There’s method in the following madness. I’m rather keen on the Chinese method of cooking duck, drying out the skin as they do, to create a marvellous crunchy texture with real flavour. The following is something of the same with a chook.
There is something quite unnatural about blow-waving a chicken. The mere recollection of it [...]

No book of mine would be complete without a reference to lamb shanks. They’re not as cheap as they were, but they’re still far below so-called premium cuts.
Lamb shanks make for the most marvellous slow-cooked dish, no matter how you cook them. That doesn’t necessarily mean a stew. This is the muscly part of a [...]

Beware bizarre dishes from iffy restaurants. Try, with open arms, unheard of dishes from great restaurants. Chances are that what you are eating is either a delicacy of the chefs great grandmother, or a dish that has been developed after hours of labour. Great restaurants never serve shonky dishes. One of their roles is to [...]

If this book offers you nothing more than a same-night curry, with real flavour and your control, then I’ll be happy. And … at least I’ll have my own reference, in a place I can find it.
This all started on a holiday at Mission Beach, about three-quarters of the way up the far north coast. [...]

The lamb might seem to be the icon of Australian cooking. But before prosperity arrived, post-war, the lamb we ate was more likely to be the full-on big daddy or mummy of the flock, aka mutton. It’s only since the fifties that the baby baa-baas have been our favourite food.
The rack of lamb should be [...]

Whenever I see the word kebab, I think of the left bank of the Seine, and all those Middle Eastern restaurants with huge, alluring kebabs lined up in the window. Prawns, beef, chicken, crays, and so on. Trouble is, it’s generally a con. Those inside are about a third the size, and the bill singes [...]

My best way to enjoy chicken is roasted whole, left at the side of the stove for a while, and taken just warm, all parts ripped away, and slammed between a couple of slices of bread, crispy, crispy skin included. The next best is to take hold of all those terrific new boned and skinned [...]