Sage Buttered Mushrooms on Toast

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I'd like to say that breakfast is my favourite meal of the day but if I'm honest this is only really true on days off. Nothing beats a lazy start to the day with a cup of tea in hand and a cooked breakfast on your plate. This breakfast takes around 15 minutes to put together and will make your stomach, and you incredibly happy. January is tough enough as it is, and starving yourself isn't going to make it any easier. We all deserve a treat once in a while, and this is particularly true after a week of work.

Serves 1 but can easily be doubled, tripled etc
You will need-

• 1 free range egg
• 2 portobello mushrooms, stalks removed
• A few slices of your favourite bread
• A knob of butter
• 1/2 tbsp sage
• 1 clove garlic

Pre-heat grill to medium high. Melt the butter in a small pan and add the sage leaves. Cook on a medium heat until the butter is lightly brown. Brush over the underside of the mushrooms, setting a little aside and then place them under the grill and cook till their tender. Whilst the mushrooms are cooking place your egg in a small pan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 2 minutes before draining and running under a cold tap before peeling. When the mushrooms are almost done toast your bread then rub with the garlic. Place the mushrooms on top of the bread and top with the egg. Drizzle with remaining sage butter, salt, pepper and a little truffle oil if you have some.

Sydney Part 2

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I have been a little slack with the 2nd part of my Sydney post mainly because of how painful it is knowing 10512.3 miles separate me from all this amazing food. By now I have lost the order in which we visited these places but if I don't get them down now I know I never will!

First off is Gelato Messina pictured above. Dubbed as the best gelato in Sydney its very easy to see why. 2 huge freezers filled with lots of exciting flavours as well as many favourites. The chefs are challenged each week to create a new flavour which appear on their specials board. I opted for the salted caramel and a panacotta with fig jam and amaretti which was by far the best I have ever tasted in my life. Messina offer takeaway boxes in varying sizes which I imagine are a little dangerous to have in your freezer.

Next up was Rueben Hills. I had spotted this place in the Sydney Time Out magazine and after being recommended it by friends we headed down. It took a while to take our pick from all the delicious sounding food on their menu but we finally settled on the Dirty Bird which consisted of spicy grilled chicken with a tomatillo salsa, cheese, pickles, chipotle aioli in a brioche bun and their Not Rueben consisting of wagyu salt brisket, pickled slaw, manchego & horseradish cream. Both were outstanding and accompanied by organic orange juice & a piccolo made the perfect lunch.

Grill'd is a fairly new burger chain in Australia with a fairly small number of restaurants dotted around the country. I decided to try one of their veggie burgers filled to the brim with beetroot, avocado, salad, relish & herb mayo. I also have to mention their chips which are topped with a salt & herb mix which makes them extremely moorish.

The Book Kitchen sits over the road from Bourke Street Bakery mentioned in part 1 and sounded like my idea of heaven. A cafe come cookbook shop where you are encouraged to sit and read the vast number of cookbooks they have on their bookshelves whilst you have some lunch or indulge in one of their cakes. We settled on some homemade lemonade and my first lamington in Australia.

One Saturday morning we were taken to Eveleigh Market where I got to try Billy Kwong's Steamed pancake with fresh vegetables, herbs & egg which was brimming with so much flavour and a firm favourite with many locals. We had recently eaten breakfast so we were both really full. I now really regret not trying the dumplings too.

We headed to Beach Burrito in Bondi one evening and whilst I ate my lime chilli and garlic prawn burrito I had a good giggle watching the guys showing off over the road at the muscle beach. We washed our burritos down with a couple of bottles of Corona before heading to a pub (with a drive through bottle shop- off licence to me and you!)

Our last meal in Sydney was at Double Roasters on our way to the airport. I went for their corn & courgette fritters which came with an avocado salsa, rocket & a poached egg and Tim went for the housemade baked beans with prosciutto, eggs and spinach. It was the perfect food to line our stomachs for the next 24 hours of travel.

