Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that I was lucky enough to have a full-on, blow-out 10-course degustation dinner at Vue De Monde on Saturday night.  It was a totally amazing experience, and I'll be blogging it just as soon as I sort through the gazillion photos!  In the meantime, I'd love to share with you a meal I enjoyed at another of Shannon Bennett's restaurants last fortnight - a lovely little celebratory dinner at Cafe Vue at 401.

Cafe Vue at 401
401 St Kilda Rd
Melbourne VIC 3004
(03) 9866-8055
Website

For our celebratory family dinner, we wanted to go somewhere special but low-key.  Cafe Vue at 401 fit the bill perfectly!  (I have previously visited for lunch, and for dinner).  They still do a $55 for 3-courses deal, but you are now restricted to a set menu of the day, rather than being able to choose anything from the menu. The à la carte menu still represents good value, however, with most mains generously portioned and in the $30-$40 range.

We had a round of drinks to start: 2 cocktails (yay!) and a beer.

Emerson's Pilsner La Paloma - Tequila, sparkling grapefruit, lime - $14 Un Paysan - Elderflower liqueur, lemon, mint, Chandon sparkling wine - $16

No surprise that the Un Paysan cocktail was mine - elderflower liqueur and sparkling wine - fabulous!  We ordered a Warsteiner, but were inexplicably brought an Emerson's Pilsner - not quite sure what happened there!  We did have a couple of communication issues with our waitress throughout the evening - she was absolutely lovely, but had quite a strong accent, so sometimes it was a bit difficult for us to understand each other.

But onto the good points: the food!  The bread was made in-house, refilled regularly, and delicious.

Bread, round 1

I loved the cute butter plate! I'm such a crockery junkie - WANT!

Cute butter and salt & pepper plate

The second lot of bread was even better.  It was brown bread, still warm from the oven. Soft on the inside and crusty on the outside.  It reminded me of German bread, which, as we all know, is my favourite bread in the world!

Bread, round 2

We skipped entrées and went straight for mains.  It was a Monday night, after all!  And I often struggle to do a full 3-course meal at restaurants anyway.

Mum ordered the pan-fried blue eye cod, which came with a super-creamy and buttery pommes mousseline.  She absolutely loved this dish, with its fresh, tender fish and sharp sauce.

Pan fried blue-eye cod with caper sauce - $34

Sandra, my father and I were all in the mood for something a little more substantial, and each chose from the rôtisserie section of the menu.  The rôtisserie dishes all come with a celeriac remoulade, a dark jus and vegetables cooked in the rôtisserie.

Free range Milawa Chicken  (half) - $36

The chicken was the standout dish: it was incredibly tender, with a sticky, tasty skin.  Apparently you can buy the whole chicken takeaway - how good would that be?

Duck breast - $33

The duck was a well executed dish: slightly rare, very tender and juicy.

Slow-cooked pork - $35

The pork was the least successful of the rôtisserie dishes - it was very fatty, and the pork rind was unfortunately chewy rather than crisp and crackly.  I'd definitely stick to the chicken or duck next time!

Potatoes and carrots from the rôtisserie

We didn't realise the rôtisserie accompaniments would be quite so generous, so we'd ordered a couple of sides as well.  We only managed to eat one potato and a few carrots between us, but luckily they let us take the remaining home with us.  They made a fantastic lunch the next day!

We couldn't not order the following salad, as it had all of my mum's favourite ingredients: pumpkin, feta and rocket.

Roast pumpkin, feta and rocket salad with yuzu dressing - $7.50

Pommes frites - $8

If you're not in the mood for a full-sized dessert, Cafe Vue's pastry cabinet provides tempting sweet options at very reasonable prices:

Raspberry Mousse - $4.50

Paris Brest - $3.50 (Yes, really).

But whilst the pastry cabinet was tempting, I couldn't go past the pavlova cheesecake from the dessert menu.  I had no idea what it would be, but I knew I'd love it - two of my favourite desserts combined into one!

