Crackling

Trifle - it's the most honest of puddings

2011-07-21T19:00:00.019+07:00

"Because it lets you know how you're going to look after eating it,"

Wobbly, expansive, slothful and self satisfied.

So said our lunch guest Mr Ben Frichot as he contemplated the perfect English Trifle I set on the perfect English Sunday Lunch Table (even though it was in Australia). And he was right.
There he is on the left, saying it.
My guests begged not to have the recipe such was the temptation to create an endless supply and abandon themselves to middle aged spread. However, I am not such a gracious hostess.
This is an adaptation of the trifle my mother serves for Boxing Day Tea.

You will need:
A very nice cut glass bowl because you have to let the dogs see the rabbit. Otherwise it's just whipped cream and glace cherries and even after a main course of glazed English Gammon, cauliflower cheese, peas, carrots and roast potatoes and a canapes of miniature Yorkshire Puddings with steak and kidney gravy, that won't produce the adulation I am so blatantly craving.

I bought this one at a charity shop for six bucks. When I married Mr Wong we did not have a wedding list: We were unmaterialistic, about to take a month's honeymoon backpacking round SE Asia before heading back to London and we flouted convention - foolishly it now appears. If I'd done the right thing I would already own a trifle bowl. And a gravy jug. And a decanter. And possibly a set of ironing board covers and a toby jug so on reflection....

Back to the trifle, which you must make the day before.
Ingredients:
1 pack of sponge fingers *
100mls of sweet sherry
1 large tin of fruit salad - it MUST contain green grapes and startlingly pink cherries
seedless raspberry jam
raspberry jelly - I used a cold-water version made with agar agar, it was all I could get, but I don't think anyone noticed the absence of reconstituted connective tissue.
One and a half pints of confectioners custard.
400ml of double cream
Glace cherries
Flaked almonds
Angelica if you can get it. I could not.

Method:
1. place the sponge fingers in a single layer in a square container and soak in the sherry and the juice from the tinned fruit salad.
2. Although no one is going to examine this foundation it is in your interests to get it as neat as possible, just as a counterpoint of decency and decorum to the way you will end up licking your bowl the next day. Fit the soaked sponge fingers into the bottom of the bowl, nipping and tucking if you have to.
3. Spread carefully with the raspberry jam, cover and place in the fridge while you make the jelly. You know how to do that. When it is room temperature pour it on the base and spoon on the fruit. Do try and distribute the cherry pieces evenly. Cover it again and put it back in the fridge while you make the confectioners custard.

Let's take a break from the text to see the roast potatoes. N.B. the only potatoes that will roast properly in Western Australia are the purple skinned Royal Blues. What I wouldn't do for an illegal stash of Desiree seed potatoes.
So back to the confectioners custard.
4. Put 3 tablespoons of cornflour and 3 tablespoons of sugar in a mixing jug and break in 3 eggs. Mix until smooth, like toothpaste. Lumps will ruin it.
5. In a nonstick saucepan bring 850ml of milk, full fat please, to just below boiling point with 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence.
6. Pour a cup of the hot milk onto the egg and cornflour mixture and blend well. Return in to the pan and stir constantly while you bring it just to boiling point.
7. The custard will thicken alarmingly but keep stirring and moving it around the pan and letting it bubble and blow like a geyser for 4 or 5 minutes - the cornflour taste must cook out.
8. Transfer to a bowl. Cover with clingfilm and let it cool to room temp.

Now let me show off my table setting, something I rarely do as I am an habitual slattern. But it paid off.
A table cloth and a floral centre piece are just detectable amidst the glasswear. The table itself is a $55 trestle from the hardware store as I don't have an indoor table big enough to seat 8. No one noticed. My usual 6 seater dining table I got from an old catering client in Hampstead. He was a Hungarian Diplomat and was just about to chuck it in the skip when I rocked up in my volvo wagon and he said I could take it away. Turns out it was a Fritz Hansen 1984 design classic.http://www.fritzhansen.com/en/tables#table-series Not something I would ever have had the wit to put on my wedding list. Swings and roundabouts, eh?

So the custard is cold, the bottom 2 layers are set and it is time for the last step of the day.
9. Spoon the custard on evenly, cover with perhaps a new piece of clingfilm by this stage and stash it in the fridge until tomorrow.

I also made two other desserts. Ostensibly to give a balance of flavours and textures and a healthier option for my guests. The real reason is because I Am Greedy.

One was a winter fruit compote: Simmer one of those dried fruit salad packs in a light sugar syrup, I added orange peel and lemon peel, cardomon, cinnamon and vanilla to mine and a pack of pruriently plump semi dried figs.

The third dessert was sticky date pudding which I wrote about 12 months ago (do keep up).
And when it came to coffee and cigars my good friend and artisinal Patissieress Angie Mariani brought a sample of her new range of meringues. How fortunate they matched the camelia centre piece. There is a hazelnut hidden in the centre of each meringue.

1o. Before your guests arrive whip the cream adding a little more vanilla and spoon it in to a piping bag with a star nozzle. Find a tall container and stand the bag up in this and stash it in the fridge.
11. Work out where you keep your glace cherries and almonds because when the time comes to decorate and you have had a glass of wine or shandy, your choice, you will need all your wits to pipe the cream on the trifle top layer let alone fuel a panic to find the sweet garnishes.

Et voila. Le Trifle Anglais, un peut deshabille.

*Many years ago when I was cooking at The Church Studios in Crouchy for a band called Motor Ace I had my ingredients laid out for tiramisu and all of a sudden a short, bald old man appeared at my elbow, dressed in a green tracksuit. "Ah would they be sponge fingers, them's me faves. Can I have one, aw g'wan," he asked. "Of course, just one." I replied kindly. It was Sinead O'Connor pre-costume and makeup. Sheesh.

It is something of a blessing (for my figure) and yet a curse that all the trifle is now gone. Mr Wong is, as I type, having dinner with the stupendous Swedish Rock Band The Hives http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdjqlRn6KOM
in our favourite restaurant in town while I host a sleepover for assorted small boys in the suburbs. I am very bitter at the moment and I could do with some sweetness. Hey Ho.

And for the sake of balance, test your brain power here https://www.facebook.com/?sk=lf#!/WorldFoodProgramme

Thursday

2011-06-23T11:55:00.023+07:00

Thank goodness I finally have a laptop to work on in my kitchen. Not only does hamper procrastinating about beginning writing but my usual computer station is filled with the odour of rehydrating dried mushrooms. My Mother in law always cooks on a Thursday and this Thursday she is cooking pork with mushrooms. I can only describe the reaction to the odour of the re-hydrated fungi by most Whiteys as similar to being faced with an open jar of roadkill cured in swamp gas. Every fibre of my Northern European sensory system is repelled. It is simply Not Right. I can only imagine the same effect would be induced on my Mother In Law if I piped Stilton and Cauliflower gratin fumes in to her chambers. Which of course I would never do. The aforementioned mushrooms also have the texture of ear cartilige, thinly sliced. Mother in Law is cooking the dish for the rest of the family for its cleansing properties and as a strengthening agent against the winter weather. Similar to offering lemsip only more pungent. Bless her.

Ahhh..... a trip to the supermarket in the mall, what joy. If I hadn't been accompanied, aurally, by James Dean Bradfield and Josh Homme there could have been an incident. I dislike supermarket shopping, hell, I even think I grew jaded with Waitrose when I lived in England. I did pop in to a very large Asda last year but it proved overwhelming. Now I get the reusable bags sent to me by a nice lady in Harrogate. I do envy those of you with access to Lidl and Aldi. Sean Lock says it's like going on holiday.

Another sunbeam brightening my day is having remembered I shall be seeing The Hives here in Perth and, if they have time, here in my kitchen in July.
Reader, I cannot wait. http://www.thehivesbroadcastingservice.com/index.php
Beautifully designed site, don't you think?

However the upshot of the supermarket visit was to buy cheaply.

There are no new soups. Soup making was nailed back in the last century. So what I present is a version of Scotch Broth, the way I made it and with some colourful photographs. I have nothing new to say on the subject, and if I had I am at something of a loss to put any value on it.

Ingredients:
Dry Soup mix containing peas, barley and lentils
Sliced carrots and celery
Beef stock from the freezer
and these lamb forequarter chops.

The bones in these chops will do wonders for the texture of the soup. I make a very good curry with them because of the quality of the bone, recipe next time I do it. I also add a good dash of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce because the tamarind and the anchovy contained therein are very good at cutting through the richness of the lamb.

Will you look at that; pan of boiled peas barley and lentils fits in snuggly to the brim. I am very good at estimating volumes, and parallel parking even if I do say so myself.

A tablespoon of cornflour cooked on the stove top in the liquor and it's done, and some sliced chard from the garden. This is a dish for the next day as it benefits from having the lamb fat skimmed off after a restful night in the fridge.

