March 3 & 5, 2010: Atomica

Edit 06/05/2021: Atomica is now closed.

 

Atomica cafe was doing business the entire time I lived in West End, yet it was only in my last year there that I took a special liking to it. The lower prices and longer menu regularly attracted me to Espressohead next door, but eventually Atomica charmed me with its consistency and quality.

It's a small cafe and it's difficult to find a table on the weekend (perhaps another disincentive when I was a local?) but on my recent visit to the neighbourhood I had the luxury of stopping by for breakfast on weekdays.

You probably know by now how rare savoury breakfasts are for me but I wavered for mere nanoseconds before ordering the herbed scrambled tofu with spinach and toasted sourdough ($14.90). The tofu's firm but moist, quite sweet and with a hint of spice. The baby spinach leaves on top aren't cooked, but wilt gently from the tofu's heat and provide a nice contrast to the its sweetness. The serving size is HUGE - for lunch that day I could muster up the appetite for no more than a bit of fruit.

On my second visit a couple of days later I succumbed to the temptation of buttermilk pancakes ($10.90). You've a choice of maple syrup and caramelised banana on top, and icecream comes standard (I asked them to skip it). These guys really put the 'cake' in 'pancake' - these ones are bizarrely tall and fluffy and sweet. And as you can see from the volume of sauce, it's not just the bananas that get caramelised. Breakfast does not get any more dessert-like than this.

There's plenty else for vegos to enjoy on Atomica's breakfast menu, with a good representation of non-eggy savoury options as well as the usual eggs, toast and muesli suspects. They also make delicious (from distant memory) bubble and squeak, which comes with the Vego Breakfast plate and is also available as an extra. I've been utterly spoilt by Melbourne's brunch scene in the past few years, but it's great to see that this old favourite still measures up.

Address: 3/173 Boundary St, West End QLD
Ph: (07) 3844 0333
Price: veg breakfasts $4-$15

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You can read more reviews of Atomica at food bling, Hungry Kittens and Gustoso.

February 28, 2010: Caravanserai

I've been in Brisbane for work, with a side of nostalgic pleasure. I made room in my itinerary for old friends, old neighbourhoods and a few restaurants that are old favourites too. One of them is Caravanserai, a richly decorated Turkish restaurant in West End.

I was keen on the Turkish lemonade with limes, lemon and mint, an enthusiasm that spread round the table and culminated in a jug of the stuff. It had just the right sweet-to-sour ratio, though having now tried a rosewater-tinted version nothing else is quite as spectacular.

I don't know that I've ranted too much about it on this blog but the vegetable stack is one of those dishes that often appears as the sole vegetarian option on a menu. (It seems to have been superseded by gnocchi and/or risotto in recent years, but that's another story...) Though these are occasionally tasty, they are more often bland and poorly cooked, and they are a sign that the resident chef has no love or imagination for their vegetarian customers.

Not so at Caravanserai! Their Sebze ($22.50, described as a stack of chargrilled vegetables) is one of three vego options. And it is fabulous. The eggplant slices and mushroom are meltingly tender and deeply flavoured. The smothering tomato sauce didn't excite my eyes but it was an entirely different story once it hit my taste buds - it has just the right complementary tang of vinegar. Fried strips of haloumi and a wedge of polenta add richness and further contrast, and there's a little fresh greenery to perk it all up.

Dining at Caravanserai isn't cheap, but the food is made with care and the servings are generous (I challenge anyone and everyone to finish the banquet!). Vegans and gluten-free folks are catered for, and service is usually good - on this night we had a terrific and savvy waiter.

Address: 1-3 Dornoch Terrace, West End QLD 4101
Ph: (07) 3217 2617
BYO
Price: veg mains $22.50
Website: www.caravanserairestaurant.com.au

February 25-26, 2010: Raspberry rippled coconut icecream

My contribution to the gluten-free picnic potluck was a conciliatory offering to Craig. It was he who hosted the previous potluck picnic and encouraged the bringing of icecream. Then I got all avant garde, making savoury sundaes, and unwittingly chose flavours he detests. So this time I let him set the agenda, and he put coconut and raspberry icecream at the top of the list.

Kristy helped out by passing on the coconut ice cream recipe from The Vegan Scoop. What I ended up doing what quite different but it did confirm that this was another occasion for arrowroot. I stirred the arrowroot into a hot saucepan of sweetened coconut cream and almost immediately had misgivings - it wasn't mixing through evenly, with flecks of well-set coconut cream scattered through the 'custard'. I figured that a bit of judicious sieving should do the job later on, as it always does in my traditional icecream custards.

Matters deteriorated when I pulled the coconut cream out of the fridge later that day. The arrowroot had now set the entire custard into an unattractive, uneven pile of goop. (I wish I had thought to photograph it for you!) There was no way I could push this through a sieve. Michael had the right idea, though - I could strain it if I took to it with the stick blender at the same time! I blended and pushed and poured what I could into the icecream maker, hoping for the best.

