Chilli Season!

Pen and I are moving house in a few weeks. One of the benefits of this is that it is impossible, where we are at the moment, to grow anything – the possums eat everything and anything i put on the balcony. So i’m looking forward to growing a few herbs and spices again.

I’m particularly looking forward to growing chillis again. If you haven’t grown them before, they are incredibly easy. Just find a chilli variety you like  – try and choose some from your local fruit shop. Then dig out the seeds and dry them for a few days on the window sill. Keep the seeds until early August, them plant them about 2cm deep into some well drained soil. Water, and within a month you should have a chilli plant. Chillis will fruit in their first season, but you’ll get a better harvest in the following year if your prune the plant down in winter. You can also create your own varieties of chilli. Just grow two plants, pick the flower off one, rub it into the flower on another plant, and that flower should produce a hybrid variety.

If you already grow a chilli plant or two, you may have noticed them going nuts at the moment. It’s chilli season and now is the prime time of the year to harvest, buy and eat chillis. I made this very easy chilli sauce the other day. If you make it, be warned; wear a face mask and sunglasses – the chilli-vinegar fumes hurt:

Home-made ‘Tobasco’ Style Chilli Sauce
1 cup fresh chillis (can use all red or all green, or combo)
1 375ml bottle good quality white vinegar (Mccormacks is good and has a drip control)
1 tablespoon salt
1 clove garlic

Bash and bruise chillis in mortar and pestle. Soak in some cold water for an hour. Drain. Blend chillis with garlic, salt and a little vinegar, as fine as possible. Soak in vinegar for 24 hours in a bowl in the fridge (keep bottle!). Using a funnel and fine sieve, strain chillis into the empty vinegar bottle, sqeezing all the juice out with back of spoon. Top up with water. Done

What I buy at the Asian Supermarket

I love Asian supermarkets. I remember recently walking through the ‘New Yen Yen Supermarket’ at Eastwood, Sydney with a friend of mine, darting from isle to isle, handling, sniffing, and laughing at all the strange products we could find. My friend picked up a frozen baby turtle like it was a hidden treasure chest he’d just stumbled upon. At this a Chinese man in the isle started laughing and began to pull out even stranger items from the depths of the icy freezer: bullfrogs, abolone, and other things that didn’t really have a shape or colour, and i’m sure don’t have a translatable name.

But I love Asian supermarkets because there are a few things that I frequently use in cooking that are best bought there. Here’s a copy of my typical shopping list:

2L light soy sauce (much cheaper at the Asian Supermarkets and you can buy in bulk)

Shaoxing rice wine (this is a delicious, dark rice wine that with a tablespoon adds an incredible amount of flavour to your stir-fries)

Thai Palm Sugar (an absolute essential in Thai cooking and has a soft, rich, caramel flavour. Make sure you get the dark one in a cylinder and it should be just soft when you shave it)

Mao Ploy Thai Curry Paste (this is the best Thai curry paste you can buy and is the product that a huge number of Thai restaurants use. Be careful though, it has a lot more chilli than the western pastes)

Dried, smoked squid (this is the Chinese equivalent of Beef Jerky, but made from squid. It is the quintessential beer snack!)

Coconut milk (cheaper and usually richer in flavour at Asian Supermarkets)

Banana Leaves (a fantastic product to wrap fish in to barbeque)

Shrimp paste (this is the stinkiest product on the market, but an essential ingredient in South East Asian cooking; be careful, use more than 1/4 teaspoon and you’ll be tasting plankton shrimp for the next month).

Chinese Five Spice (a great spice mix that makes a boring stir-fry or braise taste great. Can usually get it cheaper and in bulk at the Asian Supermarkets)

I’m sure there is much that you could add to this list, and there is much at these Supermarkets than I’m sure I’m neglecting. Would love to hear the prized purchases of others when they frequent the Asian Supermarket.

Nick

(A friend of mine at college, Sam, gave me the idea for this post – thanks Sam!)

Very easy, very cheap Hommus

I recently made some Hommus for some friends that were coming round for dinner and what surprised me was how simple it was to make. And dirt cheap as well! This recipe does not follow traditional methods in a couple of ways: Most recipes will call for you to use dried chickpeas. Do this if you like, but to be honest, I really can’t be bothered to soak the chickpeas overnight then cook them for an hour. I use canned instead – to me they taste identical, are cooked perfectly in the can, and cost around 99c per can. Since they already contain salt, you do not need to season the Hommus if using canned chickpeas. I also saute my garlic. Traditionally you would use raw garlic and if you really like the pungent flavour of raw garlic then just reduce my garlic quantity by about a third. The reason I cook the garlic is that it is the only way to ensure I’m not forced to sleep on the couch for a couple of days while my garlic breath wears off. This recipe is also stored on the  ‘Bits and Pieces‘ page.

