GIGINO @ Fairfield West

Italian food, we all love it, but a lot of the time it can be overpriced or just not what you want. I have a solution...GIGINO. GIGINO is located in Fairfield (considered as Sydney's west) along a main road known as Hamilton road. It has only been open for a year, and now going into their second year with great success (GIGINO facebook page). I went on a Sunday evening with my family, and by 8 o'clock it was a packed house. It is a small restaurant that holds roughly 30-40 people inside (including window seats), and 10 outside. Therefore, for large groups (5-10) I strongly advise to make a reservation to secure a table. Throughout the week they have their weekly specials, serve lunch and have BRUNCH SUNDAYS!

Arancini balls ($11) and lasagne special ($17)

The above dishes were the specials of the night. Arancini balls are one of the greatest things ever created. As my sister in law said 'cooked rice, cheese and deep fried' nothing can go wrong when you combine those 3 things in a ball of crunchy goodness. Some of them had a bit of a cold centre (as in a few grains of rice) but wasn't really noticed when you eat it with the hot outside. The lasagne was one of the best restaurant lasagnes we have tried. So many layers of pasta and meat. It was great, if it had a bit more cheese on the top it would be even more perfect!!!!

Mozzarella salad ($10) and mixed salad ($5)

To break through all the goodness we thought we would balance it all with some salads. Both salads were simple in nature where the mozzarella salad contained chunks of mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, and the other with tomatoes, lettuce and onions. The salads come undressed, but balsamic vinegar and oil are provided on the table so the salads can be dressed to your liking.

The condiments

I loved how the table had a fresh basil, and that the chilli oil came in a tuna can! Simple touches that make the difference

Capricciosa ($18) and Salsiccia ($19)

A great thing about GIGINO's pizzas are the simple nature of them. It isn't all about how many things are on the pizza, but how they taste together. These are your traditional Italian pizzas, so you won't see your Hawaiin, or meat lovers pizza on the menu. Capricciosa was a tomato based pizza with mozzarella, artichokes, anchovies, olives, capers and oregano. There was a lot of strong natural flavours on the pizza from the anchovies, olives and capers. But the pizza was not over crowded with all the tasty ingredients which allowed all their individual characteristics to explode in your mouth.

Salsiccia was another tomato based pizza with mozzarella, pork sausage and mushrooms. This pizza is ideal for the mushrooms lovers out there. The pork sausage wasn't done in slices, it was more minced which allowed it to be easily consumed, however the true taste of the pork was hard to depict. It was still a great pizza with all the mushroomy goodness!

DESSERTS! The best way to end a meal.

Gelato (3 scoops $7.50) and pannacotta ($8.50)

The gelato flavours chosen were chocolate and snickers. The snickers ice cream was the BEST snickers ice cream I have ever tried. A combination of caramel, nut pieces and chocolate worked perfectly without loosing the nature of the ice cream. It tasted EXACTLY like a snickers bar, it was delectable! The pannacotta had a raspberry jelly base, and the pannacotta itself was quite gelatinous compared to what I am used to. A great tasting dessert.

Mango & passionfruit tiramisu ($9.00) and affogato ($6.50)

If you want a lighter dessert option I advise the tiramisu. The fruity nature of the dessert allows a light yet delicious end to a meal. The layers of sponge, cream, passionfruit and mango cannot go wrong. The affogato was as traditional as it gets with an expresso shot and vanilla ice-cream, nothing could and did go wrong! All the desserts were demolished, which means they were all enjoyed, which can often be rare at restaurants.

The overall experience at GIGINO was fantastic! The end bill between 4 people with all that food was roughly $28 each which I think is great for entrée  main and dessert. The staff are friendly and are always willing to provide feedback. They are very welcoming of new customers and ask how you found out about GIGINO to see if they are in the local eye or to see how far you travel. I have never had such great service at an Italian restaurant.

Good food, good times!

Baroque Pantry @ The Rocks, Sydney

Baroque is one of my favourite Sydney based restaurants, they provide exquisite food in their bistro, and beautiful desserts. So, when I found out they were introducing a new concept of Baroque Pantry (January 2013), I was extremely excited to be able to dine at Baroque for breakfast/brunch. With the new concept, they have set up a Parisian themed lounge area on the outside of their restaurant, allowing diners to enjoy the lovely Sydney weather.  They also have a bicycle outside their restaurant which sets a Paris aesthetic (I thought it was a random bike, but after walking past a few times I realised it was part of the restaurant). This post contains two of my visits to Baroque Pantry.

