Broad Beans

Hi, tonight I've cooked pasta with broad beans. It was yum.
Here are some beers that I have drunk over the last week or so:
Blanche de Namur.

I Think the slogan on top of the lable says something like, 'beer for life'. The slogan on the bottom of the lable reads something like, 'the tradition of brewers since 1858'. This was a well rounded brew. I'll give it the old reveiw...
A darker gold, showing a classic German head, not tall but foamy and sustained. The aroma was neutral, neither dominated by hop or malt. In the mouth it was slightly grainy, with simaltanious hop/ malt flavors first up, they then fade to floral hops, finally a nut malt with good lenght as a finish.
Overall quiet a good brew even if a little boring, but technally close to the mark for german biere.
P.S Needs more pizazz...

Raftman.

First up Yay Obama.
Now to the beer... The yanks do a funny beer. In my experence, from the limited range of american beers I have tryed they tend to be a little uninspired. Lets face it, American beers haven't exactly been popular on the world stage.. Have they?
Raftman on the other hand, well it's not bad, maby its even good.
The colour is golden, the head is sparse. Hops are only mildly detectable, the malt

From Super Fruit to Hyper Toffie

In this posting I'll be talking about three great but diverse beers. They have been presented in the order that they were tasted, and in order of hop-malt intencety. What we have in this selection are the two poles of beer flavor, from super fruity Germans, to hyper toffie English.

#1
Weihenstephaner Vitus (Weizenbock)

My first thoughts on this brew were how totally and unbeleveably hop driven this beer is. It's allmost to hoppy. I think the Vitus referes to 'vitamin' or some type of health beer. The health benifits of hops are not in dispute, but. The hop hit is HUGE.
As a beer:
The colour is a rich wheaty amber thats slightly clouded. A quality German head formed by the big medium speed bead is sustained through out. The nose is a floral and with an abundant boquet of fruits and flowers to numerous to mention. To taste, ah, to taste. Well it's some what of an oral assult for this poor old Celt. The hop flavor burst is like a grenade going off. There is some bitterness but it's mostly complicated fruits. The malts come later and are quite caramel for a krout beir, but are totally over ridden but the hops. A drinkable brew but with a recomendation for serving that differs from the recomended suggestions.
Serve in a English pint glass not the brandy balloon, and chill it to somewhere around 4-6C not the 7-9C as listed on the back lable.

#2
Hoegaarden Grand Cru
In order to progress through the beer spectrum, one has to balance things out abit.
The Grand Cru fermentation is revered the world over and is regarded as one of the finest beers ever made. Hoegaarden go to great lengths to ensure people can enjoy their beir as it is ment to be. In order to serve the Grand Cru, premises are requied to meet several critera. These include, the right way of cleaning the glass, the correct use of a spatula to scrape the head, the use of a unique and specific glass.... So on, and so on. Only after these strict critera have been meet do the Hogaarden brewery grant access to the hallowed keg key. This key is unique to the Grand Cru keg. This is to insure that non accredeted premises are unable to serve the Grand Cru.
Hows that! AA+ for effort...
The beer turns out like this:
The colour is clasic golden wheat. A head is formed by a high quality,fine,numerous,slow speed bead. The result is a very foamy fine head that remains to the last drop. The nose is quiet well balanced, with the distinction that the malts permiate first, hops arive late and exhibit citrus, fresh grass, and jasmin tones. For taste, some how the master crafts men have managed to reverse the order of flavors customary to all other beers. That is the malts arive before the hops. It really is a five count untill you get a decent idea of the hops, then they just keep on comming untill they've mirrored the strengh and fade out of the malt. Grand Cru defenently fits into the miracle beer catagory. It's so good as to be almost without fault. One of my all time favourates.

#3

Innis & Gunn original

To painfully over simplify things it could be said: German beers favor the hops, English beers favor the malts.

This is where we arive at the other end of the beer spectrum.

