Gourmet Traveller November 2015

COCKTAIL PARTY Vietnamese spring rolls with mustard leaves and herbs (RECIPE P48) Spring onion fritters and crisp broad bean leaf tips with preserved-lemon mayonnaise (PICTURED; RECIPE P126) Veal schnitzel rolls with chipotle sauce (RECIPE P122) New Melbourne bar Heartbreaker has the right idea: offer a core range of just four classic cocktails – Negroni, Martini, Old Fashioned and Manhattan – but do them brilliantly. Try the same approach with this party menu: serve one or two great cocktails, plus one type of beer and maybe some fizz. Keep it simple. Have fun. BACKYARD BASH Prawn, corn slaw and chervil rolls (PICTURED; RECIPE P50) Lamb and roast carrot sausage rolls (RECIPE P139) Coconut cupcakes with passionfruit curd (RECIPE P160) In today’s craft-beer-obsessed world, longneck bottles of daggy old beer brands such…

Wouldn’t it be great if you could outsource some of that party-season planning, if someone could step in and pull together a great spread for those end-of-year get togethers? We hear you – the Gourmet Traveller hamper has arrived. Created in conjunction with our friends at Snowgoose, we’ve curated a collection of our favourite party snacks. Deputy editor Pat Nourse nominated the muscatels produced by the Garreffa family at Mildura’s Tabletop Grapes as a must-have, and wine editor Max Allen chose the St Ronan’s “complex and creamy” pear cider as a springtime bubbly to get your party started. Will Studd selected the Lincet Brillat Savarin and Le Roi Roquefort for your cheese platter, and Richard Cornish suggested Mason Clarke Preserving Co’s blackcurrant jelly. I nominated Rockpool Bar & Grill’s beef…

ALICE STOREY Contributing food editor Alice Storey has been with Gourmet Traveller since 2007, and in addition to her work with GT, she is also known around her adopted home town of Sydney for her dazzling line of Pure Pops iced-confections. In this issue she came up with a collection of recipes guaranteed to get your party started. “And if all else fails, crack out the tequila, pom-poms and lime,” she says. “That always works for me.” Fire it up on page 132. ANNABEL CRABB ABC writer, broadcaster, and host of the political cooking show Kitchen Cabinet, Annabel Crabb has made an art of charming her way into politicians’ homes with cake and crumbles. She has now co-authored a cookbook, Special Delivery, all about movable feasts. “This book is an…

RISOTTO AL SALTO Risotto alla Milanese has its charms, especially in its home city, but this classic northern-Italian dish takes on another dimension when served “al salto”. The rice is pan-fried in butter as a cake, resulting in a crisp, nutty shell that yields to saffron-rich risotto, served with a creamy Taleggio sauce. Damned delizioso. Rovello18, via Tivoli 2, Milan, +39 02 7209 3709 ANTHEA LOUCAS CHIIZU TORI KATSU Thanks to Izakaya Rintaro, eating claypot rice with Santa Barbara uni (in what feels very much like a treehouse) is now one of my new favourite things to do. But the real standout is a plate of the chiizu tori katsu: the chicken is filled with wagon-wheel cheese, then crumbed and fried. Dangerously good fun. Izakaya Rintaro, 82 14th St, San…

Australia’s artisanal wine fiesta is back – bigger and tastier than ever. Whether it’s acrobatic antics from its founders, unholy after-parties or just general rollicking romps, Rootstock has done more for the idea that wine is supposed to be about good times than any other wine event. “It’s a festival that also never forgets to be a lot of fun,” says co-founder and wine writer Mike Bennie. Together with importers Matt Young and Linda Wiss (Black Market Sake), and sommeliers Giorgio De Maria and James Hird, Bennie is responsible for curating the Sydney event, which champions wines made with minimal intervention. For its third year, Rootstock has expanded its brief to include coffee, raw cheese and indigenous food. “It goes hand in hand with the mores of our wine program,”…

Colour, texture and form sets life-inspired tableware ranges apart. Two days a week Marloe Morgan travels south from her cooperative art studio in northern New South Wales to Lismore, where she’s completing a Diploma of Ceramics. The journey brings her plenty of inspiration for her high-fired, hand-thrown stoneware. From shallow bowls awash with popping orange and yellow, to organic-shaped platters and high-gloss rain-print sake cups – no two pieces are the same and each is designed with sharing, entertaining and everyday use in mind. What techniques do you use in creating your pieces? I throw on the potter’s wheel, slip-cast using moulds of work I have thrown, and hand-build using pinching and slab-rolling techniques. Not all creations can be realised using just the one technique and being able to work…