September 22, 2007: Slow Food Market

Winter had pretty much put a stop to our adventures to the countless markets that Melbourne hosts, but with the first hints of spring warming our bodies (and spirits), we decided to resume our explorations. We didn't really stray too far from home - off to Abbotsford for the monthly Slow Food Market, held in the Abbotsford Convent right next door to the Collingwood Children's Farm.

The market is spread out across the grounds of the convent (most of which is a school I think), with a few fruit and vegie stalls, some butchers, cheese-makers and a lot of other bits and pieces like dips and jams. I'd saved room for a second breakfast, so the first stop was The Convent Bakery - offering a range of bread and pastry products and a few sandwiches and panino. I decided to dive into one of the raspberry danishes, which was sweet, tangy and chewy in all the right places, while Cindy ducked outside to grab one of the fancy-pants cupcakes from one of the stalls.

The cupcake was a red velvet cake with marshmallow icing ($2.50) from 'Tea with Alice'.

Loaded up with sugar (and caffeine in my case) we were ready to face the stalls. We picked up most of the ingredients for our evening meal (coming soon!) and Cindy was seduced by some frozen blueberries and preserved lemons (which I don't think we've tried yet). I, on the other hand, couldn't resist buying more goodies for a guilty lunch: pumpkin bread, two kinds of cheese and an asparagus pesto.

The bread was as good as you'd expect - particularly when slathered with the tasty dip or the drippingly delicious soft cheese.

The blue cheese, which was a reasonably mild offering also hit the spot on some of Cindy's knackerbrod (although I'm not convinced by her addition of maple syrup!). Meanwhile, my cholesterol probably hit six million.

As ridiculously good as all the food was, the real highlight for me was just the sunshine, the grass and the outdoors - Saturday morning markets are destined to be a highlight of the warmer months ahead.

Address: 1 St. Hellier's Street, Abbotsford
Timing: The fourth Saturday of each month from 8a.m.
Website: http://www.mfm.com.au/slowfood.htm

September 21, 2007: D.O.C.

D.O.C. is the new pizza and mozzarella bar on the Carlton block, just a couple steps beyond the touristy Lygon St restaurants and within a cannoli's throw of Brunetti. Michael first pointed it out to me a few weeks ago as we stepped out of Video Dogs, but I wasn't actually that excited about paying it a visit until Claire, the Melbourne Gastronome, showed us exactly what it had to offer. Then, of course, I was all emails and dates and meetings for Friday night.

I met Kerrie and Daniel there right after work and we settled in with a bottle of red and a plate from the mozzarella list. The only vegetarian plate was the cheapest of the bunch, Australian Fior Di Latte with Pomodori Con Pesto (vine ripened tomato with pesto, $13.50). For the mozzarella buff, there's the pricier option of buffalo mozzarella air-freighted from Italy for an extra $4. I was most content with the basic version, by the time the wine was poured and we'd broken out the grissini sticks we had Michael, Mike and Jo-Lyn digging in too.

For our main course, we haggled our way to four different pizzas between the six of us - three of them vegetarian, much to my delight. D.O.C. don't allow changes to toppings or half/half pizzas, but the existing meat-free options should be enough to satisfy. In total, five of the 14 pizzas are vego - we gave the olive oil & sea salt and potato, onion, & rosemary foccaccias a miss this time. I was further pleasantly surprised that the two Michaels joined my enthusiasm for the understated Margherita ($14), with its modest topping of tomato, mozzarella and fresh basil. It was probably the best margherita I've ever eaten, with the restrained layer of quality mozzarella and thin, elastic base.

Here's the Pizza Bianca ai Porcini ($21.50), with wild mushrooms, truffle oil and mozzarella. While the distribution of mushrooms might seem a bit miserly, it's actually right on the mark, as the aroma of the truffle oil permeates the base and cheese. This one was topped with a generous handful of bitter radicchio - while I'm not their greatest fan, they were just the thing to cut through the richness of the pizza.