1 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed well
3 large cloves garlic, sliced
1 small red chilli, finely chopped (use pepper if you or your friends have issues with chilli)
The juice of 2 small or one large lemon
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 tablespoons oil
1/4 cup water

Saute garlic and chilli in oil on medium heat until just browned. Add cumin seeds and stir for 5 seconds. Add mixture into mortar and pestle and crush (use the back of your knife you don’t have a mortar and pestle). Place all ingredients into a blender (I use a hand blender for this one). Blend until pureed. Serve.

The Taste of Summer: Thai Beef, Green Mango and Lychee Salad

There is nothing I’d rather taste in mid-summer than the bold, fragrant and tropical flavours of a Thai salad. I love the way Thai food like this is perfectly balanced by the sourness of the limes and green mango, the sweetness of the lychees and palm sugar and saltiness of the fish sauce. The following recipe was one I adapted from Blue Ginger by Les Huynh. Can also be found in the recipe section under ‘Salads‘.

Salad
500g very thinly sliced rump, T-bone, fillet, or sirloin steak
1/2 bunch each of basil and mint leaves, slightly chopped
1 whole bunch coriander leaves
1/2 green mango (AKA cooking mango), julienned
1 cup canned lychees, quartered
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
1 long red chilli, sliced

Dressing
5 tablespoons palm sugar, shaved
5 table spoons lime juice
4 tablespoons fish sauce
4 garlic cloves, slices
3 birds eye chillies, chopped

In a pan stir fry beef in a small layer of oil in small batches very quickly until browned. Put aside. Mix all other ingredients together in a large bowl. For the dressing, fry garlic and chillies in a little oil until cooked. Combine palm sugar, garlic and chilli mixture and 1-2 tablespoons of the lime juice and pound together until ingredients are mixed and sugar is dissolved. Add the rest of the dressing ingredients. To serve, lay salad on a plate, top with beef and dress. Serves 4.

I usually serve this on a bed of vermicelli noodles so that it provides enough food to serve as a main.

A whole lot of Brie…

Sorry i haven’t posted in awhile, been away on holidays. Will post soon about where we’ve been and what we ate.

When we came back from holidays we went and did the big shop to restock our fridge and pantry. We were shopping at Harris Farm at North Strathfield and came across a great deal… I whole wheel of French Brie for $6.99! That’s 1kg of cheese!

And let me tell you, it’s really good cheese! Big and firm and strong and earthy – just how it should be!

The only problem we have now is what to do with it. I once saw a man in a restaurant eat a whole deep fried wheel of Brie (although it was much smaller than this one), but i really think my heart and probably my liver would go on strike if i did this. Any ideas for how to use Brie in cooking would be appreciated!

Nick & Pen

Barbecued pizza?? It works!

A little while ago, I posted about how to make pizza dough. My cousin Mitch later commented in the recipe section on the dough and said that he thought the best method to cook pizza dough was on the barbecue. It sounded strange to me but i tried it out. All i did was roll out the dough as normal, then throw it onto the hot grill plate of the barbecue for about 2 mins. I took the pizza off, put the toppings on, put it back on the barbecue and put the hood down for another minute or two to melt the cheese. This worked fantastically! The dough stiffened up like woodfired pizza dough or naan bread. This was undoubtedly the best way of cooking pizza i have ever tried. Give it a shot!

The topping we had this night was ‘Rosemary, roasted garlic, chorizo, sundried tomato and rocket’ – i’ve put the recipe here as well as in ‘easy mains‘.

6 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 chorizo sausage, sliced
4 sprigs rosemary
3 tablespoons chopped sundried tomatoes
two handfuls of sliced red capsicum
1 cup grated parmesan
two handfuls of rocket leaves
1 batch of pizza dough

Preheat barbecue grill plate. Dip unpeeled garlic cloves in olive oil and place on a tray with chorizo. Bake at 200C for around 20 mins or until chorizo and garlic are cooked. Combine rosemary and garlic and crush briefly in a mortar and pestle. Roll out pizza dough and brush one side with olive oil. Place dough, oil side down, on grill plate and cook for around two minutes, using a hood if possible. Remove dough, Place garlic, rosemary and toppings (except rocket) on the uncooked side and top with cheese. Return pizza to barbecue, close hood and cook for another minute or two or until cheese is just melted. Top pizza with rocket leaves.

