Chris Taylor's Recipes

Chicken, asparagus and mushroom risotto

2009-02-26T02:19:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

550 mL chicken stock, warmed
185 mL white wine or vermouth
200 g aborio rice
2 cooked chicken breasts, sliced (or just use left over roast chicken)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 bunch of asparagus
1 onion, diced
1 stick of celery, diced
1/2 handful mushrooms, sliced
2 knobs of butter
extra virgin olive oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Heat a knob of butter and a splash of olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Fry onion, garlic and celery for 10-15 minutes or until soft. Crank the heat. Add the rice and fry for a minute, stirring frequently. Add the wine and reduce. When it's almost gone, drop the heat and add a ladle of stock and asparagus. Season with salt and pepper. Add the stock ladle by ladle--you might not need all of it, so don't add it all at once--letting each ladleful reduce considerably before adding the next. After 15 minutes, stir in the mushrooms and chicken. It'll probably be 5 minutes or so before the rice is cooked--you can tell it's done when it has just a little bit of bite left to it. Risotto is a creamy dish, but that's not to say the rice should be cooked until its goo. When the rice is cooked, add the final knob of butter, stir in, cut the heat and clamp the lid down. Steam for a couple of minutes and then serve, seasoning with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and a glug of extra virgin olive oil.

Beef and muscat sausages

2009-02-25T16:00:00.000-08:00

This represents my third attempt at sausage-making. The results weren't brilliant, but they were definitely acceptable. I wouldn't be pissed off if I'd paid for these, is the point. The muscat was a bright idea I had half way through making the sausages. I was originally aiming for a 'barbecue beef' sausage--thus the choice in spices.

Before hanging sausages, you need to twist them into individual sausages, right? Sounds like a challenge, but it's quite easy once you get the hang of it. Personally, I find it easiest to work in metre lengths. I take great care not to overfill the casings and then, when I have a metre-long sausage, I cut it. I fold the metre long sausages in half and then twist the two halves together, starting from the top, about 15 cm from the initial fold. I then feed one of the ends through the hole and repeat the process. Don't simply twist them together, as they'll come undone the moment you let go. It's very important to feed the one of the ends through the hole you just made.

Finally, a word on hanging. I form the twisted sausages into a bundle and then tie food-safe string to them. I place the whole lot in a plastic bag. I tie the other end of the string to a small object--a piece of cutlery would do the job--and then lift up the second last shelf of the fridge. I feed the string in so the small object sits on top of the shelf and the bag of sausages is hanging underneath. I tried using plastic hooks attached to the bottom of the second shelf, but found they didn't have enough strength in their sticky backing.

1 kg chuck steak, trimmed of excess fat and sinew, cut into small strips
500 g pork fat, cut into small strips
natural casings, re-hydrated
a very generous splash of muscat (substitute port or sherry or about anything else)
2 tsp salt
a generous pinch of paprika
a generous pinch of freshly ground black pepper
a generous pinch of thyme

Use the coarsest setting of the mincer to grind up the chuck and pork fat. Combine with the spices and muscat in a bowl and refrigerate until cold. Run the whole lot through the mincer again, this time on the finest setting. Feed into sausage casings. Hand overnight.

My first attempts at making sausages

2009-02-21T03:24:00.000-08:00

Picked up a new toy yesterday--something the packaging calls a multi-purpose 'food turner'. Essentially, it's a pasta machine and a mincer. I already have a pasta machine--never used it, of course--so I'm not particularly interested in the former, but the latter? Can see myself having a whole lot of fun with that.

When I got it home, I sterilised all the components in boiling water and set to work. I had a kilo of boneless pork belly and I minced it up with some salt, pepper and freshly ground fennel seeds. I worked it into some collagen casings and then fried them up. Was I happy with the result? No. The sausages burst. Collagen casings, it seems, aren't the slightest bit forgiving to the sausage maker who dares overstuff his sausages. They were dry as all hell, too.

I took the sausage maker into Saturday school today with the intent of having the kids make sausages. I was right in assuming it'd be right in their collective happy zone, something they'd all go nuts over--turning the crank, forcing the meat into casings, barbecuing or frying them up. To keep it cheap, I went for mutton. You could do these with lamb, though. I also put in some pork fat, to lube them up some. And salt and pepper and curry powder and garlic and onion. The results? Better. Not brilliant, but significantly better. The kids enjoyed them and, yeah, I've had plenty of sausages that were nowhere near as good as these in my lifetime, but there's still a lot of work to be done. Keep that in mind if attempting my recipe.

Ingredients:

1 kg mutton, chopped into small cubes
250 g pork fat, chopped into small cubes
collagen casings
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 small onion, finely diced
1 tbs curry powder
a good splash of cold water
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Mince the mutton and pork fat and transfer to a bowl. Combine with garlic, onion, water, curry powder, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Place a handful of the mince at a time into sausage stuffer (which, in my case, is the same device that minced the meat in the first place, just with a different attachment screwed in).

So yeah, the results. Okay. But still not great. I know why, though, after speaking to a local butcher.

Dryness

Dryness wasn't an issue with the second batch, but the first? Yeah. Big issue. Even though I'd used really fatty meat. The butcher said for maybe a kilogram of meat, he adds about a half cup of very cold (we're talking close to freezing here) water to the mix. Some of it will drain out later.

Casings

Collagen casings work, yeah, but they're hard to tie and they're prone to bursting. Go for the natural casings. That is, pig intestines (you can also get beef and lamb intestines). You'll have to order them 2-3 days in advance, probably, and buy a decent quantity, but that's not a problem. The butcher I go to? He's getting me a bag of casings that'll allow me to make 80-100 kg of sausages. Sounds ridiculous, but the casings are salted. They last forever. All you need to do is take the desired length (which is apparently a bit tricky) and soak it for a while.

Fresh garlic and onion

Okay, if you're planning on cooking your sausages shortly after you make them, using fresh veg isn't a problem. But point is, fresh veg significantly reduces the shelf life of your sausages.

Hanging

Sausages shouldn't be cooked right away. No, they're too fresh, according to the butcher. They're edible, I mean. The results will still be okay if you've done everything else right. But for best results, you should hang them overnight. To do this, keep them in a bundle and hang them in the fridge from a hook. Just remove a shelf or adjust the shelves so you have a large space at the bottom of the fridge. Use one of those hooks with a sticky backing. Hang them either inside a large plastic bag or over a plate, as the excess juices and water will drain out. Unless you have a dedicated fridge, this aspect of the sausage making process will limit the amount of sausages you can output in a single session. There's no point in running 10 kg of meat through your mincer if you only have room in the fridge to hang a couple of kilograms of sausages.

Thai mud crab

2009-02-21T03:13:00.000-08:00

Never had mud crab before this. Had blue swimmer, had spanner. Didn't mind the former but wouldn't bother with the latter again. I was convinced that crab was inferior to bugs, yabbies, prawns and lobster, but still, I'd heard good things about mud crab and felt that I had to give it a go.

You might have to extend the cooking times. The crab I bought was about 600 g. A bigger crab would require a few more minutes, probably. You could use this recipe with other crabs. With blue swimmers, even. Just adjust the cooking time.

Ingredients:
1 live mud crab, about 600 g
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 stalks lemongrass, torn up and bruised
2 small chillies, sliced
1 big lump of ginger, sliced
1 bunch spring onions, sliced
1/2 bunch fresh coriander, leaves picked
a splash of soy sauce
a pinch of brown sugar
steamed rice, to serve

The best way of dealing with the crab is to sit it in the freezer for a hour. If he's not dead by that point, he'll be pretty groggy.

Heat a large saucepan of water on the stove. Sit an appropriately sized bamboo steamer over said saucepan. Meanwhile, take the crab from the freezer. Flip him onto his back and pull at the flap on the belly, ideally working off the shell in the process (if you balls it up, you can just bust the shell open with a sharp knife). Pick out the lungs--those grey, furry things--and get rid of the mustard-looking stuff. Pretty much, with a crab, the inedible stuff looks inedible. Twist the legs and claws off. Give the claws a good whack with the back of your knife, a meat tenderiser, a sharpening steel or pretty much anything to crack them open.

On a small metal plate (I actually used a small pie tin), make a bed for the crab pieces with the lemon grass. Scatter the garlic, ginger and chilli over the crab pieces. Sprinkle over the sugar and add the soy. Don't go nuts with that stuff, as it's pretty potent. Steam for 15 minutes or until the crab is cooked through--the shell will be bright red. Lift the lid of the steamer and scatter the coriander leaves and spring onion slices over the crab. Steam for a further minute. Serve with rice.

Rabbit pie

2009-02-14T01:15:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

600 g rabbit mince
500 mL rabbit or chicken stock
5 frozen short crust pastry sheets
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 chillies, diced
1 piece ginger, sliced
1 egg, beaten
1/2 stick lemon grass, sliced
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tbs coriander seeds, roasted and then ground
1 tbs shrimp paste
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp turmeric powder
pinch of flour
splash of rice wine (i.e. sake)
generous pinch of sesame seeds
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
peanut oil
chilli sauce (optional)

Over a low flame, heat some peanut oil in a large saucepan. Add ginger, garlic, onion and lemon grass. When soft, add coriander and turmeric. Stir and fry for a minute, then add the rabbit mince, fish sauce and shrimp paste. Give the mince some colour and then deglaze the saucepan with a splash of rice wine. Add the sugar, flour and stock. Cover and simmer for a hour. Season with freshly ground black pepper, sea salt and, if desired, chilli sauce. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Thaw pastry. Work into three oven proof ramekins. Trim away excess pastry. If there are any tears, use the off-cuts to patch them up. Ladle the cooled filling into pastry-lined ramekins. Brush some beaten egg around the rim of each pie. Lay another sheet of pastry on top. Trim away excess again. Poke a few holes in the lid of each pie, then brush some egg on top. Sprinkle with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and sesame seeds. Bake at 180*C for 45-50 minutes.

Amarula chocolate mousse

2009-02-13T22:09:00.001-08:00

I rarely bother with desserts, but for Valentine's Day I figured I'd put in the extra effort. Amarula is a South African cream liqueur made from 'the unique fruit of the marula tree'. My girlfriend, being Zimbabwean, has a fondness for this stuff. You can make this mousse with other liqueurs too. Just keep in mind that you may want to reduce the quantities. A single tablespoon of Bailey's, for instance, would most certainly be enough.

170 g good quality dark chocolate, 70% cocoa solids, broken into small pieces
125 mL heavy cream, whipped into soft peaks
4 eggs, separated
60 mL Amarula
50 g butter, cut into chunks
2 tbs white sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartare
pulp from passion fruit

Heat a little water in a large saucepan until it begins to simmer. Reduce heat. Place a bowl over saucepan and add chocolate. Stir chocolate as it melts to prevent scorching. When melted, add the Amarula and take off heat.. Stir in gently and then add in the butter, chunk by chunk. When fully incorporated, add the egg yolks one at a time.

In another bowl, combine egg whites with cream of tartare. Whisk and whisk and whisk, gradually adding the sugar. When the egg whites hold soft peaks, gently fold egg whites into chocolate mix. Then fold in the whipped cream. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours. To serve, spoon carefully into glasses and top with a little passion fruit pulp.

Moroccan lamb

2009-02-11T01:16:00.000-08:00

I bought very good lamb for this, but one of the cheapest cuts. I'd advise you do the same. Lamb breast is something you'll have to ask for, probably. And probably the butcher will have to get it in. Put it aside, specially. It's a magnificent cut. Fatty--I'd advise hacking away the excess with a knife if you're braising--and full of flavour. It'd go well in a curry or pie. You could separate the ribs and barbecue it. You could roast it. Could do about anything. Cooking it slowly is best though. Don't worry about not having a cleaver. So long as you have a decent chef's knife--a western one, mind--you should have no problem getting through the bones. They're quite small.

Ingredients:

800 g lamb breast, chopped into chunks
500 mL lamb stock (substitute chicken stock, I guess)
400 g can diced tomatoes
handful dried apricots, roughly chopped
handful pitted dates, chopped
a splash of muscat, port or other sweet, fruit-based alcohol
4 pieces preserved lemon, rinsed and drained
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, sliced
1 small piece ginger, grated
1 tbs tomato paste
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin, ground
1 tsp turmeric, ground
1 tsp coriander, ground
1/2 tsp cinnamon, ground
1/2 tsp chilli powder
2 cardamom pods
sea salt
oil
couscous or rice, to serve

In a saucepan, fry the onion and garlic in a little oil over a medium flame until soft. Add the ginger and spices. Stir for a minute, then add the lamb pieces. Brown all over, deglaze with port/muscat, then stir in the tomato paste. Add the canned tomatoes, stock, preserved lemon and dried fruit. Season with sea salt to taste. Simmer, partially covered, on a very low heat for 90-120 minutes. Be sure to stir well every 10-15 minutes to prevent stuff from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Beef and vegetable stew

2009-02-09T01:36:00.000-08:00

This is a very simple stew. It came about after I bought some more skirt steak and had the bright idea of experimenting with another of the fortified wines. After much pacing of the relevant section of the bottle shop, I ended up with a bottle of muscat. Never had the stuff before. It's quite sweet, but not overly so. To my taste, at least, it works perfectly in the dish. Feel free to substitute it for a red wine of your choice, though.

Ingredients:

600 g skirt steak, cut into bite-sized chunks
350 mL muscat
250 mL beef stock
2 sticks celery, cut into chunks
1 carrot, peeled and cut into chunks
1 parsnip, peeled and cut into chunks
1 onion, sliced
4 cloves garlic
2 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
2 tbs tomato paste
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
oil

In a large saucepan, heat some oil over a medium-low flame. Fry celery, garlic and onion for ten minutes, before adding carrot and parsnip. Cook for a further five minutes, then add the beef. Cook for five minutes. Stir in the tomato paste, then add the muscat, stock, thyme and bay leaves. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, cover, reduce heat and simmer for one and a half hours.

Beef and stout pie

2009-02-08T00:48:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

400 g beef skirt or chuck steak, diced
375 mL stout (I used Guinness Extra Stout)
60 mL beef stock
2 tomatoes, diced
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp curry powder
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
a pinch of flour
a splash of Worcester sauce
a splash of Tabasco sauce
2 sheets puff pastry
2 sheets short crust pastry
1 egg, beaten
a splash of milk
oil

Once cool, pre-heat the oven to 190*C.

Fry the onion and garlic in oil in a saucepan over a low flame until soft. Add curry powder and then, a second later, add the tomato. When tomato is soft, add the beef. Seal on all sides, then add the stout and stock. Season with freshly ground black pepper, sea salt, Tabasco and Worcester. Stir in a pinch of flour. Cover and simmer for 90 minutes. Remove from heat and uncover. Allow to cool.

Line two ramekins with the short crust pastry. Be gentle. Cut away the excess. Spoon in the cooled filling until it is level with the top of the ramekin. Brush the edge of the pastry with a little beaten egg, then lay the puff pastry on top. Prick four holes in the puff pastry. Add the milk to the remaining egg and lightly brush it over the puff pastry. Sprinkle a few poppy seeds on top; Bake until puff pastry is golden and, well, puffy. About 30-40 minutes.

Duck and mushroom pie

2009-02-08T00:37:00.000-08:00

This recipe will make for two single serve pies, although it can easily be expanded to make one large pie. Too, a word on stock. I didn't have time to make duck stock and I certainly wasn't going to fork over near $10 for it, so I used a watered down beef stock. Obviously duck stock would make for a superior end product, but it's not disastrous if you don't have any handy.

Ingredients:

300 g diced duck meat (I used various off-cuts from the duck I'd bought the other day)
300 mL duck stock or watered down beef stock
30 mL port
1 small onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 mushrooms, diced
2 tbs fresh thyme, chopped
2 tbs tomato paste
a pinch of flour
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
2 sheets puff pastry
2 sheets short crust pastry
1 egg, beaten
a splash of milk
a pinch of poppy seeds
oil

Fry the onion and garlic in oil in a saucepan over a low flame until soft. Stir in the tomato paste. Add the duck meat and seal for just a few seconds, before adding the port. Follow with the stock and thyme. Season with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt. Add a pinch of flour. Simmer, with the lid on, for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the diced mushrooms. Simmer, with the lid on, for a further 30 minutes. Take off the heat and remove lid. The gravy will thicken considerably as it cools.

Once cool, pre-heat the oven to 190*C.

Line two ramekins with the short crust pastry. Be gentle. Cut away the excess. Spoon in the cooled filling until it is level with the top of the ramekin. Brush the edge of the pastry with a little beaten egg, then lay the puff pastry on top. Prick four holes in the puff pastry. Add the milk to the remaining egg and lightly brush it over the puff pastry. Sprinkle a few poppy seeds on top; Bake until puff pastry is golden and, well, puffy. About 30-40 minutes.

Duck breasts seasoned with juniper berries and Sichuan peppercorns, served in sourdough with a summer salsa

2009-02-07T01:01:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

2 boneless duck breasts, skin-on
4 slices sour dough, rubbed with a little extra virgin olive oil and lightly toasted
4 vine-ripened cherry tomatoes, diced
1 small red onion, diced
1/2 Lebanese cucumber, peeled, de-seeded and diced
1/4 orange, juiced
1 tbs finely chopped flat leaf parsley
2 tsp juniper berries, freshly ground
2 tsp Sichuan peppercorns, freshly ground
sea salt
extra virgin olive oil

Season the duck breasts with the juniper berries, Sichuan peppercorns and sea salt. Drizzle with a little oil.

Pre-heat oven to 220*C.

Pre-heat a fry pan over a high heat. When hot, add the duck breasts, skin side down. Seal for just a minute, then flip over. After a minute, transfer pan to the oven and roast for 7-8 minutes. Take duck breasts out of pan and rest for at least five minutes.

Prepare the salsa by tossing the vegetables together. Sprinkle them with a little salt and mix in the orange juice.

Spoon salsa onto two slices of bread. Add duck breasts on top.

Authentic tacos

2009-02-05T02:39:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

400 g skirt steak
6 soft tortillas
2 limes, juiced
2 tomatoes, diced
1 red onion, diced
1 clove garlic, very finely minced
1 bunch coriander, leaves picked
1 jalapeno, de-seeded, diced
1/2 cucumber, peeled, de-seeded and diced
2 tsp cumin seeds, ground
freshly ground white pepper
sea salt
peanut oil

Season steak all over with sea salt, freshly ground white pepper and cumin. Set aside for a half hour to come up to room temperature. Drizzle a little peanut oil over one side.

Pre-heat a fry pan over high flame. Cook steak, oiled side down, for one minute. Turn. Cook for a further minute. Drop heat to low. Cook for a minute. Turn and cook for a final minute, then set aside. Rest steak while you prepare the vegetables.

In a bowl, toss together the tomato, onion, garlic, coriander leaves, jalapeno and cucumber. Add the lime juice and a pinch of sea salt.

Warm tortillas according to packet instructions.

Slice the steak into small strips.

Fill tortilllas with steak and vegetables. Don't overfill, otherwise it'll go everywhere when you try and eat it.

Pork chops with a bourbon and Cajun spice coating

2009-02-04T15:01:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

4 pork chops
2 tsp white pepper, freshly ground
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion flakes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon, ground
a little bourbon

Ensure all spices are very finely ground. Combine in a cup or other small vessel. Add just enough bourbon to form a thick paste. Rub this into the pork. Set aside for a hour. Barbecue or broil until cooked through.

Onion and red wine vinegar sauce for beef, emu, kangaroo or venision

2009-02-03T17:30:00.001-08:00

This is a very simple sauce for red meat.

Ingredients:

1 onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbs red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp whole mustard seeds
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
olive oil

Heat some olive oil in a small fry pan. Add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add the onions and garlic. Fry for five minutes, then add the red wine vinegar. Season to taste with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt. Simmer until onions are very soft. Transfer everything into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until smooth. Drain sauce to remove excess liquid and then spoon a small amount next to each piece of meat.

Curried veal wraps

2009-02-03T02:46:00.000-08:00

I picked up a tray of diced veal the other day on special. A couple days from the best before, see. I was originally intending on a curry, but today I realised I couldn't be bothered. Something I didn't need to simmer for a hour or so would be better.

Ingredients:

300 g diced veal
4 tortillas or large chapattis, warmed
2 tomatoes, diced, seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 large onion, sliced
1 lump ginger, diced
1 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp cumin seeds, ground
4 cloves, ground
freshly ground black pepper
peanut oil
yoghurt, to serve

A few hours before cooking, put the veal, all the ground spices and some freshly ground black pepper in a zip lock bag. Shake to cover the meat evenly and then refrigerate.