The third vego selection was the Pizza Cicoria ($18), with chicory, piave cheese and lemon. Another winner, with the lemon and cheese making a surprisingly cute couple.

In my opinion these pizzas rank with I Carusi, though Jo-Lyn astutely noted that they're a little on the salty side. The bases have the right balance of crispness and chew and are thin enough to let the toppings show off their flavours. But they're also thin enough to have us all looking at the dessert list...

Michael was up for the sweet pizza ($8), with creme fraiche, strawberry, kiwi and vanilla bean icecream. It was enjoyable enough, but not really more than the sum of its parts.

I was most intrigued by the sweet goats cheese tiramisu with pavesini ($8). I would probably have been scared off the idea of goats cheese in a dessert if Claire hadn't tried it already. I certainly noticed the goaty aftertaste in my first few spoonfuls but as I pushed on, my tastebuds dulled and it was all light and airy cream with just the coffee-soaked biscuits adding bite. Also worth noting is the nutella calzoncino with vanilla bean icecream ($8), an enormous pastry filled with molten chocolately nutella - best ordered to share between two.

Friday at the D.O.C. was a success all round - there was never a quiet minute in this company and the pizzas were superb. The service included a few glitches as might be expected for a new restaurant and the friendliness of the staff easily smoothed that over. I'll definitely be back for more high-end pizza, but might take my dessert desires back to Brunetti or Lygon St afterwards.

Address: 295 Drummond St, Carlton
Ph: 9347 2998
Licensed
Price: veg pizzas $8-21.50, dessert $8

September 20, 2007: The Horn Restaurant

The Horn in Collingwood is a stange hybrid of African cafe and jazz bar. It's cosy, with a couple of linked rooms and is atmospherically decorated with a combination of African and jazz-related paraphernalia. Cindy discovered it via 1001 Dinners, 1001 Nights and decided it was worth a visit. I wandered in around 7 to meet Cindy and a group of friends for dinner and the friendly and relaxed staff set me up at the back corner table with one of the organic Ethiopian beers that they offer. I could have quite happily sat there and relaxed all evening, but eventually everybody else arrived and we could get down to the business of eating.

The menu contains a fairly extensive range of Ethiopian snacks and meals, with a reasonable number of vego options. It was hard to go past the vegie and dahl combination, which Cindy and I shared, - a chance to try five of the dishes on offer without eating until bursting point. Our waitress explained the traditional Ethiopian style of eating where stews are placed on top of giant pancakes (injera) and eaten without implements - the injera providing something with which to pick up the liquidy meals. The pancakes arrived on large pizza trays, complete with a salad garnish and a couple of rolled up injera for extra grabbing power. To accompany this great expanse of breadiness, we got a selection of three vegie stews and a couple of dahls. Four of the dishes came out in a stylish little serving device, while the fifth languished rather sadly in a plain bowl. The food was tasty without being particularly mindblowing - most of the fun came from digging around with the injera and generally making a ridiculous mess.

With a few more organic beers (including a very nice stout) under our belts and the last of the sauce-soaked injera devoured, we were just settling back in our seats when the tiny spare space next to our table was transformed into a makeshift stage and out came the band (one of whom doubles as the proprietor of the venue). We shuffled ourselves across to a table a little bit further away to give them some room and then sat back as they played a fantastic 40 minute set of rhythmic jazz. It killed off our conversation, but nobody really minded - the music had us all transfixed.

We snuck out in their break between sets (some of us to head off to bed and other, less responsible types to push on to more live music and beer further into Collingwood), happy with a good meal, some fine company and an unexpected burst of enjoyable jazz. The only (slight) downside of the whole evening was the unexpected cover charge we had to pay for the band. It wasn't really a problem, but it's probably a good idea to let people know that there's going to be an extra charge for staying in the restaurant after a certain time. But that was a minor quibble - The Horn has all the ingredients for a very satisfying night out.

