Margaret River Discoveries: Clairault Estate Winery

Where is it?

What's it good for:
Wine, casual lunches, coffee and gourmet food

The thing about Margaret River's wineries is that it's really easy to drop large amounts of cash in a matter of minutes on a lunch and wine. It's also not always that easy to find a place which is relaxed and casual enough for kids or just a casual lunch. Hayshed Hill is lovely, but for something even more casual food wise and which is also has beautiful wines I'd recommend Clairault Winery. 

You turn into Clairault Estate and are met with a drive through bush land, flowering banksias and past some grazing cows... by the time you reach the vineyard you feel distanced from the busy-ness of Caves Road. It's calm, serene, beautiful:

Clairault has had a bit of a reinvention in the past year. Once upon a time it was well known for high end menus... and that was great too, but that was then, this is now:

They do gourmet platters and paninis, it's a cafe, it's classy but casual. You can even make up your own platter with the gorgeous produce they have for sale on their fridge and in their little gourmet shop You can eat at a table, or as the sign above suggests sit on the lawn. They have great coffee and very good wine and the staff are casual and friendly.

They stock both Bahen and Gabriel Chocolate which is GREAT because both are amzing and as far as I know they're the only place I've seen down south that stocks both Margaret River artisan chocolate brands. EXCITING!

In relation to the whole wine tasting thing...as I always disclaim: I am no wine aficionado, I just like wine and I like the Clairault wine. It's not the cheapest drop out there, but it's well priced. They have two ranges Streicker and the Clairault brand, produced on different vineyards, both within the Margaret River Region and produced by different wine makers. 

My favourite wines were:

Streicker Syrah (Syrah is the French name for Shiraz)

Streicker Chardonnay

Clairault Cane Cut Reisling

Margaret River Discoveries - Willyabup Dreaming

Down a gravel road near Gralyn Winery it's easy to miss Willyabrup Dreaming. The "easy to miss" part is possibly the best part about this place, though. That and the pottery glazes. It's the easy to miss part about this place that ensures it's so tucked away, today I rediscovered the pottery workshop, nestled between flowering wattles. The place is exactly what you expect of an off the beaten track artist studio, quiet and small scale with astoundingly good handmade pieces. Only it's not really that off the beaten track. It's only 500m from Caves rd. Every time I've been there I am overcome by how beautiful the potter's glazes are. They're like a landscape or abstract painting you can eat off every day. You know it's a one off, because every glaze is a little different, every mug is slightly different, every plate/bowl/vase/jug is a little different from the other. I'm always tempted into buying a piece.

Greeting you on your way in is a pottery bunyip, sitting in the pond. The garden surrounding the gallery and studio is littered with beautiful pieces like this, pots,vases and big pottery shells.

It's more than likely that the beautiful studio Australian Shepherd will greet you for pats and general belly rubbing. She is one of the most even tempered dogs I've ever encountered...

The building has several stunning stained glass windows.

And then.... once you're fully inside...did I mention the glazes?

Bill Meiklejohn is the resident potter and everything you see in these pictures and in the gallery in general is his handiwork. You can find him working away on his newest creation when you visit in the room adjacent to the gallery. I like chatting to him because he's happy to talk about his work and strikes me as a decidedly positive person, doing what he loves and sharing it.

 

In the overwhelming wine paradise that is the Margaret River region it's sometimes easy to miss or forget about places like Willyabrup Dreaming, but while those bottles of wine will be emptied all too soon, Bill's studio provides us with a beautiful memento to keep and reuse every day. Something we can look at regularly and think, wow, I remember that place/holiday/day. It was lovely.

I know I do.

Willyabrup Dreaming can be found down Willyabrup Rd, just of Caves Rd, near Gralyn.

In favour of cooking and thinking seasonally

There is a joy that cannot be explained in embracing the changing of seasons, it just has to be experienced. Too often when I was young I found myself ruing the onset of a season, say: Winter. I was wishing it away, forgetting that a season like Spring lost its significance without Winter as a comparison point. I was also forgetting the beauty of winter, the delicious warm stews by the fire side, the opportunity for thicker blankets and more cuddles.

As I have become more food-nerdy I've also discovered the joy of embracing seasonal food. A joy that my friend JJ seems to have discovered too because she's started a blog all about it called Seasonal Sunday Lunch. If you want to investigate this further (and I suggest you do), visit her site.

And to get you interested... here are some pics of a recipe I'll be submitting to the site ASAP. Devised yesterday and eaten this morning:

Pear and Aztec Fruit Crumble with Quince Ice cream (how Autumnal!)

free form chocolate pear tarts with quince custard and candied chestnuts

I haven't been blogging much recently.Instead, I've been trying to develop my cooking skills. Every night my partner and I have been making 3 course dinners. It's been wonderful. We write the menu up on the fridge and cook together. I've been having some life epiphanies... I guess that the decline in my recipe writing has been a consequence of this. My recipe inventing, though, has sky-rocketed. 

