Tanis Inspired Cocktails 2 – Eld Fen Martini

categories: Chartreuse, Cocktail, Podcasts, St Germain, Tanis, Vodka

There are wondrous things….

I conjured up the Eld Fen Martini based on a Twitter suggestion by the Tanis Podcast. And here it is:

But first….

What Is Eld Fen?

Eld Fen also known as Old Fen or King Wurm is a….presence. And it’s seriously fucking creepy. Eld Fen sleeps in the darkest part of the deepest forest. But it’s waking up. And it’s coming…..

Ever walk alone in the woods and all of a sudden the hairs on the back of your neck prick up and you know something else is there? You can’t see it or hear it….yet…but it’s there? Just waiting? Now imagine doing that in the dark. And you walk into a circle of birch trees and the crisp smells of the forest fade into something that is sweet and swampy and rotten all at the same time.

You thought you would be safe in the circle but you’ve turned around a few times trying to find the thing that is out there and now you have no idea which direction is home. Which is scary because you’re out there in the dark all alone.

Now multiply that fear by a thousand. Because the truly frightening thing is that you’re not alone. Because you’ve woken it up. And it’s coming.

And when it does? There will be blood. And madness. And unspeakable horror.

That’s Eld Fen.

There are magical things….

Sweet hopscotching Jesus! I was trying to give you all the Tanis-y creepy chill and managed to scare myself!. Good thing I’ve got a lovely martini to calm me down!

What Is The Eld Fen Martini?

It’s an Eld(erflower) and Fen(nel) Martini with a splash of Chartreuse. So it’s sweet from the Elderflowers, anisey (Tanis – y?) from the fennel and herby from the Chartreuse. Delicious. The perfect pick me up after a hard day’s work searching for a place that may or may not exist. And may make people crazy when they find it.

The hardest thing about making the Eld Fen Martini was trying to walk the line between making something that conveyed the swampy, sickly aspects of Eld Fen without making it so disgusting that no one would ever want to drink it. I felt my first attempt, which did not have the Chartreuse, was too pretty, this did not at all convey swampy, hint of pus look I wanted.

Hmm….

I bet you never read that last sentence in a food blog before. And now you know why I chose Eld Fen over Hint Of Pus Martini.

What do you mean you don’t want to have a drink with me? It’s not real pus. It’s Chartreuse. Made by Monks. And not those spooky Order of Cenophus Monks from The Black Tapes. These are proper French Monks who are far too busy tending their garden of 130 herbs so they can make lovely, delicious Chartreuse to:

Kidnap an itinerant
Rip someone else’s face off.
Sew said face onto itinerant
Push itinerant off a monastery tower.

Oh FFS, as if I hadn’t already scared myself enough with Eld Fen. Now I’m freaking out about murderous monks!

There are dangerous things….

I wanted the garnish on the Eld Fen to maintain the dark edge. My favorite maraschino cherry was just a little bit too perky for this. So I went with a blueberry /blackberry garnish. And OMG, if you give these a teeny squish? They start to release little lines of juice which look like veins or splashes of blood! Perfect!

You Get What You Deserve

Here’s the recipe.

Eld Fen Martini

Print Recipe

A delicious and refreshing cocktail inspired by the Tanis Podcast

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

For The Fennel Syrup

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 medium bulb fresh fennel, roughly chopped

For The Eld Fen Martini

30ml Fennel Syrup
30ml Vodka
30ml St Germain Elderflower Liqueur
Juice of 1/2 a lime
Splash of Chartreuse
Ice

For The Garnish

2 blueberries
1 blackberry

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

For The Fennel Simple Syrup

Give the fennel seeds a few good whacks with a pestle or heavy rolling pin.
Place the water, sugar, fennel seeds and chopped fennel in a small pan.
Bring to a boil, then simmer for around 10 minutes.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Strain to remove the fennel and fennel seeds.
Place in fridge until required.

For The Cocktail

Chill your martini glass.
Pour the vodka, St Germain, fennel simple syrup, lime juice and Chartreuse into a shaker filled with ice.
Shake, baby, shake.
Pour into your martini glass.
Garnish with blueberries and blackberry that have been slightly bruised to release some juice.
Enjoy!

Notes

You will have enough Fennel Simple Syrup to make plenty of these!

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1

To find Eld Fen, you need a Navigator.

Why you would want to find Eld Fen is utterly beyond me. Is your tv broken? Play some Words With Friends, read a book, write a blog, take up yoga…there are so many things you could do with your life that do not entail pushing you to the brink of sanity and life itself. But if you must find Eld Fen…you’ll need a navigator. And that’s where we’ll go next time….

