adelaide

We were in Adelaide, Australia this month visiting Ferguson Australia, a premium seafood processor, supplier and retailer.

Their specialty is Australian Rock Lobster and the season has just started.

We also visited the K1 Vineyard in the Adelaide Hills wine region of Mclaren Vale. Below are tastings of their Chardonnay 2012 and Rose 2013.

At the Central Market, we perused the stalls to see what was in season. There were beautiful bunches of butter, red and coral lettuce.

Really vibrant rainbow carrots.

And these not so fresh looking, thick skinned, but actually alright tasting Muscat-like grapes. They must have been leftover or rejects from a wine, table grape or raisin vineyard given how low they were priced.

To round off our trip, we had a lovely lunch experience at Celsius which was opened by a chef who once worked at the famed Noma in Copenhagen. The chef sources local ingredients, uses produce grown on the restaurant's own farm and serves it all with a modern twist. Our starter was a really fresh and pretty salad of Raki cured Kingfish, apple, cucumber and whey. We especially loved the edible floral additions.

For our mains, we decided to try kangaroo (when in Rome...) which was served slightly rare (as it is a very lean meat) and tasted very venison and caribou-like. The kangaroo was paired with turnips (served 3 ways; pickled, ribbon-ed and pureed) and onions (served 2 ways; red wine reduction and powdered form). It was all a delicious melody of complimentary and satisfying flavours.

seafood of the season

We didn't know that when a case of lemons was ordered this month, we would end up with 96 of them. That's a lot of lemons. Well you know how the saying goes, "When life gives you lemons..."

But in our case rather than making lemonade, we decided to pair with some seafood of the season instead. First up are Alaskan King Crab Legs. They arrive fully cooked and frozen (done on the boat apparently like on Deadliest Catch), so all you have to do is thaw, blanch in hot water to rinse off the excess salt (from the seawater), and serve chilled or warmed via steaming, baking, or grilling. 

The season has just started for Barron Point Oysters too. They're a type of pacific oyster that hail from the pristine waters of Puget Sound in Washington State.

These type of oysters are fairly large and plump. They range in size from 3 to 3 1/2 inches.

Serve raw with a lemon vinaigrette or maybe try Sriracha or wasabi.

Escolar from Hawaii is also available in HK now. It's an oily, tender and meaty white fish that sometimes appears on restaurant menus as Butterfish. If you search for it on the Internet, you'll find many gastro-related warnings about consuming large quantities of this fish because of its oily content.

We've had it several times in the past with no issue, enjoying it especially at Roy's in San Francisco. It's a very flavourful and delicious fish that requires little dressing or saucing. Substitute it with Nobu's Black Cod with Miso recipe or have it simply steamed with ginger, green onions, and topped off with some low sodium soya sauce.

And we've posted about Langoustine or Scampi before, but we just had to write about it again because The Drawing Room served us a really delectable dish with it. The New Zealand langoustine came paired with Italian coco beans, Italian ovary egg mushrooms and Turkish figs. It was a lovely melody of flavours with the carmelized figs adding sweetness and a crunch of sugar, the buttery textured beans contributed the perfect amount of starch, and the mushrooms were a sponge of all combined juices.

fall equals spring

Fall in America means Spring in Australia and this is where our latest shipment of goodies comes from.

Tender and very sweet asparagus stalks. We're usually not big asparagus fans, but we have to admit that these were exceptionally good. We had them steamed, blanched, grilled, and stir-fried with with shrimp.

These Aussie mandarins were the sweetest we've ever had. They did have a ton of seeds though, but other than that little extra effort they were a delight to have.

On your supermarket shelves these days, you'll find ECO bananas from Australia. They're environmentally friendly and you'll recognize them instantly from their red wax tip.

And in the refrigerated section, you'll find these new specialty items from the US. Framani sausages from Berkeley, California.

And Blue Hill Bay smoked seafood from Brooklyn, New York.

We also got a big 5 pound bag of black quinoa with our delivery, so we're in search of more good quinoa recipes. We find that it has a nuttier flavour than regular white quinoa, but we couldn't really tell the difference in taste from the red kind.

Last week's SCMP Post Magazine featured quinoa prominently in its recipe section.

the hidden world of table grapes

We find ourselves in Central Coast, visiting vineyards in the heart of California's fruit farms and learning all about the various varieties of table grapes. As far as we could tell, what you found in your supermarket were really only 3 types grapes; green, red or black (either with or without seeds). But as we learned on this trip, this was just easy marketing for the average consumer.