I'm trying to be more honest with myself about what I want to achieve with my life. This is what I came up with: I want to live a more sustainable, green and positive life. I want to live a life that embraces the cycles and seasons of the world. I want to contribute to the world in a way that makes it more like the kind of world I want to live in. I want to grow more and share more and learn more about the world around me. I want to be happy and fulfilled. 
The 3 course cooking regime has come from this. I have the seed of an idea. See, I love my job... but, I don't feel like it's all I'm meant to do ever. I'd love to do it AND something else. This is what my seed looks like:

The seed:
I want to open a set menu restaurant, which trades in produce instead of money. It would operate through social media platforms, people could book tables and if they didn’t have any produce of their own, could ask what you needed. Each night the set menu would be made out of the food gifts from the diners the night before. I know that it’s not quite logistically possible just yet. I need to work out how to ensure that I meet health and safety regulations and how I’d pay rent, or not pay rent. However, it feels like a really true idea. It feels like something I’m supposed to do. I like it because it means I could still teach as well, which I love doing. I’m not afraid of telling the internet because if someone else “steals” the idea and develops a restaurant like this, I think that would be a great thing. I think that the more restaurants like this that there are, the more likely we are to be growing our own food, supporting each other and our communities and developing a greater love for food and its production.

I know it's  a while away, but I feel passionate about this idea. So, every night we practice cooking 3 courses using the ingredients in our fridge, pantry and our garden. And then I started a new blog, about this learning process. About my new focus on life. It's called The Watermelon Seed and you can read about it here. 

It doesn't mean I'm going to stop writing recipes for The Capers of the Kitchen Crusader... it probably just means I'll do so less often. I'm following my heart. I'd love for you to join me on the journey. Who knows where we may end up.

So, it seems pretty serendipitous that this month's Sweet Adventures Blog Hop theme is SEASONAL ingredients. We're so used to just having fruit and vegetables available all year round. Yet, in order for this to be the case we're flying fresh produce from other countries, we're using energy to create unnatural growing environments to trick plants thinking they're existing in a season that they aren't. I've been trying to work with the fruits of the season, rather than buying stuff that I thought I needed.
Last weekend at the Margaret River Farmer's Markets I bought these bad boys:

QUINCES. 

and these ....

CHESTNUTS

then our friend dropped over these from his garden....

PEARS.

All very seasonal. All very delicious. I just couldn't decide which one to use!
So here's a dessert that uses all 3. You can do any combination of these, the quince custard works great by itself or with a ginger or chocolate cake. The candied/sugared chestnuts are delicious as snacks and even the tarts could just be made as biscuits. The custard is a bit of a cheat's custard,you can prepare it in YOUR OVEN. P.S  LOOK at the vibrant yellow of this custard!

free form wholemeal chocolate pear tarts with quince custard and sugared chestnuts
makes 4 serves

you need:
tarts:
1 cup wholemeal flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup luke warm water
1 large pear

quince custard:
1 medium sized quince
1 cup of sugar
1 litre of verjuice (or white wine with 2 extra tbsp sugar)
2 bay leaves
1 split vanilla pod (optional)
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
100ml milk

sugar chestnuts:
10-15 chestnuts
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp water

you:
Prepare the chestnuts first. Using a stanley knife slit through the outer shell until you just cut though to the nut, then cut a cross section to this. It ensures that the chestnuts won't explode while cooking.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and drop the chestnuts in and lower to a simmer. Cover and cook for 15-20 minutes until the chestnut flesh is softened (you can check using a knife poked into the stanley knife cross-section.

Tip out your water and set the pot aside. Peel the shells off your chestnuts. Roughly chop them.

Roll out a piece of grease-proof paper on a flat surface.

Place the 3/4 cup of sugar into the saucepan over a low heat with the tbsp of water. Melt the sugar into the water. Toss in your chestnuts. Bring the sugar syrup mixture to the boil and then lower to a simmer, turning it over the chestnuts regularly. Make sure it doesn't burn. Reduce the liquid until it starts to thicken to a more syrupy consistency.

Then, turn the stove off and leave for a few minutes to cool slightly.

Using tongs, pull the syrups coated chestnuts out and place on the grease proof paper to cool/set.

Once cool you can set them aside/ store in an air-tight container for several days.

To make your custard, peel your quince and halve it.

Put it into a pot with the pot with the verjuice, bay leaves and vanilla.

You can save the verjuice that the quinces were cooked in by straining it and putting it into a bottle in your fridge. Quince flavoured verjuice ready and waiting for later culinary adventures.

