The Library Cookbook

Or to be more precise, the St Andrew’s Cathedral School Library Cookbook!

This blog doesn't usually show advertisements (notice the lack of annoying popups and stuff - so just think of this as a community announcement) but the wondrous Connie W. author of the recipe for Tamarillo, Vanilla and Rosewater Jam was associated for some time with the SACS Library Team who have spent almost three years collecting, writing, testing and revising over a hundred mouth-watering recipes for their cookbook, which boasts the following features:

• An international selection of traditional dishes
• Spectacular food for special occasions
• Simple satisfying meals for the whole family
• All recipes tested by home cooks
• Step-by-step instructions written by educators

All profits from the sale of The Library Cookbook will be used to support the work of  Room to Read - a global organisation seeking to transform the lives of millions of  children in the developing world by focusing on literacy and gender equality in  education.

Founded on the belief that "World Change Starts with Educated Children",  Room to Read works in collaboration with local communities, partner organisations and  governments to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children and to ensure girls have the skills and support needed to complete their secondary education. Since 2000, Room to Read has impacted the lives of more than  four million children in Asia and Africa and aims to reach 10 million children by 2015. 

If you would like to support this cause and order a copy (or more) of The Library Cookbook, you can:

1. Visit the library in person and place an order at the front desk (address below),
2. Email the SACS Library Team at: virtuallibrary@sacs.nsw.edu.au with “Cookbook  Order” as the subject or
3. Ring the library on 02 9286 9554.

Each copy of the cookbook costs only $25. If you require the library to post your order to you, please contact them to negotiate postage options.

*Unless you have requested postal delivery, we understand that you will pick up your order at the Library Workroom (St Andrew’s Cathedral School Library, Sydney Square, George Street Sydney 2000) but hurry as the library will only be open for the week beginning December 5th before closing for the holidays.

Email: virtuallibrary@sacs.nsw.edu.au Telephone: 02 9286 9554

  

Please note that YaYa's Yum Yums has no association or relationship with SACS. All enquiries should be directed to the contacts given above.

Shanghai Stories 1938

Not a book of memoirs from a mainland northerner nor the next Jackie Chan action thriller (although it does sound like a Wong Kar Wai movie) but the name of a Shanghai themed yum cha restaurant just opened in Chatswood's new community precinct called The Concourse!

Serendipitously, I was on an errand in Chatswood and walked past the huge complex that is the Concourse when I spotted this intriguingly named restaurant and decided straight away that it was time to eat even though it was only 11am, aahh call it brunch!

Tamarillo, Vanilla and Rosewater Jam - an original recipe by Connie W.

I was introduced to this gorgeous concoction by my first foodie friend Connie who gifted me a tiny jar of it many, many years ago, like Proust's madeleines the memories come rushing back everytime I open a jar and smell the perfume of the jam. It didn't last very long and was much too good to put on anything as mundane as toast or a scone.

Nope, this jam had to be eaten on its own, a little spoonful at a time so you could savour its full range of flavours, tart yet rich and exotic from the vanilla beans and rosewater. The fruit becomes candied and deliciously chewy as you bite down on each morsel embedded in the jam. The colour of the jam will depend on how ripe the fruit is and whether it's a yellow or red variety. Connie's jam was a dark red but mine is more orange in colour. I've tried this recipe with orange flower water as well and it tastes just as good.

Sydney "Mad Hatter" Spring Picnic, Saturday 9th October

We started walking towards the unfamiliar woods, strangely serene and quiet despite the sighting of family picnickers, dog walkers, joggers, cyclists and horseriders.  Tick! Tick!

Was that a floppy eared bunny running off into the bushes? No, it was only a 6 foot Ninja looking for his trousers.  Tick! Tock!

What strange Wonderland had we walked into?

Sydney Good Food & Wine Show 2010

First impressions? The stand layout is much better this year with lots more space between the aisles and the wine tasting stands have been spread out between all the food stands instead of all congregating in the southern end of the exhibition centre. I think the organisers have finally realised that with all the trolleys, prams and other wheeled devices navigating the stands, more room is safer and makes for happier foodies!

