Review

After reading a few weeks ago about baker Greg Brown's new venture, I finally trekked down to Glen Eira (which is, in any case, my old stomping ground). Agi's Bakery is on Glen Eira Rd, near the corner with Orrong Road. When we got there it was after three, and there was pretty much nothing left, but for a basset hound sitting outside.

The man himself, however, indicated that he had some of yesterday's cranberry and sultana rye loaves, not really fresh but "suitable for toasting". He even let us have one, to see what we thought, since we'd come a long way, and suggested coming along at 4am if we wanted really fresh bread

The bread is extremely good, barely indistinguishable from "fresh" bread - certainly less stale than a lot of stuff I've tried from supposedly reputable bakers. We will be back, albeit earlier in the day. Aside from anything else, I want to try his sourdough!

Hatred, ridicule or contempt

That is, the now-notorious case John Fairfax Publications Pty Ltd v Gacic. And hasn't there been a lot of ink spilled over this in the last couple of days? I particularly like the hyperbole of The Guardian's précis "Australian court opens the way for restaurants to claim damages over unfavourable reviews".

We-elllll...

At best it would "open the way" for Australian plaintiffs. Given that English defamation law gives defendants much more latitude, it's not likely to have much impact there. And given that England is pretty much the only lively defamation jurisdiction in the world, here and there is about the extent of any legal shockwaves.

Furthermore, the analyses of the case so far (I do use that term lightly - there's not much good legal reporting about) haven't been very incisive. The case concerned the Defamation Act 1974 (NSW) - which is now defunct, since the uniform defamation laws came into effect. I haven't gone through the High Court's decision with care to consider if and how the case would stand under the new Act, but it might be different. NSW had a somewhat idiosyncratic system.

Secondly, although lazy journalists have picked up on the odd judicial remark about business reputation being susceptible to the various tests that an imputation is defamatory, the High Court's decision seems to hinge on more technical aspects such as whether an appellate court could substitute a jury's verdict. If anything, the case is more about the powers of the NSW Supreme Court. I.e., really, really dull. The High Court was just deciding on the basis of the legal framework, not on defamation law generally.

The High Court's decision is NOT about whether you're verboten from writing critical things in a restaurant review. If the lazy journalists had read the headnote of the decision, they'd realise that. But not much of a headline, I suppose.

I won't say anything with great certainty, because I've only skim-read the judgments, but I don't think this case is worth people getting their knickers in a twist. It's crummy for Matthew Evans (okay, Fairfax, since they're footing the bill) but I doubt it'll "open the way" for anything.

(ETA: I feel I should apologise on behalf of my law degree for my own lack of critical insight into the case. I even studied defamation law, so I should be able to say something a bit cleverer. Oh well!)

Tarts

I have a Literature Review for my MA to revise/edit/make less rubbish, so of course I'm blogging. I shall deceive myself into thinking that I just need to give myself a bit of time for the essay-writing-crack-cocaine (i.e. Diet Coke - I know, dreadful) to kick in...



It's not even a new thing that I'm updating about. It's an apple and quince tart I made in April. The apples were Granny Smiths. Underneath are sliced quinces, which you can just see. The quinces were poached with a split vanilla pod (mmm, profligate) and a broken cinnamon quill. The rest of the poached quince was eaten with rice pudding the following week.

It was good, except for two things. One, I really need a metal flan tin. The ceramic Portmerion is all very pretty but it's not as good a conductor of heat so the pastry isn't as crisp. Two, I really could've done with a blowtorch to caramelise the apples (and a glaze), because the oven was remarkably useless and just sort of burnt them a bit.

You can see a little apple pie in the picture, made with excess pastry and apples - very handy and portable for taking to work, incidentally. You can also see how half-arsed my pastry lattice-work is.

Even older, is a pear bourdaloue tart I made last year. As you see, I bothered to glaze the pears with apricot jam, which is why it's a bit more attractive.

I don't actually spend all of my time making pastry, though. If I did, I'd be a lot better at it!

Strawberry tartlets

I've been in awe of the hyper-organised types who always have things stashed in the freezer to be whipped out in emergencies for some time. I had my own little moment of culinary wizardry recently, which should reinforce any such desires.