Cover and bring to the boil. Lower to a simmer. Simmer for 15-20 minutes until quince is soft.
Remove the pips from the quince and puree it in a food processor/blender. Allow to cool.

Preheat your oven to 160C. Lightly whisk the eggs, egg yolks and sugar together, then add milk and quince puree. Whisk again to combine then pour into a pyrex or other oven safe bowl inside a larger baking dish. Fill the baking dish that surrounds the bowl with water (up to about half way up the bowl. Then place into the oven and bake for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent too serious a skin forming. Set aside and allow to cool.

To make the pear tarts, preheat the oven to 180C, then mix the oil, flour, sugar, cocoa and water in a mixing bowl with a knife until combined. Refrigerate briefly.

Slice your pear thinly, avoiding the core. Grease a baking tray. Get your tart base mix from the fridge.

Separate the mixture into 4 evenly sized balls, roll them smooth in your hands then squash them onto the tray using your hands or a fork. Squash them to a little under a cm thick.

Then splay the pears on top in a design of your choosing. Bake for 25- 30 minutes until the edges of the tarts are crispening up. Remove from the oven, and serve.

These tarts can also be kept in the fridge for several days, however, the pears will become a bit more floppy with time.

There are heaps of ways to serve this. None of them look particularly beautiful and honestly I just wanted to eat them so... I didn't spend lots of time working my serving out. Here are some serving suggestions:

The whole process is a little labour intensive, but as I said you can adapt or use sections of this recipe as you see fit. If you have an ice-cream maker this custard would make beautiful quince ice-cream instead.
Happy Autmun, everyone. It's been raining for 2 days now in Margaret River and the fire's going. I'm raising dough in front of it as I type this entry out. Autumn is my favourite season... but I'm sure I say that about every season.

vodka blueberries with lime mascarpone - a cocktail cocktail canape

No, I haven't made a typographical error, this dessert is a cocktail cocktail. Yes, it's an actual cocktail and it's served as cocktail food. I am a genius.

There’s something sexy and sophisticated about cocktails. I’m not entirely sure why, though, because every time I see someone out at a bar drinking them they’re not usually behaving in a sophisticated manner. There’s something about the term “cocktail party” though, isn’t there? It just conjures up images of classy people wearing expensive clothes and talking about their very interesting lives. This image is probably why I’m not a big cocktail drinker. It seems a little too high-falootin’ for me. However, when JJ announced we’d be cocktailing it up for this month’s Sweet Adventures Blog Hop I was ready to accept the classy challenge. After all, it’s nice to pretend that I’m sophisticated every now and then.

I’m not going to lie, being a foodie, my favourite part of cocktail parties has nothing to do with the talk, the drinks or the outfits, I’m all about the canapés. Consequently my dessert is designed as a canapé too, yes, it’s the cocktail dessert double: a dessert that’s a cocktail and is cocktail food, quiver before my inventiveness. Quiver… or just be excited with me.

This dessert is based on the way that you eat oysters. Oysters are such a perfect cocktail food, I mean they’re fancy, expensive, an aphrodisiac, easy to eat, easy to hold and just generally synonymous with cocktail parties. I wanted to make something you could slide out of those Asian porcelain soup spoons. I think they’re great for cocktail food and look really effective on a plate, proper classy, like. You could also serve this in shot glasses and it would still look funky. We made a little bit of an event out of the evening I made these. My boyfriend and I drank cocktails, made savoury canapés (and these sweet ones) and sat in our kitchen eating and drinking and feeling classy. For that one evening we were the classiest kitchen dwellers in Margaret River

Mascarpone lime cream and blueberry vodka coulis shots

Makes 24-30 serves

You need:

1 cup blueberries, frozen or fresh

2 tbsp vodka

Zest of a lime

1 cup whipping cream

400g mascarpone

1/3 cup castor sugar

a bunch of mint or basil (depending on which one you like more for the flavour combination)

24-30 shot glasses or Asian soup spoons (or a combo)

You:

Blitz the blueberries and vodka together in a food processor, blender or with a bar mix. Blend until as smooth as possible. This can be refrigerated for up to 2 days. If you don’t like the lumps you could push it through a sieve with the back of a spoon. I used it with the lumps in and liked it, but it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

Whip the mascarpone, cream, lime zest and sugar with a handheld beater (or whisk if you fancy your bicep skills) until the mixture reaches a thick, “dolloping” consistency. Refrigerate until you need it (you can fridge it for up to 6 hours).

Just before serving spoon about 1 tsp of the vodka into each spoon/shot glass.

Spoon 1 tbsp of the cream on top.

Place a leaf of basil or mint (or half a leaf if they’re big) on top of the cream.

Serve immediately. Tell your guests to take them like a shot, or like an oyster, all in one go. The blueberry vodka on the bottom helps the cream just slide straight out, kind of like you are eating oysters.