The Forager: Summer on a stick, Poh’s corner
In this week’s column: iceblocks made with local and seasonal ingredients, what’s new at the Showgrounds Farmers’ Market, Indian street food in the name of cricket, brunch African-style, festival events and more.
Suck it and see
It sounds too good to be true, but Sunshine Iceblocks makes a range of iceblocks from locally produced seasonal fruit with the only ingredient from outside South Australia being sugar.
And once you have tried the chocolate avocado flavour, you will never again look twice at a chocolate Paddlepop.
“We make iceblocks from whatever is in season,” says Brendan Lineage, who launched Sunshine Iceblocks in the summer of 2012.
“At the moment we have spiced plum; peach and cream; chocolate avocado; strawberry; raspberry lemonade; apricot and blueberry; plum and basil; blackberry and apple; nectarine, honey and camomile; and peach, apricot and raspberry.”
Lineage makes the iced treats at his Bull Creek property, near Strathalbyn, using fresh whole fruit which is hand-processed and ends up in a glycol freezer in stainless-steel moulds.
“The glycol freezer goes down to -30 degrees and freezes instantly at -15 degrees – the faster an iceblock freezes, the finer the ice crystals, which makes a smoother texture,” he explains.
Lineage sells at the Willunga Farmers’ Market and the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers’ Market, and supplies a handful of retailers around Adelaide and on the Fleurieu Peninsula, as well as festivals and events.
“We make up to 400-500 iceblocks per day, depending on what we have on, but we plan to expand as demand is just snowballing – we need more freezer and cool-room space.”
Lineage has planted a few acres to fruit trees and other ingredients, but it will be some years before the orchard is mature enough to supply the production kitchen.
“We are also trialling the use of apple juice as a sweetener to cater for diabetics.”
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Sunshine Iceblocks will be at the St Jerome Laneway Festival at Harts Mill, Port Adelaide, on Friday.
Poh’s corner
There’s been a ruffling of the tents at the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers’ Market, with Poh Ling Yeow now taking out the pole position at the entrance to the market.
The idea behind the move is to create an eating hub which offers more than the traditional breakfast options, says market general manager Elaine Ratcliffe.
“Poh will be offering brunch and lunch options to encourage people to stay longer, and she will be cooking on site most weeks.”
Poh’s brunch/lunch menu includes pancakes, paella, pizza fritta, toasties, pastries, tarts and cold-pressed juices. Her range of Jamface Table sauces and crackers are also available.
Just Gluten Free
In another new Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers’ Market development, food-intolerances caterer Just Gluten Free’s Sabine De Vuono has now opened a stall selling bread, pasta, pastry, muffins, quiches, pies and sauces catering for people who follow gluten-free, dairy-free, fructose-free, FODMAP and vegan diets.
De Vuono, who also has a shop in Hindmarsh, is a qualified chef who has been studying food intolerances for the past 20 years. She is also vice-president of the Celiac Society. For the past four years, she has been catering to the rising demand for diet-specific foods.
“Customers come into the shop with a long list of food they can’t eat and it makes me feel really sad and I say, ‘Let me see what I can do’ – my customers become my friends,” explains De Vuono, who migrated here from Italy seven years ago.
“My family is in restaurants and catering in Italy, and I started to become interested in food intolerances because more and more people were requesting gluten-free, dairy-free, etc.
“There are so many people starting to make gluten-free now, but not many people know how to do it properly – there is a real risk of cross-contamination.
“Most people think that using gluten-free flour is enough, but if the same knife that has been used to slice conventional bread is used on a gluten-free loaf, the customer can end up feeling sick and becoming quite frustrated.
“My kitchen is 100 per cent gluten-free; I’m very strict about everything from product delivery to recipe development.
“I develop my personal mix of flours (corn, maize, potato, tapioca) for every single recipe to make sure I get the right taste and texture.”
SOME Foods
Also catering for people following a low FODMAP diet are SOME Foods’ Martine and Ronnie Banks, who produce a range of Italian, Indian and Thai cooking sauces at Strathalbyn.
