Pork Chops with Blueberry Sauce

This dish is based on a recipe from a popular Italian recipe cookbook, 'The Silver Spoon". I came across this recipe sometime back, and have always wanted to give it a try, however the price of fresh blueberries has been very prohibitive.

I decided to use imported frozen ones from Chile, South America which cost three times cheaper, which I wonder if the fresh berries will make a difference in the taste (will try it with fresh berries next round to compare.)

I served it with some mashed potato and a stalk of blanched brocollini.

Ingredients:

4 pcs Spare-rib pork chops
Plain Flour, for dusting
25 g Butter
3 tblsp Olive Oil
175 ml Red wine
300 g Blueberries
100 g Clear honey
Salt for seasonings

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade.
2. Dust the chops with flour.
3. Heat the butter and oil in a small flameproof casserole, add the chops and cook, turning occasionally, until browned all over.
4. Pour in the wine and cook until it has partly evaporated, then season with salt.
5. Pass the blueberries through a food processor and mix with the honey in a bowl. Spread the mixture over the chops, then cover the casserole, transfer to the oven and cook for 15 minutes.
6. Leave to stand for 10 minutes, then serve.

Appam & Putumayam - South Indian traditional dishes

This scene could have been in Chennai or Colombo. Well no, this is at The Palms food court at Blackburn Road. The hoppers or appam is a pancake made from fermented rice flour batter. These pancake are quite bland and usually have to be accompanied with sambal, a thick chilli based sauce served as condiments and a small side dish curry of your choice.

The appam is served with a choice of two types of sambal, from the three that are offered, i.e. Pol sambal - which is a grated coconut mixed with ginger and lime juice and some garlic, Katta - a sambal made from dried Maldive fish flake with chilli paste, shallot and salt, or Seeni sambal- a spicy caramelized onions and dried Maldive fish flake condiment.

I had this 'Special Hopper Deal' which includes three plain hoppers and one egg hopper with a Pol (yellow turmeric) and Seeni sambal, and a small serve of lamb curry.

You can also order a Jaggery hopper as a snack or dessert, which is simply the same appam pancake except that Jaggery, the palm sugar is added in. Instead I choose to have the Putumayam - a rice flour dough serve with brown palm sugar and grated coconut.

The appam and putumayam is very familiar to me, as I have lived with the large number of Tamils from South India in Malaysia. I practically grew up with these foods, and I considered myself lucky to be able to continue to enjoy these foods in Melbourne.

Wickedly Delicious Patisserie

I am extremely cautious of restaurant with name already complimenting itself before you even step into it. In this case, my skepticism was unfounded, the food was truely 'wickedly delicious'. We stopped by this place for lunch on our way to pick some raspberry and strawberry. We were happy to have found a new place to stopover on our visit to the Dandenong Hills.

The Wickedly Delicious Pastisserie is owned by the talented pastry chef, Helena Panasweycz. Unfortunately we did not get to meet her, instead we met her mother who is helping out at the restaurant and the sous chef, Molly (picture on the left)

We had croissants, a caramelised onion and steak pie and a raspberry cake. The pie was amazing, with fillings that was so generous with big chunky steak pieces and thick gravy, and most important it was flavoursome.

The croissant was well made with the beautiful crust outside and soft centre, however it could have been better if we have come early when it was fresh out from the oven. The cake is made from hazelnut flour and with raspberry sauce dripped over it. The sauce was the highlight, and it did not dissappoint us.