food

I had no intentions to blog about scones today. Actually, I had a spinach and filo bake lined up. But then Peter G's lemon and date scones popped up on my blog reader and I got an urge to finally put up my scone post. I love a good scone with an afternoon tea - one of the few habits I picked up during my seven years in Scotland :) Although I love a spiced-up scone every now and then (will be so making those lemon and date scones, and also Johanna's raspberry scones soon), I actually prefer a good old-fashioned plain one. This gives me a chance to let one of our home-made jams shine, you see :) Here's a recipe I love using for plain scones. If you've got a good plain or seasoned scone recipe, then please share the recipe or a link to it in the comments. That'd be much appreciated! (The photos are from 2008) Simple scones ( Scones -kakukesed ) Makes eight 225 g plain flour 2 tsp baking powder a pinch of salt 50 unsalted butter 2 Tbsp caster sugar 100 ml milk 1 large...

At last. I am pushing open the door to Matterhorn.Mattherhorn's reputation precedes itself. In 2008 it won Cuisine Magazine's Best Restaurant in New Zealand award, one of many achievements in its 40-year long history. Established by two Swiss brothers in 1963, Matterhorn was initially set up as a cafe, soon becoming a weekend favourite with families and -- between lapses of disrepair and

There are 2,682 Riedel riesling glasses in the famed chandelier at Rockpool Bar & Grill. Its sheer enormity is enough to make you stop and pause a moment, a little awestruck with admiration.Rockpool Bar and Grill reception desk and banquette seatingIt's the same feeling you get when you enter the sweeping surrounds of the restaurant dining room, impressively opulent with a soaring atrium and

"Have you seen the bar? There's a fish tank in it."We are quick to investigate. The salt water fish tank runs the length of the bar at Logan Brown, winner of NZ Restaurant of the Year at the Cuisine Magazine Awards 2009. It's the last thing you'd expect to find in this stylish restaurant, housed in the impressive lofty surrounds of a former 1920s bank chamber. Crayfish in the salt water fish

Surely every Sydneysider realises we are lucky to live in one of the most beautiful harbours in the world.The recent sake masterclass at Ocean Room reminded me of how exquisite Sydney Harbour looks at night: the iconic images of the Harbour Bridge -- sturdy, graceful and reassuring -- and the elegant sails of the Opera House, illuminated by the twinkling lights of the city as ferries quietly chug

Mulloway jewfish Masuya's way $23Masuya's signature dish of jewfish fillet with a carefully rolled potato net,oven baked till crispy and served with dill lime butter sauce and soy infusionDo you remember French Fries? Those crinkly red packets you'd get from the corner shop that held a mountain of potato straws? Those chips would last you forever if you nibbled on them, as I did as a kid, one by

I'm not the first blogger to write about Snickerdoodles ( SmittenKitchen , EggBeater , Pinch My Salt , Andrea Meyers have all beat me to it), but I love the photo I made, so I want to blog about them as well :) Additionally, my recipe uses metric measures, making it more useful for a lot of Internet-users out there ;) I don't know whom to credit for the recipe. All the cookbooks I consulted - be it Nigella Lawson , Rachel Allen or someone less famous - had almost exact recipe, almost verbatim, and mine is a combination of quite a few of them. The only changes I made was making my cookies a wee bit smaller. I also seems to me that the photos of Snickerdoodle cookies in the British food magazines and cookbooks depict cookies that are slightly rounder (as opposed to the very thin and flat ones in American foodblogs and cookbooks). These cookies keep for a week in a air-tight cookie jar. Snickerdoodles ( Snickerdoodles -muskaatküpsised ) Makes about 3 dozen cookies (2 cookie shee...

Horn of Plenty (also known as black chantarelle or black trompet ; Craterellus cornucopioides in Latin) is a chanterelloid, or chanterelle-like, mushroom. It's very dark, almost black, making it a challenging mushroom to forage, as "it is like looking for black holes in the ground". Despite its rather unattractive appearance, it's a delicious and delicate mushroom that retains a good bite even after cooking. I admit I didn't forage for these particular black trompet mushrooms (on the photo below) myself, but bought some at the Central Market in Tallinn. These shouldn't be too difficult to get hold of in other countries as well - I clearly remember buying some at a French deli in Edinburgh, and there are plenty of recipes using these mushrooms in both British and US food magazines (as compared to some other wild mushrooms I've mentioned over the years). It's a quick recipe to throw together - but it needs to marinate overnight in the fridge. I loved...

