Food review by Mark Bradford and wine review by Stephen O'Halloran

Food

Responding to his “call to the kitchen”, Tuesday saw first-time chef of the day Dr Julian Parmegiani preparing, not surprisingly, an Italian-themed lunch.  He was assisted by members Rob Guthrie and Paul Mitchell with canapes, and friend Jordan in the kitchen along with the REX team.

Canapes

Rob’s first offering was a goat’s curd tartlet.  The filling was a combination of goat’s curd and ricotta with mint, topped with finely sliced zucchini and zucchini flowers marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a little chilli oil.  Dressed with crushed pistachios and micro herbs, this was a colourful and tasty way to commence our lunch.

Next up was Rob’s polenta croutons with sausage and mushrooms. These were a thin spread of nduja sausage atop polenta croutons, with mushrooms fried off in oil and garlic.  The meat – no skin – was from a pork and fennel sausage, with a slice of Fontina cheese and baked for 10 – 15 minutes. Rob explained that nduja is a spreadable, delightfully spicy sausage from the southern part of Calabria, characterised by its flaming red hue thanks to the region’s native Calabrian red chillies.

We ended the canape course with Paul’s Caprese skewers.  These were Mozzarella balls tossed in olive oil, garlic powder and kosher salt, then an Italian mix of oregano, basil, capsicum, rosemary, parsley and time; refrigerated overnight.  Then skewered along with cherry tomatoes, tossed in the same Italian mix, and basil leaves.  Drizzled with balsamic before serving.

Thank you, Rob and Paul. Lots of effort went into the canapes today, which were aplenty.

Main

Julian served us pasta with fennel pork sausage ragu.  The fettuccini was hand made using flour (80% durum and 20% plain), eggs and water – the magic of a Philips Pasta Maker extruding the fettuccini in a mere three minutes. Then sprinkled with flour and stored in a sealed container separated by tea towels.

The soffritto was made with garlic, celery, carrots and onion, boiled off with red wine. Large fennel pork sausages were broken into small clumps and browned, mixed with the soffritto and Mutti Polpa Pronta tinned tomatoes, a pinch of chilli and simmered for two hours.  Fried prosciutto cut into small strips was used to make the fettuccini crunchy.

The pasta was cooked in boiling water for two minutes and then in some ragu for two to three minutes to emulsify.  The dish came to the table with the pasta on a bed of ragu, more ragu on top, parmesan and fresh basil, with chilli on the side.  The pasta was a little “al dente”, authentic to a rustic Italian meal.  Jordan prepared a side of salad with a delicious acidic dressing that was a perfect accompaniment to the protein.

A good hearty authentic Italian dish.  Congratulations Julian on your first Society meal and may there be many more to come.

Cheese

In theme, the Cheesemaster presented Auricchio Provolone Dolce, a hard cow’s milk cheese from Lombardy.  This pasta filata, or stretched curd cheese, is kneaded and stretched while still hot and pliable, before being hand-formed into massive sausage-shaped rolls known as ‘salame’ Auricchio Provolone is made in the Po Valley in Northern Italy using fresh milk from surrounding farms.  Handcrafting ensures a compact texture and prevents folds from forming in the curd which might trap air and compromise quality during the slow maturation process. Once formed, the salame are brined for more than a week before maturation.  The resulting cheese has a soft, compact texture with bright milky flavours and excellent melting properties.

The cheese was accompanied with figs, muscatels, quince paste and walnuts.

During the cheese course we arose to a toast proposed by the President for long-time Member and former Cellarmaster Paul Ferman, who sadly passed away in hospital on the previous Saturday.

Wine

The report for today will be my shortest ever as we all enjoyed only one wine, the Wynns Coonawarra Cab 2006. This was as a result of the appointed wines for today not being ordered, a real test for our Wine Master.  

We ended up drinking a number of wines, all of which were very enjoyable, but the Wynns was the only one that everybody tasted. The wine itself was excellent and travelling very well for an 18 yo. The vintage of 2006 was highly regarded by Wynns and the quality of the year was reflected in the wine. A strongly flavoured wine, dense purple/black fruit with classic Cabernet taste at 14%. It showed very firm tannin and oak on the back palate, a classic Coonawarra. This wine never fails to impress, hence a WFS favourite. The wine had plenty of acid to ensure many years of good drinking ahead. I would like to review it again in 5 years.