Suburban Surprise - Bussaracum Thai Cuisine

When people disparage the suburbs and the people who live in them, I always think to myself 'What a wanker'. Most of us come from the suburbs and eventually return there, after a stint of inner city cool and shared housing hell during university and early working life. Restaurants like Bussaracum are a reminder that the suburbs are not the soul-less wasteland that some may think.

Over the Christmas season we have been catching up with family and friends, and the Tuesday evening after Christmas saw us catching up with a friend in Ivanhoe at Bussaracum Thai Restaurant. Bussaracum specialises in a style of Thai cuisine known as 'Royal Thai'. Rosemary Brissenden, in her excellent cookbook South East Asian Food, tells me that Royal Thai cuisine has its basis in the court of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya, an area north of modern day Bangkok, which was open to foreign trade. South Indians and Malays involved in foreign trade settled there, bringing with them the spices of their trade, coconut milk and chilli from the Portuguese.

Bussaracum sits atop the first floor of a brown, institutional-looking brick building on Upper Heidelberg Road that was probably built in the 1970s, quite an unprepossessing location for such a wonderful restaurant. We arrived around 8.30pm for dinner and were treated to views of a beautiful sunset across the Melbourne skyline. The suburbs hide little gems like this and the focus on Royal Thai cuisine lifts Bussaracum above its suburban counterparts.

To begin with we ordered a trio of dumpling-type entrees: Puak Sod Sai, Khao Krieb and money bags.

Puak Sod Sai

Khao Krieb

The taro pastry wrapped around the minced chicken, prawn and mushroom of the Puak Sod Sai was quite delicious and provided an interesting texture that hinted at chewiness as you bit into it. The lurid green colour of the Khao Krieb was both off-putting and mesmerising. Filled with minced pork and crushed peanuts, the outer pastry was soft and sweet from the drizzling of palm sugar. This was our favourite of the three - something very different from what we were expecting that offered interesting flavours and texture. The money bags were a familiar item and while the crispy pouches filled with minced pork and chopped water chestnuts were well prepared, they didn't match the deliciousness of the other two entrees we ordered on the night.

For mains we again ordered three dishes: Cha duck, deep fried squid with spicy salt and Takrai. Given that all three of us were still in a post-Christmas food coma this was perhaps a little ambitious however, we gallantly made our way through the dishes.

Cha duck

I'm a big fan of duck and my choice of the cha duck was a dish composed of boneless duck stir fried with capsicum, wild ginger, young peppercorns and aromatic sweet basil in a purportedly mild chilli sauce. 'Mild' it was not! While quite delicious, the heat was described by my friend as 'hitting you in the face' and continued to build in your mouth long after you had swallowed it down. So be prepared!

Deep fried squid with spicy salt

The deep fried squid with spicy salt also included garlic and chilli, though with no where near as much heat as the cha duck, and was served on a bed of iceberg lettuce. There was a lot going on in this dish and the iceberg lettuch provided a fresh and crisp counterpoint to the saltiness of the squid.

The takrai, sliced chicken with coconut cream, lemon grass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves and aromatic dried chilli was by far the favourite main course for all of us. It was perfectly balanced, showcasing the subtlety of the spices used and not overpowered by the coconut cream. This was the one we all returned to and the first to be finished.

Takrai

I didn't drink alcohol on the night but in retrospect a Singha beer or two would have helped calm the mouth down after the cha duck. Desserts are also available but we were too full to try these. Service was attentive on the night. I was very impressed with Bussaracum and highly recommend it. We are planning our return there already.

Entrees: $8-12
Mains: $16-28

Bussaracum Thai Cuisine
223 Upper Heidelberg Road
Ivanhoe

9497 4650

Quick and Tasty - Teriyaki Salmon

To state the obvious, I like to eat good, tasty food. However working full-time often means that on week-nights we both arrive home tired and not particularly wanting to cook, or we run out of time to pull something together for lunch of a morning.