Innis & Gunn original is by far and away the most malty beer I have ever tasted! Try this one: Take an old fashion toffie, a blade of grass, and two drops of lemon juice. Gob the lot and there you have it. Innis & Gunn original. It really tastes like that. But in the intrest of fairness I'll do the breakdown thingy...

Beautiful in color being that of golden honey. The head is slim but sustained, haveing formed as a result of a small, fine, and slow bead. The aroma on the nose is built from a base of toffie, dark honey, golden sryip and roasted barley. The hops play a backround roll and provide a faint grassy taste. An ambitious and prodigus lingering after taste of golden toffie, darkend honey, and roasted nut, combine to leave a sweet, oh so sweet finish.
This beer comes highly recomended. But only in the rareified group of beers reserved for serving with dessert....Yes, a dessert beer!

Gum Gum Marinara. (Brock style)

Hello all.
Tonight we are talking gummy shark, and what to do with a shit load of it.
Ofcourse we're all familiar with the problem of going down the coast and hawling in a 3 meter long shark, and just how much meat there is on the bugger!
So we get it all home, dish some out to friends and family, have a huge feed of flake, and there's still slabs of it left over. We know how I have a thing about next day fish. To get around this some, I recon you can't go wrong with useing it in a marinara.
I'm not guna do the recipe thingy. But rich tomato, garlic, and parsley flavors go a long way to disguising the fact that the fish isn't prefctly fresh. If you don't know how to do a marinara. It's easy, go look it up.

Goosey Scanpan

What an egg..
Brock: 'How big do you think the chook was that layed this egg'?
Ivy: 'Was really, really big one daddy'!


The latest knife acquisition is a ceramic job from kitchen ware brand "Scanpan".

I bought this one for my wife. I think she will like it. It's very light, and will stay very sharp. The blade is made from a material known as zirconium dioxide. As a knife it is both good and bad. The hardness is allmost off the Rockwell scale, somewhere around 650 if you can beleive that. A super high quality Japanise damascus knife comes in at around 65 RHC. So it's about 10 times as hard as what is considered a bloody tough knife. The draw back, and it's a biggy, is a very brittle blade. If you drop it, there's no 'thunk' as it sticks into the floor boards. It's a smash as it shatters into a thousand peices. Also, blades this brittle can't handle a fine pointed tip, so they are a bit half arsed at the pointy end. But as far as edge retention goes, zirconium just keeps on going, and going, and going.

Hope you like it Juzzy.

Steaky Wakey

The amount of space given to cooking steak within this blog is way over the top. Re: High steaks posting. I'll spare you the punishing writen assault.
Before cooking, finley chop fresh sage, generously season, and roll the edges of the meat to coat.
Spring has well and truely sprung round my way. Cold mornings, warm days. Mushy have gone, but herbs are in, so is lamb. So when I'm out and about is looks abit like this. Misty but sunny, f-ing cold yet warm in the sun.

Organo-Brew

Olive & Ivy.
Duchy Originals
Organic ale.

One of the finnest English beers I've ever tasted. Duchys Originals Is a superbly balanced extreamly well crafted beer. I was bloody hard pressed to find fault with this beauty.

A colour unique. Rich amber with a ruby tint when held to the light. Quality english head, formed by a fine but fast bead, foamy yet creamy. In the mouth the silky head delivered what would be a perfect measure of malt and hops. The brew actually tasted unrefined and very natural. The malts tasted husky, while the hops gave up there canabonoids wich were grassy and herby in equal measure.

This is what the lable says:

Duchy Originals Ale has been brewed in the traditional way, useing a blend of the finest aroma hops and malts made from Plumage Archer barley harvested from selected organic farms in Britain including the Home Farm at Highgrove. This traditional ale has a ruby colour and is rich in body with a balanced bitter flavor.

When HRH The prince of wales created Duchys Originals in 1990 it was because of his belief in the clear advantages of organic farming: the production of natural and healthy foods and sound husbandry which helps to regenerate and protect the countryside and wildlife. This Duchys Originals Organic Ale is the result of such endeavours.