"We greet you. We greet you."After my trip last year for the inaugural Wellington on a Plate food festival, I was excited to not only be invited to return, but to visit with fellow food bloggers Billy, John and Peter as well. Hurrah - food loves company.Bolton HotelWe've been split up across two hotels - Billy and John in the Holiday Inn; Peter and I at the Bolton Hotel. Our rooms are on the

I guess you gathered from yesterday's tomato posting that we're swamped with tomatoes this year. That means lots of tomato dishes - like this flavorsome tomato salad , for instance. Here's another flavoursome tomato dish - a mustardy French tomato tart that's excellent with some peppery green salad leaves. Choose tomato variety with few seeds, as then you don't have to deseed or drain them first and save some valuable time for yourself. French tomato tart ( Sinepine tomatipirukas ) Serves six to eight Crust: 200 g plain flour pinch of salt 100 g butter 1 egg Topping: 3 Tbsp sour cream, creme fraiche or double cream 3 Tbsp Dijon mustard 5 to 6 medium sized tomatoes sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper fresh thyme or oregano extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle First make the tart crust. Mix flour, salt and cold cubed butter in the food processor until crumbly, then add the egg and give it a few turns. Press into a dough ball with your hands, then use you...

Is there an alcoholic drink more misunderstood than sake?Too often dismissed as overly harsh and alcoholic, a recent Sake Masterclass at Ocean Room showed us otherwise. Guests were led through a six course degustation dinner designed by Executive Chef Raita Noda. Each course contained sake as an ingredient, and was matched with sake by Melbourne-based sake master Toshi Maeda.Sakes sampled during

We had lots of tomatoes for dinner tonight, all from our very own greenhouse :) Click on the photo to enlarge and see the variety names.

This week's Freebie Friday takes us back to the movies. Giant tubs of popcorn, frozen coke and a choc-top will have your weekend sorted.Thanks to Hopscotch Films, we have ten double in-season passes to see The Kids Are All Right, starring Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo. Lesbian parents, a restaurant-owning father and lots of laughs make an enjoyable comedy about today's modern

"Can you smell that?"Suze stops short and looks at me, her eyes wide with excitement. I can only nod in reassurance as I breathe in deeply. "It's definitely the smell of suckling pig," I say. "I can smell the fat and the crackling", and we both fall silent as we enter a Homer Simpson-like reverie.David Clarke, Executive Chef, in the kitchenWe are are a group of eleven pork-loving food bloggers

A beautiful, delicious and simple (and vegan and gluten-free) late summer/early autumn dessert. I usually make it with plums alone, but as I had a handful of dark red cherries on the countertop, I threw these in as well. It lovely served with some whipped cream, or perhaps some curd cheese cream - or, as I ate it yesterday, au naturel . Cherry and Plum Compote ( Ploomikompott ) Serves 4 about 500 g (a large punnet) of plums or damsons 150 ml water (2/3 cup) 100 g sugar (just under half a cup) 3 Tbsp potato starch or cornflour + 3 Tbsp water Wash the plums, halve and remove the stones. Place sugar, water and plums into a medium-sized saucepan and simmer for about 7-10 minutes, until plums are soft and starting to disintegrate. Mix starch with some cold flour pour into the compote, whisking/stirring rigorously to avoid any lumps. If you are using potato starch, then remove the saucepan from the heat source just after the first few bubbles appear again. If you are using cornflour, then si...

We've had a really good crop of courgettes/zucchini and tomatoes this year (our first year of backyard gardening, remember), and I'm trying and adapting different recipes. Here's a really simple dish showcasing both the zucchini and tomatoes, complemented by a herbed feta cream, giving it a Greek touch. Lovely as a vegetarian main dish, or as a side dish for some simple grilled meat (lamb, perhaps). Oven-baked zucchini and tomatoes with herbed feta cream ( Suvikõrvitsa-tomativorm fetakreemiga ) Serves 4 2 green or yellow courgettes/zucchini 8 small ripe tomatoes 4-6 large garlic cloves 250 g feta cheese (softer feta-style cheese is fine here) 4 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil + more for drizzling 2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil 1 tsp dried oregano freshly ground black pepper sea salt Cut the zucchini into 1 cm (just under 1/2 inch) slices. Cut tomatoes into quarters. Peel the garlic cloves. Take a large baking dish, oil it slightly. Layer zucchini slices and tomato quarters into the...

Tomislav Martinovic is the chef and owner behind Sydney restaurant Tomislav. His work with Heston Blumenthal is evidenced in a menu that fuses flavour with innovation, creating playful food like rice crackers that come with DIY vinegar spritzers. After dining at Tomislav, I was keen to find out more about the chef in the open kitchen. Tomislav was only too happy to oblige.Ten Questions with

Kushiage? It means "deep-fried on a stick". On the touch-screen menu at Mizuya, the kushiage section has helpful "before" and "after" shots so you can see the bright green asparagus and the glossy quail eggs quivering in their naked form, before they are crumbed and deep-fried to a Bondi Beach golden tan.Mizuya is all about instant gratification, the pictorial touch screen menus easily navigable

