What do you get when a group of Bartenders get together for lunch at Cutler & Co? Amazing Absolut cocktails!
What an attractive kitchen crew! Life is just beginning to return to normal after acclaimed chef Corey Lee’s whirlwind visit for the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. But to be honest we like the buzz and busyness of festival time. Corey was an absolute pleasure to host and his inspiring dishes made us all want to travel to San Francisco to dine at his restaurant Benu. Follow us on Twitter to see more images from his spectacular menu.
Sunday lunches at Cutler & Co. are all about highlighting the relationship we have with our wonderful and hard working fresh produce suppliers. The menu changes every week depending on what’s fresh and seasonal and is a more relaxed version of our a la carte menu with appetisers and entrees to share then a choice of individually plated mains and desserts. The pièce de résistance from last Sunday was a whole suckling pig. The beautiful pig was supplied by Bundarra Pork, a small 100% free range Berkshire Pork farm on the Murray River near Barham NSW. Chef Watson promised to make the staff the most amazing sausage rolls ever with the left overs but sadly for us the pig was so good it all sold out.
For all the non vegetarians out there our last ‘Market Fresh’ Sunday lunch menu featured dry aged Cape Grim strip loin served with triple cooked chips & béarnaise. If you think this looks great, wait until you see the highlight of next Sundays menu…
Two years in the planning, we are currently using these wonderful wild strawberries. After purchasing seedlings, we approached one of our wonderful suppliers in the Yarra Valley to see if they would grow some for us. Last year the crop was flooded, so we’re super excited that we’re getting a good supply this year.
To make the most of their incredible flavour, we’re serving them simply, with clotted cream ice cream which has been infused with hay. The hay provides a wonderful spiciness, and the ice cream is absolutely delicious.
We work closely with several local suppliers and recently invited them for lunch to say thanks for all their hard work through the year, where this dish was a definite winner. Our suppliers really are the heroes of our menu, and we’ll continue to feature more of them in future posts.
Chef John Paul Twomey, straining away…
Our wonderful florist Katie Marx brought in these beautiful peonies. The colour is just incredible.
Our daily bread - part II
People love our sourdough rolls. They bring part of Andrew’s history to the restaurant through the ‘mother’, which has been growing and changing since he started using it back in 1996. The other day someone asked us for the recipe, so we thought we’d share it around.
It is well worth the effort taken to develop your own mother; it will give your bread its own fingerprint as it feeds off the wild yeasts in your kitchen. Your local baker may be good enough to give you a small amount to get yours started, and then it’s up to you to feed and nurture it.
We use dariole moulds to shape our rolls, which is best for this recipe because it’s a slightly wet dough. This recipe will also make very good use of a set of digital kitchen scales.
You will need to start one day in advance. Makes 12 dinner rolls.
First make your Starter:
120gm Water
120gm Baker’s Flour
70gm Mother
Place all ingredients in an air-tight container to stand for 24 hours.
The next day, make your Dough:
110gm Baker’s Flour
10gm Rye Flour
¾ tsp Salt
¼ tsp Dried Yeast
68gm Water
One recipe of Starter, as above
Place all ingredients into a mixer fitted with a dough hook and mix on medium speed for 10 minutes. Weigh the dough into 50gm pieces, cover with a clean cloth and leave to prove in a warm place until doubled in size (approximately two hours).
Preheat your oven to 195C. Once your dough is proved, place each piece into a lightly sprayed dariole mould. Bake for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden. Remove the rolls from the dariole moulds whilst still warm, place on a tray lined with baking paper and sprinkle with sea salt to give them a lovely crust. Before serving put them back in the oven to crisp up.
Sunday lunch at Cutler & Co. Beautiful produce to share with people you love. Looking forward to the weekend.
