Does anyone remember this little beauty? You very well might. According to StatCounter, the original "How to season a black iron / carbon steel frypan" is the most-viewed page in the four year and ten month history of Sarah Cooks! So there you go.

I use the pan about 2-3 times a week, and definitely every time I cook something oily - bacon, sausages, kassler and so on. As for cleaning, I never use detergent (although I suspect my mum might have used detergent once by accident), but wipe it clean with paper towel. If there's a lot of crap stuck to the pan, I'll pour water in it and boil it so that the crap lifts off. It's important to keep the pan dry, so after pouring the water out, I'll leave it on the heat for a minute or so until it's dry. Then I rub it with a thin layer of canola oil. (Either use a thick wadding of paper towel or let the pan cool first!)

This morning, the pan was used to make me a surprise pancake breakfast. I've never cooked anything sweet on the pan myself, as I was afraid whatever we cook on it would taste bacony. But no, they tasted like proper (delicious) pancakes.

I'm keen to try making Yorkshire pudding (sweet and savoury versions) in the pan. In Jamie's Ministry of Food, he suggests keeping a muffin tray soley for the purpose of making Yorkshire puddings so that the tray gets seasoned and develops a non-stick coating.

I noticed that the bottom of the pan is now quite smooth! Wahoo! Previously there's always been bits of crud on it, but now it looks like there's a smooth black layer. As you can see, it's not completely black and wok-like, but it's definitely getting closer.

The test will be when I can fry an egg on it without oil and have it slide off easily.

"The only Czech and Slovak restaurant in Melbourne", proclaims the chalkboard outside the restaurant. Yay! I adore the food of Mitteleuropa, and was so happy to find a dedicated Czech/Slovak restaurant in my 'hood.

(For further proof of my unending passion for central European food: Remember my visits to Prague, Croatia and Germany during my trip to Europe in 2006... and of course my trip to Germany on 2007/08.) Driving to Collingwood is a lot faster, and you don't need to pay for the airfare.

Koliba Czech and Slovak Restaurant
11 Johnston St
Collingwood Vic 3066
(03) 9417-3797
Website

I'd driven past Koliba a few times, and was very excited: "They might have goulash...! They might have dumplings...! They might have roast duck with 2 types of cabbage...!"

I wasn't sure how good it would be, as I couldn't find any information online, and whenever we passed the place, it always seemed dark and closed. However, the craving for dumplings is a strong one. So, after verifying the opening times when we drove by one day, (5:00-10:00pm, every day except Monday) we took a chance and rocked up on Sunday night.


It was pleasantly busy, but not too crowded, and we didn't have a problem getting a table. It was full of white people - a good sign? (Joke!) When was the last time you read a blogpost or review about a Chinese restaurant that didn't mention how many Asians were dining there? Hehehe. The space looked very 70's to me, and felt homey and comfortable. After chatting to our friendly and fantastic waiter, we learnt that Koliba has only been open for 3 weeks - a-hah! No wonder it always looked closed before. It probably was!

We started off with some Krušovice beers. Did you know that the Czechs drink more beer per capita than any other country in the world?

When it comes to this type of food, my eyes are invariably bigger than my stomach, and we order way too much. In the interest of avoiding indigestion, (especially the day after the bloggers' banquet!), we shared 2 starters between the 4 of us. I've copied and pasted the descriptions directly from the menus, in what I think are the Czech and Slovak languages. (If you thought German umlauts were cool... wait until you see the amount of accents on these Czech/Slovak words!)


Traditional Potato Pancake ,,BRAMBORAK,, Served with Sweet and Sour Braised Cabbage
Bramborové placky se sladko kyselým zelím
Zemiakové placky so sladko-kyslou kapustou
$5.90

Beneath the sweet-sour cabbage were 2 crispy potato pancakes - lovely!

Traditional Style ,,Devil,, Toasts with Minced Beef and Cheese
Ïábelské pikantní topinky
Diabolské pikantné topinky
$6.90

We loved the Devil toasts too. They tasted very homey: toasted bread topped with a spicy mixture of minced beef and chopped vegetables, and cheese.

We were off to a great start. In fact, we liked the starters so much we wished we'd ordered more! The other selections on the menu looked inviting too. Think things like marinated sausages or fried garlic bread with marinated capsicum and cream cheese. Next time, next time.

Onto the mains. I couldn't resist the roast pork with cabbage (more of that tasty sweet-sour cabbage) and bread dumplings.

Czech National Dish - Roast Pork with Braised Cabbage and Home Made Bread Dumplings
Vepøo knedlo zelo
$19.90

The dish looked quite monotone, but believe me, it didn't taste that way. The pork was so moist and juicy, the cabbage had a perfect balance between sour and sweet, and the dumplings were so superlight and fluffy. Similar in texture, come to think of it, to a char siu pau (roast pork bun from Yum Cha).