Gobi pakoda $7 After a day out traipsing on a Newtown food tour, a late lunch was clearly in order. A trail of cheeky comments on the post pondered why we didn't eat at one of 123,894 Thai restaurants along King Street. But why would you when you can have dosai and deep-fried cauliflower. There are two outlets of Kammadhenu in Newtown - the King St south branch is closed so we walk up to the one

Were you intrigued by the desserts at Tomislav Restaurant on this week's post? The lucky winner of this week's Freebie Friday will be able to enjoy dessert for two at Tomislav, including three desserts and two drinks - now that's sweet!THE PRIZE:Dessert for two at Tomislav which includes a selection of three desserts and a glass of wine each.Please note that this prize can only be redeemed 9pm-

It's august and we're eating tomatoes on a daily basis. Not just excellent local, seasonal, organic tomatoes, but local, seasonal and organic tomatoes from our own little greenhouse. Considering the mishaps (I put the seeds down in way too late - in late April, I overcrowded the greenhouse, not all seeds and young plants made it), we can already say that we've had a pretty impressive first crop. Hopefully it's not just beginner's luck :D We have about 20 different tomato varieties growing (mostly one container plant of each), so there's a lovely variety of shapes, sizes, colours, textures and flavours. Here's a tiny selection of our tomato crop, picked last weekend: So far we've been enjoying tomatoes raw - in salads, on top of open sandwiches, or simply eating them out of our hands (our daughter is especially fond of all the tiny cherry and plum tomatoes!). Here's a simple tomato salad that has a superbly concentrated tomato flavour because of the f...

Have you watched the film Whip It? Until I did, I had no idea that roller derby existed. A chance conversation with hazchem alerted me to the fact that roller derby is alive and kicking in Sydney - the Sydney Roller Derby League has been going stong for three years. Roller derby has its roots in Chicago in 1935, sweeping across the USA before experiencing a decline in popularity in the 1970s. In

Slow-roast chicken wings with Sichuan-style dry spice rubWho said commenting doesn't give rewards?After posting the pics of Pig Flyin's Sichuan chicken wings at our Stomachs Eleven pizza dinner, there was an outcry of comments and tweets requesting the recipe.He was more than happy to oblige!Pig Flyin's Sichuan-style slow roast chicken wings"This isn't a strict recipe. It goes a little by feel,

Is the essence of good food a sense of fun?I can't help but break out into a smile when our rice crackers arrive, not the bubbled crunchy discs from a supermarket, but a slate grey tile covered with a crashing surf of delicate shards that are almost see-through.Rice crackers with sea salt and vinegar $8In one corner is a spray bottle filled with vinegar, along the side of the tile is a scattered

Sometimes pizza and friends is all you need for a perfect night in.Our happy group of food-loving friends (also known as Stomachs Eleven) converged on the home of Miss Rice and Mr Potato Head. It was always going to be a casual affair, A Little Feast Around the World said the handwritten menu on the coffee table.It was a pot luck dinner - everyone volunteering to bring a little something to add

A selection of beets from our own garden - some white, some long, some Chioggia, some golden, some "regular". All tasting wonderful :)

Do you like chocolate? Then this Freebie Friday is made for you!Enter this week's Freebie Friday to win not one, not two, but TEN packs of Waterthins Chocolate Selections. Creme Delights are milk chocolate topped biscuits filled with a cocoa and peanut creme. Wafer Straws are crisp hollow batons enrobed in milk chocolate. You don't make friends with salad, but you'll win plenty of mates with

Macarons. The last frontier.For such a tiny mouthful, these delicate meringue-based biscuits have been known to strike fear in the boots of home cookers, food bloggers, and MasterChef contestants. I'd been so paranoid by the prospect of collapsed meringues, of footless travesties, of effort and soul crushed repeatedly by failure, that I'd never been game to attempt them. Until now.It's a

I imagine I'm not the only food blogger who's drowning under the weight of courgettes/zucchinis at the moment. There are several wonderful zucchini recipes here on Nami-Nami already - I urge you to try the Greek zucchini pie Kourkouto , Zucchini rolls with goat cheese, walnuts and figs , roasted marrow with garlic and herbs , zucchini carpaccio , to name just a few. Today's recipe is slightly different. It's with minced meat, and more suitable for a quick midweek meal rather than a more special get-together with friends. These meatballs - or patties, rather - are super-moist because of the cream cheese and grated zucchini in the mixture. Serve with a cold sour cream sauce (recipe below) and some ripe, sweet tomatoes. Very satisfying, and helps you eat your way through those courgettes! Zucchini Meatballs ( Hakkliha-suvikõrvitsakotletid ) Adapted from a Finnish food magazine, YhteisHyvä Ruoka, July 2010 Serves 4 400 g minced meat (I used ground beef) 300 g zucchini 100 g...