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Korean Barbecue

July 13, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Big Boy is now twenty.

When I first started this blog, he was just sixteen years old. At the time, he was already very mature for his age, but over the past four years, he’s grown into an adult, with his own opinions and tastes.

Somewhere along the way, our relationship changed – evolved – as Pete and I make a concerted effort to let go.  He still pays a lot of attention to our offered opinions but, while he knows we’ll always have his back, his decisions on the important aspects of life are now his own.

Earlier this week, we were in the city and found ourselves looking for a place to eat lunch. “What about Korean barbecue?”, offered our son, “I know a great place on Pitt Street..” And with that he led us to Madang, one of his favourite restaurants, hidden away in a little alley off the main road.

We’d never eaten this style of food before, so Big Boy pointed out the best dishes on the menu, ordered, and then taught us how to cook the food when it arrived. And the meal was lovely, but not nearly as lovely as watching our adult son, so comfortable in what is now his city, excitedly sharing something that he’d discovered without us. ♥

Posted in Musings | 73 Comments »

Postcards from Melbourne: Prahran

July 11, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Well hello there, you gorgeous curvaceous thing…

On our recent visit to Melbourne, we stayed at The Cullen Hotel in Prahran.

We really like the Art Series hotels. We’d previously stayed at The Olsen, but were unable to secure a room there this time, so booked into The Cullen instead. It was a great move too – our big family room was spacious and comfortable, the staff were young and friendly, and the location couldn’t have been better. It was an easy 500m stroll to the railway station, and directly opposite the fabulous Prahran Market.

Like the other hotels in the chain, The Cullen is fully decorated with the artwork of Australian artist Adam Cullen. It wasn’t really to my taste, but I did find this gorgeous fibreglass cow very appealing…

Several of Adam Cullen’s artworks revolve around images of iconic Australian bushranger Ned Kelly…

The hotel offers Smart Cars, bicycles and Vespas for hire, all emblazoned with signature artwork…

One of the best features of the Cullen is the independently run Hu Tong Peking Duck and Dumpling Restaurant – their wontons in hot chilli sauce were sublime. We ordered two more takeaway serves on our final night there…

. . . . .

The Prahran Market, Melbourne’s oldest fresh food market, is located directly opposite the hotel. Despite being under renovation, the produce on offer was mindboggling!

Our first stop was Damian Pike’s Mushroom stall…

I’ve never seen such a wide range of wild and cultivated mushrooms for sale before…

These baby snowball cauliflowers were the size of a softball. They didn’t have a price on them, but I hope they were expensive, because they’re a right bugger to grow…

Beautiful romanesco broccoli – did you know that it grows in a Fibonacci sequence? Not in our backyard though, we’ve never managed to get one to germinate…

A further stroll through the permanent stalls at the markets took us to the fabulous Naheda’s Choice…

And even though it was only 11am, we found ourselves tasting the wares of the incredibly generous Ghassan and Naheda…

“We’re only here for the day,” I explained, not wanting them to waste their samples on one-off customers. They just laughed at me and kept offering tasting bites of their incredibly delicious dips. There was so much to choose from that it was hard to decide, but we finally settled on their guacamole, garlic dip, tabbouleh and traditional tarama (they had three different varieties in the cabinet).

As we were paying, they insisted on giving us a small tub of their traditional garlic dip to try (an emulsification of pure oil and raw garlic), as well as a packet of rice crackers to go with our purchases.

I was intrigued by their Turkish Delights dipped in rose petals (but didn’t buy any)…

If you’re in Melbourne, please pop into the Prahran Market and buy something from Ghassan and Naheda. Folks who are so passionate about their product, and so eager and generous to share it with others, deserve our support!