In the meantime, keep looking.

Signature 1

14
Aug
2016

REPOST – Future Classics – Australian Table – August 2001

categories: Australian Table, Berries, Cocktail, Desserts, Duck, Magazines, Rhubarb, Vodka

Remember how I said I had a fab idea for a whole new series of blog posts whilst on holiday? Here’s the thing, along with hundreds of cookbooks, I also have a huge collection of food magazines, most of which sit on shelves in my back room doing nothing. Once a year, I grab a handful of the oldest, take them on holiday and cut out the recipes I want, throw away the magazines, and cook the recipes over the next 12 months.

Currently I have a few mags from the late 1990’s but they are most from the early noughties onwards. So they are not quite but well on their way to becoming formally vintage. My thought on holiday was….”These are the things that will shortly become the vintage recipes of the future. So, instead of ripping them up, I’m going to start cooking from them. Once a month, I’ll revisit one of these magazines, cook a thing or two and decide if these are future vintage classics – or just junk taking up space in my backroom. Here are the early years to 2013:

And here are 2014 to the present day:

so, to start, we are stepping back in time 15 years to the August 2001 edition of Australian Table:

I also thought it might be fun to revisit some of the content of these magazine as well as the recipes, so without further ado, here are the:

Flavours of The Month – August 2001

This section spoke about what was in season. I thought I might give it a little Retro Food For Modern Times Twist!

Sweet Potatoes

Huh….my plan was to insert a recipe or two from the blog. However, apparently I have made nothing with sweet potatoes. I’ll link to some recipes below.

Baby Bok Choy

Or anything with Bok choky. What have I been cooking in for the last four years?

Cumquats

Hooray – Finally!

Click here for my Four Kumquat Canapés For Four Food Heroes recipes

Pineapples

Melbourne Cup Crab and Pineapple Appetizer and MC Cocktail

Pineapple soufflé

Movies of The Month

Oh man. August 2001 was a GOOD month for movies! I would quite happily watch Bridget Jones’s Diary or Along Came a Spider today. I don’t recall ever seeing Evolution but I am definitely putting that to rights, pronto. I know it’s probably a little late with the picky picky however, Australian Table, I would like to point out that the chocolate-voiced, sloe-eyed maverick investigator is actually called Alex Cross. The ACTOR is Morgan Freeman. And what a difference a letter makes. Slow-eyed which I typed at least a dozen times in the above paragraph makes you sound like you should be taking special classes. Sloe-eyed…hello sexy!

Music Of The Month

Well, I guess you can’t have it all. I listened to none of these at the time nor do i have any real desire to seek out any of these. Maybe the Elvis Costello.

The Food

I chose two recipes from an article on fool proof party food starting with:

Vodka with Crushed Limes

These are my flavours…this was so good! Tangy, sweet delicious!

Crispy Duck with Green Scallion Pancakes

No, these are my flavours! Spicy, seductive!

Berry and Rhubarb Crumble

This recipe came from an advertisement for a 3 in one hand blender. Crumble is pretty much already a classic but the addition of rhubarb instead of the more traditional apple? Genius!

Everything I made from this mag was SUPER! My view is that this is a definite future vintage classic!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little walk down memory lane! I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a mag from September 2001. I hope it’s as good as this one!

Have a great week!

Signature 1

Save

02
Aug
2016

Bali and My Holiday Reading Habits – Repost from 2016

categories: Bali, Books, Travel

Salamat Datang! I’m back from two week in Bali and, whilst I have yet to cook anything, I am serious blogging withdrawal so I thought I would give you a brief catch up on the trip. There were many hours of pool and beachside lazing so I did a LOT of reading. So, I thought I would do a combined what we did / what I read post and also let you know the…ahem…science behind how I choose my holiday reads!

Stop #1 – Ubud

Our first stop was Ubud in central Bali. Unlike the rest of Indonesia which is Muslim, the Balinese are largely Buddhists. They are deeply spiritual and part of their spirituality involves putting out offerings for the Gods each day. Offerings on the ground ward off evil spirits, offerings above the ground attract the good spirits. Sometimes you will also see an offering with a cookie or a cigarette or a glass of arak in it. These are the ancestor offerings and contain the respective ancestor’s favourite things!

They also adorn their statues of the Gods with fresh flowers each day!

I did a Balinese cooking class at Ketut’s Place which was awesome! The class was in an open kitchen overlooking rice paddies and a garden where most of the vegetables we used were grown. Ketut was also a fabulous host, knowledgeable and incredibly funny! I can’t wait to get back into cooking so I can show you some of what I learned! Incidentally, there are only four names in Bali. The first child is always called Wayan, the second is Made, the third child is Nyoman and the fourth child is Ketut. If a family has more than four children, it starts all over again with child #5 being called Wayan.

