Posts Tagged ‘Good Living’

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Sweet eats: the Empress returns

October 15, 2009

stephprofiterolesI think it’s clear by now that if you want to delve into desserts, howtoshuckanoysterland is not your first port of call (if you’re a salt freak, on the other hand, come on down!) .

Lucky for you then, sugar, that we have the Empress and her culinary meanderings around this city to bring some sweetness and light to this salty little land we call home.

Steph’s last two columns for the SMH have been a sweet tooth’s heaven: first, she told you where a girl can find a profiterole to fiterole (! sorry bout that, chief)  and second, this week’s column, on banana desserts.

stephbananaYes, really. Apparently banana desserts are good.

Cooked banana being one of the rare things I find quite repulsive, I’m not one to comment – but She Who Must Be Au Fait says these things are good, so I’m prepared to change my mind.

Check out the yellow peril here.

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Ay, carumba!

October 2, 2009

stephburritosThe Empress has ventured into Mexico – well, the kind of Mexico you find in Oz restaurants – in her column on burritos this week. I’ve never been a fan of Mexican restaurants, scarred by the country town one of my youth (sangria = headache, let’s just get that on the table right now), but I have to say this column had me almost ready to change my mind…..

Writes La Emperatriz:

Burrito means “little donkey” in Spanish; it’s believed the name comes from a similarity in appearance between this street food and the animal’s ear. It’s simply a flour tortilla wrapped around a filling and when they were first sold in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua in 1910, they were slim, containing only a couple of ingredients. American influences saw them grow to stupendous proportions…

Check out her recommendations here.

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Empress roundup

September 21, 2009

Another bit of falling down on the job I’ve been doing lately is omitting the Empress’s last two weekly columns – ! – and now am annoyed that it seems I’ve left her fish and chippy one too late to find online and post here. Bummer, because we were with her on one of those assignments – to wit, fish ‘n’ chip morning tea at the excellent Greenwell Point F&chipper whose name I can’t now remember.

Anyhoo – her column of last week, on Sydney’s best Lebanese pizza – or Man’oushe – is still up and running here so check it out quickly before Wednesday when no doubt it’ll be down to make way for the next instalment!

And I promise to keep myself nice and up to date from here on in.

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Eager for Uighur

August 21, 2009

stephuighurThis week’s column from the Empress in Good Living is a beauty, and extra fun for us to read because we were crash test dummies for one of these Chinese muslim restaurants with her – the Western Orient in Hurstville. It’s loads of fun going on these excursions (as we’ve discussed before, it’s so easy to get geographically locked into your own tiny suburban area of this city), and I can vouch for the divinity of everything Steph mentions in her Western Orient review.

The waitress, Candy, and her mum, the hidden chef, were incredulous that a bunch of gweilos would enjoy their fare. But once we convinced Candy that we actually really would like the noodles that she insisted were ‘better for Chinese people, not Australians’, she became our new best friend and recommended all sorts of goodies.

After the meal the Empress went to do her ‘candid camera moment’, where she tells the restaurateurs she wants to feature a dish of theirs, and which is always nice to witness as they get very excited. And this time, once that bit was done and we’d paid the bill and were about to leave, Candy returned to the table with a giant tureen of “Egg FlowerSoup”, compliments of her mum. As we were all completely stuffed, we groaned inwardly at the idea we had to eat yet more food, although obviously couldn’t insult the hostess by refusing. But at the first spoonful, an expression of utter ecstasy came over every face at that table, and then it was a fight to the death for the rest of the soup. The clearest, most delicate chicken broth with an egg-whitey streak, it was simply unfrickingbelievable.

And the rest of the meal, as detailed in the Empress’s column, was excellent too. She also visited two other fab-sounding Chinese Muslim joints too – so go along and check one out.

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The martian’s pizza

August 6, 2009

stephmartianThe Empress’s SMH Good Living column has been the most emailed SMH article so far today – and with good reason. This week she checked out an outlandish (to boring old Anglos like me!) Japanese dish called okonomiyaki, which her husband has described as “a martian’s idea of a pizza”.  Writes the Empress:

This could be one of life’s weirdest dishes. Having said that, when done well it’s compellingly delicious. Cabbage with pork, seafood or a combination of both are lightly bound in a flour, egg and dashi batter that is fried as a thick round. This is where things start getting trippy: once cooked, the okonomiyaki is covered with squiggles of Japanese mayonnaise and special sauce that is like the Aussie barbecue variety, sprinkled with nori flakes and piled with bonito shavings, which wave slowly in the pancake’s rising heat.

To find out where to eat this strange delight, visit her column here.

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Love that lasagne

July 22, 2009

stephlasagneI have always loved a good lasagne myself – but a really good one is hard to find, no? Not for the Empress though – she winkles out three excellent versions of lasagne in this big wide city in her  SMH Good Living Three-of-a-Kind column for this week, online now. Says she:

Lasagne is believed to be the earliest form of pasta, which makes sense given the flat sheets result from simple rolling. But it isn’t always layered with bolognaise and bechamel sauce; there’s a more elaborate version, known as vincisgrassi, which can contain sweetbreads or other offal, spices, porcini mushrooms, prosciutto or a combination.

Posted in pasta, restaurants, winter food | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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Fishy (and salty) business

July 1, 2009

stephsaltcodThe Empress’ Sydney Morning Herald Good Living column this week is on salt cod – mmmmmmmm. She writes:

Since the advent of refrigeration and better transport, there’s no storage imperative to salt fish. But try telling that to the Portuguese, who have bacalhau so firmly entrenched in their culinary repertoire there’s no turning back. Soaking in water renders the stiff, dried fish soft, palatable and ready to be made into any of the 365 recipes the Portuguese have devised for it. But salt cod isn’t only the preserve of the Portuguese. The French are also fans of salt cod, which they call morue, and transform into warm puree with olive oil, garlic and moistened bread.

She samples salt cod French, Portuguese & Italian style.  And it sounds good.

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Beer o’clock for Steph

June 25, 2009

stephbeerAfter an annoying absence in their online content last week, happily the SMH has posted the Empress’s 3-of-a-kind column again this week.

This week she’s got her beer goggles on. Specifically, to examine food cooked with beer, from shanks to pork hock to beef & Guiness pie (mmm).

Pop along and have a look here.

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Fishy business

June 3, 2009

steph1The Empress Clifford-Smith turns her attention to small and salty fish in her column this week – and oh my, how good does that little sardine number from the Burlington look?

You will find Steph’s Good Living column here.

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Holy cannoli

May 27, 2009

Missy Empress’s Good Living column this week is on cannoli – sounds too good.

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