Bulk Roasting.
I am tired of chopping onions, one of the many reasons I quite professional catering plus I couldn't do it properly. Today I am going to shove on the roasting rack a raft of whole ones, in their skins, seasoned with sea salt and - no, I cannot use the term drizzled, I lived through the 90s and never said it then - moistened with some olive oil.
Far better to coax them from their crispy skins all at once without the release of lachrymatory-factor synthase. I hope one day to be able to draw it. http://www.vcru.wisc.edu/simonlab/sdata/genes/index.html#allplfs. Once coaxed, they need to be pureed and then can keep covered in the fridge for two weeks. I added a spoonful to the scotch broth to a pan of sausages baked in the oven and mixed in the juices and some dijon mustard. No pictures, no time, eaten too quickly.

Also going in are slices of Italian bread with olive oil which will become diced vacuum pack to serve as croutons for all the soup yielded from carrots and pumpkin, roast with thyme and cardomon. The carrots took an age so I added water and sealed the pan and roasted for another hour and then pureed. Again, a spoon of the onion puree and a cup of yogurt mixed through. Gorgeous colours, don't you think. Katie Price take note -Orange is for FOOD, not skin.

Joining the others in the oven is an crumble made with tinned apples, yes I said it; tinned apples. I made the pastry but I refuse to peel and pulp when the season's apples here are on their last legs and woolly and dented. And one cannot get Bramley's. God, my life is Hard. To conclude, although the ingredient cost was minimal, especially all the protein and carbohydrate yielded by the dry peas et al, the fuel costs were high. It may be less vain and wiser to let Campbells and Heinz take the hit for fuel bills in bulk, afterall they can write it off against corporate expenses.

Winter, Paying attention to Food Prices and a new 3 litre slow cooker: this one is already writing itself

2011-06-14T10:50:00.008+07:00

My first semester at Curtin University has ended. Now there is time to cook and write and take stock (geddit?) of what kind of writing about food is useful. Any-old-person can take a picture of a restaurant plate of food and funnel their "oohs" and "aaahs"through the keyboard and onto the screen but to what end? Great if it works for you, however it's not floating my boat of self-actualisation and feeling of worthiness right now. Plus many people do it far, far better than I can.

I blame Bob, of course, for two things: It was July 1985, my friend Rebecca Nelson and I had boarded the Excelsior Coach to Londondinium, sold some trinkets and emptied our piggy banks for two scalped tickets to Live Aid. If I recall correctly we also had on t-shirts we printed ourselves with day-glo dye and crimped hair. Take a look at your own self 26 years ago and then judge. I blame (Sir) Bob for my addiction to rock concerts (what a one to kick off with) and what I now admit is an indelible connection between what I buy to eat and what that says about Me. Am I a grateful, conscientious Have or a blase, ignorant Have? (I did resist buying 2 litres of supermarket brand milk for one dollar ninety nine because I know what that is doing to the dairy industry and I really should use up all the tins in my pantry before I replenish so maybe I 'm a small part of the way there). Chances are high I am never going to be a Have Not of any description.

I have also been reading the postings of the World Food Programme http://www.wfp.org/our-work and while it is too late for me to skip off to Niger* and do Good Things it is not too late for me to Take A Serious Interest in the way Food Resources are managed in the world.
*Plus, I don't fancy hookworm or being taken hostage by a militia.

I shall not be preaching nor pontificating nor eating any of my own proteins but I shall be considering how Food is Managed as a Resource and how the Everyday consumer can create a discourse with those managers. And I shall be tightening my family's food budget* belt in an attempt to show some empathy with families who have to make hard choices about what they can buy to feed themselves. Also I am thinking ahead slightly: what if it does all go tits up and there is no longer any pata negra to be had on the high street and what if dairy farmers should get paid the real cost of milk production? One should just have to cope and those Ones with the knowledge and skills shall prevail.
*plus I 'm saving up for two weeks in Tuscany next year where I shall have my nose firmly in the trough of conspicuos, nay frivolous and fancy free, consumption.

Which brings me to two of my mother's bequests:* The Pauper's Cookbook by Jocasta Innes, Penguin 1971 and Crockpot Cooking by Mary Norwak, Futura 1977.
* or do I mean gifts? Can one bequest an item when one is still living? Mother this is a stylistic and rhetorical device, I am not asking for a grammar lesson.

watch this space

Singapore/Vietnam

2011-05-05T06:26:00.003+07:00

Is it prudent to eat a mackerel, red onion and chilli puff pastry pie just because it is winking at me from a display cabinet here at Changi airport? It is 7.24 am and I have just necked paratha and mutton curry.

They care not for breath freshness on this continent so the pharangeal fragrance quotient is negligble.

Dunno. Is that even how you spell Mackeral?

So much food so little elasticity in the duodenum

Next stop Hanoi.

Heatwave Breaking, Mojo Coming back

2011-03-02T10:25:00.008+07:00

Feeder are coming to town. http://www.feederweb.com/. ( do you know why they can't call their site simply "Feeder"? Let's just say it attracts The Wrong Sorts).
Back in July 2000 it was my great privilege to cook for the band and Gil Norton and crew for the recording of Echo Park at The Church Studios in Crouch End.
And now, having recorded, released and gigged around the world constantly in the interim Feeder are going to be fed by me again. Joy.
The band is currently on tour down here with the Soundwave festival and will be stopping by my kitchen for a bite to eat and Good Times next week.

I have my work cut out; our very good buddy bass player Taka Hirose cooks. I'd better sharpen up my Globals and get to Kailis for some export quality rock lobster before it gets exported.http://cookmejapanese.com/

So this is what they get up to on Saturday Lunch-times

2010-12-11T11:55:00.020+07:00

Saturdays from 8 -12 I have the house to myself. I potter, do the drudgery, catalogue my beer-mat collection - all the usual solitary stuff. However, this Saturday Mr Wong and my sons invited me to see inside their world. They go to Kung Fu class, Piano lessons and worship at the temple of Target or Kmart (I'm far too English to do that, give me Argos any day) and before coming home they stop at the Collins Road Asian Enclave and eat at Bamboo.

Bamboo - Authentic Singaporean Cuisine. http://www.eatability.com.au/au/perth/bamboo-willetton/map.htm

Now, I go through phases where I can take or leave SE Asian cuisine. I have had more than the fair share alloted to most White Girls and I am very picky about what kind of places I will eat in. For me, the aroma of chicken broth or the sight of a stack of ice cubes in an cold Kopi-Oh does not evoke the same misty-eyed frenzy which affects my husband. A bowl of Heinz Tomato Soup and some Mother's Pride spread with Country Life would get me going, but I digress. Nor will I eat anywhere in which my forearms stick to the plastic table-cloth.

Bamboo is different. There are three locations; Perth CBD, trendy Subiaco and Asian-dense Willeton out in the 'burbs. That's where they go. This outlet is run by three Cantonese sisters from Christmas Island http://www.christmas.net.au/and furnished from Empire http://www.worldofempire.com/. It is stylish and spotless and bustling.

The menu is extensive but the men of my family almost always order the same thing: Wan Ton noodles, dry, with barbecue pork and Wan Ton noodles, dry, with crispy roast pork. Two iced Milos and an iced lemon tea. The Wan Ton are filled with a delicate pork mince and float in what I am told is the perfect chicken broth. The dry noodles get mixed in the soy sauce until they are perfectly golden brown. Everyone is very happy. This is the best food of this type in a 10km radius. The noodles, I am told by Mr Wong, are as good as the ones from the China Town markets in Sydney, only the one stall mind you and that was way back in 1993.

I chose Kway Toa flat rice noodles with beef, no egg. I first had this dish in the night markets in Sandakan, Sabah. Served in a plastic bag but none-the-less delicious because the great strength of these flat noodles is that they take on the taste of the wok like no other. As a consequence all the previous built-up layers and patinas of flavour and carbonisation and salt and oil from a properly seasoned wok are imbued on to their slippery surface. If the kitchen does not have an expert and fully focussed wok driver, then this dish will give the game away. Happily, Bamboo has just that.

My order comes out first. I get that smug grin which befalls the diner who knows they've made a top choice and I dress the dish with sliced pickled green chilis marinated in soy sauce.

see how they envy me

For dessert, the men of my family make the short journey to the next door store and indulge in Korean Ice Lollies; flavours and colours that immediately take one back to being 8 years old, flavours and colours that have been outlawed in Europe for many years. My sons eat them in the back of the car on the way home. Shark fin shapes made with a tangerine-flavoured blue-grey ice shell with strawberry-flavoured red jelly inside. Wholly and utterly unethical on every level, and a right proper treat and no mistake.

I grabbed a selection of Korean crisps, drawn chiefly by the graphics on the packaging. I have little or no idea what they will taste like, but then that's the fun of it.

does anyone know what is in these stunning cans?

We all arrive back home, and while the adults give their bellies an airing on the sofa the sons are on the trampoline at once. Strong stomachs and lots of stamina. Far more than I posses. I may go back to my pottering next Saturday and give my greed a rest. Oh, wait a minute, I 'll be in Bali next Saturday.