Heat oil in a fry pan over a medium low flame. Fry the onion, garlic and ginger until they begin to soften. Add the tomato. Stir and fry until tomato has softened. Add the seasoned veal. Stir and fry until veal is cooked medium rare. Spoon into tortillas. Add a couple of spoonfuls of yoghurt.

Hot goat curry

2009-02-02T01:55:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

400 g boneless goat meat, diced
4 garlic cloves, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 piece ginger, sliced
1 tomato, diced
1 bunch coriander
1 tbs black pepper, ground
1 tbs chilli powder
1 tbs coriander seeds, ground
1 tsp turmeric powder
6 cardamom pods, ground
6 cloves, ground
1 star anise, ground
30 mL apple cider vinegar
ghee or oil
hot chilli sauce, to taste

Heat ghee or oil in a small saucepan. Fry onion, garlic and ginger until soft. Add ground spices. Fry for a couple of minutes. Add tomato and about a tablespoon's worth of chopped coriander stems. Fry for five minutes and then add the goat meat. Brown on all sides, then add the apple cider vinegar. Cook for a minute then add 400 mL water. Season with salt and chilli sauce. Simmer for one hour--cover the pan for the first 45 minutes, then remove the lid for the final 15 minutes of cooking. Add coriander leaves for the final 10 minutes.

Simple avocado dip

2009-02-02T01:27:00.000-08:00

This dip is very simple. I first made it on one of those lazy days--I was tired from work and really couldn't be bothered mucking about with straining and whisking yoghurt or grinding spices. I had an avocado. I had fresh chilli and garlic. Tabasco, too. What else did I need?

I used this as a dip for raw carrot and cucumber. You could use it for chips or about anything. Could even throw it into tacos or burritos or any of those tortilla-wrapped delights.

Ingredients:

1 large, ripe avocado
2+ fresh chillies (to taste)
2 cloves garlic, peeled
a splash of Tabasco
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

Cut the avocado in half. Peel the skin off and remove the stone. Tear the flesh into chunks and drop it into the bowl of a food processor, along with the garlic and two chillies. Blitz until smooth. Season with freshly ground black pepper, sea salt and Tabasco. Blitz. Add more chillies if desired.

Pork chops with honey mustard glaze

2009-02-01T17:23:00.000-08:00

I picked up a roll of Otway pork this morning. Otway pork is reared free-range. The way pork is supposed to be reared. I wanted to sample some with a fairly simple, mild-flavoured sauce or glaze, so here is what I came up with:

1 free-range pork chop
2 tbs mustard powder
1 tbs whole mustard seeds
a glug of honey
a splash of Tabasco
a splash of Worcester sauce
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

In a small vessel, mix with mustard powder with enough water to form a paste. Add the whole mustard seeds, honey, Tabasco and Worcester. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. If it's a bit thin, add more mustard powder. Conversely, if it's a bit dry add a touch more water.

Rub the glaze all over the pork chop. Set aside for a hour.

Pre-heat the broiler to medium high. Broil pork chop until done, turning frequently to prevent the honey from burning. When pork chop is just cooked, place on a plate and cover with foil. Set aside for five minutes.

You can use this 'marinade' with about any cut of pork--just adjust quantities as necessary.

Chilli con kangaroo

2009-02-01T00:46:00.000-08:00

This is my take on chilli con carne, the Texan dish that--as the name suggests--combines chilli and meat. Chilli--as in the dish, not the plant--isn't seen too often on Australian tables. Indeed, I suspect many Australians don't know what it is. Essentially, chilli a dish that's akin to Bolognese sauce in texture. Meat--typically beef--beans and tomatoes form the base of most chilli recipes. There are notable exceptions, of course. And yeah, too, there's obviously chilli. As in the fruit. You can use it in dried, fresh or pickled form.

Ingredients:

400 g kangaroo mince
400 g can cannelini beans, rinsed and drained
400 g can whole tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, sliced
2 bay leaves
2 small, fresh chillies, diced
1 capsicum, diced
1 onion, sliced
125 mL beer
1 tbs smoked paprika
1 tbs whole allspice berries
1 tbs whole black peppercorns
1 tbs whole cumin seeds
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp whole cloves
sea salt
Tabasco, to taste
oil
grated cheese, to serve
pickled chilli to serve
sour cream, to serve
steamed rice, to serve

Heat oil in a saucepan. Fry onion and garlic until soft.

Meanwhile, roast the bay leaves, allspice, black peppercorns, cloves, cumin and paprika in a small, non-stick saucepan over a low flame. When nicely pungent, grind in a mortar and pestle. Set aside.

When the onions and garlic are soft, add the capsicum and fresh chillies. Fry for five minutes, then add the kangaroo mince, ground spices and brown sugar. Brown the meat, then add the entire contents of the tomato can (i.e. the juices as well as the tomatoes) and the beer. Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes.

Add the beans. Simmer for a further 20 minutes. Season with sea salt and Tabasco. Serve.

Goat kebabs with a spiced sour cream dipping sauce

2009-01-30T18:14:00.000-08:00

Here's another recipe for goat kebabs. Again, to get the necessary boneless meat it's best to ask the butcher to bone out a whole leg and dice the remaining meat. Retain the bone for stock.

Ingredients:

200 g boneless goat meat, cut into a 1.5 cm dice
150 g sour cream
2 small chillies
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 onion, cut into quarters with slices separated
a handful of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
2-3 tablespoons of fresh coriander (a mix of leaves and stems)
1 tbs whole cumin seeds, lightly roasted
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
olive oil

Thread the goat, tomato and onion onto metal skewers (if you only have bamboo ones, you'll need to soak them in water prior to use to prevent burning). Season with freshly ground pepper, sea salt and olive oil. Refrigerate for a hour.

Pre-heat the broiler or barbecue to medium low. Cook the goat kebabs for 20-25 minutes or until cooked through, basting occasionally with a little oil.

Meanwhile, prepare the dipping sauce by blitzing the coriander, chilli, cumin and garlic in a food processor. Whisk in to sour cream. Season to taste with salt and black pepper.

Goat kebabs with a sherry and paprika marinade

2009-01-30T16:37:00.000-08:00

These are very simple kebabs. You could jazz them up with some fresh herbs, garlic, chilli powder or about anything else. Me, I couldn't really be bothered. I had some sherry I wanted to use up and wanted to do something dramatically different to the other lot of goat kebabs I'm doing today. You can barbecue them, broil them or even roast them. Either way, be careful not to overcook them. Goat meat is quite lean. It won't withstand as much punishment as, say, lamb. And yes, you can make these with lamb if you're unable to source goat. Could use mutton too, I suppose.

To get boneless goat me, I bought a whole goat leg. I asked the butcher to bone it out and cut it into a 1.5 cm dice.

Ingredients:

200 g boneless goat meat, cut into a 1.5 cm dice
125 mL dry sherry (no need to measure it, just eyeball it)
1/2 onion, cut into quarters with slices separated
a handful of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 tbs sweet paprika
a generous slash of sherry vinegar
a splash of olive oil
a freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

Thread the meat, tomato and onion onto skewers. If you're using bamboo skewers, you'll have to soak them in water prior to use to prevent burning. Me, I make things easier by using metal skewers. I picked up some nice, long ones for a couple of dollars at the local discount shop. Once the kebabs are prepared, sit them in an oven tray (you can use any tray, really, but I used an oven tray as it was just the right size). Season with black pepper and paprika, then add the sherry, sherry vinegar and olive oil. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours at least. Open the cling film every so often to spoon the liquid ingredients over the meat. Just before cooking, sprinkle generously with sea salt.

Cook on or under a medium-low heat for 20-25 minutes, turning and basting frequently with the marinade.

Emu fan fillet sandwiches

2009-01-29T04:46:00.000-08:00

I really like emu. It has a magnificent, meaty flavour. Not as strong as kangaroo or venison, even, but still very nice. I bought a kilogram of fan fillet the other day, so twice over the next few weeks you'll see emu recipes appear. I had the butcher cut the piece into three. I'll have to try a curry with one of the pieces. The other piece? No idea at this stage. A thought that occured just now, though, is a sort of 'coat of arms' pie. That'd be a whole lot of fun. Particularly if I could season it with native stuff like mountain pepper. Stay tuned, kids.

Anyway, this sandwich. It's essentially a steak sandwich, only with emu instead of beef. You could make this with beef. You could make this with buffalo. With ostrich. With kangaroo. You could add a bit more vegetable matter. Maybe take those lovely pieces of onion that have absorbed the flavour of the red wine and lay them on top of the fan fillet. Go crazy. I mean, it's meat in bread, you can't really ruin it.

Ingredients:

4 slices of sour dough or other good quality bread
4 slices beetroot
2 150-175 g pieces of emu fan fillet
1 quantity thick red wine and garlic sauce
a small handful of baby spinach leaves (could use rocket here, I guess)
a little olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

A half hour before cooking, remove the emu from the fridge to get it up to room temperature. Season generously with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Drizzle a little olive oil on top, too.

Pre-heat the fry pan to smoking hot. You could use a barbecue, of course. Could even toast the bread over the grill. Just be careful not to burn it. When hot, add the emu fan fillet pieces. Cook for two minutes on each side and then transfer to a plate. Wrap in foil and let rest for five minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the bread. Rub a little olive oil into it and toast it lightly. When toasted, top two of the slices with the baby spinach leaves and beetroot slices. When the fan fillet has rested enough, add to the sandwich. Then pour over the sauce. Now, you might've figured this is the kind of steak sandwich you eat with a knife and fork. You'd be right, there. So maybe sex it up a bit with a garnish. Preferably something more interesting than the very 90s sprig of continental parsley, mind.

Thick red wine and garlic sauce

2009-01-29T04:40:00.000-08:00

This sauce is suitable for all manner of red meats--beef, buffalo, kangaroo, emu, venison and, yeah, about anything else that's red and meaty. It's based on a Charlie Trotter recipe. His recipe used as much garlic with a whole bottle of wine, but here I wanted a much stronger garlic flavour. Too, I didn't use the capsicum or celery his recipe called for. And, yeah, substituted sherry vinegar for his balsamic, as it seemed--for no particularly compelling reason--right.

Ingredients:

250 mL red wine (I used cab sav)
1 tbs butter, softened
1 tbs port
1 tbs sherry vinegar
6 cloves garlic, sliced
2 bay leaves, torn
1 onion, sliced
1 tomato, diced
a splash of olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

Heat some oil in a small saucepan. Fry the garlic and onion until soft. Season with sea salt and black pepper. Add the bay leaves, tomato, port and sherry vinegar. Reduce until the liquid is almost gone. Keep seasoning with salt and black pepper. Add the red wine and reduce by half. Take saucepan off heat and pour through a sieve into a jug or other vessel. Use a spoon to squeeze all the liquid you can out of the garlic, onion and tomato. Stir butter into the sauce and season again, if necessary.

Australian burgers

2009-01-28T00:05:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

400 g kangaroo mince
4 damper rolls, split and warmed
4 slices beetroot
4 slices cheese (I used cheddar)
4 slices pineapple
1 red onion, sliced
1 tomato, sliced
a handful of lettuce leaves
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
Tabasco, to taste
Worcester sauce, to taste

The day before, combine the kangaroo mince with however much black pepper, sea salt, Tabasco and Worcester sauce appeals. Form the mince into four patties and place on a plate. Use your thumb to make an indentation in each patty. Cover and refrigerate.

Add fillings to the rolls in the following order (from the bottom): lettuce, beetroot, pineapple, cheese, kangaroo, onion and tomato.

Beer damper rolls

2009-01-27T22:52:00.001-08:00

In years gone by, people in Australia's bush would make a simple bread from flour and water. That's how we made it in scouts, anyway. That's how we were told it was made. Most recipes you see online, though, use milk in place of water. I'm not sure which is authentic as, really, I use neither milk nor water and, as a general rule, I care more for flavour than authenticity.

When I made these rolls, it was to use them as burger buns. If you want to make a large loaf or dinner rolls or anything in between, you could easily do so by portioning the dough differently. You might have to adjust the cooking time too.

Ingredients:

500 g self-raising flour, sifted
350 mL beer
50 g salt-reduced butter, chilled and cut into cubes
1/2 tsp white sugar
a pinch of fine sea salt
a splash of milk

Pre-heat oven to 190*C.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter cubes, too. Rub them into the flour as if you're making pastry or scones. Once the butter and flour are well combined, add the beer. Mix with your hands. Form the dough into a ball. If it's sticky, add a bit more flour.

Split the dough into four evenly sized pieces. Roll them into balls. Place the balls as far apart as possible on a lightly greased oven tray. Brush balls with a little milk. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden.

Barbecue chicken burgers

2009-01-26T00:47:00.000-08:00

I didn't barbecue these burgers, so perhaps they shouldn't be really be called 'barbecue' anything. No, it was a bit too hot for me to be up for wandering down to the local park to gather the necessary wood. In an attempt to give them a barbecue flavour, though, I added a few drips of liquid smoke, a product my house mate picked up from USAFoods, to both the sauce and the burger patties during cooking. It's nowhere near as good as the real deal, of course, but when one is lazy one can't be fussy. Too, the secret behind making burger patties that don't fall apart in the pan or on the barbecue is to form the patties the night before and refrigerate them and then to cook them gently. There's absolutely no need to add egg, onion or bread crumbs to a burger patty.

Ingredients:

500 g chicken mince
4 burger buns, opened and lightly toasted under the broiler or on the grill
4 slices pineapple (well-drained if from a can)
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tomato, sliced and seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 onion, sliced
a handful of rocket leaves, washed and drained
1/4 cup tomato ketchup
a shot of whisk(e)y
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp smoked paprika, plus extra to season
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
hot sauce of your choice (I recommend a chipotle sauce, for its smoky flavour)
oil

A few hours, but preferably a day, before cooking the burgers, add a few drops of hot sauce, a pinch of paprika and a generous dose of freshly ground black pepper to the mince. Form the mince into patties. Don't make them too thin--if you're even close to McDonald's-style patties, you've overdone it. A good patty is just about 2 centimetres thick. Place the patties on a plate. Use the back of a teaspoon or the tip of your thumb to make a shallow indentation in the centre of each patty. Cover and refrigerate.

A half hour before cooking, take the patties out of the fridge and let them come up to room temperature. It's always important to do this when cooking meat, no matter your plans for it--roasting, barbecuing, frying, steaming--as it'll make for more even and marginally quicker cooking.

To make the sauce, fry the onions in a little oil for five minutes. Add the garlic. Fry until the onions are nicely caramelised, then add the shot of whisk(e)y. Once reduced, add the tomato ketchup, Dijon mustard, paprika and apple cider vinegar. Season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cook for ten minutes over a low heat.

Fry the chicken patties in a little oil. Keep the heat low. Don't move them more than necessary. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper as they cook. When cooked, add the patties to the lightly toasted buns with the rocket leaves, pineapple, tomato and sauce.

White bread

2009-01-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

I've always meant to get around to making my own bread. And today, today of all days, when it's thirtysomething degrees outside--Celsius, for my American readers--I finally had a crack at it. This recipe produces one round loaf. There's nothing stopping you from splitting the dough into small rolls or a rectangular loaf. Too, there's nothing stopping you from modifying it considerably. Feel like adding nutmeg or cinnamon? Fresh herbs? A topping of grated cheese, diced bacon (pre-cooked, of course) and sun-dried tomatoes? A Spanish-style dusting of paprika? Olives? Go right ahead. This bread is lovely made as detailed below, but it'd be far more exciting if you experimented with it.

Ingredients:

550 g strong plain flour
30 mL olive oil, plus extra to grease
1 tbs white sugar
3 tsp dry active yeast (about one and a third sachets)
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
sesame seeds or poppy seeds

Combine the yeast and sugar with 350 mL warm water in a large bowl. Be 'warm' I mean somewhere between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius. While yeast will die if you put it in hot water, there's no need to treat bread-making like a science experiment. Close enough will do.

When the yeast water is foamy--about ten minutes--add in two cups of flour, the olive oil and the sea salt. Set to work on the mix with an electric mixer fitted with dough hooks. Of course, you could just as easily do this by hand or in a food processor with the mixing blade. Gradually add the rest of the flour, keeping the mixer on the lowest or second lowest setting if you want to avoid getting flour all down your front. You want a ball that comes away from the side of the bowl and holds together nicely.

Take the dough ball out of the bowl and work it around in your hands for ten minutes. This part of bread-making is excellent for stress relief. Stretch it, squash it, roll it. I prefer to knead dough in my hands--it makes for less mess and seems to produce the same results as needing it on a board. Once the dough is smooth and has an elastic texture, transfer it to a clean bowl that has been lightly greased with olive oil. Turn the dough ball over so it is completely covered in the finest film of olive oil. Place a damp but clean tea towel over the bowl. Keep the bowl somewhere warm for two hours so the bowl can rise. Next to a window would be good. If it's cold, you could always turn on the heat lamp in the bathroom and close the door.

After two hours, transfer the dough ball to a lightly greased circular roasting pan. My pan was about 18 cm across. Ensure that the dough is of uniform thickness and then let the dough sit for another half hour or so in a warm place without a tea towel. The surface will dry out slightly. Pre-heat the oven to 200*C. Brush the surface of the dough with warm water--use only a little, please--and then give a generous sprinkling of either poppy seeds or sesame seeds. Bake for 20-25 minutes. The surface of the bread should be golden and should make a satisfying hollow sound when you rap on it with your knuckles. Transfer the bread to a wire rack to cool. Don't keep it in the hot oven pan. Serve however you please while still warm. Retain any leftovers for bread crumbs, which can be frozen until required.

Vegetarian couscous

2009-01-24T01:29:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, but I do eat vegetarian meals on occasion. I really enjoy vegetables that rarely grace the tables of my fellow Aussie. These vegetables are so flavoursome. This dish can, of course, be made with about any vegetable you care to throw in it. Some cherry tomatoes would be nice. Particularly if you roasted them beforehand, I reckon. Mushrooms would be lovely. Parsley. Spinach. Corn. Chilli. Zucchini. Broccoli. Note that with some vegetables, it'd be a good idea to cook them at least partially beforehand. Too, this recipe makes a large quantity. If you have a small wok, you may need to cook it in two batches. Luckily, the final stage, which sees the couscous and fennel, both of which have been cooked already, come together with everything else is very short.

Ingredients:

2 cups couscous (about 400 grams)
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 handfuls of endive leaves, chopped
2 dried chillies
1 capsicum (bell pepper), diced
1 carrot, diced
1 fennel bulb, sliced
1 tbs whole cumin seeds
1 tbs whole fennel seeds
1 tbs sumac powder
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
extra virgin olive oil
olive oil

Prepare the fennel. Heat some olive oil in a saucepan and fry the dried chillies and garlic. When garlic is soft--about 5 minutes--add the sliced fennel, cumin seeds, fennel seeds and sumac powder. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Cover and cook over a medium-low flame for 20 minutes. Lift the lid every so often to give everything a good stir.

Prepare the couscous. Pour couscous into a small saucepan adding 2 1/2 cups water. Bring to a simmer over a medium flame and then reduce the heat. Cook until the liquid is absorbed and the couscous is soft. This should take about 6-8 minutes. Make sure you stir the couscous every so often to prevent sticking. When the couscous is done, drizzle a little olive oil over it and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Now, heat a wok over a large flame. You can use a large fry pan if you don't have a wok. Add some olive oil. When hot, add the carrot and capsicum. Stir and fry for a couple of minutes, then add the couscous. Stir and stir and stir. Cook for two more minutes, then add the spiced fennel and garlic--leaving out the dried chillies--and endive leaves. At this point, you'll probably find that a large pair of tongs is handy for tossing everything together. It'll only take 2-3 minutes for the endive leaves to shrivel up, at which point you can spoon this stuff onto four plates, season it with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and dress it with a little extra virgin olive oil. I used white truffle-infused extra virgin olive oil.

Doro wot

2009-01-23T00:15:00.000-08:00

Doro wot is an Ethiopian dish. The name translates to 'chicken stew', but rest assured this is quite different to the stews you're used of. With its thick, heavily-spiced gravy, doro wot has earned its place in the curries category of this blog, even though it's technically not a curry.

