Food from the Banana State

Warrigal or Waragul greens

2009-11-11T00:17:00.000-08:00

I planted out some warrigal greens a few days ago. It's an Australian native leaf; a good addition to salads. The trouble is the plant has a high oxalic acid content and should be blanched. This ruins the presentation and you end up with a leaf that looks a bit like rubber. I'm growing it in black clay soil, so it will be interesting to see how well it grows. I've never grown it before.

GMO Pundit a.k.a. David Tribe: Eating too much of natural plant chemicals can be bad

2009-11-11T00:16:00.000-08:00

GMO Pundit a.k.a. David Tribe: Eating too much of natural plant chemicals can be bad

Bwok Bwok off with his head

2009-06-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

I always have some chicken tenderloins in the fridge/freezer. Chicken is so adaptable. I use it for a chicken and corn soup. Quick and easy. Great for a winter lunch with crusty warm rolls or stick bread.

Chicken and Corn soup

500 g chicken tenderloins

2 litres chicken stock

2 cans creamed corn

Corn kernels from one corn cob (use a tin if you don't have fresh)

Sprig of thyme

1 clove of garlic

1 tbsp butter

1 small leek

Method

1. Place butter in a large pot over low heat

2. Sweat off the sliced leek and crushed garlic.

3. Add the chicken stock and bring to the boil.

4. Cut the tenderloins into bite size pieces and add to the stock.

5. Simmer for 10 minutes.

6. Add corn kernels and creamed corn

7. Season to taste

8. Simmer for another 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked

You can really add whatever you like to this basic soup recipe. Try baby potatoes and bacon. You can make it for 2 or 10, just increase the quantities. This recipe feeds at least 2!!

Try chicken tenderloins in a chicken ceasar salad. Perfect also for those baby cos lettuces you have growing. Winter is the perfect time to grow cos lettuce here. (sub-tropical climate) I fill up a large pot with about 7 cos lettuce seedlings and in a few weeks you have lovely crunchy baby cos lettuce. You don't have to harvest the whole plant either. Just snip what you need and leave the plant. It will grow more leaves.

Chicken Ceasar Salad

2 baby cos lettuces

500g chicken tenderloins

6 slices of soy and linseed bread crusts removed

1 punnet grape tomatoes

4 rashers bacon

1/2 cup shaved parmesan cheese

4 poached eggs

Dressing

1 cup olive oil

3 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp lemon juice

2 tsp wholegrain mustard

5 anchovies

2 cloves garlic

Method for dressing.

Put all ingredients into a food processor and blend.

Method for salad

Poach the chicken tenderloins in dry white wine and chicken stock until cooked. You can do this the night before. Cover and put in the fridge.
Wash the cos lettuce and line a salad bowl with the leaves.
Chop the bacon into squares and fry until crispy, drain and sprinkle over lettuce.
Halve the tomatoes and add to the salad.
Add the chopped cooked chicken
Add the poached eggs
Add the shaved parmesan
Pour over dressing.

Wedding Chicken

2009-06-16T13:09:00.000-07:00

Margaret Fulton, Australia's equivalent to....well actually, there is no-one this day and age that compares. Lets put it this way the Margaret Fulton Cookbook was my first. I still have it and I still use it, a lot. Now this also bears out the facts in my previous post about simple recipe names. If they are simple they can also be memorable. I'm having a girls lunch on Saturday, my daughter said you know what you should make? Wedding Chicken. I cooked this dish a couple of years back for Easter. She still remembers. She also remembers the seafood crepes, which she often asks me to make. I think this book is out of print but I recently bought her encylopaedia, which is also a great reference. Try some of her recipes, you won't be disappointed. In fact tomorrow night I'm going to make some lamb shanks with dumplings.

What's in a recipe name?

2009-06-16T12:18:00.000-07:00

For me the name of the recipe is as important as a headline for an article. It has to be short and catchy. It has to spark interest. This will determine whether I take the time to read the recipe and make the dish. So why are chefs/cooks using complicated recipe names? Here is one from the Vogue website, WHITE ROCKS VEAL WITH CARAMELISED APPLE, CELERIAC AND APPLE REMOULADE, AND CIDER SAUCE. My first reaction, what the......... , NEXT!

On closer examination. White Rocks Veal? Is that veal from the white cliffs of dover? Will I have to smoke the veal first over a layer of white rocks? Now I have no problem with promoting a brand, particularly a good one. But leave it out of the recipe name and let people know they can use veal from black rock if they can't get hold of the white rock variety.

Apple Remoulade? Anything French stinks of complication. After all the best chefs come from [] = I could never make this dish.

