Austrailian food

Australia is a foodie's paradise. With people and culture so diverse, one can imagine the diversity in food, its range and quality. There is Greek precinct with an array of Greek cafes and restaurants, Chinatown precinct for Chinese delicacies, Lygon street for Italian and so on.

Being a vegetarian is not at all difficult in Australia. Every food place has quite a few vegetarian options. As I was in budget mode I couldn't explore restaurants in Australia but here are some of the things that I tried in food courts and mid range cafes.

Mine and your favorite Coffee:

Australians love their coffee to the point of obsession. They take their coffee as seriously as their beer. Australians whose families migrated from Greek and Italy introduced coffee culture in Australia. Australia can be considered one of the world's great coffee lovers.

Vegemite, Concentrated yeast extract:

Source: Wikimedia

This is one of Australia's very own, most widely eaten as breakfast. It is a thick black gooey "spread" eaten with cheese crackers and bread. This is a byproduct of beer brewing, a concentrated yeast extract. This is more of an acquired taste, like Durian of Malaysia/Singapore. It has a bitter and sour taste that shocks you on your first bite.

Greek - Veg Souvlaki:

This is a traditional greek food. Souvlaki is Pita sandwich of crispy vegetable(/chicken) kebabs in a bed of crunchy lettuce and onions with tzatziki(creamy cucumber yoghurt) sauce. This sandwich was so filling that I could only finish half of it. I have nothing to compare this to. This was my first taste of any kind of Greek cuisine. I will watch out for this one. Love.

Italian: Pasta, one of my comfort food.

Penne pasta with roasted cauliflower, red onion and garlic breadcrumbs, spiced with chilli flakes.

Y-U-M. 

Asian: Asian food is popular in Melbourne. I could find more vegetarian options in Melbourne than in any Asian countries.

 Thai food - Sweet and spicy vegetarian fried rice and crunchy fried sinful spring rolls complete with sweet dipping sauce.

Stir fried vegetables in fiery Thai red curry and rice. 

 Creamy Alu-matar-palak(Potato, peas and spinach) and spicy, tangy chole (chick peas) with yellow rice. Cooling thick Mango lassi to go with. Wish they had soft rotis to go with all the yummy side dishes.

Gado gado is an indonesian salad that had many levels of texture to it which was what I loved about this dish. There was stir fried crunchy vegetables, fried tofu, boiled cauliflower and raw lettuce. This was served with rice and strong flavorful peanut sauce.

One thing that I regretted:

This was served as stir fried noodles. Utter disappointment.

The noodles were slimy, the sauce sour and vegetables overcooked.This was a confused dish. It seemed like the cook started with pasta in mind but midway he decided to change it to stir friend noodles!! *Shudder*

Finally for Austrailian dessert - Lamington cakes.

www.taste.com.au

Vanilla cake in a generous coating of chocolate ganache and rolled over dessicated coconut.

I remember eating 2 pieces of this simple yet delicious cake.

Licorice Raspberry bullets:

chocolatefish.com.au

A friend of mine recommended these chocolates to me and I thank him for that. These are nothing like I have eaten before. It has a soft melting outer layer with Raspberry jelly at the core. I bought a big packet to share with colleagues and friends but everyone loved it at home so much that we finished it all by ourselves :-)

These are just a few things that I tried. Some of the food that is associated with Australia are non-vegetarian like Fish and Chips and kangaroo meat delicacies. And off course there is Australian beer & wine. I didn't get a chance to try Australia's pavlovas.

Food sets my mood and I have enjoyed eating in Australia. Melbourne will remain in my memory as a city with mouth watering, wide variety of food.

Cakes and bakes

I have been interested in baking for quite some time now. But it's only recently that I revived my inner baking goddess. This post was triggered by a recent success story. I made a cake for a small birthday party of twenty guests. If this is any indication of how good it was, everyone, all six ladies, wanted to take home the small remaining portion of cake that was left after party.

One of the easiest cake to bake are tea time cakes, also called fruit cakes. I suggest any beginner to start with this type. I also like these cakes because they can be eaten on their own and do not ask for a layer of icing, ganache or creamy cheese. 

One such favorite tea time cake in our household is carrot cake. They are no way close to being healthy other than the carrot part of it. It is loaded with a generous dose of sugar and baking soda, but they are the tastiest of all tea cakes. 

Here is the version of the recipe that I tried: (from allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1 spoon baking soda
1 spoon baking powder
1/4 tspn salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1.5 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Procedure:
- Whip together eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla extract.
- In another bowl, mix together the dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking poweder, cinnamon and salt. Add this flour mixture to the egg mixture and beat till all the ingredients are mixed well.
- Stir in carrot and the walnuts, finally.
- Pour this mixture into a greased pan.
- Bake this in a preheated oven at 175-180C for roughly 45 minutes.

