It’s our birthday this week!!!!

 On Sunday February 28th, Rockpool will officially come of age.

 Turning 21 has made Trish and I reflect on what the future holds for our flagship restaurant. 

When we turned 20 last year, we were immensely proud of how far we had come, and to still be standing strong over two decades later feels like quite the achievement. Rockpool certainly seems to be standing the test of time. 

Moving forward, the future direction of the restaurant will be largely in the hands of our executive chef, Phil Wood. We have had the pleasure of working with Phil for the past 12 months and with his experience in our kitchens as well as The French Laundry and Tetsuya’s, he is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best young chefs this country has to offer. 

Since joining us in March last year, Phil has taken over the reins of the kitchen and thrived on the responsibility. He was recently promoted from Head Chef to Executive Chef and constantly amazes us with his skill and creativity. We have complete confidence in Phil’s ability and while I will continue to be very involved in the menu and as a mentor to him and the team, Phil now has complete creative control of the food side of things. 

Phil Wood (1st left) in the kitchen after a recent function in NZ

We continue to offer a choice of two menus at Rockpool – the four course a la carte menu and the eight course Grand Tasting menu – and we have recently launched our exclusive ‘Chef’s Table’.  Situated in front of the kitchen, it offers private groups a bird’s eye view of all the action and our guests are loving it! 

To celebrate our 21st Birthday, Rockpool will be offering all customers who dine at the restaurant during the week following our birthday, Tuesday March 2nd to Saturday March 6th, a glass of Champagne on us! 

Happy birthday from us,

Neil, Trish and the crew at Rockpool

Great Wines of the World Dinner
Sunday 21 March, from 6pm at Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne

A unique opportunity to join David Doyle, owner of Rockpool Bar & Grill, Andrew Caillard MW, Langton’s Fine Wine Auctions, James Halliday, wine writer and judge, and David Lawler, Sommelier Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne for this dinner.

Neil Perry will craft an exclusive menu using the finest produce to complement a mythical selection of the world’s best wines. These wines, now finalized, have been hand picked from David Doyle’s $40 million wine collection:

1995 Veuve Cliquot La Grand Dame

1998 Albert Mann Schlossberg Riesling

2004 Domaine Bonneau du Martray Corton Charlemagne
2004 Domaine Leflaive Batard Montrachet

2004 Maison Camille Giroud Latricieres Chambertin
2000 Domaine Claude Dugat Charmes Chambertin

1997 Guigal La Turque Cote Rotie
1996 Château Haut Brion

1988 Château d’Yquem

$700 per person with only a handful of tickets remaining.  For bookings please telephone Rockpool Bar & Grill Melbourne on 03 8648 1900.

Coming soon to the ABC…

POH’S KITCHEN

Poh Ling Yeow secured her own cooking show on the ABC after her hugely successful run on Masterchef.

Production of the new series Poh’s Kitchen started in November 2009 in her home town of Adelaide.  The year-long series will see her travelling across the nation trying new recipes.  Neil will join her on her adventures in Episode 4.

ABC from Feb 1, 2010

An insight into part of the Qantas menu planning process by Aimee Bower, Rockpool Consulting’s Menu Planning Assistant.

An astonishing amount of co-ordination happens behind the scenes of putting a meal on a plane. A major focus of Rockpool is creating food that will be fresh, extraordinary and flavourful whilst holding up to all the necessary steps for food on International First and Business Class flights. It’s a lengthy process of research, inspiration, planning, testing, sourcing, creating, apportioning and flying the many hundreds of superb dishes, which land on plates of salivating passengers, miles high around the globe.

For Rockpool’s Kate Barker, much of this consistently innovative task sits on the weight of her shoulders, with the help of a remarkable collaboration between teams at Rockpool and Qantas. 

This summer our test kitchen is heating up, as we are in the exciting and delicious recipe testing phase! Kate, with the help of a number of Rockpool and Qantas chefs and the discerning and thoughtful palate of Neil, are creating and baking to find what will taste best and fly freshest for the next round of in-flight menus that are underway. 