Best showbag? Definitely the Barilla sample box for $10 which includes 3 bottles of sauce, 3 types of pasta, a cute 100% cotton apron and a chic pasta tin for storage.

What did I buy? Josophan belgian chocolate peanut brittle, a pretty jar of Ajvar capsicum and vegetable relish from Marco Polo Foods, Rochester Dickensian Ginger Drink (ok it's non-alcoholic but I'm partial to the idea of sticking a hot poker from an open fire into a mug to heat it up!) and some gold grade leaf gelatine, porcini powder and vanilla cocoa nibs from Equagold. Ideas for using said ingredients welcome!

Hmmmm - There's enough room for TWO super absorbant chamois ok shammy stands in a food show? Being the systematic type, I like starting from one end and making my way up and down each aisle to make sure I don't miss a thing so starting at the northern end my first stands were a couple of escapees from a lifestyle show! Ok, ok I know people who love food also love feeding their dogs well and want to erase the lines from under their eyes too but couldn't we have filled the spaces maybe at a cheaper rental for little artisanal places who have a special product but can't afford a stand? I'd say 80% of what was on show can already be purchased in local supermarkets and shops but what I want to see is the stuff you'd normally have to travel a long way to find.

When the dog bites, when the bee stings...and it's freezing cold!

Steamboat or hotpot has got to be one of my favourite things of winter (the other being the chance to wear luxury woollens)! Nothing like having a crowd of favourite people around 2 or 3 portable gas stoves or electric hotpots full of chicken or abalone stock and lots of nice things to dip into them, taking hours to cook and eat slowly and catch up with the gossip!

This one took 2 full days to organise - cleaning and decluttering the house (happy reading to the lucky person who picked up 2 years worth of Empire magazines), buying 101 ingredients, making sure all food groups (including dessert) were covered and reconfiguring every table and chair to ensure all could sit around the food!

Chicken stock on one side, abalone on the other

Thinly sliced lamb, wagyu beef, chicken, pork, calamari -

MiniB turns One ... and Two!

As the good Doctor says, it's all "wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff..." which is how we come to be posting MiniB's first and second birthday together! For some reason we didn't get around to posting the little one's first birthday last year but the cake and the food was so good and inventive that when we recently celebrated her second birthday we decided to do it all together and promise to be more organised in future!

Who's on First?

Playschool's Jemima and generic Butterfly Cakes

Mini Hotdogs and Mini Hamburgers

Free Pork? What to do?

As you know, the yum yummers were recently enjoying the launch of the new Food Bloggers category of the Australian Media Food Awards at La Mint, hosted by The Australian Pork Corporation. The goodie bags were mouthwatering and generous, and each of us took home a couple of luscious looking Murray Valley pork loins, and trays of delicious rosemary pancetta.

I am a bit of a pork lover (and don't we ALL love a well done Pork Belly?), however I will say I'm a bit hit and miss with my cooking of pork. As with everything, I think part of that equation in this is the quality of the pork. After trying the Murray Valley pork, I suspect I won't be buying anything else! Surely it can't be fail-proof (or should that be fool-proof? ha ha), but this loin was was so easy to handle and even came through shining after my usually distracted way of cooking dinner. I was incredibly happy with the result.

Firstly, I made a simple marinade of honey, seed mustard and soy. I didn't use just any honey, I used my deeply toffee coloured honey, direct from the bee-keeper, John Donvito.

I used to buy generic brands of honey from the supermarket, but since buying a whole lot of jars of John's honey at a roadside stall in Galston a few months ago, will probably never do so again (unless he's not there again for while...don't leave me John!!). I always thought honey was a purely natural product, made by bees, and not tweaked very much by the brands that packaged it. Now having tried the other style, I guess I'll be doing
some research into what the big brands actually do with the honey and if they add anything to it? Another blog perhaps?

Anyway, I'm convinced there is a very big difference between the two varieties, and will bend John's ear about it next time I catch him. I don't think that'll be a problem, he loved a chat and was happy to talk honey last time.