Ingredients:

2 chicken marylands (legs), skinned and cut into a few pieces, seasoned with salt
400 mL chicken stock, plus extra to liquify berbere paste
140 g tomato paste
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 shallots, cut into chunks
1 onion, finely sliced
1 small piece of ginger, peeled
1 tbs berbere spice mix
sea salt
ghee or oil
steamed rice, to serve

Blitz the berbere spice mix in a food processor with the shallots, garlic and ginger. Add a little chicken stock so a thick paste forms.

Fry the onion in a large saucepan over a low flame. Don't use any oil or ghee. Keep stirring to prevent sticking and/or burning. After five minutes, you can add the ghee. Too, add the berbere paste. Stir and stir and stir. Fry for five minutes more, then add the tomato paste. Stir and stir and stir again. After five minutes, add the stock. Let the gravy cook for a couple of minutes and then add the chicken pieces. Cover and cook for one hour, stirring occasionally. Serve with steamed rice.

My berbere

2009-01-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

Berbere is a spice blend used in Ethiopian cooking. There's no set recipe for berbere. Do a Google search and you'll find many variations. My 'recipe' is the result of much experimentation and research. An authentic berbere has many spices. Clearly, the recipes you see online that only call for three or four spices aren't even close to the real deal. My recipe, like many online, is not so much a straight berbere as it is a child of both berbere and mitmita. Real berbere contains quite a few spices you either can't get outside Ethiopia or, if you can, will have a tough time doing so. Berbere can be used as either a dry seasoning or made into a paste with shallots, garlic and ginger. Obviously you can use it in Ethiopian cooking, but it can be used for other purposes too. Experiment.

Ingredients:

8 green cardamom pods
4 pieces timiz*
1 small whole piece nutmeg
1 tbs chilli flakes
1 tbs white peppercorns
2 tsp coarse sea salt
2 tsp whole coriander seeds
2 tsp whole kororima seeds*
2 tsp sweet paprika
2 tsp whole cumin seeds
2 tsp whole ajwain seeds
1 tsp whole nigella seeds
1 tsp whole fenugreek seeds
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp kosoret*
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Pour everything into a small, non-stick fry pan and roast over a low flame until very pungent. Still occasionally. Note that you don't need oil or ghee. When spices are roasted, pour carefully into a mortar and pestle or electric spice grinder and grind until fine. Store in a jar, tin or zip lock bag. This stuff won't keep its flavour forever, so try and use it within a few weeks. That being said, it's best to make berbere and other spice blends a day or two before you need them. It gives the flavours and the aromas of the different spices time to get to know each other.

* I picked up timiz, kororima and kosoret at an Ethiopian grocer. I've never seen them anywhere else. Then again, I haven't looked anywhere other than the local South Asian and oriental supermarkets. If you can't find them in your local area, don't stress. Your berbere will still be ogod. Kororima is one of the most important spices in a traditional berbere. Still, don't worry if you can't find it. Just substitute the two teaspoons of kororima seeds with two teaspoons of coriander seeds. Kororima is a variety of coriander. The seeds are a slightly different shape and darker. Timiz, on the other hand, looks like a small pine cone. Kosoret is a small, crumbly, dried leaf.

The post-crab feast smell

2009-01-22T19:26:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I find the stench crabs leave in a stock pot after cooking rather offensive. Never fear, there is a way of dealing with this smell and it is very simple. All you have to do is give the stock pot a wash, then fill it up with water. Squeeze in some fresh lemon juice. Throw the lemon wedges in too. Put the stock pot somewhere out of the way so no 'helpful' soul decides to empty it. Leave overnight.

Ghee and oil

2009-01-22T19:23:00.001-08:00

With some curries, I'll call for ghee. Ghee is clarified butter and is used in South Asian and Middle Eastern cooking in place or alongside oil. The Ethiopians make two similar products--a spiced clarified butter known as nitter kebbeh and a vegetarian product with an Amharic name that translates to 'vegetable ghee'. This 'vegetable ghee' is spiced like nitter kebbeh, but is healthier than any ghee made from butter (at least according to the packaging and the woman who runs the Ethiopian grocer I go to). Any ghee--be it Indian or Ethiopian--will suffice for curry-making. You can buy South Asian ghee in South Asian grocers and many supermarkets. You can use oil instead of ghee.

Meat and curries

2009-01-22T19:22:00.000-08:00

In westernised Thai curries, you'll often see breast and thigh meat used. Or fillet steak. And that's lovely. These curries require thin slices of tender cuts as they cook in a short time. For other curries, though, forget these premium cuts. Go for the cheap, flavoursome cuts like lamb shanks, goat shoulder, chicken marylands (the legs) and chuck steak. These cuts are tough, yes. They are unsuitable for pan-frying, yes. You may be reluctant to use them because a voice in your head is insisting that no, Chris is wrong, the Indians are wrong, the Nepalese are wrong, the South Africans are wrong, that you should use breast instead. Using fillet steak in a beef curry is a waste of money. Meat curries typically take a while to cook. Those cheap and tough cuts of meat tenderise when simmering in a gravy over the course of a hour or two. Too, these bony cuts are gelatinous. As they cook, they thicken the gravy. I know that bony pieces of meat are hard to eat with a fork, so try eating your curry the proper way--with Indian breads. Many cultures worldwide, including the Indians, believe that food eaten with the hands tastes better. I'm not sure about that, but I do know it's much easier to manage to a goat curry if you get your hands in there. The rule of cooking on the bone also applies to seafood. Crabs and lobsters should be cooked in the shell or, if a recipe instructs you to remove the meat from the shell (and it probably shouldn't), you should still throw the shell into the gravy after giving it a quick rinse. Yeah, just like you're making a seafood stock. It'll add a lot of flavour to the gravy.

Finally, marinades. I said you should use tougher cuts of meat. If you want to tenderise these cuts somewhat before cooking, marinate the meat in something acidic like fresh citrus juice. You can also use grated ginger, as it contains an enzyme that will tenderise meat. Some Indians use the pulp of papaya to achieve similar results. You should only marinate the meat for a few hours. Leave it too long and you'll end up making the outer layer of the piece of meat soggy.

Spices

2009-01-22T04:20:00.001-08:00

Curries might have a primary ingredient of meat, seafood, lentils, vegetables or even fruit, but surely what defines this style of cooking in the eyes of many is the combination of spices.

For those just getting into curry-making, know that you're going to have to buy many spices. Of course, you should only buy spices as you encounter recipes that ask for those specific spices. Buy small packets until you know what spices you like and what spices you most frequently use. For instance, I go through large amounts of both coriander seeds and cumin seeds. It makes sense for me to buy large bags of them. Conversely, I rarely use nigella, so I only have a small packet sitting in the cupboard. Large packets are cheaper, yes, but spices don't have an unlimited shelf life. They lose flavour and pungency over time. It's no good saving a few cents on a bag of spice if, by the time you get around to finishing it, it has long since lost its potency.

I buy most of my spices at an Indian grocer. What I can't get there I'll get at either an oriental grocer, a Middle Eastern grocer or an Ethiopian grocer. The latter I've only had to use for some really obscure spices. I don't call for these in my recipes, though, so don't worry too much if you don't have the faintest idea where the nearest Ethiopian grocer is. Incidentally, if you live in Melbourne, you can find a number of Ethiopian grocers in Footscray. An increasing number of Ethiopian and Sudanese grocers are opening in the south eastern suburbs, too. But I digress. I've found Indian grocers to have the best place to shop. Their prices are usually reasonable and their turnover is high. Classy food stores like The Essential Ingredient and Simon Johnson also stock a good range of spices, although expect to may significantly more than you would at the local South Asian place.

Always buy your spices whole. Chilli powder is okay, but about everything else--from pepper to cardamom to cumin--should be bought whole. Sure, with pre-ground spices you save a little bit of time, but the flavour and aroma is inferior. Too, whole spices have a longer shelf life. They're also easier to identify by sight. This is especially relevant in my pantry where a good half of my spice collection is unlabelled.

To maximise the flavour and aroma of spices, you should roast them before grinding them. To do this, heat a small, non-stick fry pan over a low flame. Don't use any oil or ghee. Add the whole spices. Stir with a wooden spoon to prevent them from burning. You'll know the spices are roasted when a strong and pleasant aroma fills your kitchen. Working with spices is all about using your senses.

Many recipes that use curry powder--not a spice in itself, but a blend of spices--often call for you to roast curry powder. If they don't ask you to do it, do it anyway. If the recipe calls for you to fry up some onions, add the curry powder just as the onions begin to soften and roast for a few minutes before adding the next ingredient. If you're supposed to add the curry powder to a liquid, you can roast it on its own in a small fry pan.

To grind spices, use either a mortar and pestle or an electric spice grinder. I use the former. If a recipe calls for you to grind fresh garlic, ginger or chillies, add a little coarse sea salt to the mortar (the bowl). The salt acts as an abrasive, making your job significantly easier. Too, if a recipe calls for many spices to blended together, grind them all in one go. They'll combine as you grind.

When using a mortar and pestle, there's absolutely no need to be forceful. With a granite mortar and pestle like the one I use, the pestle is quite heavy. If you're too forceful, light, round spices such as peppercorns and coriander seeds are liable to bounce out of the mortar and make a mess.

Get to know the properties of the spices in your collection. Try and reach a point where you can recognise them by sight and smell and taste. A good reference book is Ian Hemphill's Spice Notes and Recipes--it's very extensive, although I have a few spices that aren't mentioned in it. Some curry books feature decent appendices on spices. But book or no book, you should learn the properties of spices for yourself. Some spices have a strong flavour or aroma and could, if used carelessly, overpower everything else in your dish. Others you can be more generous with. Understand that not all spices are hot. Some are used to add colour to a dish. Some are sweet. Some are sour. In Indian cuisine, different curries employ different combinations of spices. Some curries are hot. Some curries are sour.

Remember that dried spices often taste different to the fresh ingredients from which they are derived. Dried chilli has a different flavour to fresh chilli. Dried garlic tastes different to fresh garlic. Dried ginger is quite distinct from fresh ginger. If you substitute the fresh for the dry or the other way round, expect a different end result.

How you store your spices is very important. Mistreat your spices and they will lose pungency and flavour. Keep them somewhere cool, dry and dark. Store them in jars or tins or thick zip-lock bags. Some South Asian grocers already sell them in the latter.

My bookshelf

2009-01-21T23:01:00.000-08:00

I have a decent collection of cookbooks a wide variety of topics. That being said, I don't buy just any cookbook. I'm quite choosey. To me, a good cookbook is one that inspires me to come up with my own recipes. I like books that explain in great detail the theory behind a style of cooking, the history of a technique, the properties of an ingredient. Some of my favourite books have few, if any, illustrations. A large number of glossy photographs is not an indicator of brilliance with a cookbook. To be sure, some of the best cookbooks do have good illustrations, but similarly there are awe-inspiring cooks with none. It's the text that counts.

'If you kill an animal, it's only polite to eat the whole thing' says British chef Fergus Henderson. I couldn't agree more. Henderson, chef at British restaurant St. John, advocates working with the cheaper cuts and the offal. His two books The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and Beyond Nose to Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook are both excellent. Anyone who reckons the British can't cook should read these books. That being said, I rarely follow the man's recipes. I find them more interesting as inspirational material. My quail recipes, for instance, are all based on his roast quail recipe.

Next up is Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking. Again, this is another inspiring book. I really like Anthony Bourdain's style--sharp writing and accessible recipes for bistro classics ranging from steak with a green peppercorn sauce to steamed mussels. While I've enjoyed most of his other works, I'm disappointed he hasn't written another cookbook.

50 Great Curries of India, Tenth Anniversary Edition is probably my favourite book on curries. I rarely follow the recipes, but use them as a basis for something of my own. The author explains the techniques essential to curry-making in a way that is accessible, but not dumbed down to the point of being useless. You'll come away from this book able to create curries that are actually respectable.

The Oxford Companion to Food 2nd Ed isn't a cookbook, as you might've guessed. It's a reference book. An encyclopaedia. It doesn't have an entry for everything you'll ever look up, but then again, no cooking encyclopaedia does. That being said, this is my favourite cooking encyclopaedia as it's all reference material. I don't buy cooking encyclopaedias to get recipes. This book is great for those of us who have a habit of picking up meat, game, poultry, seafood, vegetables and spices we happen to come across without first knowing what they are and what can be done with them.

The South African Illustrated Cookbook is my favourite, but shortest, of three South African cookbooks I own. The illustrations--yes, illustrations as opposed to photographs--are magnificent and so are the recipes. This simple, slim volume neatly sums up the diversity of South African cooking.

Pork and Sons is like a holy text to me. The pig is a noble animal. A divine beast. I'm not the first to express that sentiment and I surely won't be the last. This book, with its cute illustrations and extensive collection of recipes for every part of the pig from the loin to the foot to the blood, celebrates all that is wonderful about pig. Which is everything, of course. Has a few recipes for boar, too.

Another fascinating book is The South American Table: The Flavor and Soul of Authentic Home Cooking from Patagonia to Rio de Janeiro, with 450 Recipes. I must admit, I rarely cook the recipes in this book, but I often turn to it for ideas and because it has so much history and detail.

A word on game and 'exotic' meats

2009-01-21T20:37:00.000-08:00

You've noticed, probably, that a good many of my recipes are for game and 'exotic' meats. And that, too, when I cook with rabbit, I have a preference for wild-shot as opposed to farmed.

Now, I'm no hunter. I have nothing against hunting. Indeed, it's something I'd take up if I had the means. But I do have a certain fondness for game and, of course, for trying new things.

So where does once source all of this stuff? Obviously, with game, if you hunt or know someone who hunts, you have an obvious way of sourcing that's going to be significantly cheaper than what I'm suggesting. Too, what do they taste like?

Boar

Boar has a taste that's similar to pork, but much, much, much stronger. Boar is one of my favourite meats. Your best bet is a stew, casserole or curry.

Be warned: to buy boar is an expensive exercise. A butcher and poultry store me order it in upon request from Wangara Poultry & Game. There are probably other suppliers, though. One of the poultry stores at Queen Victoria Market occasionally stocks boar sausages that are, in my experience, just okay, but realistically you're going to have to order this a week in advance. A good butcher or poultry store should have no problems sourcing boar.

Buffalo

Buffalo really surprised me. I thought it'd be just like beef but it's not. Yes, it's similar to beef, but it's distinct enough to make it worth ordering in once in a while. Buffalo is nowhere near as strong-flavoured as kangaroo or venison, although I admit my experience with it is limited. I've only ever bought the sausages. A local butcher and poultry store can order one kilogram packs of them in through Wangara Poultry & Game. There are probably other suppliers, though. Buffalo works well with dry rubs and bold-flavoured dipping sauces. It's a lean meat, so take care to avoid overcooking it.

Camel

Yes, camel. A lot of people, right now, are probably revolted, but hang on. Camel is lovely. Forget what the beast looks like. Please. It'll be worth it. But yeah, camel. Camel tastes a bit like mutton--that is, strong-flavoured lamb--only with a very unique, sweet aftertaste. It's the sweet aftertaste that makes camel a pain to pair with sauces. Mustard doesn't work. I tried. Yoghurt-based sauces, however, are brilliant. You notice the sweet aftertaste with the steaks more than you do with the sausages. Camel curry would be lovely, but take care with your use of spices. You want spices that compliment, rather than hide, camel's unique flavour.

Camel can be bought in some butchers in the Northern Territory, I believe. I know that the butchers and poultry stores in some fresh produce markets, including Queen Victoria, sell it frozen. If you don't have any luck finding it, though, a good butcher or poultry store will be able to order it in.

Crocodile

Crocodile has a very mild flavour--somewhere between chicken and white-fleshed fish. To be honest, the taste of crocodile is a bit weak to stand up on its own. Try it in curries or as a topping on pizza.

You'll find this in the freezer section of some butchers, fishmongers and poultry stores. It can be pretty expensive. The cheapest place to buy it, usually, oriental-run fishmongers--particularly those that specialise in frozen produce. So far as I know, crocodile is only sold frozen. Unless instructed otherwise, cook from partly frozen. All the liquid you lose if you thaw it prior to cooking it is flavour.

Duck

Duck is rich and flavoursome. Fatty, yes. But that's not a problem unless you're eating it every day or are on a very strict diet. A lot of people won't cook duck because they're paranoid they'll trash it. In reality, cooking duck isn't too hard. If you're roasting it, your best bet is to roast low and slow for a while, then crank up the heat towards the end of the cooking time. If you're pan frying the breasts, you should only pan fry for a few minutes on each side and let the breasts rest on a plate, covered in al foil, in a warm place. The residual heat will cook them all the way through. It's okay to eat duck a little rare. If you're making a Thai-style curry or a stir fry with the breasts or thighs, slice them really thin so they cook quickly.

Sourcing duck is easy. Many poultry stores stock it, some supermarkets have it in their frozen produce aisle and you'll find it at many markets. Chinese supermarkets and Chinese-run butchers often sell it too. That said, I'd advise against the cheap, boiler ducks Chinese supermarkets and butchers sometimes sell. They're probably okay for a soup, but for anything else I'd spend a little more.

There are a few kinds of ducks available, from Muscovy to what's sold as Peking duck.

Emu

Emu has a strong, meaty flavour and stands up well to pretty much any sauce you'd see put with a steak--from green peppercorn sauce to red wine sauce.

Emu can be ordered from good butchers and poultry stores. It's not a cheap meat.

Goat

Tastes like lamb, pretty much. Indeed, you can use goat in most lamb recipes and vice versa. Butchers that stock goat tend to sell it as whole legs, whole shoulders or 'diced' goat, which contains a lot of bones. Sometimes you'll see chops. If you want boneless pieces, ask your butcher to chop up a shoulder. I haven't seen anyone display goat mince, but you can certainly have some goat minced up for you at any butcher that stocks it. Goat works well in curries and roasts.

Goat, thankfully, is a cheap meat. Usually, anyway. Your best bet for finding it is a butcher run by and frequented by South Asians and/or Middle Easterners. As a rule, anywhere that sells halal meat will sell goat.

Kangaroo

Depending on how you cook it, kangaroo can have a very strong, meaty flavour. If you've had a bad experience with kangaroo in the past, I urge you to try it again. Consider cooking it low and slow in a curry or pasta. Slow-cooking kangaroo dampens the smell and flavour somewhat. It still tastes stronger than beef, but it's not as overpowering as a steak that's been pan-fried or barbecued can be to the newcomer. Kangaroo is 98% fat free, making it a very healthy meat. Too, kangaroo is quite cheap. Certainly, it's gone up in recent years and some would argue that much of its appeal is lost now that you can get beef at a similar price, but remember that cheap beef is usually pretty bad.

Kangaroo is the only game meat I've seen at a regular supermarket. It's distributed by a company called Macro Meats and is sold by both Coles and Woolworth's supermarkets. You'll also find it in some independent supermarkets, butchers, fresh produce markets and poultry stores. Butchers, fresh produce markets and poultry stores will sometimes have kangaroo from other suppliers. Macro Meats' kangaroo is the cheapest, in my experience, but they don't seem to have as great a range of cuts as some of the other suppliers.

Quail

Quail has quite a flavour that's quite unique. It's certainly not a strong flavour, but by no means is it mild. And no, quail doesn't taste like chicken. Quail is a bit expensive, but it's nice to have as a treat. Quail can be partially de-boned and barbecued or broiled, or it can be roasted. It can also be cooked in stews and curries. I encourage you to do a lot of experimenting with quail. Quail can withstand a bit of punishment at the hands of the novice cook, but do try and stick to the golden rule of not overcooking stuff.

Quail can be purchased at many butchers and poultry stores.

Rabbit

Both farmed rabbit and wild-shot rabbit can be had from many butchers and poultry stores. It varies considerably in price. Don't pay what seems like a ridiculous sum for it. As a rule, wild-shot rabbit costs less per kilogram (rabbits can be sold on a per kilogram or per unit basis--it depends on the outlet), but have less meat on them and are slightly less tender than farmed rabbits. Wild-shot rabbit tastes superior to farmed rabbit, in my opinion, as it has a noticeably stronger flavour. Farmed rabbit has a chickeny taste. It doesn't taste exactly the same as chicken, but it is quite similar. Rabbit is very versatile. You can roast it or stew it, barbecue or curry it, broil or pan fry it.

