Second Aussiversary musings

Wednesday this week was our second Aussiversary, having stepped off the plane to start our new adventure two years ago.

To celebrate, here are some of things I have learnt over the past two years (in no particular order):

• Aussies are very serious about their coffee, and it’s fantastic. (Even if Melbournites think that Sydney coffee is crap!)
• The chips are disappointing but the fish is great.
• The Aussie ideal of mateship is aspirational and inspirational, even if not always realised.
• Not all of the animals are trying to kill you - including the dragons.
• Your average store chocolate is rubbish but they do have people who know what they’re doing.
• Jacaranda trees are awesome.
• If thongs are banned at a club, the bouncer will stare at your feet, not perform an intimate search. And you can buy thongs in vending machines.
• Aussie rules football is possibly the best spectator sport ever. (Based on one game!)
• Thanks to craft breweries, Aussie beer is not all bad, and some of it is very good.
• Brunch is a serious(ly good) meal of the day.
• Musically, Australia is trapped in the era of hair rock power ballads. And it’s awesome.
• The coins have animals on them
• For long haul, always fly an A380 if you can.
• The Socceroos may struggle but Aussies rule at robot soccer.
• They do a good line in sunsets.
• Australia is a great place to do bioinformatics.

Comment below if you think I’ve forgotten anything important - I’m sure there’s lots!

Love chocolate? Love ice cream? Love coffee? You'll love a Magnum Espresso!

I do like good chocolate, ice cream and coffee. What could be better, then, than something tasty that combined all three‽ Behold! The Magnum espresso

Magnum vanilla ice cream is not spectacular but it is good - and surrounded by really good dark chocolate. (It makes me wonder whether you can just buy bars of the stuff.) Stick in some swirls of coffee syrup and you’ve got a winner. It’s chocolate with a splash of coffee, rather than coffee with a splash of chocolate - so don’t be too disappointed if you are after COFFEE!

According to their Facebook page, it’s a limited edition. I hope its not too limited!

Best Christmas stocking chocolates ever!

Like many - most? - people my age who grew up in the UK (and Ireland, I think), Christmas stockings are synonymous with Cadbury’s chocolate coins. However, this year was destined to be a Christmas without them, for two good reasons:

First, there was the report earlier this year that Cadbury are no longer making them. This had a considerable public backlash, as captured on Buzzfeed. (The author made one error in his post, ending: “However, all hope is not entirely lost, you can still buy different chocolate coins at supermarkets and pound stores around the country.” Sorry, but other chocolate coins suck in comparison.)

Second, Australian Cadbury’s chocolate is rubbish. (Sorry, Aussies, but it is. We’ve done blind taste tests and everything.)

Fortunately, Santa came up with a much better idea this year: spiced chocolate almonds from Haigh’s Chocolates.

These sound pretty amazing but are even better than they sound: an almond, encased in milk chocolate, encased in white chocolate and dusted with spiced dark chocolate powder (cinnamon, cloves, cardamon and star anise.) One to look out for next year!

Flavoured Freddos

In the UK, Freddos represent a very cost-effective source of sensibly portioned Cadbury’s chocolate. At 20p for 20g, they have a weight/cost ratio that is not seen again until the dangerously big 100g+ bars.

In Australia, basic Freddos are not quite so good - they’re not so cheap for one thing but, more importantly, unadulterated Cadbury’s chocolate is nowhere near as nice. Perhaps for this reason, Cadbury’s in Australia adulterate their Freddos with additional flavours a lot more than the UK (where I’ve only see Caramel). Two such examples are “popping candy” and “strawberry pond”. Whilst the former is just odd, the latter is actually very nice - a bit like a giant Strawberry Cream from Quality Street.

When is a Moro not a Boost? When it's an Aussie Cadbury's Mars Bar!

One of the pleasures of moving to a new country is getting to grips with it's idiosyncracies, especially when the familiar gets a touch of the unfamiliar. This is particularly true of foodstuffs, I think. One such example is the Cadbury's Boost and Cadbury's Moro.

When I first moved to Ireland, the chocolate bar in the UK known as a Boost (formerly a Biscuit Boost, I believe - the original being coconut -) was called a Moro. The exception, I think, was the Boost Guarana, which contained Guarana - whatever that is. I was therefore pretty conditioned to the fact that a Boost and Moro were the same thing.

In Australia, they are not the same at all! A Boost is like a Boost in the UK. (The texture might be a bit different but that might also just be the heat.) A Moro, on the other hand, is more like a Mars bar, with nougat and caramel. The texture is a little different and it's nicer than a Mars bar, I think.

Cadbury's chocolate itself is rather disappointing compared to its British or Irish namesake - more like Rowntree's chocolate. (It reminded me of non-Cadbury's Easter Eggs.) In bar form, however, with other non-chocolate components, it is nice.

So there you go. Next up (for Cadbury's): Freddos.

Salmon and mascarpone cocoa pasta

Last year, I was given some Hotel Chocolat cocoa penne pasta for my birthday. I like chocolate and I like pasta but I've never before had chocolate pasta! Today I made the recommended recipe off the packet - Salmon and mascarpone cocoa pasta - and it was delicious!