While baking, the kitchen fills with the caramelizing fragrance of carrot mixed with vanilla and cinnamon, making you impatient to taste the goodness. The soft, moist, grainy textured, freshly baked carrot cake with a hint of cinnamon aroma is a real treat.
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By trial and error, these are the few tips I use for baking:
- Bring all the ingredients to room temperature before preparing the batter. Watch out for egg and butter(if recipe calls for it) temperature.
- Use exact measurements of ingredients as specified in the recipe. Invest in a good measuring cup and spoon. Some recipes are stated in grams. A weighing scale would be perfect for such recipes. Follow the recipe exactly for a better cake.
- Preheating the oven to the said temperature is the key for baking success. My oven has a light indicator that switches off when the oven reaches required temperature.
- Grease the cake pan with butter and coat with flour. This prevents the cake from sticking to the bottom and sides of the pan.
- Fill the unused molds of a cupcake pan with water before baking. This helps in even baking.
- Position your rack properly. If a high rack is used for backing it might burn the top of the cake.
- Do not over bake. A toothpick test is generally useful - a toothpick inserted at the center of the cake must come clean. Also around the specified timing in recipe, the cake begins to pull off from the edges, top layer is evenly browned and lightly sprigs back when pressed at the center.
- Give sufficient time for cooling before cutting the cake.

Now, I only wish I had taken snaps of the finished carrot cakes.

Chocolate Souffle

My first attempt at fiction ... I welcome feedback .
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Slowly, she moved to the dark kitchen and stood aimlessly thinking what she wanted to do. Her mind was preoccupied. She searched her busy mind for the purpose. She moved her hands on the cool kitchen top which had been wiped clean. She reached for the light switch at the end of the kitchen counter. There was abundant natural sunlight inside the house. All the rooms of the house had big windows, so the house didn't need electric lights in the morning. But it was the opposite in the kitchen, the lone dark spot of the house. Once her eyes adjusted to yellowish light, it fell on the butter at the corner of the stove. Yes! She had wanted to bake a cake.

She scooped four tablespoons of butter into microwave bowl. She added 3/4th cup of semi sweet chocolate with butter. She put this into the microwave to melt and set 40 seconds on timer. They both had not been talking since yesterday. In-spite of this, he had bought all the ingredients for cake. He knew she couldn't bake cake alone. She needed help to crack open the egg. Besides, they had always baked cakes together. The microwave beep brought her back into action. He was roaming outside in the living room as if he was waiting for an invitation to come in to join her. And she needed him. "Would you crack these eggs for me?". He quickly washed his hands and joined her in the kitchen. He wiped his hands using the towel on his shoulders. A towel on his shoulder was something that she found very cute about him.

He separated 4 egg whites from egg yolks. He set on the electric mixer to whisk egg whites. They spoke nothing else, still holding onto their silence. She added 2/3rd cup caster sugar and a spoon of vanilla essence to the egg yolks. She whisked it for a couple of minutes until sugar is well blended with eggs. To this she added chocolate and butter mixture.

They had always baked cakes together. He would eagerly sit in front of oven and watch how the cake raises and browns on the top. She set the oven temperature to 220c and switched it on to preheat. He stood by and watched her delicately fold the egg white into the chocolate mixture. Using a large spatula she cut a path down the middle of the mixture with the edge of the spatula. She then gently turned half of the mixture over to the other half. She continued folding this way without stirring so as to retain the air that is in the beaten whites.

She drifted off again, to yesterday's incident. Something he did irked her very much that she had snapped at him. In retrospect it had been for a very silly reason, but she was not yet ready to talk for the fear that she might say something rude to him. During a fight he always fell silent, he never spoke rudely. But she always spoke her mind even when she was angry. That made matters worse and she had learned over years to hold back when angry. She didn't want it to turn into an ugly war of words. Its better to be silent and sleep over it for a couple of days. 

"I think its done" he said. He was right. The egg white meringue was thoroughly folded into chocolate batter. Together they scooped the batter into muffin molds. He slid the muffin mold into hot oven and stood watching in front of the oven, like he always does. He watched as the souffle raised. They both were comfortable with the silence. She got busy cleaning up the kitchen top, putting away dishes to wash. The smell of chocolate baking in the oven filled the kitchen. It was nostalgic. He began washing up the dishes. Both were lost in the noise - of buzzing oven, of clanking dishes, of running tap water and of their own thoughts.

They let souffle bake for 10-12 minutes till the top settled and browned a bit. Once out, they both dug in while souffle was still hot. He commented on how each souffle has turned out and she commented on what could be better next time. Together they ate their favourite dessert in the same cup. The fight was all forgotten, at-least, till there was chocolate in the cup.