Armed with our bag of dips and some fresh leg ham we’d picked up at the neighbouring deli, we went in search of bread to complete our lunch. The sourdough at Noisette looked very tempting, and they were kind enough to hand slice a loaf for us…

The fresh produce section offered a wide range of specialty organic meat, free range poultry and seafood providores…

It was great to see free range chicken stock at D & J Poultry…

A tower of anchovies, carefully constructed that  morning…

A large Essential Ingredient store occupies a corner of the market…

In the open air section of the market, we came across a stall selling freshly cooked mussels…

…and this delightful jazz trio, who were more than happy to ham it up for passersby…

Prahran, I think I love you. We’ve definitely found our favourite place to stay in Melbourne!

Posted in Food & Friends | 74 Comments »

Oz Comic Con and Meeting Rob Paulsen

July 9, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Our Small Man is a trooper.

As those of you who’ve been reading along for a while would know, despite serious health issues earlier on in life, he’s now an interesting, quirky sixteen year old. So delightfully quirky in fact, that whereas most teenagers admire actors or athletes, Small Man’s personal hero is veteran voice actor Rob Paulsen…

rob-paulsen

When we discovered that Rob was going to be a guest at Oz Comic Con in Melbourne, we immediately booked flights and tickets. After all, how often does life give you the opportunity to meet your heroes face to face?

It turns out that Small Man is a good judge of character, because Rob Paulsen is a really nice guy. Our son paid for a professional photo, and Rob was so pleased to see him – he shook his hand enthusiastically before chatting to him for a couple of minutes on how they should pose for the shot. Small Man left the photo booth with a grin plastered on his face for the next hour.

A little later that afternoon, we queued up to get the print signed. Rob, bless him, remembered Small Man, talked to him for a while, and made him feel special. I sheepishly gave Rob a box of brownies that I’d baked for him the night before and brought to Melbourne with us. I wish I could have given him more, because honestly, he made my son the happiest kid in the world that day.

Mr Paulsen, thank you. x

. . . . .

Oz Comic Con was a blast!

Sadly my suggestion that we attend in costume was vetoed (I wanted to dress up as ABBA, but no-one was willing to go in drag). Before we even walked in the door, we ran into The Lord of the Rings contingent…

The great thing about events such as Comic Con is that the people who attend are almost universally nice. Folks who’d put a lot of effort into their costumes were delighted if you asked to take their photos, stall holders were invariably charming and interested in the geeky details of their product, and the management was chaotic but helpful. I took 300 photos, but have just included the highlights here for you.

The Ghostbusters were drawing a big crowd, and deservedly so, as their costumes were fantastic…

For the Doctor Who fans, there was a Tardis…

…and an impressive Weeping Angel…

Star Wars fans weren’t disappointed either (and there were certainly a lot of them there)…

The guys from Resident Evil (apparently it’s a game – I had to ask Big Boy) would have been scarier if their “victim” hadn’t been grinning quite so much…

A Spiderman villain, or so I’m told…

Brave Sir Knight had trouble sitting down in his outfit – I watched him struggle to get up from the games table…

True geek heaven – there was an entire section dedicated to board game play…

There were TWO onsite tattoo booths…I felt a little queasy watching (I’m such a wuss)…

There was merchandise galore!

If you had the body for it, you could have bought a corset in every colour…

Cartoon artists occupied an entire wall of stalls, offering their brilliant pieces for sale…

The card collectors were well catered for…

I was astonished by the number of stalls offering coloured and fantasy contact lenses…

The Hulk was a true collector’s piece at $799…

…and I resisted a Sheldon Cooper doll (but was very tempted!)…

Finally, a couple of pics of my favourite stall, selling gorgeous steampunk costume pieces…

More photos from our Melbourne trip to follow!

Posted in Food & Friends | 70 Comments »

Lunch with Joy

July 8, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

Our old friend Joy is joyous both in name and nature. She’s also a vegetarian.