Trout skin & oysters.

Welcome blogees. Tonight we're talking food matching for beer.
Some beers are just flat out unreal. I'll have a bit of a chat about them, and recomend a snack to go with.

Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale.
Coopers of South Australia is the only mainstream brewer in the country that actually makes real beer. By that I mean bottle conditioned, and with a best after, not best before date. This means that the beer is naturaly carbonated so it's still alive, therefor it will continue to age/improve under cellar conditions for years to come. If you don't beleve me try this one: Take a six pack of any coopers beer. Bung it in the cellar, or under the house for six months. Now after the ageing process has passed, go out and buy a fresh sixer of the same type of Coopers beer. Stick em boath in the fridge so as to be the same tempreture. First crack the fresh one and taste, now try the aged version. There will be no argeument as to wich brew is the better one!

Coopers Extra Strong Vintage Ale is a beer that has been designed around not just excellent drinking, but cellar ageing aswell. I'll start this review by including what was writen on the lable.

This naturally conditioned ale experences interactions between the robust malt, hop and yeast characters, to exhibit an intriguing journey of flavor development over a period of five years. This grand ale should be savoured in moderation.
Coopers vintage has been brewed with choice malts and an extended top fermentation to provide a strong flavorsome ale.
When stored under cellar conditions the rich & full flavor of Coopers Vintage becomes more complex with a smooth, warming finish.

In my opinion the above discription is totally accurate. But I add:
Dark and amber in colour. Showing the classic Coopers lack of head retention, but with a small, slow and fine bead. The nose is complex, malty and slightly floral. To taste, the malt is upfrount, well roasted but with possible lighter components. Jasmin and corriander seed come next as florals. The bitterness comes last and is supperbly ballanced. The lingering after taste is dark bitter chocolate and truely wonderfull.

As a food match I chose Tasmainian Spring bay oysters. (Supplyed by 'Kitchen & Butcher' main st Healesville). Good beer means good oysters. (Fresh is best). This lot were flown in from Tazzy haveing been picked fresh that morning.
Spring bay oysters are somewhat smaller than the average southern ocean variety, not to mention fucking hard to open. But once you've savoured the freshness, and ocean essence flavor you'll know it's been worth the trouble.
We won't mention the price to the wife..

Flomell pears. Flomell is Felmish for trout skin. (Still tastes like pears.)

Snow Day

Just a few photos this posting. Had an absolute blast romping about in the snow. A real winter wonderland.
I love this time of year!

Woke up this morning. This was the view from the verandah.

Was a big dumping of snow over night.

Dry, crisp, powdery, fluffy, lovely. Snow.

Archer and Ivy had a fantastic time playing in the snow.

Forest Fruit Green Ant.

Some of my core philosophies regarding food are: Fresh is best. Go for locally grown. Eat in season.

While hollidaying in north Queensland I was very fortunate to stay on a property that was allmost bursting at the seames this tropical fruit. Right out side the frount door of the guest house were coconut palms and banana trees. Within site were pawpaw, mango, avocado, star fruit, pasion fruit, and custard apple. Then there were the real exotics with names like lemmonades, (tasted like lemmonade) and chocolate pudding, (tasted like chocolate pudding). Ofcourse there were so many others that I wont mention here, except to say that each one looked and tasted more amazeing than anything I have tasted before.

The garden of Eden.

In the morning I would leave the house and wander through out the grounds plucking and sampleing fruit at leasure. After haveing eatin my fill I would return to the house with a choice selection of the ripest most suculent fruit for my family to breakfast on. A real paradice.

Liveing within the fruit trees were a speices of ant known to the locals as 'Green Ant'. They make there football size nests out of the living leaves by binding them together with a silk like thread. I'm told there a type of bush tucker/ medicine. I beleive it's because of their extreamly high asorbic acid (vitamin C) content. A good remedy for colds and flu, would protect against scurvy aswell.