Low-Carb Lunches 1: Warm Prawn Cocktail

2010-11-09T10:45:00.009+07:00

Ahhhh.... there's been a gap. I cannot find the copious notes I made from my UK trip. I haven't quite looked everywhere; I am postponing the crashing disappointment of realising I left them on the plane/taxi/duty free shop. However, they may turn up somewhere utterly unexpected. Like my Foo Fighters Tickets from April 2008. I put them somewhere for safe keeping while we went on holiday to Kota Kinabalu and the floor-sanders were in. I swiftly erased the knowledge from my mind, came back with 18 hours to go before the show and tried to trawl through a house already turned upside down because of the floor-sanding operation. One of my sons found them wedged right at the bottom of a bolster cushion inside the cover. I have eyed him with a shadow of suspicion ever since.

Anyway..... while I was preparing to ransack the soft furnishings I got hungry.
I am trying to reduce my carbohydrate intake to one serving a day. I am vain and slightly more upholstered than muscular and summer is coming. So I looked for lunch-time inspiration to London. Pret a Manger to be precise http://www.pret.com/
Anyone who worked in London in the 90s remembers their first Pret experience. Good bread, good fillings, easy to grab, made you feel like you were a little bit Continental, wrapped in spiffing cellophane so you didn't get grease spots on your desk and most importantly you could be in and out in 6 minutes flat so more time for lunchtime shopping/fags/flirting/shoplifting.

The book of the shop divulges all its secrets.

Not sure if that was an unwise move or a very arrogant one as Pret was so sure they could not be aped. For the eschewer of bread and carbohydrates in the middle of the day the fillings on their own make a wonderful lunch.

The first in the book is egg and bacon mayonnaise but that dish is dead to me ever since I witnessed at first hand the low habits and hygiene of the London pigeon (the Berkley Square mob to be precise), made the fowl/egg connection with the lumps in my sandwich and have never been able to countenance a boiled egg since. Scrambled is fine, it's just the white bit. And what those pigeons were doing to one another. Everyone has their peculiarities, that is one of mine. The next filling is, however, far more appealing; Avocado and Prawn. And since it has no yeasty cover it will be elevated to cocktail status.

The trick with prawn cocktail is not the prawns (in Britain we would use partially defrosted north sea ones and fancy ourselves exotic and erudite). Today I used frozen West Australian prawn flesh at $40 a kilo. I sauteed them in butter and olive oil with some torn kaffir lime leaf, lemon juice and salt and pepper.

The trick is not the salad vegetables, The Pret recipe calls for Cos lettuce leaves for which I substituted skinned Roma Tomatoes. ( reader, I shall admit this to you: I dislike lettuce. Well, I dislike the way I handle it. I 've never been able to treat it properly and nothing lettucey will ever come close to my first French Green Salad served between courses in 1979. I accept the Ponce Rating and I know my limits), half an avocado, paprika and the MAGIC ingredient Marie Rose Sauce.

Marie Rose Sauce or Cocktail Sauce is irresistable to humans. When I worked in backstage catering we would serve up goujons of snapper with slices of lime and a dish of Marie Rose Sauce in which to dip. Next to the Amelia Park Frenched Lamb Cutlets hot off the barbie this was always hands down the most popular item we could serve. Mick Hucknall demanded seconds. Alicia Keys' rhythm section grabbed handfuls. Only Diana Krall would not weaken. And the secret is ...... homemade mayonnaise, worcester sauce and tomato ketchup.

I made mine thus:
1 egg yolk
freshly ground sea salt and black pepper
a squeeze of lemon juice
a few drops of balsamic vinegar
10 mls extra virgin olive oil
20 mls peanut oil
dash of worcestershire sauce
good glug of Heinz tomato ketchup

Coax forth the mayo in the bowl with much patience and elbow grease, then stir in the last two ingredients. It should glow like a the flush of a lover and hold its shape like jelly.

Unfortunately I chose the rubbery- soft kind of avo and decided it would be better off having a tumble in the saute pan with the prawns along with the skinned roma tomato and the shredded basil I substituted for the Pret recipe paprika. The gentle heat really brings out the sweetness of the tomatoes.

It had texture, flavour, softness and crunch and most importantly of all enough Marie Rose Sauce to lick out of the dish for the finale.

OK, now where DID I put those notes? There are no curtains in my house so I don't have to scrabble behind any pelmets....

Semantics: disappointment, expectation and hardening the F up in Perth.

2010-10-27T20:36:00.015+07:00

Bar & Tapas
Tell me, what does that suggest to you?
If you are European, especially Spanish or Catalonian it will be a strong suggestion, if Australian-Who-Has-Traveled it will be another thing, if it is Perth-CBD-Worker-Looking-For-A-Bar-And-A-Bite-After-Work it will be another.
Me - I'm a mongrel with my roots in north London, a few visits to Northern Spain at the very least. But I live in Perth.

So.... the chief thing I expected at http://www.andaluzbar.com.au/ was a) not to be kept waiting for 12 minutes for a glass of Tempranillo; one extra-odinarily pompous waiter took my order mutely, one inert bar-man and several intermittent staff later and I was forced to walk the 5 metres to the bar and pick up the glass myself. I know that this is hardly a hardship in the real world, I'm not waiting for clean water in a Haitian post-earthquake camp or anything, but still....

Bar AND Tapas.

This is a Bar
They choose to serve small portions of Mediterranean styllee food on mis-matched saucers and call it tapas (no baccalau, however the Berkshire pork cheek confit and scallops were good as were the chick-pea battered prawns - I presume that the chickpea element was besan flour).
But a Tapas Bar it is not.

This is a Tapas Bar

(I don't know who the pasty middle-aged woman at the end is)

The goods are on display, the dog can see the rabbit. There is no menu, one trusts the chef.

The wine is in tubs on the counter. One could help oneself, but one has an agreement with the Host; the customer will ask and the Host will pour at once. Not wait 12 minutes while the staff faff about.

This is tapas, this is what it looks like;
It ain't fancy, it's just the best of what the Host likes to serve.

That, mi amigo, is a plethora of fried protein coated in refined carbohydrate on sticks. Salty, crispy, delicious, honest. In the illuminated cabinet below is a selection of less robust items: vol-au-vents ( yes, vol-au-vents because they are popular and people like them and they contain a creamy, vinegary, filling perfectly) filled with crab remoulade, salami and potato salad, elvers and mayonnaise, need I go on?)

So, it is with initial trepidation over spoiling our evening yet resulting in the purity of an informed debate, that I suggest to my dinner date that either the term "bar and tappas" is misleading or that my European -flavoured expectations are simply out of place in this town. My dinner date works with words and concepts and design. He tells me the clue is in the punctuation; Bar amperzand Tapas. It is not a Tapas Bar. Well quite, I say, otherwise they would have had the cojones to put the tapas on display, right there in front of the booze whetting the appetite and assaulting the senses like a common street walker rather than coyly nestling between the leaves of a flock-wallpaper covered menu. Nor would one be at the mercy of the waiting staff but in the care of a Patron (pimp?) who is unashamedly displaying his wares.

Andaluz could be taken as a gravely disappointing misnomer, but as my dinner date reminds me,
this is a bar that does food in the middle of the Perth CDB. It is Wednesday night and it is buzzing: Job Done.
However I would be extremely interested to know how the seed of the vision of Andaluz started out in the owners' eyes. Seriously, I am very willing to have my European smugness knocked out of me. But I would advise that the owners tell the pot-wash guy not to leave the mop and tea-towel drop right outside the kitchen door. A small detail but nothing puts one off ones' head of veal and truffle oil dish like a dirty mop-head standing sentry at the kitchen.

I must share my delight at the growing numbers of Bars in Perth. Yes, a Bar. Where a grow-up can enter, sit or stand and buy a drink. It is heartening to see the stealth licensing laws are being used. And the interior decor of Andaluz is right on the pulse. The dark, bold hues of the walls and colour accents from vintage bric-a-brac is all the rage in the front parlours of Kensal Rise. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/23/anatomy-of-style-vintage

At the risk of sounding deeply condescending, and I really don't want to be that person as I do realise how fortunate I am to have got a permanent foot in the door of this country, I wonder if the owner's vision matched the end product his wait-staff supply. This is a mis-match I see time and time again in this city and I truly wonder why these gaps need appear. I am 99% certain the designer did not mean for the bar-staff to stash the paper wine lists on the lip of the gun-metal grey girder which frames the bar. Small details and hardly life nor death, but they must have mattered to someone somewhere along the line.
And speaking of lines, the bottom line is that I have to drive in from the 'burbs to Andaluz, I am not the tie-loosened white-shirted ideal customer looking for drink after work with a boudin noir rather than a pie for sustenance so really, what do I matter?

I would give Andaluz another crack, but with vastly different expectations.
Perhaps I just need to Harden The F* Up, Stefan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iweZ-o43wFU

Mint-Chocolate Mousse or Mum - did you get this from the Shop!? (compliment of the highest order)

2010-10-26T11:20:00.010+07:00

I have two sons.
One will wolf down confit du canard, foie gras or tripe while the other turns his nose up at a croque monsieur at the same Parisian Bistro because it is "the wrong kind of cheese."
One will ask for Venison Pie for tea after a seeing the dvd of Bambi, while the other's idea of nirvana is to be let loose in a ball-pit filled with Twisties and Crinkle-Cut Chips.

