Foodie Friday: Whovian Fish Fingers and Custard

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a fairly avid Whovian, having watched the show since I was kid, devoured the books, listened to the audio plays - forget a bit, I'm a LOT of a nerd.  I've put up with a lot of teasing from people over the years for loving what is essentially a show aimed at children, but I'm loving this Renaissance where Doctor Who, like bow ties, has become 'cool' - among a certain class of people anyway.

I'll be waking up at 5AM on Sunday to watch the 50th Anniversary Sunday, so I'll probably not be imbibing this much sugar so early, it's a good dessert to watch the replay that night.

I've adapted this recipe here as it included a few American things like graham crackers that we don't have in Oz.

What are we waiting for?

Ingredients

Good quality vanilla bean custard (I'm a lazy so and so so I bought mine - Paul's vanilla bean custard is the bomb)

FOR THE BISCUITS

1 1/3 cups plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup, plus 2 tablespoons, icing sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

FOR THE “BREADING”

5 scotch finger biscuits

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Method

To make the biscuits:

Line a tray with baking paper.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

In a large bowl, or the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat until thoroughly combined and fluffy. Stir in the egg and extract(s) until combined. Sprinkle half of the flour mixture into the bowl and mix until just combined. Add the remaining flour, mixing until until thoroughly combined.

Cover and chill for 20 to 30 minutes.

To make the “breading”:

In a medium bowl, or the bowl of a food processor, crush the scotch fingers until they look like dry sand. Stir in the sugar. Add the melted butter and combine the mixture until it resembles wet sand; set aside.

Shape the cookies: Preheat oven to 165 C.

Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator and shape one tablespoon portions of dough into 3- to 4-inch fish fingers. Roll each fish finger in the breading, completely coating them, and place on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 20 to 23 minutes. Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before serving.

Serve with custard to dip

This gif is here because,  well because it's awesome and I couldn't find anywhere else for it.

TAKE THAT MOFFAT PEWPEWPEW!!!

Ahem, back on topic some other easy Doctor Who related treats could include:

Tea  

Jelly Babies

Celery

Bananas

Jammy Dodgers

Enjoy the anniversary - I certainly will be!

Foodie Friday: Leftovers Pesto

In the interest of nospendnovember, I thought I'd post one of my favourite recipes for reducing wastage- Martha Stewart's Leftover Herb Pesto.

It's the bomb.  Basically you take whatever herbs you have in your crisper and bung them in a food processor with some other stuff and  (I'm so sorry but I have to) hey pesto!

hehehehehe

Anyway, back to more serious matters:

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon minced garlic (or a chopped up clove)
1/4 cup  nuts (Martha says to toast them, but I never bother)
3 cups herbs
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grated dry hard cheese (traditionally it's parmesan, but being a vegie I generally use cheddar)
salt and pepper

Method:
Put in a food processor and blend til it looks like pesto.


Tastes awesome.  Some combos I've made before
- Walnut, basil, mint
- spinach, pine nut, rocket
- dill, mint, almond
- basil, parsley, macadamia
- rosemary, coriander, cashew


Basically anything seems to work though, I've never actually made a bad batch of this stuff. Even the time I accidentally put in ginger instead of garlic.  Martha says it keeps for two days, but I've kept it for over a week and been able to eat it. What's your favourite pesto combination?

Libertine



Last Friday M and I decided to go for a romantic 'dinner and a movie' date at the Barracks. Since I've heard so much about Libertine, the decision was pretty clear to give it a try. It's also a place that looks absolutely beautiful from the road as you drive by, with it's gorgeous fairy lights twinkling away. 

We do have a habit of eating fairly early. At most places this is a bit of a bonus, as it means we miss the rush and get awesome service. We wandered in at about 5:30 (half an hour after the place opened) and spoke to a very friendly barman. He advised that the girls were still getting tables ready, and to take a seat in the bar and have a drink until they were ready.  The lovely man also offered to just open up our bill early so we wouldn't have to worry about paying just yet.   This did give us a chance to soak up the atmosphere of the place, which I can honestly say was amazing.  I ordered the signature cocktail (the Libertini) and was pretty impressed, especially at the speed with which it was made.

About 15 minutes after we got there a fairly unenthusiastic girl came over and sullenly advised us our table was ready.  We sat down at a somewhat secluded table near the back, but with a nice view of outside. Pretty much perfect for what we were after.  Opening the lovely soft leather-bound menus, the food looks incredible.  The not-so-happy hostess was replaced with a lovely waitress who explained the concept of the place to M without managing to sound condescending - bonus points.  