The busy festive season has reminded me how important it is to have a couple of quick, delicious meals up my sleeve that I can whip up in a short amount of time to get me through meals over a couple of days. So this will be the first in (another) occasional series, 'quick and tasty', the criteria being a dish that can be made ahead quickly, keep for a couple of days and take more or less 30 minutes to make (by that I mean you're not standing around prepping food for more than 30 minutes, but by marinating or other like process may stretch the time out longer, and you can go off and do something else).

This recipe is simple. It is great for a dinner or lunch served with a salad and some rice (if you have the time to cook it). Make it ahead, perhaps on a Sunday afternoon, to give yourself a couple of lunches or mid-week dinners that require minimal preparation.

Ingredients:
400-500g salmon (Ask your fishmonger to cut the fillet into 1.5-2cm wide pieces. You should be able to get about 6 pieces)

Teriyaki sauce
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin*
2 tbsp sugar

Method:
Combine all sauce ingredients in a saucepan. Stir the mixture well. Put it on medium heat and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat to low and simmer for a couple of minutes. Stop the heat and cool the mixture (Sauce can be stored sauce in a clean bottle in the refrigerator).

*If you don't have mirin, you can substitute sake and sugar for mirin. The ratio of sake to sugar is 3 to 1. Adjust the amount of sugar to taste, depending on your preference.

This recipe makes a lot of sauce.

Marinate the salmon pieces in the teriyaki sauce for about an hour, in the fridge.

Using a griddle-style pan, cook the salmon for approximately 5 minutes each side. The exact time will depend on the thickness of the salmon piece however, I look to cook it until the teriyaki marinade has taken on a thick, dark, caramelised appearance. Right at the end of the cooking process I pour some of the remaining marinade over the salmon in the pan and let it bubble up and thicken. The salmon should be well-done but not dry.

The cooked salmon fillets will keep in the fridge for the next couple of days. I quite like the salmon for lunch with some rice, salad/s and slices of lemon. It reminds of fabulous bento boxes we enjoyed on our travels through Japan.

Enjoy!

Ramen - yeah!

When we were planning our first trip to Japan one of our friends said to me 'Promise me you'll slurp ramen at the train station'.

At Matsumoto Station, I fulfilled that promise. With my limited recognition of Hiragana, beginners level spoken Japanese, a bit of pointing and help from the bevy of welcoming mama-sans working in the small platform restaurant I bought myself a 500 yen bowl of ramen and quickly slurped it down in the company of mostly suited fellow train travellers, with a couple of minutes to spare before we boarded the train to Kyoto.

We've travelled around Japan several times now, each time in early spring when the air is still cold and there's still a little snow on the ground. For a quick meal to get us through a busy afternoon of sightseeing, or at the end of the long, cold day when we are tired, there is nothing more enjoyable then a bowl of warm, steaming and nourishing ramen. It's a staple on our travels, and generally good value too.

Ramen is Chinese in its origins and regional varieties abound across Japan. Stock is the basis of ramen and hence a good stock is essential to its success. There's a cheesy film that I quite like called 'Ramen Girl' starring Brittany Murphy as an over-priviledged, aimless American woman in Tokyo who manages to get herself apprenticed to a Chef Maezumi at her local ramen restaurant. His memorable line from the film sums up what a good ramen is all about:

A bowl of ramen is a self-contained universe with life from the sea, the mountain and the earth all existing in perfect harmony. Harmony is the essential. What holds it all together is the broth. The broth gives life to the ramen.

As there are many regional varieties, there are a variety of broths available. My favourite is the tonkotsu broth, which is made from pork bones, resulting in a rich, thick, milky white stock. This type of ramen is associated with Fukuoka/Hakata. The best ramen we have ever had has been on the island of Kyushu and our favourite restaurant is Komurasaki in the city of Kagoshima, where you sit at the counter watching the stock master at work as you eat your ramen - it's mesmorising.

Not the best photograph but you get the idea

But I'm not really here to regale you with tales of our travels or film reviews. I'm here to review Ramen-Ya, a ramen restaurant tucked away down a laneway at the back of the GPO. We've been going here since they opened in late 2008, when they used to offer table service, and although we found the quality of the tonkotsu stock a bit disappointing late last year (I have found its quality to be a bit inconsistent over time), things are back on track and I have to say that I think it's one of the better ramen restaurants in Melbourne.