Venison

Venison is a lovely meat--lean and full of flavour. When I first had it, it reminded me of very good kangaroo, although the flavour certainly wasn't as strong as kangaroo's. Because of its flavour, venison stands up well to marinades and sauces. Like emu and kangaroo, you can pair venison with about any steak sauce you care to name--from the classics to something you've invented yourself.

Now, the bad news. Venison is usually expensive. I say usually because I've found that, if I'm lucky--if the planets are properly aligned and all, if I've earned some good karma during the previous month--I can get it for a reasonable price at some oriental-run butchers. That's not to say it's as cheap as beef--although the price difference between it and good quality beef isn't significant--but it's nowhere near as bad as the prices butchers will charge you to order it in. If luck isn't on your side, you'll most likely have to order it through a butcher or poultry store. Many cuts of venison are available and you can do many things with them, from roasts to curries to stews to steaks to warm salads.

Chicken and cashew nut curry

2009-01-21T01:45:00.001-08:00

This is a relatively mild curry that includes, yes, chicken and cashew nuts. Buy the freshest cashew nuts you can. I'm lucky enough to have a grocer near my house that sells a wide range nuts, dried beans and dried fruits at a reasonable price. His produce is always very fresh due to a high turnover. Only buy nuts from retailers that have a high turnover. The nuts sold in supermarkets are often of questionable freshness.

Too, a word on ghee. You can buy ghee in Indian grocers and some supermarkets. What I use technically isn't ghee--it's a vegetarian product from Ethiopia that's far healthier. Ethiopian 'ghee', whether it's the vegetarian stuff I have or nitter kebbeh (made in the same way as Indian ghee), contains spices so as it melts it emits the most wonderful aroma and imparts flavour into the onions, garlic and ginger. Apologies for your not being able to tell you what this stuff is called. The writing on the packaging is entirely in Amharic.

Ingredients:

2 chicken marylands (legs), separated into thighs and drumsticks, skin removed
400 mL coconut cream
100 g unsalted cashew nuts
10 curry leaves
10 dried Kashmiri chillies
6 cardamom pods, ground
6 cloves garlic, minced
4 cloves, ground
1 onion, diced
1 tomato, diced
a piece of ginger, diced
a piece of a cinnamon quill, ground
2 tbs hot curry powder
1 tbs ghee (substitute the Ethiopian stuff I use or regular oil)
1/4 tsp tandoori colouring
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
steamed rice, to serve

Season the chicken pieces with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Melt some ghee in a large saucepan. Fry the onion, garlic, ginger and dried chillies over a low heat for five minutes. Add the curry powder, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. Stir and fry for five minutes. Add a little more ghee if it looks like it's going to dry out. Add the tomato. Fry for another five minutes and add the chicken. Stir so the chicken is well covered by the spiced tomato and onion. Fry for a further five minutes. Add coconut cream and tandoori colouring. Cover pan and simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and simmer for five minutes before adding the curry leaves. Simmer for ten more minutes and serve.

Chicken vindaloo

2009-01-20T00:16:00.000-08:00

Real vindaloo is traditionally made with pork or duck. I've previously provided a recipe that uses pork's wild cousin. It was significantly milder than this one is, so you can use the spices from that recipe in this recipe if you're not too keen on feeling the heat. And yes, you can substitute the chicken for duck.

Ingredients:
2 chicken marylands (legs), split into thighs and drumsticks, skinned
10 dried Kashmiri chillies
10 curry leaves
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
3 cloves
1 onion, sliced
1 small lump of ginger, peeled
1 small shard snapped from a cinnamon quill
1 star anise pod
1 tomato, diced
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp poppy seeds
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
apple cider vinegar, as necessary
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt
oil
steamed rice, to serve

Soak the dried chillies in water to soften them. Season the chicken pieces with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt and set aside until needed.

Heat a generous splash oil in a saucepan. Fry the onion over low heat for ten minutes or until soft. Meanwhile, grind the cumin, star anise, cinnamon, and cloves in a mortar and pestle. Transfer the ground spices to a food processor and blitz along with the garlic, ginger, poppy seeds, paprika, mustard seeds and softened chillies. Gradually add the the apple cider vinegar, stopping when a thick paste forms.

When the onions are soft, add the tomato and the paste to the saucepan and fry for five minutes, stirring constantly. If the paste seems like it's drying out, add a splash of apple cider vinegar. Add the chicken and cook for five minutes. Add 600 mL water and the brown sugar and cover the saucepan. Simmer for 55 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and add the curry leaves. Simmer for a further 5 minutes and serve.

Rice is obviously a nice accompaniment, as are Indian breads and yoghurt.

Curry of goat and vegetables

2009-01-18T22:37:00.000-08:00

You could, of course, use lamb for this recipe. But so long as you have access to goat--available at any butcher that seriously caters to folks of South Asian, East African or Caribbean descent--you should try it. It's a lovely meat, similar in flavour to lamb. You could use mutton too, I suppose. Whatever you end up using for the meat, buy on-the-bone. Meat-on-the-bone tastes better and is more fun to eat. What's that? It's hard to eat with a fork? Well, curry wasn't meant to be eaten with a fork!

Ingredients:
500 g diced goat, on-the-bone
1/2 cup plain yoghurt
4 cloves garlic, peeled
4 green cardamon pods
2 sticks of celery, roughly chopped
1 aubergine/eggplant, roughly chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 onion, cut into chunks
1 tbs chilli powder
1 bunch fresh coriander/cilantro
1 tbs coriander seeds
1 tbs cumin seeds
1 tbs fennel seeds
1 tbs nigella/black cumin
1 tbs turmeric powder
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sweet paprika
oil
apple cider vinegar, as necessary
steamed rice, to serve

Coarsely the cardamom pods, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds and fenugreek seeds with a mortar and pestle. Pour into the food processor, along with the onion, garlic and a couple of tablespoons worth of coriander stalks (retain the leaves for later). Blitz, gradually adding apple cider vinegar until a paste forms. How much apple cider vinegar you'll need depends on the size of the onion, the size of the garlic, the direction of the wind, the thickness of your nostril hairs, the position of Saturn in relation to the patch of grass your goat last grazed on and various other factors.

Over a low flame, heat a generous splash of oil in a large saucepan. When oil is hot, add the curry paste and fry for 5 minutes or until it noticeably darkens. Add the pieces of goat and stir so they get covered in the paste. Fry for 5 minutes, ensuring that you keep moving everything around. Otherwise you'll end up with burnt curry paste. Add 3 cups of water, cover the saucepan and cook for 1 hour and 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. At this point, add the aubergine/eggplant, carrot and celery and cook for a further 30 minutes. Remove lid, take off heat and slowly stir in the yoghurt. Garnish with the coriander leaves.

Serve with steamed rice.

Spaghetti with a spicy kangaroo and mushroom sauce

2009-01-18T00:19:00.000-08:00

Kangaroo mince is wonderful. Cheap, lean and tasty. It works well in pasta sauces. You could use it in place of beef in bolognese, if you wanted. This, of course, isn't bolognese. Bolognese--real, honest-to-God bologonese--includes at least two meats. Mine includes four. More if you count the plethora of pig-related products I throw in in addition to the mince.

Too, the addition of curry powder. Adding curry powder to a meaty pasta sauce, for me, is a nostalgic thing. My father used to do with his heavily Australianised 'bolognese' and to this day I can remember the smell of the stuff wafting through the house on the one evening a month or so he'd be in the kitchen.

Ingredients:

600 g kangaroo mince
500 mL beef stock
handful of mushrooms of your choosing, sliced
100 g tomato paste
1/3 cup brandy
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 celery sticks, diced
2 chillies, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 large onion, diced
1 1/2 tbs hot curry powder
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

In a large sauceheat, heat some oil over a low flame. Add the onion, garlic, chillies, celery and carrot. Stir and fry for five minutes, then add a tablespoon of curry powder. Stir and fry for another five minutes, then add the mince. Stir well. Brown the mince over the course of 2-3 minutes, then add the brandy, stirring as you do. Let it reduce, then spoon in the tomato paste. Stir it in, add the stock and cover the pan. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid. Stir in the remaining curry powder. Simmer for a further 25 minutes, then add the mushrooms. Simmer for five more minutes, then cover the pan and take it off the heat. Let it sit this way while you bring some lightly salted water to the boil and cook some spaghetti. Don't cook the spaghetti according to packet instructions--use your senses by tasting the pasta when you think it's about done. It should be soft, but have just a little bite to it. Al dente. Toss the pasta and sauce together.

Potato wedges, Indian style

2009-01-16T19:00:00.000-08:00

This twist on potato wedges isn't as loopy an idea as you may initially think. It was inspired by a recipe in one of my favourite cooking books, Camellia Panjabi's 50 Great Curries of India. This little book has done more than any other to increase my understanding of Indian cuisine and curries.

Anyway, enough praise for Ms. Panjabi's writings. She has a recipe for potatoes that are briefly boiled in turmeric-infused water and then fried in chilli- and coriander-infused oil. While her method of cooking is the undeniably more authentic way of preparing Indian 'potato wedges', I prefer to roast my potato wedges.

Ingredients:

500 g small potatoes, cut into wedges
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp amchoor (mango powder)
1/2 tsp coriander, freshly ground
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp hot curry powder
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
sea salt
oil

Pre-heat oven to 220*C.

Place the potatoes, tumeric and a pinch of sea salt in a saucepan. Add water to cover and bring to boil. Simmer for 7-8 minutes or until potatoes can be easily speared with a skewer.

Meanwhile, prepare the seasoning. Combine all of the spices, plus a little sea salt, in a cup or other small vessel. Lightly oil an oven tray and scatter the crushed garlic cloves over it. When the potatoes are able to be speared with a skewer, take them off the heat and drain. Add the potatoes to the tray. Toss in the oil and spice mix. Roast for 20-25 minutes, turning every so often.

Simple, perfect calamari

2009-01-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

Generally, I don't go for deep-fried foods. I mean, okay, a bowl of good, hand cut frites is one of my favourite things in the world. But when it comes to meat and seafood? I don't want my fish fillets deep-fried. I don't want my chicken drumsticks deep fried. And I certainly don't want my calamari deep-fried. Personal taste and all, I guess.

I pan fry or barbecue my calamari and I urge you to try doing the same. This recipe is based upon a River Cottage recipe, so props to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for the idea.

The secret with calamari is to not overcook it. I mean, I can't emphasise this enough. Prepare squid the right way and it'll be amazingly tender. Overcook it even a little and it'll be tough. Inedible, even.

Ingredients:

1 fresh squid
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
2 small chillies, finely diced
1 lemon, quartered
freshly ground black pepper
oil

Prepare the squid by chopping off the head. Discard the beak. Hang on to the tentacles--you can fry or barbecue them too and they'll be lovely, so long as you don't overcook them. Please.

Carefully open the body with a knife and lay it out flat. There might be a large sack of goo--that means the squid was knocked up, I think--which should be discarded. Use a paper towel to remove the thin, clear membrane from what used to be the body's internal wall. Cleaning squid is a quicker and easier process than cleaning fish (supposing you clean your fish dry).

Once the squid is clean, use the tip of a sharp knife to score a criss-cross pattern into one side of the flesh. Be careful. Be gentle. You're not trying to slice the poor thing into ribbons here. The goal is to make 'trenches' in the flesh that will catch the pieces of chilli and garlic.

When the squid has been scored, cut it into thick strips. Rub the chilli and garlic and freshly ground black pepper into the 'trenches'. Smear the squid with a little oil and place in the fridge, covered, for a hour or two to let the flavours develop.

Pre-heat a pan or barbecue to really hot. 'Really hot' as in smoking hot--the same temperature you'd get it to if you wanted to give a piece of steak a lovely, crispy coating. Place the squid pieces, scored side up, into the pan. Squeeze lemon juice over them. After 45 seconds, flip them over. Squeeze lemon juice over them. They'll start to curl up. After 45 seconds, flip them over again for 30-45 seconds, ensuring the part that curled cooks properly. Squeeze lemon juice over them and remove from the pan.

Mild curry of chicken wings

2009-01-16T01:54:00.000-08:00

This is a very mild curry using my favourite cut of chicken, the wing, as the primary ingredient. If you want, you can add a little fire to this curry by adding either some more fresh chilli or a teaspoon of chilli powder to the paste. Too, if you're not a fan of wings, you could always use drumsticks or chops. Anything with a bone is good.

Ingredients:

1 kg chicken wings, halved at the joint and tips removed
800 mL coconut milk
8 whole black peppercorns
4 garlic cloves, peeled
3 small chillies, stems removed
2 tomatoes, diced
1 large onion, cut into chunks
1 small lump of ginger, peeled
1/2 cinnamon stick, snapped into small pieces (this is very important or you'll trash your food processor)
1 tsp apple cider vinegar, plus extra to form curry paste
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp sesame seeds
1/2 tsp cardamon powder
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp hot curry powder
1/4 tsp tandoori colouring
sea salt
oil
steamed rice, to serve

Place the chillies, garlic, ginger, onion, cardamon, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, sesame seeds, curry powder and tandoori colouring in a food processor. Blitz, slowly adding apple cider vinegar until a paste forms.

Season the tomatoes generously with salt.

Heat a generous splash of of oil in a large saucepan over a medium flame. When hot, add the paste and fry for five minutes. Add the chicken wings and cook for five minutes, stirring constantly to ensure the wings get an even coating of paste. Add the tomatoes and stir. Cook for a further five minutes. Add the coconut milk, apple cider vinegar and garam masala and bring to a simmer. Cook for 25-30 minutes. You may not want to serve all the gravy.

Fishy smells and slime - a buyer's guide

2009-01-15T22:52:00.000-08:00

Looking at my StatCounter page, I'm surprised at the amount of people Googling for things like, 'My steamed crab tastes like ammonia. That's okay, yeah?'

So. Some tips. Raw seafood should smell like the ocean. Fish, prawns, crabs and their brethren should look as if they've just been taken from the water. You've been fishing, right? Freshly caught fish don't smell overly 'fishy', do they? Fish bought at the shops shouldn't either. And they certainly shouldn't smell like cleaning products. Fish shouldn't be slimy, either.

I don't know about where you live, but I live close to a few fishmongers. If I ever walk in to a place and instantly feel my stomach turn because the place reeks to high heaven, I turn around and leave. Forget what the sales assistant says. If the seafood that's on display has a really strong smell, it's not fresh. Don't waste your money. Find another fishmonger.

In the case of crabs, lobsters and other crustaceans, try and find a fishmonger that sells them live. When crabs and lobsters die, they rapidly decompose. Something you kill immediately before or during the cooking process will taste better. Too, when you buy something live, you know it's fresh. When buying live crabs and lobsters, look for the ones that are really feisty. If they're just sulking at the bottom of the tank, pick another. Lobster and crab aren't cheap, generally, so be fussy. If a fishmonger is only selling rubbish, he doesn't deserve your money. Don't be so fixated on the idea of having lobster for dinner that you ignore the tell-tale signs of poor quality.

With prawns, buy whole, uncooked prawns. Buy whole fish in generally, really. It's easier to see if it's fresh. The eyes should be clear. And yeah, as I said, the fish should look as if it's just been pulled from the water. Note that some fishmongers will sell live fish--'live' as in they'll kill it to order. That's maybe the best way, aside from catching the fish yourself, of ensuring what you're buying is fresh.

With oysters, only buy them if you see them being shucked on site. Oysters will keep for about a week in the fridge, but they're better when they're freshly shucked. In the ideal world, you'd buy an oyster knife and learn to shuck them yourself.

Too, if you live in an area with a lot of oriental immigrants, consider yourself blessed. The Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese eat a lot of seafood. There should be a lot of places catering to that market. Pay attention to what the grandmothers buy. If you see a few old biddies take one look at the snapper and walk away, shaking their heads in disgust, it's probably best to follow their lead and avoid the snapper.

There are too many terrible fishmongers around, foisting rubbish onto unsuspecting and ignorant customers. Whether you're intending on buying cheap, 'trash' fish like skate or premium stuff like lobsters and mud crabs, you must be fussy. Don't accept rubbish. If you get burnt by a business, don't give them a second chance. Surely someone else is more willing to provide you with quality produce.

Unless you're buying frozen seafood, when you buy is important. Never buy seafood on a Sunday, Monday or the day after a public holiday. Fishermen work from Monday to Friday. Friday's catch arrives in stores on Saturday morning. Therefore, what you buy on Monday arrived in store on Saturday morning. Yes, I know, some seafood--mussels, say--lasts 'a while' in the fridge, but the quality quickly deteriorates. As a rule, buy fresh seafood only on the day you're intending on using it.

When it comes to handling seafood, perhaps the most important thing to remember is to not wet the seafood. The last time fish should come into contact with water, unless you're poaching, is when they're taken out of the river or the sea. When filleting and gutting a fish, you should do it dry. Cleaning a fish the dry way is a slower process, but it produces better results. Washing out the gut cavity gets rid of all the natural oils in the fish's flesh. And those oils are flavour. Be wary of fishmongers who, when asked to clean a fish, hold the poor thing under running water while they work.

When pin boning fish fillets or cutlets, it's important to use tweezers. Your fingers will simply make a mess of the job. Dedicate a pair of tweezers to the task or buy a specialist pin boning tool. Some fish mongers may take care of this task for you.

Don't write off seafood that's frozen or somehow preserved. Crocodile, while arguably more game meat than seafood, is always sold frozen. Scampi is generally sold frozen. And it's fine. Really. Too, put aside your experiences with the canned seafood you've picked up in supermarkets in the past, as canned tuna from Spain is very good and works well as a filling in savoury pastries. Indeed, this is the same canned tuna used in tapas bars in Spain. That being said, most canned seafood is rubbish.

Kangaroo 'gringo' tacos

2009-01-15T01:36:00.000-08:00

Let's face it--most tacos you get in the west, they're nothing like the Mexican ones. For starters, Mexican tacos don't use minced beef or cheese or lettuce--the primary ingredients of the tacos we're familiar with. I'm going to upload an authentic recipe next week, but tonight's effort will be my own bastardised tacos. Instead of using the usual beef, though, I'm using kangaroo. The strong flavour of kangaroo makes for an interesting change. Too, you'll find they're much better than the usual 'gringo' tacos.

Kangaroo mince can be had cheaply at most supermarkets in Australia. It's very low in fat--'98% fat free', proclaims the packaging--and, yeah, it's delicious. I've said this before, I think, but many people falsely believe kangaroo is tough and dry. It shouldn't be. With the mince, the trick is to marinate it and then cook it low and slow.

Too, the seasoning mix I use. The quantities of spices I give will make for some leftover. Save it and use it for something else within the next few days.

Ingredients:

400 g kangaroo mince
10 hard taco shells
2 limes, juiced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 jar taco sauce or tomato salsa
1/2 red onion, diced
1/3 iceberg lettuce, shredded
2 tbs whole allspice berries
1 tbs whole coriander seeds
1 tbs whole cumin seeds
1 tbs whole white peppercorns
1 tsp coarse chilli powder
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp sweet paprika
oil
sliced fresh chilli, to garnish

Put the allspice, coriander, cumin and peppercorns in a small, non-stick frypan. Roast over a gentle heat, shaking the pan occasionally to move the spices around. You'll know they're finished roasting when they smell spectacular. Roasting spices isn't an exact science. Use your senses. Tip the spices into a mortar and grind with the chilli powder, sea salt and sweet paprika until you have a fine powder.

Add 3 tbs of the spice mix and the lime juice to the kangaroo mince in a bowl. Combine thoroughly with your hands. Cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate for a hour or two.

Heat some oil in a large fry pan over a medium-low flame. Add the garlic and fry until it starts to soften, then add the seasoned mince. Stir and fry until cooked through.

Meanwhile, heat the taco shells in the oven according to the instructions on the packaging.

Don't overstuff the tacos. Add a little lettuce and onion, then add a bit of mince. Spoon taco sauce over the meat. Add chilli slices if using.