Crispy pork cheek and cucumber salad

Mmm pork cheek! This pork cheek was marinaded in a BBQ style sauce, with a lovely sticky nature. Due to the sauce though, the skin wasn't as crispy as I would have enjoyed. The fresh cucumber salad was vibrant with greens and purples. The cucumber was slightly pickled, which added a tang against the quite sweet pork cheek.

House smoked ocean trout, green mango and young coconut salad with cucumber.

This was a fresh salad with a great taste. The green mango was the highlight for me, the light sourness with the sweet coconut was exquisite. A lovely salad to help balance the dining experience. 

Heirloom tomato tartlet, fresh gongozola cheese, basil and balsamic dressing 

A pastry filled with flavour. You can't go wrong with anything with tomatoes as the main component. The use of gongozola cheese is extremely strong, which was balances with the diced tomatoes and drizzle of balsamic vinegar. My friend loved this dish a lot.

Pompadour - Raspberry mousse, passion fruit cream centre and almond nougatine

Now to the desserts. Baroque offer lovely cakes and pastries in their cabinet, but on their dinner menu they also offer other desserts such as souffle and creme brulee. The pompadour is a delight, with the combination of the beautiful taste of raspberry and passion fruit. The macaron shells on the outside provide a crunch to the delicate mousse centre.

Baroque chocolate eclair - Chocolate choux pastry,Valrhona chocolate ganache and chocolate crumble

Mmm eclair! This is new to the Barqoue cabinet of delights. The choux pastry was filled with a chocolatey centre and topped with tempered chocolate. This is perfect for the lovers of chocolate!

Baked egg with mushroom, thyme and garlic 

On the Baroque menu they are know as Egg Cocottes aka baked eggs. Baked eggs are one of the best ways to have eggs (including poached eggs). My friends ordered this dish, and it was her first time trying a baked egg. The yolk was runny, and all the flavours were beautifully combined. The only down fall was that there was a bit too much butter on the bread. Other then that, a pot of joy!

Eggs benedict with spinach, ocean trout, hollandaise sauce and sourdough 

An all time breakfast favourite - Eggs benedict. Oozing eggs with spinach and trout can not go wrong. The sour dough was crunchy on the outside, and soft on the inside. I asked for the hollandaise sauce on the side, because I am not the biggest fan, but I did eat a bit and there was a creamy texture with a slight tang.

Mango, coconut & lime and strawberry macaron

As always, Baroque is known for their wonderful macarons so I couldn't leave with out purchasing some little treats for myself. The mango, coconut & lime was beautiful, with all the flavours merging together. The strawberry was tasty as well, with a strong flavour of strawberry. Baroque is one of my favourite places for macarons!

I have not had a disappointing baroque dining experience, and with great service and great food I hope that stays the same.

Good food, good times!

Birthday Dinner Party

As a VERY late birthday present I owed my friend Lisa a home-cooked birthday dinner and that is what I made and invited 2 of our other close friends over for a lovely meal. After a few weeks of thinking of what to make I decided on the following things; Cheese & chive soufflé, piri-piri chicken (by Jamie Oliver) sided with roast pumpkin, mixed leaf, beetroot, nectarine & grapefruit salad, and for dessert vanilla panna cotta with a blueberry jelly and sauce.

Cheese and Chive Souffle (serves 4-6)
Ingredients

• Melted butter, to grease
• Dried (packaged) breadcrumbs, to dust
• 30g butter
• 2 tbs plain flour
• 310ml (1 1/4 cups) milk
• 80g (1 cup) coarsely grated cheddar
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh chives
• 4 eggs, separated
• 
  
  1. Place a baking tray in the oven and preheat oven to 200°C. Lightly grease ramekins (including the rims) with melted butter and dust with breadcrumbs. (Depending on the size of your ramekins depends on how many soufflés the recipe makes)

2. Using a medium saucepan, melt the butter (30g) until foaming (not burning or caramelising). Add the flour, stirring and cook for approximately 2 minutes, or until mixture begins to bubble and comes away from the sides of the saucepan. Remove from heat.

3. Whisking constantly with a balloon whisk, gradually pour in the milk until mixture is smooth and combined.

4. Place the saucepan back on medium heat and bring to boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat. (This step is a bit difficult to determine, so what I did was judging from how the liquid ran along the back of the wooden spoon). Set the mixture aside to cool for a few minutes.

5. Add the cheddar, chives and egg yolks, and stir until cheddar melts and the mixture is well combined. (Add the yolks one at a time and stir straight away to avoid the eggs from curdling.)