Here we are exploring numerous different poultry and seafood dishes. A sweet corn and Barrossa Valley chicken chowder, Pan fried Suzuki Mulloway fillets, served with freshly steamed asparagus and a crushed Kipfler potato salad. Finished with a disc of olive butter that melts over the fillet, infusing a delicious salty olive flavour.

Seared sea bass, lemon thyme butter, roast salsify and steamed spinach and a refreshing Asian inspired salad of rare southern Bluefin tuna with its exquisite taste and rich texture. Tuna slices are layered over tatsoi leaves, micro herbs, cucumber, daikon radish and edamame soy beans and finished with a sashimi style soy and rice vinegar based dressing. 

Much to our delight the presentation of this round of tested dishes was a roaring success, with a few tweaks here and there to the recipes and accompaniments. We can’t wait to get these exciting new features onto the menus and off the ground.

I would like to wish everyone a great Christmas and New Year. 

Rockpool Group employees, thanks heaps for an amazing year, particularly the last few weeks. You slaved away and made the restaurants better.

To all our wonderful customers out there, thanks so much for all your support, I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow.

To all those tuning into the blog have the best time, I know I will be relaxing, so hopefully you will be doing the same.

 Lots of love to everyone this holiday season!!!

~ Neil

Here at Rockpool 5pm is an extremely popular time of day for that is when staff dinner is served!

Feeding  about 40 starving staff members is no mean feat and our Chefs take it in turn to whip up something delicious and filling to keep the Crew satiated until the last customer waves goodbye at the end of a busy service.

This recipe for Fragrant lamb tagine with potatoes and olives, served with pine nut and currant couscous and mint yoghurt is a real crowd pleaser. 
Many thanks to Will Cowan-Lunn for the recipe too.

Fragrant Lamb Tagine with Potatoes and Olives
Serves 40

3kg lamb shoulder, cut into 3cm chunks
8 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons finely ground black pepper
2 ½ teaspoons powdered ginger
2 pinches pulverised saffron
1 ½ teaspoons turmeric
8 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large onions, minced
2.5kg Desiree potatoes
4 preserved lemons, rinsed
400g Gaetas olives
350ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 bunch coriander, chopped
sea salt, to taste

Trim excess fat from lamb.  In a large casserole dish toss the lamb chunks with the garlic, salt, spices, oil, herbs and onion.  Cover with 1 litre water and bring to the boil.  Reduce heat, cover and simmer over moderate heat for 2 hours, turning the meat often in the sauce.
Peel and quarter potatoes, when meat is almost perfectly tender add potatoes and continue cooking until both meat and potatoes are done.
Quarter preserved lemons and discard pulp.  Rinse and stone the olives.  Add both to the casserole for the last 10 minutes of cooking.  Stir in lemon juice and adjust seasoning as necessary using sea salt.

Pine Nut and Currant Couscous
Olive oil
500g couscous
300g pine nuts, toasted
300g currants
1 bunch mint, chopped
1 bunch coriander, chopped
6 eschalots, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
150g preserved lemon, minced
500ml chicken stock

Place couscous in a large boil.  Boil chicken stock and pour over couscous to just cover.  Tightly wrap bowl with cling film and let stand for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, sweat eschalot and garlic in olive oil until soft.  Add pine nuts, stir for 2 minutes to toast, add currants.  Remove pan from heat and add mint, coriander and preserved lemon.
Run a fork through the couscous to separate the grains.  Add pine nut mixture to couscous and season to taste.

Mint Yoghurt
1kg natural yoghurt
1 bunch mint, chopped
juice of 1 lemon
pinch of ground cumin
sea salt
freshly ground pepper

Combine all ingredients and season to taste.

The Ultimate Team

Neil Perry

Tetsuya and Guillaume

 140 fantastic generous guests and the next thing you know we have a fab night and the Starlight Children’s Foundation is more than $200,000 better off.