Charlie Parker and the food of Jazz

I’m a big fan of Jazz music. One of my favourite Jazz musicians is the well-known Charlie Parker (alto saxophonist). This guy is an absolute hero. Next to Louis Armstrong, he is THE major name in the development of Jazz in the twentieth century. But he had a pretty sad life. Story goes that he was involved in a car accident in his early twenties. While in hospital he became addicted to the morphine that was administered to him. Subsequently he had a heroin addiction throughout his whole life and it ended up killing him.

At this point, you’re probably asking, ‘what’s this got to do with food?’

Well Charlie Parker’s nickname throughout his life was ‘Bird’. There are a number of accounts as to why. One is that it described the way he played – he was able to control the saxophone with such fluency that he sounded like a bird. But another says that he developed this nickname because he had a profound love for deep-fried chicken. In relation to this, i watched ‘Rockwiz’ the other night and a random bit of trivia that came out was that the great jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald once sung for a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial (in my opinion Fitzgerald is the second-best jazz vocalist ever – next to Billie Holiday).

So it seems that the food of Jazz is deep-fried chicken. I am just so unsatisfied with this! Jazz is very cool, and well deep-fried chicken…just sucks. But then again, Jazz is American music so it has to have American food. The New Orleans Cafe in Crows Nest Sydney interpret Jazz food as basically southern food – Cajun and Jambalaya (and they do make a good Jambalaya). Maybe this is historically accurate, but i think we should develop a new food for Jazz, something cool, swave, colourful and a little radical.

My suggestion: Coconut milk cheesecake, with shavings of black truffle, drizzled with an orange coulis and garnished with mint leaves.

This to me meets all criteria; it’s American (cheesecake), it’s black and trendy (truffle), and it’s colourful (orange and mint), and a little radical.

Maybe i’ll try to get Pen to actually write a recipe for this, although i think i would have to save my birthday and christmas together to be able to afford the black truffle…

If you have any suggestions for the ‘food of Jazz’, please leave a comment, would love your thoughts!

Christmas present ideas? Two books reviewed

A few months ago I was given two cookbooks for my birthday. One from an Aussie cook (Maggie Beer) and one from a pommy chef (Gordon Ramsay). I recommend them both as Christmas presents for people into cooking. The Ramsay book is probably more suitable for the everyday cook and Maggie’s for the organic-seasonal produce type foodie.

‘Cooking for friends’ Gordon Ramsay
Ramsay’s aim, in this book, is to present the sort of recipes he would cook at home, for friends. The recipes here are in a word; British. The contents page gives you a taste of this listing a section on ’soups’, another on ‘pies’ and another on ‘puddings and ices’. With many of these dishes, I felt i needed to put on ugg boots, wrap myself in a blanket, dominate a coach and hoe into the dish using only a fork and a bottle of warm stout (it’s comfort food, you get the picture). Some of these are brilliant and in true Ramsay style work on the principle of ‘less is more’.  I cooked his ‘Spinach, feta and pine nut tart’ and for such a simple combination, the flavours lacked nothing. Gordon’s genius really came out in his ‘Grilled aubergines with balsamic, feta and mint’. This is the sort of salad that upstages whatever it is trying to supplement.

Despite its brilliance, my criticism of this book is that it’s just too British. Ramsay complains at one point that he can hardly ever use the barbecue because the weather is too uncooperative. This just isn’t our problem in Australia. And some of his dishes lack a bit of kick. The Australian palate tends to like to commit to flavours, eg If it’s got garlic, it’s got at least 3 cloves, if it’s got coriander, it’s got a half a bunch. But the British palate is different. For example, Gordon’s ‘Cornish chicken pie’ contains chicken, onion, mushrooms, butter, flour, cream, and pastry and get it, ONE sprig of thyme (now are you sure this won’t overpower it?!). I’m sure the Cornish love it, but… well i’m glad i’m not Cornish.

But in the end it’s a good book and i imagine i will continue to use it regularly for some great ideas and simple combinations like his brilliant eggplant salad.

