl (gotta love a bit of jowl!)

 ... all washed down with a Veuve Cliquot Vintage 2002, Pol Roger Brut Vintage 1999 and a Lanson Gold Label Vintage Brut 1998.

Our tasting notes would have made Shakespeare blush.

For the Veuve  ''the nose is very open, pure and complex.Aerating the wine reveals hints of yellow-fleshed fruit and pastries (brioche, marzipan). These give way to delicately spicy aromas, followed by elegant notes of liquorice and high-bred teas.''  No Liptons here!

The awards have been running for 30 years and attract entrants keen to experience the prize of a trip to Champagne in France. Participants are tested on their theoretical and practical tasting skills.

This year's student winner was 23 year old Yuri Burns (above) from WA, Prof Tim Sullivan also from WA took out the amateur section and Tetsuya's sommelier Glen Plowes won the professional category. 

 These were my favourite of the 16 wines we sampled - a Louis Roederer Cristal Brut 2002, a Bollinger La Grande Annee 2000 and a very unusual G.H Mumm Cuvee R Lalou 1998.

and matched to the dish that excited my palate silken Glenloth chicken, slow-cooked lobster with chicken and crab jus.

a genius combination with the heady jus lifting all the elements to a magical level

 Dessert was artistically arranged on the plate as though all the ingredients had slide to one side.(or maybe they just had?)

 Lemon balm and vanilla nougat parfait with berry sorbet, champagne jellies and confit lemon

Salut!

Edible Balcony - Potato Progress

Harbour white-out  (photo:Mark FitzGerald)

Well it's two weeks since the seeded potatoes went into their planter bags.

After one week their thick spade-shaped leaves have popped through the straw mulch, compost, blood and bone and potting mix. The royal blue and banana varieties are going like gangbusters...

..the desiree and symphonia seem to be growing a little less robustly. This could be because the other bag is blocking a little of their light and heat from the spring sun.

These are the pics I took yesterday.

As you can see, the potato plants have quadrupled in size. The next step is to fill the bags up again with another layer of straw, manure, and potting mix leaving just the tips of the leaves exposed. This technique, I'm assured, will encourage more potatoes to take root. I should expect the first harvest in late November.

(photo: Mark FitzGerald)

Spring on the edible balcony couldn't have come soon enough for me. I know experienced gardeners say all seasons have their delights - even winter - but for me spring can't be topped. The air is sweet with promise.

(photo: Mark FitzGerald)

And what's at the other end of the rainbow? The Edible Balcony of course.