Old flavours: risotto with cauliflower
Cauliflower has made a comeback. For most of Australia’s history, it was a heavily cooked holder of very thick, very rich white sauces given a final kick along with nutmeg. Nothing wrong with that, and nothing better to serve at a dinner party, especially if the guests are thirty-forty-fifty-sixty-something. There’s another way to give them [...]
Risotto, the basics
Before I became really keen on risotto, I had always believed it to be about long and tedious and watchful cooking. And it is. And also about richly flavoured stocks adding bite to just-crunchy rice, and it is. But, and this is an important but, it is also rice which does not need hard-working stock [...]
My favourite, risotto with pumpkin
The microwave opened a new door to the wonders of baked pumpkin, freeing us from the agony of slicing it and the danger of skinning it. Baked in the microwave, pumpkin reduces to a marvellous melting consistency, easily, relatively quickly, and you can peel the skin away as if it is a new season’s mandarin. Worked through pasta with a little cream, pepper and herbs, it makes for a quick and delicious dish. Worked similarly through risotto, it stands as the most cooked dish in my kitchen.
Polenta, any way you like
Polenta is one of those archetypal Italian dishes which conjures up pictures of medieval housewives — sleeves rolled up, stirring and stirring, and stirring and stirring, in front of a massive hearth. Meanwhile, the men folk are lounging at table taking drink and waiting for mum to serve lunch, or afternoon tea, or dinner, or [...]
Couscous, for swells
Life seems to run permanently on the edge. Not enough time for this, not enough time for that, too much time for not much at all. What it means, I guess, is that you’ve got the ball, 20 metres from goal, you can win the game with the last shot, but five opponents are about [...]
A sexy tale of swedes and pasta
This piece of writing, which was originally written for The Sunday Age, is reproduced here, word for word, because it makes me laugh whenever I reread it.
I think I must be drifting into some sort of mental illness. The symptoms manifested themselves just the other day when I strolled into the local fruit shop and [...]
Goat’s cheese and spinach ravioli
There was a time when I thought you couldn’t make ravioli unless you had one of those extraordinary instruments that attach somehow to the top of those extra useful, tried and trusted, hand-powered pasta machines. The ravioli extra is something like a laundry shute, as seen in forties hotel movies. Two strips of pasta approach each other from opposite sides and a highly flavoured mixture is gobbled up as the strips rush through the machine. At least that’s what happens in the literature.
Pesto, by hand
I could eat pesto until my hair turned green. It has everything that good eating should have – the freshness of the season, through the basil, the pungency of the garlic, the twists and depths of flavour of the olive oil and the Parmesan, the chunky texture of the nuts, and the romance of thousands of years and millions of hands making it, loving it.
Pumpkin gnocchi, given a grilling
Gnocchi are now to be seen in the smart shops and flash kitchens across town. A certain irony there. What is, essentially, not much more than what my mum used to call a dumpling, a very working-class, peasant- level feed, is hitting it off in places which house Range Rovers and clipped poodles.
I can’t think [...]
Cheating with scallops
I remember when scallops were so plentiful you would buy them in batter from your local fish’n'chippery; when they used bulldozers to get into the piles of them at the market (now they use tongs); when they were the cheapest of cheap. They were the affordable shellfish. Not any more.