A Month of Truffle

As you may have seen on this site we will be opening for lunch on Saturdays as well as Sundays from September 7th and classes will be on Mondays only.
Saturday lunch should help with the pressure for tables on Sundays and the new series of classes is starting to take shape. Any requests for topics and guest presenters would be greatly appreciated.
A very busy month. So many old and new visitors to catch up with and then the Great Otway Truffle discovery has had me away from the blog for far too long.
For those that missed the Age story click here. http://www.scribd.com/doc/4227182/Otway-Truffle
Watch out for Mademoiselle’s [pictured] small screen debut on the last episode of Talk To The Animals in about 3 weeks time.
The local truffle harvest has been such an education. We, and our diners have been spoiled beyond belief. Now the withdrawal symptoms have started. Though I did make a bit of confit [duck] for the anticipated cold turkey.
I have received 50 evergreen oak trees inoculated with Tuber Melanosporum so with a bit of luck it’s only another 7 years to wait for our own.

I have just re-read Elizabeth Luard’s 2006 book Truffles [highly recommended] and have to agree with both her and Paul Levy that the most extraordinary effect that they produce happens when they are raw. Very simple dishes also create powerful reactions. I have also found that you can overdose quite easily on them. After driving to Melbourne with about a kilo of prime examples in a big jar of rice I had to curb my enthusiasm for fear of seeming to be utterly intoxicated on arrival. First reactions to the aroma are also quite illuminating, so spontaneous and for the most part ecstatic.
I have tried the Tasmanian, the ones from W.A, from the Yarra Valley and all are utterly magnificent.
I don’t understand the short term thinking in “My truffle is better than your truffle” marketing that’s going on out there. The effort should be to educate those that are interested on how to appreciate them or we will be seeing lots of dishes with slices of dubious truffle laced with truffle oil and the real thing will be relegated to export.
Tip: if the dish has an overwhelming “truffle” flavour/aroma its most probably truffle oil.

Its worth getting a very small amount of comercial truffle oil to see what its NOT like.
In 10 tears or maybe earlier I can see farmers’ markets with a little corner where voluminously overcoated ladies and gentlemen huddle in small groups exchanging little parcels of bliss for whatever currency is king at the time.

I promise no more truffle raves till next year, that’s the joy of seasonality.

Lamb is here, artichokes are blooming, asparagus has almost shown its head and broad beans are coming.

Just as the button to post this was about to be pushed, a message to announce the unearthing of another big one has arrived. Bliss!

The Cost Of Learning

I spent a bit of time last year teaching at two TAFE colleges. Looking back, I think it was the single most influential event that helped me to decide to re-open the restaurant.
And I really have to thank the students for unknowingly helping me make that decision.
There was such a strong desire to experience the top end of the industry amongst them. But on an apprentice wage, or an overseas student living on a meagre kitchen hand rate, they could only do that by often sacrificing the rent or even more essential items from their very tight budgets.

I have been trying to get this idea up for many years but without a restaurant of my own to contribute to the scheme it has been a bit futile.

The pitch!
Most young food industry workers seldom get to experience the industry from the diner’s perspective.

The proposal!
A few like minded restaurants reward their most promising young trainee with a token that gives them $100 off the price of a meal and wine for 2 at one of the places in the scheme.
The restaurant that receives the token then passes it on to their most promising young person and so it goes on with the tokens circulating for as long as possible.
$100 will probably cover about half the meal so they will still need to contribute and indirectly learn the value of their work.

Anyone up for it?

Angelo's Sauce From the archives....

Or
How to cook Pasta  Bolognese

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On working road trip around Australia in the late seventies I found myself applying for a temporary cooks’ position in the town of Kalgoorlie. The celebrated but run-down Hannans’ Hotel had advertised for a relief cook for two weeks and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to experience that wild gold town on my way to the West Coast.
After a brief interview I was told to be at the hotel at 10am the following day to meet Angelo the chef who would brief me before he left on his annual break.
Angelo was already in the spotless kitchen dressed in crisp, starched, perfect chef’s whites stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce with an aroma that still lingers in my memory after more than 25 years.
He had a timeless presence, a tall man with perfectly groomed white hair and an aristocratic face that was hard to date. I guess Angelo was over sixty but how old, was a bit of a mystery, he looked like Burt Lancaster. In a gentle voice that had an echo of a Latin accent he began to explain the job. The hotel he said had a group of riggers in residence that were on full board so breakfast, a take away lunch and an evening meal had to be ready every day for them. The riggers were a multi-cultural bunch with Koreans, Slavs, and a couple of Poms, two Japanese and a few Germans along with a small core of Aussies. Despite the lack of Italians he assured me that while I could cook whatever I liked, if I included a good spaghetti Bolognese all would be well. And as he stirred his sauce he began to reveal the secrets.
Begin in a big thick pot with good onions slowly melted in a mixture of olive oil and bacon fat. Crush your garlic in salt and add it on low heat taking care not to burn it in the slightest way. Add a very coarsely ground mixture of pork neck, veal shin and gravy beef of roughly equal proportions, in small quantities to brown each bit without stewing.

