Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

I spent Mother’s Day exploring The Rocks Markets with my cousin Lynette.

It’s been years since I was last there and in that time the markets have grown to include over 200 fascinating and enticing stalls. We spent nearly the entire day there and I took a squillion photos to share with you.

It was a glorious day to be by the harbour…

These gorgeous girls were our first stop – their pure beeswax candles caught our noses as we wandered past. I usually can’t stand scented candles, but I found the gentle honey aromas mingled with essential oils irresistible. The girls were burning a candle called Sugar Cookies which reminded me of chocolate chip cookies just out of the oven. I bought one called Pure Energy – a blend of citrus, lemon and pomegranate (it’s burning now as I write this post)…

We were fortunate to be at the markets on a day that Steve, Bush Jeweller was there – he creates jewellery from recycled EPNS (silver plated) cutlery and old coins. Lynette bought a ring crafted from a 1963 coin, but there weren’t any 1965s on offer – apparently the Australian currency was in transition that year.

I was instantly smitten with Steve’s fork cuffs – to me they looked like octopuses, but Pete sees flower heads…

I tried this one on the minute I arrived at the stall and then had to pay for it because I couldn’t bring myself to take it off. Luckily it was only $26, which I think is a ridiculous bargain for a unique piece of art to wear on my wrist…

We wandered past a terrarium stall selling tiny succulents in a plastic casing. These could be used as a phone/bag dangle or worn as a necklace, and needed watering just once a fortnight…

These funky bangles were made of wood and covered with paper. Not something I’d wear, but very pretty nonetheless…

Our friend Metin from Turkuaz Motif was working hard – I took this photo to send to his wife Moya…

Lynette and I were both very taken with this exquisite shawl, made from a combination of silk and wool. If you’re interested, it was available at the Ann Collins stall…

We wandered past debonair street performers who were more than happy to pose for a photo…

I stopped for a while to listen to this father and son busking duo – they were very good!

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These interesting pieces were made from a soft leather and came in either gold or silver…

Stall owner Amy’s bracelet was something straight out of science fiction – I loved it…

The market sprawls over several old streets in Sydney’s historic Campbell’s Cove district…

We arrived at the Living Fossil stall and came to a dead halt. We’ve never been to visit their shop in Mosman before, but we will certainly make a point of doing so now, as their fossils were absolutely stunning and very reasonably priced. This 4.5kg ammonite is 180 million years old and in immaculate condition (I didn’t buy it though for $2,300)…

My Mother’s Day present was this 380 million year old trilobite, preserved in so much detail that its compound eyes and textured back could be seen clearly …

My cousin bought beautiful jeweled ammonites to take home – they’re the nautilus-like fossils in the photo below. The bracelet lying on top of them is made from Madagascan stromatolites. They’re somewhere between a billion to 3.5 billion years old.

Stromatolites are the rocky structures formed by photosynthetic cyanobacteria currently thought to be the earliest single cell organisms on earth. In fact, for most of our planet’s history, they were the only life on earth. Scientists believe that they spewed out oxygen into the atmosphere as a byproduct of their metabolic processes, until such time as the planet was able to sustain more complex life.

The bracelet is soothing and comfortable to wear, and the lovely Tom let me have it for just $20. His comment was “it’s a nice piece to have when you need a little perspective on life”…

I dragged my cousin into the Museum of Contemporary Art to see the new light exhibition – this large wall installation by Jonathan Jones maps a star trail of the southern skies over Circular Quay. I thought it was fabulous, but I had to laugh when Lynette said, “that’s it? A wall of fluorescent lights?”

So we left the MCA and wandered through the rest of the Rocks Markets instead…

These Hungarian honey cookies were exquisitely handpainted. They looked too good to eat…

We lingered for a while to watch the glass blower at work…

The handcrafted jewellery by Hamish Sevenoaks combines polymer clay, Swarovski crystals and glass cabachons…

Warriors in wire…

Real leaves dipped in gold and silver…

The Christmas Never Ends stall occupies a double space, selling a wide assortment of decorations…

Our final stop was the Geo Mobiles store, filled with spinning artworks finely crafted in Australia from marine grade stainless steel…

It’s hard to explain how mesmerising these pieces are, so I took this short video…

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It was best day out I’ve had in ages. If you haven’t popped into the Rocks Markets recently, it’s well worth a visit!