Bolognese sauce

2009-01-14T01:17:00.000-08:00

For most Australians, Bolognese sauce contains a single meat product--beef mince. True Bolognese sauce, though, contains at least two. The recipe below was inspired by a recipe I dug up that purported to be as authentic as they come. It contained beef mince, pork mince, sausage, panchetta and ham. Curiously, it didn't have any basil or garlic--ingredients many of us consider very Italian. It was interesting to see how different this recipe was from what I'd grown up with. My dad--not an Italian--regularly made Bolognese with spaghetti. Indeed, it was the only thing he knew how to cook. It was different, even, from some of the more 'modern' versions I've seen whipped up by Maggie Beer and Jamie Oliver. It was interesting, to be sure, but I couldn't help but feel that some of those 'modern' touches were needed. So, off the top of my head, I can tell you that the idea of including a diced chilli comes from Mr. Oliver. I saw him do it and thought, yeah, it needed to be done. The chicken livers came from Maggie Beer. She reckons they add a lot to the flavour and aroma of the sauce and she's right. The veal and beef combo? Well, I'll claim that as my own. Having veal in addition to beef, instead of just beef, adds to the complexity of the flavour of the sauce. Feel free to substitute the 200 g of veal with a further 200 g of beef, though. As for the garlic, well, to me, as a non-Italian, as someone who's grown up on Australianised Bolognese, excluding garlic of all things seems sinful. And the basil? Same thing, really.

The quantities below make for a lot of sauce. Don't worry, this stuff keeps well in the fridge (2-3 days) and freezer (2 months) Indeed, it's even better on the second day.

Ingredients:

250 g pork mince
200 g beef mince
200 g veal mince (substitute with more beef mince if you must)
200 g chicken livers
200 g tomato paste
100 g panchetta, diced
50 g ham, diced
2 cups (500 mL) beef stock
3/4 cup (185 mL) red wine
4 cloves of garlic, diced
3 dried bay leaves, crumbled
2 sticks of celery, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 chilli, diced (seeds removed)
1 Italian pork sausage, roughly chopped
1 onion, diced
handful of fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped
a touch of freshly grated nutmeg
a grind of black pepper
sea salt

In a saucepan, fry the panchetta until crispy. Remove from pan and set aside.

Fry the chicken livers until they've got a bit of colour--perhaps 30 seconds--and then set them aside to cool. When they're cool, roughly chop them.

Give the saucepan a clean, if need be, and then fry the carrot, celery, chilli, garlic and onion until they begin to soften. At this point, add the sausage and mince. Fry until mince has a bit of colour. Return the liver and panchetta to the saucepan.

Add the wine. Stir. Add the tomato paste. Fry for a further 4 minutes, then add the beef stock, along with a little nutmeg, the basil leaves and the bay leaves. When sauce starts to bubble, reduce heat and cover. Simmer for a hour, removing the lid occasionally to stir. When the hour is up, remove the lid. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for a further 30 minutes. Then add the ham. Simmer for 30 more minutes then allow to cool.

If you're planning on making spaghetti Bolognese, heat some of the sauce over a low flame in a saucepan while cooking some spaghetti. The general rule is 80-100 g of pasta per person. Dress with a few basil leaves and a splash of extra virgin olive oil.

Buffalo meatballs with a mustard and pepper coating

2009-01-13T17:36:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

500 g buffalo sausages
1/4 cup flour
1 tbs mustard seeds, crushed
1 tsp powdered mustard
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp tumeric (optional--I use it purely for the colour)

Combine everything but the sausages in a cup or other small vessel. Set aside.

Slit the sausage casings open with a paring knife. Extract the filling. Pull pieces of the filling off and roll into meatballs. Place in a bowl, add the seasoned flour and cover the bowl well with cling film. Shake until meatballs are evenly coated. Fry over a gentle heat until cooked though.

Buffalo meatballs with a spicy tomato and whisky dipping sauce

2009-01-13T00:34:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

500 g buffalo sausages
1 cup tomato ketchup
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup whisky
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs honey mustard
1 tbs sweet paprika
1 tbs chilli powder
1 tsp freshly ground allspice
1 tsp freshly ground cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
a generous grind of freshly ground black pepper
sea salt, to taste

Combine the tomato ketchup, apple cider, whisky, brown sugar, Dijon mustard, honey mustard, sweet paprika, chilli powder, allspice, cumin, garlic, onion powder, black pepper, sea salt and 1/4 cup of water in a small saucepan. Heat over a low flame until sauce starts to bubble. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

Meanwhile, prepare the meatballs by slitting open the sausage casings with a paring knife. Extract the filling and tear into portions. Roll each portion into a meatball. Fry over medium heat until cooked through.

Beef and pork burger

2009-01-12T00:38:00.000-08:00

Combining beef and pork mince in the one burger is a very good idea. For starters, it's a flavoursome combination. And too, the pork mince is or at least should be fatty. Fattier than the beef mince. That fat, that glorious fat, will keep the patties moist as you cook them.

Ingredients:

200 g beef mince
200 g pork mince
4 slices Swiss cheese
4 small slices of rindless bacon
4 good quality rolls, opened
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tomato, sliced and seasoned with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 red onion, finely diced
handful mixed lettuce leaves
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs tomato ketchup
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste
Tabasco sauce, to taste
olive oil

The day before, combine the beef mince, pork mince and minced garlic. Add freshly ground black pepper, sea salt and Tabasco sauce to taste. Form seasoned mince into four patties and place on a plate. Use your thumb to make an indentation in the top of each patty. Cover with cling film and refrigerate overnight.

Make the sauce by combining the Dijon mustard, tomato ketchup and onion. Season to taste with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Season the tomato slices with a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Fry the patties over a medium-low flame. When liquid starts to pool on top, flip them carefully. The secret to keeping patties in one piece isn't to add saw dust (i.e. supermarket-bought bread crumbs) or egg. It's thus--don't add that'll reduce their structural integrity (i.e. onion), refrigerate for a few hours or overnight once formed and cook slowly.

Meanwhile, lightly toast the burger buns under the broiler. When buns are toasted, increase the temperature of the broiler and add the slices of bacon. Drizzle a little olive on them and broil until crispy.

Place the lettuce on the lower bun, then add, in the following order, the bacon, the cheese, the beef and pork patty, the tomato and a spoonful of sauce.

Kangaroo steaks with a brandy, mushroom and sour cream sauce

2009-01-10T23:30:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:

2 kangaroo steaks
1 clove garlic, finely minced
250 g assorted mushrooms, roughly chopped
200 mL sour cream
30 mL brandy
1 tbs butter, softened
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste
olive oil
potato wedges, to serve

Pre-heat oven to 220*C. Pre-heat fry pan over a medium high.

Season the steaks with sea salt. Too, drizzle a little olive oil over them. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side, then transfer pan to oven. Roast for five to six minutes. Return pan to stove over a medium flame. Remove steaks. Add the butter to the pan. When butter has melted, add the garlic and mushrooms. Stir and fry for five minutes, then add the brandy. When brandy has reduced by half, add the sour cream and stir in. Cook for two or three minutes.

Crispy Cajun wings

2009-01-10T22:26:00.001-08:00

I love chicken wings. A lot of flavour in them, with all that bone. They're fun to eat. And, yeah, they're cheap. A major selling point for a student. With all of the marinades I use, the wings themselves are prepared in exactly the same way. I use my chef's knife to lop off the wing tips, then I cut the wings in half at the joint. You can, of course, buy wingettes--wings that have already been portioned like that--but they're more expensive. The wings are cooked on the middle rack of the broiler for ten minutes aside on a medium-high heat. Ensure the bars of the grill are clean, to prevent sticking. You can also barbecue the wings.

This isn't a liquid marinade, obviously. Rather, it's a dry rub that comes out all crunchy. I only made this recently and, at present, I'm not 100% happy with it. I reckon turning the mix into a paste with rum or even halving the amount of mix and combining it with flour or quality bread crumbs would improve things greatly.

Take 2 tbs smoked paprika, 2 tbs sweet paprika, 3 tbs dried basil flakes, 2 tbs garlic powder, 2 tbs onion flakes, 2 tbs salt, 2 tbs freshly ground black pepper, 2 tbs ground fennel seeds, 3 tsp dried parsley, 3 tsp ground cinnamon, 3 tsp dried thyme, 2 tsp ground white pepper and 1 tsp chilli powder and combine. Rub into the wings.

Garlic, lemon and parsley wings

2009-01-10T22:25:00.001-08:00

Peri peri wings

2009-01-10T22:24:00.000-08:00

Louisiana chilli wings

2009-01-10T22:23:00.000-08:00

I love chicken wings. A lot of flavour in them, with all that bone. They're fun to eat. And, yeah, they're cheap. A major selling point for a student. With all of the marinades I use, the wings themselves are prepared in exactly the same way. I use my chef's knife to lop off the wing tips, then I cut the wings in half at the joint. You can, of course, buy wingettes--wings that have already been portioned like that--but they're more expensive. The wings are cooked on the middle rack of the broiler for ten minutes aside on a medium-high heat. Ensure the bars of the grill are clean, to prevent sticking. You can also barbecue the wings.

A while ago I ordered a six pack of Louisiana-brand hot sauces from the online store USA Foods. They're all really nice and, yeah, I've done the natural thing of using them to marinate chicken wings. I combine equal parts red chilli hot sauce, chipotle hot sauce and roasted garlic hot sauce. The jalapeno one is nice too.

Smokey Tabasco wings

2009-01-10T22:22:00.000-08:00

With all of the marinades I use, the wings themselves are prepared in exactly the same way. I use my chef's knife to lop off the wing tips, then I cut the wings in half at the joint. You can, of course, buy wingettes--wings that have already been portioned like that--but they're more expensive. The wings are cooked on the middle rack of the broiler for ten minutes aside on a medium-high heat. Ensure the bars of the grill are clean, to prevent sticking. You can also barbecue the wings.

Cover the wings in maybe three or four tablespoons of Tabasco per kilogram, along with a teaspoon of chilli powder, a teaspoon of smoked paprika, a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper and some sea salt. Rub everything into the wings. Allow to sit in the fridge, covered, for a couple of hours.

Tip: if you have a Middle Eastern, East African or South Asian grocery store nearby, duck in to see if they sell Rana brand chilli sauce. It's a Saudi-made sauce and tastes similar to Tabasco. The large bottles are about half the price of large bottles of Tabasco.

Wild boar vindaloo

2009-01-10T03:00:00.001-08:00

I've used wild boar for this recipe, but there's nothing stopping you from using pork. Use good pork, though. Cheap, lean, mass-produced crap from the supermarket doesn't count as good pork. If you're curious to sample wild boar, you can order it from a good butcher or poultry store. Or go kill it. Too, this recipe makes enough for two people.

Ingredients:

350 g wild boar or pork tenderloin, cut into bite-sized cubes
6 fresh curry leaves
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large shallot, peeled
1 small lump of ginger, peeled
1 tbs cider vinegar
1 tbs sweet paprika
2 whole cloves
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 tsp whole black mustard seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
vegetable, sunflower or peanut oil
steamed rice, to serve

At least a few hours--but ideally a day--before, grind the black peppercorns, cloves, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds with a mortar and pestle. Then pour them into the bowl of a food processor. Blitz along with the brown sugar, cider vinegar, garlic, ginger, sea salt, shallot, sweet paprika, turmeric and 1 1/2 tbs water. You're making a curry paste, now. It should be thick, sure, but still a paste. If it seems a little dry--and that's possible, I mean, depending on the size of the shallot and the garlic cloves--add a little more cider vinegar. When you have a smooth paste, combine it with the cubed wild boar in a bowl. Rub the paste into the boar. Cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate overnight.

Heat a generous splash of oil in a small, non-stick, lidded pan over a medium flame. Add the remaining 1/2 tsp of black mustard seeds and the curry leaves. Fry until the seeds begin to pop, then add the meat and its marinade. Fry for maybe five minutes--just enough to seal the meat--and then add 350 mL water. Stir and bring to boil, then cover the pan, reduce the heat to low and simmer for forty minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove lid and simmer for a further twenty minutes.

Crispy paprika chicken wings with a garlic and sherry sauce

2009-01-09T18:56:00.001-08:00

There's a strong Spanish influence driving this recipe, as demonstrated by the garlic, the paprika and the sherry. I guess you could call it a tapas dish, even.

Ingredients:

1 kilogram chicken wings
200 mL dry sherry
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1 large shallot, diced
1 tbs salt
1 tbs smoked paprika
1 tbs sweet paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp freshly ground white pepper
olive oil

Prepare the chicken wings. Cut the tips off at the joint. Cut the wings into two 'wingettes' at the joint. Place in a bowl with the salt, smoked paprika, sweet paprika, chilli powder, black pepper and white pepper. Cover bowl with a couple of layers of cling film and shake vigourously to distribute the spices evenly. Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.

Pre-heat the broiler to high. Ensure grill bars are clean. Cook chicken 'wingettes' under the broiler for twenty minutes, turning half way through.

Meanwhile, prepare the garlic and sherry sauce. In a small saucepan, heat some olive oil over a medium flame. Fry the garlic and shallot for ten minutes or until soft, stirring frequently. Add the sherry and stir. Bring to boil. reduce heat slightly and simmer for five minutes.

Blackberries coated in white chocolate

2009-01-09T01:19:00.000-08:00

By chance I noticed both blackberries and white chocolate were on special at the supermarket today. Nice, I thought. I sampled one of the berries and they were pretty good.

Out of all the fruits, aside from chilli and capsicum and tomato and all those other ones that most people consider vegetables, my favourites are easily, easily the berries. Blueberries and blackberries especially.

Ingredients:

1 x 125g gram tub blackberries (you could also use blueberries, raspberries or strawberries--go with what's affordable and good)
most of a block of white chocolate

To melt the chocolate, put a little water in a small saucepan. Heat over a medium flame. Place a metal bowl over the saucepan. The bottom of the bowl shouldn't come in contact with the water. Too, I mean, the water should never boil. White chocolate, even moreso than milk chocolate and dark chocolate, needs to be melted slowly or you'll balls it up. Break the white chocolate into pieces and drop said pieces into the bowl. When they start to melt, drop the heat to low. Stir the chocolate from time to time. When completely melted, start dipping the berries in. Me, I just jammed a toothpick in them. That made it easier. If you were ultra lazy you could, of course, arrange the berries on a plate or dish and just pour the white chocolate over them.

Curried Morton Bay bugs

2009-01-09T00:46:00.000-08:00

Morton--sometimes spelt as Morten--Bay bugs are my favourite crustacean. Easy. The meat-to-shell ratio isn't too bad in comparison with, say, scampi and crab. The flavour is tops. And too, in Melbourne, where the bugs aren't as popular as they are in Sydney, they're reasonably affordable. I picked up a few on special today and figured I'd make a curry with them.

Of course, if you're not from Australia, you probably don't have access to bugs at all. I'm not sure if we export them, but if we do they'd probably be ridiculously overpriced. Feel free to substitute the bugs with a crustacean of your choosing--scampi, prawns, crayfish, crab, whatever. Keep in mind you may need to adjust the quantity of gravy and cooking times if you're using something other than bugs. This recipe makes enough for two people.

Ingredients:

8 Morton Bay/Balmain bugs (12 if they're small)
200 mL can coconut milk
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large shallot, peeled
1 small lump of ginger, peeled
1 piece of tamarind* that's about the size of your thumbnail
1 small lemon, juiced
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp freshly ground coriander
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp poppy seeds
vegetable, sunflower or peanut oil
steamed rice, to serve

Place the piece of tamarind in 100 mL hot water and set aside.

Combine 100 mL of the coconut milk with 200 mL water. Leave the other 100 mL undiluted.

Blitz the spices, garlic, shallot, ginger, lemon juice and 1 tsp water in a food processor. This will be your curry paste.

Extract the meat from the tails of the bugs by twisting the tails off and then breaking a couple of tail segments with your fingers or the tip of a knife. If you do it right, you'll be able to pull the meat out in one piece.

Heat a generous splash of oil in a small saucepan over a low flame. When hot, add the curry paste and fry for five minutes. Add the diluted coconut milk. Stir. Cook for fifteen minutes. Pluck the tamarind piece out of the water it was soaking in. Don't worry if there's a little bit left behind. Pour the water, along with the undiluted coconut milk, into the saucepan. Cook for a further fifteen minutes before adding the bug meat. Simmer for a couple of minutes or until cooked through.

Use a pair of tongs to fish out the bugs and distribute them evenly atop two piles of steamed rice. Spoon over the gravy and serve.

* Tamarind can be found in Indian and Sri Lankan grocers. You can buy it in concentrate form, but in this recipe we're using a bar. In my local places, at least, tamarind bars are sold near the spices. They're about the size of a small block of chocolate and look, well, kind of nasty. Like they're mouldly. Feel free to substitute the concentrate for the bar, but be careful--the concentrate is really potent stuff, so you'd only want to use the tiniest amount.

Roast quail with lime and black pepper

2009-01-08T18:27:00.001-08:00

The marinade for this was inspired by a potato chip, of all things. Turns out, lime and pepper go just as well together as lemon and pepper do. This is a very simple, mild-flavoured marinade. You get a hint of lime, but mostly you can taste the quail flesh for what it is.

1 quail, wings and neck removed
2 limes, juiced with a single wedge retained
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

Place the quail in a bowl. Grind some black pepper and sea salt all over it. Rub some into the cavity, too. Squeeze lime juice all over the bird. Turn it breast down, so the breasts--where most of the meat is--are soaking in the lime juice. Cover with cling film and keep in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 180*C. Place the quail on a lightly oiled baking tray and roast for 20 minutes.

Chinese five spice quail with a honey-soy glaze

2009-01-08T18:13:00.000-08:00

The recipe below is enough to season a single quail.

Ingredients:

1 quail, wings and neck removed
3 cloves
2 star anise pods
1 cinnamon stick, snapped into shards
1 tbs whole Sichuan peppercorns
1/2 tsp ginger powder
2 tbs honey
1 tsp soy sauce

Pre-heat the oven to 180*C.

Using a mortar and pestle, grind up two of the cloves, one of the star anise pods, the Sichuan peppercorns, the ginger powder and all but one of the cinnamon shards. Rub this spice mix all over the quail. Stuff the cavity with the remaining clove, star anise pod and cinnamon shard. Place quail on a lightly oiled oven tray and roast for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, combine honey and soy sauce. Remove quail from the oven and baste generously in with the honey-soy glaze, before returning to the oven for a further ten minutes. Serve with steamed rice.

Quail Kiev

2009-01-07T17:12:00.000-08:00

There are those who don't enjoy quail, claiming that eating quail is a bit like eating matchsticks. It's so small and bony, offering too little meat for them to feel that quail is worth the price butchers and poultry stores charge for it. I'm not one of those people. I adore quail. Grilled or stewed, roasted or deep-fried, I regard it as one of the most wonderful birds.

This dish was, of course, inspired by the popular Chicken Kiev--a flattened chicken breast which is rolled, filled with a garlic and herb butter and then coated in a batter. Typically, Kiev is deep-fried. My Kiev is roasted and, of course, uses quail in place of chicken.

I've allowed three quail per diner, but by all means, reduce that figure to two if you are worried your diners don't have such a large appetite.

Ingredients:

3 quail
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup bread crumbs (I used tempura bread crumbs, but you could make your own bread crumbs by blitzing some stale, but good quality bread in a food processor)
3 tbs fresh dill leaves
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste
olive oil

Pre-heat oven to 180*C.

Prepare the butter filling by playing the butter, dill leaves and garlic cloves in a food processor. Add a generous pinch of salt and a good grind of pepper before blitzing. Set the butter filling aside while you prepare the quail.

Wash quail inside and out under running water and pat dry. Using your chef's knife, remove the neck and the wings. Stuff cavity with the butter mixture. Be careful not to overfill--you're going to have to close the cavity in a minute and you don't want the stuff oozing out.

To close the cavity, carefully tie a length of kitchen string around the end of one of the legs. Then, gently pull both legs back so they're resting on the stumps where the wings used to be. Notice that the cavity is now closed, except for a small gap. Don't worry too much about that. Bind the tips of the legs together with the string.

Season the bread crumbs with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Coat the quail in the beaten egg and then dredge through the bread crumbs, ensuring the whole quail is covered. Place the quail in a lightly greased oven tray. Ensure that the side with the gap is facing up, otherwise the butter filling will leak out during cooking.

Roast for 20-25 minutes or until quail is cooked through.

Carrot, celery and leek pilaf

2009-01-07T02:09:00.000-08:00

Pilaf is a kind of rice dish that can have, depending on the variation, vegetables, fruit (such as raisins and dates), nuts (pine nuts in particular), seafood, meat or any combination of the above mixed through it. I guess you could brand it a Middle Eastern take on risotto. The two main differences, to my mind, are as follows: firstly, pilaf has a shorter cooking time and secondly, pilaf is cooked with the lid on. This is a recipe for a very basic pilaf that could and should be expanded upon. The possibilities for variation are endless. Grilled eggplant? That'd work. Tomato? That'd be lovely, I reckon. Bacon? Fennel? Capsicum? Asparagus? Prawns? Yabbies? They'd all be good. Possibly not together, although pilafs that combine meat and seafood aren't unusual. The recipe below makes enough for two people.

