Saturday, July 31, 2010

How did I get interested in food and cooking?


I guess I grew up in a typical Australian home of the 1960s. Mum cooked mainly meat and three vege. Our vegetables were cooked in a pressure cooker so they usually tasted the same. Mondays we had sausages, Tuesdays I think was rissoles and then a roast dinner on Sundays. Don't get me wrong while her mains were ordinary my mum had a real skill with cakes, slices and biscuits; a skill at baking I have never been able to match.

I might have gone on like this till this day except for a TV program that turned all of this around. It was Keith Floyd's Far flung Floyd series. He visited many asian countries and I was stunned, here was a range of food and cooking techniques that I had never even dreamed of. The most exotic food I had ever eaten came from the local chinese and was mostly deep fried. I don't know why but I longed to try these unusual and exotic foods.

I discovered the local supermarket didn't stock any of the ingredients I needed, where do you buy a wok? Of course today I could have walked into that same local supermarket and buy all the ingredients I needed. I did manage to find all the ingredients I needed and began a cooking adventure that continues to this day. Along the way i watched a number of TV programs that inspired my adventures, discovered some great cookbooks by writers like Charmaine Solomon and Dorindar Hafner ( a really amazing lady by the way).

While asian food was my first love and I love shopping in an asian grocery store I also love European food and have spent a lot of time learning about Greek and Italian food. I just love cooking and of course eating. I am a bit of a cookbook addict and have quiet a collection (so people tell me) but it is far from complete. I dine out when i can and like everyone i guess i have my favourite restaurants. Lately I have become interested in the history of food its origins and development. So I have begun exploring earlier recipes and looking at techniques and flavour matching which is so different from the way we cook today.

I have decided to do some professional training and maybe work a little in a professional kitchen, just for the experience. I must admit the job of cooking professionally is a tough one and at 50 I am too old to take it on full time.

I hope to keep learning and eating for many years to come.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

White Wine and Herb Roast Chicken


Thanks to Paula for pointing out this really nice dish in this months issue of Delicious. Well worth subscribing to.

2 chicken marylands skin on
4 kipfler potatoes peeled and sliced in two
1 garlic bulb sliced in half
sage and majorum leaves
rosemary leaves
6 thyme sprigs
1 cup white wine
Juice and zest of a lemon
olive oil

Toss all the ingredients together in a large bowl and marinate for at least and hour

Line a baling pan with cooking paper put the mixture on top and cover with foil

Place in a 180c oven for 30 mins

Increase temperature to 200c and remove foil cook until chicken is golden and juices are clear.

Yum!

Sautéed Chicken with chilli and lemon grass



250gms diced chicken

Marinade
1 tbsp shrimp paste
1 tbsp tamarind paste
2 diced chillies
1 stalk sliced lemon grass
1 tsp brown sugar

Combine ingredients either in a blender or with a mortar and pestle
Marinate chicken for 30 mins

Heat the wok and cook the paste until fragrant toss in the chicken and stir through

When cooked toss in your choice of fresh vege, in this case I used sliced red cabbage, carrot and green beans

At 100gms chicken stock to steam the vege

When ready serve either with noodles or on rice

Garnish with coriander, fried shallots or nuts

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Lamb and Kumara Stew



500 gms diced lamb brown in oil and set aside
Slice one onion finely and saute with 3 sliced cloves of garlic
Return the Lamb to the dish cover with 2 cups of red wine
Add salt and pepper and 2 bay leaves
Add 1 peeled and cubed Kumara and one roughly chopped carrot
Simmer until lamb is soft and tender approx 1 hour


Roasted Quail with mushroom asparagus risotto



Firstly rub the quail with olive oil and season with salt and pepper
Oven bake at 220c for 25 minutes remove and allow to cool
When cooled strip the meat and break into small pieces

Combine olive oil and butter in a saucepan
When butter is melted add 2 sliced shallots, 2 diced garlic cloves and saute until clear
Then stir through 100gms of sliced oyster mushrooms and 50gms sliced swiss brown mushrooms
Stir until coated 1 cup arboria rice
Add 1 cup red wine simmer until liquid is almost gone
Then add hot chicken stock (1ltr) a ladleful at a time stirring until rice is tender
Then add in chopped and cooked asparagus and quail pieces
Lastly stir through parmesan cheese until melted

Serve topped with fried shallots.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Karen Martini - Cooking at Home





This is a review I wrote for the website cheftalk.

Cooking at Home - Karen Martini
Modern Australian

Given so many of you on ChefTalk seemed to have heard little of our antipodean cook books I thought I would write a review of one of my most used cook books. Karen Martini is a chef and owner of two restaurants, as well as writing a weekly column and appearing on a couple of lifestyle programs. Her food is what we call modern Australian, a term which covers the many nationalities that we have here and the eclectic mix of food Australians enjoy. Some recipes remain authentic to their roots while others reflect a mingling of many influences. Usually all are reflected with a range of fresh produce.

In Australia because of our size its possible to buy most produce fresh all year round. In the North we have no summer or winter but a wet and a dry season, while in the South it is not unknown for snow to fall on Christmas day (N.B The equivalent of a northern hemisphere July day.). If we add to that range of produce a vast array of different nationalities and cuisines there is much to draw on and to expand anyone’s cooking repertoire.

The recipes in this book are based around Martini’s weekly recipes in a lifestyle insert in the Sunday paper. My favourite recipe is the lamb and eggplant Karhi curry. The taste is wonderful but I love it because it introduced me to a way of making a curry sauce without using any fat! This was a revelation as I was dieting at the time and was looking for low fat recipes, fortunately I am over that and would add full fat yogurt for the extra taste these days. The sauce is a blend of besan (chickpea) flour and water whisked together and then yogurt is whisked in to finish it off. It makes a rich velvety sauce that smells divine. Serving this slow cooked lamb curry with a fresh chutney beautiful.