Address: 20 Johnston Street, Collingwood
Ph: 9417 4670
Licensed
Price: $30 for a vegie platter for two ($16 for one)
Website: http://www.thehorn.com.au/

September 18, 2007: Rhubarb and ginger pudding

Much as I'm excited to see spring arrive, there are a couple of wintery things that I've been meaning to do prior to gorging myself on asparagus. The main one was to cook with rhubarb. I've enjoyed the tang of rhubarb in a number of compotes and crumbles while eating out, and every time I've seen those crimson stalks at Safeway I've promised myself I'll get some nicer ones from a market. Actually, we barely ventured to any markets this winter and so rhubarb almost passed me by. In a last desperate bid to catch up, I surrendered to Safeway's convenience on the way home from work and made a weeknight pudding.

But first I had to inspect my new vegetable. Its smell reminded me very much of celery and I was surprised to see that the core of the stalk isn't pink at all, just green and even more celery-looking. It was difficult to equate this creature with the soft pink strips previously seen on my French toast at Gingerlee. I took an experimental taste and didn't like it at all: stringy with a sourness that wasn't at all fruity, and that pesky likeness to celery. (For the record I actually like celery but its place as a savoury salad vege really interfered with my appreciation of rhubarb as a "fruit".) It briefly occurred to me that I might have picked up some bitter rainbow chard by mistake.

Another blogger (I think it was Matt of MattBites but I can't find the post) waxed nostalgic about eating raw stalks of rhubarb dipped in sugar as a kid, so I tried that as phase two of Getting To Know Rhubarb. This was a bit more agreeable - the sweet and sour taste was starting to come through. A cynical little voice in my head noted that most disliked veges would probably yield the same improvement in taste if I coated them in sugar. Besides, that celery smell and texture were still lurking.... I still wasn't completely convinced that it was actually rhubarb I've been eating out all these years.

But I pushed on and followed this recipe for rhubarb and ginger pudding that appeared in the Age a few months ago. As I spread the small amount of batter over those stiff and disturbingly green sticks, I wondered if this entire exercise was a waste of time and butter. It wasn't. What emerged from the oven was what I knew rhubarb to be - soft and pink and sweet and sour. Better yet, it was encased in a pudding! This one is a fairly dense and not overly buttery cake - the firm surface reminded me very much of gingerbread. It's delicious warm or cool, with or without cream. And if the learning process isn't reward enough in itself, this dessert is the perfect pay-off for trying something new.

Rhubarb and ginger pudding

500g rhubarb
125g castor sugar
1/3 cup golden syrup
185g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
a shake of ground nutmeg
a pinch of salt
125g butter
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and grease a 1-litre casserole or pudding dish. Chop the rhubarb into 3cm lengths and arrange them on the bottom of the dish. Pour the castor sugar evenly over them.

Measure the golden syrup into a cup and stand it in hot water, so that it's liquid and pourable. Sift together the dry ingredients (flour through to salt). Cream together the butter and brown sugar. When they're pale and fluffy, introduce the syrup and continue beating. Next add the egg, beating until well combined. Fold in the dry ingredients.

Gently heat the milk and stir in the bicarbonate of soda until completely dissolved. Add them to the pudding batter and mix well. Spoon the mixture over the rhubarb and bake the pudding until it's well-browned and an inserted skewer comes out clean. The original recipe estimates 35 minutes but my pudding took 45-50 minutes to cook through in the centre.

September 18, 2007: Asian-inspired salad

Here's a darn tasty weeknight meal - an Asian-inspired "chicken" salad. Mixed greens, capsicum, carrot, cucumber and bean sprouts are topped with some oven-baked gluten pieces. Extra flavour came from an ad-libbed dressing of kejap manis, tamarind paste, soy sauce, rice wine, palm sugar and 5-spice powder.