Zucchinis are wonders for the hack gardener. You plant them, leave them to the ladybirds, and keep picking from their foliage for months on end. You can eat them raw, grate them on salads, bake them, toss them into stews, and their beautiful flowers make for wonderful containers for all sorts of ripping flavours.
Stuffed zucchini [...]

Hummus was a hip dip in the days when we were all growing up and learning there was more to eating than roast lamb, carrots and tomatoes; and more to the Middle East and North Africa than the Pyramids and Casablanca.
Hummus is the happy marriage of dried chick peas and tahini, the paste made from [...]

Restaurants rarely treat eggplant as much more than an occasional accompanying vegetable. The only place I have seen eggplant treated as a star is at Browns, the flashy Melbourne restaurant, where Greg Brown shows just how lovely eggplants can be.
His version is as simple as simple. Just cut the eggplant in half — either way [...]

Eggplant and the microwave are as happy as peaches and cream. Big, bold, shiny, hard to cook by conventional methods, and full of water: eggplant is just the combination this space-age machine delights in. Just prick the vegetable a few times with a fork, shove it through the door, and what do you have? Absolutely [...]

Discovering Raclette (i): We had just settled into the plush seats at Two Faces at Delgany, that brilliantly restored castle/hotel at Portsea, Melbourne’s Riviera. Unused as we are to such style and service, we were still holding on to that moment of self-consciousness as the waiters scurry about and smile glowingly, and you ask about [...]

This has nothing to do with mash, or truffles, or whiskey, but more to do with some fiddling I’ve been doing with potatoes since several happy visits to very good Indian eating houses. It is best made the day before you want it.

onions, sliced
1 clove garlic, sliced finely
2 solid dessertspoons of garam masala (a hip [...]

This all started with several slugs of Irish Whiskey. I had always believed that Irish was just another version of Scotch, and Scotch was the one and only whisky. It just goes to show how wrong you can be, and how there’s something new to learn in this business every breathing moment. The truth is [...]

1/2 l milk

50g butter

1/2 bunch of parsley, chopped roughly

small bunch of tarragon leaves removed from the stem, or chives, chopped roughly

black pepper salt

1

Boil or steam the potatoes until they take easily to the knife. You might think you have too much. You can never have too much mashed potato.

2

Allow them to cool a little, peel [...]