Dinner last night was at the Blue Eye Dragon in Pyrmont, a restaurant specialising in Taiwanese cuisine. Being early diners, en route to catching a screening of Paprika, we were the first customers through the door – a good thing, as the noise levels picked up quickly once the place started to fill up.

I love the place, as soon as I step in. The muted grey walls and wood tones add a sense of cosiness and warmth to the room – not to mention the gorgeous collection of teapots on display. Something tells me I’ll be in good hands if I order some tea. In fact, there are two types to choose from and the one we get at $2.50pp comes in a cute no-drip teapot with it’s own tealight warmer.

Beverages sorted, it’s on to the food. The menu is so tastily worded, there’s nothing on it that I wouldn’t happily order to try. We start with a set of four Calamari Rolls with Salted Duck Egg and Seaweed, which arrives as strips of tender calamari wrapped around a seaweed covered yolk, all of which are encased in a crisp golden crust. Delicious, and perfectly seasoned. The two mains that we share are Prawns with Dry Chilli & Shallot in Gongbao Sauce and QLD Scallops in House XO Sauce and Vegetables. Both are beautifully presented, tasty dishes, though I did think the prawn dish was perhaps a little bit on the greasy side.

Because it sounded so intriguing, we stick around for the sticky rice dessert. Sticky Rice with Chinese Wolfberries & Sultana, with Sweet Peanut Powder and Coriander, as stated on the menu, arrives very simply as a small mound of plain sticky rice topped with sweet wolfberries and sultanas, surrounded by said peanut powder and torn coriander leaves. As a whole, it was a very well balanced dish. I liked the chewiness of the rice, and while it’s not always my idea of what I’d like dessert to be, it somehow really appealed to me that evening, and I managed to demolish the majority of it, despite claiming to be “not very hungry” at the start of the evening!

A satisfying meal in elegant surroundings is perhaps what appeals to Blue Eye Dragon’s regulars (of which there seem to be many). It isn’t as cheap as you’d expect a meal in a more typical Chinese/Taiwanese restaurant to be, but you do get a sense that the food is lovingly prepared and surely that’s worth paying the extra for.

Blue Eye Dragon
Shop 2, 42 Harris Street,
Pyrmont 2009.

Yeast isn’t always my friend, but I love it. Fresh, quick action, or dried. It’s like seeing life in motion. Especially dried, which is also more handy to have around the house. Once those little dried granules hit the warm sugary water and start foaming, I transform into the mad professor or Dr. Frankenstein in my head, “Yes, rise, my pretties, riiiiiise!”

Ahem.

To celebrate Zorra’s first Bread Baking Day (a soon to be monthly event), I have made a batch of flatbreads following a Jamie Oliver recipe. The original recipe was for a chickpea moroccan flatbread, but I adapted it slightly with the addition of herbs and some dukkah that I had made a batch of recently. If you do not have dukkah lying around, you can follow the original by substituting with lightly crushed coriander and cumin seeds (these provide texture and flavour), or just add whatever else you might like – dried chilli for example.

These flatbreads are incredibly easy and fun to make. They only require a single prove and cook in a matter of minutes! The best part was watching the breads puff up in the oven and most satisfyingly, they were very very tasty. So it’s with great enthusiasm that I share with you the recipe for..

Dukkah and Rosemary Flatbread :
(makes 5 flatbreads)

10g dried yeast ( 1 1/2 sachets)
15g sugar
310ml warm water
500g bread flour (strong four)
15g Maldon salt
2 Tablespoons Dukkah
1 large sprig rosemary
1 x 125g tin beans of choice (four bean mix, chickpeas, etc), mashed lightly with a fork

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water. Let stand for 5-10 minutes until yeast mixture is frothy.

In a bowl, weigh out the flour and salt. Add the Dukkah, rosemary leaves, mashed beans and yeast mixture. Stir to combine as much as possible, then start bringing the dough together with your hands.

Knead for about 5 minutes until the dough is smooth and not sticky. Allow to prove in a covered bowl until double the size.

Preheat the oven to 230’C.

When proved, knock back the dough, divide into 5 balls and roll each one out to 1/2cm thick (or thinner, if you want it crispier). Place the rolled out dough directly on the bars of your oven rack and cook for 5 minutes. You should be able to cook 2 flatbreads at a time this way (one on each oven rack). Cool for a few minutes before eating (and try to stop at one!).

The thing about work is, I’m quite enjoying it at the moment. Mind you, as I write this, I’m in the middle of a week of R’n’R. But I can’t wait to get right back into it next week. I am one of those unfortunate people who can’t seem to switch off from work. A bit like Sergeant Nicholas Angel in Hot Fuzz, without the amazing track record to match.

Danishes for 200, chocolate tarts for 700, and upcoming, chocolate croissants for 200. Having never made anything in such big numbers before, some of these orders occasionally give me mild panic attacks. The chocolate tarts for example, which I eventually managed to pull off in 2 1/2 days. In retrospect, it was a breeze, but the week I started making them, I was a little unsure if they would be ready in time. Also, in a comedy of errors, someone managed to land a foot right into a tray of prepared tarts. The 10% extra we always make, covers for humorous incidences like that.

Prior to this current job, I had never ever made a danish or croissant. So it’s thanks in small part to my obssession with acquiring cookbooks that I had some recipes to reference from, and tweak to my satisfaction. This batch of croissants, a second and much more convincing attempt than my first go at making croissants, comes from Tartine. Straight from the oven, they were crispy and caramelised on the outside, and soft and buttery on the inside. “Darling, it’s just like being back in Paris, standing in front of Poujouran on rue Jean Nicot with a paper bagful of warm pastries!” B was less convinced, possibly because the croissant I eventually gave him to try was 3 days old and cold from having been fridged. That’s what you get for spending a week in Singapore without me! 😛

Still, the challenges keep coming. If you can picture it, I’m the one who, at the end of the week, can be found in a quiet corner, checking through the list of future orders. With knitted brows, I’d be muttering, “You’ve got to be kidding.. you want how many of what?”. Once, it was a ridiculous number of lamingtons; another time, “mixed berry flans”.. which thankfully turned out to be a typo, because I don’t know what the heck a flan is! “Sometimes, I think you guys just make these things up!”.

This week, I trialled little cheesecakes in shotglasses. Because of the large numbers involved, I thought setting the mix in a shotglass might be nicer and easier. I lightened the mix so that it still retains it’s flavour, but isn’t as dense as you’d expect from a slice of cheesecake. The juicy cherries in syrup on top provide a nice colour contrast and a balance between tartness and the rich and creamy, while a gingered biscuit base lends a bit of texture overall.

What lies ahead? Churros. Never made it before. Tested a couple of recipes out last week. Next week, frying for 300. Bring it on.