So, it is something of a challenge to cook a meal that satisfies the polarised tastes my children demonstrate. Almost each day there are multiple dishes on offer simply because I cannot take the cruel sting of (food) rejection and I am irritated beyond measure when an empty refusenik stomach demands Milo cereal at 8pm. I pick my battles. However, I do feel the need to ease the fussy one in to a wider range of home-cooked and non-synthetic foods and I know that he has a sweet tooth. I shall, like Paris, loose my nutrtional-arrow in to his Achilles heel. My arrow will be tipped with Mint-chocolate Mousse.

It's not fancy. This is how I made it. And no money changed hand with Nestle, which is nice.

MINT CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
serves 4 children
125g mint-flavoured milk chocolate
25ml water
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
50g caster sugar
50ml very hot water
1 10g sachet of gelatine crystals
100ml thick/double cream
grated chocolate and piped cream (ideally from a squirty can to maximise effect) to decorate

small dishes

1. Melt the chocolate with the 25ml water in a bowl over simmering water
2. In another, larger bowl whisk the eggs, yolk and sugar together until frothy and thick

3. Dissolve the gelatine in the very hot water and add to the eggs and stir well

4. Stir in the cream and melted chocolate and pour in to individual dishes

5. Chill for 2 hours
6. Garnish with the cream and chocolate, and if you can get away with it fresh mint leaves
7. Decide whether you did get it from the shop and just decanted it to make yourself extra washing up, it's your call.

And this is the response: "Mum, did you get this from the Shop? Did you? It tastes fantastic, just like from the shop. Oh MUM you are so clever."

I bask in the glory and ignore the sugar eating away at his dentine. At least he has had eggs and milk. Plus I remember to snatch the mint-leaf garnish away before he sees it (everyone in Year 1 knows greenery=deadly poison). My other son finds it a tad bland. Neige aux Marrons Glaces for him tomorrow.

Girona, Catalonia - El Mercat Del Lleo.

2010-10-26T10:37:00.024+07:00

Just across the street from our hotel in El Placa del Lleo is Girona's retail food market. This is the distribution centre for the city's fresh produce. What a joy to behold.
The purpose built hall houses wet, dry, cured, moist, slippery, crunchy, crispy and soft foods. Outside it is surrounded by produce stalls, the goods on which are of every shape and size.
Even putting the olfactory senses on hold, the visual ones are delighted fed and delighted admirably.

are these elvers or smelts?

We walk through, unable to buy anything to cook, but delighted that the chefs and cooks of the city just a short stroll ahead of us have been here far earlier on today and left with full bags.

The elvers on the tapas, I get a hard stare from my friend and to be honest I could take them or leave them but oh, how pretty they look.

54 different kinds of baccalau

Checking the provenance and sovereinty was impossible. The Catlans do not care to speak Spanish. They are NOT Spanish, no more Spanish than the French or Italians and they will NOT, by jingo, speak it unless pressed very hard. Therefore it was not EASY to strike up a casual conversation about the provenance of the monkfish, or the halva or the quinces. Even my friend Lucy ( who took these marvelous pictures) who learned her Spanish in the jungles of Peru could not elicit any information without resort to hand gestures. Plus as it was obvious we weren't buying and were merely passing through and these stall holders are busy, busy, busy.
retro-tastic butchers' stall
So I can only guess that all these treasures came from the surrounding hills and plains and shores. Certainly there were no gimmicks and every one buying looked doggedly assured that they knew precisley what treatment to give the familiar ingredients according to the day of the week and the complexion of the days' weather. In short, this produce is the backbone of the region and while there is definitely room for experimentation (after all Ferran Adria's El Bulli is but a stone's through), none of the cooks here want their supplies titivated or tarted up. This is where the every day cooks and the Post Modern Impressionist cooks come to fill their palettes.

When we reach the far side of the market, we are a tad peckish. We are now faced with the task of sifting through the immense number of choices of where to have lunch in this city. But it won't be too tricky, as long as we choose somewhere whose cook was at El Mercat Del Lleo earlier this morning, and left fully-laden with produce and inspiration.
and with that thought in mind we make our way to the Plaza del Independencia for a bite to eat

Back in the saddle, Mediterranean style

2010-10-18T19:06:00.014+07:00

There has been a distinct malaise here at Crackling.
What could it be?
Homesickness? I've been back from Europe for 3 weeks now
Missing something I already have? Could be, but that is a little wet as a theory.
Bug picked up on the plane? Very possibly. Long Haul flights = big metal bird/pertri dish full of other people's germs.

Nothing's really cutting it these days.
Apart from breakfast bacon and eggs (can never go past that happy couple, particularly as my English butcher in Brentwood cures his own streaky)
My appetite for good food is low; pedestrian at best, white-trash at worst. Come midday I am eager for snickers bars and refined carbohydrates. Now I wouldn't usually tell anyone this but it may affect my usual integrity if I don't demonstrate how low I've sunk:- Cheese and Bacon Cheeto Balls with a topping of Kraft 1000 Island Dressing.
Little Else.

I am pining for the peppered smoked mackerel, the plaice, the damsons, my sister's Maran hens' eggs, the pork pies, the Wallace and Grommit range of cheeses and the common High Street Byriani amongst which I was submerged for three weeks. Two weeks with a short sabbatical to Catalonia and Oh! The tappas and the wine. Now so very far away.

Low and Flat. A bit like Belguim.

Until I stumble upon the latest series of No Reservations uploaded kindlyby Kumquasta on youtube. It is the Roma episode.
Even though he's a teeny tiny bit tame these days, Anthony Bourdain still gets me going. Is it the black suit and white shirt or the white suit and black shirt? Or the fundamentally European foods cultured in a fundamentally European way? In this episode Tony visits a rarified delicatessen in the back streets of the city and wallows head first in every kind of singularly European Goodness: milk'n'bacteria (whole fresh parmesan wheel), cured pork products (proscuitto), fermented rape juice (wine) and bread that makes a shattering, raspy noise when cut (hard, fermented, raised woodfired wheat). I can't put my finger on it precisely but it has all put its fingers on me.

I turn to my garden, store cupboard and the remainder of the Red Tail Ridge Olives:

Onion
Olive Oil
and Anchovies melted down
Garlic just with the raw edge taken off
Italian chopped plum tomatoes, drained - you must drain them - and
melted in the unctuous perfumed oil
Parsely, oregano.
One red birds eye chili
Cans of cannelini beans and borlotti beans
Hell, even a drained can of "sandwich flake"style supermarket tuna (scraped with a blade from the hulk of a beat far away in Thailand during a 12 hours shift, no doubt)
Warm body heat warm so the flavours can sing out.
It is right for lunch tomorrow with salad leaves and right for tossing through warm rigatoni.

Europe is at my fingertips once more. My appetite has been restored.
Now if only I could get my hands on the raw, sweet red wine from Girona, just right for Sangria. It doesn't even get to the wholesalers', the owners of this restaurant http://sites.google.com/site/restaurantbahiaeng/pick it up straight from the vinyard in the hills. More of that later.

I'm looking out over the Med again, fork in hand, thankful for what I have and the sun is shining. Thanks Tony, both of yous.

Excuse me while I compose myself

2010-10-02T14:56:00.003+07:00

Now the jetlag and the ensuing laziness is wearing off, there is work behind the scenes of Crackling to bring reports and recipes from the UK, and Catalunya which is NOT Spain in case you didn't know.
So while you're waiting, feast your eyes on this premium Hampshire Hand-Raised Pork Pie.

a bien tot

food sovereignty part 2: Reconnecting with the suppliers

2010-08-26T09:12:00.014+07:00

The second salient question of the Food Sovereignty forum was, "How can we extend awareness of good local food?"
The unanimous answer was "Farmer's Markets"

And there are many in Perth. http://www.farmersmarkets.org.au/
My local one, is in Palmyra Primary School on Mckimmie street. So I head off looking for all the ingredients for Sunday lunch. It's not a huge collection of stalls and most are fruit and vegetables. It's a cheerful place with a steady stream of buyers. I'm slightly disappointed I won't be able to buy everything in one place but that's not really the point; the more customers who visit a market, the more stall holders will come. We have a small amount of power in that respect.

We choose grapefruits from Gin Gin, strawberries from Wanneroo, eggs from Pinjarra and simply can't go past Gourmet Mushrooms from Gidgegannup.
Swan Valley Gourmet Fungi - Grow your own gourmet mushroom kits, Oyster mushrooms

213 Old Toodyay Rd, Gidgegannup 6083 / email
David Proudmore ph 9574 6540 mb 0414 478 826

David started off as an environmental scientist and has ended up as a facilitator of the most beautiful fungi, they are a living art installation and very hard to pass by without stopping to admire. And as we stop we are offered samples, and are hooked. I ask David why Farmers' Markets work for him. "You can't beat direct selling for feedback. The two way information between us and the end consumer is invaluable to our business. We like to be appreciated"
We buy a handful of mushrooms for $5 and with the eggs we have our lunch.

Oyster Mushroom Omelet: local to 100kms? Yes. In fact I could buy an oyster mushroom growing kit and be local to 5 metres)
Sautee the mushrooms in olive oil and butter, add local organic parsley (10 metres local to my kitchen), and black pepper and we have lunch

I don't quite know what this gadget is for, not whisking eggs that's for sure as it won't break up the albumen.