Green ants are the most agressive arachnid I have ever seen. There strategy when thretened is to swarm the enemy, where they inflict a painful bite with there massave and powerful jaws. They use chemical signals to great effect. When a food source is detected the message is sent back to the nest with amazing speed. Within moments it seames the whole nest has arived to consume the avalible food. At the food source consentric rings of guards are posted, heads and anteni held high looking for and sign of danger. Scurrying between thr guards are messenger ants sending and receveing chemical masseges from the guards and workers. Further out from the rings of guards are the scouts. The job of a scout is to rush back to the guards at the first sign of danger, the threat message is passed along the line, and the hyper agressive guards swarm the area where the threat was detected. Meanwhile the workers make short work of the food, ferrying it back to the nest flanked the entire time by squads of guards and reconnecence scouts. The rest of the time groups of five or six prospecter ants spred out looking for more food.

Crabulations. (Look it up)

Mud Crabs.

Been a while since my last posting. (Thats bad). Thats because I was on holiday in North Queensland. (Thats good). But I'm back now. (Thats bad). Great tropical foodie stuff to talk about though. (Thats good).

Cardwell is a small coastal town in north Queensland. I was lucky enough to vist for a week.

To say the sea food is abundant up there is a gross understatement. What I would have considered a prize fish they used for bait.

One of the delicacies of the tropics is mud crab. These buggers are huge, fierce, and bloody scarey. As you can see from the above picture don't get your hand in the way, you'll lose it. The flavor is some what breath takeing, abit like lobster, but more earthy and not as sweet, with a firmer texture.

To catch mud crab you need to travel into the estuarys and the mangroves. Man was never made to visit a mangrove swamp. Sand flys live in mangrove swamps, these fuckers will eat you alive. They bite like mosquitos but swarm in the billions. Next are the larger preditors, by wich I mean salt water crocodiles.

One of these huge fuckers was just inside the forrest while we were fishing. You could hear him smashing and bashing this way and that. What scared the shit out of me was not how close he was but the way he would flatten whole trees that were in the way. I mean, how big do you have to be before it's easyer to knock down a tree rather than walk around it?

If you make it past the crocs, you'll never beat the mud. A very fine silt, it just sucks you in, down and down. Dark grey and brown, full of life because it will take any that strays into it...

After you've survived all that it's the trees themselves that are out to get you. They lift there roots above the mud. The tangled maze is nothing short of inpassable.

Soooo...

After you've been killed like 4 times over. It's time for a bit o crab-a-rama! This involves takeing a small 'Tinnie' (aluminium boat with out board motor) along the edges of the mangroves and throwing in crab pots right up against the tree roots. These are a raised disk shapes covered in nylon mesh with openings that make it easy for a crab to get into but not out of. To attract the crabs pigs heads and catfish (also dead) were tied to the bottom of the pot with wire. The traps were left over night.

The next morning we went back and retreved the pots. In them were some truely massive mud crabs. But also other marine life, estury cod, swimmer crabs, even octopuss.. The mud crabs, (only males), cod, and octopuss were all emptyed into an intulated box in the center of the boat to await transport back to the main vessle.

On return to the main fishing boat the crabs were cleaned and cooked in boiling water. The cod were all fillited, and the octopuss was frozen.

Bust out the ball peen (hammer) to crack the shell coz it's like tank armor. But once the meat is out, (there is a shit load). Do as the locals do. Pile the meat onto white bread, splash with vinager, crack with peper, slap on another peice of bread to make a sandwich and bung it in ya gob. Chow down and go to heaven.

Monks & Dragons

More beer reviews today.
Trappistes Rochefort:

The term trappist brewed refers to beers that have been made in or originated from monasterys in and around Germany.
So lets not beat around the bushell. Some of the best beers in the world are made by monks! Why? In days gone by the church realised that vows of silence and poverty wasn't drawing the crowds like it used to. So the powers that be or were, decided that fermentation of grain and grape was an act of god not yeast. Thus the monastery was saved. Whilst those of little prospect were able to get nightly shit faced in the name of god; being free of sin if not hang over. So delivered into silence, prayer, poverty, and brewing, the brotherhood of old began a fermentation the likes of witch none had ever seen befor nor are likely to see again.

