' TEMPURA MELON with CHORIZO YOGHURT.'

Crispy Tempura battered Melon with Chorizo yoghurt, Balsamic vinegar pearls, Jalapeno and cilantro.

                  This is another one of those left over summer dishes inspired by the flavours of Mexico. The pairing of melon with any spanish or Italian cold cut always works well and this pairing is no exception. The sweet flavoured melon is encapsulated in a crispy light tempura batter and the spicy pork flavours coming from the chorizo yoghurt along with the kick from the peppers and the zing from the balsamic pearls makes for a great snack and could possibly be used as finger food in small portion sizes. if I did a take two, I would most likely exchange the balsamic pearls for a lime preparation of some sort giving the dish a citrus zesty element more true to the mexican theme.                                            
                   I started with the yoghurt sauce with this one, pulling apart some spanish chorizo sausages and frying them off to render the fat from them. Once the sausage meat was cooked through I removed them from the stove, draining and reserving the fat that rendered off while cooking. This was then cooled in the fridge until mostly solid, while this was cooling I prepared an emulsifier by bringing some milk to a simmer, shearing in some gellan at 6% and whisking to dissolve. Once dissolved this was poured into a container and allowed to set fully in the fridge 20-30 minutes. Then into a mixing bowl I added some 1/2 cup of plain natural yoghurt, 2 tbsp. of gellan milk and the reserved solidified chorizo oil. This was beaten to form a thick orangey yellow cream consistency and then placed in the fridge to chill before serving. To make the pearls I used the cold oil spherefication technique that I've used before, for information on this see 'tags' for explanation. Next I prepared the melon by slicing into rectangle shapes approx. 2cm wide, 1/2 a cm thick and 4 cm long, I coated these in arrowroot flour and set aside to soak the starch while I heated the frying oil and made a quick batter. For my batter I placed a cup of seasoned plain flour in a mixing bowl and with a whisk I gradually added some sweet apple cider, whisking to form a runny batter consistency. After testing the oil I coated the starched melon pieces in the batter and deep fried them until golden in colour before removing and draining on paper towel. To serve I smeared the centre of the plate with the chorizo yoghurt using a off set pallet knife.
Placing the pieces of battered melon on top of the sauce and arranging the accompaniments of thinly sliced jalapeno peppers, balsamic vinegar pearls and fresh cilantro leaves.

' UNSEASONAL OFFERINGS .'

King Island Diary Roaring Forties Blue cheese with Olive Caramel sauce, Salt cured Baby Roma tomatoes, Melon confit, Smoked Black Muscat grape, Young Celery leaves and Baby coriander.

               I'm not a real fan of blue moulded cheeses and I put it down to that first experience. I can recall mine vividly as my German father was born in Tilsit he would some times be giving by his german friends or buy himself Tilsiter or Cambazola. I was the the later also known as 'blue brie' needed to be vacuum sealed, locked up, frozen or something, when that came out of the packet the two cats ran away. The smell was of rotten socks and vomit and my dads breath after eating the tiniest piece, can't be described here, this kind of put me off blue mould cheese. Until this one popped up from this respectable cheese maker, its creamy and mild with a sweet nutty aftertaste and no repulsive odours. So this was marked down the other day and I picked up a wedge, to do some pairing exercises.

Now what was I to pair with this cheese and I foraged through the fridge. When you have children your fridge tends to store some unseasonal items, such as the rockmelon that Caleb our 6 yo. takes to school every day despite it being nearly the start of winter. Or the baby Roma tomatoes, or the black muscat grapes at the bottom of the crisper. Its quite insane the world our kids are being brought into if you really look into it. The children of today don't know seasonal foods as they see their favourite bright coloured sweet fruit or vegetable, supplied almost all year round in our supermarkets. Will this in time bring about whole new food pairings in the cooking of the future. Anyway it happens to be that these ingredients are well known match makers with cheeses and so I set out to make an 'unseasonable offerings'. Wanting to incorporate olives in the dish, I decided to go with a sauce I had seen done before

infusing olives in a caramel sauce.                                                                                                              

               Most of the preparations in this dish required about the same time so these can be done in any order . Below I have listed the preparations for this dish.                                                                                