Back at the McKimmie street market I ask if there is any meat to be had and am told to take the short trip to Lefroy Street in South Freo for the jewel in the crown of Sunday Farmer's markets: The Grower's Green Community Market. I am told I will find organic meat. I grab my child and propel him to the car and zoom off.

This is Freo after all. Tie -dye aplenty

It is buzzing. The car park is so busy it needs an attendant. There are stalls arranged around a centre of cafe style tables. There is a stage with belly-dancers and African drummers. I can buy Moroccan spiced tea and arrange to have my pet professionally photographed and feed with Natural Dog Cookies. I can stay all morning have breakfast, brunch and lunch. This is a Day Out.

There is no mistaking the driving force behind all these stalls; they are proud to be local. The first banner one sees on entrance is from Karra Orchard.
Here we can buy all the fresh produce we want, and what my son and I really want is apples for the lunchbox that are not the size of a fist, they don't get eaten. We are faced with glorious mountains of apples that have just been picked and washed - not sized and sprayed and stored. There are small ones, medium sized ones and we quickly choose the ones that suit us.

thanks to these chaps

I buy my son a banana icecream and station him to the side of the Redtail Ridge stall. http://www.redtail-ridge.com/ and set about pestering one of the owners Mike Gaebler.
Redtail Ridge farm started out with olives and expanded to cattle. Mike drives the 280 km distance from the farm in Mumballup on Fridays, makes deliveries to his large customer base and spends Saturday and Sunday between Subiaco, Bentley and Lefroy Street Farmers' Markets. The meat is frozen and transported in a refrigerated van. Mike's stall is very impressive. His shiny new van is resplendent with the company logo and although he displays no meat the brand clearly attracts a large crowd. Most of the customers know what they want already but Mike is skilled at matching need to product and sends people home with the best cuts and tips on how to cook the dishes they fancy. The customers certainly feel there has been an experience of value.

Between the brisk stream of customers Mike kindly answers my questions and problems around processing come up again and again; as I discovered last week at the Food Sovereignty forum, Annie Kavanagh of Spencers Brook Farm relies on contract butchers who will take her product if and when it suits them, often pushing back the dates if a larger corporate customer is putting on the heat. Annie and Mike advocate a network of small Regional Food Processing Centres with access to cool-rooms, health and safety advice and marketing consultancy. At present she can find the logistics to ship tonnes of product but not kilograms.

In order to address difficulties of scale Kim Chance talked of getting rid of Health and Safety red tape and introducing small domestic abattoirs which are not forced to operate at Export Standard, set incidently by the World Trade Organisation and the USDA. Few facilities have stepped up to support the small producers' needs as Export standards demanded at Domestic level mean 350 head of cattle per day would need to go through in order to maintain the cost of meeting those standards.

Rearing and supplying a thoroughly organic product is a costly business in time and money and those that see it through to the finish invest a great deal of both. The contract butcher used by Redtail Ridge has Organic Certification to ensure the product is Organic at every stage of production. Mike Gaebler is certain of this qualification at that stage in the chain because he had to pay for it. "It's about control, and in order to guarantee our meat was butchered organically, we had to fund the butcher's training ourselves." Ultimately Mike believes the cost is worth it, "Our product has integrity and that value is appreciated by the customers." I appreciate the 1.5 kilo bolar blade roast for under 20 bucks. And a jar of organic Kalamata olives. Roast beef with olive tapenade crust for dinner tomorrow as the joint is frozen it will need to thaw.

Recipe next week.

So would one do this each week? Basics and boring stuff at the supermarkets and IGAs and support for local producers at the weekends? Is it reasonable to expect the "average" consumer to afford the time and money to shop this way? Food buying options can be spread across a broad portfolio of choices, as the Food Sovereignty panel concured towards the end of the discussion. A consumer will spread the activity across the supermarket and, if we are lucky and make enough noise, independent food stores who care about selling local produce and of course Farmer's Markets. Kim Chance pointed out that today food has never been so cheap, especially in comparison to our Grandparents' days. Consumers do have spending power to make a difference and a distinct desire to reconnect with suppliers if only the opportunities are supported by agricultural Policy and retail facilities.

Will the new government listen?

Link to Farmer's Markets Perth http://www.farmersmarkets.org.au/

Food Sovereignty: Does it matter where your food comes from?

2010-08-25T10:18:00.034+07:00

Western Australia is a big, big state. So big that just looking at it on the map gives me the shivers: too vast, it simply cannot be all one territory. I 'm used to a single sweep of a weatherman's arm taking in 6 EU countries and a myriad of local regions. Something else that gives me the shivers is that 90% of all food grown here is exported, leaving 10% consumed across Australia nationwide and a smaller fraction of that food available to local consumers.
Where I come from regional identity is often expressed in food; Cornish Pasty, Cumberland Sausage and Bakewell Tart. Sure, they are all for sale in Tesco right across the land but also in the villages where they are produced. The actual hands-on pasty maker can get their product directly to eager, traditional consumers easily via the village shop and more importantly at the Farmer's Market. Could that ever happen here? Does the average WA consumer have any connection to local producers or are most of her/her food choices made in the third party at Supermarket Central Office?

On August 24th Christchurch Grammar School Ethics Centre hosted a forum organised by Slow Food Perth on tackling the question of how we as local consumers can, if at all, connect with local producers. http://slowfoodperth.org.au/2010/08/a-priest-an-editor-a-farmer-and-polit icians-food-sovereignty-forum/

Food shopping in Perth Metro is a vastly different experience from shopping in the UK. One learns to stock up at Woolworths, Coles or even IGA for the generic staples. Increasingly one may gasp with delight when artisan producers are included on the shelves next to the Big Guys, for example http://www.turkishbakeries.com/ but generally all we know about the produce is that it once lived in a warehouse by the airport. As a Foreigner one learns that a week's shopping means visiting several stores and actively seeking 0ut products with seasonality and a connection to the local area. Personally, I like to befriend Butchers: if you show them you are taking time to think about the cuts and animals you are buying they grow quite friendly.

Meat that was the symbol for the issues raised ast night's Food Sovereignty forum. All the questions asked by SlowFood's Jamie Kronborg can be mapped out with Meat production and consumption. Jamie's opening question was "Do consumers Influence Production?"

Let me introduce you to the panel from second left to right:

Anthony Georgeff is editor of Spice Magazine http://www.spicemagazine.com.au/, which is a champion of small local producers. Anthony answered "People are patronised by the big corporations, they who purposefully separate us from the small producers." He believes consumers can definitely influence producers if given the chance.

Annie Kavanagh runs Spencers Brook Farm in the Avon Valley http://spencersbrookfarm.com.au She specialises in rare breeds with Berkshire pigs, Long Horned Wiltshire sheep and Dexter cattle all farmed to the highest organic and free range standards. My ears pricked up at the mention of Berkshire pigs I can tell you. Annie has been president of the Organic Farming Association and sells her pork at Mt Claremont and Subiaco Farmer's Markets. To get her produce to the plates of Perth she has to wear every single hat in the food chain from pig-wrangler to PR specialist. Her biggest challenge is blinkered retailers.
"When we have placed our pork with retail butchers they complain is sometimes too fat, sometimes too lean which confuses the customer. Our pigs live natural, seasonally-driven lives and a winter chop is markedly different from a lean summer one." It would seem that the customer, used to picking a standard polythene-wrapped pack off the shelf at Coles is mistrustful of anything that doesn't match the graphic in the catalogue. Annie continued, "Farmer's Markets are the answer. I can have direct contact with the consumer with the great advantage of offering a taste and an explanation." Annie, like most of the panel, advocated giving the consumer the opportunity to buy from different systems of production.

"Food grown somewhere near you is great," stated Kim Chance, farmer and former Minister for Food and Agriculture in WA. He went on to frame the debate on a global scale: "There are two paradigms in the matter of food choices. Much of the world either gets by on rice and fish or is conditioned through suppression of choice or budget restrictions to buy only what the global food giants are offering. There is, however, still room for the discerning consumer who has access to choice." He balanced issues by reminding us that globalisation of the food industry as not all bad. He cited Japan as a country reliant on this as it has a GDP of just 1% from agriculture. Being able to supplying the Japanese with food imports benefits WA enormously. We can't really catigate the food giants while as All Bad when we owe them some of our lucky lifestyle.

The second farmer and politician of the panel ex-Western Australian National Party leader Max Trenorden highlighted the contrasting health issues globalisation of food production has given the world; famine and malnutrition versus the raft of diseases such as diabetes and obesity associated with bad food choices in the developed and developing world. He pointed out that lack of choices, whether it be nutrient-poor staples or trans-fat filled standards is damaging the health of the world amongst both the Haves and the Have-Nots. Max says world food production rates are rising but that didn't mean the right kind of food was in the right place. He wanted to capitalise on the evidence that the consumer within the upper echelons of the closed markets does have belief in Local food, "In the West, especially Europe, 60% of all consumers want quality, one third of whom will pay a premium for it. Surely we can take that trend and run with it in WA?" Max believes that the state should try harder to strengthen this trend.

