Eating Melbourne

Foodie Little Sis and my partner J like to have Grand Cook-Offs whenever she visits Melbourne. I also like them to have Grand Cook-Offs, because then I get to eat the proceedings.

There’s always score-sheets, and usually there has to be a theme. (The last one was Dessert-Off, closely fought but won by J on the strength of his coconut lime pudding.) This time they decided that it had to be a national cuisine that neither had prior experience in cooking. Somehow they landed on a country that, let’s face it, is not exactly known for its culinary magnificence: Russia.

Our judges: Maria (primary school teacher; reinstated to the judging panel only after promising not to be “too nice”); Stefan (German; known for being rather brutal in his judgements); KB (PhD geologist and expert eater); and yours truly. Each dish was to be judged out of 20, with points awarded for taste, presentation, authenticity and originality.

J did the table decorations:

and we had a communal (non-competitive) starter of smoked trout with creme fraiche, dill and cornichons:

Absolutely divine. In fact I plan to eat this again very soon. Give me a nice loaf of sourdough and a bit of this trout, and I’ll be happy as larry any night of the week.

And now… the first competitive dishes. 

Foodie Little Sis’s entree was a potato and fish soup with dill. She removed the fish from the bones and then made the fish stock from scratch, and poached the flesh in the fish broth.

The judges gave her high marks from authenticity – in particular from Stefan, the only one of us who’d actually been to Russia. “It’s so bland! So boring! So RUSSIAN!” he announced. Marks for taste were not so high, as the broth had not been quite hot enough to fully cook the fish so there were some raw bits.

J’s entree was Apple-Cinnamon Duck. Stefan commented that the dish’s appearance reminded him of “an old poo [he] had seen in the park” – the chef was devastated. Reasonably high points were awarded for taste, but the recipe required the duck breasts to be boiled – why, Russia, why?? thought I.

Foodie Little Sis’s main course, I have to say, was the dish of the night. A whole fillet of salmon was layered with sauteed onions and mushrooms, then wrapped in puff pastry; sliced to serve, each slice was drizzled with fresh dill and salmon caviar. Magnificent. Do ordinary Russians eat such a dish? We decided we were prepared to overlook it.

J’s main course was “Kurnik”, a traditonial Russian wedding dish: chicken pie with layers of mushrooms and pancakes; accompanied by Moldovian Potato Salad, packing nuclear gigapowers of garlic. The pie ranked well for authenticity – we all bought J’s accompanying story of the wedding tradition of one pie being given to the groom and one to the bride… alas, it tasted like crapka. “The chicken tastes like it has been boiled”, commented Stefan. “It has been boiled,” replied J.

Foodie Little Sis’s dessert was a traditional Easter recipe: Kulich, a fruited cake sort of like panettone, served with Pashka, a sort of cheesy fruited custard. Didn’t get high points for presentation, but it tasted fabulous.

J’s dessert was a traditional honey cake, served with a berry coulis and icecream. Everyone loved the presentation apart from me – I thought it looked like the cake had been stabbed and was bleeding all over the plate – but it didn’t rank as highly for taste as Foodie Little Sis’s kulich with pashka. I think it was a bit overcooked. (Side note: I turned the leftover honey cake into a rather spectacular bread and butter pudding two nights later, by slicing it up into a dish and baking it with a mixture of evaporated milk, eggs, sugar and sultanas. YUM.)

The final scores were very close… or they would have been, if Foodie Little Sis’s main course of salmon pie hadn’t completely wiped the floor with J’s kurnik. All judges noted the inherent divergence of authenticity versus taste, as far as Russian cuisine was concerned! Judges agreed that perhaps next time the contestants should choose a theme that actually rewarded a little more culinary flair.