She joined us for lunch recently. As seems to be the case lately, we were rushing, and didn’t have anything planned when we got home at midday. So we grabbed a packet of haloumi from the fridge and a loaf of Dirty Granny sourdough out of the freezer…

In the garden we harvested a large beetroot (the only one we seem to have grown this season), a couple of carrots, a turnip and a baby Cos lettuce…

We sliced and microwaved a few potatoes, chopped up our last remaining Spanish onion, then tossed all the prepared veg in a little extra virgin olive oil and salt. It went into the oven to roast until everything was cooked through, then under the grill (broiler) briefly to crisp up and caramelise…

All the warm vegetables were combined with the Cos lettuce, turnip tops, beetroot leaves and a handful of roasted hazelnuts, then dressed with a mixture of red wine vinegar, a little olive oil and hazelnut oil.

We sat outside in the first sunshine we’d had in over a week. It was a relaxing (and joyous) afternoon!

Posted in Food & Friends, Recipes | 31 Comments »

Classic Brownies, Baked Two Ways

July 5, 2013 by Celia @ Fig Jam and Lime Cordial

These brownies can be made two ways. This photo shows the cakier version…

I have the sugar shakes.

Quite badly, actually. But they’re worth it, because these new brownies are, to use the vernacular of Hollywood, amazeballs.

They came about because I suddenly found myself with a glut of 100% cocoa mass. My friend Christina had decided to use Callebaut 70% in her chocolate blend rather than the 100%, so she gave me her unopened two and a half kilo bag…

I went searching and found the most wonderful recipe in the most wonderful chocolate cookbook, Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet…

Not only did Alice’s classic brownie recipe use unsweetened chocolate, but it also provided two methods of cooking, one of which would result in a gooey brownie and the other in a slightly cakier version.

Naturally, I had to try both. And since there was so much cocoa mass, I doubled up both batches. Which explains why our house is now awash with brownies. I changed the methodology just a little, halved the salt, and have included metric measurements below…

  • 230g (8oz) 100% cacao chocolate (unsweetened chocolate), chopped
  • 250g (1 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
  • 550g (2½ cups) white sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I used homemade)
  • ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 4 large (59g) free range eggs (cold from the fridge)
  • 150g (1 cup) plain (AP) flour, sifted

1. Preheat oven to either:

  • 200C (400F) or 180C (360F) with fan for gooey brownies (bottom photos)

or

  • 175C (350F) or 160C (320F) with fan for slightly cakier brownies (top photo)

2. Line a 23cm x 33cm (9″ x 13″) metal baking pan with parchment paper.

3. Combine the butter and chocolate together in a large pyrex mixing bowl. Melt the mixture in the microwave until smooth, using 30 second bursts on high, stirring frequently.

4. Using a wooden spoon or silicon spatula, stir in the sugar, vanilla and salt. Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then stir in the sifted flour. Once the flour is incorporated, give the batter a good hard beating with your wooden spoon or spatula for a couple of minutes, until it is smooth and shiny and has stiffened up a little. Because I’ve doubled the quantities, this is quite hard work – you could use a handheld mixer if you prefer (I did for the cakier batch).

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the top.

Baking instructions:

1. Gooey Brownies: Bake the batter in the preheated 180C fan forced oven for 20 minutes. The brownies will look set on top, but will still be moist when tested with a skewer.

Before the brownies are done, create a shallow ice bath in the sink with a little cold water and ice cubes. Take the cooked brownies out of the oven and immediately (and carefully!) sit the pan in the ice bath. Allow to cool completely before removing from pan and cutting up.

2. Cakier Brownies: Bake the batter in the preheated 160C fan forced oven for 30 minutes, until a skewer comes out almost clean. Allow to cool on a rack.

Both versions are very good. Pete is undecided and really likes both of them, but I prefer the gooey ones. Please note that these quantities result in a lot of brownies. The original recipe uses a 20cm/8″ square tin and half the ingredients of my version (baking times remain the same) – a good option if you’d rather not be gorging yourself on brownies for days.

Neighbours, if you haven’t already done so, please come and get brownies!

*Bittersweet is now out of print, but a revised edition is on its way.

*If you don’t have 100% cacao chocolate, you might want to try our fudge brownies or chestnut brownies instead. The latter are Pete’s favourites!

Posted in Recipes | 60 Comments »

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