Ok, honey check, seed mustard...was generic and fine, soy, all mixed with a little dab of oil. Pork in, not for long as I was throwing this together after work and the kids were hungry! Whilst the marinating was underway, I flicked on the oven to 180, and tossed together some assorted green leaves I picked up at the Asian supermarket, a nicer mix than the usual supermarket variety.

I seared both sides of the pork in a hot frypan, just to seal them, then quickly put them back in the baking dish with the marinade and cooked them for 15 minutes with no lid. I just had time to set the table and get everyone sorted, before removing the pork to rest under foil for 10 minutes before carving slices and stacking it on top of the leaves. I dribbled the remainder of the marinade over the top as dressing and voila! I had a warm pork salad ready to serve.

The pork was succulent, sweet, soft and yummy. It was a perfect light dinner for a warm evening. Friday nights we are usually all tired and uninterested in dinner, but there wasn't a skerrick to be seen on any of the four plates! I'm sold. Murray Valley pork is a nothing short of a sensation!

Oh, I shouldn't forget the pancetta, we served that cold with a salad the following day for lunch and thought it was beautiful. The kids were less enamoured with the "black stuff" in the middle, so I think we'll stick with plain pancetta for them next time. Hubby and I have always been porchetta lovers as well, so this is just another choice for another day in our book! If you haven't seen the new Pork ad, check it out !

Over to YaYa here

This is what I did with my Murray Valley pork but first (cue lecture mode) being of the curious researcher type in my day job, and having been introduced to Murray Valley pork chops by my local butcher a couple of years back (who enthusiastically called it the Wagyu of pork and yes it is more expensive than the regular variety) I wondered exactly why the pork was always so tender and juicy, was it a special breed of extra fatty pig, what the farmers fed the pigs or was it the way the meat was processed?

A quick google search reveals the the meat is the product of a company called Rivalea Australia based in the Riverina town of Corowa. According to their website the secret is in the processing of the meat. Murray Valley Pork is brined for you in advance. This is a technique of soaking the meat in a salty solution akin to marinating which locks in the moisture ensuring a tender product. You can do this to any ordinary unbrined meat or poultry but having it pre-brined from the butcher does carry a greater convenience! The brining process doesn't appear to make the pork particularly salty, I guess I would have to cook it without any flavouring to see what it tastes like, perhaps it's only a mild solution as any flavour I add to the cooking process is not exaggerated!

I marinated my pork in lemon infused and plain olive oil, Murray River pink salt, white pepper, some rosemary and a gorgeous saffron flavoured marmalade I had on hand.

A quick pan fry to brown the outside and then popped into a hot oven for about 15 mins

before serving with a mango salsa (mango, red onion, coriander and sweet chili sauce) and some baby potatoes which had been steamed, sprinkled with salt and pepper and olive oil and crushed with a potato masher and sprinkled with nigella seeds before baking.

Thank you to Australian Pork for the opportunity to try out this new recipe! The pork was tender and perfectly cooked, the marmalade adding a slightly bittersweet caramelised bite to the meat which was delicately perfumed by just enough rosemary. The Montecatini rosemary pancetta which we also received in our take home packs was just so good eaten out of the packet, we didn't do anything with it except serve it up with some sourdough bread!

Hey readers, Lobo here

Congratulations for getting this far. I know it's a long post so I'll try to keep this short but when it comes to pork Yaya's Yummers have a lot to say! A Homer Simpson quote sums up my feelings about this amazingly versatile meat quite nicely.

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?

Lisa: No.

Homer: Ham?

Lisa: No!

Homer: Pork chops?

Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal!

Homer: Heh, heh, heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Yes Homer a wonderful, magical animal indeed and especially magical when it is received as a gift. So what did I do with the rosemary pancetta? Pan fried pancetta wrapped asparagus with poached eggs anyone?

I tried poaching eggs once before with terrible results and have stayed away from the cooking technique since, always using the more forgiving methods of scrambling and sunny side up. But under the tutelage of Youtube instructional videos, I thought I would give it another go.