The whole recipe reeks of apple so why not call it Veal Loin with Sweet Apple and Cider Sauce. Now if I happen to have some veal loin chops in the freezer or a bunch of granny smiths, I will be tempted to read the rest of the recipe and probably give it a go. Even if I don't have all the ingredients, the recipe name should give it away and make me give it some consideration.

My daughter is Y generation. It took me a few minutes to work out what this recipe was all about and I only did that because I was deconstructing it to write this post, she probably wouldn't get past 'White'. Now it's important that this generation understands the value of home cooking. So maybe 'meat wth apple sorse,' would be more appropriate. Also imagine trying to read that heading on your phone.

What I'm suggesting is a sub-heading, because, after all, I believe the writer is trying to make the recipe sound sophisticated and stand out from the rest, so what about this:
Veal Loin with Sweet Apple and Cider Sauce
A delicious veal loin from [insert details of supplier] with seasonal crunchy green/red apples [explain remoulade] drizzled with a tart cider sauce. All done in [insert time]

Oh yes I could do that.

What do you think?

How it went

2009-01-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

Well the menu got reduced to:

Chicken Ballotine (cold)
Rolled pork
Ham without the glaze
Turkey
Mango and Orange Salad
Greens with Green Brie Dressing
Potato salad
Lolly jars
Trifle
Christmas cake

The number of guests dropped from 26 to 17 as Bob's sister fell ill. I must say I did spend the day before Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Eve cooking, but I was well prepared and relaxed on the day. I think the highlight, for me, was the chicken ballotine. This is a great dish for christmas and whenever you're looking for a special dinner. I got the recipe from a session at On the Ridge Cooking School. I think it's on their website. Googling will reveal.

On the first day of Christmas

2008-11-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I had Christmas at my place and the immediate family has grown, a lot. 26 people will be sitting around tables, that we actually don't have. My main concerns are, how will I fit the big pans into my ovens? Do I have enough serving plates? Can I really bring myself to throw out $100 worth of plastic plates to save washing up. Will it be hot or cold and if it's hot, how will I keep it that way? How will I stop myself from having those stress relieving glasses of champagne that always result in burnt offerings? The key? Planning.

First the menu.

Chicken Ballotine (cold)
Rolled pork (recipe not quite decided)
Glazed ham
Wild rice, cranberry and walnut salad
Tomato and bocinini salad
Potato salad
White Chocolate, macadamia and coconut truffles (as gifts in little boxes at the table)
Lolly jars
Trifle
Christmas cake
Christmas punch

I'm not sure I should do an entree. Here are my thoughts on this. They can stuff up your guests before the main meal. On the other hand they can make a welcome distraction while you can get on with some of the cooking.

The fruit for the cake is already macerating and I can cook this on Sunday as it keeps well. Next a shopping list, once I have stopped changing the menu.

Stay with me in the lead up to Christmas to find out more.

spicey lamb

2008-11-27T16:41:00.000-08:00

Valli Little is the food editor of Delicious Magazine and author of cookbooks five days a week and five of the best. I love her recipes delicious and simple. Last night I put together her lamb pilaf which is a combination of spices, basamati rice, chickpeas, dried apricots and I also threw in some organic sultanas. I used Royal Reserve lamb from Tasmania (fillets) If you're looking for a quick one pot dish you can't beat this one. You also can't beat this book (Five of the Best) I'm also keen to have a look at her latest book 'Faking it" Maybe I will get it under the tree.
Photo courtesy of Five of the Best

Winter a time for pears

2008-04-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

Crunchy texture, or soft and sweet with golden skins. I poached some in mulberry port, with cinnamon, vanilla bean, sugar and star anise. I cooked them for an hour, took them out, reduced the syrup and poured it over the pears, which are then chilled for a few hours, then the best bit, serve with mascarpone cheese, a whole tub, mixed with a drop or two of rosewater and a third of a cup of icing sugar and there you have it. Simple and nice and easy. Delicious on a cool winters night. A rare thang in tropical Brisbane.

The mulberry port was courtesy of Murdering Point Winery.

give us our daily bread, sometimes three times a day

2007-11-30T15:43:00.001-08:00

Don't you love it when you get a new gizmo. I bought a bread maker, despite my Bob saying it's a waste of money, it will end up in the cupboard, etc. Well for the next few days at least we are going to be innundated with loaves of fine crusty bread. Yesterday I made a white, a grain and a fruit loaf. The fruit loaf has found its way into a bread and butter pudding and the others have been demolished at breakast, warm and buttery with lashings of jam. Of course I had to go out and buy a whole selection of jams, fig, lemon and lime marmalade and my favourite blackberry. At lunch time it was thick slices of white bread with even thicker slices of jarlsberg cheese, smothered with wild (native) lime chutney. I stopped at tea time realising that this was not going to help me lose weight.