 

We also had a few meals where I didn't manage to get any photos. Those that need a special mention are Mr Wong in the CBD, a fairly new restaurant with a Cantonese style menu. We turned up for lunch and sat in their bar where we shared 5 dim sum plates. The food was outstanding, only the turnip cake served with dried fish on top wasn't to our liking as the fish was just too intense, but I can easily say hands down the best pork buns I have ever eaten.
Second on my list is the North Bondi Italian set overlooking Bondi Beach with an impressive modern Italian menu. We were taken here by our friends for one of our last meals. I decided on the spaghetti Cartoccio which is baked in a paper bag with spanner crab, tomato & chilli. To end the meal we all shared an plate of tiramisu which was brought out in a big dish by the waiter and plated up (very generously) at our table.

We are already beginning to plan our next trip to Australia. Hopefully we will be heading back out in January next year with an added stop in Melbourne. If anyone has must visits there please let me know!

I am off work for the next two weeks give or take a few days and I am setting myself lots of cooking challenges to fill my time. First up is croissant, if I have any success I will be sure to share the photos.

The Grounds

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The Grounds is fairly new on the scene in Sydney and is located in an old pie factory in the suburb of Alexandria. We got taken here the other day by friends for lunch and I was just blown away. The Grounds is the brainchild of Ramzey Choker who has set the place up along with his business partner Jack Hanna & his sister Caroline Choker who is an interior designer. As soon as you step through the door you really can see that everything has been sought and thought out to the finest detail. Its safe to say that this makes for a very enjoyable visit and this is why there is pretty much always a que for a table.

The Grounds team is split up into sections. Jack Hanna heads up the coffee department and oversees all the coffee roasting and Lilly Fasan is the executive chef. With an amazing list of restaurants to her name its easy to see why the food in this place is so revered. To top all of this off The Grounds boasts its own garden where they grown many of the seasonal vegetables you can eat in the restaurant. 

After a few pretty indulgent days of eating Tim and I both decided on their salads. I went for the Courgette & Pear salad with was served with freshly picked mint, danish feta & pistachios. Tim went for the amazing sounding and tasting Buffalo mozzarella and peach salad with chicory & spiced almonds. Like most places in Sydney, this place isn't cheap but the portions are huge and the quality is tops. Its located a little out of the city but its definitely worth travelling to if you are ever in Sydney.

Platelickers Eastern European Christmas

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So a bit of an overdue post on my behalf but I just wanted to share some photos and the menu from the last supper club. For the last Platelickers of the year we went with an Eastern European theme and drew in favourites and memories from our own family Christmasses. We are having a month off in December but watch your inboxes for a Platelickers in January. I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last year and come along to our evenings and for all the lovely emails we have received from you all. We started the supper club because we wanted to cook for people and every email we get gives us a warm feeling in our hearts (ahhh!) I am super excited about what's in store for 2013 so as always if you want to hear first about upcoming events please sign up to our mailing list here.

Anyway, I'll keep this post short and let the photos do the talking.

Sydney Part 1

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Well, where to begin. So far this trip has been the biggest eye opener in regards to food. We seriously haven't had a bad meal so far and I'm hoping that I haven't just jinxed myself by saying this. It also goes to say that the coffee has been pretty phenomenal too and I'm sure that its not just because of the jet lag. After all, Australia is the home of the flat white. I thought rather than leaving it all till I get back to the UK it would be best to split the trip into a few posts before I forgot all the finer details. Don't worry I won't be detailing every single meal we ate but purely picking out the highlights from the trip so far. Right now I feel so torn because part of me never wants to leave yet the other cannot wait to get home and get cooking after all this inspiration.

The first day was spent getting to know the area we were staying in, Surry Hills. Whilst having a pit stop coffee in one of the many great cafes in the area we picked up a flyer for a new Mexican restaurant that had opened in the area. Annoyingly I can't for the life of me remember what its called but if you visit its on Randle Street. We decided to share 4 of their soft tacos and we weren't disappointed. Our favourites being the wild mushroom, fennel & marjoram with sour cream & pine nuts and the cumin & anise blackened chicken with avocado & mint. There were lots of other exciting dishes on the menu and a very tasty sounding chocolate olive oil cake with ancho chillies which will have to be tried if we return.