These seedless black grapes are actually called Autumn Royal.

They have a thicker, chewier skin and an intense grape juice-like sweetness to them.

These red grapes are called Big Globe or Red Globe.

They are meaty, have seeds, and are characteristically bigger and rounder than your average red seedless grape. Apparently these are the most popular variety to be shipped to Asia.

These red seedless grapes are called Krissy.

Thinner skin, good crunch (especially when we sampled them right off the vine), and a generally good snacking grape.

Ever wonder why fresh grapes have a dusty look to them when you pull them out of the bag? Well that shows you there has been very minimal handling of the fruit when it is cut from the vine, carefully weighed and inserted into its plastic packaging, and then packed into Styrofoam boxes. We learned that table grapes are picked and packed immediately on the field. A constant stream of trucks will then rush these packed boxes to a cooling warehouse where they will await shipping. As you can imagine, this is very labour intensive and requires staff with skilled expertise to harvest and prepare the grapes for maximum flavour, quality and quantity. This is also all done under very sunny and hot (85-95F) temperatures.

Do you know what shattering means when it comes to table grapes? It's when you lift a bunch of grapes and some of them fall off the stem. The more that fall off, the greater the shatter. A buyer will randomly check a crate of grapes for their shatter before committing to a shipment. This crate of green seedless grapes was rejected because there was too much shattering upon inspection and they were already showing signs of dehydration because of the brown discolouration in the stems.

These green seedless grapes may look very average, but they are actually a very special variety called Cotton Candy. And they're named that because they actually smell and taste like cotton candy! Intensely sweet and fragrant because of its high sugar content with less crunch than your regular, tarter green seedless.

And these odd looking black grapes are special too because of their elongated shape. They're not widely available yet, but taste like a regular black seedless.

They're called Moon Drops and you get quite a lot of grape in one bite.

stone fruit production

Kingsburg, California is where you'll find many of the world's largest producers of peaches, nectarines and pluots.

Being here was like watching a live episode of Unwrapped (but about fruit) unfold in front of us.

The fruit is cleaned and sprayed.

Quality, weight checked, sticker stamped.

 And then packed into boxes and crates to await shipping.

These pluots are all destined for Asia. The dusty look on them is called "bloom". The pickers and packers try to preserve this bloom by handling them as little as possible. The dustier it looks, the better the bloom, and hence greater the demand.

Chances are that if you ate a Californian peach, nectarine, or pluot this month, it was packed here.

nuts grow on trees

Summer break and we're off to California to check out some fruit orchards and farms. On our way, we see many almond and pistachio orchards.

Although we know that almonds and pistachios are tree nuts, it never really occurred to us that they actually grow on trees like fruit.

But they do and it was really interesting and cool to see.

kale

What's not to love about kale? It's been America's superfood for several years and it's now catching on over here. Kale is often confused with the local Chinese kale or gai lan (also known as Chinese broccoli).

They're from the same family of green leafy vegetables, but the kale we're talking about is so much more delicious and versatile.

We've been sampling 3 types of kale over the last couple of months; curly kale, lacinato kale, and tuscan cabbage.

Kale can be easily prepared as a side dish by simply sautéing with garlic, olive oil and coarse salt. Also, kale chips make a really good guilt-free snack. And a really energizing and cleansing way to start off your day is by having a kale shake. Just add some citrus or any other juicy fruit, berries, ginger, garlic, flax seed, hemp seed, etc. It's really arbitrary and totally up to you. Blend it all up and presto! Instant breakfast, pick-me-up or hangover cure all in a glass.

And we're including our Marinara Sauce recipe below because with one of the kale shipments above, we got 90 very ripe Roma tomatoes.

40 large Roma tomatoes, quartered

4-6 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

5 cloves garlic minced

1 bunch Italian parsley chopped
1 bunch sweet basil chopped
salt and pepper

Heat olive oil over medium in a large sauce pot. Add onion and carrot and cook until soft and caramelized, about 5-10 minutes. Add garlic, stirring constantly so that it doesn't burn, cook for 2 minutes longer. Add tomatoes, parsley, basil and bring to a boil. Lower heat and let gently simmer for 1-2 hours (depending on how thick your like your sauce). Check and stir every 20 minutes to make sure there's no sticking on the bottom of the pot. When the sauce has reached a desired consistency, season with salt and pepper. Serve with your favourite pasta or as an accompaniment to a meat dish.