Lunch 11 August 2015
This week saw a cast of thousands in the kitchen, starring the reliable Peter Manners (fresh from competing in the City to Surf) and featuring son Andrew with support roles by Nick Reynolds and Neil Galbraith. We kicked off with some terrific duck liver pate on crispbread and simple grilled slices of mild chorizo, with or without supporting biscuit. The main accompanying wine was a 2010 Belgravia Chardonnay from Orange, fresh and showing sweet fruit, but lacking in intensity and length. There was also the predictably great Lustau amontillado sherry on offer for the quick or lucky few.
For the main course, Peter was duck hunting in North Africa and presenting well dissected and varying pieces of that bird – breast, thigh fillets, legs – treated with a Moroccan spice rub, then baked and appearing on the plate inside a ring of tender couscous with peas and chunks of dried dates and apricots for verisimilitude. Good flavours in the duck, although some pieces were a bit chewy on the bone, a spectacular presentation and some good Moroccan notes . A bit of harissa heat might have added to this. Vinously, we were given two masked bottles, both with Austrian themes but one local, one not. They were a 2010 Salomon shiraz-viognier from an Austrian maker on the Fleurieu Peninsula in SA, and a 2009 Triebaumer blaufrankisch from Austria. Most preferred the Oz, showing good balance of fruit and tannin/acid, whilst the import, made from Austria's answer to pinot noir, was a bit thin and lacking in fruit.
Moroccan cheese was mercifully abjured in favour of a L'Artisan Mountain Man washed rind cheese from Timboon in Victoria. Made in small (400g) rounds from local organic milk, this showed a good pale orange rind and nice sticky paste, but fairly lacking in washed rind character and flavour, perhaps because a bit young. A Bhuja snack mix was served with it, moving from Morocco to India.
The matching wines were interesting: a 2007 Devil's Lair cabernet merlot from Margaret River showing lots of the classic, slightly minty flavours typical of the region; and a 2000 Coriole McLaren Vale shiraz, surprisingly elegant for its age and region and drinking at its best.
With the coffee, made from Ethiopian washed beans and showing complex depth of flavour in the mouth with a firm, slightly woody, finish, Spencer Ferrier gave us a final palate-cleanser ; Little chewy macaroons laced with a semi-lethal dose of cayenne pepper. A memorable finish to a top meal.