Eating through a long weekend
9 June 2009
17 Comments
Food, sleep, sunshine, movies, sleep
This long weekend was a bit of an anti climax for me. While it was great to have that extra day to recharge the batteries and get away from Sydney, in the back of my mind I was counting down the days (June 22nd) until my knee reconstruction. I’m not even worried about the operation, I’m more worried about the prospect of not being able to push myself to the limits in sport again. I can’t wait until rehab, it’s a strange feeling. It’ll also mean I will take two weeks off from work, I’ll be spending most my time on the couch catching up on many seasons of tv series which I have neglected for the past few years.
But it wasn’t just about me, I was with 7 other people who wanted to get away from the trials and tribulations of their day jobs and relax, bum around, watch a few movies and eat until their hearts content. We booked a beachside house down south at Kiama and the weather was absolutely perfect all long weekend. We didn’t cook up any elaborate meals, all the food was quite random in hindsight.
We watched a few movies on both ends of the genre spectrum. We tried to scare the daylights out of each other by watching Halloween and Ju-on, had a few laughs by watching the classics Dodgeball and Hercules Returns and got a bit more serious by watching Lucky Number Sleven.
Brunch
The last 2 days consisted of awesome sleep-ins and then waking up to cook a big breakfast. The balcony looked over the beach and was the perfect scene for cooking and eating. Nothing beats a hearty serving of bacon and eggs washed down with a freshly brewed coffee while looking into the ocean on a sunny day. I wish I could do this regularly, it is a stark contrast to eating muesli and toast at my office desk every morning.
Bacon & eggs, mushrooms, grilled tomato
Dinners
The last thing we wanted to do on a long weekend was spend all weekend cooking. Somehow, we ended up making things harder for ourselves by trying to make our own peking duck. It’s something I have maybe once a year if I’m lucky, not to mention it is usually ridiculously expensive. After making it ourselves, I would never pay to eat peking duck at a restaurant again.
Saturday night
Firstly, we had to make the peking duck pancakes. The pancakes are actually very easy to make. All that is needed is plain flour and water.
Stacks of pancakes
Rest assured, these taste better than they look. I wouldn’t serve them at a banquet, but they did the job.
Cucumbers & spring onion
roast duck
We actually bought a normal chinese roast duck from the chinese bbq store. To get the skin crispy like they have at the restaurants, we poured boiling hot oil over the duck just before serving time. This method is apparently quite common in chinese restaurants according to the bloke who owns the bbq store we regularly buy from. He sells his ducks to restaurants all over Sydney so I guess he knows a thing or two about peking duck.
Crispy & tender carved duck
Roast duck & char siu
Crispy skin roast pork
- Stir fried egg noodles with char siu & bok choy
Sunday night
Potato salad
Hand cut fries fried in duck fat
The man at the bbq store kindly gave us a bag of duck fat per our request. We had to render the duck fat in a pot and then drain the oil from the pot. We had never used duck fat before, so we decided to make some hot chips to go with our snags and salad. Firstly, the chips were quickly fried in the duck fat and then were left to cool down. When ready we then fried the chips as per normal at a higher temperature. The result was the most perfect chips I have tasted in a while, they were crunchy on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside. They were also not greasy at all which was a surprise.
Chorizo & lean beef sausages
Mixed leaf salad with grilled haloumi and mushrooms
Apart from eating, we visited the blowhole at Kiama which was a bit of a let down due to the low tide. Kiama is a nice little town which seems to triple in population during long weekends and holidays. It was great to have that extra day off, we need more public holidays that’s for sure.
Helen
Y
Steph
Arwen from Hoglet K
shez
flapflap
Simon Food Favourites
Ellie
Reemski
Alex from Iya Valley, Minshuku || 
lesley
Howard
Bubz || 
Nogz || 
Vanessa Pike-Russell
You have inspired me to make my own peking duck now… looks simple enough. What does the chips taste like fried in duck fat? Wouldn’t it bit gamey taste? I am intrigued…..
and good luck with the surgery man….
billy@ATFT’s last blog post..Rosebud – Rozelle, NSW