We did a trip to the Ubud Monkey Forest. Now these guys take the term cheeky monkey to a whole new level – if it isn’t bolted down, they will steal it – hats, sunglasses, cameras are all fair game! We sat down for a little rest at one point and the Fussiest Eater in the World had a monkey rifling through his pockets! Another baby monkey held out what was his prize possession for us to look at – it was a diamond earring. So brazen!

Ubud was lovely, a lovely place to chill out. The cooking class was amazing and I would recommend that to anyone. Food highlight was eating at The 3 Monkeys on the Monkey Forest Road. The downside/s were that it was a little rainy and the villa we stayed in happened to be next to a chicken farm. I don’t know if you’ve ever lived next to a chicken farm but the roosters start crowing at around 3am and do not STFU. Afternoon naps became a thing!

Holiday Reading Habit #1 – The Re-Read/s

I have an annual book cull where I get rid of all the books I have read that I didn’t enjoy (so many this year, it has been a really BAD year for reading for me). Then I do a sweep of my main bookshelves and pull out anything that I look at and think “Now…what was that about again?” and these go onto a holding shelf where they become the basis for the holiday re-read. The holiday re-read is ruthless. It is a case of love it or leave it. Literally. Leave it in the hotel or ideally, swap it for something better in the hotel book exchange!

I had two re-reads in this years picks and OMFG…if anything could convince you of how varied my reading tastes are, have a look at these. Lets start with:

allmenarebastards.com by Allison Rushby

I read this cover to cover on the plane. And had time to spare. Which should tell you everything you need to know. It’s a light, frothy piece of chick lit about a girl who sets up a website called allmenarebastards.com which, quelle surprise, goes viral and how she finds true love despite her man hatin’ ways. It made the 6 hour plane trip to Bali go by relatively quickly but the main character really annoyed me. I also found myself wondering why this had made the re-read shelf and was not dispatched to a better place, i.e. the local charity shop in the first instance.

Verdict: Left it on a jet plane.

The Raw-Shark Texts by Stephen Hall

I bought this when it first came out in 2007 and remember being not entirely taken with it. Obviously not enough to discard it but I remember thinking it was a bit too clever-clever, a little too fond of it’s own high concepts and wordplays (for an example…name the Raw-Shark Texts is a play on words on the Rorschach Tests administered by psychiatrists). I chose it because about a week before I left I was listening to some old booky podcasts and heard it being reviewed favourably on on Hear…Read This. This was enough to get me to pull it off the shelf for another go.

I don’t even know where to begin with this. A man wakes up one morning with no recollection of who he is. Turns out he is Eric Sanderson v 2. Through letters from the original Eric Sanderson he learns that he lost the love of his life, Clio in a diving accident in Greece. Eric and his cat called Ian embark on a quest to find Dr Trey Fidourus who may hold the clue to Eric’s past. Eric’s nemesis in this quest is a Ludovician, a gigantic thought shark who, before it kills you, destroys your memories.

It is a really clever book and I enjoyed reading this a lot more this time and felt that I either understood, or was not as irritated by, the wordplays and stylistic concepts as I was the first time round. I also enjoyed the story which is all about the power of words and memory and loss a lot more than I did the first time round. However, I felt that reading this twice was enough and it did not make the journey home with me.

It was also quite unnerving lying on a beach and reading about a (thought) shark. All the more so when I slipped on a rock on Lembongan island and cut my knee open. The only place to wash it was in the sea and the entire time I kept thinking of how sharks can smell a drop of blood in about a billion parts of water and expected to be attacked any second!

Verdict: Left (somewhat reluctantly) in Sanur. Standout character – Ian the cat.

Stop #2 – Legian

Ummm…if my photos are anything to go by I didn’t carpe diem at all in Legian. It would seem the opposite – all my photos are of night times, bars, cocktails, restaurants…and the Fussiest Eater in the World getting up close and personal at a drag show! It was much busier than Ubud with better weather and thankfully no roosters! In amongst all the tourist tat there here is some good shopping to be had in in Legian and it’s neighbour Seminyak. I bought two lovely leather handbags for a fraction of the cost back home. If you do want the tourist stuff, be prepared to barter hard.