Note that the truffle oil is absolutely optional. I happen to have a bottle of the stuff kicking around my cupboard. Rather than saving it for the most expensive meals, I'll often bring it out with cooking pasta and rice dishes or even pizzas (see this) as, really, if you have it, you may as well use it? After all, it's not like it has an unlimited shelf life.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup vegetable stock (ideally home made, but quality store-bought stuff will suffice)
2/3 cup long-grain rice, washed and drained
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay leaves, torn into pieces
1 carrot, cubed
1 stick of celery, cubed
1 leek, sliced
1 tbs butter, salt reduced
1 tbs olive oil
a splash of dry white wine or vermouth
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste
a drizzle of truffle oil (optional)

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large saucepan over a medium-low flame. When butter has completely melted, add celery, garlic and leek and fry until soft, stirring occasionally. Add rice, carrot and bay leaf. Stir, then add a generous splash of white wine. Stir the contents of the saucepan as the white wine evaporates. When wine has mostly gone, stir in the vegetable stock and a pinch of salt. Season to taste with freshly ground black pepper. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring to boil. Place lid on the pan, reduce heat to low and cook for 12 minutes. Remove lid and give everything a good stir, then spoon into bowls. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Drizzle with truffle oil, if using.

Barbecue pork pizza

2009-01-06T01:10:00.001-08:00

Following on from yesterday's post about making the perfect pizza base in a domestic oven, I figured I'd provide a suggestion for a topping combination. Remember that pizza has few rules. Once you perfect the base, you're free to experiment with the toppings. I mean, just because the local takeaway doesn't put a particular ingredient on a pizza doesn't mean you can't.
The recipe for the perfect pizza, along with the associated 'rules' for pizza making, can be found here.

Ingredients:

1 ball of pizza dough (see original article)
75 mL tomato passata (aka sugo)
8 thin slices salami
5 balls of boccocini cheese, sliced
2 good quality pure pork sausages
2 slices pan-sized bacon, diced
1 onion, sliced
splash of Worcester sauce
freshly ground black pepper
sea salt

Use a paring knife to slit the sausage skin. Extract the meat. Take pinches of the meat and roll it into meatballs. Season meatballs with salt and pepper and pan fry, along with bacon, until cooked through. Set aside to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 230*C for a good twenty minutes, as per usual. When ready to cook, remove stone slab/oven tray from oven and drop the oven temperature to 200*C. Roll the base out directly onto the slab/tray, dusting the slab/tray with corn flour if you feel it necessary. Roll the pizza base about 7 millimetres thick. If you roll it too thin, it won't come out as well as it should.

Combine tomato passata with a generous splash of Worcester sauce. Spread the passata over the pizza. Distribute the sliced boccocini cheese evenly across the base. Top with pork meatballs, salami, bacon and onion. Bake pizza for 20 minutes or until base is crispy and golden.

Portuguese chicken pizza

2009-01-06T01:02:00.000-08:00

Following on from yesterday's post about making the perfect pizza base in a domestic oven, I figured I'd provide a suggestion for a topping combination. Remember that pizza has few rules. Once you perfect the base, you're free to experiment with the toppings. I mean, just because the local takeaway doesn't put a particular ingredient on a pizza doesn't mean you can't.
The recipe for the perfect pizza, along with the associated 'rules' for pizza making, can be found here.

Ingredients:

1 ball of pizza dough (see original article)
75 mL tomato passata (aka sugo)
5 balls of boccocini cheese, sliced
4 anchovies, cut into pieces
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 chicken thigh, cubed
1 onion, sliced
1 lemon, juiced
1 fresh chilli, diced with seeds removed
1 tbs chilli powder
handful sun-dried tomatoes
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Marinate the chicken cubes overnight or at least for a few hours in the chilli powder, lemon juice, sea salt and black pepper. Fry until cooked through and set aside to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 230*C for a good twenty minutes, as per usual. When ready to cook, remove stone slab/oven tray from oven and drop the oven temperature to 200*C. Roll the base out directly onto the slab/tray, dusting the slab/tray with corn flour if you feel it necessary. Roll the pizza base about 7 millimetres thick. If you roll it too thin, it won't come out as well as it should.

Combine tomato passata, diced chilli minced garlic. Spread the passata over the pizza. Distribute the sliced boccocini cheese evenly across the base. Top pizza with chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, anchovies and onion. Bake pizza for 20 minutes or until base is crispy and golden.

Artichoke, bacon and mushroom pizza

2009-01-06T00:15:00.000-08:00

Following on from yesterday's post about making the perfect pizza base in a domestic oven, I figured I'd provide a suggestion for a topping combination. Remember that pizza has few rules. Once you perfect the base, you're free to experiment with the toppings. I mean, just because the local takeaway doesn't put a particular ingredient on a pizza doesn't mean you can't.
The recipe for the perfect pizza, along with the associated 'rules' for pizza making, can be found here.

Ingredients:

1 ball of pizza dough (see original article)
75 mL tomato passata (aka sugo)
5 balls of boccocini cheese, sliced
4 jarred artichoke hearts, drained and torn into three or four pieces
2 pan-sized pieces of bacon, diced
handful of mushrooms of your choosing, sliced
truffle oil (optional)

Fry the diced bacon for a couple of minutes and set aside to cool. It's important to cook bacon before putting it on a pizza.

Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 230*C. After twenty minutes at this temperature, remove the stone slab/oven tray from the oven and drop the temperature to 200*C. If you're paranoid about your dough sticking to the slab, dust it with a little corn flour (this shouldn't be necessary if you follow my dough recipe, though). Roll the dough out directly on the slab to a thickness of roughly 7 millimetres (there's no need to measure it).

Combine tomato passata with a few drops of truffle oil, if using. Spread over pizza base. Evenly distribute the slices of boccocini cheese over the pizza base. Top pizza with bacon, mushroom and artichoke hearts, then cook in the oven for 20 minutes or until base is crispy and golden. Drizzle a little truffle oil over the pizza before serving.

Chicken and pineapple pizza

2009-01-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

Following on from yesterday's post about making the perfect pizza base in a domestic oven, I figured I'd provide a suggestion for a topping combination. Remember that pizza has few rules. Once you perfect the base, you're free to experiment with the toppings. I mean, just because the local takeaway doesn't put a particular ingredient on a pizza doesn't mean you can't.
The recipe for the perfect pizza, along with the associated 'rules' for pizza making, can be found here: .

Ingredients:

1 ball of pizza dough (see: )
75 mL tomato passata (aka sugo)
5 balls of boccocini cheese
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 chicken thigh, cubed, preferably free-range, corn-fed or organic
1 capsicum, cut into short strips
1 small onion, finely sliced
1/2 pineapple, cut into cubes
1 tbs brown sugar
black pepper
sea salt
extra virgin olive oil (optional)
a few drips of Tabasco or other chilli sauce sauce (optional)

Combine the pineapple cubes and brown sugar in a bowl. Toss to combine and set aside.

Grind some black pepper and sea salt over the cubed chicken thigh. Fry in a fry pan over medium heat until cooked through. It's important to fully cook meats such as chicken, pork and beef before putting them on pizza. Allow to cool.

Pre-heat the oven to 230*C for a good twenty minutes, as per usual. When ready to cook, remove stone slab/oven tray from oven and drop the oven temperature to 200*C. Roll the base out directly onto the slab/tray, dusting the slab/tray with corn flour if you feel it necessary. Roll the pizza base about 7 millimetres thick. If you roll it too thin, it won't come out as well as it should.

Combine tomato passata, minced garlic and, if you're up for it, a few drops of Tabasco or another chilli sauce. Spread the passata over the pizza. Distribute the sliced boccocini cheese evenly across the base. Next, top the pizza with the chicken, capsicum, pineapple and onion.

Place in the oven for 20 minutes or until the base is crispy and golden. Drizzle pizza with a little extra virgin olive oil before serving, if you're so inclined. Alternatively, you could sprinkle a little more Tabasco sauce over the pizza.

Mutton, mushroom and rosemary pie

2009-01-05T22:09:00.000-08:00

Mutton has fallen out of favour in the west and that's a shame, as it's a wonderful meat. It's cheaper than lamb and, to my mind, tastes better. The taste has had longer to develop. You could, of course, substitute the mutton in this recipe for lamb, goat or even camel, but I urge you to give mutton a go.

Ingredients:

800 g mutton, cut into bite-sized cubes
600 mL beef stock (either home made or quality store-bought stuff)
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked
2 medium-sized brown onions, sliced
2 lamb kidneys (see relevant section)
2 dried bay leaves, crumbled
1 sheet of puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, beaten
handful of fresh mushrooms of your choice, sliced
a splash of Worcester sauce
a splash of red wine vinegar
a splash of milk
a generous pinch of corn flour
cooking oil
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper

Part one:

Season the cubes of mutton and diced kidney with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Heat some oil in a large saucepan over a medium-low flame. Add the onions and garlic, cover and cook for ten minutes, lifting the lid occasionally to stir. Deglaze the pan with a generous splash of red wine vinegar. Ensure you stir while the red wine vinegar sizzles away.

Add the mutton and fry with the lid off, stirring frequently, for four minutes. Add the diced kidney and fry for a further minute, before adding the beef stock, rosemary, bay leaves and Worcester sauce. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and partially cover the saucepan. Simmer like this for two to two and half hours, or until tender, lifting the lid occasionally to stir and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the mushrooms five minutes before you intend to turn off the heat. Add the corn flour and stir. Season with more sea salt and freshly ground black pepper if you feel it necessary. Allow to cool gradually in the saucepan, stirring occasionally. Once cool, cover and refrigerate the filling until required.

Part two:

Remove pie filling from refrigerator at least half a hour before you intend to put it in the oven. It'd be a good idea to remove the frozen pastry from the freezer about now too, so it'll be thawed in time. Pre-heat the oven to 180*C. Pour the pie filling into a pie tin. If feel it's too dry, add a tiny splash of stock. Cover the pie tin with the pastry sheet, trimming away excess pastry where necessary. Combine the beaten egg and splash of milk in a cup or other small vessel and brush over the pastry. Use a paring knife or skewer to stab a few holes in the pastry. The holes will allow the steam to escape when the filling is heated, thereby preventing the pastry from going soggy. Grind a little black pepper over the pastry. Place pie in the oven for 40-50 minutes or until the pastry is crispy and golden.

The secret to really good home made pizza

2009-01-05T04:48:00.000-08:00

Pizza has to be one of the world's favourite street foods. Has to be. Trouble is, most pizza you buy, it's pretty bad. Especially the pizzas from the big chains. Making your own should be more satisfying, but usually it isn't. That's because getting it right is hard.

The base

Perfecting the base in a domestic oven is quite difficult. Sure, there are other ways. Flat bread, for instance, which to me always seems like a cop out. There are those pre-made bases as well, but they're as expensive as they are terrible. No, the lazy options for pizza bases are universally rubbish.

Luckily, I know how to make the perfect pizza base. And it's dead simple. The following quantity makes enough for two medium-sized pizzas.

Ingredients:

2 cups strong self-raising flour (with some brands, it'll even say 'suitable for pizza' on the packaging), plus extra to dust
200 mL warm water
1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp caster sugar
7 g sachet yeast
pinch of salt

In a bowl, combine the self-raising flour, caster sugar, yeast and salt. Form a well with your hands and then pour in the warm water and the olive oil. Bring everything together with your hands. Once you have a rough dough, pick it up and work it in your hands. Pass it from one hand to the other. Stretch it. Squash it. Play with it for a good five minutes. Once it has been kneaded, place it in a second bowl. This one should be clean and lightly greased with a little olive oil. Cover this second bowl with a clean tea towel and place somewhere warm for a hour. If it's a cool day, be creative. Place the bowl in the bathroom, turn on the heat lamp and close the door.

Meanwhile, pre-heat your oven to 230*C. If you have a ceramic or stone slab, place it in the oven now to heat up. If not, find a large, thick oven tray--just don't expect the results to be as good as they would with a slab. Many kitchenware stores now sell dedicated pizza slabs. I picked up one on sale after Christmas for a very reasonable price. Essentially, the theory behind the pizza slabs is this--domestic ovens provide uneven heat. A stone that's been pre-heated, though, it provides a constant, level source of heat. It also absorbs any moisture that leaks from the pizza. An oven tray, whether it's a cheap one from the supermarket or an expensive non-stick one, won't do the first job as well as a stone slab and won't do the second job at all. It's important to pre-heat the stone slab for 15-20 minutes before cooking your pizza. Just before you get ready to cook, though, drop the oven temperature down to 200*C.

Anyway, back to the dough. Remove the tea towel from the bowl. Punch the dough a couple of times to get the air out, then separate the dough into two evenly-sized lumps. Pick up one of the lumps and have a good feel. Is it sticky? If so, sprinkle a little more flour on it. Play with it some more. Keep on adding flour, a little at a time, until it's no longer sticky. When the ball of dough feels okay, plonk it down in the middle of the stone slab or oven tray and begin rolling. To ensure it rolls evenly, change direction frequently. I have a large rolling pin, but I've found my house mate's tiny roti pin is more effective. Roll quickly. Don't worry about making the base a perfect circle. It doesn't matter. Really. The important thing is to make sure the base isn't too thick or thin. If it's too thin, it just won't work properly. After much experimentation, I've found something in the realm of 7 millimetres to be perfect. By the way, you've probably figured this already--if you only have one stone slab, you're going to have to cook the pizzas one at a time.

The sauce

Now, the sauce. A lot of people use tomato paste and wonder why the end result is bad. Tomato paste isn't suited for this purpose. What you're supposed to use is sugo. Sugo, sometimes sold as tomato passata, is pretty much just a tomato puree. For the two bases, a total of 150 mL will be enough. The secret of pizza bases is to not roll them too thin or too thick. And, too, obviously by now, to use one of that stone slabs or at the very least the thickest oven tray you can find.

Basic ingredients:

150 mL tomato passata (aka sugo)
5 balls of boccocini (a mild-flavoured cheese that comes in the form of small balls floating in liquid and is sold in little tubs in delis and supermarkets), cut into slices

To jazz things up a bit, you can add any of the following:

A good pinch of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
A couple of garlic cloves, finely diced
A splash of Tabasco or similar chilli sauce
A splash of Worcester or other 'barbecue'-type sauce

The base stays the same, but the rest obviously varies based on what you're doing with your pizza. Want to have a fiery pizza coated in hot salami? A few drops of Tabasco mixed in with the sauce would be a nice idea. Want to have a barbecue chicken pizza? You could do the same with Worcester sauce. Remember that if you're making two different pizzas, you might want to divide the 150 mL of sugo into two 75 mL portions, which you can fiddle with separately. Anyway, smear the sugo all over the base. Don't let it get too thick, but ensure the whole base is covered.

The toppings

And here is where I leave you to think for yourself. Coming up with your own combinations of toppings is the fun part, the part that has no rules to it. Wait, there is one rule--don't put too much stuff. Really, 3 or 4 things should be enough. Oh and too, if you're using chicken or beef or bacon or anything like that, you'll have to pre-cook it. If you're specially cooking the meat and not just using leftovers, remember you can and maybe should marinate it in something. Want to do a spicy chicken pizza? Maybe whip up a simple marinade with some freshly ground black pepper and your favourite chilli sauce. Prawns and squid will be okay placed on raw, though.

Some ideas for ingredients:

Alfalfa sprouts
Anchovies
Artichoke hearts
Asparagus
Avocado
Bacon
Bamboo shoots
Barbecue sauce
Bean sprouts
Beef
Blood sausage
Boar
Broccoli
Buffalo
Calamari
Camel
Capers
Capsicum
Carrot
Caviar
Chicken
Chilli
Chilli sauce
Clams
Coriander
Crabmeat
Crayfish
Crocodile
Duck
Egg
Eggplant
Emu
Fish
Goat
Ham
Kangaroo
Lamb
Leek
Lettuce
Liver
Lobster
Morten Bay bugs
Mushroom
Mussels
Nuts
Olives
Onion
Ostrich
Oysters
Panchetta
Prosciutto
Parsley
Peanuts
Pineapple (‘marinated’ in a little brown sugar first)
Pork
Potato
Prawns
Rocket
Rosemary or other fresh herbs
Salami
Salmon (including the smoked variety)
Satay sauce
Sausage
Scallops
Scampi
Shallot
Speck
Spring onion
Sun-dried tomatoes
Tomato
Tuna
Turkey (including smoked breast)
Venison
Yabbies
Zucchini

Remember--don't use too much stuff.

The cooking process

Cook pizzas in the oven at 200*C or until the base is golden and crisp. So long as your dough was floured enough before you rolled it, you should have no problem with the pizza sticking to the base. If you're worried, you can dust the base with a little corn flour or use some baking paper.

Dressing

To finish a pizza, you can 'dress' it with a little sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil, chilli sauce, barbecue sauce or fresh herbs. You could even, if you wanted to be all fancy and if your toppings were appropriate, use some truffle-infused oil. Be sparing with your dressings, particularly the liquid ones. Don't spoil your lovely pizza with oil.

Steamed crabs with a simple lemon and pepper dipping sauce

2009-01-05T01:04:00.000-08:00

Last night, I put together a crab curry with spanner crabs. I was disappointed. Spanner crabs, it turns out, have a worse meat to shell ratio than crabs I usually buy, the humble blue swimmers that readily available in about every Melbourne fishmonger. And too, the flavour of the gravy dominated the flavour of the meat. And yeah, I managed to stab myself on one of the crab's spines. So, yeah. Crabs. I like them, really, but only when they're prepared the right way. I've prepared them a few different ways now and, honestly? I really dig the way I first did them, when I first had them myself one Saturday with the kids. Whole lot of fun, that was.

Now, to cook crabs, I recommend steaming. The flavour of steamed crab is superior to that of boiled crab. I steam with salt water, but there's nothing stopping you using white wine or vermouth. Some folks use beer. I understand that flat beer imparts a better flavour. The best way to flatten beer is to pour it into a bowl and leave it to sit for a hour or so at room temperature.

So. Crabs. Buy the freshest ones you can get your hands one. The best way to ensure freshness is to buy live crabs, but sometimes the fishmongers don't have those or they're too expensive. So long as the blue swimmers at your local fishmonger have been killed recently, they'll be fine. Heck, ask your fishmonger if he can get some live ones in specially for you. He might be able to hook you up. Whether you buy male or female crabs is up to you. Female crabs sometimes have eggs. Male crabs are generally larger.

To steam the crabs in water, pour water to a couple of inches deep into a stock pot. Add salt until the water tastes like sea water. Crank the heat, bring up to the boil, add the crabs legs-up and jam the lid on. If using white wine or vermouth, heat the pan fry. When smoking, add a couple of inches of wine, add the crabs legs-up and jam the lid on. The general rule with crabs is to cook them for 15 minutes for the first 500 grams, followed plus an additional 10 minutes for every additional 500 grams. Now, that's just a general rule. The best way is to keep an eye on the things. When they're bright red all over, they're cooked. Pour the contents of the stock pot into a colander and hold the crabs under cold, running water. Not only does this arrest the cooking process, but it also makes them easier to handle and loosens the shell.

To deconstruct a crab, grab the claws at the base and give them a good twist to separate them from the body. Twist the legs off in a similar fashion. Somewhere on the underside of the crab you'll see a flap. Pull it towards you. Do it right and you'll take the top shell away with it. If you bugger it up, it's possible to prise the shell open with a knife in the same way you'd shuck an oyster.

Most of a crab's internals are edible, although you need to keep an eye out for small pieces of clear membrane amongst the meat. The only pieces you really can't eat are the stomach sac that's immediately behind the crab's 'face' and the grey, finger-like things on the crab's belly. I believe they're the lungs. Be sure to throw them away. Do hang onto the shell if you intend to knock up some seafood stock in the near future, though.

Eating crabs is meant to be a hands-on experience. Rather than taking all the fun out of it, simply serve your guests the claws and legs whole (although it is a good idea to crack the claws first--I used a meat mallet to do that). So far as hands-on lunches go, you really can't beat sucking crab meat from the legs and claws.