2 of our group went for the goulash.

Traditional Beef Goulash with Bread Dumplings
Tradièní hovìzí guláš s houskovým knedlíkem
Tradièný hovädzí guláš s knedl'ami
$17.90

As you can see, the serving was massive - yet the 2 lovely ladies enjoying their goulashes wiped their plates clean. (And yes, that was one goulash each). Respect.

My dad chose the pork schnitzel.
Crumbed Pork Schnitzel Served with Mashed Potatoes or Boiled Potatoes
Smažený vepøový øízek s bramborovou kaší nebo vaøenými bramborami
Vysmážaný bravèový rezeò so zemiakovou kašou alebo varenými zemiakmi
$17.90

Verdict: the meat tasted good, but the dish overall was too dry. You'll see from the menu description that the schnitzel is supposed to be served with mashed or boiled potatoes, but Dad asked for dumplings instead because he wanted to try them. (If we'd realised how massive the dumplings would be, we'd have just shared ours with him, rather than substituting). Dad came to the conclusion that it would have been better with mashed potatoes.

And you'd think there wouldn't be any more room... but there's always room for apple strudel. Just one... to be shared.
Apple Strudel with Walnuts and Whipped Cream
Jableèný závin s vlašskými oøechy a šlehaèkou
Jablkový závin s valašskými orechami a šlahaèkou
$7.90

It came with ice-cream, not whipped cream as the menu states, but y'all know that hot apple strudel and vanilla ice-cream is a match made in heaven. So, we were happy. The strudel was warm and slightly crispy, with surprise walnuts and sultanas inside.

Koliba was a fabulous find, and I'm so happy we took the chance to try it out. There were some minor problems, but these seem to be teething issues, rather than anything serious. For example, there was a long wait for food to be brought out, and our food almost went to the wrong table. Not a huge drama, especially considering how nice our waiter was and how good the food was. I've encountered worse problems at restaurants that have been around for a lot longer than 3 weeks.

Oh, another small problem was that we weren't told about the specials. Only as we left did I see the specials board. They had "beef tenderloin with creamy vegetables and bread dumplings" - how good does that sound?! Only one thing to do - we'll have to come back.

Hello hello! Our delayed Bloggers' Banquet was happily rescheduled for today. We had it in the courtyard of The Commoner on Johnston St, which, apart from being more resistant to Melbourne's changeable weather, had the added benefit of having a woodfired oven!

The Oven; Duncan trying out the awesome ray-gun-thermometer thingo

At first I was going to make German potato salad, but seeing as our get-together was more of a nibbles-and-drinks-thang than a BBQ, I decided to take advantage of the wood-fired oven and try out some Flammkuchen!
I made the dough for the bases in the morning, and layered them up with baking paper in a plastic tupperware container, and brought all the toppings (chopped red onions, bacon pieces and sour cream mixed with thyme) in separate little containers. And once the oven was ready, I assembled them and we cooked them in the awesome oven. It was so cool! And the results were so much better than my domestic oven. I totally want a woodfired oven when I'm grown up.


I could not believe how much food there was...
Savoury table; Sweet Table


Olives courtesy of The Commoner
Totally fabulous cheese courtesy of Will Studd, by way of Ed (the cheddar was aweeeesome!)
Really delicious chicken wings from Agnes
Little pieces of flammkuchen on a funky silver plate

I didn't get close-up pics of all the food... but hopefully some others will be blogging this shortly???

From memory, other delicious contributions were...

A plate of fresh figs from Joel's garden
Bread, walnuts and cheese-friendly fruit from Jackie
Tzatziki and red capsicum and walnut (omg so yum) dip from Fiona
Super-smoky baba ganouj, hommus and Turkish bread from Brian
Dip, capsicum and crackers from Cath
Pissaladiere from Jess
Skewers from Michael

Apologies if I assigned the wrong food to the wrong person or missed anyone out - there were lots of people and lots of food - give me a heads up in the comments and I can fix any mistakes.

The sweets!
The Rock's Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies (from me!)
Macarons from Duncan - subtle cinnamon and peach; chocolate and passionfruit (yay!!) and vaguely violet
Buttery passionfruit biscuits from Claire
Supercute pink marshmallows from Christy
Blondies from Thanh
Salted caramels from Asti
Salted caramel and dark chocolate tart from Jess
Carrot cake from Thanh

I was on a total sugar high after all those sweets. I especially loved the cinnamon and peach macarons (filled with white chocolate), yum! Thanh seemed to think his blondies were slightly burnt, but they tasted totally fine to me!

And look what we found as we were packing up... GASP!
Someone didn't finish a violet macaron! *FAINTS*


Thanks to everyone for coming, and bringing delicious food. It was great to see some familiar faces, and meet some new ones. Thanks so much to Jo from The Commoner for hosting!

