Mint Dining Room New Blog

http://www.mintdining.co.nz/chefs-blog.html

Our significant other blog. Follow the restaurant day to day, season to season.
Congratulations to Scotty, he married Katie on Saturday. The last month or so leading up to the wedding saw less work on the book than usual.(As one woul expect)
When Scotty returns from his honeymoon we will be back into it with avengeance.

Tomato Chilli Jam

I was offered a quantity of yellow tomatoes today, so I thought I will make jam, blog the recipe and document the progress. The chillis were from our own garden. Enjoy making it. Grant.

Yellow Nelson Tomato and Chilli Jam.

Step A

400g ripe yellow tomatoes
4 red chillis 10g garlic cloves peeled
10g ginger

100g chopped Yellow tomatoes

20ml Thai fish sauce
300g castor sugar
90ml (6 tbsp plus 2 tsp) White wine vinegar

50 ml Savignon Blanc

Step A- Put the yellow tomatoes, all of the chillis, garlic, ginger and fish sauce in a blender or a food processor and blend to a fine puree.

Then add the purèe, sugar wine and vinegar in heavy bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil slowly, stirring constantly.Skim any froth t

hat may develop on the surface.

Cut remaining tomatoes into a rough dice

Reduce heat to a simme

r and add diced tomatoes.

Simmer for 20-25 minutes, stirring from time to time to lift anything settling on the bottom, continue till the jam begins to thicken.Pour into sterilised jars and seal.

Some more rain

So, some more rain.

We must have had enough by now!

Sunshine, that's what summer is all about. BUT there is a but, I cant sit inside writing up recipe after recipe if there is sun.

What a cracking New Years Eve we had, not an empty seat in the house. Here are a few pictures of the dishes we served.

Baked snapper, smoked eel, cream fraiche froth, crayfish jus

Amuse bouche waiting to go out.Chocolate mousse, hazelnut galette and cherries.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We have had a nice break and are back to work feeling all fresh. New Years menu this year;

New Years Eve Dinner menu 2011

Salmon tartar and vodka cured gravedlax, served with lime scented tomato gazpacho.

Salad caprese with caper and raisin puree, fresh basil and sherry dressing.
Wine recommendation Kina Beach Rose '10

Smoked rabbit and mushroom terrine, shot of game broth and pear and date chutney.
Wine recommendation Kina Beach Chardonnay '08

Strawberry vanilla and champagne sorbet.

Either
Fillet of venison wrapped in prosciutto, kumara and sage crumble, and mushroom mousaka.
Wine recommendation Kina Beach Pinot Noir '08
or
Baked snapper fillet (catch permitting) warm smoked eel and potato salad, creme fraiche froth and crayfish jus.
Wine recommendation Kina Beach Sauvignon Blanc '11

Iced lemon and basil gratin, with summer fruit salsa and saffron syrup

Hazelnut gallette, macerated cherries and bitter chocolate mousse
Recommendation Lustau Pedro Ximenez San Emelio Sherry

Santa's Special delivery

'Tis that time of year again, and today is about making Gingerbread Houses. This is something of a tradition for my fiancé Katie, and it's becoming something I look forward to helping with each Christmas - more-so now that we've been able to source pure icing sugar. That's the suspicious looking delivery in the photo, pure uncut icing sugar. The issue with regular icing sugar is that it'd got 5% starch (tapioca usually), which is to keep the icing soft. This can be good for biscuits and cakes but for 'gluing' together gingerbread  houses it's just not strong enough.

The pure icing sugar is mixed with egg white and lemon juice to make a paste which will dry hastily when exposed to air. Use sandwich bags to keep the icing air-tight until you're ready to construct.

Ginger Bread

200g of butter
100g of Dark Brown sugar
125ml of Golden syrup or Molasses

450g of Self raising Flour
1tsp of ground ginger
1tsp of ground cinnamon
half tsp of ground cloves

Cream butter and brown sugar until smooth and light them thoroughly mix through the Golden syrup. A good cake mixer will make light work of this. Sift dry ingredients into a large bowl and add to the wet mixure in thirds, mixing thoroughly. You will probably have to mix the last third of the dry ingredients by hand. Add a few tablespoons of water if needed Wrap dough in glad wrap and refrigerate for 90 mins. Cut into the shapes for your GB House design and bake for 10 -15 mins at 180c, section sizes will dictate you cooking times. Cool well on a rack before assembling.

I'll post some photo's of our completed houses later this week.

Wet days.

What a lot of rain we had over the last few days.

It washed away the chance of us putting up the gate last Sunday, so we can start on our garden.

We picked the first of our pea shoots tonight, they we amazing.So fresh!

We re-shot the sugar cured salmon pictures, with Scotties new camera and took some shots of sorbets.

Here is the recipe for one of them.

Lemon and Thyme Sorbet

INGREDIENTS

1.4 lt Water

500g Castor Sugar

100g Liquid Glucose

300g Lemon Juice (freshly squeezed)

8 sprigs Thyme

In a large pan mix the water, sugar, and liquid glucose.

Bring the mix to the boil, and simmer for around 5 minutes.

Add the lemon juice and thyme stalks( Pizza thyme is best for this recipe)

Cover the pan with a lid or cling film and turn off the heat.

Allow the thyme to infuse without boiling, like making tea

Leave to cool, and churn in an icecream machine.