More menus

Last night's dinner party was a little less adventurous, it took me until Friday until I got sufficient inspiration to even put the menu together...

Sashimi of tuna and kingfish with ginger and orange oil - should have been sake, but since we don't read Japanese so well, it was actually rice spirit.

Sydney rock oysters with vinaigrette and salmon roe - standard vintage aussie bubbly

Three melon salad with cream and onion - palate cleanser, no wine as such

Red Emperor (tropical fish) with my own Thai-ish sauce, oven baked chips, carrots and green beans. - 1998 Scarborough Chardonnay

Spicey quince with orange almond bread - Liqueur semillon

The first two were Tets recipes again (the second wasn't meant to be, but I had all the ingredients for the vinaigrette so I made it). They were both great, and the salmon roe is a must have with oysters. Wow what a way to improve an already awesome food. And I am talking $6 supermarket salmon roe, not insanely expensive stuff.

The three melon salad is a variation on my great aunt's recipe for watermelon salad. You can't get it wrong, but I suspect not everyone appreciates it the way I do... :)

The Thai-ish sauce is always good, forgiving recipe without too much effort. I normally barbecue fish, but because of the cold I did it in the oven. Unfortunately I wrongly assumed cooking time would be close to the same. As a result I slightly burned the chips, but they were still edible.

The quince was a bit dodgy, I think it needs to be better covered while cooking. It was a bit leathery, but very tasty. I'll have another go at that one and see if I can work out a way to cook it that works better than the recipe.

And oh, the Scarborough was awesome. We've had so many disappointments with chardonnays we've kept too long (that whole pregnancy thing), but this was everything it should be. It remains my benchmark chardonnay.