Pavlova cheesecake - $14

There were swirls of smooth and mild cheesecake mixture (very mild, possibly based on fromage frais rather than cream cheese or mascarpone), crunchy little meringue blobs, and bits of strawberries, strawberry gelée, passionfruit and a strawberry-champagne sauce.  Dee-licious.

Just a short little post today!  It's been a while since I blogged about pancakes, hasn't it?  The long weekend us upon us, and what better excuse do you need to get into the kitchen for a big, indulgent breakfast?  I actually made these ones quite a few months ago (eep!), back when both blueberries and mangoes were in season.  Those fruits aren't in season at the moment, but there's nothing stopping you from trying these pancakes with other fruits, say, some stewed apples or frozen blueberries!

The original recipe comes from Bill Granger's book: bills open kitchen - and before anyone asks me, no, I won't be republishing it here.  (You can read my policy on posting/e-mailing recipes here).  Besides, a quick google search will yield the recipe!

The acidity of buttermilk in the batter gives the finished pancakes a gentle tang and a tender texture.

Whilst the recipe calls for buckwheat flour, I had none in the house, so I substituted wholemeal flour.  (I'll give these a go with buckwheat flour again in the future!)  You also have to whisk the egg-whites separately, making the pancakes extra light and fluffy!


Serving pancakes with fruit allows you to pretend that they're healthy, hehehe.

And here they are!  I love how the blueberries cook inside the pancakes, becoming like little balls of jam in the fluffy dough.

I served them with tea, maple syrup and mango (which I cut into dainty cubes, rather than eating them messily from the cheeks).

After our lovely lunch at Gill Radford's, we zoomed off to the next destination: Henschke Cellars.  You may remember that I used a Henschke Keyneton Euphonium 2007 in my entry post for the Barossa's Table competition, and I was super-excited to visit the winery!  It's quite far from the towns of the Barossa, but has no shortage of visitors - dedicated lovers of the wine who treat a visit to the winery like a wine-pilgrimage.

Henschke Cellars
Henschke Road
Keyneton SA 5252
Website

We were hosted by the lovely and very knowledgeable Melanie Keynes, the Cellar Door manager.  She said they'd read my blog post and were really chuffed!  (Wine-dork moment: I impressed the Henschke people - YAY!)

We started with a drive to the Hill of Grace vineyard, just 5 minutes from the winery itself.  This area was once an active village, but is now a very quiet, isolated spot.

The old post office opposite the vineyard

And ta-dah! Here is the vineyard.  Before entering, we had to wash our shoes in a special bucket, to prevent the spread of Phylloxera, a small but deadly grapevine pest.  This pest can apparently be spread by dirt on shoes from interstate, so it's really important to keep your shoes clean before entering a SA vineyard!


The old church - the original wines produced here were made for the congregation back in the 1800's.

View of the post office from the vineyard

The gnarly old vines

Hill of Grace grapes!!

A damaged leaf

I can't believe these old, dry looking vines are still growing fruit!

Grapes again

As part of succession planning, some of the Hill of Grace vines have been grafted onto newer root stock - being only 19 years old, these grapes are too young to be included in the Hill of Grace wines, but too good to be declassified, so they've been used in the very limited release Hill of Roses wine.

Following our visit to the vineyard, we headed back to the winery for a tour...

Tanks

Bottling area

Look, we've got oysters Rockefeller! Beef Wellington! Napoleons! We leave this lunch alone, it’ll take over Europe.

- Roger Sterling

I made the wellingtons the week before the birthday, and stashed them in the freezer.  On the night, it was a simple matter of baking them from frozen. Easy!

I mixed up the filling in my new Magimix food processor, a gift from some family friends.  I totally love it!  The filling has loads of different flavourings: dried porcini, grainy mustard, herbs, onions and more...

