Christmas Day Lunch (25 Dec 2013)

Christmas feasting at home

Christmas Day for me usually consists of a casual lunch with the family at my brothers place with a spread of seafood, smoked ham and salad followed by a pre-made pavlova base that we dress ourselves with fresh fruit and whipped cream. This year I got some unshucked oysters from the Sydney Fish Market for the first time. Thankfully they weren't too hard to open but I think I was lucky with the variety I bought which were Pacific Oyster Moulting Bay from Tasmania. I was a bit apprehensive about the best way to store the oysters for the 36 hours leading up to Christmas Day after I bought them. I kept them in the fridge vegetable chiller wrapped loosely with a wet tea towel. Seemed to work OK and the oysters were still alive when it came time to shuck them. The How to Shuck an Oyster video from the Sydney Fish Market was also helpful. I think I've now found a new appreciation for shucking my own oysters rather than buying them pre-shucked which tends to wash out all the lovely brine when they use water to clean the shells which you can see in this video of Lucy the oyster shucker at Sydney Fish Market.

SNAPSHOT REVIEW:

PROS: Quality time with the family

CONS: We always prepare too much food

MUST TRY: Shucking more oysters in the future

VERDICT: I love my seafood

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Henkell is one of my all time favourite sparkling

Tried my hand at shucking oysters this year

Successful oyster shuck of Pacific Oyster Moulting Bay TAS ($16.90/dozen) from Christie's Seafood Excellence 

Pre-shucked oysters in case my shucking failed me — Christie's Seafood Excellence Sydney Rock Oyster Corrie Island ($19.90/dozen), Pacific Oyster Island Inlet ($17.90/dozen) 

Simple salad

Prawns, lobster and alaskan king crab legs from Coles

Potato salad by mum

Smoked ham

Dad's soy chicken wings

Boston Bay Mussels in white wine

Lettuce and stuffed olives

Always have to have a bit of bread at the table

Table spread

Dessert time with pavlova

Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries

Passionfruit

Mango

Coles pavlova

BiteRiot! cherries — so good

David Jones Food Hall: Fresh French Truffles $4900/kg, Sydney (24 Dec 2010)

Food Hall, Lower Ground, 65-77 Market Street, Sydney NSW 2000

Rich pickings for Christmas

A recent tweet by Darlinghurst Darling to Simon Thomsen alerted me to Fresh French Truffles available at David Jones Food Hall http://plixi.com/p/64955796 fetching $4900/kg so I was curious to check them out. When you work out the price per gram of $4.90/gram it's about the same price I paid at Sigornelli Gastronomia for shaved Australian truffle. I haven't tried French truffle so if anyone wants to send me a belated Christmas present you know what to get me. It took me a while to work out where they were and then I noticed the cryogenic looking fridge brightly lit up in the middle of the greengrocer service counter. It was a bit hard to read the information flyer on top of the fridge so I'm not exactly sure who the supplier is. They also looked white but I'm suspecting they're perhaps wrapped in something? While scouting around the fruit section I noticed 2 kg boxes of cherries from Koala Country Orchards. They looked very similar to the quality ones I received from Top Juice so I'm pretty sure this is the same supplier. I reckon they'd have to be the best cherries I've seen of the season although they do come with a premium price tag. If you buy them directly online for $55 per 2 kg box they'll be about half price of what you'll get charged at the greengrocer.

Fresh French truffles ($4900/kg)

Box of cherries from Koala Country

SIMON FAVOURITE :-)


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Top Juice: Biggest and best cherries I've seen this season, Westfield Sydney (10 Dec 2010)

Cnr Market and Castlereagh St Sydney NSW 2000

http://westfield.com.au/sydney

Best cherries of the season?

Thanks to Joy Leaper and Melinda Griffith from Liquid Ideas for sending me an early Christmas Hamper of goodies from Top Juice and Le Pain Quotidien of Westfield Sydney. I couldn't believe the size of this fruit hamper which seemed to have everything in it including mango, apple, orange, grapes, peaches, nectarines, dates, banana, papaya, passionfruit, Asian pear, massive strawberries, white cherries and huge red cherries and even a couple of exotic dragonfruit — it's weight was formidable. The large plump red cherries took me by surprise since I've been hearing so much about the bad season of cherries this year from readers in response to my Coles spot check although this doesn't seem to have affected the Top Juice offering. Seriously these cherries were ridiculous in size and thankfully were very tasty and juicy as hoped — I shared a few around the office to astonished faces. For such premium produce you have to expect a premium price and they're currently selling at $40/kg at Top Juice or $55/kg in David Jones Food Hall. Equally impressive were the strawberries with firm green stems and leaves still attached. They were nearly the size of the mutant one I found back in September but tasted a lot better — a Strapple as Kristy calls them.

Le Pain Quotidien — a name I have trouble working out how to pronounce — provided a large crunchy baguette and four Organic spreads. I don't really eat chocolate in the morning and prefer jam with my toast but the Belgian Chocolate and Hazelnut Spread is my favourite of them all — probably because it has a similar taste to Nutella which I've had before. I'm trying to think of a dessert I could make with them perhaps? I also received a $25 Breakfast Voucher which I'm looking forward to trying a croissant, coffee and maybe an organic omelet.

SNAPSHOT REVIEW:

PROS: Quality fruit that tastes good, Spreads are organic, Breads are organic, Open from 8 am for breakfast

CONS: Need to eat the fruit quickly in this hot weather before it spoils, Premium cherries are expensive, Strawberries bruise the easiest in hampers

MUST TRY: Fruit salad at Top Juice, Find people to share the spreads with or I'll become a human blimp

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Fruit hamper of many different fruits

Size comparison of normal cherry (Hunter Street fruit stand) and Top Juice cherry

Good colour and flavour

Top Juice on level 5 Westfield Sydney: Premium cherries ($40/kg)

Size comparison of Top Juice strawberry aka The Strapple

Good colour and flavour

Le Pain Quotidien bread roll and organic spreads

Blondie, Noir, Noisella and Brunette spreads

Noisella: Belgian Chocolate and Hazelnut Spread

$25 Breakfast Voucher to use

Le Pain Quotidien located on level 4 of Westfield Sydney

Comparison pricing from David Jones Food Hall for premium cherries ($55/kg)

Sunny Ridge Long Stems Strawberries from David Jones Food Hall ($14.90/400g)

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Coles: Possibly the worst cherries I've ever seen, Randwick (5 Dec 2010)

148 Belmore Road Randwick NSW 2031

http://www.coles.com.au

Oh dear, they're awful!

So there I was shopping for a few groceries for dinner in Coles when I came across the boxes of cherries at the end of the fruit and vegetable section next to the check out counters. I couldn't believe the disgusting looking cherries on offer at around $18 a kilo — some of them were literally so bruised and spoilt I was expecting to see flies or maggots coming out of them. Definitely not fit for consumption and very sub-standard. I read I'm not the only one that has been disappointed with the fruit and vegetables you sometimes find in Coles and Woolworths which are so proudly promoted by Celebrity Chefs these days. I truly wish they'd sort out the Coles in Randwick — it's quite a disgrace and quality checking seems to be non-existent. I don't really understand how the fruit can get to this awful state without being noticed by management and staff?

I much prefer to shop at the Royal Randwick Fruit Market across the road where they seem to take great pride in their produce and quality checking but unfortunately when it's very late in Randwick there's no other options but Coles.

Dear Reader, where's the best and cheapest cherries in Sydney these days? I spotted some at a fruit stand on Hunter Street last week for $8/kilo.

Bad looking cherries, 7.30 pm, 5 Dec 2010

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