As for the reveiwed beer:

A classic trappist beer but adding a nice twist or two.

A rich dark golden brown when held against light. Showing a foamy head that fades thinly to the rim, enduring thanks to a medium size but slow to rise bead.

In the mouth it started malty and tasting of ripe wheat, at back was subtle vanilla bean. The taste was crisp but sweet.

On the nose it was; Yeasty, with malt and toffie flavors leading to passionfruit and lollie banana aromas. Whilst the hops imparted a cut grass and peach fragrence that reminded me of spring.

Warmly finished by toffied malt and a cool breath of alcohol. This beer is a classic Australian winter brew. My recomenation for serveing would be in a brandy balloon at around 10C.

Gulden Drack:

Excellent Easy Beer.

The average home brew kit calls for a can of malt hop extract and sugar. But with the addition of a few cheap ingredents you can go from:
"It's not great beer, but it gets me pissed so I'll drink it". To...
"Shit mate, this is one of the best beers I've ever tasted"!


1 tin of Cascade Spicey Ghost draught malt hop extract. $13.50
1kg of light dry malt extract. $7.50
2X 250g bags of roasted cracked wheet or barly grain malt. 2X $2.50
15g cryo sealed bag of cascade dryed hop pellets. $2.50
Total cost = $28.50AU


Note: The hop plant is closely related to cannabis. (Hops stink like pot). When hop pellets are used to make beer it smells like 50 pounds of hydro are being baged up for distribution. So open a window and turn on the extrator fan if this aroma offends the pellet.

To make the 'wort' (This is the term given to unfermented beer).

In a large stainless, (copper if you can afford it) pot bring 2lt of the best freshest water you can get your hands on to the boil. Add half (7g) of the hops, the grain, and the dry malt to the water. Reduce to a very slow simmer and let cook/steep for about 2 hours stiring occationally. After this time add the rest of the hops. Splitting the hops works like this:

When you boil hops for an hour or more the floral fragrence disapates leaveing the bitter tannins that contribute to the flavor profile. Boiling for less than an hour means that the bitter tannins don't have a chance to infuse but floral flavors and aromas can impart themself.

In a seperate pot immerse the can of malt hops in water just off the boil, about 90C is good. let stand for 30 minutes. Now remove the can from the pot. Carefully open it and add the contents to the simmering hop malt grain mixture. Make sure as much of the cans contents as possible is added. You may wish to rince the can with a bit of boiling water to get at the last dregs. Bring the water in the pot that the can was in to the boil and chuck a strainer in. The strainer is needed in a minute to remove the bits from the wort. Boiling it will make sure it's sterile, a must when makeing beer.

Now place the strainer over the top of your sterile and pre rinsed fermenter. Pour the wort consentrate through the strainer so as to sepperate the grain and hops. Now rince, or sparge as it's known in beer makeing jibe the grain and hops that were caught in the strainer. To do this just run some water through the strainer untill it runs more or less clear. This will wash out the last and best of the flavors into the wort. Remove the strainer, top up to the desired level with water. The quality of the water used in makeing beer is very important, fresh soft spring water is best. If you cant get that just use the best water you've got. Don't be fooled into thinking that the flavor of the beer will hide the taste of bad water, it won't, it will taste even worse. Add yeast. Seal the fermenter and let the magic fermentation happen.

If all goes well, at 25C the wort will have transformed into beer after about 8 days. Bottle your beer according to normal sterile conditions. To prime your bottles, (add sugars to aid in carbonation) I prefer to use raw sugar.

With about 3 or 4 months of bottle conditioning you can marvel at the stunning improvement in your brewing skills. All thanks to the added goodness of grains and hops. Note the complicated floral nose, the supurb mouth feel, the hop malt counter balance, fine beading, and sustained head.

