Tag Archives: Peanut butter

Ruchi Belconnen Southern Indian dining for a #CBRTweetUp Shout out @Sister_Ratched

13 Replies

Last year I blogged a couple of times about the food at Ramas in Pearce. I have enjoyed the food there and the company on the occasions we dined there helped make the evenings memorable. After blogging about Ramas a Canberra Twitter friend, viz., Jude @Sister_Ratched commented (via Twitter and on my blog) that she thought there were better places in Canberra and Sydney for Indian cuisine. She suggested she could introduce me to such places. I was very happy to be introduced to new dining experiences.
Jude is lovely, she avidly comments on my blog and given the amount of food I post on Twitter and Instagram, Jude has shared her thoughts. At times this has been a concern for the quantity and quality of food I would post. I believe in some ways, the recent changes in my diet have been influenced by Jude’s comments about cholesterol, the importance of fresh ethically harvested produce and the health benefits of salad :-) Jude is a Registered Nurse and currently practises in gastroenterology. I respect her opinion.

On Friday night Jude organised a Canberra Tweetup. I regret not taking names and Twitter handles because I’ll offend some new friends if I don’t mention them. Suffice to say this is not the last #CBRTweetUp I will attend. It was a most enjoyable evening and it really is great to meet tweeps in real life and get to get to know them a little better. One of my favourite Canberra bloggers was also there. T1 from InTheTaratory fame. T1 has been prolific recently on Twitter as part of the #LikeCanberra campaign for the Centennial celebrations of the Australia’s capital city.

We all met at Ruchi Belconnen. Ruchi specialises in Southern Indian cuisine. Jude recommended I try a Thali. A Thali is a tasting plate made up of a selection of various dishes. The food is served in small bowls on a round tray. In the middle there was bread and plus a piece of flesh (fish in my case). I asked for the Ruchi Special Non­‐Vegetarian Thali for $24.50. This consisted of Chapatti, channa curry, Kerala chicken, beef vindaloo, pickles, thayir pachadi, rasam, and boiled rice. When the food was being served I heard the waiter say “special non-vegetarian Thali” and I assumed it was mine. It turned out not to be what I asked for but it was a Mysore Maharajah Non-­Vegetarian Thali which consisted of Meen porichadu, chapathi, boiled rice, sambar, Mysore chilli chicken, daal, lamb korma, rasam, thayir pachadi, pickles, and a coconut dessert. This dish was considerably hotter in terms of spices than what I was expecting. It was not at all unpleasant, on the contrary it was delightful. I really enjoyed this tasting plate of Southern Indian delights. The company was great and in the end it was not a late evening but it was certainly a very enjoyable one. The next #CBRTweetUp is being organised. I’m looking forward to it.

Ruchi special non-vegetarian thallis #cbrtweetup

Mysore Maharajah Non-­Vegetarian Thali

The menu can be downloaded from http://www.outincanberra.com.au/files/client-menus/Ruchi-Menu-August-2012-Dine-in-menu.pdf

I would definitely recommend Ruchi Belconnen. I’ll be returning.

————————————————————————-

Friday was made even better with a Mavi Breakfast wrap which meant I didn’t need lunch.

#breakfast Tongue of bacon in my Mavi breakfast wrap #yummy

A beautiful tongue of bacon.

————————————————————————-

This afternoon. I enjoyed a pastry treat from Ricardo’s Cafe at the Jamison Plaza.

The Peanut Paste #yummy

This is the Peanut Butter. It contains a very subtle peanut paste flavoured mousse with a heart of caramel resting on a delicate chocolate crumb biscuit base. It was lovely.

————————————————————————-

Ruchi

Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/JB0q2


View Larger Map

http://www.outincanberra.com.au/ruchibelconnen

————————————————————————-

Ramas
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/aE655


View Larger Map

Related articles

Australia Day cheesecake

6 Replies

For the past few weeks Bron has been talking about cheesecake since she made a white chocolate cheesecake some weeks ago. She has had her eye on a recipe from Nigella Lawson. To give it more interest, Bron chose Nigella’s Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake.

I need to digress and explain why this has more interest for me. I grew up in Queensland in the 1960s and 1970s. We only knew of peanut paste and Queensland nuts. We’d heard of peanut butter and Macadamia nuts but our impression was that only southerners used those terms. As Queenslanders we knew better. There are a few sites that mention the debate, e.g., Peanut Butter or Peanut Paste? and there is also a Facebook page. As far as I’m concerned, the edible species in the genus Macadamia found in Eastern Australia are Queensland nuts and that’s how I shall always know them. While it may be Australia Day, I am and always will be a proud convinced and convicted Queenslander.

Last night I also learned that 24 January is national peanut butter day in the USA from food blogger John-Bryan Hopkins also known as the Foodimentary Guy.

Back to the important stuff though. This is a baked cheesecake. Nigella describes it best, “This is not for the faint-hearted. Unashamed indulgence, wallowingly so, is what this recipe is all about: think reese’s Peanut Butter cup in cheesecake form. For that reason, I don’t bake this in a water-bath as I do the Banoffee cheesecake. The water-bath is excellent if you want a silky texture, but for me, the peanut butter constituent demands a certain amount of pleasurable, palate-cleaving clagginess. And baked like this, too, the top gets a slight crust when it’s cooked, making it all the easier to spread the chocolate topping.”

Baking in the oven

Straight out of the oven

Time for the chocolate topping.

Here comes the chocolate topping

It is good.

Smoothed over chocolate

Melted chocolate swirls.

Chocolate swirls

The finished product with the Queensland nut brittle similar to the cheesecake we had at Kingley’s steak and crab house.

A perfect slice of cheesecake with Queensland nut brittle

Related articles

Some of the preparation happened in a new blender.