Despite the lockdown, Salted and Hung has come up with a “Best of S&H” menu that you can assemble at home to celebrate their 4th anniversary with their fans.
This contemporary Australian restaurant on Purvis Street is a known pioneer of nose-to-tail dining in Singapore, aptly named Salted and Hung for the cured meats it “salts and hangs” in-house before serving to guests. As the name says, the restaurant is a reflection of Chef-Owner Drew Nocente‘s penchant for smoking, curing and drying cuts of meat.
The restaurant just celebrated its fourth birthday last June with a DIY menu for assembling at home. Mind you, it’s not that simple – you still require a couple of tools and deft hands to make it like what they serve in the restaurant. And to round up the experience, they even have the music playlist on Spotify to recreate the atmosphere in your own home.
The meal came in 4 aluminium trays of ingredients for the 4 of the 6 courses, while their signature IPA sourdough and ANZAC biscuit came as it is, you just need to reheat those. And to round up the celebrations, you get shots of cocktails and an after-dinner aperitif in small, single serve bottles and Indian soda for mixers.
1/6 – 1 Bites
The amuse bouche is made of two parts, both of which are classics in the restaurant. The assembly is quite complicated which makes you appreciate the effort placed into the little bites at the beginning of the meal.
Suckling pig croquette, caramelised apple puree, pickled mustard seeds
“Fish n Chips”, pea puree, ikura, dill
“Fish n Chips” was the more difficult of the two “1 Bites”. First, you need to squeeze the pea puree carefully onto the brick of battered fried cod fish. The fish has been flavoured with a nice salt and pepper coating – reminded me of a Bird Eye’s fish fillet but with real fish. Then you carefully scoop the ikura onto the pea puree. Finally, you take your pincer and place strategically the dill on top of the ikura. Nothing to cook, nothing to cut, easy.
Suckling pig croquette was comparatively much simpler to assemble. You just take the croquette and squeeze some of the caramelised apple puree on it and then scoop some pickled mustard seeds to finish the amuse bouche. The creamy potato mash with bits of suckling pig and crackling was delicious, but it was a bit cold and soft when delivered. Could have benefited with a bit of time in the oven.
2/6 – Time, Love and Patience
I was disappointed that the sourdough was counted as one course in the six course Birthday Menu. This is a staple for dine-in, and you are always served the sourdough as part of their Feed Me menu.
IPA sourdough, whipped lard, kelp butter
The highlight was the whipped lard and kelp butter. While the sourdough was good, Princess did not like the sourdough taste. The kelp butter, on the hand, went on our own Gardenia toast and tasted fantastic. Now you can buy them by the bottle too. As for the whipped lard, I guess the weather was a bit warm and the consistency of the lard was runny.
I added an order of caviar to amp the meal.
3/6 – Treasure of the Sea
Raw Hokkaido scallops, lemon, kelp oil, yuzu sake gel, umami salt, buttermilk pickle apple, plum flower, dill
OK, the appetiser of the meal requires slightly more skill and patience. Luckily I had this dish in the restaurant before so I tried to remember how it was like. Firstly, I got to dry the raw Hokkaido scallops slightly with kitchen towel before I drizzle the lemon juice on it. The lemon kind of “cooks” the scallops. After that, I sprinkle the umami salt on the scallops. On a serving plate, I have spread out the buttermilk and kelp oil. Then I placed the scallops on the sauce, and placed the finishing touches, garnishing the scallops with the yuzu gel, pickled apple strips and dill. Finally, the decorative plum flowers.
Delicious course, you can almost do this at home with similar ingredients.
4/6 – Meat, Bone & Fire
Wagyu tenderloin, sous vide and then pan seared, confit leek, pickle maitake, cauliflower and onion puree, bone marrow, pear shiitake reduction
The main course requires a bit more skill – first you need to warm up the sous vide beef to the right temperature. Luckily, I have an Anova at home to bring it back to 58.5 ˚C exactly. And the you need to seared the beef on a hot skillet with the beef fats provided.
And the plating was the most difficult to achieve perfection. This attempt was the third try. Still it is a far step away from what they do in the restaurant.
I can only say, the steak was really nice. I have not done a bad job returning the meat back to serving temperature, and I did not burn my kitchen down in the process. We could do with more of the reduction, that was the highlight of the dish.
5/6 – Bramble Patch
Strawberry yoghurt, fresh raspberry, candied pistachio, cherry curd, meringue sticks
Totally screwed this up. Mixed up the sequence of placing the cherry curd and strawberry yoghurt, so instead of a base of cherry curd, I made a base of strawberry yoghurt. And the meringue sticks had all broken into bits from the delivery process, so the result looked a white colour sprinkles on a melted strawberry ice cream with cherry dressing.
This is how the bramble should look like. However, when you mix up the ingredients as you eat it, I am sure they taste the same 😉
6/6 – Tribute
Salted caramel & bacon ANZAC
OK, focus – the anzac is the biscuit on the plate, not the caviar. Anzac biscuits have long been associated with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) established in World War I. It has been claimed that biscuits were sent by wives and women’s groups to soldiers abroad because the ingredients do not spoil easily and the biscuits kept well during naval transportation.
In the restaurant, the biscuit will be presented in a secretive wooden box at the end of the meal. This is a level up from the standard ANZAC biscuit with bacon bits amongst the oats and a nice dollop of salted caramel atop the crumbly nugget. Again, I never expect this is counted as a course.
The Birthday Meal
Gin and tonic for a cheer, limoncello as aperitif. Kept these for another day, I don’t drink alcohol these days.
Happy birthday, chocolate cake from S&H. Very rich and delicious end to the meal.
This was a great attempt for customers to participate with restaurant during this time of lockdown. 6 days after the meal, Singapore went into Phase 2, which allows restaurant to have dine-in customers for up to 5 per table. Happiness.
Salted & Hung
12 Purvis Street, Singapore 188591
Tel : +65 6358 3130
Date of Delivery : Jun 2020
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