Oh and the dipping sauce. I almost forgot. This one can be whipped up while the crabs are steaming. It was shown to me by a Vietnamese friend. She simply squeezed the juice of a couple lemons into a bowl and gave it a liberal grind of black pepper and sea salt before mixing well with a fork. If you wanted to be creative, I suppose you could add a little fish sauce or chilli sauce. No need to be too fancy.

Crocodile in coconut milk

2009-01-05T00:50:00.001-08:00

Crocodile meat is quite mild in flavour. A bit like chicken. A bit like firm, white fish. Cook it incorrectly and it'll be tough as a roadside shoe. Cook it correctly and it's wonderful. This gravy, simple as it is, can be used for chicken and various kinds of seafood.

Where to get crocodile, you ask? Well, you could try a butcher or poultry store. Ask them to order it in. Or you could do as I do and hit an oriental-owned and operated fishmonger--especially one that specialises in frozen produce. Crocodile is always sold frozen. Most will sell crocodile steaks for a reasonable price.

Ingredients:

800 gram crocodile steak, cut into thin strips
300 mL coconut milk
2 shallots, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 red chillis, finely diced
1 lime, juiced
small lump of ginger, grated
1 tsp fish sauce
a couple of sprigs of fresh coriander, leaves picked
a couple of sprigs of sweet (Thai) basil, leaves picked
steamed rice, to serve

Heat a little oil in a fry pan over a low-medium flame. Fry shallots, garlic, ginger and chillies until they start to soften, then add the crocodile. Fry, stirring constantly, for 4-5 minutes before adding the coconut milk, fish sauce, sweet basil leaves and coriander leaves. Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Squeeze in the lime juice and give a final stir

Grilled rabbit with a 'Thai' marinade

2009-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Barbecued rabbit is one of my favourite, favourite, favourite things. Cooking rabbit over coals, that's really the best way to prepare it so far as I'm concerned. Put aside any prejudice you may have against eating bunny and give it a go some time.

This recipe was inspired by a recipe in the Jamie Oliver cookbook, Jamie's Italy. He barbecues rabbit with a marinade that includes, among other things, honey. It was okay, but I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as the marinade I came up with when first barbecuing rabbit for the kids at Saturday school. My students have since tried both marinades and agree that mine is better. Could just be that we all dig the coriander. This is definitely a recipe that you should experiment with. Probably, with not too much work, you can come up with a marinade that's better than mine. I reckon some sort of jerk seasoning, like the one I used with the pork, could be great.

1 rabbit, chopped up into serving pieces (don't be too fussy about how you cut it up--we're cooking over a fire, here, not in a laboratory)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic, peeled
4 limes or kaffir limes, juiced with a little zest retained to go into the marinade
3-4 sprigs coriander
2 small red chillies
small lump of ginger
2 tbs brown sugar
2 tbs freshly ground Sichuan peppercorns, plus a little extra
1 tbs freshly ground coriander
1 tbs sea salt, plus a little extra
1-2 tsp Thai fish sauce, depending on taste
steamed rice, to serve

Combine the oil, garlic, lime juice, lime zest, fresh coriander, chillies, ginger, brown sugar, Sichuan pepper, ground coriander, sea salt and fish sauce in a food processor. Blitz until you end up with a paste. Place the rabbit pieces in a non-metallic bowl and pour the marinade over them. Marinate for a few hours, at least. Ideally overnight.

Remove rabbit from fridge. Start a coal fire. You can do this on a gas barbecue--I have a couple of times--but really, it's so much better when cooked slowly over smouldering coals. Let the fire burn down. Ensure the grill bars are clean. Remove the rabbit pieces from the marinade and give them a generous sprinkle of both sea salt and freshly ground Sichuan pepper. Place the thickest parts of the rabbit, such as the rear legs, on the fire first, as these will take the longest to cook. As cooking over a coal fire is an inexact science, the cooking time could be anywhere between 20 and 40 minutes for the thickest pieces. Don't be tempted to cook this over a high heat. Be patient. Be sure to turn the rabbit pieces regularly, basting with the excess marinade as you do.

Kenyan coconut chicken

2009-01-04T23:27:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favourite dishes ever. Really. It's so simple, so flavoursome. It has a lot of my favourite flavours, right there--garlic and coriander, corn-fed chicken and chilli. Most of the ingredients--the spices, the coconut milk, the chilli, the onions, the garlic, the ginger--I pretty much always have kicking around the pantry. When I feel like making this, all I have to buy, normally, is the chicken itself and the tomatoes. You can, of course, use canned tomatoes for this dish.

4 chicken legs (that is, the thighs and drumsticks), ideally free-range, organic or corn-fed
400mL coconut milk, shaken
4 tomatoes, peeled and diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 onions, sliced
1 chilli, diced
1 tbs desiccated or, better still, freshly grated coconut
1 tbs freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp freshly ground coriander seeds
a small lump of ginger
a couple of springs of fresh coriander, leaves picked
a generous pinch of sea salt
sunflower or vegetable oil
steamed rice, to serve

Pre-heat the broiler to medium high. Peel way the skin from the chicken legs and discard. Prick flesh all over with a skewer or fork, then rub oil, sea salt and ground pepper into the flesh. Broil until flesh is lightly browned.

Meanwhile, fry onions, garlic and ginger in sunflower oil in a large, lidded pan over a low heat. Add the diced chilli, tomatoes and ground coriander. Cook until the tomatoes have gone mushy--between five and ten minutes, depending on the size of the tomatoes, the pan and the exact temperature. Add the coconut milk and stir. Then add the chicken pieces. Place the lid over the pan and cook for a good 40-50 minutes, removing the lid every so often to stir the gravy and turn the chicken legs. Once cooked, turn off the heat and use tongs to place a chicken leg into each bowl. Spoon the gravy over the chicken legs. Garnish each portion with a sprinkle of desiccated coconut and a few coriander leaves.

Kangaroo with pepper sauce

2009-01-04T23:06:00.000-08:00

Kangaroo deserves to be more widely consumed. It's accessible--most supermarkets I've seen stock it--and it's lean and it's delicious. It's relatively affordable, too. Sure, it's gone up in price lately, but is it as cheap as steak? Well, no. Not really. Not for steak that's actually good. Rubbish two-star supermarket steak doesn't count. Kangaroo is another meat that people can be a little worried about preparing. It has a bad reputation. Overcook it and it'll dry out due to its leanness. The solution? Don't overcook it. Kangaroo has a very strong flavour--stronger than venison, even--and that's swell, really, as it means it stands up nicely to strong-flavoured sauces and rubs like this one, which combines three varieties of peppercorn. Speaking of which, you're not aiming to grind the peppercorns into a powder. For this, simply cracking them is enough. When fried, the steaks will have a crunchy, peppery crust.

Ingredients:
4 kangaroo steaks
1/2 cup beef or veal stock (either home made or good quality store-bought stuff)
1 tbs freshly crushed black peppercorns
1 tbs freshly crushed green peppercorns
1 tbs freshly crushed white peppercorns
1 tbs sea salt
a shot of brandy (or cognac or cheap whisky)
olive oil
5 tiny knobs of butter, softened

Rub a little olive oil into the surface of each steak, along with the salt and the cracked peppercorns. Retain any excess peppercorns--you can add them to the sauce at the end.

Pre-heat the pan to medium high. Place the steaks in the pan and fry for 3-4 minutes a side, depending on their thickness and how long they've been out of the fridge. When you turn them, spoon a knob of butter over each one. Once the steaks are cooked, place them on a plate and leave in a warm place. Immediately add the excess peppercorns and the shot of brandy to the pan. Careful, here. If the pan's hot enough, the alcohol could flame up, setting your curtains and/or you on fire. Stir with a wooden spoon while the alcohol reduces. Once it has reduced, add the stock. Once that's reduced by at least half, add the final knob of butter and cut the heat. Stir the butter in and spoon the sauce over the steaks.

Emu meatballs with a red wine dipping sauce

2009-01-04T22:53:00.000-08:00

When I cooked emu for my students, once again I worked with the sausages. Emu has a strong, meaty taste. It stands up well to all of the sauces typically paired with red meats, including red wine jus. Emu sausages can be ordered in most butchers and poultry stores. If you're serving emu as a sit down dinner, it might be more appropriate to order a fan fillet. If you're serving the meatballs at some kind of function, though, simply jam a toothpick into each meat ball.

Ingredients:

1 kilogram emu sausages
3/4 cup red wine
1/4 cup beef or veal stock (either home made or quality store-bought stuff)
6 tbs unsalted butter, softened
2 shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
sea salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Using a paring knife, slit sausages open and extract meat. Take a pinch of meat in your fingers and roll it into a ball. Season with salt and pepper, then repeat the process until you've used all the meat. Fry meatballs over a medium heat for 5-8 minutes or until cooked through.

Heat a tablespoon of butter in a fry pan. When hot, add shallots and garlic. Stir until soft and then add the red wine and stock. When the red wine and stock mixture starts to boil, drop the temperature and allow to simmer for a good 15-20 minutes. The volume should reduce by half, if not more. When wine and stock have reduced, whisk in the remaining butter a tablespoon at a time. Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.

Buffalo meatballs with a spicy coating

2009-01-04T22:42:00.000-08:00

This is a simple recipe I came up with when introducing both my students and myself to buffalo. I wanted something simple, something the kids and I could knock together in the space of a few minutes. I ended up settling on a spice rub. You can use this spice rub on buffalo steaks, but we used it on meatballs made from buffalo sausages. The sausages can be ordered at any good butcher or poultry store, although you'll find some places might have them kicking around the freezer already. The sausages, at least at the places I go, come frozen in a one kilogram pack.

1 kilogram pack buffalo sausages, thawed
1/4 cup plain flour
1 tbs sweet paprika
1 tbs allspice
1 tbs black pepper
1 tbs sea salt
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp chilli powder

Use a paring knife to slit the sausages open. Peel the skin away from the meat. Take a pinch of meat and roll it into a meatball with your hands. Repeat until all of the sausages are gone.

In a cup or other small vessel, combine the flour and spices. Dip the meatballs into the seasoned flour one by one, rolling them around to ensure they get an even coating.

Heat some oil in a fry pan. Cook the meatballs over a medium flame for 5-8 minutes.

'Boerewors' pot pie

2009-01-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

Boerewors is a heavily spiced South African sausage. Some contain only beef, but my favourite variety includes the ingenious combination of beef, pork and bacon. It wasn't long after I first had this variety of boerewors that I was inspired to make a pie using the same spices and meats. Because I have little patience for pastry at the best of times, it'd be a pot pie. That being said, if you want to create a short crust base or create 'party pies' in a muffin tin, go right ahead. I'll eventually get around to doing the later, as I'd like to be able to give my girlfriend something nice to take to work for lunch.

Too, you might've noticed that there's a lot of coriander (cilantro) in this dish. South Africans love their coriander. Don't worry about it if you're not the greatest fan of the stuff, though, as the flavour of the spices will mellow considerably during cooking.

400 grams each of pork and beef (for the beef, go for chuck steak or stewing steak), cut into 2-3 centimetre cubes
100 grams of bacon, diced (you can also use the more expensive spek)
4 tbs freshly ground coriander
2 tbs sea salt
1 tbs freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp freshly ground allspice
1/4 tsp freshly ground cloves
500mL beef stock (if you haven't made your own, at least spend a little extra to get good quality stuff)
2 small onions or one large one, sliced
a couple of springs of fresh thyme
a couple of cloves of garlic, crushed
a generous splash of Worcester sauce
a splash of red wine vinegar
a splash of brandy or cognac
a generous pinch of corn flour
an egg, beaten
a splash of milk
a sheet of store-bought puff pastry, thawed

Combine the dried spices in a bowl. Rub into the cubes of pork and bacon. Place in the fridge for a few hours, covered.

On a low flame, heat a little oil in a large saucepan. Fry the garlic and onion, stirring constantly. When they start to soften, add the pork and beef and seal them lightly. Once sealed, add a splash of brandy, a splash of red wine vinegar and a generous splash of Worcester sauce. Let it sizzle away for a moment and then add the beef stock. Add the diced bacon and a couple of springs of fresh thyme. Simmer on a very low heat, partly covered, for a couple of hours or until the meat is very tender. Season with extra salt, pepper and Worcester sauce if you feel it necessary. Remove the springs of thyme and add a generous pinch of corn flour. Stir it in and remove the saucepan from the heat. The 'stew' won't thicken immediately, so don't keep adding corn flour under the assumption you haven't used enough--it'll thicken as it cools. It's possible and, indeed, preferable to make the filling the day before you serve the pie.

Pre-heat the oven to 180*C. Pour the cooled filling into a pie pan. It should be thick. If it's quite obviously too thick, add a little splash of stock. Place the pastry sheet over the pie pan, ensuring you it is completely covered. Trim off any excess pastry. Use a skewer or the tip of a paring knife to prick a few holes in the pastry--this will allow the steam to escape. Finally, combine the milk and the beaten egg in a cup or other small vessel. Using a pastry or basting brush, brush the milk/egg wash all over the pastry. Place the pie in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until the pastry has turned crispy and golden.

Simple sushi rolls

2009-01-04T19:05:00.001-08:00

Really good sushi is, well, really good. What makes really good sushi? Well, of course the fish has to be of good quality and fresh. And too, it has to be seasoned just right. And it has to be freshly made, so the nori--that is, the seaweed wrapping--remains crisp.

Now, you'll notice I don't specify sashimi-grade fish here. If you can get that, then by all means go nuts. But for the average person, any nice piece of fish will do the job. The term 'sashimi-grade' fish refers to how the fish was killed and stored. It's perfectly okay to use regular fish for sushi or sashimi. Indeed, I suspect many of the cheap sushi places around wouldn't use the expensive, sashimi-grade stuff.

I use salmon because raw salmon is one of my favourite things in the world. Feel free to use about anything else. If the fishmonger is telling you his tuna is really good today, then yeah, go for that instead. Anyway, with the salmon, I don't buy those cutlets. I get a fillet and pin bone it using a pair of tweezers. Invest in a dedicated pair of tweezers for pin-boning fish if you haven't already, as doing it by hand is a real pain.

To begin, steam some jasmine rice as normal. For a enough sushi for two people, I used two thirds of a cup of jasmine rice to just under one and a third cup of water. I added a little salt and brought it to a boil slowly, then dropped the heat and covered for twenty minutes. At the ten minute mark, I turned the heat off altogether. At the end of the twenty minutes, I removed the lid and fluffed it with a fork, before slowly adding some pre-mixed sushi seasoning (I picked up Mizkan brand from the local oriental grocer and it seemed okay), tasting and stirring as I went. I left the rice to cool while I prepared everything else.

I slice the fish about a centimetre thick. Too thin and it'll fall apart. I also julienned a spring onion and poured a little light soy sauce into a Chinese tea cup. Once the rice was about body temperature (about 37*C), I placed a sheet of nori on the bamboo sushi mat I'd picked up for all of a dollar. On top of the nori, I smeared a fairly thin layer of rice, although I left part bare.

Next, I layed, end to end, strips of spring onion. Then I took my finger and dipped it in the soy sauce. I smeared the sauce in a very thin film on one side of the fish. Be careful with soy sauce--use too much and you'll destroy the lovely flavour of the fish. Using your (clean) finger tip is perhaps the best way of applying it in this situation. I played the fish, soy side down, next to the slivers of spring onion. I put a few dots of wasabi paste on top of the fish. Never combine wasabi and soy sauce. And be sparing with the wasabi--people can add more later if they want, but if you use too much in the beginning you'll overpower the flavour of the fish. Finally, roll the sushi. Some people claim to have had trouble with this part, but for me it seemed simple enough. So long as you don't over pack it or use too much rice, you'll be fine. Eat as soon as possible, as it won't be long before the nori goes soggy.

Wild boar sandwiches

2009-01-04T18:29:00.001-08:00

I recently managed to get my hands on some wild boar tenderloin. I looked around online and through my cookbook collection, trying to find a suitable recipe. I wanted something simple, something that'd let me enjoy the meat for what it was. I didn't want to overwhelm it with a strong-flavoured sauce. It wasn't long before I got tired of looking through curry and casserole recipes and settled on making a simple sandwich.

My wild boar came in strips of the perfect size for sandwiches. If yours doesn't, you're going to have to cut it. Place one wild boar strip for each diner into a bowl along with two or three cloves of garlic, season with black pepper, cover with olive oil, seal in cling film and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. Remove from refrigerator a hour before cooking. Pre-heat broiler to medium-high.

Take a tomato, slice it and season it with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Broil for 5-7 minutes a side. While I'm normally against cooking anything well-done, you want to make sure your boar is properly cooked as it's wild-shot. Season the tenderloins with salt and pepper when you turn them. Season them again when you remove them. If you feel like having bacon in your sandwich, broil it now.

Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the sandwich. Open the rolls--I hope you bought nice ones. Add some rocket leaves, finely sliced red onion, the bacon (if using) and the wild boar tenderloin. Top a slice or two of tomato.

Really, that's all I did. And I was very happy with it. I intend, next time, to maybe cook some kebabs over a coal fire.

Warm venison salad with a sweet and spicy rice wine vinegar dressing

2009-01-04T18:12:00.000-08:00

Yeah, bit of a venison them going here. This is a great way to use up small off cuts if you've purchased a large venison. Too, if you've roasted some venison and have leftovers, you could just heat it under the broiler and use that.

Ingredients:
one or two small venison rump steaks, removed from the fridge a hour before cooking or some left over cooked venison
mixed lettuce leaves and/or rocket leaves, washed
red onion, sliced
capsicum, siced
carrot, julienned (i.e. cut into matchsticks)
tomato, cut into wedges
rice wine vinegar
small, fresh chilli, sliced
couple garlic cloves, crushed
a little brown sugar

In a cup or other small vessel, combine the rice wine vinegar with the chilli, garlic and brown sugar. Cover and refrigerate for a couple of hours to let flavours develop.

Season the venison steaks with sea salt and black pepper. Fry over a medium heat for maybe three minutes a side. Season wiht a little extra salt and pepper. Rest for five minutes.

Meanwhile, place the salad ingredients in a bowl. Toss to combine.

Slice the venison finely and mix through the salad. Pour rice wine vinegar over the salad.

Venison rump steaks, marinated in red wine and garlic

2009-01-04T17:58:00.000-08:00

Venison is one of my favourite meats. It should be one of your favourites, too, given how lean and flavoursome it is. Of course, it's not cheap. Unless you're loaded or you and a friend go out to blow Bambi's mum's brains out on a regular basis, venison is an expensive, once-in-a-blue-moon treat. Me, I found a place that sells it at a reasonable price. A Vietnamese butcher in Springvale that sells venison rump for about $25 a kilogram. Used to be $20, but they've gone up. Still, if there's only one of two of you, that's pretty good. You'll get a couple of meals for two, right there.

Anyway, the venison rump--roughly one kilogram in size--is sold frozen at this shop, so I have to thaw it a couple of days in advance. Once it's thawed, I slice it into steaks about 1.5 centimetres thick. As for the red wine, I mention a bottle. You don't need that much for the venison, of course. Drink some. Seeing as you're drinking some, you won't buy nasty wine. That old rule about never cooking with wine you wouldn't drink is a good one. In this dish, you can really taste the flavour of the wine. Too, as for what kind of wine, that's really up to you. Me, I use a nice merlot.

Ingredients:

thawed venison rump steaks (one per person)
bottle of red wine
two or three crushed cloves of garlic
pinch of sea salt
pinch of freshly ground black pepper

Place the steaks in a bowl with the garlic cloves. Cover with red wine. Cover. Refrigerate for a half-day. If you marinate this for too long, you'll kill the flavour of the venison. Remove from refrigerator a hour or so before cooking. Take steaks from bowl. Season with a little sea salt and black pepper. Pre-heat fry pan or grill pan over a medium heat for maybe 3 minutes on each side. Alternatively, cook over a coal fire.

Pork belly with an oriental marinade

2009-01-04T17:47:00.001-08:00

I love, love, love pork belly. It's fatty, it's cheap, it's really lovely sliced up and cooked over a coal fire. My favourite cut of the pig, easy.

1 kilogram slab pork belly
stick of lemongrass
two or three spring onions
a small lump of ginger
three or four garlic cloves, peeled
rice wine (I used some cheap Korean sake I had kicking around, but the stuff that's sold specially for cooking would work equally well)
a few springs of fresh coriander (cilantro)
ground Sichuan pepper, to taste
ground coriander seeds, to taste
sea salt, to taste

Throw all the dry ingredients into a food processor and blitz. Gradually add the rice wine until you form a paste. Set aside to let the flavours develop. Use a paring knife to make shallow incisions all over the pork belly before cutting it into small strips. Rub the marinade into the pork belly, cover with cling film and keep in the refrigerator until a hour before cooking.

