Mackay ‘masterchef’ treats Harrup Park to details and dinner
Mackay native and MasterChef runner-up Sarah Todd has returned home to promote her new line of hot sauce and treat lucky diners to a Goa inspired dinner. SEE THE PHOTOS
Mackay
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“Food crosses borders,” said MasterChef runner up and Mackay native, Sarah Todd, as she spoke effortlessly to an audience that included her family, childhood friends and Mackay’s biggest foodies.
The world class chef returned to the region on a short break from her busy restauranteering in India, to cook a delightful meal and promote her new brand of hot sauce, Hot Toddy.
“Connecting with people through food is really nice,” Ms Todd said.
“Even if you’re not a foodie, you love food.
“There’s usually one dish that evokes a feeling of nostalgia and emotion.”
For Todd, those foods were the corned Sunday roasts and corned beef dinners of her childhood, made for her by the women in her life.
With a smile on her face she recalled the moment she witnessed her aunt fry some halloumi cheese on a pan and her disastrous attempt to replicate that with cheddar cheese.
Discouraged by this early error, Todd went on to pursue a career in modelling until finally returning to the path of chef and studying at London’s “Le Cordon Bleu” culinary school.
While Todd spoke happily with childhood friend and Harrup Park and the Great Barrier Reef Arena CEO Adrian Young, the first course was brought out.
The menu was designed to infuse local ingredients and seafood with Indian influences and each course had a wine paired to complement the flavours.
With an salsa verde like sauce, these seared scallops disappeared with one all too easy bite.
With much more sauce than scallop, there was nothing for it but to scoop the garlic and lemon myrtle infused green sauce with ones fork and devour every last drop of the delightfully light dish.
The wine’s, a Seppelt Jaulka Chardonnay, citrus overtones was paired very well with the lemon myrtle and seafood flavours.
The next dish was coral trout, with a thin chicken skin coating, in a madras curry made with Bowen mango chutney.
The dish overreached in its ambition, as some guests wondered where the crisped chicken skin they were promised was, unaware that they had already eaten it.
Furthermore, the madras curry’s bitterness almost completely overwhelmed the mango chutney Todd had proudly said was made from “the best mangoes in the world”, leading guests to wonder if there hadn’t been a menu change.
Almost anticipating the strong, bitter taste of the dish, the Leo Buring Clare Valley riesling served as a refreshing palate cleanser with its light and dry flavour.
Where the second course ‘floundered’, the third course soared.
Two lamb cutlets, cooked to mouth watering perfection, served in a ever so spicy laal maas gravy with a purslane sauce to cool it off.
The lamb was so good that guests, myself included, picked up the cutlets in order to chew every morsel from the bone.
After the third course, Todd talked about how her decision to start a business in India was rooted in her cooking an Indian “village dish” on Master Chef
“If you’re not from India you wouldn’t have heard of (the dish),” she said.
“MasterChef was the number one Aussie show in India.
“When it aired I got 50k followers overnight.”
After her time on the show had ended, Todd planned a tour of India and was shocked to learn how many people recognised her.
“I fell in love with the place, then I met a restaurateur and he told me to open a restaurant in Goa.”
Todd opened Antares restaurant almost 10 years ago now and while the business is flourishing today, the experience was a stressful one for her.
“My hair was falling out,” Todd laughs.
“I didn’t know what a generator was, but my restaurant ran on one.
“One person put a water tank on top of it one day and predictably it exploded.
“It was very full on.”
Todd has since opened other restaurants in India and has expressed a desire to one day bring her cooking home and settle in Mackay, but has no plans to do so in the near future.
While Todd spoke, staff wheeled out the final course, a bouquet of roses and a container of dry ice.
One by one, Todd dipped the roses into dry ice and shattered them across the tops of the sol kadhi ice-cream.
While it was difficult to identify the meringue and the ‘ice-cream’ had the consistency of mousse, it is impossible to deny the deliciousness of the nights decadent final course.
Each guest left with a gift bag containing a free bottle of Hot Toddy hot sauce and the recipe for the spicy mango margaritas that started the night.
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