We started off our first full day with breakfast at Single Origin cafe in Surry Hills. Tim went for their 62:45 poached eggs with house cured bacon on sourdough, the 62:45 relating to the temperature and length of time the eggs are cooked for in a sous vide. I decided on their spiced baked beans with Persian feta which went down a treat. The only downside being that the dishes only came with 1 piece of sourdough. Single Origin roast their own beans and since visiting we have spotted a lot of other cafe's using their beans. The coffee at Single Origin is hands down the best coffee I have ever drunk.

After breakfast we headed into the city in search for a department store so I could indulge in my weakness of food halls. What I wasn't expecting was to spend around £6 on 2 figs but my god were they tasty! We headed down through the botanic gardens and ended up eating our figs on the steps of the opera house, you couldn't really of planned it better than that!

For dinner we headed back to Surry Hills and to the newly opened Queenies located upstairs at The Forresters pub. Queenies is dubbed a pan tropical restaurant with lots of Caribbean flavours in the mix, the sides all sounded really exciting so we decided on sharing a bunch of those instead. Queenie's offers  an interesting array of treats on the menu including BBQ jerk corn which was definitely a highlight as well as push cart chicken & curried oxtail patties. The restaurant does feel pretty hip with its mix of kitsch paraphernalia but the food didn't disappoint. Their selection of mains all sounded very tempting but the salads would be on my go to list for next time. 

Now by this point all my days are beginning to muddle together but I can't go without talking about Bourke St Bakery. Quite early on into my Sydney 'food research' this place popped up so we knew we had to pay them a visit. Its one of those places where reviews speak of queues around the corner but I think we picked the perfect time going on a week day just after all the commuters had been past. We pulled up on a bench along the side of the bakery and indulged in a famous ginger brulee tart (which I will be trying to replicate on my return), a praline twist and a pear & rhubarb muffin all washed down with delicious flat whites. Before we left we picked up a sourdough loaf to ear for breakfast the next day.

You can't visit Sydney without heading over to one of Bill Granger's 'Bill's' restaurants. Its a little more expensive than some places so we decided to try out the breakfast menu. Everything on the menu sounded so tempting that I really struggled choosing. Tim went for the full Aussie breakfast which came with the sweetest, creamiest scrambled eggs I've ever tasted. In a bit of a rushed decision I went for the ricotta hotcakes which were served with banana & honeycomb butter. This was to die for but looking back at the menu I am wishing I had tried something else. To be fair though we're here for another week and with things like sweetcorn fritters & brioche rolls with chilli eggs on the menu you can't really blame me.

I have been trying to write this post for about 3 days now. Each day adding another place to the list. Yesterday we headed to a restaurant called The Grounds which really deserves a post of its own so please watch this space.

Mill Road Winter Fair

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 Just a quick little post to share with you some photos of my stall at this year's Mill Road Winter Fair. It sure was a cold one and it felt like it took a few days to get my body temperature back up to normal. But cold aside, it was so much fun sharing a stall with Jo. On the stall this year I did Salted Caramel & Chocolate Ganache Macaron, Sticky Gingerbread loaves, Flourless Chocolate Cake, Carrot & Walnut Muffins, Blueberry & Apple Crumble Muffins, my mum's Baklava, GF Raspberry, Almond & Coconut Slices, Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies and last but not least Caramel Swirl Brownies. Everything went down well and the macaron were the first to go. I just wish I had saved myself some, they were the things I was most proud of.

We also had a section of Platelickers treats including my mum's cheese and spinach pita, pesto pinwheels, our beetroot chutney & the well loved pineapple chutney (which I conveniently dropped a jar of so I could take some home for myself)

Anyway, as you may know I am jetting off to Sydney later today but I have lined up a few posts for whilst I'm away. I can't wait to arrive in the land of flat whites and kangaroos, but first theres 24 hours of travel to get though. If you want to see what I'm up to whilst I'm gone catch me on twitter or instagram