6. Use an electric beater, beat the egg whites in a clean, dry bowl until firm peaks form. Fold in one-third of the egg white to the cheese mixture until just combines. Add the remaining egg white mixture until just combined.

7. Pour the souffle mixture into prepared ramekin. (Ensure you do not drop any mixture on the rim of the ramekins as this will result in the soufflé sticking and not popping up like a top hat)

8. Place souffles on pre-heated baking tray and back for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and puffed. ( soufflés  are best when they are slightly runny.)

9. Remove from oven and serve immediately.

**NOTE: My souffle got stuck to the sides of the rim because the original recipe said to run something along the rim to get the top hat effect, which resulted in the removal of the breadcrumbs and NOT getting the top hat effect. And it was a bit over cooked.

Piri-Piri Chicken - Serves 4 (Recipe from Jamie Oliver - 30 minute meals)

I doubled the original recipe so it was 2 pieces per person, it depends on what sides you are having and how hungry the people you are feeding are.

Ingredients (original recipe)

4 large chicken thighs, skin on and bones in

1 red capsicum (sliced into strips)

1 yellow or green capsicum (sliced into strips)

6 sprigs of fresh thyme

Piri-piri sauce

1 red onion (roughly chopped)

4 cloves of garlic

1-2 bird's eye chillies

2 tablespoons sweet smoked paprika

Zest of 2 lemons

4 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons Worcester sauce

large bunch of basil

Piri-piri sauce:

In a blender add all the piri-piri sauce ingredients, and blitz until smooth. Add a bit of water (no more than 1/4 cup) for a smoother sauce. Leave aside.

Chicken:

1. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. And put a large griddle plan on a high heat.

2. Slash the chicken a few times on each side. Drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. Put on the griddle pan, skin side down. Cook until golden and turn over.

3. Add the sliced capsicum to the pan. Turn the heat down to medium and keep moving the capsicums around until softened.

4. Place the chicken in a roasting tray, laying the capsicums on top. Pour the ready made piri-piri sauce on top.

5. Scatter sprigs of thyme on top of the sauce and place in the middle of the oven.

6. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through.

Salad

Mixed leaves salad bag

1-2 nectarines

1 pink grapefruit

1 can of beetroot wedges.

1. Cut the nectarine in half, to remove the seed and slice.

2. Peel the grapefruit, (including the inner skin) and cut into wedges.

3. Drain the can of beetroot.

4. Combine all into a salad bowl.

Roasted Pumpkin

Pumpkin - approximately half (I used Kent, but if you prefer other pumpkin then use them.)

Olive oil

Salt & pepper

Rosemary (or mixed herbs)

1. Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

2. Line a baking tray with grease proof paper.

3. Peel the pumpkin and cut into wedges. (All roughly the same size so they cook evenly)

4. Place the pumpkin on the baking tray and drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt, pepper and rosemary.

5. Bake in the oven (on middle or highest in the oven) for at least 1 hour, or until tender.

**NOTE: The base of some of my pumpkin pieces burnt because I forgot to rotate and move the tray to a different level in the oven.

Panna Cotta (with a blueberry jelly)

There is 2 ways to make this; you can either make it so you turn out the panna cotta on a plate or that you eat the panna cotta out of a ramekin or cup. In this case I made it so I turned it out onto a plate. If you make it the other way, then make the panna cotta first, and then the blueberry jelly.

Panna cotta

• 3 teaspoons powdered gelatine
• 1 cup thickened cream
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
  1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Blueberry syrup

• 2/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 125g blueberries

Blueberry Jelly

1/3 cup of blueberry syrup

1 teaspoon of gelatine

Blueberry Syrup

1. Start by making the blueberry syrup. Place sugar, vanilla bean paste and 2/3 cup of cold water in a saucepan over a medium heat.

2. Lightly stir for 3 minutes or until the sugar dissolves (don't boil).

3. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 7 minutes or until slightly thickened.

4. Add blueberries, and simmer for 5 minutes, or until berries start to collapse.

5. Remove from heat, and cool for 10 minutes.

6. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Blueberry jelly

1. Lightly grease four 1/2 cup - capacity moulds with non stick spray. (Similar to these moulds)

2. Strain 1/3 cup of blueberry syrup into a jug (or bowl).

3. Sprinkle over 1 teaspoon of gelatine and whisk immediately until gelatine dissolves. 

4. Pour mixture evenly amongst prepared moulds, and cover with plastic wrap.

5. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until set.