Since drafting this post I have managed to blow up the bread maker, so it's back to the shop to return. Shall I get a new one or a set of electronic scales?

Spice me up Oz

2007-11-26T17:04:00.000-08:00

In some suburban Brisbane backyards and, some remnant coastal forests, lives a rainforest tree, another to hit the headlines as a functional commodity, called Backhousia citriodora or Lemon Scented Myrtle. From the leaves comes a wonderful aromatic herb that is undeniably lemon and uniquely Australian.

It can be substituted for lemon in most recipes and I’m an avid supporter of these flakes as they are called and willingly pay, yes I admit, the rather steep price of $7.99 to secure a precious 30 grams. It’s sharp lemon flavour makes it an undeniable rival of lemon zest and it’s becoming extremely popular with chefs.

Lemon Myrtle flakes can be rubbed over lamb cutlets, which can then be roasted or grilled. It’s nice sprinkled in salads, goes well with chicken and fish and makes a nice lemon tea. There is also a recipe for lemon myrtle cheesecake and lemon myrtle tart.

Another uniquely Australian herb that can be used in baking is ground Wattleseed. A unique coffee drink called Acaccino™ was produced by Vic Cherikoff, chef and producer of Australian herbs and spices. This happened by accident after he invented Wattleseed extract with a distinct aroma and flavour of coffee, chocolate and hazelnut. This extract he says then found its way into ice cream; custard, bread, whipped cream and chocolates.

Wattleseed does have a distinct nutty aroma and a coffee, hazelnut flavour and 10 millilitres of Wattleseed extract into a schooner of light beer, apparently, adds a rich, cleansing, nuttiness.

There are three Australian pepper spices. Two of these are Mountain Pepper and Dorrigo Pepper. The leaves have a better flavour, but the berries from these plants are also used. Pepperberries are very hot and come with a cautionary warning to only use 1/10th compared to conventional black pepper.

A blend produced by Cherikoff called Australian Alpine Pepper combines sumac and pepperberries. All of these peppers can be substituted for white or black pepper.

Eucalyptus Olida produces a herb that is marketed as, forest berry herb, by Herbie’s Spices, with flavours of passionfruit, berries and sweet spices that can be added to pancakes and enhance berry jams and sauces.

For chilli lovers try Cherikoff’s Australian rainforest rub, which he uses on potato chips and fries. In fact this is a very versatile herb that according to Vic has a chicken, spice, pepper and chilli heat flavour, followed by citrus aromatics and toasted seed.

Australian spices are gaining popularity and a number of products are available in the supermarket. They are still a niche product so be prepared for the hefty price tag. Supermarket suppliers are the Outback Café and Outback Pride. Both of these suppliers are Indigenous communities, so provide a way for them to make a living.

Vic Cherikoff sells a wide range of native herbs and spices off his website.
Also Barbushco and Herbie’s Spices Locally, (Queensland) there is Galeru

On a final note, Lemon Scented Myrtle is native to Queensland and is even on the endangered list, so that’s a compelling reason to grow one or two. It’s a beautiful plant for the garden with masses of creamy white flowers with iridescent and showy stamens, and, of course, the beautiful lemon scented leaves. In fact most of the Backhousia species are aromatic and also produce other fine herbs.

glorious eels

2007-11-26T16:57:00.000-08:00

My dad, a cockney lad, was exposed to the taste of eels in Manzes famous pie and mash shops, long before they became a culinary delicacy.

We immigrated under the 10 pound deal in the early 70’s and bought a plot in the outer suburbs of Sydney. Imagine his glee to build a house not far from the Georges river, a great place to swim and explore and catch a few of these ugly, slimy fish. After cutting off their heads, gutting and cleaning them, they were taken home for their new life in jelly.

The eels were cut up into 25-30mm sections and put into salted water boiled for a mere 30 seconds, “Otherwise they go like rubber.” They are then put into water and gelatine, put into the fridge and allowed to set. Eat them seasoned with vinegar and salt and pepper and then dive in guv. “The colder the better.”

Larousse advises the following for preparation of the eel. Vegetarians cast your eyes. “To kill an eel, seize it with a cloth and bang its head violently against a hard surface.” It also has a nice recipe for eel pie.

As is the case, a more refined palate has now led me to think about re-discovering the taste of eels and I’m off to sample, if I can find them and can get over the churning in my stomach.