I'd certainly never cooked with cocoa pasta before, so it was great that it came with a recipe. A tasty recipe too! And simple.

In fact, this recipe is so simple that I'm not really sure it can be called cooking! The ingredients list is short - pasta, mascarpone, smoked salmon, parmesan and basil - and there is virtually no preparation. (The pasta itself only needs 9-10min to cook, so whoever wrote "30 mins preparation" must have the world's slowest kettle!) Basically, you just cook the pasta, stir in some mascarpone to coat, then stir in the flaked smoked salmon (buying trimmings is great for this), grated parmesan and torn basil leaves.

I could really smell the chocolate when the pasta was cooking but the taste itself was quite subtle. Really nice, though. That said, this recipe should work great with regular pasta, and next time we will probably make it with the normal stuff. (The cocoa pasta is not cheap - definitely present material rather than everyday food!)

Olympic Highlghts V: Amazing human feats

It's a bit of a cliche to describe athletic performances as "superhuman" but, let's face it, some of them are just ridiculous. I know some people take issue at the fact that all this money goes into letting a few individuals train for their dream but I see it as comparable to investing in culture and the arts: it might not provide a direct tangible benefit to the economy but I still find it inspirational to see what humans are physically capable of if they push themselves. As the Paralympic events kick off today, I suspect that the biggest inspiration is yet to come.
(Part of me can't help thinking it might be even more entertaining if Greg Rutherford were to actually jump 70 Cadbury's Twirls, though!)

Bang-on birthday brownies

We generally split the cooking in our house but my wife is definitely the baker. She made me a delicious carrot cake for my birthday a couple of years ago, so I thought I should try to return the favour for her birthday, last weekend.

Not being an experienced baker, I went for something simple. Simple but yummy! The answer was in Sainsburys Magazine, with a great Oreo brownie recipe by Lorraine Pascale.

Great for a starter like me, the recipe is really easy. Basically, you melt 175g butter (Kerrygold recommended) over the stove and then stir in 200g of chopped up dark chocolate (I used Tesco Finest Swiss 72% dark). Whilst the chocolate is melting in to the butter, whip up the eggs (3 full plus 2 yolks and some vanilla essence) until fluffy. Mix in the sugar (175g soft light brown) and buttery chocolate, adding it round the edge and folding in to keep the fluffiness.
Next, mix in 2tbsp plain flour, 2tbsp cocoa powder and 1/3 packet broken Oreo cookies before pouring into a greased and lined tin. Finally, press in the remaining Oreo cookies. (If in doubt, err towards a 50:50 split of the cookies for this bit, as I found myself running out of room on top.)

All that's left now is to bake on the middle shelf at 180°C for 20-25 min. It was here that things went a little bit wrong for me. The numbers have rubbed off our oven temperature dial, so it was probably nearer 200°C and after 20 min it was beginning to catch a bit around the edges and particularly the corners. Fortunately, once it had cooled, cutting it open revealed that it was not over-cooked on the inside. In fact, it was really light and fluffy... and delicious!

Of course, it's hard to imagine mixing butter, sugar and chocolate and it not being delicious but I think that this is a particularly good outcome for this combination. The Oreos add a slightly salty, crunchy finish to the sweet, chocolately brownie and look pretty too, particularly where the white cream filling shows.

The only sad thing is that we just ate the last two pieces.

Chocolate of the gods (or kings, or god-kings)

I have posted about Montezuma's chocolate shop in Winchester before but it's so good that I could not help but write a second post, especially during this most chocolatey of seasons. (Plus, the original post was over two years ago.) On our recent trip to Winchester, we popped in to Montezuma's for a bit of Easter chocolate, having failed to be inspired by the usual Easter Eggs in the supermarket. Never afraid to challenge tradition, I opted for a bar of Dark Chocolate Orange & Geranium rather than an egg or bunny and, boy, is this stuff good! That is all!

Belgian chocolate really is as good as they say!

This crazy display is from a Bruges chocolate shop, The Chocolate Line. If you love chocolate, this place (the city and the shop!) is a must-visit location. Just walking in to the shop is a treat to the senses. The rich smell of the chocolate is fantastic. Eating the chocolates is even better. The only problem is deciding what kind to eat! (And how large your budget is going to be - they're not cheap!)

Winchester

Today we had a little day trip to Winchester (on the bus). Winchester is lovely - a good mix of fairly narrow streets and old buildings, with great shops and nice places to eat. We'd been once before, to the Christmas Fair in the Cathedral grounds, but it was raining that day, so not quite so good for wandering around. Today was lovely a sunny, so much better for aimless meandering.

We had lunch in the Pitcher & Piano - part of pub chain that I last encountered when I lived in Nottingham. The Winchester Pitcher & Piano was not quite as grand as the Nottingham one, which is in an old church, but the food was very tasty. I had a lamb burger. Yum. Good chips too - you could tell they were once potatoes.

Instead of dessert, we got some lovely chocolates from Montezuma's. This shop is great and sells really tasty chocolate. I can particularly recommend Montezuma's Revenge (Dark chocolate, lime & chilli) and Tiger Tiger (Dark chocolate & vanilla).