Panna cotta

1. Place cream, buttermilk and sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook, by stirring for 6-8 minutes, or until simmering (don't boil).

2. Stir in vanilla bean paste, and pour mixture into a heat proof bowl.

3. Sprinkle of gelatine, one teaspoon at a time and whisk immediately. (This is to avoid the gelatine from clumping). Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.

4. Take prepared moulds out of refrigerator and check is jelly has set.

5. Carefully pour buttermilk mixture, over the back of the metal spoon into each mould. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours or until set.

6. Turn out the pannacotta and spoon over blueberry syrup and serve.

**As you can see, my blueberry jelly didn't turn out quite right (there was meant to be a layer of jelly on top, then panna cotta), but still tasted nice!

**NOTE: If the jelly has not completely set through, but the top has, pour a few teaspoons of the buttermilk mixture on top (just to cover the jelly) and place in the freezer for 15-30 minutes (this is to avoid the blueberry jelly from running through the pannacotta). Once that layer of pannacotta has set, you can continue to pour more of the buttermilk mixture and refrigerate.

Turning out the pannacotta

There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest way is shown by a helpful hint provided by taste, titled How to turn out panna cotta. Another way to turn them out is to run a round bladed knife around the pannacotta and hope they turn out onto the place. You can also run a blow torch around the moulds to loosen the panna cotta and gently tap it against the place.

Overall the dinner turned out great, and everything was eaten! The panna cotta was definitely the highlight as it was my first time making it, and it was quite a success (despite the blueberry jelly). I really hope all my friends enjoyed the dinner! And another late birthday shout out to my lovely friend Lisa! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISA!

Good food, good times!

Tray-baked Chicken and Dressed Potatoes

Every so often I enjoy making a nice home cooked meal for some uni friends and for recipes I always turn to 'Jamie's 30 Minute Meals'. This book has yet to fail and everything in it is easy, cheap and lovely to eat.

 

 Tray-baked chicken with dressed potatoes and salad

The original recipe states to use skinless chicken breasts, but I find that breast pieces are too dry, so I used chicken thigh fillets. Therefore, in this case I allocated 2 thigh fillets, per individual.

Tray-baked Chicken

Ingredients (Serves 5)

Dried oregano/oregano leaves

Sweet Paprika

Butter (approximately 100g)

10 chicken thigh fillets

2 lemons

600g cherry tomatoes on vine (I couldn't find those so I used 2 punnets of boxed cherry tomatoes)

10 rashers of bacon (if possible get on the striped/streaky part - if not then cut the bacon in half so that the middle bacon is separate from the bacon streaks.)

Rosemary

Method (I did this in 2 batches)

1. Wash the chicken thigh fillets and remove any fatty parts.

2. Drizzle with olive oil.

3. Preheat oven to 120 degrees Celsius.

4. On a large piece of greaseproof paper, sprinkle a good pinch salt & pepper, along with dried oregano leaves and sweet paprika.

5. Roll the chicken thigh fillets in the flavours.

6. In a large frying pan drizzle over some olive oil and a knob of butter (around 50g)

7. Add the chicken to the hot pan and fry for 4 to 5 minutes, or until golden on both sides.

 

8. While chicken is cooking, get a nice roasting tray and quarter 1 lemon and 1 punnet of tomatoes and chuck them on the tray.
9. Using tongs, arrange the chicken on the tray and a lay/wrap a piece of bacon around each piece of chicken.
10. Still using the frying pan, add sprigs of rosemary to fuse with the juices in the pan and pour over the chicken in the tray. 
NOTE: If there aren't any juices left in the pan add more butter (50g).

11. Cook in the oven for at least 15-20 minutes, ensuring that the chicken is cooked through.

Finished product! =D

Dressed Potatoes

While the chicken was cooking I started on the potatoes.

Ingredients (serving 5)
2 sweet potatoes
4 small to medium potatoes (white-washed ones)
Half a lemon
1 fresh red chilli
Bunch of coriander
100g of feta cheese

Method
1. Peel and wash the potatoes,
2. Cut the potatoes in chunks and place in a large microwave-safe bowl with half a lemon.
3. Wrap in cling-wrap/film and microwave on full for 15 minutes.
4. Check the potatoes are cooked through, and using tongs squeeze over the lemon.

5. Using a fork, crush all the potatoes together, leaving it a bit chunky.
6. Finely chop coriander, chilli and feta cheese and add to potatoes.
7. Mix all together.

To finish off I made a basic salad with a salad mix, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and corn.

Dinner is served!

Good food, good times!