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Sydney Eats 2009

On Plates Now from March 2009

Fish

We’re spoilt for choice at this time of year with summer’s best fish still in good supply. Even farmed barramundi, which is popular for its consistency, is particularly good now thanks to the warm weather; watch those barras slim down as the cool weather approaches. Cottage Point Kiosk is poaching this versatile fish in a spicy coconut sauce and serving it on a banana leaf with steamed basmati and coriander chilli salsa. Bathers Pavilion is also using it, pan-fried, and hinting at the onset of autumn by serving it with Puy lentils and roasted cauliflower.

Mussels are also in great condition right now. They tend to be a bit shabby around October when they spawn, but with that now well behind them, they’re firing along on all their juicy cylinders. Next door in the more casual café part of the Bathers Pavilion operation, they’re serving black mussels from Spring Bay in Tasmania, cooked with garlic and cream, accompanied by chips and salad.

Snapper’s a summer fish and we’re seeing plenty of the pink variety from New Zealand, South Australia and NSW.  Lakeside Fish Markets in North Narrabeen are using New Zealand pink along with their usual flathead and bream and will batter, crumb or grill fillets to order.

Meat

Recent rains have watered plenty of pasture, so lamb is good from everywhere except Victoria where grazing lands have burnt in the recent bushfires.  Lamb’s not always a big mover on Chinese menus unless you go to a Uighur restaurant, serving the food of the Turkic Muslims of China’s northwest. Uighur Cuisine shows Middle Eastern influences with its lamb kebabs and gosh nun, a minced-lamb pastry that’s similar to Turkish gozleme.

Obviously, there’s no pork on the menu there, but there’s plenty in other Chinese joints nearby and, with the rains up north making grain cheaper, pork might be better value than usual. At the Chinese Noodle Restaurant you’ll find a hot, rich sauce of minced pork adorning a pile of handmade wheat noodles served cold with pickled cucumber. It’s a wacky combo of temperatures and textures but, believe us, it works.

Fruit

Those Victorian bushfires have played havoc with fruit and veg supplies with many normally cheap staples rocketing in price. And it’s not just the south of the country that’s suffering: floods in northern NSW and north Queensland have trashed many crops and farmers are struggling to reach boggy orchards.

The good news is figs are plentiful and cheap. Café Mint in Surry Hills is grilling them and serving them with chicken livers, which have been sauteed with pomegranate molasses and topped with basturma, a type of cured beef. And come dessert at Da Gianni Trattoria, they’re braised and served with olive oil and rosemary cake. This little Annandale local also gives them the classic antipasto treatment with prosciutto and shaved reggiano parmesan. Another Italian treatment is at Leichhardt’s Osvaldo Polletti, where they serve them fresh with veal involtini and vin cotto.

Bananas are also showing up around town and at Sugaroom you’ll find them roasted and served with peanut butter parfait, Frangelico and maple syrup. Keeping up your fruit intake has never been so easy.

Vegetables

Eggplant is proving as dependable as ever, despite floods, fire and pestilence. Try it at Café Mint in their eggplant saluki where it’s roasted, finely diced and served as a salad with julienned tomato, onion, coriander and garlic alongside lamb fillets. Billus gives it the Punjabi treatment in a dry curry cooked with potatoes and spices. Osvaldo Polletti is making the most of it, too, teaming it with capsicum for caponata to serve with the fish of the day and they’re also reviving pasta a la Norma. This traditional southern Italian dish gets a change here with cavatappi (corkscrew-shaped pasta), and meatballs, but the classic salted ricotta topping remains.

Although, strictly speaking, zucchini flowers should be scarce now, there’s a guy at Windsor growing them in igloos and Frank from Osvaldo Polletti reckons they’re as good as any he’s seen. They’re  floured and fried and served as part of a seafood fritto misto.

Fennel, from baby through to big, features on menus, too. At Sails, chef Stephen Skelly purees it and serves it with roasted scallops and preserved lemon.

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