The upcoming degustation

Chef has taken to a spot of woodwork over the last week, feeverishly sanding and drilling and grilling chunks of Australian hard wood to prepare for the upcoming Sundays 11 course stunner. The dish (or plank) in question is of an Australian theme, as springwoods own federation day is on the eve of the dega. serving kangaroo on a burnt bit of timber seems logical to us. This is what the mock up looked like, a few tweaks here and there and we'll have quite a memorable course on our hands!







Aussie green tea in billy, heated underneath with the aide of ceramic hot rocks, confit potato, asparagus, mushroom jus, sous vide seared kangaroo loin, roasted beetroot, carrot air and pumpkin damper. Aussie Aussie Aussie ...
J

Definitly Kashmeri

There are a few things that you must have before commencing, a good variety of spices, ginger, garlic, onion, tinned tomato, lemons, coconut milk, yogurt, sugar, salt and some fish sauce to name a few. Now spices, the four base spices that I use in most curries are cumin, coriander, paprika and turmeric. Ideally these would be individually roasted whole and ground in a spice grinder or mortar and pestal, use pre ground stuff, I won't mind but it won't taste as good. If using the pre-ground spice toast them in a dry pan before adding, this will release their oils and enable them to break down in the sauce so it doesn't feel grainy. For one person I'd use approximately a level tablespoon of the first 3 and half a tablespoon of turmeric. The basis of most good curry is a paste made from varying amounts of garlic, ginger, chilly and onion pureed with oil and a stick mixer or blender, for one person I'd use approximately half a white onion, 2 cloves of garlic, the same weight in peeled ginger as the garlic ish and about 2 sweet chillies. The order of play is generally is as follows, make puré and fry it off in ghee or oil until it smells sweet and most accents of astringency disperse, add your spices and cook out for a few minutes on a low heat as they tend to catch. From here add your liquid (tomato puré, water, stock, coconut whatever) and bring to the simmer for 20 or so minutes. The most important part is the seasoning to finish your curry. Salt, sugar and acid levels need to be adjusted, the way to make rich full tasting sauce is to increase these evenly. I generally start with generously adding salt or fish sauce. Now for the sugar, perhaps slightly less than the salt. Then the acid to finish, Season incrementally in small amounts, if one prevails increase the others. If you feel it's too hot increase the sugar level. All this unfortunately needs to be done by trial and error, but that's the fun of it all. Depending on your pantry or taste buds your curries origin needs to be decided upon, this will determine if your using tomato, coconut or water or if it's seasoned with salt or fish sauce lemon juice or vinegar etc. Don't be disheartened if you have never been to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia or Thailand neither have I as long as you sound confident upon presentation not too many people will ask questions. So an example,
Kashmiri curry (said with confidence)

80 g butter
1 onion
6 cloves garlic
3 large sweet red chillies
6cm stick of ginger
2 Tbs nigella seeds
2 Tbs fennel seeds
3 Tbs coriander seeds
3 Tbs sweet paprika
2 Tbs gram marsala
1 Tbs turmeric
2 tins of tomato
3 Tbs salt
3 Tbs sugar
Juice from 1.5 lemons

Puré onion, ginger chilly and garlic in a little oil until smooth. Toast coriander and cumin seeds then grind, toast paprika, gram marsala and turmeric. Blend tinned tomatoes.
Heat pot with half the butter nigella and fennel seeds until they start to pop then add puré.
Cook on a moderate temperature until it smells sweet then add remaining spices and continue cooking at a lower temperature for a bit. Add tomato and simmer for 20 minutes. Add remaining butter and then add acid sugar and salt to taste.

Now separately fry some chicken or eggplant or cook some potatoes in the curry and add some chickpeas or spinach and or some hand made paneer. Mix
Serve on rice with some churri dip on the side and some of your favorite pickle. Yum.
J

Sous-vide plums anice

It was time to sous-vide something, oddly there were some cheeky plums in the coolroom downstairs, they were a little tart. With a little corrective seasoning, star anice, cinnimon quills, red wine and a sniff of sherry they were ready to vac. Those plums ended up in 83c water for 14 minuites then paired with vanilla buttermilk pannacota, almond brittle and orange syrup.




J

Welcome

You gotta love the 2tripple7 oh yeah!