Holiday Reading Habit #2 – Personal Development

I like to use our winter holiday as a time of reflection and planning for the “year” ahead. My birthday is mid August so I tend to set my annual goals each year to start from September. Our winter break is a great time for reflection on the year gone by and what to aim for in the coming 12 months. To that end, I like to get a bit of my personal development reading in during this time. This is also my time to plan for the blog and I had a super ( at least I think so) idea for a new segment. Stay tuned for that.

This year I read:

Radical Self Love by Gala Darling

I think I would have loved this book had I read it in my 20’s when I totally lacked confidence in myself. Having someone say that it is ok to be yourself, however offbeat or oddball that self if would have been very empowering. Now, that I am an old curmudgeon, I didn’t find anything in here that I hadn’t heard before. Having said that, I think there are times we could all use a little boost and I think this will be a book I turn back to in those times to get some motivation or see myself out of a low patch. And having said THAT, I found her talk of tapping as a way to relieve everything from eating disorders to childhood traumas to be way too out there for me. Does anyone do this? I had not even heard of it before reading this and it sounds highly spurious. Please correct me if I am wrong!

Verdict: A real pick and mix. Some parts I will definitely refer back to, some parts (the tapping) were not for me.

Let it Out by Katie Dalebout

I used to be a frequent listener to Katie’s podcast, The Wellness Wonderland but I gave it up because it got a bit too woo-woo for me. There is a bit of that in Let it Out but I feel that the great journalling tips contained in here far outweigh the flakiness quotient. I have not finished this yet but, as a sporadic journaller who wants to be a regular journaller, this contains some great ideas!

Verdict: Definite keeper!

Stop #3 – Sanur

On the way to the beach resort of Sanur we drove to Tanah Lot, one of Bali’s most beautiful temples:

And we did a day trip to Lembongan Island…tropical paradise!

(Except for when you fall over over and cut your knee on a rock so are a bit too scared to swim in case a shark gets you!)

Holiday Reading Habit #3 – The One You’ve Been Wanting To Read for Ages

I took The Goldfinch with me. Did not even open it. Very disappointed with myself as that is a big and heavy book to be carrying around for no reason!

Holiday Reading Habit #4 – The Book Set in the Place You are At

Epic fail. Did not even think of a book set in Bali to read. BUT had an awesome idea for a book set in Bali to write. Then again I was rather cocktail fuelled at the time. Lets see. If it’s still burbling away in there by NANOWRIMO, maybe I’ll have a crack at writing it!

Holiday Reading Habit #5 – The Total Surprise

This is usually something I pick up on my travels but this time was something I had with me.

I finished Gala Darling by the pool and could not be bothered to walk back to the hotel room to get The Goldfinch. And here’s my Gala Darlingesque tip for the young and impressionable. ALWAYS walk back to the hotel room to get the book you really want to read. Because otherwise you will flick on your Kindle to something like The Good Girl which you have already started and didn’t particularly enjoy but hey, its there and there’s no point in starting anything new when you have The Goldfinch waiting in your hotel room.

Maybe I have read too many of the Gone Girlesque books that have come onto the market since the original but this story of a kidnapping did not grab me at all.

Verdict: Should have walked back to the hotel room to pick up The Goldfinch

However, I read it here so life was not all bad!

Back soon with some cooking!

And tell me how do you choose your holiday reads?

Signature 1 Save

Save

15
Jul
2016

Cowboys, Caviar, Casseroles and Cocktails

categories: Cheese, Chilli, Chocolate, Cocktail, Corn, Eggs, Kahlua, Salad, Vodka

Dear readers

I had such high hopes for this post. Then they were totally dashed by a twist of fate that…well…I guess if I’d seen it coming it wouldn’t be a twist would it? But I’m jumping ahead of myself. First, I was totally delighted when Greg from Recipes4Rebels asked if I would join in a cookalong for Cowboy Day! This event occurs on the fourth Saturday of July each year and is celebrated all over the world!

Obviously, this is not the fourth Saturday in July, however, as I will be sunning myself on the beach at Sanur in Bali that day, with Greg’s blessing I am posting my ventures into Cowboy Cookin’ early! And it’s a three course meal y’all. (Because 1 that’s how cowboy’s talk and 2 cocktails are a course aren’t they? This one is almost a meal! But again, getting ahead of myself!)

So now onto my foiled grand plans. My idea was that I would find a cocktail called a Bali Cowboy – possibly a more tropical version of this cowboy cocktail and I would make it for my post and then, on the day itself, I would tweet another picture of me in Bali with with my Bali Cowboy and it would in a glass as big as my head and it would be blue and loaded with umbrellas and pineapple wedges and all the other tropical cocktail paraphenalia.

