Latest Content:
A pasta starter
This is so simple, it’s hardly worth noting, but it encompasses everything to do with cooking pasta: simple flavours, blends, add-ons, options, opinions, care, and colour. Just like the society we live in.
Mashed Spuds, the world’s greatest dish
My favourite dish as a child was mashed potatoes on thickly buttered white bread. Later (not so long ago) I added fresh herbs and cut down on the butter on the bread, but not in the potatoes. It is still my favourite.
I can’t think of anything more acceptable to eat at any time, at any [...]
Pasta, Risotto and other yummies
Pasta has been around for thousands of years; so has rice, so has couscous, so has polenta. Yet when you introduce them into conversation and describe how you made them yourself, you are immediately accorded some form of celebrity status.
Italian restaurants still paint ’homemade pasta’ on their windows as though it’s as unique as a sighting of the Tasmanian tiger, [...]
Rack of beef, roasted
If you have sought and found the butcher of your dreams, you will never be concerned about tough steaks again. The best butchers choose the best cuts from the best cattle; but that’s not the end of it. You can be sure they love their meat and treat it tenderly, with the utmost respect.
You’ll never [...]
Sardines from the middle east
A brilliant combination I came across in Toofey’s, a delightful seafood restaurant in Melbourne, is sardines with baba ghanoush, that marvellous Middle Eastern dip of eggplant and tahini. Just cook the sardines as per recipe: Sardines fried very simply, with lemon juice (or fry them in a light batter) and serve on a few tablespoons [...]
Influences
These are the books I have perused over many years, for inspiration, motivation, or pure joy. When you start cooking as a kitchen illiterate, you need all the props you can find. I found mine in the works of all sorts of cooks: from marvellous professionals, geniuses even, through to mere hard workers, compilers of tradition and detail. Those here are not listed in any particular order.
What you need in your pantry and your freezer
These two places might well be the most important places in your house. Each is the reservoir of special things which can assist any ingredient on its path to heaven. These odds and ends don’t have to be expensive, just well thought through.
Herbs every home garden should have
Rosemary. You can see the beautifully tender tips of this perennial poking through fences right across town, and the aroma of its oil is wonderful. Add rosemary to any style of sauce you like and you’ll be on a winner: with beef stock – 10/10; with lamb stock – 10/10, with cream, 10/10; with a [...]
Ten perfect presents
The best gift is something of yourself. So when Christmas comes, or Mother’s Day, or a special birthday, roll up your sleeves and make something special.
Twenty ideas for picnics
Chicken breasts, marinated in coconut milk, a little red curry paste, ginger and garlic, cooked, cooled and served in a salad of spinach and sesame seeds.
Australian smoked salmon, with creamy goat’s cheese, dill, hot mustard cress, olive oil, lime juice and black pepper.
Roast some garlic (do this in the microwave for a minute, allow to [...]