‘Maggie’s Kitchen’ Maggie Beer
I love Maggie’s food. To me she defines the term ‘modern Australian’. She finds her ground in traditional home-cooked recipes but uses modern ingredients with creative twists and brilliant flavours. She is deservedly an Australian food icon. The book seems to have a focus on fish and there are some amazing looking recipes here. I cannot wait to try her ‘Moroccan Ocean Trout’ with rose petals, orange zest and Moroccan spices. And her ‘Salmon Baked with a Stuffing of Pine Nuts, Currents and Preserved Lemon Wrapped in Vine Leaves’ looks like it would be a gastronomical excursion in hedonism. The benefit of this book is that it’s Australian! This means Australian tasting dishes and Australian produce.

I realised in writing these reviews that I haven’t yet cooked anything from Maggie’s book. I think the reason why is that they are very ‘Maggie’ recipes. I watch The Cook and The Chef religiously but i very rarely cook anything off the show because the ingredients they use are just so damn difficult to get. So, i get extremely excited when i turn a page in this book and see ‘Camel Scotch Fillet Marinated in Lilly Pilly’ but then this excitement moves to a shattering of my self-esteem as a i realise that i have no access to camels and no (legal) access to Lilly Pillys. Many of these recipes depend on verjuice (a Maggie thing), strangely Radicchio and there are a surprising amount of rabbit recipes. All are not the easiest to get a hold of. The other problem is that Maggie seems to have a lot of money. While i would love to cook her ’slow-cooked beef fillet with crushed black pepper and balsamic’, i really cannot justify paying the $40-50kg for Coorong Angus Beef.

But this is a book i am extremely happy i have. It really is a page-turner and that’s not often said of cookbooks but the brilliant and original and delectable recipes make it so.  They are the sort of recipes you would use for someone special when you have some time to track down some more interesting ingredients.

Surprise inside a squid

I made some Vietnamese stuffed squid the other night so i went and bought four uncleaned squid.  When i got home, I cleaned a couple of them and when i was cleaning the third i noticed that there was a very strange dark organ inside the squid body. I had a closer look…

So i layed the squid tube out and pushed out the object, to my surprise it had a head…

I removed it to find that it was a whole fish, perfectly intact and not even slightly digested by the squid…

Do you reckon it’s an anchovy? It doesn’t quite look like one to me, but i reckon it would have tasted alright deep fried. So the squid must have just had lunch before he was dragged up by a net.

I’ve never heard of that happening before. Then i told this story to a fisherman friend and he said some of his friends caught a big Jewfish once and found a mostly intact whiting inside. Bargain, better than an anchovy. Anyone else had a similar experience?

Nick

A word on spices…

Like garlic, chilli, and olive oil, spices are one of those things that I wonder how they ever did without. Wars were literally fought over spices in our history and at times they fetched prices so high you’d think you were paying for diamonds. I love what spices can do for cooking. Here are some tips and some info on a few of my favourties. See General Mains for some curry and tagine recipes.

Tips
The biggest problem with spices is storage. If you buy ground spices they will go stale within weeks. It really is worth buying the spices whole, since they last years in that form, and grinding them in a mortar and pestle when you need them. Spices also need the flavour to be released by frying them. Either dry fry the whole spices in a frying pan before you grind them, or throw them into a curry or sauce before you add any liquid and fry them for a minute or two. They can burn easily so it is often a good idea to add a couple of tablespoons of water to loosen it up.

Coriander and Cumin
These two spices are absolutely essential to a curry and it is rare to find a curry without them. Coriander seeds are a warm, mild spice with a delicate fragrant flavour. It is great for blending spices mixes together. Cumin seeds are a strong, big, gritty and earthy sort of spice. The usual rule is use twice the amount of coriander to cumin.

Cardamon (green)
I love cardamon. It is green pod with tiny seeds inside. It has a great aromatic, perfumey flavour. It is quite strong, so it would be rare to use more than about 6 pods in any dish. You can also use it for tea. Just grab two cardamon pods, break them open in a cup and pour boiling water in. Tastes great.

All Spice (AKA Pimento)
All spice is also known as ’slaves spice’ because it was the one spice the Caribbean slaves made sure they took with them wherever they were transported. It is the dried fruit of a tree. I would have to say it is probably my favourite spice. It tastes like a combination of cloves, cinnamon, cardamon and nutmeg – all warm, musty flavours, but also has a fruity edge to it. It is fantastic in Chilli Con-Carne and really adds a lot to any casserole or sauce. It is not particularly strong, so a teaspoon or two of All Spice would be fine.

One warning… Pen openly admits that when she first met me, her first impression of me was ‘he smells like an Indian’. Spices will add a (fantastic) smell to your clothes and carpet and sheets. You’ll get used to it. She married me after all…