Now, the pastry.  Another gift I got - in the week leading up to my birthday - was a copy of the totally fabulous Tartine cookbook (from the San Francisco bakery of the same name), and it was their recipe for flaky tart dough that I used here.  It's quite similar to Nigella's shortcrust - that is, it can be made entirely in the processor - except for that you only process the mixture lightly, so that pea-sized pieces of butter are still visible in the dough.  This means the dough hasn't been overworked, so it won't become tough. Furthermore, as the pastry bakes, the melting pieces of butter creates pockets of steam, which get trapped in the layers of dough, resulting in a super-flaky pastry!


I assembled the mini-wellingtons like sausage rolls, and layered some prosciutto between the meat and pastry.


I sliced them into bite-sized pieces, and did the Carême trick of double glazing the pastry.  Once glazed, I packed them up and stashed them in the freezer.

I kinda underestimated the amount of pastry I'd need, so had quite a bit of mince left over (I've stated the correct amount of pastry in the recipe below.)  It was a bit too late for me whip up another batch of pastry, so I formed the filling mixture into little meatballs, and froze them as well.

I loved the wellingtons!  I was so impressed with the Tartine flaky pastry - it was really easy to make, and the results were great.  Not only was the pastry crispy, but also had the most wonderful buttery taste and flaky crumb.  The filling had a unique flavour, and they were utterly addictive.  I would definitely make these babies again!  The only problem I had with them is that they gave off quite a bit of liquid in the tray (from the meat filling), so next time I made them I cooked them on a little rack in a baking dish.




Mini-Beef Wellingtons with Mustard Sour Cream Sauce
Filling recipe adapted from April 2011 Delicious magazine
Pastry recipe from Tartine

Pastry Ingredients
1 tsp salt
150ml very cold water
455g plain flour
300g very cold unsalted butter


Filling Ingredients
600g lean beef mince
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tbs tomato paste
2 tbs flat-leaf parsley
1 tbs rosemary leaves
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 day-old white bread roll
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbs chopped dried porcini mushrooms
3 eggs
8 thin slices prosciutto
1/3 c wholegrain mustard
200g sour cream


Method
For the pastry, add the salt to the water and stir to dissolve.  Refrigerate until ready to use.  Put the flour in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the double-blade.  Cut the butter into 1-inch pieces and scatter over the flour.  Pulse briefly until the mixture forms large crumbs.  You'll still want some of the butter to be visible, in pea-sized pieces.  Add the water-and-salt mixture and pulse for several seconds until the dough just begins to come together in a ball.  It doesn't need to be smooth, and you should still be able to see butter chunks.  Shape the dough into a 2.5cm thick disc and wrap in clingfilm.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.


For the filling, soak the porcini mushrooms in hot water for 10 minutes, then drain and place in a food processor fitted with the double-blade.  Soak the bread roll in cold water for 5 minutes. Squeeze out excess water and add the bread roll to the food processor.  Add the beef, onion, garlic cloves, tomato paste, parsley, rosemary, breadcrumbs, Worcestershire sauce, 1 egg and 2 tablespoons mustard.  Whizz until combined. 


Lightly beat the other eggs in small bowl.  Roll the pastry out into a large square about half a centimetre thick, and cut into rectangles.  Layer the proscuitto lengthwise on each rectangle.  Divide the beef into portions and form into thick logs.  Place onto the pastry rectangles.  Roll the pastry up, brushing with beaten egg to seal.  Place the rolls seam-side down and slice into bite-sized chunks.  (If your knife is blunt and the filling is squishing out, place the entire roll in the freezer to firm up for 20 minutes before slicing).


Brush the pieces with the beaten egg.  Place in the freezer for 20 minutes, then glaze again.  From here you can either place the wellingtons into the freezer to cook at a later date, or cook straight away.


If so: preheat the oven to 220C.  Place a metal cooling rack into a baking dish, and arrange the Wellingtons on top.  Bake for 15 minutes or until the filling is cooked through (slice one open to test!) and the pastry is shiny and golden brown.  If cooking from frozen you may need to add a couple of minutes to the cooking time.


For the sauce, stir together the remaining mustard and sour cream.