Cook under the broiler or over a coal fire. Cook over a medium and even heat until done.

Tips and ideas:

Try adding some citrus--perhaps kaffir lime--to the marinade. Use both the zest and the juice.

Meat and etc

2009-01-04T17:30:00.001-08:00

About everyone who knows that I like trying stuff, particularly stuff that was once part of an animal. Meat and seafood. It's all good. Never met an animal I haven't liked and all that. Anyway, one of the kids at work, this eleven year old boy, he recently asked me to compile a list of the meat and seafood I've tried. This is the e-version. I'm working for memory here, so maybe I'll miss a couple. And yeah, technically I kind of double up in some places. I know that veal is just baby cow, that lamb is baby mutton, but they are sold as different meats. And they do taste different. So, without further ado:

Anchovies
Baramundi
Beef
Blue grenadier
Boar
Buffalo
Camel
Chicken
Crocodile
Duck
Emu
Goat
Goose
Guinea fowl
Hake
Kangaroo
Lamb
Lobster
Morten Bay bugs
Mullet
Mussels
Mutton
Octopus
Ostrich
Oysters
Pheasant
Pigeon (both squab, which is baby pigeon, and elderly boiler pigeon)
Pork
Prawns
Quail
Rabbit
Salmon
Sardines
Scallops
Scampi
Shark
Shearwater (muttonbird)
Silkie (black chicken)
Snails
Snapper
Squid
Trout
Tuna
Turkey
Veal
Venison
Wallaby
Yabbies (freshwater crayfish)

With the fish, I'm just going from memory. Probably I've missed a few. A lot, even. But oh well.

Camel meatballs with a mint/yoghurt sauce

2009-01-04T17:11:00.000-08:00

Yeah, camel. Lovely stuff. In the northern parts of Australia, camels--an introduced species--are a real problem. So yeah, do your part for the environment and eat camel. Serious.

A lot of people I know, they wouldn't eat camel because, you know, 'eww'. But really, a chicken--even a free-range, organic one--is a dirty animal. Oysters, mussels and all those crustaceans--crabs and lobsters and bugs and yabbies--are all dirty animals. They're bottom feeders. So what's bad about a camel, really, in comparison?

For the curious, camel is, in flavour, a bit like mutton. Which, seeing as not many Westerners eat that any more, is like strong-flavoured lamb. The big difference between camel and mutton, though, is the aftertaste. Camel has this unique and wonderful sweet aftertaste. It's most apparent in the steaks, but here, in this recipe, we're using the sausages. Many butchers and poultry stores can order camel sausages, but you'll find that some places in the market have them kicking around in the freezer. When serving camel to a group as finger food, the sausages are brilliant.

Ingredients:

1 kilogram pack of camel sausages, fully thawed
250g Greek-style yoghurt
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Lebanese cucumber
a pinch of fresh mint leaves, finely chopped (more to taste)
a few drops of lemon juice (more to taste)
a little freshly ground black pepper (again, more to taste)

In a bowl, whisk together the yoghurt, crushed garlic, sea salt and a little of the mint. Take the cucumber, slice it in half lengthways and use a tiny spoon (I find one of those 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoons to be perfect for the task) to scoop out the seeds. Grate both halves of the cucumber into the yoghurt mix, whisk and taste. At this point, you might want to add a little mint. Don't just throw in a stupid amount, as fresh mint is very strong. Whisk in the lemon juice and a little freshly ground pepper. Cover the bowl and place it in the refrigerator for a while.

Take a sausage and, using a paring knife, slit the skin open. Peel the skin away and remove the meat. Take a good pinch of the meat and roll it into a ball. Repeat with the remaining sausages. Season with a little sea salt and black pepper, before pan frying over a medium flame until cooked. Don't overcook, as camel is quite lean.

To serve, simply jam a toothpick into each meatball, so people can dip it into the mint/yoghurt sauce.

Tips and ideas:

The sauce, of course, would go well with mutton or lamb or any meat, really, that has a similar flavour. Try it with goat, for instance. You could, of course, serve it with a grilled camel steak.

If you don't like mint and want to pair the camel with another sauce, well, be careful. The sweet aftertaste makes matching difficult. From experience I can tell you that mustard doesn't work at all. Consider something with rosemary. I can't say I've tried it, but I reckon it could work. Experiment, experiment, experiment.

Potato wedges

2009-01-04T16:59:00.000-08:00

Yeah. Potato wedges. I make my own. Those frozen ones you buy, they're just crap, really. My potato wedges go well as a side for steak, but you could also serve them at a party as finger food.

First up, you need to buy the right kind of potato. Use Sebago potatoes. For the Australians reading this, the 'brushed potatoes' available at many supermarkets and green grocers are Sebago potatoes. Now, if you're serving these as a side, about one decent-sized potato per person is the way to go

Pre-heat the oven to 220*C.

Give the potatoes a good rinse and then slice them into wedges. Drop the wedges into a saucepan. Fill saucepan with enough water to cover the potatoes, add a pinch of sea salt and then bring to the boil over a medium-high flame. Reduce the temperature. Cook for maybe seven further minutes or until you can easily drive a skewer through the potatoes. Drain the potatoes and pour them into a roasting pan. Take care to pick a pan of the right size. The wedges shouldn't be piled on top of each other, yet at the same time there shouldn't be massive gaps between them. Toss the potato wedges in sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Be generous. Throw three or four crushed garlic cloves into the pan, before tossing everything in a little olive oil. You could, if wanted to experiment, use a little duck fat instead. Certainly it's not worth buying some specially for potato wedges, of all things, but if you have some on hand you may as well give it a go.

Place the potato wedges in the oven for 25 minutes, removing regularly to turn and toss. Just before serving, give a final sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper.

Roast duck with oriental spices

2009-01-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

A lot of people are scared to cook duck at home. They're worried that it'll dry out. And sure, that can happen--but only if you don't cook it properly. Poultry stores sell duck breasts which can be pan fried, grilled or barbecued, but really, they're expensive and the flavour you get from grilling or frying is nowhere near as good as what can be experienced when you properly roast the whole beast.

Now, a word on serving. Two adults can work their way through a 1.2 kilogram chicken, no problem. A duck, though? You'd be struggling. The smallest ducks I've ever seen for sale, the ones I buy, they weigh about two kilograms. Don't worry, though. Cold duck meat is wonderful in a sandwich the next day. You could use it in a warm salad, too, as Bill Granger mentioned he does in the article that inspired this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 kilogram duck
1/4 cup honey
2 tbs coriander seeds
2 tbs Sichuan peppercorns
1 tbs light soy sauce
2 tsp whole cloves, plus four or five individual cloves for later
2 tsp whole fennel seeds
5 star anise pods
4 dried chillies
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 cinnamon sticks
1 shallot
sea salt

Use a cleaver or the back part of the blade of your chef's knife to remove the duck's wing tips, Pope's nose (the arse) and neck (if still attached). Wash the duck thoroughly inside and out with running water before patting it dry with paper towel. Using a skewer, carefully prick the bird all over. Don't go all the way through the flesh, though.

In a mortar and pestle or electric spice grinder, grind the coriander seeds, Sichuan peppercorns, cloves, fennel seeds, three of the star anise pods and one of the cinnamon sticks. When ground, combine with a generous pinch of sea salt and rub all over the bird. Get the spices into all the nooks and crannies, including the cavity. Stuff the cavity with two of the dried chillies and remaining cinnamon sticks and star anise pods. Place the duck in a bowl and refrigerate for a while. Me, I marinated it for two days.

A hour before cooking, remove the duck from the refrigerator. Take the shallot and peel it, before jamming the four or five extra cloves into the surface. Stuff the shallot, along with the crushed garlic cloves, into the duck's cavity before trussing the bird by binding the tips of the drumsticks together. Simple, but effective. Rest the remaining two dried chillies between the wing and the breast.

Fifteen to twenty minutes before cooking, pre-heat the oven to 120*C. Place the duck over rack in a roasting pan breast-up and roast at this temperature for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Remove from the oven. Crank the oven up to 200*C. After five minutes, return the duck to the oven. Meanwhile, combine the light soy sauce and honey. After fifteen minutes of cooking, remove the duck from the oven again. Brush the honey/soy sauce mixture all over the duck, before returning the duck to the oven for another fifteen minutes of cooking. At this point, poke the thickest part of the thigh with a skewer to test doneness. If the juices run clear, your duck is cooked. If they're pink, return the duck to the oven for another five minutes. Remember that it's okay to serve duck a little rare.

Rest the duck a good ten minutes before carving.

Tips and ideas:

There's no good reason to not experiment with this dish. I reckon a small lump of ginger would go nicely in the cavity during the cooking process and that, too, some sort of citrus fruit--lemon, lime, maybe even kaffir lime--could add a lot to the flavour.

The perfect prawns

2009-01-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

I've seen a lot of prawn recipes that are very elaborate. And that's unfortunate as, really, prawns are nice enough to stand up on their own. So long as you buy good ones, I mean. Or have the facilities and the opportunity to catch them. So far as I'm concerned, you shouldn't bother working with prawns unless you can get fresh, local produce. Buy them on the day you plan on cooking them. Don't buy them on days when there's no way they could've been brought in fresh, like Sunday and Monday or after a public holiday. Don't buy the pre-cooked ones. They're rubbish. Don't buy the pre-shelled ones, either. They're terrible. When you're making a dish that only has a couple of ingredients, when you're allowing the ingredients to speak for themselves, the quality of your purchase is immediately apparent the moment you start eating. I mean, recently, a friend dropped by with a pile of prawns he picked up from one of the big supermarkets. In terms of freshness and quality, they paled in comparison to the prawns I picked up for less at one of the nearby Vietnamese fishmongers. Clearly, the customer base of the fishmonger is fussier than that of the average supermarket. Particularly during the summer holiday period, when many people are barbecuing.

So, yeah, buy good prawns, is the point. They need not be the most expensive, but they look and smell fresh. They shouldn't be all battered, physically. And they shouldn't smell too bad. If they smell kind of like a cleaning product, like ammonia, then refuse to buy them. If they smell really, really, really fishy, then yeah, don't buy them. If you're like me and live in a multicultural area, you'll probably have many butchers, fishmongers, delis, green grocers and spice stores within a reasonable distance of your home. Or if you live near one a fresh produce market, the same advice applies. Shop around.

Too, while you're out shopping, pick up some lemons. Seafood and lemon juice are a timeless and winning combination.

To prepare the prawns, take a sharp paring knife and drip the tip into the shell just behind the head. Carefully work your way along the prawn's 'spine' until you reach the tail. Now, gently pull the prawn open. You'll see an intestine. If the prawn's eaten lately, it'll be dark. Other times, it'll be a very pale green. It's very important you fish out the 'poo tube', as it does have a significant and negative impact on the taste of the flesh. Once you get used of the process of removing the 'poo tube', you'll be able to work your way through even a large pile of prawns in no time. This can be done ahead of time. Removing the 'poo tubes' of larger prawns is much easier than removing the 'poo tubes' of smaller prawns, so keep that in mind when shopping.

Place the freshly gutted prawns in a shallow bowl of olive oil. You can, if you want, add a crushed clove or two of garlic to the oil (remember the garlic oil will be even more flavoursome if you allow the garlic cloves to infuse in the oil overnight before adding the prawns). Cut the lemons into wedges. You're going to need them very soon.

When you're ready to cook, pre-heat a barbecue, grill pan or fry pan until the smoking point. Seriously, if you're using a pan, pre-heat it for a good five to ten minutes. Then add your prawns. Now, if you have a large amount of prawns, add only a few at a time. If you crowd the pan, the temperature will drop. Immediately squeeze lemon juice all over the prawns. Cook for maybe 45-60 seconds. Working quickly, flip the prawns over and squeeze more lemon juice over them. After 45-60 seconds, remove the prawns from the pan and place them on a serving platter.

And that's it. You can experiment, of course. If you really wanted, you could jam a thin sliver of chilli into the back of each prawn. You could add roughly chopped fresh parsley to the marinade, as they do in the MoVida cookbook. But whatever you do, keep in mind the whole point of the exercise is for people to be able to appreciate the lovely fresh prawns you've picked up. The last thing you want to do is to kill the flavour with a strong sauce or dressing.

Lemon and pepper chicken

2009-01-04T06:17:00.000-08:00

1.2 kilogram chicken (see: tips)
4 cloves garlic
2 lemons
1 onion
1 tbs freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp freshly ground Sichuan pepper (see: tips)
sea salt
olive oil
a little extra lemon juice

Pre-heat oven to 200*C.

Wash chicken inside and out. Pat dry. If you've bought a chicken with a plastic bag of giblets kicking around in the internal cavity, obviously you should remove it. Place the chicken on a chopping board and using either a cleaver or the rear part of a sharp, heavy knife, remove the wing tips. Carefully remove the flabby skin from where the chicken's neck used to be. Now you're ready to season the bird.

Rub some sea salt, as well as the ground pepper, all over the bird. Don't miss any spots. Be sure to rub some inside the cavity, under the wings, around the legs. You may need to grind more pepper.
Slice the lemons into thin wedges and the onions into quarters. Simply peel and crush the cloves of garlic. Stuff the cavity of the chicken with a few lemon wedges, a couple of onion quarters and some of the garlic. Retain the rest of the lemon, onion and garlic to scatter over and around the chicken during cooking.

To truss the bird, take a small length of twine. Bring the tips of the drumsticks together as if the bird is laying on its back with its knees up and its legs pointing towards its arse. Bind them together. Make sure you're not using some kind of plastic-based twine.

Place the bird breast-up in a roasting pan. Scatter all but one of the remaining lemon wedges over and around the chicken. Scatter the remaining onion and garlic around the bird. Drizzle a little olive oil over and around the chicken, then squeeze some lemon juice over the top. Place the chicken in the oven and roast for 45-50 minutes, basting regularly. The cooking time is non-specific as, yeah, ovens and chickens vary. To test that your chicken is done, jam a skewer or cake tester into the thickest part of the chicken's thigh. Juices will run out. If those juices are clear, the chicken is cooked. Remove it from the oven and let it rest for 10-15 minutes before carving. If they're even a little pink, keep it in the oven for a while longer. When the chicken is carved, squeeze a little extra lemon juice and grind some black pepper over the top.

Tips:

Ideally, you'll be using corn-fed, free-range or organic chicken. Fully organic chickens are expensive, so look at the two former options. Both are, at least in Australia, slightly more expensive than your regular, battery-raised hen, but the taste difference is significant.

Sichuan peppercorns can be found in some supermarkets, but your best bet is a Chinese grocery store. Despite the name, they look quite different to the black, white and green peppercorns we're familiar with in Western cooking. The aroma and flavour are different too, which is why I used them in this dish. Don't stress if you can't find them, though. Too, I mean, I reckon white peppercorns would be swell here. You could replace the lemons with lime, if you want.

Finally, serving. A 1.2 kilogram chicken is enough for a couple of people with decent appetites. If you're serving more people, obviously more birds or, rather, a larger bird, is in order. Adjust cooking time as necessary. A 1.6-1.8 kilogram bird would take maybe a hour to a hour and fifteen minutes. Serve this dish simply. Me, I serve it with steamed rice and a basic, usually.

Roast pork with a jerk marinade

2009-01-04T05:25:00.000-08:00

You know, I've never roasted pork before. Done chicken, done duck, done goat, but never pork. This was inspired as much by a jerk spice mix I stumbled upon as my girlfriend's love of jerk dishes. Jerk, by the way, is a Jamaican thing. It refers to a cooking technique that involves marinating and then slow-cooking. Seeing as this was an experiment on my part, the quantities and ingredients aren't set in stone. Feel free to experiment. Adjust the spices to suit your tastes. Cooking shouldn't feel like you're working in a laboratory.

That being said, there's one rule I always, always, always follow in my kitchen--all spices, from sea salt to allspice, are freshly ground. You can use a mortar and pestle, as I do, or one of those electric spice grinders. Whatever. But grinding the spices as you need them makes for superior flavour and aroma.

Ingredients:

1.5 kilogram (3.3-3.4 pound) boneless pork shoulder, rolled
2 dried chillies (optional)
4 teaspoons freshly ground allspice
2 teaspoons mild chilli powder
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon freshly ground dried thyme leaves
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
pinch of sea salt
dark rum
Malibu (white rum with coconut--you can use regular white rum or even dark rum if you don't have this)
olive oil

In a small bowl or cup (me, I always use a tea cup) combine the allspice, chilli powder, black pepper, thyme leaves and white pepper. Gradually add the dark rum, stirring as you do. What you're aiming for is a thick paste. How much rum? Well, that depends. If you use chilli flakes instead of powder, it'd change. If your spices are ground really fine, it'd change. For me, one of those miniature bottles of Bundaberg dark rum was perfect. After I'd made the rum/spice blend I had just enough liquid left over to splash over the pork before placing it in the oven.

Now, take the pork. If the butcher hasn't already scored it, you'll have to do that yourself. Make shallow incisions--a lot of folks use a box cutter for this, but a sharp paring knife will do the job equally well--across the skin. Don't cut too deep. The goal isn't the hack into the flesh.

Once the incisions have been made, rub a little sea salt into them. Salt helps the skin go all crispy during the cooking. Next, take the rum/spice blend and rub that into the pork too, ensuring you work it into the incisions. Take the two dried chillies, if you're using them. At either end of the rolled pork shoulder, you should be able to feel a hole where the bone once was. Jam the chillies into these holes, working them in with your fingers.

Place the marinated pork into a bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours. The longer the better, really.

When you're about ready to cook, remove the pork from the refrigerator and pre-heat the oven to 220*C (about 430*F). Now, the pork. Shoulder is a fatty cut. Under all that skin, there's just a stupid amount of fat. And that's good, right. Fat is flavour. But what's not good is when fat leaks from the meat and ends up, well, stewing the meat. So what you need is a roasting pan with a rack that can hold the meat above any liquid that leaks out. If you don't have one of those, though, don't despair. Place the pork skin side up and use a couple of long, metal skewers will do the job--just spear the pork maybe a centimetres into the 'base', then balance the skewers on the side of the roasting pan. Like so:

________PORK_____________
| |
|______PAN_________|

Yeah, sorry for the bad ASCII art, but I didn't think to snap a photo of my dodgy skewer/rack contraption.

Pour a splash of dark rum and a little olive oil--no need for too much--over the pork. Roast at 220*C for 30 minutes. Then remove it from the oven. Deglaze the pan with a splash of Malibu, drop the oven temperature to 150*C (300*F, I believe) and return the pork to the oven another 3 1/2 hours. Remove from the oven every so often to baste with the flavoursome grease that collects at the base of the pan. Don't worry if, early on, the kitchen reeks of Malibu. The flavour and aroma will mellow during the cooking process.

When the pork is finished cooking, remove it from the oven. Let it sit for a good 15-20 minutes uncovered before carving.

Tips and ideas:

This dish, as noted earlier, was an experiment on my part. As such, you should experiment with it.

Consider ditching the pork shoulder and using slices of belly or rib instead. Grilled slowly over a coal fire or on a barbecue, they'd surely be lovely. You could use the same marinade with boar, even. That'd be more authentic than domesticated piggy. You could use chicken, too--either a whole bird or the legs.

As for the 'stuffing' of dried chilli, that could be replaced or added to with a spring or two of fresh thyme.

This dish keeps wonderfully. I had the leftovers cold the following day in a sandwich and they were quite delicious.

Food and etc

2009-01-04T05:18:00.000-08:00

Mostly, I post my recipes on forums. Or I share them with people when I've cooked something for them. And all the time I get told, yeah, I should compile them somewhere. Maybe cobble together a website. A book, even. So I figured, early one Monday morning--as in 12:18AM early, to be precise--that I may as well listen to their suggestion. To post my recipes all in one place. A blog. Figuring that maybe, hopefully, someone, somewhere, would stumble upon said blog, dig what they saw and link all their friends and relatives and whoever else to it.

Me, I'm but a student. While others of my kind get by on takeaway and Mi Goreng, I try and cook a nice meal every day. It's rare for me to be able to afford the best and sometimes my nice meal might involve humble ingredients like chicken wings and pork belly, but really, aren't those things often the best anyway?