The first dish was the Libertine Fresh Rice Paper Rolls with Pork and Prawns ($15 for 4).  The waitress brought them over and again, explained to M in a friendly tone that you just wrap the lettuce around each roll and dip it in the sauce to eat it, again without making either of us feel like an idiot.  Mega awesome bonus points to you waitress lady!  The rolls were excellent, crisp and filled to bursting with tasty fillings.    The dipping sauce was so so.  I found it a little bland for my liking but M was very keen on it.

Our next dish was the Basket of Steamed Mushroom Dumplings ($14 for 4). This were served in a bamboo steamer with a dipping sauce in the middle.  I found these to be pretty good, and wished we'd ordered a double helping.    The dipping sauce pretty much just tasted like soy, which is  not a complaint.  It went really well with the dumplings. 


Our last dish was the Byron Bay Pork Belly with coconut caramel and sweet potato ($33) with a side of garlic and chilli green beans ($9).  To be honest, I was expecting a little more for our money.  When 6 tiny pieces of pork belly appeared on the plate, I was a bit disappointed.  That may however just be my unrealistic expectations.  I found the pork belly to just be OK, it wasn't great, but wasn't really awful either. Just OK.  However, the green beans were absolutely amazing. Crisp and beautiful, perfectly seasoned and just tasted incredible.  We polished off the entire serving without a moment of regret.  They actually managed to totally eclipse the pork belly, as well as all the other food we had there that night. 

my second cocktail of the night - The Vietnamese Lemonade. This tasted beautiful, and went down way too easily if you catch my drift :)

We did check out the dessert menu but made an executive decision to head to Moovenpick and get some ice-cream instead.  The desserts just weren't very impressive I felt.  

Overall I felt the food was pretty good, apart from the disappointing and over-priced pork belly.

Rating

Service: 9/10 (this would have been a 10 but I had to knock it down for the hostess)

Food: 7 / 10

Atmosphere: 9/10

Overall: 8/10

Re Del Gelato

After gorging ourselves at The Smoke, M and I took a walk up the road to Re Del Gelato for dessert, as we'd heard it's reputation as the best gelato in Brisbane.

To tell you the truth, I don't think I've eaten at enough gelato places (I am currently trying to resolve this inadequacy ;)) to say whether or not that reputation is deserved, but what we ate here was indeed excellent. The range was absolutely amazing, and the prices extremely reasonable. I had the Baci and Chocolate varieties, while M decided on Mint and Chocolate. Needless to say I had a try of both and was very impressed and would highly recommend this place.

The Smoke BBQ - New Farm

To be honest, I'd heard a lot of mixed reports about The Smoke prior to heading over there on Friday night. From friends, I'd heard it was some of the best food out there, however there have been some fairly unforgiving reviews out there in the blogosphere (check out urbanspoon and see what I mean). I decided to make a booking and give it a go.

When I phoned to make the booking, I will admit to finding the gentleman who took it a little brusque (particuarly when informing me no less than three times that our table had been re-booked for 8:30pm, and we would have to be out within 2 hours). Needless to say, we were a little shocked to arrive half an hour early for our 6:30 reservation, only to findthe place pretty much deserted. A lovely waitress found us about to order a drink in the bar, and assured us that we could have our table early.

We sat down and one of the outdoor tables and had our cornbread served very promptly. It was actually pretty good, however I found the honey butter to be cloyingly sweet to the point of sickly. That said and done, the sweetness actually turned out to be a good counterpoint to the meal that followed.

Our entree came out very promptly after our cornbread had been tidied away. M and I had decided to share a bowl of the onion rings. This was the absolute biggest mistake of the night. They were AMAZING!! The batter was crunchy and salty and set off perfectly by the creamy ranch dressing. I actually spent most of the night wishing I'd had a bowl to myself, even though I was totally full.

The mains came out around 20 minutes after our entree had been tidied away, and I was blown away to see the size of the meal. We had asked our waitress how many people the shared platters were supposed to feed and she advised two. M and I decided to order the Chicken and Pork platter with a side of Mac and Cheese. We were shocked to see that the amount of food that came out could happily have actually fed three (almost four people). Shocked, but definiately not complaining ;). Our platter consisted of chips, pulled pork, Memphis pork belly and 1/2 char-grilled chicken with some BBQ dipping sauce. It was a bit of a mixed bag. Both varieties of pork were soft and well-seasoned but the chicken and chips were a bit tough and over-cooked, which was a little disappointing.

Rating

Service: 9/10

Food: 8 / 10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Overall: 8/10