A few weeks ago, I made some shortcrust pastry. (I've also reached the point where I ignore recipes for pastry, and do my own. Finally, I have pastry which responds to my orders!) Deciding to use only half for some little apple pies, I froze the other half. Last weekend, when I was at a loss to make some pudding-cakey thing for my mother, I realised I could just whip out the leftover pastry.

Having defrosted it in the fridge overnight, I rolled it out, cut it and lined a cupcake tin. Although I did bake the cases blind, you can see that the pastry wasn't really weighted down enough to keep it smooth.
Whilst this cooled, I threw together some confectioner's custard, pulled out some redcurrant jelly and hoped that the frozen strawberries would defrost in a timely fashion (and not get eaten by me as I waited).

Mise en place:

Once the custard was spooned into the cases, the strawberries were (not very artfully) arranged, and warmed redcurrant jelly was brushed on top. As you can see, I ate too many strawberries so they were slightly sparse upon the custard, and the glaze was too runny. Sigh.

I'm told they tasted all right, though.


So there you go. I'd file this under 'slightly dodgy', if pushed.

A further point - keeping these in the fridge for the rest of the week was great to prevent them going off, but did render the pastry a bit soggy. Bulk baking isn't always your friend.

Roast chicken

For Mother's Day, I did a roast chicken. As a vegetarian, I can only say that this is one way of demonstrating true love for my mother.

Oh god - why did I not realise how much like an autopsy this would be?

We're so used to meat coming pre-packaged, cut up, filleted, wrapped in clingfilm. I cope all right with mince, the odd steak - even the leg of lamb last month, since it was boned anyway (I know, you lose flavour removing the bone, but it does make carving a doddle).

It's much easier to forget you're dealing with chopped up bits of animal this way.

I'd have more respect for meat eaters if they didn't get hypocritcally squeamish about this fact. Gold stars to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Fergus Henderson for their guts and all approach to meat eating. I have more time for them. If you're not prepared to raise the animal kindly, have it killed humanely, and realise you are eating an animal, I'm not sure you should be allowed to eat meat.

Ahem. I shall step down from my soapbox.

If anyone's interested, I mostly followed Campion and Curtis' method from a 2006 Epicure article with a bit of Nigella Lawson's Feast thrown in. I would say it's pretty foolproof.

I removed the (yes, free-range - come on, it's not that much more to pay and it's so much more humane) chicken from its plastic an hour before I cooked it (meanwhile I made a lime poppyseed loaf cake), to let it dry out and breathe. Just as well, because it was full of...juices.

I left the poor bird propped up in a roasting dish, reclining as if she was on a sun lounger. There was something vaguely obscene about it.

Anyway. After patting her down with kitchen towel, I seasoned her inside and out, popping some lemon wedges inside and rubbing olive oil into her skin. It felt oddly human. Like I was a masseur.

In she went, upside down at first, before being righted and surrounded by garlic and sweet potatoes (ensuring crispy skin). She emerged looking like this:



I must say, the crispy skin and the smell nearly got me going.

Carving her up was a bit icky, though. Much ickier than slicing a fillet of lamb or beef. Bones, people. I had to cut through joints.

The carcass, leftover juices, lemons etc went into the pressure cooker with some cold water, peppercorns, celery, carrots, onion and bay leaves and simmered away for three hours. The resulting stock smelt absolutely magnificent. A third was frozen, a third made avgolemeno (via Claudia Roden's Jewish Book of Food) on Monday (timed well, as my mother was getting ill and this seemed to stem the viral advance), and the rest will make risotto tonight.

I am shocked, though, at recipes which say a chicken that size would feed four. Four! Four what? Giants? I pulled a lot of meat off that bird - it will feed my mother for a week. How much meat do people need?

Ah well. Roast chicken. One more thing I can cook.

Roast potatoes

Not exactly the most exciting subject for a first post, but these were probably the best roast potatoes I've managed so far.


Nor is the method of any great surprise: cut up potatoes. Parboil them for about twenty minutes. Drain, allow to dry as much as possible. Put roasting tin in oven as it heats up. Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in the tin and allow to heat for a further ten minutes. Chuck in potatoes, stir around to get coated, pop in oven for about thirty minutes.

Add crushed garlic, robust herbs at your whim. Superb!

At a close second are the rosemary and garlic roast potatoes from Delia Smith's Summer Collection, which turn out golden and crispy. They are much improved by the use of fresh rosemary. I have used dried, and it is just not the same.