Tuesday Tasting Menu @ Duke Bistro

I dined at Duke Bistro once before in late February. My memory of the event is a little shady - I'd had champagne at a friend's house and a few beers with the sexy blonde girls who I used to work two doors down from; before meeting work colleagues, dashing to the Duke for a quick drink, and then running off again to another party.

I remember lounging in the dark and sipping on a Penicillin, my senses awash with the warmth of smoky scotch and honey. Complimentary dishes arrived at our table, thanks to the magnetic pulling power of the very charming EggBert - ex-partner in crime to Mitch The Pasta Master from Sepia days. There was something with prawn and a bizarre seaweed I'd never seen before, slivers of cured ham of some description, a smoky soup with clams and fregola perhaps? Details are wishy washy at best. It was damn good though, and I've been dying to return ever since.

What a serendipitous moment to find an old friend slaving over the hot coals of my desires. Textural delights, meat mastery, edible flowers and housemade butter for crying out loud! This is love - the real thing, but beware. Kate Moss was here. This Duke is addictive.

Leather Jacket Cheek, Oyster, Cucumber

Duck Liver Parfait, Bread, Housemade Butter

King George Whiting Fish Finger                                       Drinks List                 

                 Prawn, Pasta                                         Pig Tail Tile, Bone Marrow     

  

Boar Neck, Garlic Shoots                                 Nasturtium, Goat's Cheese

          White Miso Caramel Eclair                        Rhubarb & Rosemary Jelly, Mini Pavlova 



http://www.dukebistro.com.au/

63 Flinders St

Darlinghurst, Sydney

Wintry Pumpkin Pie

When one has close to a dozen pumpkins stacked in a corner of the kitchen, meal times become a game of finding ways to disguise pumpkin in anything and everything. As delicious as they may be, there are only so many times that I can eat variations of Parmesan-crusted pumpkin wedges (Gruyere and torn basil is an excellent combination by the way), baked oatmeal with pumpkin and maple-soaked raisins or chickpea-hiding-pumpkin-patties before I feel inclined to start pulling my hair out.

I've never had a proper pumpkin pie before (the orange-coloured cream masquerading as said pie at Cotton Duck doesn't count), so I thought I'd give that a go. I wanted a really beefed up version full of warming spices and wintry nuances so I scoured through my books for a few ideas which I mashed together into a single recipe.

Spices from a traditional American diner dessert - sweet potato pie were added and the amount of sugar scaled back to let the natural sweetness of the pumpkin sing. Instead of making a classic pie with flaky pastry, I cooked the pumpkin pie filling in jars and dished them up with homemade yoghurt, dried lemon peel and some shortbread biscuits infused with lemon and rosemary.


Dried lemon peel

1 lemon
100 g water
50 g castor sugar

Peel lemon with a vegetable peeler.
Remove white pith from the peel with a small, sharp knife.
Cut peel into thin strips about 2 mm wide.
Place water and sugar into a small pot and bring to the boil.
Add lemon peel and bring back to the boil.
Allow to simmer for 2 minutes.
Remove pot from heat and cool to room temperature.
Strain out the peel and drain well.
Spread peel onto a flat tray lined with baking paper or a silpat mat.
Dehydrate at 55ºC for 3-4 hours or until crisp.
Cool to room temperature.
Store in an airtight container.


Pumpkin pie

1 kg pumpkin, unpeeled
30 g olive oil
134 g castor sugar
3 g salt
2 g ground ginger
2 g ground cinnamon
1/2 g ground nutmeg
1/2 g ground allspice
4 g vanilla paste
7 g all-purpose flour
260 g evaporated milk
20 g water
10 g lemon juice
2 eggs

Slice pumpkin into 2cm thick wedges.
Brush with olive oil and roast at 200ºC for 40 mins or until pumpkin is cooked through and caramelised.
Remove from oven and set aside to cool to room temperature.
When cool to the touch, scrape away pumpkin flesh from skins and set aside in a bowl.
Discard skins.
Place 320 g of pumpkin flesh in a food processor with sugar, salt, spices, vanilla paste and flour.
Blend until smooth.
Whisk together evaporated milk, water, lemon juice and eggs in a bowl.
Add liquids to pumpkin mixture and blend to combine thoroughly.
Transfer to a jug and half fill 5 small 300 ml jars.
Place jars into a roasting tray and fill with boiling water.
Bake at 160ºC for 35 mins or until pumpkin is just set in the middle when shaken.
Transfer jars to a rack to cool slightly.
Serve with homemade yoghurt and a sprinkling of dried lemon zest.

Reflections at 25

If my subconscious could speak, it would probably say this:

Happy birthday! Congratulations! You are now a quarter of a century old. Congratulations for making it through another year. Congratulations on your three high distinctions and 6.75 GPA. Congratulations for not failing. Congratulations for not hurting anyone this year. Congratulations for not living in a twenty-seven storey apartment. Don't you wish you did though sometimes? Don't you miss living alone? Being left alone? Don't you miss that great big window over the city - night lights illuminating everything in sight but that beneath? Feet dangling in the open air, just one step, just one push. Don't you wish you could relive that moment and do things differently? Take a leap of faith instead of picking up that phone. Don't you wish you could repeat all those moments of mistake? No. Don't go. Stay. I love you. What is it like to carry the world on your shoulders? What is it like on every birthday, every Christmas, every New Years Eve to feel a gaping expanse in your heart where her hand should be, connecting you to all of the things that are right in the world? What is it like to never feel content or forgiven, to ache from the emptiness that you created, to wish to rewind time to right the impossible? Today will be filled with meaningless congratulations. Only twenty-five years passed, and still a lifetime remaining.