Ramen-Ya prides itself on offering authentic Fukuoka/Hakata-style ramen. Three types of stock are available to choose from - miso, shoya (soy) and tonkotsu, and four toppings to choose from- char siu, minced chicken, gyoza and seafood gyoza. My preferred combinations are the miso stock with minced chicken and the tonkotsu with char siu, which is my favourite and the one I always go back to. The standard price is $10 a bowl however I order some extra char siu which adds a couple of dollars to the cost. Still good value in my book.

The ramen is served in a large bowl with a generous amount of chewy, tangled noodles, topped with spring onions, bamboo shoots, fish cake, pickled ginger (yes, the bright red stuff), pickled seaweed and a boiled egg (not as soft as it could be but I'm not complaining), all nestled in their proper place. The stock was lovely and rich on the night that we went and flecked with pork fat, coating the noodles as you slurped them up. All very tasty and welcome on a cold night.

We often find ourselves at Ramen-Ya on cold and wet Melbourne evenings, when the rain dripping over the awnings, the tea lights casting a dim glow over the tables and the dankness of the laneway makes for a melancholy atmosphere. A bowl of ramen on nights like this is comfort indeed. I recommend you try it too.

Ramen and bento boxes available from $10

Ramen-Ya
Shop 25G
Melbourne GPO
350 Bourke Street

I like my local pub but really... The Quince Poacher bites back

It's been a while since my last entry but I've not not been busy, oh no! There's been recipes cooked, restaurants dined at and cookbooks read, in between finishing off this semester's uni subject and a busy period at work.

During this hiatus I spied this article in M magazine, one of the Sunday Age magazines, announcing their second annual M-ie awards. And the best pub award goes to...Post Office Hotel. How exciting, I thought, it's only around the corner from us.

As I continued to read this article I thought 'This is odd. Didn't I read a review of this hotel week or so ago in The Age's Epicure, which said something about a journalist being married to one of the co-owners'? If you can't be bothered clicking through and reading the whole article, let me draw your attention to the disclaimer at the bottom of it:

A co-owner of the Post Office Hotel is married to an Age journalist

Don't get me wrong. I like the revitalised Post Office Hotel. I enjoy having a pub within a five minute walk from my home that serves great food and drinks, has a fantastic atmosphere and attentive staff, and is welcoming (in a very authentic way, not just of an 'alternative' crowd) of a diverse group of people. It's much more preferable to what it was before - a faded, once bright yellow blob on the corner of Reynard and Sydney Roads, Coburg's own version of 'The Vault' (aka 'the yellow peril) that many women were afraid to go into, where you could only buy three types of beer, VB, Melbourne or Fosters, from the bottle shop and you were served by barmen with prison tatts.

In the scale of things the M-ie awards mean very, very little. But this example of working editorial connections annoys me. It's journalism that is condescending towards its readership. It does credit to neither the venue, by not allowing it to rise or fall on its own merits and diminishes the reputation of the fourth estate, which is already precarious in the post-print media world.

Update 16 Feb 2011 - I stand admonished. The Age journalist has contacted me to set the record straight and clarify that no undue editorial influence has been exercised in relation to The Age articles in which the Post Office Hotel features. However, I stand by my decision to have a healthy scepticism about things that I read.

Cookbook Challenge Week 50 - Picnic

Recipe: Turkey & sweetcorn meatballs with roasted pepper sauce

Cookbook: Ottolenghi: The Cookbook (2008)

Ottolenghi is the London restaurant of Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. Their cooking is influenced by their childhoods in Jerusalem and shows the influence of the Middle East, the Levant and France.

This cookbook precedes 'Plenty', which was recently featured in 'Delicious' magazine. I picked up my copy from lay-by a couple of weeks ago and this is the first recipe I have made from it. I am very impressed with the flavours of this dish and plan to dip into this book often. It won't be one that gathers dust on the shelf.

