I’d been at a conference all day. He’d been at home, in the studio. We met in the city and wandered down to the newish Barangaroo precinct on Sydney Harbour. We decided to try a few different restaurants on the strip so he chose the Spanish Bórn, where for our first course we had delicious little morsels and sampled for the first time a gluten-free beer and a chardonnay from Spain.
Next, I chose a Turkish restaurant, Anason, where we drank our very first Turkish wines, a pinot noir and a syrah. Both elegant, lovely wines.
And then, garnishing a cured salmon dish, along with fennel fronds and pickled chillies, was another first for the night - cucamelon halves. Yes, cucamelon, the cutest little vegetable imaginable, originally from Central America. Looking like a cross between a cucumber and a watermelon but about the size and shape of a grape, it is slightly sour and crunchy.
We finished the night off with a gelato from RivaReno and a ferry trip home. Not firsts, but both simple pleasures to enjoy together.
I haven’t spied the cucamelons in retail green grocers yet but when they become available use them like you would small cucumbers, adding a bit of interest and crunch to a range of dishes. I think they would go very nicely with Jan’s gravlax served on our lavosh as a pre dinner bite.
In the meantime I’ve sourced some seeds for growing the little beauties, another first.
Caren
GRAVLAX
2.5 kg whole salmon or ocean trout, filleted(skin on) and pin-boned (you can ask your fish monger to do this)
4 tablespoons salt
4 tablespoons caster sugar
2 teaspoons peppercorns, crushed
2 teaspoons corn oil or olive oil
2 bunches fresh dill, stalks and all
Mix salt, sugar and pepper together in a bowl. Moisten the flesh side of each fish fillet with a teaspoon of oil and pat with some of the salt, sugar and pepper mixture.
Place a third of the dill in a non-corrosive container large enough to accommodate the fish lying flat. Place one fillet of fish on the dill, skin side down, and cover it well with some more of the seasoning mixture. Scatter over another third of the dill, and place the other fillet on top, skin side up, head-to-head, tail-to-tail, to reconstruct the shape of the fish. Cover with remaining seasoning and dill. Top with a piece of baking paper and a flat weight such as a thick plastic cutting board..
Cover the dish with cling wrap and refrigerate for 48-72 hours, turning the fish over once or twice.
Before serving scrape off the dill and seasonings and dry the fish with kitchen paper.
Carve on the diagonal into thin slices. Drizzle the sauce liberally over the gravlax and serve with pickled cucumber.
TIPS: While it’s best served within a few days of making, if left uncut and covered well, the gravlax will freeze perfectly for up to a few weeks.
Smaller fillets can be used instead of the two fillets from a whole fish, although ideally two pieces of the same size should be prepared together as they protect each other as they cure.
REVENGE LAVOSH
Makes 4
150 gm white rice flour
40 gm fine buckwheat flour
40 gm besan (chickpea flour)
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon caster sugar
70 ml extra virgin olive oil
120 ml warm water
4 teaspoons additional extra virgin olive oil for brushing
Sea salt flakes for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 180°C. Line baking trays with non stick baking paper.
Mix dry ingredients together well. Add oil and warm water and mix with a fork until well combined. Knead lightly until the mixture comes together adding a little more water if too dry or a little more white rice flour if it is too wet.
Divide into four pieces and, in between two sheets of non stick baking paper, roll each one out into an oval shape roughly 15cm x 35cm. Brush each lavosh with 1 teaspoon of the extra olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt. Place on baking trays and bake for around 20 minutes, rotating the baking tray in the oven halfway through the cooking. Bake until golden brown all the way to the centre.
Cool completely on a wire rack before storing. Will keep in a cool place in an air-tight container for more than two weeks.
For variety, sprinkle the lavosh with black or white sesame seeds, fennel seeds, chopped rosemary etc.