I missed the centre of the swirling water a couple of times so the egg white didn't wrap around the yolk but luckily the yolk stayed intact during plating up. I loved the combination of the creamy egg yolk, the salty crispness of the pancetta and the crunch of nicely blanched asparagus. One asparagus hating guest suggested that next time I should replace the foul weed with fried sourdough bread stick soldiers and serve it up for breakfast.

The last couple of weeks have been filled with talk about pork. It seemed to be a consensus with most that their favourite part of the pig is the belly. I just couldn't resist going out and buying some organic pork belly and attempting my fathers crackling pork.
The process requires 2 days of curing with a dry rub so you need to think in advance for a dinner party but it's well worth the wait, the result being a light, extremely crunchy crackling that is brittle and yields easily to your molars. Another success story for pork!

What does an errant foodie do when in hospital?

Why blog the hospital food of course!

Don't panic readers, I was only in for 5 hours for an iron infusion due to low amounts of the vital mineral and no other nasty explanations for lack thereof (expensive steak dinner? yes please!)

Actually I was inspired by the ramblings of Notes from a hospital bed: Ramblings of a poor sod after months in traction and eating hospital food and Hospital food from around the world and Hospital Food.

A 5 hour procedure is only long enough for morning tea (small lamington and beverage of your choice, which I skipped) and lunch. I had the option of a vegetarian pasta dish but knowing I was going to have a chicken and lemon pasta for dinner tonight, decided to opt for the soup and sandwich deal.

Luckily my private health insurance afforded me the lovely confines of the Sydney Adventist Hospital aka The San, famous for its vegetarian food although not strictly enforced nowadays.

Doily covered tray with glass and water jug - classy!

Minestrone soup with egg sandwiches, low fat icecream, apple juice and stewed apples (out of picture)

Minestrone soup

The soup was lovely, full of fresh vegetables and risoni pasta, the stock appeared to be water rather than chicken but that made for a low fat and low salt soup that tasted actually of its ingredients.

The egg and mayonnaise sandwiches were freshly made (no stale edges - yay!) and if I felt inclined I could have salted and peppered them from little sachets but didn't bother, as the taste was fine.

Icecream on the stewed apple

I actually ate dessert first as I can't stand half melted icecream. To give it that foodie something, I emptied the icecream carton over the stewed apples which were made from freshly cooked apples, not tinned or preprepared or overcooked mush - lovely! Only needed a bit of cinnamon sugar (reminder to self - carry cinnamon sugar with me at all times) or oatmeal crumble to make it completely perfect.

Bon Appetit!

Hospital food from the San? 4 out of 5 stars!

Sorry,during the procedure I caught up with Review by Myles Barlow on my laptop and was unduly influenced!

Why we should pay more for our tomatoes

Thanks to Belle, I was reminded that I had made a promise to myself to visit the Eveleigh Markets at Redfern sometime this year and her blog told me that the last one for 2009 was going to be on the 19th of December. I was going to be in town for Kylie Chan's book signing so decided to go a bit earlier and check out the markets. I hadn't realised how close they were to Redfern station otherwise I would have made the trek earlier. I arrived about 11.30 which meant a lot of the more popular stalls had sold out but there was still plenty to look at.

I found some loquats, bought a big bag of achacha (which we ate Christmas day and later Lobo ground the skins up with water and filtered it to make a very refeshing drink, possibly even tastier than the fruit itself which was a little acidic!). I also bought some Colombian coffee beans, some marshmallows and other sweets from Sweetness the Patisserie and wish I had brought a chill bag with me so I could take home some of the meats and charcuterie that was also on sale, during my wandering a stallholder who had finished for the day handed me some huge cherries to get rid of the last of his stock!

The most I spent at the markets were for two boxes of heirloom or heritage tomatoes. I thought I was overdoing it but on bringing them home and tasting them, it turned out they were a worthy investment.

I wasn't able to identify the different types of tomatoes but they were the sweetest most flavourful tomatoes I've ever eaten, even the green ones Belle! You don't have to wait until they ripen.