At this point he stopped to stir his sauce on the stove and very carefully pushed down the ring of residue around the top of the aromatic sauce and proceeded to brush down any that remained with a wet pastry brush. As a young inexperienced cook I was impressed and intrigued.
After you have browned all the meat, he continued; add a mixture of finely chopped carrot and a little celery, about half the amount of vegetables as meat. Add some minced chicken livers that have had the gall bladder or any staining removed. Stir carefully and brush down the sides as you go.
He said that the reason would reveal itself when the sauce was complete. At this point add some tomato paste diluted with a good red wine and sweetened with a little sugar. Add a further generous amount of the red wine with a couple of dried bay leaves, some whole peppercorns and a couple of crushed juniper berries. Add a big piece of rind from some Italian Parmesan cheese and some skin from a piece of Prosciutto. Add a little freshly grated nutmeg. Keep stirring and brushing down the sides.
After explaining all the housekeeping and shopping duties associated with the job, the sauce he was cooking was nearly complete; he offered me a taste and adjusted the seasoning with salt, a generous amount of freshly grated pepper and a touch of Tabasco sauce. After a short time, another tasting and a final brushing down of the sides it was finished. He put on a large pot of water to boil and proceeded to grate some Parmesan. The cheese was wrapped in an old calico bag and it was here that I first learned about quality Grana and Parmagianno Reggianno the only two cheeses worthy of good Italian “sugo” or sauce.
The white powdery stuff in packets that masqueraded as Parmesan cheese in the seventies has done more to put innocent novices off Italian cooking than anything else- Beware of Imitations.
[Mediterranean Wholesalers in Sydney Road Brunswick is worth a detour as the price elsewhere can be very steep.]

After removing the cheese and prosciutto rinds and the bay leaves he poured the completed sauce from the large pot. All the scraping, stirring and brushing had left a completely clean pot that needed only a quick rinse. The brushing down of the caramelised residues had captured all the complex nuances. The depth of flavour was unforgettable.
He explained how it was important to cook the dried, or any pasta in a large quantity of salty water on a high rolling boil and to reheat cooked pasta by dipping into hot water was beyond the pale in his kitchen. After a quick tour of the larder and a strong espresso he was off.

During his absence the back door to the kitchen was host to a number of rather nuggetty dusty blokes and some interesting ‘painted ladies’ looking for Angelo? Every day he would get visitors who, when told that Angelo was away, looked disappointed and often cursed their misfortune at having missed the cook.
The two weeks went by quickly. The riggers liked my food but always returned to Angelo’s sauce after a day or so.
Angelo’s sauce lent a magical intoxication to the already well oiled riggers. After dinner in the bar they began to tell me of their homelands and the wonderful foods that revealed a nostalgic almost Proustian remembrance of the flavours of home.
During these late night ramblings a glimpse of the way that multi-cultural Australian cooking would develop was revealed to this inexperienced novice cook.

Then late one night as I was cleaning up he returned, dressed in a very smooth double-breasted Hong Kong suit and silver tie.
Well how was it? He asked.
I filled him in on the not inconsiderable gossip around the hotel. One of the riggers had won Tatts; the publican’s wife had discovered his mistress, the price of gold was up- all the usual stuff. I made him a coffee and told him of all his mysterious visitors.
Over a bottle of Veccio Romana brandy he explained his story. For over 40 years he had been cooking on the diggings and small prospectors had entrusted him with their secret strikes. Each year on his holiday he smuggled them to Asia and returned with the “duty free” proceeds. He thanked me for holding the fort and gave me a small nugget as a memento. He was off to see his ‘painted ladies’ in the infamous Hay Street who had also trusted the big continental cook with their local currency.

So forgetaboutit!

Story continues here http://sunnybraerestaurantandcookingschool.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Whore%27s%20Pasta%20Puttanesca