Ingredients:

Meatballs

100g sweetcorn

3 slices of stale white bread, crusts removed

500g minced turkey breast (I actually used minced turkey thigh and combined it with chicken mince)

1 egg

4 spring onions

2 tbls finely chopped parsley

2 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 crushed garlic clove

sunflower oil for frying

Roasted pepper sauce

4 red peppers (I used capsicums)

3 tbls olive oil

1 tsp salt

25g coriander, leaves and stalks

1 clove of garlic, peeled

1 small mild chilli, de-seeded

2 tbls sweet chilli sauce

2 tbls cider vinegar or white wine vinegar

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200^oC.

Prepare the peppers for the sauce by quartering them, shaving off the white parts & seeds with a sharp knife. Put them in a roasting tray, toss with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Roast in the oven for 35 minutes or until soft.

Transfer the hot peppers to a bowl and cover with cling film. Once they have cooled down a little, peel them (although this isn't essential for this sauce - I didn't) and then blitz them in a blender or food processor with their juices from the roasting pan and the rest of the sauce ingredients. Blend until smooth, salt to taste and set aside.

For the meatballs, place a heavy, non-stick frying pan over a high heat and throw in the corn kernels. Toss them in the pan for 2-3 minutes until lightly blackened. Remove and leave to cool.

Soak the bread into cold water for a minute, then squeeze well and crumble into a large bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients except the sunflower oil and mix well with your hands. With wet hands, shape the mince mix into balls about the size of golf balls.

Meatballs ready to be cooked.

Pour 5mm depth of sunflower oil (or other vegetable based oil) into the heavy frying pan. Allow it to heat up well and then fry about a teaspoonful of the mince mix in it. Remove, let cool and then taste. Adjust the amount of salt and pepper in the mince mix if necessary.

Cook the meatballs in small batches in the hot oil, turning them around in the pan until they are golden brown all over. Transfer to an oven tray, place in the pre-heated oven at 200^oC and cook for about 5 minutes. When you press one with your finger, the meat should bounce back. If unsure, you can always break one open and taste it to be sure!

Serve with the pepper sauce on the side.

These turkey and sweetcorn meatballs with roasted pepper sauce would add colour and spice to any picnic spread. It was too wet to eat them outside last Sunday, so we plated them up with salad and enjoyed them for lunch. Hot or cold, these meatballs are flavoursome. The cooked sweetcorn provides a delicious, sweet pop in your mouth as you bite into them. I really liked the sauce in this recipe. It is full of flavour, rich, sweet and spicy without being cloying. It would be the perfect accompaniment to meat or seafood dishes on a hot, summers day.

I would recommend making them the day before, as they are little bit time consuming to prepare. This would also allow the flavours to develop and intensify even further!

No. 96: A new era...Breakfast at Milkwood

The Route 96 tram terminus in East Brunswick sits at an intersection that has been 'deep cool' in waiting. Over the years, a motley collection of shops have stood either vacant or variously housed an eclectic assortment of businesses: the silver top taxi club, 'psychic rainbow', the museum of experimental art, a pizza shop and a tattoo parlour. It always looked a little forlorn and forgotten to me when I passed through on the 508 bus. But that was many years ago and times have changed. There are now three cafes, the Lomond Hotel seems busier than ever and 3RRR sits on the corner of Blyth and Nicholson Streets. The renaissance has begun in earnest.

Milkwood sits directly across from this terminus. It was with some excitement that I went there last Sunday for breakfast, as S. has been riding his bike over to the Route 96 of a morning and grabbing a coffee (and occasionally a cake) at Milkwood before jumping on the tram to go to work. He's been singing its praises for weeks now.

First, let me get out the way the things that I didn't like, because there's actually a lot to like about Milkwood:

- My knife and fork being set back to front. Etiquette dictates a correct way to set tables and position the cutlery. I wish this was adhered to more regularly.

- A hair in my food.

- The noise levels. The white-washed brick walls look fab. But with no sound insulation, a high ceiling and wood floors the noise level made it difficult to hear others.

- Snow pea shoots used to garnish my dish. Why do people persist in using these? They're fibrous, chewy and tasteless. And so...90s.