What came out can only be described as THE BEST. The best vegan icecream I reckon I've ever made. One of the best icecreams I've made at all. Once its effects had been smoothed out and churned up, the arrowroot gave this icecream a gorgeously fluffy texture. It's like nothing I've previously experienced in a homemade icecream. Even as it melted, the coconut cream retained a frothiness that reminded me eerily of shaving cream. The approach was a little haphazard but I've high motivation to refine it - I'm planning to use this as a base for a few more vegan icecreams.

And the raspberry ripple? It's easy, and it's from this recipe. I doubt you'll find a more vibrantly coloured and flavoured counterpoint to the coconut cream anywhere.

Raspberry-rippled coconut icecream

coconut icecream:
2 tablespoons arrowroot
1 litre coconut cream
3/4 cup castor sugar

raspberry ripple:
1/2 cup water
40g castor sugar
juice of 1 lemon
250g raspberries

Stir the arrowroot into 1/4 cup of the coconut cream. Heat the remaining coconut cream and the sugar in a medium saucepan, taking them off the heat as soon as they begin to boil. Whisk in the arrowroot mixture. Chill the coconut 'custard' thoroughly.

While the coconut's chilling, make the raspberry ripple. Combine the water, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and bring them to the boil. Simmer until the syrup has reduced by half, then turn off the heat. Blitz it in a food processor with the raspberries until smooth. Strain the syrup to remove the raspberry seeds.

When the coconut custard is very cold, strain it through a sieve, using a stick blender to help it through. Churn the icecream in an icecream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Layer the coconut icecream and raspberry ripple in a container. Use a spoon the swirl the two flavours more if you like. Freeze the rippled icecream until firm, at least 4 hours.

February 26, 2010: Gluten free picnic - Colby 'cheese' and sausages

When Kristy first scheduled this picnic potluck, the broad theme of the night was going to be 'cheese'. Between the idea and the event, however, she was diagnosed as coeliac, so the potluck theme broadened out to include anything and everything gluten-free. It was a fantastic picnic, with everything from potato cakes to icecream - you can see all the pictures here. I decided to try to cover both bases (and to produce something ridiculously camp) and made gluten-free sausage and cheese bites. These turned out pretty well - the sausages tasting not too different to the gluteny ones I've raved about before, while the cheese was a passable approximation of the real thing. The potluckers loved the stylish presentation, but Carla had it right when she suggested serving them stuck into an orange next time. I was kicking myself.

The cheese recipe was lifted straight from Tahn, and relies on cashews and agar for its textural weirdness. It's pretty simple to make and the result is convincing enough in texture if not quite taste - I think I can work on the flavour though, maybe upping the nooch or playing around with some spices. Still, offset by the spicy sausages, the little cheese cubes worked well.

The sausage recipe came from Cloth and Fodder, and uses basically the same approach as our previous sausages, but with TVP and chickpea flour taking the place of beans and gluten flour. It's another really simple recipe - just combine all the ingredients, wrap them up into little cylinders and steam them and you're done. And they're excellent - a tasty combination of herbs and spices, a nice hit from the chilli and an appropriately sausagey texture.

We served our little skewers with Chinese-style bbq sauce, which we discovered at the last minute was another gluten-free failure. Turns out Chinese five spice has some sort of wheat derived corn starch in it. Bizarre.

Colby Cheese (recipe from Vegan Family vs Omni World)

1.5 cups water
1.5 tablespoons agar powder
1/2 roasted red capsicum
1/2 cup raw cashews
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons tahini
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder

Soak the agar in the water for at least fifteen minutes and then bring the mix to the boil, simmering for about 10 minutes - until the agar is dissolved completely (you need to keep stirring).

Once the mix has cooled a little (not too much - it'll set!), pour it into a food processor and add the remaining ingredients. Whizz for a few minutes until everything is smooth. Pour into a lightly oiled tupperware container and cool, before covering and refrigerating to set.

Gluten-free sausages (recipe via Cloth an Fodder)

200 grams TVP (check to make sure it's gluten free!)
1.5 cups chickpea flour
1/4 cup Massel 'beef' stock
1 onion, sliced finely
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
2 teaspoons ground pepper
2 tablespoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (adjust to taste - ours seem to be crazy hot, so 1 tsp was enough)
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
8 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons tamari

Prepare the TVP as directed (I just soaked mine in hot water for five-ten minutes), making sure any excess water is drained off.

Combine the TVP with all the other ingredients in a large bowl, adding more chickpea flour to dry out the mixture if necessary.

Lay out squares of aluminium foil and scoop little sausage-sized logs of the mixture onto the base of each square, before rolling the foil up and twisting the ends. Steam these little foil cylinders for about half an hour each and you've got yourself some sausages. You can fry or bbq the end result, but it's not crucial, we just used them as they came out of their little parcels for our toothpick snacks.