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The Rocks Markets
10am – 5pm, Saturdays and Sundays
Playfair Street, George Street, Jack Mundey Place
The Rocks, Sydney

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I am officially an old Chinese woman.

I now have an insulated flask on my kitchen bench.

I resisted for the longest time, insisting that the kettle needed to be freshly boiled to make a cup of tea. But I mostly drink herbal teas, which don’t need the water to be 100°C, and Big Boy drinks mugs of hot water, and it started to irk me that we were constantly boiling and reboiling the kettle all day long.

So I capitulated and bought this Alfi thermos from Peters of Kensington for $14. It works a treat, keeping a litre of water hot enough to brew tea (to my liking) for at least six hours. Pete thinks the kettle will last longer as a result, so it’s a win all round, except for the fact that it makes me feel like my mother and my grandmother.

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My current favourite hot drink is Turkish Fennel Tea, which I purchase by the dozen (boxes) from Arzum Market in Auburn. I find it very soothing and stomach settling…

Do you drink herbal teas? I alternate between the fennel and this Turkish Apple tea, which brews to a bright red from the addition of hibiscus flowers…

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Remember my recent foray back into caffeinated coffee? It didn’t go well. About six weeks after I started drinking it, my joints started to ache badly – an idiosyncratic but not unheard of response to caffeine.

So now I’m back on the decaf – thankfully, EcoCaffe offer an excellent blend (Decaffeinated Supreme) so I can continue to use the Nespresso machine with a clear conscience (the pods are biodegradable)…

I’m still sipping out of my little Russian tea glasses – topped in this photo with a butterscotch brownie…

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On a recent visit to Tokyo Bird (check out Lorraine’s review here), I tried an East India cocktail. It was so good that I attempted to replicate it at home – here’s what I came up with…

• 60ml cognac
• 90ml pineapple juice
• 15ml lemon juice
• splosh of grenadine (a wee bit more than a splash!)

Shake together with ice and strain into a glass. It results in a lovely foamy top!

Here’s how we send out cocktails to the neighbours…in a jar. I usually include one of our giant Nancy ice cubes…

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When things are tough…in the neighbourhood…who you gonna call?

Well, call me, and I’ll send you a loaf of sourdough and a cocktail in a jar!

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This recipe makes me think of my blogger friends – it’s reminiscent of the homestyle Spanish dishes prepared by the lovely Chica Tanya, I used a clay cazuela identical to one that I gave Maureen, and I’m pretty sure Lorraine and Charlie are going to tease me about being a cougar when they see the clip below.

Young Spanish chef Omar Allibhoy is, as the hipsters might say, totes adorbz. He recently joined the Jamie Oliver Food Tube with this inaugural recipe. It sounded simple and I had all the ingredients on hand, so I thought I’d give it a go…

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I only had raw chorizo, but it worked perfectly well…

I cracked the potatoes as instructed, but next time I’ll use a dinner knife rather than my large chefs’ blade – I was a bit concerned about losing a finger…

As I didn’t have fresh tomatoes, I used tinned chopped tomatoes. Cooking in my beloved clay cazuela felt authentic and made washing up a doddle, but if you don’t have one, a wide sauté pan or pot should work just as well…

Accompanied by a freshly baked loaf of sourdough, it was an easy and delicious dinner…

I liked this recipe so much that I bought Omar’s book – on Kindle of course!

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I’ve been doing quite a bit of baking this month!

For Easter, I baked eight dozen hot cross buns – two dozen yeasted and the rest sourdough (not including the batch I made for Dan). They were hoovered up, mostly by Small Man, who over the course of the Easter break ate 23 in total. In the photo below, half were coated in a milk glaze (for Small Man), the rest in crabapple jelly (for Pete). They do get fussy here…

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Small Man is studying for exams, so he’s ravenously hungry all the time. I was feeling lazy and he was starving, so I baked a batch of our man’oushe fougasse (they’re very easy to make). Small Man loves za’atar and he ate two of the fougasse for morning tea…

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On Saturday, I mixed up two batches of sourdough – a high hydration (90%) dough, and a white sandwich one. I’m always amazed that two formulas with such similar ingredients can produce such different results. I wrote a bit about dough hydration here (point 6)…

The high hydration dough was seriously soupy and fiddly to work. It needed numerous folds over the course of the day to build structure. But it was worth the effort, because the finished loaves offered a thin crispy crust and a very tender, elastic crumb…

This isn’t the bread I make most of the time, because it doesn’t suit our routine very well – it needs to prove during the day (so I can look after it), which means baking quite late in the afternoon. Usually I make the overnight sourdough recipe because it’s so easy, and I can shape and bake it in the morning, giving us fresh loaves for the day.

