Posts by Russell Brown
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And ... all the salads people brought were nice and my friend Mel's chocolate mousse was cosmological.
Also, just tried one of the Scotch bonnet chillies my friend Richard brought from his garden.
OMFG. And, ow.
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Hard News: An excellent evening in Newtown, in reply to Islander,
Bring the PSA salon – or OGB- to CHCH, and I’ll bring a vanload-
How could I not?
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Hard News: An excellent evening in Newtown, in reply to Megan Wegan,
Hey, I read somewhere that “people who don’t have houses aren’t allowed to pay for drinks”. I know you _do_ have a house, but still, I was following the spirit of the rule.
Actually, yes. Now you mention it, that was an actual rule.
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Hard News: An excellent evening in Newtown, in reply to Islander,
Leatherjackets are a much under-esteemed food fish (and they’re not endangered -suck it, F&B.)
Lol.
Not for nothing are they also known as creamfish – and on -the-bone, in parchment in the oven (with a leetle salted evo) or on the barbie(ditto), they are delicious…never tried them marinated Russell, but I’m always willing to try new ways of cooking fish*
I used a fresh lime juice, light soy sauce, sugar, chilli, garlic marinade I thought seemed appropriate. Once I tasted the creaminess, I did think a little oven-baking would be nice too, yes.
Or even panfried with flour or breadcrumbs. I had a panfried flounder at the The Green Parrot after we recorded our Webstock special (thanks Vincent Burke) and it was wonderful -- lovely moist flesh that eased off the bone.
I talked to the young chef afterwards, and he said that people freak out about the bones, so fancy restaurants cook flounder by partially filleting it and dropping it in a deep fryer. I've had this. It looks spectacular -- the fillets curl up away from the bone -- but the method dries out the flesh and basically wrecks everything that its good about flounder. Dicks.
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Hard News: An excellent evening in Newtown, in reply to recordari,
Where’s a good source of Heartland chips? Found some at Nosh, but they don’t regularly have them. They go great with my homemade humus.
Nosh is the only place I've seen them.
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Mind you, some brands of salt and vinegar chips manage to taste of something without having an unnervingly long list of ingredients like the more exotic sorts do (milk powder. ugh.).
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Hard News: An excellent evening in Newtown, in reply to Islander,
Agree with your blog post (and plain salted Heartland chips are excellent. They just taste of…potato chips fried in canola & sunflower oils, & sea salt.)
+1.
And pleasingly thick. My favourite.
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Hard News: An excellent evening in Newtown, in reply to recordari,
Yes, falafel was in attendance on Saturday, along with a meat-fest the likes of which I’ve seldom seen. One might say he made up for any lack in the south by heavily compensating in the north.
The falafel fell apart a bit but turned out to be ideal snack food for the (vegan) philosopher later in the evening. The tandoori lamb (butterflied leg marinated 24 hours, barbecued, then rested in a warm oven) was freaking perfect. And cooking whole leatherjackets was a total punt that turned out really well. They're $8kg because they have bones, but marinated then grilled on the barbecue I thought they tasted lovely. Irritatingly, most guides name them as a sustainable fish (they're basically bycatch), but Forest & Bird begs to differ. I thought the little Italian things with mozzarella in them were the nicest of the Westmere Butchery sausages -- must remember them for brunches.
But really, if it's fun with meat you want, Stephen Judd is your man.
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Hard News: An excellent evening in Newtown, in reply to Joanna,
In all seriousness, since I managed to get my hands on the only food in the building (a cup of peanuts), perhaps next time there could be a bake sale accompanying the drinking, for charity and host responsibility?
I'll cop to that. I kinda forgot that part of going to the back-to-basics format was providing some food, which we always used to do (although it tended to be quite expensive). A sausage sizzle would've been good.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to nzlemming,
That’s so good to hear. They’re vicious buggers long term, and the side effects can make you wonder if it’s worth it at all.
We seriously didn't have a lot of choice at the time -- his anxiety was through the roof, really alarming. But it's been his choice to reduce and eventually stop it, which is great. It may be that he finds a very low dose useful, but that'll be up to him.