FODMAPs are fermentable short-chain carbohydrates (sugars) found in many common foods, that when poorly absorbed in the small intestine can cause gas and contribute to the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. Common examples of these carbohydrates are: onion, garlic, beetroot, artichoke, wheat, rye and legumes (oliogosaccharides); lactose (disaccharides); honey, pear, watermelon and mango (monosacharides); and apple, apricot, prune, mushroom, cauliflower, celery and sweet corn (polyols).
Catering for the cricket fans
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In celebration of the “gentleman’s game”, Dhaba @ The Spice Kitchen has been transformed into The Cricket Café for the remainder of the cricket season.
Until the end of March, The Cricket Café is serving Indian Pimms (“with a touch of rosewater”), cricket-themed cocktails and Indian street food that you generally don’t find in Adelaide, says owner Ragini Dey.
“The food will reflect not just the regions of the 20-20 teams, but also World Cup cuisines – South African, Indian and Bangladeshi – and also the kinds of things you would eat while watching a cricket match in those countries.”
Expect dishes such as duck cooked in coconut curry served in a string hopper (rice noodle pancake); prawn idlis (steamed rice cakes) with hot, peppery prawn sauce; authentic goat biryani; make-your-own chicken tikka rolls (egg paratha with salad and chutneys, a bit like eating Peking duck); Indian Sloppy Joe (“a Mumbai special” of spicy beef dip with crunchy bread); and chicken-liver toasties (plain white bread spread with duck fat instead of butter and filled with sauteed chicken liver, onions and garlic and put it in a normal toastie machine).
The restaurant has been decked out with a couple of big TV screens for watching the games, and when the games are not on, there will be black and white cricket documentaries, cricket memorabilia and old books to look at.
“It’s like being in the members’ bar at the cricket – our first customer was ex-cricket captain Barry Jarman and we even have the original ‘Members Bar’ sign from Adelaide Oval (see picture above).”
Brunch at Africola
Chef Duncan Welgemoed has created a new brunch menu at his funky South African-themed restaurant on East Terrace.
You’ll find Bloody Marys, Afrikaners and Monkey Shoulders to sip with servings of deep-fried mortadella (“the best invention since the Scottish deep frizzled a Mars Bar”), black pudding and scones, charred and raw asparagus with fried eggs and horseradish, salt-beef bagels and more for “the clever hangover cure”.
Brunch is served at Africola every Sunday from 10.30am to 2.30pm.
What’s on…
Thinking and Drinking – February 6
WOMADelaide Planet Talks and Science in the Pub Adelaide have teamed up to present a free pre-festival event – “Sustaining Life: can humans, wildlife and agriculture coexist?” at the Brunswick Hotel on Friday at 6pm. It promises to be a stimulating evening for both the brain and liver, featuring WOMADelaide 2015 Planet Talks speakers Peter Langridge, Jodie Pain and Andrew Lowe.
Carnevale – February 7-8
Adelaide Showground is the venue for this weekend’s festival of Italian culture, where you can sample traditional regional dishes such as risotto di mare, polenta con funghi, porchetta and zeppole. New this year is San Remo Kids in the Kitchen, a chance for budding chefs to make dishes such as spaghetti pancakes and macaroni muffins. There will also be cooking master-classes for adults with chef Adam Swanson and barista coffee master-classes. More information is available here.
Book now for…
The National Wine Centre’s Valentine’s Day Wine Lovers’ Dinner – February 14
Limited to 20 couples only, this intimate four-course dinner will be held in the Vines Room from 6.30pm with live acoustic music by Brian Ruiz. Tickets are $99 per person, including a gift for each couple. More details here.
Wine 101 – April 2
Wine 101 is a free six-week online introduction-to-wine course starting on April 2 and run through Adelaide University. The MOOC (massive open online course) covers wine styles and sensory evaluation of wine, grape production and vineyard management, wine production, maturation and packaging, and an introduction to wine research.
Meet, Make & Eat at the Cellar Door Wine Festival – February 20-22
At this new immersive food and wine experience, participants tour the festival’s regions, meet the producers, select their favourite produce, then head to the kitchen with a leading chef to prepare a feast to be enjoyed in the Festival Farmers’ Market with their chosen wines.
This year’s festival will host a record number of more than 170 South Australian wineries, breweries and food producers representing 15 regions, and also includes a greater number of food and wine master-classes, including a Grange Hermitage vertical tasting.
The full Cellar Door Wine Festival program is available here.
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