Usually, once the serious business of the SPICE wine appraisal is over, we burn the remaining wine in a giant bonfire. This time however we thought we'd use what was left to lure our contributors out of their chilly garrets to try the two dozen local and Mornington Peninsular Pinots we had for the spring issue. All good fun and there were a couple of requests for recipes of the food we had - rillettes and a trout dip thing. The rillettes used some other fruit of the upcoming spring issue - the meat from Vince Garreffa's home-smoking photo shoot.
So in the spirit of providence, we thought we'd pop the recipes up - read over the fold.

Smoked Salmon and Ricotta Filling

1 smoked trout, skin and bones removed [Holy Smoke]
250 g of ricotta [Casa]
1/4 red onion, slice very finely
1/4 bulb fennel, chopped
2-3 tbs capers
splash of EVOO [3Drops]

Mix in a bowl, adjust ingredients and/or season to taste. Serve in a small roll or on bread.

Smoked Rillettes
Rillettes can be as simple as pork and salt - our Operations Manager, Reanne, described them as just smoked meat and fat yet delicious. This recipe based around a (non-smokey) Michel Roux Jr recipe and has a few nice extra touches.

800g pork belly – nice and fatty - leave the the rind on - it'll come off easier after it's cooked.
300g smoked turkey – or chicken or duck
300g smoked pork neck

Dice the meat into inch (roughly) pieces.
1 onion, 1 carrot, 2 cloves of garlic – peeled and whole
10 sage leaves, 3 twigs of thyme
glass of white wine and cold water to cover.

A cast iron casserole dish is ideal for this. Add all the ingredients and cover with a a sheet of greaseproof paper. Bring to a boil and simmer for 90 minutes or until the meat is falling to bits. Add another glass of white wine and allow to cool for an hour.
Strain. The liquid can be used as a stock and the fat on top can be returned to the rillettes. With very clean hands or disposable gloves pull the meat apart into fine mushy threads. Taste and season. Put in a sterilised preserves jar and cover with clarified butter, or duck or goose fat.
Serve with tasty bread.

Posted by anthony at 2:26 PM | Permalink

Fans of real-life chefs getting down to it will be pleased to know that WA chef, Luke Wakefield, has taken out National honours in the Jeune Chefs Rotisseurs. The Jeune Chefs Rotisseurs is organised by La Chaine des Rotisseurs and is a devilishly tricky 'Black Box' competition. Chefs are given a must use list of ingredients - here it was whole snapper, duck legs, rhubarb, and fennel - and are then give 30 minutes to compose a menu and then 3 hours to cook 4 dishes each of an entree, main course and dessert.
Luke Wakefiield is of Chez Pierre in Perth and North Star Cruises in the Kimberley and will be going to the finals in Helsinki in September. We've popped his final menu over the fold.

Entree:
Snapper fillets, braised in white wine; with scallops in smoked salmon; fennel and Pernod beurre blanc.

Main Course:
Confit of duck leg with slices of rhubarb; potato cubes sautéed in duck fat and deep fried, soft boiled egg.

Dessert:
Apple and blue berry tartlet with creme patissiere.

Posted by anthony at 1:12 PM | Permalink

It might be the chill that's sending us back to warmer times of Spring '08 but Dennis' labneh recipe is one of the recipe I find myself referring others to the most. Just click on the picture above to access the PDF. Enjoy!

Posted by anthony at 11:42 AM | Permalink