I spent a couple of days in Canberra this week. It’s the time of year for some important committee meetings. One of them I’ve chaired since 2008, and it’s my favourite part of my job.
One of the benefits of staying in the Woden Town Centre is its proximity to convenient restaurants.
Space Kitchen
I ate breakfast here twice and ate the same meal. I like the Space Benedict with a serve of bacon. The core components of the Space Benedict include poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, wilted spinach, feta cheese, capers, potato rösti[i], and smoked salmon. I like to add some bacon too.
The good people of Space Kitchen serve the hollandaise sauce with generosity.
The Alby
The Alby was my second choice of venue when I realised my first choice wasn’t open that night.
I bought a steak. It wasn’t the best steak, although it wasn’t awful. It was adequate but suboptimal value for money. It was priced at $45, and I think I paid $35 too much. It was good to return to my place and cook a steak the way I like.
Fenway Public House
Fenway Public House is a fancy pub come sports bar. I like that I can choose a table where I like and use a QR code for access to the menu.
Rather than a steak, I went with a piece of grilled salmon, which was placed atop some “gourmet” potato salad and served with preserved lemon jam.
The salmon portion was smaller than I’d serve myself, and it was overcooked. The potato salad was tasty and contrasted with the sourness of the lemon jam. I had anticipated the jam would be sweeter, like a Chinese lemon chicken sweetness. Alas, it was not.
To celebrate a good day, I decided to have dessert. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten an ice cream sundae. I went with a mint chocolate ice cream sundae.
Today’s meals
Scrambled eggs with spam
When I make scrambled eggs, I like using the technique that Gordon Ramsay[ii] demonstrates.
KFC “Casserole[iii]”
A few months ago, I bought a 21-piece “bucket” of original recipe KFC. After eating the thighs, drumsticks, and wings, I froze the remaining pieces (breasts) in vacuum bags.
I don’t like keeping food in the freezer for too long, so I thought I’d put the frozen pieces into a slow cooker with a cup of meat broth[iv].
At the end, I added a lump of beef fat, some cabbage and sliced Swiss brown mushrooms and gave it a blip of steam under pressure.
Ordinarily, I don’t like breasts. Breasts are hard, tough, and chewy. The extended cooking didn’t fix the problem entirely, and the breasts weren’t as pleasurable as thighs, but they were better.
The bones were friable after all the cooking and crunched between my teeth.
[i] noun (plural rösti) [mass noun] a Swiss dish of grated potatoes formed into a small flat cake and fried.
[ii] I’m referring to the celebrity chef and not the former ACT Attorney-General and Uniting Church minister who has been arrested and charged with grooming a teenage boy.
[iii] A casserole is both a type of dish and the name of the deep, oven-safe vessel it’s cooked in. A casserole dish typically combines protein (like meat or beans), vegetables, a starch (such as pasta, rice, or potatoes), and often a binding sauce (like cream, tomato, or cheese-based). It’s assembled in a single dish and baked until the ingredients meld together and the top is often browned or crisped. The term “casserole” also refers to the baking dish itself—usually made of ceramic, glass, or enamelled cast iron.
[iv] This broth is the filtrate from slowly cooked chuck roll, brisket, beef short ribs, pork hock, and speck.