I know it's a cliche to complain about the state of supermarket tomatoes and the complaints have come from every generation for a very long time, ever since the industrialisation of our food supply it seems. Heirloom tomatoes hark back to a time when food was not uniformly produced for ease of transport and storage, when variety was available from small farms and local market gardens. The sale of produce from heirloom seedlings are an attempt to preserve diversity in our food supply which is why it is definitely worthwhile paying more for better quality produce.

My craving for heirloom tomatoes began with a scene from Julie and Julia where Julie is frying bread (in butter of course) for a starter with lots of chopped tomatoes. This is strange as there is no mention of a bruschetta type dish in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, well I only checked volume one so maybe it was in volume two? Ahh, the power of visuals, I know I wasn't the only person to be so affected as lots of bloggers have discussed a recipe for that dish!


Anyway, I chopped up the tomatoes, added EVOO, a little salt, some thinly sliced red onion and tore lots of basil leaves into the mix. Let it sit for a little while to let the flavours blend and in the meantime, toasted some bread and slurped a little quality EVOO onto the toast, top with tomatoes, easy as!

The tomatoes were so delish you really didn't need the additions in fact I popped the leftover tomatoes straight into my mouth to taste just how good they were, green, yellow, stripey or mottled all were equally delicious.

That photograph above is why it's worth paying extra for the real deal! Let's support farmers who are trying to give us an alternative to cheap but not so great produce. But of course it's also cheaper if you try growing your own if you have the sunshine and the space!

Birthday lunch number...uhmmm

My dear friend Bee had been planning this outing for such a long time so it was quite exciting when the day finally arrived and I turned up at Newtown station on a really hot day to be met by an exotic looking Bee dressed for the occasion in a Hawaiian shirt! We headed straight for Christopher The's Black Star Pastry to pick up lunch.

Bee had a lamb shank pie (unfortunately, since he was unused to eating with food bloggers, he was mostly done with it by the time I got my camera out!) and the spinach and pinenut pithivier, both of which were rich and tasty (well, at least the initial allow-the-foodblogger-to-taste training took, hehe)!


I selected the serrano ham and basil in an olive roll. It was crusty and chewey and the fragrance of the fresh basil leaves enhanced the saltiness of the ham.

It was almost too much for one person but I managed to finish it knowing that dessert was nearby.

Let me introduce you to my new friends:

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble

Canneles de Bordeaux

Passionfruit and Coconut Macaron

Plum, Fig and Orange Cake

I loved them all, particularly the canneles (can-nu-lay is the way the French speaking Bee pronounces it) which I'd never tried before. According to the Food Network and the Worldwide Gourmet, this little cake has an ancient history but the most interesting part is how particular the recipe is in creating what turns out to be a crunchy, gooey toffee skin covering a creamy custardy interior. Apparently, fluted copper tins and coating the inside of the tins with beeswax (food grade I hope!) is what makes these pastries unique. My favourite of the day however was the orange cake with such a pretty topping, deliciously moist but not too sweet.

And the special cup of Earl Grey tea served up by Bee in gorgeous gold leaf cups inherited from his father. I felt rather privileged to be using this service and Bee went to the effort of getting the tablecloth matching the cup and saucer sets too!

But wait, there's more! Not only did Bee supply a wonderful lunch in the most elegant surroundings, afterwards he presented me with a very heavy parcel which turned out to be a Gateau Breton made to Nigella's own recipe. How lucky can a girl get?

Having read so much about this (and drooled over the photo in my copy of How to be a Domestic Goddess) I am now in possession of one! I couldn't wait to get home and open it up, it's a recipe that I don't think I'll ever make for myself, just reading the ingredients is probably raising my cholesterol level already, so how thoughtful of Bee to give me a little of the experience without the massive guilt, hehe! It was delicious by the way, crumbly and buttery and to be enjoyed a little at a time SLOWLY.

And after lunch, Bee organised a showing of finely bound artists books put together by a private collector.
Food and art, thanks for a gorgeous day Bee, hope your year is turning out to be just as good!