Smoked Muscat grape- I put together a boat from aluminium foil and placed some dampened hickory saw dust into the boat and waited for my smoker to heat up. I then placed the boat in the bottom of the smoker and waited until the smoker was full of smoke. Placing a grape on baking paper over a metal bowl of ice and into the smoker on a wire rack above the boat. I smoked the grape with a low heat on the burner for about 5-6 minutes and then switched the burner off and continued to smoke the grape for another 5-6 minutes before removing and cooling at room temperature.
Salt cured tomatoes- For these I first got a saucepan of salted water on the boil, then making a tiny cross incision with a paring knife, so just the skin was cut. These were then put into the boiling water for about 2 minutes, the skins were just starting to come away from the flesh. I removed them from the saucepan and placed them into a chilled water bath before removing the skins with ease. the skinless tomatoes were then drained and placed into a bowl of kosher salt covering them partially. They were then placed into the fridge to cure for around 30-40 minutes before being rinsed under a slow trickle of cold water to wash off the salt, they were now ready to serve.                                                                         

Melon confit- To make this I set the sous vide water bath to 53 degree C. and in a vacuum sealed plastic pouch I placed melon shavings about 2m thick and frozen rockmelon juice with a little rice wine vinegar, this was cooked at set temperature for 30 minutes before being removed from the pouch. The shavings were rinsed under cold water to remove the juice and then rolled into a scroll and dressed in a little olive oil and seasoned with salt.                                                                                                                 

Olive caramel sauce- This sauce was adding 2/3 cup of white sugar with about 3 tbsp. of water to a heavy based sauce pan on a medium heat until all the sugar had dissolved and there was a cloudy syrup, being sure not to touch the pan up to this stage. When the sugar starts to bubble I turned the heat up to high and while stirring cooked the caramel until it was a beautiful amber colour. I then added 1/4 cup of black olive puree stirring with a wooden spoon to incorporate, the olive caramel was then removed from the heat and I added a touch of water to form a more sauce consistency. This sauce is served at room temperature.                                                                                                                             

   

' CUCUMBER and MELON TERRINE .'

Terrine of Cucumber, Watermelon & Honeydew with Horseradish , Persian cucumber , Melon balls , Lime slice , Water hyssop , creme fraiche , fennel fronds , wild rocket flowers ,  lime vinaigrette & cypress black salt. 

                      This is another classic pairing, the summer fruits of cucumber and melons, this little dish served ultra cold makes a perfect refreshing appetiser. This dish gets the gastric going and the saliva flowing with hints of zesty flavours from the lime vinaigrette, the salty sweet taste of the different melons and the little bite from the radish, rounded off well with the delicate flavours of fennel fronds and water hyssop herb. Melons are in full season at the moment as are cucumbers and I wanted to incorporate the two in a dish that was light, colourful and refreshing. The herbs come from the garden but the rest of the ingredients come from the Italian grocery store I frequent in the inner suburbs.
                     I started preparing this dish the night before beginning with the terrine, which consisted of first chopping, deseeding and pureeing separately in a blender cucumber, honeydew and watermelon. Placing each puree into a separate bowl, they were seasoned with salt and pepper and measured out before being separately simmered in a small saucepan with 1% agar agar, whisking to dissolve the agar. Each was removed and layering one at a time beginning with the cucumber I poured the mix into a greased plastic mould. Placing the mould in the fridge between layers to set them faster I then followed with the watermelon and in order honeydew, watermelon and cucumber last. The whole terrine was then placed in the fridge over night to fully set before being turned out and sliced the next day. To make the cucumber spirals I simply sliced a thin strip of cucumber using a peeler, trimmed the ends and rolled it up tight before pushing from the bottom using the back of a spoon to unravel the roll into a spiral, filling the bottom with a dab of creme fraiche to hold it together and dressed with vinaigrette. I cut the melons simply using a melon baller and these to were dressed with vinaigrette and finished with a sprinkle of black cypress salt. To prepare the the horseradish I just peeled them before thinly slicing and dressing them in the vinaigrette and sprinkled black salt for contrast. The vinaigrette was a simply blend of lime juice with extra virgin olive oil. The additions to the plate also were creme fraiche, fennel fronds, a lime slice, fresh water hyssop and tiny little yellow edible wild rocket flowers.