A quick google soon showed me that there is such a thing as a Bali Cowboy. It is NOT a cocktail. Turns out that a Bali Cowboy is a male prostitute who hangs around Kuta Beach willing to sell his services to any rich (ie all) Western women who care to pay for them. So, whilst I’m not 100% ruling out a photo of me with a Bali Cowboy on Cowboy Day, the likelihood of it happening has dropped significantly!

So, new ideas had to be found. Starting with some caviar. Because we’re classy cowboys! It’s Cowboy Caviar of courseWhere has this salad / dip been all my life? If this is what cowboys eat, then I want to be a cowboy. It’s all kinds of beans and corn and tomatoes and avocado . Truly delicious! I loved this!

So, for the second course, I went straight to the top. And by that I mean Mr John Wayne himself.

Turns out The Duke and I share a love of eggs, cheese and chillies. Now, just one thing about the John Wayne casserole…. To my mind, when you combine egg yolks to beaten egg whites with other stuff, in this instance cheese and chilli and you them put that in an oven and cook until it’s all puffed up and golden, that’s not so much a casserole as a soufflé.

You be the judge:

I’ll sit quietly over here and let my case speak for itself.

By the way, cooking this for an hour would be way too much. You are seeing about 35 minutes and I think it was over. I would cook this…half an hour max. Also, the tomato didn’t do much. I would actually leave it out and cook this for 20 minutes total.

The ~~soufflé~~ casserole was good but I think I was so blown away by the Cowboy Caviar that it kind of paled by comparison. I will definitely make it again though!

And now for my grand Cowboy finale, I am turning to to person who started all of this, yep, Greg. This cocktail /dessert is A-MAZING! So, so good. Cowboys and cowgirls, can I present, the Giant Martini!

There is no other word for this but absolutely divine! The giant in the Giant Martini doesn’t refer t to it’s size (but you could scale it up very easily) but to the fact that it was created on the set of Giant by Liz Taylor and Rock Hudson.

Git along little doggie, this cocktail is all mine!

And you too!

Ah yes, Greg’s site on the PC, a cocktail in front of me and The A-Z of Cooking behind it. Just a regular day round these parts!

Many, many thanks to Greg, this was so much fun! Thank you so much for including me! I always say this but you hear so much about the internet being a a horrible vicious place, I am always delighted and totally honoured to make new friends, like Greg, on here.

Ok, I’ve gotta go, 5:30am start tomorrow! But I’m loving and leaving you with some some super rhinestone cowboy singing!

Find out all about the Cowboy Day Cook A Long here. Hopefully my attempts will inspire you to bigger and better things on the day!

The recipe for Cowboy Caviar I used came from Cookie and Kate.

The Giant Martini recipe is here.

Kiss me and smile for me, I’ll be back here in a couple of weeks but if you can’t smile without me, I’ll be tweeting and instagramming from Bali throughout.

Loving you, leaving you, now!

Signature 1

Save

28
Jun
2016

Political Partini

categories: Cocktail, Pear, Vodka

Well, the Brits have Brexited; here in Australia we go to the polls this weekend (Lord only knows why – every time we actually elect a Prime Minister internal party political infighting deposes them and puts someone else in the top job!) I’m sure my friends in the U.S. are sick to the back teeth with Trump and Hilary and there’s still a long way to go on that one….

Most of these campaigns are being run on scare tactics and fear mongering so why not kill the bad vibes with a super tasty cocktail. I’m in…how about you?

And oh boy do I have an absolutely beauty for you! The Political Partini! It’s not only delicious but punny which means I love it even more!!!! And what’s not to love? It’s pear infused vodka, traditionally Grey Goose La Poire but I made my own, Amaretto which I absolutely adore, simple syrup and lemon juice. So, it’s filled with fruit and nuts kind of healthy…in a boozy sort of way!

This is so, so good. I only wish I had made more pear-infused vodka so I could make it my election night tipple! Do people in other countries have election night parties? It’s kind of a thing here. My parents used to always have / or go to one. If I had not just started a new job I may have thought more about it and organised something for the weekend but that’s totally not happening…maybe I’ll tag along to my parents’ party….oh Lord really? Is this what my life has come to?

Well, here’s an ode to something I most likely will not be this Saturday from one of my favourite singers Dan Kelly. It does contain some of the naughty words so, if you are at work or there are kiddies about, you might want to delay playing it.

The Political Partini was created for the US 2008 election campaign but is delicious enough to celebrate or commiserate any election wins or losses. Or indeed anything.

OMG…it’s so good!!!! And that’s coming from someone who is not overly fond of pears.

Politcal Partini: The Recipe

[yumprint-recipe id=’69’] Have a great week!

Signature 1

Save