~ Curious Charlie ~

Good Food & Wine Show - Melbourne 2014 (Part 2) @ Thursday, June 12, 2014

Charlie & Co. was invited to the event courtesy of Bite Communications.

Day 2 of the Food & Wine Show started at 6.20am, we drove today, searched for the cheapest parking and ended up with the most $$ we saw at $17. I forgot my Crowns Signature Club Card. Parking under the exhib. building is perfect, as with a car you can store stuff in it and not have to carry everything around.

We were early! A long line had formed, the Citibank prior entry line. We met Anna from Bite Communications who came all the way from Sydney to join us today, where it's 27c degrees! I believe that's summer. Here it's freezing, though fortunately it was lovely inside.

Barilla's Italian Breakfast with Sammy & Bella

Seadas are a traditional Sardinian fritter, a fried pastry filled with fresh ricotta cheese and drizzled with honey. Particular to the island of Sardinia.They are the region's most famous dessert. Though can be eaten for breakfast.

Seadas

Ingredients for Dough
3 cups "00" flour
1/3 cup semolina
2 free range eggs, plus 1 yolk (set 3rd egg white aside for below)
80 to 100ml water
80g salted butter, softened (or lard)

Ingredients to Fill, Cook and Garnish
extra flour for dusting
1 egg white from above
350g fresh ricotta
50g pecorino sarda, grated
zest from 1 lemon
zest from 1 range
olive oil to fry
honey

Method
In a stand mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook, place plain flour, semolina, whole eggs plus yolk, 80ml water and softened butter. Mix until well combined and add a touch more water if it is too dry. Allow the machine to knead for 5 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Wrap in cling film and let rest for at least 30 minutes.

On a floured work surface roll out the dough to 2 or 3 mm thick. Using a 4 inch fluted pastry cutter (or a glass) cut out 24 disks. Using a pastry brush or your fingers, brush 12 of the disks with egg white.

Grate the pecorino and mix with ricotta, lemon and orange zests. Distribute this mix evenly across 12 disks, cover with another disk and press down firmly on edges to seal.

Heat 1 inch of olive oil in a frying pan until hot (or in a deep fryer to 180 degrees celcius). Fry pastries, in batches, until lightly golden. Drain excess oil on paper towel.
Serve immediately, hot and drizzled with honey.

I like to sprinkle it with sifted icing sugar - or just add it to the filling.

I was delighted to be invited to a pre-show Italian breakfast cooking class with Sammy & Bella (MKR 2011 Winners, NSW) this morning, where we made 'Seadas' which is a savory pastry with a ricotta and citrus rind. The steps were quite simple, roll the dough, cut circles, make filling, fill it, crimp it, fry it in oil. Drizzle with honey and garnish with spinach (from yesterday's pasta class :P).

The honey jars (in the background) were so cute! Anything small is cute. :P Though at weddings if you're having these I would go with larger ones, but this is so cute... Sammy & Bella bought these from Sydney to share with us.

We made three Seadas, (a tip is not to wear dangling earrings while rolling out the dough!) as getting 2mm dough a bit more challenging than we thought.

Showbags! Yes I know they're actually called goodie bags, unless it's at a show and related to it like merchandise - Wicked-themed candy. These ones are the same ones as the sauce workshop ones. The cookies and quite nice! There's a questionable amount of Chinese writing on the packaging, made in Italy for Singapore. Excess stock, in the 100s?

Thanks Anna for inviting us to join this fun workshop! :)

Arriving early we had a chance to check out the Polly Woodside (named after his wife, not parrot), it's a cargo ship from the 50s. There's a fireplace down there, is that safe? This was meant to be the first picture for this post, but it wasn't relevant enough.

Rachel's Yoghurt.

Zumbarons work out to be $2.50 each, average priced. Price check, yes they're $2.50 normally at his store in South Yarra, so we decided to pass. We have yet to check out Zumbo because I will spend too much. :P

Other Zumbo treats. Why is it so small for $9?!

Samplings. 3 for $10. Jam is defined by sugar content.

Tempted, though the banana frittered looks too small, but I love fried banana when they use lady fingers (it's a wider, shorter banana than the average one). Served with vanilla ice cream, it's perfect.

This is the first year I ventured down the cheese alley, as Adrian says I don't know what I'm missing. - He loves cheese and fondue, and has fond memories of fondue as a child.

Cream cheese infused with something 4 for $10.

That cranberry one is amazing... we bought two.

Entered a few competitions, bought some cheese (the one I liked yesterday) and more coconut water (exp in 3 weeks so we bought 2 more today). We split up as le beau & co. went off to a wine workshop while I had lunch.

There was an Wimbledon Cup themed stall that sold an alcoholic drink in cool little plane-like wine glasses, they were selling like hot cakes. Here's a model indicating they're around $3 each and not free samples. Cider le beau likes. And we found a magic blender that grinds everything and can make sorbet.

I have always wanted to decorate one of these doll cakes, though don't like dense cake.

We hung around a bit after the workshop, watched Sammy create 'Salmon with Jalna Yoghurt Sauce', I have got to get an oven. We got some tips on folding and not man handling things that need to be light, and sifting the flour.

There's a 'Grazing Garden' uncarpetted area where they have some hard to find (well for the CBD, because of permits) food trailers. We also got free tea from 'Trailer Made' which was very nice, I'm buying this next time I see them.

Greek Street Food - The Bahh $8

I went with the 'Greek Street Food', a lamb wrap with a couple fries. I like it, but don't love it.

Another oddity, irons by Breville who also does other appliances.

Meet up with le beau to say goodbye, as I was going to my next class in Kensington, while he spent the rest of the day at the show. Lily, Helen and Adrian did the Zumbo workshop in the afternoon which sounds amazing, great as they're going to actually make them at home, rather than me with my once off experience.