food
food
food March 30, 2019
Fried mackerel with rhubarb and capers
Slimy. It’s not a word that sounds great on a menu or on a sign in a fishmonger’s window. No wonder the slimy mackerel has been renamed blue mackerel. But as a marketing ploy, it’s not working with the sporting fishermen’s online bulletin boards...
food March 23, 2019
Twice-cooked turkey wings with black pudding and shiitake mushrooms
Poor old turkey. The bird has been the packhorse of nondescript protein for generations. But years of genetic selection for maximum return and fast growth has rendered the turkey of the wild into what is more akin to a cephalopod. Debeaked and with...
food March 16, 2019
Cured ocean trout on a buckwheat blini with crème fraîche and salmon roe
The success of a meal often comes down to the smallest detail. In the accompanying recipe you will note “a small amount of clarified butter” among the ingredients. It’s a quiet instruction, yet it is pivotal to the dish being the best version of...
food March 9, 2019
Lychees, cherries and rose petals with tahini and sesame cake
Flowers are commonly used the world over in cooking and not just for their aesthetic beauty. Lavender, rose, chrysanthemum, dandelion, borage and marigold have been used to give aroma to sweet and savoury dishes and have also played a major role in...
food March 1, 2019
Lemon verbena bavarois with peaches and biscuit crust
Some years it seems that as quickly as summer arrives, it is gone again. The promise of long warm nights has suddenly been replaced by the reality of autumn creeping in, a cold night here and a cool wind there. Then it’s hard to remember the warm...
food February 23, 2019
Grilled rockmelon with turmeric, fetta and mint
As a youngster, I always had an aversion to rockmelon, or cantaloupe as we call it in Tasmania and Victoria. To my younger nose, it had a pungent odour, akin to old socks. It wasn’t until I travelled to Japan, where melons are coveted and a single...
food February 16, 2019
Zucchini soup, and zucchini and parmesan fritters
Earlier in the summer I gave a friend a tour of my vegetable garden and hothouse. As she glanced across the rows of small vegetable seedlings making their brave way in the world, her gaze fixed upon the zucchini plants. A 15-metre row of small,...
food February 9, 2019
Almond cream with salted cucumber and dill oil
Greater knowledge and understanding of food production has definitely influenced people’s dietary decisions in the past few years. But even so, when it comes to thinking about how certain foods are produced and the effects that has on our bodies and...
food February 2, 2019
Heston Blumenthal translates his meticulously researched version of food from the court of King Henry VIII into his iconic “meat fruit”. The Chinese have had an affinity with ducks and plum sauce since imperial times. But a bit of cultural cringe...
food January 26, 2019
Grilled kingfish collar with tare and yuzu kosho
What is more fitting for summer lunch on an island continent than fresh seafood? Because my chef brother-in-law is also a keen diver, our family meals are often brimming with whole fish, abalone, clams and crayfish. How lucky are we? The beauty of...
food December 22, 2018
Galette des rois, and plum pudding with Armagnac custard
The Magi. Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar. These men remind us that Christmas is not all about December 25. In our increasingly secular and commercialised society, it seems 2000-plus years of stories and traditions have all morphed into the festive...
