We’ve put together a simple guide for some of the most popular, but slightly obscure, gourmet products, so you’ll know what they are, and what to do with them. We've choosen some Italian inspired favourites to begin!
Verjuice
Made from the juice of unfermented grapes, use it as a gentle acidulant wherever you might find lemon juice or vinegar too tart - which means whenever you want the gentlest bite of flavour.
Maggie Beer Verjuice - Maggie was the first in the world to produce Verjuice commercially. Use in salad dressings, deglazing the pan when cooking fish and chicken or poaching dried fruit to serve with a glossy dollop of mascarpone.
Maggie Beer Sangiovese Verjuice is a slightly sweeter version of the classic and is the perfect companion to desserts. Use to poach dried fruit for a compote, splash across fresh mango cheeks or reduce into a syrup with a little sugar and pour over a favourite cake or use as a cordial. It is just superb with a Gin and Tonic!
Vino Cotto
Made from the must of grapes, Vino Cotto was inspired by Mediterranean cuisine as the perfect way to further maximize Maggie and Colin’s grape harvest. Its unique sweet/sour flavour, known as ‘agrodolce’, works in any situation where you might use balsamic vinegar, i.e. the classic strawberries and balsamic combination is taken to a whole new level with vino cotto.
Colavita Vino Cotto - Try sautéing diced eggplant with onion in a little olive oil and use the vino cotto to deglaze the pan. Roast baby beetroot in olive oil until just tender and splash with vino cotto before serving as a beautiful salad on its own or spruced up with rocket and walnuts. Use vino cotto to deglaze the pan after searing beef fillets and you will have a beautiful syrupy sauce to drizzle over the meat.
Colavita Fig Vino Cotto is a sweet, highly aromatic, velvety syrup, thick with figs made the traditional way in Italy. It has the perfect balance of acidity, or as the Italians would say 'agrodolce'. Fig Vino Cotto can be used in baking, sauces, roasting vegetables, vinaigrettes and desserts. Drizzle over panna cotta or poached fruit or use as a sauce for duck breast or kangaroo.
Fruit Pastes
Maggie Beer Quince Paste - Maggie’s love for the quince came from the beauty of the tree in flower, so after reading prolifically about it she trialled her first ‘membrillo’ or quince paste. Perfect with a traditional French brie, a mature cheddar or parmesan cheese. Use it as a sweetmeat, rolled in cinnamon sugar, to serve with coffee or try it as an accompaniment to cold meats.
Truffle Oil
Truffle oil, available in all seasons and steady in price, is popular with chefs (and diners) because it is significantly less expensive than actual truffles, while possessing some of the same flavours and aroma.
Simon Johnson Black Truffle Oil is made from specially selected black truffles from the Pyrenees, these have been infused into
100% early harvest extra virgin olive oil from Arbequina olives creating an oil that is exquisitely aromatic and is perfect with omelettes, poached, fried or scrambled eggs, foie gras and all kind of meat, especially lamb.
Simon Johnson White Truffle Oil is made from 100% Arbequina Olives, infused with specially selected white truffles. Delicious drizzled into soups, scrambled eggs, or over a porcini risotto, try mixed through mashed potatoes.
Exotic Salts
All the celebrity chefs have their favourites: Jamie’s is Maldon salt (from his beloved Essex); Nigella seems to go for Maldon or other sea salt too; Stefano di Pieri has tied his gondola to Murray River salt; Maeve O’Meara and her Food Lover’s Guide say Australian sea salt is “as good as you can get”; Neil Perry favours sea salt too, but despite their surfing theme, Ben and Curtis mostly go with plain old salt. So what’s with exotic salts?
The slight differences in looks and taste depend on the minute traces of various minerals and on how the different salts are made.
Maldon Sea Salt comes from Essex in England, and has large, flaky crystals. It’s made from seawater using only traditional natural methods and is a completely natural product, retaining valuable seawater trace elements such as magnesium and calcium.
Horizon Crystal Salt Flakes is another Australian product, also from an underground source of saline water (in northern Victoria). It has a full-bodied natural flavour that leaves no aftertaste or bitterness.
Rock salt comes from underground salt deposits. It’s usually been refined and can be used in salt mills as well as for decoration (e.g. holding oyster shells in place).
Murray River Gourmet Pink Salt Flakes are harvested from pure underground saline waters in Australia's Murray/Darling River region. The naturally occurring minerals create a high quality salt with a unique flavour and appearance. Murray River Salt is tapped from pure underground saline waters that have been present for thousands of years in Australia's Murray Darling River region.
Sea salts can be used as a garnish. Place in a small finger bowl and crumble over food. Australian Murray River salt crystals are light & delicate peach colored flakes. They have a wonderfully mild flavor. The texture is ideal for use as a finishing salt. The crystals melt quickly and evenly making Murray River flake salt ideal for finishing, roasting, and baking.
Balsamic Vinegar of Modena
This most essential of all vinegars is made from cooked grape must, matured by a long and slow process, through natural fermentation, followed by progressive concentration by aging in a series of casks made from different types of wood and without the addition of any other spices or flavourings.
The colour is dark brown but full of warm light. It has a fluid and syrup-like consistency and a distinct, complex, sharp and unmistakably but pleasantly acid fragrance. It is the perfect proportion of sweet and sour. It will offer your taste buds a full and rich flavour with a variety of shadings. Balsamic vinegar is used in salad dressings, dips, marinades, reductions and sauces. Mix with a quality extra virgin olive oil for a great yet easy dressing.
Try serving in drops on top of chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano and Mortadella as an antipasto. You may also use it sparingly to enhance steaks, eggs or grilled fish, as well as on fresh fruit such as strawberries and pears.
Scrambled Eggs with Chives, Smoked Salmon and Truffle Oil
Here's one of my favorite recipes for Truffle Oil, simple yet very delicious.
Ingredients
8 Port Stephens Free range Eggs
1/2 cup pouring cream
2 tbsp chives (chopped)
Murray River Pink Salt and cracked black pepper
Slice of Taste Gourmet Tasmanian Smoked Salmon
Simon Johnson Truffle Oil
Sourdough Bread
(products in bold available at Taste Gourmet)
Method
Use a wire whisk to lightly beat 8 eggs and 1/2 cup pouring cream in a large bowl.
Melt 30g butter in a large heavy-based saucepan over low heat. Pour in eggs.
Stir slowly, lifting mixture from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon so eggs cook evenly. Stir in 2 tbsp chives (chopped) and season with sea salt and cracked black pepper.
When eggs are just set but still creamy, remove from pan.
To serve
Serve topped with a slice of smoked salmon and drizzled with a little truffle oil, and accompanied by thick-cut sourdough toast.
My thanks to many of our producers and suppliers for product information, descriptions and information.
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