Dr Felicity Newman, who lectures on Food and Culture at the Centre for Everyday Life at Murdoch University http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/cfel/cfel_mccmembers.htm was also keen to emphasise the two tier class-based system of food choices. She believes those that can afford to make the quality choice are beholden to support small, non-industrialised growers. Felicity drove the debate onwards by asking how this might be spread this further throughout the state to generate connection to local producers and encourage consumers to value local produce.

After the first round of answers it was pretty clear that the consumer can have an impact on food production, on the one hand through complience and through choosing to spend their food dollars on local produce of the best quality on the other. Food Sovereignty is an issue of interest to a considerable base of consumers who want to make thoughtful choices and to be connected to what they eat for health reasons and to show support to local growers. The next question is "How do we make it easier to connect the producer and consumer?"

That question will be addressed in part two of this report after some field-research. I set myself the practical task of buying all the ingredients for Saturday's dinner grown within 100 kilometres of my house.

View Larger Map

I feel roast pork coming on, but then I usually do.

Flapjacks:UK back-to-schoolers, put this in their lunch boxes instead of cold pop-tarts

2010-08-23T19:00:00.002+07:00

I had a request for a flapjack recipe that could be made on Sunday nights and put in lunchboxes Monday to Friday.

This one is endlessly adaptable, depending on what kind of roughage and nuts and seeds your children will not pick out. The condensed milk ensures it does not turn brittle and keeps it tender. I would imagine industrial versions use corn syrup and glucose for this function. If you don't use the nuts and seeds given here, you will need to use about 50g of other dry or moist ingredients to get the right ratio of oaty goodness to textural adorment.

Oven at 160 degrees C

125g butter
100g caster sugar
ah, now, dessertspoonsful of golden syrup - there is no metric conversion, you just need three of them (heat the spoon first and it will slip off luxuriantly)
1 dessertspoon of condensed milk

Melt all this together gently in a pan then stir in
200g of quick cook oats
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds
1 tablespoon of poppy seeds
25g chopped nuts of your choice
a pinch of salt

Line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment and pour in the mixture. With wet finger-tip press it in to the corners and drop in a couple of times on the counter top to settle it and bake it for 20 minutes or until the edges are looking golden not brown. Turn off the oven and leave it in there for another 10 minutes. Take it out and mark out portion divisions before it cools down.

I haven't made any of this for a while as one of my children would be thoroughly affronted if I suggested he eat it. However, if I could wrap it in LCM livery I would include it in his lunchbox. So here is a picture of a poppy from whence the seeds come.

Come to think of it, Lemon poppyseed and yogurt cake is an absolute corker. Available on request

Paula Fitzgerald: Caterpillar Bites

2010-08-17T12:12:00.024+07:00

Caterpillar Bites http://www.caterpillarbites.com/default.html

Part one of an occasional series looking at women in the food industry in Perth.

Paula Fitzgerald has always had artistic tendencies. In high school she wanted to be a painter but was dismayed by the paltry prices work at art fairs was fetching. She relegated sketching and painting to hobby status and trained as a chef. Paula spent time in Devon and Italy and returned to Perth to focus on pastry work. For the last 5 years she has been providing the superior sweet delights for top catering company Comestibles http://www.comestibles.com.au/contentTwo.aspx?cId=31. However, 18 months ago her artistic streak just had to come to the forefront of her work and she launched Caterpillar Bites.

From a corner of the Comestibles kitchen in East Perth, Paula does her thing - birthdays and weddings are the chief income earners but as Paula says "once a client has used Caterpillar Bites for a child's birthday they tend to come back again and again for special occasions throughout the year; work colleagues' parties, father's day, Granny and Grandparent's golden wedding anniversary - it just spirals." Paula has struck oil during this time of fascination with professional cake decorating, the food network has Ace of Cakes and Cake Boss back to back on virtual rotation. A professionally decorated cake is recognised as an expression of creativity and dedication and the smartest move a host can make, not just the crumbly, sticky end of the meal.

So what makes Paula Fitzgerald and Caterpillar Bites different? On her website we can see her vast range of designs: Cheeky Devil Care Bare, Pink Tiara for girls and for boys Yoda and a Rusty VW Beetle amongst the Thomas the Tank Engines and even silver porsche spyder with red leather upholstery.http://www.caterpillarbites.com/Cakes-for-Boys.html
"Anyone can decorate a cake, it just depends to what standard." Paula takes her business very seriously - she is off to the UK to train with Debbie Brown, the undisputed Empress of Innovative Cake Design http://www.debbiebrownscakes.co.uk/myPhotos/index.htm "I've waited for 5 years to get a place on one of her courses, this is the ultimate learning experience. Debbie's work is clean with a crisp finish, it is flawless," Paula tells me. "I want to learn all the secrets of the art." Debbie Brown, whom Paula describes as the supreme cake decorating icon started small, from home and was in the right place at the right time to bring the art thundering into the commercial arena and get in first on a series of best-selling how-to books. Paula appreciates this set of business skills. There are plenty of women who do sugar craft as a hobby, offering to make an Optimus Prime Transformer cake for their nephew's birthday, shutting themselves away for 8 days, fingers stained with red and blue and eyes crossed with the effort of replicating the right engine grill in fondant. They emerge frazzled and find it hard to emotionally detach from an item that will ultimately be devoured. Paula is a pragmatist who has found her calling and woven it in with her strong business sense.

Paula is a true artist as she makes time to explore and focus on craftmanship and techinique, expanding ideas and trialing new methods.
This parade-ground of chocolate teddies was made for pleasure. She found the chocolate fondant in a cake supplies shop and began practising. She made more and more, the teddies multiplied and with each one a techinique was honed: the stitched effect on the seams, the slightly different expressive position of the arms makes each one an individual. Paula gets much of her inspiration from ceramics and figurines as sugar works structurally in much the same way.

Paula charges properly for her time and she has never had a disappointed customer. "I've learned not to cave in should a client's face fall at the point of delivery - $300 for a cake!" The cost of Paula's time is used on design, sometimes in collaboration with the customer, details, baking, assembling, decorating, details, delivery and installation often with as much care as an art gallery curator. Did she mention the attention to detail? "I never let a cake leave the kitchen without a little hand-painted detail, be it lustre dust for the shaping on a duck's beak or the roses on a mermaid's cheek," confrims Paula. She prides herself on being precise in the details, for each client they are personalised even down to the hair colour and outfit of the birthday child.

Along with a true respect for the discipline of cake decorating Paula's business gives space to her naturally caring side. On her website she reassures clients that she will take care of dietary requirements, delivery and make sure the client sits back and enjoys the party. "I think parties should be memorable and fun for both parents and children," she declares. "A stressed hostess is likely to be a snappy hostess and it's my role to take that stress away." Not only will Paula's service dissolve anxiety but it will cast a serene, shimmering glow of limelight in which the hostess can bask, reflected perfectly in Paula's talent.

Paula was kind enough to show step by step pictures of the UP cake on her website http://www.caterpillarbites.com/Special-Feature--.html

Once the cake is in situ and has drawn coos of wonder and admiration from the guests, all of which the host can absorb, and then been photographed with cake honouree, cut, cooed over a whole lot more and eaten, the guests' pictures up-loaded to Facebook and Twitter , the cost is really quite modest considering the high mileage of pleasure the cake gives through all stages of its life.

Paula is thinking of the future of Caterpillar Bites and it will get expensive in the short-term. Light industrial units and equipment are costly yet in the long-term Paula is confident her product can deliver enough returns to succeed. "Many women in small businesses have sold themselves short and cut costs only to find they are shooting themselves in the foot. I know my service has real value and I want to keep improving that." Does this mean more staff and delegation and, dare I say it, a dilution of control? "I'd happily have someone else waiting 2.5 hours in the kitchen for a mud cake to bake, but all the cake recipes are my own and I will not compromise on quality if I'm going to put my name to something," Paula says firmly.

Paula considers the appreciation of the cake decorator's art to be a fixture rather than a fad and believes its emotional impact will give in longevity in the food market-place. -"The end result can make people scream with joy. Seeing reactions like that make it all worthwhile, especially the responses from little kids." Paula has looked carefully in to her business and can crystalise its value perfectly; "It may last an hour at their party, but they remember the cake for many birthdays to come"

Basics and beyond. Buy your stuff here

2010-08-04T15:39:00.011+07:00

http://www.basicsandbeyond.com.au/

About half way up the Fitzgerald Street shopping strip your eyes will be drawn to a non-calorific candy-store for growups. If you are culinary-minded or creative in your creature comforts or enjoy brightly-coloured and shiny things then you will stop in your tracks at Basics and Beyond.

Angelo Tancredi has 10 years' experience of retail in London and has been operating in North Perth since 2008. His establishment has made a welcome splash of desire and enticement on the Fitzgerald High Street with its nod to the enticing and hard-working shop-fronts of the most popular of London's many village high-streets. In fact, it makes me feel like I'm back in Islington, Upper Street to be exact. Only I won't have to lease an internal organ to make a purchase.