And it gets you sloshed.

It's getting into winter at my place, I love winter, it's not hot for a change. Winter brings heaps of yummy things to my table. One of my favourites is mushrooms. This time of year when it finally rains mushrooms seem to spring up over night. The above picture is of several local varieties. Don't ask for names coz I got no f'n clue. All I know is they taste great, and nobody tripped out.

Got Knife

It's Autumn, around my place it's my favourite time of year. The leaves turn colour, it's rains, (drought my way), it's cold, I get to cook winter food.

A pic of two of my kids in the new fallen leaves.
Kid chuck some leaves.

Some knifes I will use to cook winter food.

Close up.

Leg of duck, boned and stuffed with pork & fennel. Wrapped in Wagu proscutto.

To cook they were placed in a kettle BBQ at medium heat for 50 minutes.

Chiselled Out Fenchner!

I love to cook. I also love the right tool for the job.
Today I went to a knife expo held by the knifemakers guild of Australia.
At one of the stalls I found this jem. A chisel ground (left side) Japanise inspired kitchen knife.
Spec: Chisel grind half tang. Total length 29cm. Blade length 16.5cm. Grip one peice Jarra, (farmed in W.A). Metal= 440C stainless tempered to hardness 58 Rockwell.
Hand made by knifemaker Fenchner.
Smith Fenchner is mostly renouned for his Japanese sorwds. On the odd ocation he is known to turn out a kitchen knife. This is a fine example.
At home the knife is a pleasure to use. The weight is spread 60/40 in favor of the blade. Most often I prefer 50/50 split, but the foward weighted blade atacks the food and suits the grind well.

Signed Fenchner.

The Tribute

I love to brew my own beer. With about two hours work each week I can drink myself stupid for no more than three buck a night. (Try doing that at the pub!)
I mention this because the local home brew shop also sells a good range of beer. The only problen is that the bloke who run the show is a pom, so the English beers are everywhere, but he's abit stingy on the Geman stuff.
Lucky for me that the poms make a shit load of good beer.
Unlike the Germans, the English prefer their beer profiles to favor the malt characteristics, while the krouts like their hoppy diversity to be upfrount.
This brings us to St Austell brewery and 'Tribute. The Ale Of Cornwall.'
Haveing never been to Cornwall It's hard to talk about the beer there. But if this fine brew is anything to go by. Where's my passport?
I bought this beer coz it was comming over abit wintery. However, one sip of this beauty and it was straight back to summer. Really and truely a very drinkable beer! A plesant amber ale with a small but sustained head of medium grain formed by a small but brisk bead. The upfrount malt was light but complex. Warm butter, cut grass, and jasmin were prevelent. Hop wise the beer was perfectly balanced. I liked the citrusy aromas. But I felt that a more bitter finish would have made for a better ending.

On the front lable they said this:
A delightfully delicious and drinkable beer that captures the essential character of cornwall.

On the back they said:
Pale amber in colour. Tribute is a moreishly drinkable beer with delicious full-bodied malt flavours and a citrus aroma. Brewed using cornish spring water, cornish gold and maris otter malts, with a hand picked blend of aromatic hops. - It is truely the ale of Cornwall.

Black Pudding, Lamb Cuttlets.

Black Pudding:
Some people get all grosed out by blood sausage (black pudding). I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's not like there made out of blood. Oh wait, yes they are!

Ox blood, oats, pork fat, salt, and pepper. Mix all ingredents well. Stuff into sheep intestine so as to make short fat sausages. Gently simmer the lot for a few hours. String them up to cool, makeing sure to cut off a couple to have hot and fresh with lunch.

Lamb cuttlets:

Pretty much mutton at this time of year. But these ones were fresh and tender. Coated in sour dough crumbs, lemon zest, rosemarry, tyme, and pepper. Gently fried in olive oil, and rested on a cous cous salad with slow fryed capsicums and shallots.