This book also contains one of my all time favourite chicken recipes. Syrian Chicken with ginger, lemon and saffron, just thinking about it brings back fond memories. It is an ideal winter dish (southern hemisphere winter right now) and again the smell of the braise fills the kitchen. Essentially it is the subtle blend of spices cumin, turmeric and cinnamon with a pinch of saffron that just seems to complement the chicken perfectly. Served on rice or couscous it is a real family favourite.

Some of the other recipes and ideas in the book really grab attention, a delightful sauce for seafood made from a mixture of bread crumbs fresh herbs and capers blended with yogurt is a must to try. The kibbeh style ocean trout is also lovely, basically the raw fish is blended to a fine paste and mixed with burghul, sumac allspice and served with triangles of crusty bread. A lovely classic cheesecake is enhanced with fresh blue berries poached in red wine, a like it so much I experimented with a few different berries until my partner told me to cut it out. She was right some of my mixtures were odd.
In addition to these types of recipes there is a range of well-tested traditional recipes, Coq au vin, pot au feu, churros, caponata the list goes on. In short it is a really great collection of recipes that introduce some new elements but also provides traditional recipes to help the home cook who may not have ever tackled these dishes before. The book really reflects the range of cuisines and cooking styles in Australia it also highlights the Australian habit of mixing different styles and using local ingredients to make delicious food.

Beef Stifado


1 kilo cubed beef
1 kilo small or chopped onion ( i use shallots)
4 garlic cloves sliced
5tbsp red wine vinegar
3 cinnamon sticks
2 bay leaves
1 star anise or 1 tsp ground coriander
2 x 400 gm tins diced toms
1 cup red wine
juice of 1 lemon

Start with olive oil
Brown the meat in batches
Add shallots and garlic caramelise
Add other ingredients

Simmer gently for 2 hours until meat falls apart and you have a rich thick sauce.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Veal and cauliflower mash


Season and cook the veal putting aside to rest in a warm place.

Take 3 coarsely mashed potatoes and add about half as much cooked and mashed cauliflower, stir in sour cream

For the sauce combine lemon rind, lemon juice butter and about 2 tbs of capers

Serve with green beans and a nice red.

Year 11 Girls Treat



The other week my year 11 students were doing the weirdest thing they were putting lemon juice on potato crisps. They assured me it was best with chicken flavoured crinkle cuts but that salt and vinegar were also ok. I tried it, I liked it. Give it a go and see what you think.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Kiwi Kitchen

Sorry thats its been a while since my last post. My ex has just moved out and I have been sorting a lot of things out. Recipes coming very soon.



Kiwi Kitchen Richard Till

This is not a particularly new book having been published in New Zealand in 2008 to go with the TV series of the same name. As an Australian I will confess, as many of my fellow Australians would agree, we tend to ignore our New Zealand neighbours and take little interest in what happens in their country unless it involves rugby league or union, cricket or netball. So when I first caught this show on pay TV I was very pleasantly surprised.

Richard seems an affable man with a casual and evenhanded approach to cooking. He has run a couple of successful restaurants in Christchurch as well as making appearances on radio and in newspapers discussing all manner of food related issues. This book follows his journeys around New Zealand cooking with locals and adding twists of his own. The food is based on fresh produce, traditional family recipes and eating well.

My favourite recipe from the book is Spencer’s Battered Oysters. Now in Spencers defence he went to pains to point out that oysters are best eaten fresh and raw with a dash of lemon if you must. I agree but the recipe brings back memories of my childhood in Southern Sydney where oysters were cheap, plentiful and delicious. So easily obtainable that battering and frying them was a viable option. Bottles of oysters were part of my growing up. Any way the recipe is simple, flour, eggs, seasoning. Deep fry until golden. Really nice and great with a chilli dipping sauce. I had forgotten how good this dish was.
One recipe that stood out to me because I am always looking for new ways to serve snails. In this case the recipe dates back to “trendy” New Zealand restaurant food of the 80s where this little dish was a big money spinner. The dish itself consists of sautéed snails served in a spicy vodka jelly, garnished with micro herbs and a subtle sauce. Does it taste good? I guess you would have to be the judge of that, but it certainly makes a great talking point at a dinner party.

The book contains a lot of recipes that add spice to traditional dishes like meat pies, things to do with mince. I had somehow forgotten the simple pleasure of savoury mince on toast. Used to have it many a cold Sunday night. As well as these old recipes getting a run Richard also features a number of Maori family foods. Many of these recipes need specific ingredients but one that took my eye burnt sugar pudding. It did come with a warning, so I cooked it outdoors on the BBQ, this as it turned out was a wise move. Its basically a boiled pudding, but with a big difference. Apart from the usual sugar, flour, butter, egg. It includes burnt sugar water. To make this you melt some sugar in a saucepan, let it burn and at the right moment add boiling water. This mixture when cooled is used to moisten the dry ingredients. First two attempts I made resulted in a lot of cleaning up in the kitchen, ever smelled badly burnt sugar? The third attempt it did not burn enough and with the fourth I fluked it. The flavour it gave the pudding was very unusual. I don’t really know what was different about that last attempt, but luck was on my side.

This is not a book full of complex recipes but it is good fun. It brought back many memories of the simple food I grew up on and had basically never thought of cooking myself. It served as a timely reminder that family recipes are passed down because people actually like eating them. The book is available online at fishpond.nz. If you have an interest in family or traditional recipes its well worth a look. If nothing else it will provide an insight into the cooking of New Zealand.