Among the many, many gorgeous objects such as retro starburst clocks or a set of Japanese laquer-ware rice bowls I may want for my birthday, is the Cook Ware section. And it's good. And by that I mean Well Thought Out: There is a wall of practical blister-packed gadgets (I came away with things I needed; an oven thermometer, a set of ceramic blind-baking beads). There are another two walls of solid, sensible equipment including a cabinet of good knives and possibly the entire Scan Pan range. We all know we could update and expand our stock of baking sheets and chopping boards, that's common sense if you are a keen cook ( I also slipped in to my stash a bamboo meat carving board complete with a channel for the juices. The kind of thing you see on mortuary slabs).

There are tables laden with every kind of cake tin known to man, stacked and glistening like the turrets of castle. Why, yes, I do need a mini bund-tin as it happens. The tables also offer new things, so new in fact that they were featured on the ABC TV show The New Inventors only last month. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s2958807.htm : Clongs. click-lock sit up tongs. No more cacky counter tops when tossing carbonara. Angelo has them already, 9" of them at $24.95. http://www.dreamfarm.com.au/products/clongs/. I need a pair. Oh, and know someone in my household who needs a teafu http://www.dreamfarm.com.au/products/teafu.

Those are the Basics.

And now comes Angelo's master-stroke: The Beyonds. One turns to be sensible and complete the purchases but brushes against the really magical section of the shop's design and this is the shelves that blend from classy kitchen ware to funky gardening gloves re-usable plastic bags that seem to be made from a Hollywood Starlet's photo ablum and then the complete range of Urban Rituelle toiletries http://www.urbanrituelle.com/mmm.. Pomegranite. And one cannot ignore the cases of jewels and trinkets and the blatant, outright frippery.

Well why not? I have the Basics, and it is hardly my fault if to pay for them I am led to the Beyond. And you know what? I'll take trio of onyx photo frames for teacher's presents at xmas, and a few blocks of Margret River made http://www.oliveoilsoapfactory.com.au/ soaps while I'm here. And a handful of no-message greetings cards because the art of old-fashioned letter writing is dying. And look there's my real birthday present, I changed my mind; The Venturi red wine aerator pleaes http://vinturi.com/products/vinturi.html ...... Time to stop now. But I'll be going home and looking online for anything that may have got away.

Basics and Beyond
293 Fitzgerald Street
North Perth
08 9227 0304

The Angel food cake tin has three prongs evenly spaced around the rim. We don't know why. However it is my mission to find out and the item in and of itself is a thing of beauty. Watch this space. I imagine there will be a lady in the New Forest who will have an idea.

This is an onion-saver. You store the remainder of you onion in it to keep it fresh and your fridge fresh. Angelo tells me the shoplifters of North Perth have had three of these away in one week.

American Meatloaf Recipe

2010-08-03T16:19:00.006+07:00

I know a lady who has come back from holiday in the US and is asking for a meatloaf recipe. Meatloaf is an American standby, almost a by-word for wholesomeness, and who more wholesome than Campbell's to supply a recipe, full to the brim with soup, naturally.

This is from "The Campbell's Treasury of Recipes" and it is, sure enough a trove of ideas, ALL of them with soup; Double Decker Chicken Mould, Pork Chops with Party Hats and Sprig O'Spring Soup. There is also Meat-Shell Pie which I don't really want to visualise.

I have an Australian version edited by Margaret Fulton. I 'm guessing it's from about 1962

Here is my family's favourite from the three versions of meatloaf:

SAVOURY MEATLOAF
1 can Campbell's condensed cream of tomato soup
approx 850g minced beef (you could do it with a kilo but this is the minum)
1.5 cups of cornflaks lightly crushed
half an onion finely chopped
herbs of your choice, dry or fresh, e.g. parsley or oregano
1 tablespoon of worcestershire sauce
1 egg slightly beaten
1 teaspoon of salt
pepper

1 2lb loaf tin lined with baking parchement
roasting tin half filled with boiling water
oven at 180 degrees C
serves 6

Combine all ingredients: mix thoroughly (hands are best, you know that, right? Press in to loaf tin and place bain marie (the roasting tin with water) and bake in oven for 1 hour. When it comes out let it sit for 10 minutes before slicing, and tip the juices out too as this is where a lot of the fat will be.

Campbell's gives the following serving suggestion: Serve with additional cream of tomato soup sauce, if desired. Blend about 1/4 cup dirppings with 1 can soup; heat.

Food Photography. Flipping Heck, it's a Faff

2010-07-29T10:18:00.013+07:00

show us your pips

cauliflower cuplprit

Talking to Sheila Dillon on the Radio 4 Food Programme recently, Nigel Slater explained that the aim of food photography used to be perfection and the process labour intensive. (Nice chap, Nige. I know a woman who keeps a photograph of his house in her handbag.) Then in the mid 90s the French sexed it up. Food had to move, to writhe, to shimmer, to arch its back in ecstasy and let you, the viewer, catch it's sensual exhalation of flavour and texture and do with it what you will, you brute. Hopefully you are doing it in a dark room with the door tightly closed and a clean tea-towel to hand. Loose-flan bottoms are the new up-skirt shots, the motion of whisking to stiff peaks the new money-shots.

Then there are the endless books filled with roccoco tableaux, the Carvaggio still-life that sells Tessa Kiros.

Marcella Hazan got by on pen and ink line drawings, the austere simplicity of which did not divert millions from trying the best-ever recipe for chocolate mousse or roast chicken with lemons (available on request - just to see if anyone is reading this). Her foolproof and straightforward methods and notes on how to choose ingredients are supported only by utter confidence in her craft and generations of successful dishes. This gives the reader space to choose and does not presume their palate is so jaded and cloyed that they need ever-increasing kinkery to tickle their tastebuds.The illustrations show method not product. A bit like Alex Comfort. But without that creepy bearded chap.

As an amateur it is hard not to produce Readers' Wives style pictures. I mean, you remember Audrey? Similarly too much apricot glaze on a frangipane tart has much the same effect as lipgloss on a 5 year old American pageant contestant.

Of course, some dishes are simply unphotographable.
Robert Carrier, can you explain this? Is it not something the cat produced?
Robert had to fill 20 fabulous Cookery Cards for each pack of the series in 1968. They are, on the whole wonderful. But very occasionally ill-advised.
Orginal blog man James Lileks collated and venerated this kind of food photography. http://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html

a) CARAMELISED ORANGES WITH CREAM FILLED BRANDY SNAPS b) CARBONADE OF BEEF

I had two simple goals: a) to recreate in homage the cover of
the first edition of the seminal part-work The Cordon Bleu Monthly Cookery Course first published in 1968. This merits a whole article itself. I use it constantly. This picture tripped my wires as a kid and was very possibly the reason why I took to cooking b) to make a simple dish look stylish, attractive and tasty.

For both these goals I enlisted the help and the kitchen of my friend Allison, art teacher and interior designer. She has recreated, without an ounce of up-herself-ness, a French Provincial Kitchen in the Perth Suburbs complete with chandeliers, eathernware honey jars and a kitchen garden in which she keeps bees. She should know a thing or two.

Fortunately the food did not require too much fluffing. The caramelised oranges are completely gorgeous as they are, and indeed the making process yielded some of the most sensous images I shall ever take. Here are some from my private collection.

The Carbonade of beef had the right kind of unctuous exterior and depth of tone to wing it. Yet when it came to the photographing, who knew that putting brilliant white globes of cauliflower in the foreground would eclipse the meat? I just didn't think of it. Below you can see my friend Alison's beautiful dining setting but not much of the dish, nice composition but dreadful lighting

And that's what gave me the idea for this piece. This is where a professional with Leichas and light reflectors and meters and fundamentally basic knowledge would have flicked the lime-light stealing brassica from the dish and replaced it with a nice dense... well who know it may have been a tiny pair of purple patent leather mary-jane shoes or a cow's snout, it would just depend on the directions of the art-director and the market for the piece.

No, it was not the food itself that had us foxed, but a) the background and b) the props. Who knew that there are two competing shades of orange in a terracotta pot and sliced glazed carrots with thyme and honey? And who knew that the pyramid of cream-filled brandysnaps and the formless yet stable mass of oranges would defy any logically shaped background prop and always look mad? Ow, my eyes, take away the sunflowers and those jars are just plain crazy.

The answers are: The professionals. They know. They get paid to know. They plan and position and practise.

In future I shall stick to visually accurate, spontaneous and heartfelt images rather than acrobatically enticing or visually cleverer than I actually am images, (a motto many of us could well take on board in other rooms of the house, I'll warrant). Unless I'm getting paid. (Ditto)Any images I can capture of the process along the may which a)do not steam the lense of my camera or b) show my navvy/skivvy man-hands.

Would anyone like any of the recipes from this post? Do let me know.

Cold. Sticky Toffee Date Cake Cold

2010-07-22T10:30:00.008+07:00

It's winter here. It's chilly. Perfect for this:

I'm afraid we were on to the second bottle of shiraz voigner when I took the pictures so they are slightly squiffy. Those aren't my hands

Yes, I know there are dozens of recipes and versions out there but this one works for me. It works so well I will take it to a secluded corner and eat it all from the tin if I'm alone. As I consequence I only make it when I have Company.