Having said that though, these high hydration loaves, with their open, delicious crumb, are definitely the family favourite…

By contrast, the sandwich loaf was classically shaped with a tight, but still tender, crumb. It sliced and toasted brilliantly. I baked the Romertöpf version this time – it made a nice change not having to preheat the oven…

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Inspired by an email from my friend Sally, I tried the black pepper and Parmesan loaf from the Josey Baker Bread book. I followed the instructions fairly closely, but I cut the salt down by a third, and only proved the shaped dough at the end for an hour rather than two to three. I find Priscilla never needs such a long second rise…

Even with the reduced salt, the loaf was still very strongly flavoured. It was also the most artisan-looking loaf I’ve baked to date, with a dark burnished crust and an elastic, open crumb…

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My cousins Kathryn and Lynette were in town last weekend, and we ended up having an impromptu dinner at our house. With nothing planned, we rummaged through the fridge and freezer to pull something together. The freshly baked loaves were a huge hit, and we accompanied them with tapas-style chorizos, smoked trout with homemade lime mayo and assorted antipasto, edamame beans (not in the photo) and a slice of the fondue cheese log. It was a wonderful night of catching up and nibbling!

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Any exciting bread being baked at your house at the moment?

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Grace Young describes this dish as “restorative food”.

The recipe is included in her wonderful book The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen. It’s been on my bookshelf for years and I love it so much that I’ve recently bought a Kindle copy (thanks Carol!), just so I can take it with me when I’m out and about…

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I’ve followed Grace’s instructions fairly closely – the only major changes being the use of eye fillet instead of flank steak, omitting the bicarb soda, and the substitution of Basmati rice for the more common Chinese long grain varieties. I also increased the sauce quantities by just a tiny bit, as my first attempt (above) was a touch too dry.

• 250g beef eye fillet
• 2 tablespoons peeled and finely shredded ginger
• 2 teaspoons Shao Hsing rice wine
• 2 teaspoons (light) soy sauce
• 1½ teaspoons cornflour (cornstarch)
• ½ teaspoon sesame oil
• good pinch of ground white pepper
• 1½ tablespoons (6 teaspoons) oyster sauce
• 3 tablespoons water (60ml) for sauce
• 200g Basmati rice (about 1 cup)
• 440ml water for cooking rice
• light olive oil
• 2 spring onions (scallions), finely chopped

1. Wash the Basmati rice in three changes of water. Place the rice into a large bowl, cover with water and allow to soak for 30 minutes. After soaking, drain the rice well and add it to a microwave proof container. Add 440ml water and cover with a lid. Microwave on high for 5 minutes, then on half power for 18 minutes. I have a 1000 watt microwave.

Note: use any rice you like and cook it in any way that you’re familiar with – in a rice cooker or on the stove should work equally as well.

2. Slice the beef finely, making sure to cut against the grain for maximum tenderness. Peel and finely julienne the ginger (I like to add quite a lot)…

 3. In a small bowl, combine the beef, ginger, rice wine, soy sauce, cornflour, sesame oil and pepper. Stir to combine. In a separate bowl, stir the oyster sauce with the 3 tablespoons of water.

4. A few minutes before the rice is cooked, stir two teaspoons of oil into the beef mixture. Heat up a frying pan and add a tablespoon of oil. Add the beef carefully, spreading it out into a single layer as much as possible. Allow to sit for a minute, then stir fry for an additional 30 seconds until the beef is brown, but still a bit rare. Stir in the oyster sauce and chopped spring onions…

5. Arrange over the hot rice. Replace the cover and heat in the microwave for a further minute or so, but be careful not to overcook or toughen the beef…

All three of my men loved this dish. Big Boy specifically asked for the recipe so that he could add it to his repertoire of easy to make dinners!

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