For all the potluck action, see Steph and Vicki (again)

February 21, 2010: Lemon slice, twice

You may have noticed the increasing frequency of vegan and gluten-free recipes on this blog. We have a number of friends embarking on such diets (and one even taking on both simultaneously!). I reckon our vegan cooking skills have developed enormously over the past year and I'm keen to become a similarly confident gluten-free cook.

With this in mind, I'm challenging myself to produce a vegan and/or gluten-free version of each 2010 calendar recipe. January was a breeze - the original salad recipe ticked both boxes right away. February brought a lemon slice, with all the wheat flour and egg-and-milk custard you'd expect. Nevertheless, I had a few substitutions in mind and planned to bake half-batches of the original and tinkered-with recipes on the same afternoon.

The base is a relatively typical biscuity affair of butter, sugar, vanilla and flour. It was just as easy to blend together Nuttelex, sugar, vanilla and a gf flour mix with a fork for my alterna-slice. Both versions proved sticky and awkward to mush into their papered loaf tins - I had no hope of pressing them in with my fingers and tried instead to spread them out with the back of the spoon. The more golden-looking one on the left is the original version.

The original came out of the oven looking much more golden again. I'm not sure whether it's the butter or the flour substitute but the alterna-crust barely coloured up at all, even though it was clearly cooked and even starting to dry out.

The lemon custard was always going to need some more creative thinking - I needed something to replace the eggs and ensure it would set. Based on the orange-Szechuan pepper icecream I recently made, I got to thinking about arrowroot. (Why I didn't just think about No Egg powder, I'm not sure.) I just threw it into the vegan 'custard' by the tablespoonful and hoped for the best. This time it was the distinctly golden caramel-looking layer, up against a very eggy-looking classic custard.

I plonked them into the oven and waited. And waited and waited. In fact, I made two careless mistakes that meant these slices were sitting in a ~100°C oven for about half an hour before I got them to the advised temperature. After they'd had their turn and more, I pulled them both out of the oven - the original recipe was looking eggy but well set. By contrast, much of the alterna-custard was still liquid. I was a little disappointed, but not devastated. I figured this kind of baking mis-step would be inevitable on the road to gobble-worthy gluten-free baked goods.

I was pretty surprised when I returned 20 minutes later and discovered that the alterna-custard had set completely as the slice cooled. In fact, this was a rather handsome and tasty lemon jelly-on-shortbread combo! Some of the edges were a touch burnt and the jelly was getting stuck in my teeth but I suspect these both come from over-baking. I think this recipe's just a reduced-bake away from satisfaction. (Well, almost - I committed a gluten-free FAIL by substituting dairy milk with evil, glutinous oat milk. I'll get me some proper gluten-free vegan milk next time. Or even just water - I'm not sure that milk's necessary here at all.)

While I was rather pleased, all up, with my alterna-slice it was clearly not what the original recipe intended. Here the base unexpectedly rose into an almost cakey affair, with the custard forming a thinner frothy layer on top. This was very nice indeed. I wonder if a bit of baking powder in my alterna-slice might encourage this effect. (I'm in two minds as to whether I'd even want that, though.)

I couldn't have asked for more success in my naive conversion of a traditional recipe. Though my new version is a very different beast to the original, it has its own charms. What's more, I've learned a bit about arrowroot along the way and am keen to continue playing with it. I wonder if it'd make a nice agar replacement for that pie I made last year.

Traditional lemon slice
(from Robyn's 2010 recipe calendar)

base
125 g butter, softened
1/4 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cups plain flour

filling
4 eggs
1 cup castor sugar
2 tablespoons plain flour
1/2 cup milk
grated rind and juice of 2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line the base and sides of a small baking tray with paper (I would use something measuring about 20cm square).

Prepare the base by creaming together the butter, sugar and vanilla - if your butter is well-softened you'll be able to do this by hand with a fork. Sift over the flour and mix it in well. Transfer the mixture to the baking tray, using the back of a spoon to spread it out across the base and ideally also an inch up the sides. Bake the base for about 10 minutes or until it begins to brown. Set the base aside to cool.

Whisk together all of the filling ingredients until well combined and pour them over the base. Bake the slice for a further 20-25 minutes or until just set. Allow the slice to cool before slicing and serving.

Vegan and gluten-free lemon slice

base
125g Nuttelex
1/4 cup castor sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cups gluten-free plain flour

filling
2 tablespoons arrowroot
1 cup castor sugar
1 tablespoon gluten-free plain flour
1/2 cup vegan gluten-free milk
zest and juice of 2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line the base and sides of a small baking tray with paper (I would use something measuring about 20cm square).

Prepare the base by beating together the Nuttelex, sugar and vanilla with a fork. Sift over the flour and mix it in well. Transfer the mixture to the baking tray, using the back of a spoon to spread it out across the base and ideally also an inch up the sides. Bake the base for about 10 minutes or until it just begins to dry out. Set the base aside to cool.

Whisk together all of the filling ingredients until well combined and pour them over the base. Bake the slice for a further 20-25 minutes. Don't worry if it's still liquidy! It will set up as it cools. Once the slice is cool and set, slice and serve.