Check out these two lovely dishes I picked up on the weekend! I love these Spanish Graupera terracotta dishes, and just had to treat myself to 2 more when I saw them on super-crazy-awesome sale at Minimax in Camberwell. They were doing a "10% off the reduced price", and these 2 dishes cost me a tidy $26.95. BARGAIN!

You may remember my other Graupera dishes from such posts as The Ultimate Mac and Cheese, and Soup. Or "How to get warm without pudding". Apart from making great serving dishes, you can use them in the oven, the microwave and on the stove (only on the lowest of low heats), and they're easily cleaned in the dishwasher. They do need to be seasoned before use, but this isn't nearly as complicated as seasoning a black iron/carbon steel pan. Nope, to season one of these Grauperas, you just need to soak it in water overnight.

The limes, I picked up during a completely unrelated yet equally fortuitous shopping expedition to Safeway. They were only $1.98 a kilo! They were gorgeously bright green, and remembering all the shrivelled little limes usually sold at much higher prices, I had to buy a rather insane amount.

Mojitos and caipiriñas for all!

Any other ideas for how to use up some limes?

It's not a lie.

Tyler's Ultimate is one of my favourite cookbooks in my collection, and his ultimate Sunday dinner of beef and potatoes was definitely a winner. It was so easy to make - just brown the meat (biodynamic sirloin, thank-you very much) in a pot, add onions, thyme, beef stock and red wine, and cook in a medium oven for 2.5 hours until tender. It makes your whole house smell wonderful, and requires very little effort.

While it was cooking, I made some French-style peas (cooked with sliced cos lettuce, spring onions and chicken stock).


And some decadent creamy mashed potatoes. (Added to the potatoes were hot milk, a touch of cream, and more butter than I care to recall).

Butter is the key.

Now that I'm working 9-5, I don't get the time to cook slow, special meals as often as I used to, and I was soo pleased with this one. The only change I'd make next time is to make sure I use more liquid - during its time in the oven, most of the liquid cooked away, leaving the beef a bit dry and sauceless. I used a big mama 28cm Le Creuset to cook the meat; next time something narrower would probably work better, so that I don't have to use litres and litres of wine to cover the meat completely.

As you may recall, my family's expensively bought paella pan is more often used for roasting chicken than making paella. I'm not quite sure why we bought it, seeing as we'd never made paella at home... perhaps my mum bought it in the hope that I'd start cooking it for her. I have cooked paella ONCE, but only very recently. And it was a decidedly inauthentic version. Our pan is non-stick, which I'm told defeats the purpose of a paella pan anyway, because the non-stick surface prevents you from getting the requisite crunchy base. Oh well.

The paella pan, however, does make a great roasting dish, and is nice enough for presentation. It was gathering dust for a good 6 months before I figured out what to do with it. I'm sure I can't be the only food-lover in this predicament... can I?

(BTW, I know many foodies have big, expensive tangines [sic] knocking about their cupboards... How popular were they in '07??? I am soo glad I avoided that craze.)

But back to the paella pan.

The first picture in this post is of a Nigel Slater-style roast chicken - full of lemon and thyme, and with the potatoes roasted in the same pan for chicken-fat flavour. (This tastes nicer than it sounds). Cooked this way, the potatoes don't have the perfect crunch of separately cooked goosefat roast potatoes, but have a most alluring sticky and flavourful crust.

The chicken below was cooked in the paella pan, but transferred it to a Nigella Lawson Living Kitchen egg-shaped serving platter (another overpriced cookware indulgence, but I couldn't help myself). This is Ludi's Chicken, from Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries.

The chicken and potatoes are all cooked in the one pan, with generous amounts of lemon, garlic, white wine and seedy mustard. The potatoes here are soft, rather than crunchy or crusty, but delicious all the same.

Finally we have the paella-pan used to cook rice. The non-stick surface and wide area make it great for cooking fluffy soft rice without having it get crusty at the base (again, making it unsuitable for actual paella). This recipe is a fabulous homestyle Peruvian Chicken with Coriander and Spinach Rice, another from Falling Cloudberries.


It is a little fiddly, but not too difficult. You start off by browning chicken, and setting it to the side. Then you cook some vegetables in the same pan, with spices and a purée of spinach and coriander. Following this you return the chicken to the pan with some water, and simmer it for 15 minutes for the chicken to cook and absorb the flavours. Then you set the chicken to the side, add rice and water to the pan and simmer it (uncovered, then covered) until cooked through. Ta-dah!

Tessa suggests serving it with cumin'd yoghurt and chillies in oil. It was amazing! My family totally loves one-pot rice meals.

So far I have used that pan 3 times for chicken, and once for paella. Does anyone have any other ideas for ways we could use it???