Now, to what I did like - the food. I had a special, smashed peas & broad beans with mint & pecorino on sourdough with poached eggs. What a wonderful spring breakfast dish! So flavoursome and fresh, I could simply have had the peas, broad beans and mint mixture on toast and I would have been happy. I wanted more, I wanted to keep eating it and eating it, rapturous in its simplicity and flavour. The poached eggs had rich, golden yolks. Perhaps they could have been a little more runny, but this is a small quibble.

S. had the ricotta pancakes with coconut, banana & honey yoghurt. These were served as a generous stack of three, large and flecked with toasted coconut. The yoghurt provided a tangy contrast to the fluffy, light pancakes and the sweetness provided by the honey and bananas.

The service at Milkwood was attentive and friendly. Coffee orders were taken the moment we sat down (the coffee used is Coffee Supreme). A query from me about their gluten-free bread was followed up immediately and I was informed that it was an artisan bread. In a conversation after our meal with another staff member, querying whether we had enjoyed it, we were told that it came from Fatto a Mano on Gertrude Street, Collingwood. It was delicious. I'll be visiting this bakery sometime in the coming week!

Despite the noise, the space at Milkwood is bright and airy. It is a small space and can get busy on the weekend (I think I counted six tables inside, some bench space and a couple of tables outside). The food makes the most of seasonal produce in a very small kitchen. The staff are welcoming and service is attentive. Importantly for me, they offer gluten-free options so I can enjoy a wheat-free meal or sweet treat. It is a very enjoyable cafe in which to enjoy breakfast or lunch, or grab a coffee and snack before getting on the tram to the city.

If you go, do the right thing and catch the tram there. Parking is difficult in the area. And don't forget that the Route 96 is one of National Geographic's Top 10 tram journeys of the world. We will definitely be going back to try some more of their breakfast offerings.

Smashed peas & broad beans with mint & pecorino on sourdough with poached eggs - $15

Ricotta pancakes with coconut, bananas & honey yoghurt - $13.50

Coffee - $3.20

Milkwood

120 Nicholson Street

East Brunswick
9380 4062

The Cookbook Challenge: Week 49 - Ice

Recipe: Raspberry Semifreddo (Semifreddo al Lampone)

Cookbook: The Silver Spoon (2005)

Yes, I know. Week 48 is missing. I'm working on that and should have something up soon. Bread is a bit of a challenge for me as I can't eat wheat.

This week's cookbook challenge recipe is from The Silver Spoon, something of a publishing sensation when the first English edition was published in 2005. It made available an Italian cookbook classic to the English-speaking world for the first time, and I think it was Phaidon Press' first foray into cookbook publishing.

Ingredients:

6 eggs

250g caster sugar

250g raspberries (I used frozen)

750ml double cream

Method:

This recipe begins by making a sabayon. Whisk the eggs with the sugar in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water until thickened. The eggs will turn the colour of straw during the process and the mixture will become aerated. Then remove from the heat and continue whisking the mixture until it is completely cool. This step will take about 20-30 minutes, at least.

The sabayon once it is taken off the heat

My arms turned red and felt swollen at the end of this step. Although maybe they were red from gardening yesterday. But they definitely felt swollen. It's a lot of whisking.

I managed to unintentionally listen to most of News Radio's 'Weekend Halftime' (their sports report) this morning while whisking. If you've got the radio on in the kitchen while doing this step, make sure it's on a station you enjoy or a programme you actually want to hear. You are not going to move from the stove.

Mash the raspberries (I left some whole) in a shallow dish. Stiffly whip the cream and stir in the egg mixture and mashed raspberries. (I didn't whip the cream, as the double cream I purchased contained no gelatine).

Line a rectangular loaf tin with cling film, pour in the mixture and smooth the surface. Put in the freezer overnight or for at least 4 hours. To serve, turn out and remove the cling film.

This was the first time I've made a semi-freddo and it was delicious. Creamy but not overly sweet with the tang of raspberries, it was the perfect end to a meal. I'm definitely going to make this again and I've been inspired to try the over semi-freddo recipes in the The Silver Spoon

.