We are doing this great event again with the help of Qantas.  Heston and Thomas have also agreed to another date in March 2011, can’t wait!

Ultimate Dinner Samples

For the last few years Sam and I have visited our favourite cheap and cheerful place in Paris is Le Comptoir religiously, the food is simple and really well cooked.  There is a more sophisticated set dinner menu, but we love to sit there at lunch, watch Paris go by and eat beautiful well crafted food. The terrines and other charcutrie are amazing. Suckling pig with lentils and lamb rack with peppers are also simple perfectly cooked and wonderful.

Drink simple wine and relax, then after lunch go for a walk in the nearby Luxemburg gardens…plus the shopping is great in the area as well. In a city where not everywhere you eat is going to be good, this is highly recommended. I believe if you stay in house the breakfasts are delicious and the rooms comfortable, it certainly is in a smart part of town.  

Rockpool News – December 2009 – Christmas Edition

Serves 8

This is an absolute cracker. Easy to make and it looks fabulous all white. There is something really alluring about fresh cake and cream — it takes me back to my childhood, when the local cake shop made all their cakes that way. Those days have long passed, sadly. Don’t look at this recipe and say ‘this is too long for me’. It involves just making a cake, stewing some fruit and whipping cream. It started out life as a quick version of Black Forest Cake, but once you have perfection, why add more cherries and lots of chocolate? Good cooking is all about knowing when to stop. You’ll love where we have stopped.

Cherries in brandy
750 g fresh cherries, pitted
250 ml brandy
2 tablespoons caster sugar

Cake
225 g unsalted butter, softened
225 g caster sugar
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon natural almond extract
9 eggs, separated
250 g dark chocolate, coarsely grated
125 g plain flour, sifted
3 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
100 g ground almonds

Filling
180 ml kirsch
375ml single cream, whipped to stiff peaks

Icing
750 ml single cream
125 g icing sugar, sifted

To make the cherries in brandy, put the brandy and sugar in a pan over low heat and stir continuously, until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring the mixture to the boil. Add the cherries, reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 10 minutes, or until the cherries are quite tender, but still holding their shape. Remove the cherries from the liquid using a slotted spoon, and set them aside. Increase the heat to medium and simmer the liquid for 5–10 minutes, or until almost all the liquid has evaporated and you have a syrup (be sure to watch the syrup towards the end of the cooking time so it doesn’t burn). Toss the syrup with the cherries and set aside to cool completely.

Meanwhile, to make the cake, preheat the oven to 160°C. Grease three 23 cm round cake tins, and line the bases and sides with baking paper. Put the butter, 170 g of the sugar and the vanilla and almond extracts into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the egg yolks, beating until incorporated. Fold in the combined chocolate, flour, baking powder, salt and ground almonds. Beat the egg whites in a bowl with an electric mixer until frothy. Add the remaining sugar and beat to stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the cake mixture in three or four batches. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cake tins, and smooth out the surfaces with a spatula.

Bake the cakes for 20 minutes, or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow the cakes to cool briefly, then turn out onto wire racks lined with baking paper. Cool completely.

To assemble, place one cake upside down on a cake plate. Drizzle with one-third of the kirsch, then spread with half the cream and sprinkle with half the cherries. Place another cake on top and repeat the process. Place the last cake on top, and drizzle with the remaining kirsch. For the icing, whip the cream and sugar together until soft peaks form, then frost the top and sides of the cake. You now have a big beautiful white cake. Yum!

A cracking day was had in Melbourne on Saturday.

Flemington racecourse was a hive of activity and melting people in 30+ degrees Celsius, but Derby Day is always worth it.

I flitted between the Crown and Lexus Marquees – from freshly shucked oysters, cured ocean trout and Squid with romesco at Crown…to the Rockpool Bar & Grill’s signature Wagyu sliders at Lexus, the crowds weren’t short on a good bite to eat.

I’ll be back again for Melbourne Cup tomorrow. Giddy up!

Quail Tarts, Chirashi Zushi spoons and Wagyu Sliders