' 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.

' 64 deg . C EGG YOLK CROQUETTES .'

64 degree C. Sous vide cooked Egg yolk croquettes with Pecorino cheese sauce , Micro greens and truffle salt.

                         This little dish is a take on those creamy spanish croquettes that are served at the many tapas bars. I remember vividly as a child, mum would make beautiful creamy corn croquettes and they were to die for and always a welcomed item at the dinner table. The idea to use egg yolks as the filling came from the molecular recipe website, where they used the method of cooking the yolks sous vide to achieve a gelled structure that can't be achieved by boiling or soft boiling the egg. This dish looks very simple but requires great dexterity and technique when handling these delicate egg yolks. By cooking the eggs sous vide gives us the control and guarantees the perfect temperature of 64 degrees the temperature at which the protein livetin denatures and causes the egg yolk to gel and form a creamy custard like consistency as apposed to boiling where the outside of the egg cooks quicker than the yolk leaving us to guess the condition of the yolk and depending on the size of the eggs an extra 30 seconds too long can turn a soft yolk to a hard boiled before your eyes. The recipe I went off called for the pairing of a nutty flavoured gruyere foam, instead I opted to accompany the croquettes with a cheese dipping sauce made from pecorino cheese, which I think is just as nice.                                                  
                          I first cooked the eggs in their shells in a 64 degree sous vide water bath for one hour. The recipe called to cook the yolks on their own floating in the bath for 45 minutes, turning them at 25 minutes. This method can get fiddly and messy if one ruptures during the cooking process. Once the eggs were cooked I de-shelled them rinsing the unset whites from the yolks carefully under running cold water, these were then placed into a bowl of room temp water until ready to be crumbed. As our pullets have just started laying over the last few weeks, I lost a few yolks to what they call blood spots or meat spots in the yolks, this will be less frequent as they get a little older. But at least I'm assured of fresh free ranged organic eggs at our disposal with vibrant yellow yolks from the supplemented leafy greens in their diets. In a bowl I whisked a whole egg with a pinch of salt, this was for the egg wash. I then seasoned some flour in another bowl and in the last bowl I placed some bread crumbs seasoned with salt and some Dorrego pepper leaf. Using my hands I carefully dusted the yolks with the flour, dipping them into the egg wash and then coating them with the bread crumb. In the mean time I heated some light olive oil, enough to cover the croquettes, in a saucepan to 190 degrees cooking the croquettes one at a time for about 2-3 minutes until they were nice and golden in colour. Bringing the oil back up to 190 degrees each time to assure a perfect shell of crumb around the yolk centres. To make the sauce I heated a little butter in a saucepan and sweated off some finely chopped onions. Once they were clear and translucent I removed them from the pot adding some more butter and a little flour I made a roux to which I added gradually milk to form a white sauce. This was seasoned with truffle salt and grated pecorino cheese was added to complete the cheese sauce.                                                      
                           To plate I smeared the cheese sauce on the plate arranging the croquettes on top and garnished with some micro greens. I seasoned the croquettes with a little truffle infused sea salt.

' BUSH BEER SNACKS .'

Summer Beer platter of - Spicy Crocodile jerky , Bush tomato & Dorrego pepper leaf flavoured Wild yam chips , Sugar-bag honey roasted Macadamia nuts . 

            The follow on from the popular bush tapas this is a platter to have when having a beer on a summers day (possibly Australia Day) before a barbecue or while watching the cricket. The macadamia nuts were the real inspiration for this dish and the story goes like this. The other day coming home from the local shop on the bikes with the boys we stopped out the front of this house as I wanted to grab some fallen nuts from this big mature macadamia tree. Just as I'm filling my pockets a ladies head pops up from behind a garden bed and says 'take as many as you like, they're messy things'. She walks off inside and not half a minute later she comes back outside and hands me a bag and walks off again. So I quickly grab whats there and get back on the bike, this is 'zero food miles' at its best. The recipe I used for the croc jerky is a traditional Cambodian recipe for marinated sun-dried snake, of which I've just simply replaced the snake for crocodile meat and opted for an oven instead of my solar de-hydrater.          
           To make these bush snacks I first started with slicing the crocodile tail meat while still half thawed thinly, placing the strips into a bowl and mixing with crushed chilli, coriander seeds and roots, crushed black pepper corns and lemongrass, brown sugar and soy seasoning (maggi). This was allowed to marinate in the fridge for 2 hours before placing on to a wire rack and dried in a 50 deg.c. oven for about 4-5  hours. The wild yam chips were made by thinly slicing the yam and soaking in cold water for an hour. The slices were then pat dried and brushed with olive oil before being placed on to a baking paper lined flat tray and oven baked at 170 deg.c until just starting to show colour. They were then removed and seasoned with ground bush tomato and dorrego pepper leaf. The macadamia nuts were shelled and rolled in sugarbag honey before being placed on to a lined tray, sprinkled with salt and roast at 150 deg.c. until golden in colour, removed and allowed to cool.                                                                            
            The centre piece of this dish although edible is there more for its decorative value. Made from squid ink the gelee circle in the middle of the plate holds a chilli bush tomato sauce (red), a honey mustard sauce (yellow) and soured cream (white). These were arranged on to the gelee of squid ink using an indigenous art technique of dot painting. This centre piece has no significance other than the peoples association and perception of the decoration to help identify the culture of the food.