I first made this in November 1999 when I was obsessed with the Sainsbury's Magazine. It was all coriander and olives and puy lentils and a nascent Nigel Slater and a very posh Lorna Wing and adverts for Twinnings Fruit Teas. This recipe is by Sue Lawrence who won Masterchef in 1991. Back in the days of Lloyd Grossman and guests like Penelope Keith no-one shouted about it being Tough and Real and none of the contestants broke more than a few beads of polite persperation, even when the big green capsicum flashed on screen. sue lawrence titles Sue, it really is a winner of a recipe, thank you. Clearly they don't call you "The Queen of Scottish Baking" for nothing.

RECIPE for STICKY TOFFEE DATE CAKE
175g stoned dates, chopped
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
250ml boiling water
75g butter
1 teaspoon - can I start putting tsp in now as the abbreviation? Would we all be cool wit that? - vanilla extract
175g light brown or plain granulated sugar
1 egg beaten
175g plain flour sifted with
1 tsp baking powder
and for the sauce:
75g butter
150g brown sugar, the darker the better
120ml double cream.
pre-heat oven to 180 degrees

Method:
1. Line a 7 inch loose bottomed cake tine with a circle of baking parchment
2. Place dates and bicarb in a pan and pour on the boiling water and heat gently for 5 minutes.
3. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until melted
4. Add the vanilla, sugar, egg, flour and baking powder and stir well.
5. Pour in to the lined tin and place on a baking sheet and then in to the oven. Bake for 20 minutes
6. Meanwhile make the sauce by heating all the ingredients together in a pan. Let them bubble for 3 minutes while stirring. Pour onto the cake and bake for a further 20 minutes. Do use a timer.
7. Leave to cool in the tin and serve when still slightly warm.
8. Prepare modest face for ensuing compliments.

To serve, best vanilla ice cream. In this picture I served a side of Butterscotch Angel Delight on account of wanting to share my culture with the Australians. They didn't get it.

Mandarines, dark chocolate and walnuts finish off the flavours well at the end of the meal, the main course of which was pork sausages, mash, kale and garlic and onion gravy.

Look What I grew. Butternut Squash

2010-07-21T10:36:00.006+07:00

Well technically I grew both of them but it is only legal in this country to eat one of them.

Do I make soup with many rinds of German smoked ham? Scones? Or plainly roasted for hours in clarified butter and olive oil with sage and thyme and a dressing of bottled caesar salad and slivers of crispy proscuitto?

But not today. I am listening to my body and this is it wants. Acutally it wants to snap its fingers and be back at the very top of the Holloway Road eating Makani Dahl and Bombay Saag Alloo and listening to the carefully chosen Jazz tracks Raj will be playing at The Sitara - the best of the high-street Indians restaurants in North London and still going strong 15 years on. Good for them, you had a vision, Raj. Sitara Indian Restaurant 784 Holloway Road; London; N19 020 7281 0649; Hey, all those dishes are v..v...v..Vegetarian.

So, it's the first vegetarian dish on Crackling. And time for a medium length Aside:

I used to be one. It was 1985, I was at Poole Arts Centre with my mates at a Smiths Gig (James support IIRC) and between the guitar jangling and the plaintive wailings about Manchester and its environs Morrisey spoke directly to us. He told that Meat was Murder. However what he didn't fit in to his lyrics was that it is also an excellent source of iron, b vitamins and many minerals vital for the nutritional stores-houses of young girls and women.

So I "went veggie" Evangelical, wholier than though, awkward, righteous Vegetarian. There followed endless suppers of beans on wholewheat toast with cheese, snacks of wotsits and potato latkes, pyramids of cheese and onion pasties.*** What a donkey.
I since discovered from music engineers and producers who had worked with Morrisey in the south of France that he is somewhat idiosyncratic in his culinary dogma; he won't have garlic on the premises or butter. And no murdered animals either. They would sneak out for big macs and loaf around the studio with the reek of their forbidden lovers still on their clothes like adulterers just for fun. Also, my friend Nicole swears Morrisey used to come in to a certain Manchester sandwich bar she worked in for tuna melts. How's he doing these days since Swindon?

Vegetarianism, as Anthony Bourdain proselytises, is very much a first world luxury - to pick and choose one's protein sources is a privilege. In the early 90s when Mr Wong and I traveled round Malaysia we would trek to a restaurant famed for Ayam Soto Beef Kway Tow, Char Siew or go out to dinner with the many cousins for house-specialities of venison tendon and river flounder and I would sit with with nose turned up and a sanctimonious demeanour prissily picking at pack choi (no oyster sauce). I doubt my actions saved a single bivalve. One day they gave me a taste of my own medicine and took me to the Bhuddist restaurant for a chow-down on mock-duck. Shudder. That'd shoulda oughta taught me.

Vegetarianism in the 80s and 90s, did call attention to the recklessly dangerous standards of animal-husbandry. Many of us spent valuable physical resources denouncing factory-farming and when the headlines were hit with BSE and the charmingly-named Scrapie for sheep, the standards and scales started to change. Plus old breeds re-appeard at the butchers - ah Freemans of Crouch End and your sublime Tamworth Bangers - and latterly the supermarkets.
I still cooked meat for work though, the irony of standing in Leadenhall Market with a 2k bag of best end of lamb neck one winter's day was not lost on me.

I saw sense in January 2002 after an anaemia-induced spin-out in Toys R Us Colney Hatch and made Mr Wong take me directly to Gaucho, the Argentinian Steak House in Hampstead for lunch (actually it was Uraguayan Fillet steak that day as there was some kind of Latin American Anglo Trade Embargo going on) I have never looked back. At all. And if at all it was to see if there were anymore fibres I could possibly gnaw off a rib bone dropped under the table. And the last time we were in Malaysia with the cousins they had to fight me for a mere sniff of the deep-fried pork hock.

I have friends who are vegetarians for health and karmic reasons. They get on with it calmly and wisely, perhaps having learned from the misadventures of buffoons like myself that there is little or no merit in heckling one's dining companions. I am still evangelical about eating meat: Eat a little of the best you can afford which has been reared and slaughtered in the best possible circumstances.

So finally I present the recipe for
CURRIED BUTTERNUT SQUASH

Oh this one is Malaysian, it has curry leaves which are optional, in fact this is really about technique - amalgamating the first ingredients to a fragrant paste.

500g peeled cubed butternut squash, hitherto known as BNSq
20ml oil
half a red onion finely chopped
one clove of garlice minced
a can of chopped tomatoes, drained
I used this mix of spices because it was what I had to hand but you, of course could use your own favourite blend or even a teaspoon or two of pre-made curry paste - the important thing is how one cooks them to release the flavour and turns the whole thing in to a paste: ground cumin, chinese five spice, tumeric and allspice because it really brings out the sweetness of the BNSq
15g of butter or ghee
150ml each of stock and coconut milk
half a can of chickpeas drained
salt
curry leaves
coriander leaves to serve

1. heat the oil and fry the onions until translucent and just starting to brown at the edges.
2. add the garlic and the tomato flesh and cook on low heat for 5 minutes stirring well
3. push this mixture to one side and turn up the heat slightly and sizzle the butter or ghee and throw in the spices. You want to toast them properly to release the aromas and if you're careful you shouldn't burn them so cook them for at least 60 seconds***
4. stir well to blend it all and cook for 2 minutes then add the BNSq coat with the mixture.
5. add the remaining ingredients, cover and simmer until tender - at least 20 minutes.
6. check seasoning and serve or leave for an hour so the flavours develop and serve luke warm but don't tell the health inspector.

I am going to serve mine with cauliflower, wilted spinach and lime pickle. If I could face the sheer drudgery of cleaning up my kitchen again today (I am very messy) I would make wholewheat roti to mop up the gravy properly. Perhaps another day.

*** prolific cookery author Rafi Fernandez gives this tip for the faint hearted fryer: Addition of spices when cooking: "always reduce the heat before adding any ground spices as they burn easily which will give a bitter flavour to your dish. I mix mine with a little water and fry them gently until the water has evaporated and the oil separated"
Rafi has dozens and dozens of titles Rafi Fernandez titles. I wonder why she is so much less-known that Madhur Jaffrey or Charmaine Solomon? What can have gone on behind the scenes?

** actually, whilst I depreciated my iron stocks I did appreciate my stock of original recipes. I do have some absolutely corking Vegetarian Recipes which I will throw in to Crackling as and when the mood takes me. Why, here's one now!
with the remaining half a can of chickpeas and the tomato juice I whizzed up a hybrid-hummous with olive oil, tahini, salt, roasted garlic and for the necessary zing I fried a teaspoon each of garam masala in oil and poured it in, a techinque Rafi Fernandez calls "tarka".

Chaste chicken, chicken clothed in a crispy coating covering the thighs so no child may know its true origins

2010-06-28T10:31:00.010+07:00

Some people are happy to see a carcass in it's gory glory before and even during consumption. Some are not. My youngest son is one of the latter and for him I make these chicken schnitzels or "Flat Chicken" as he calls it. Possibly a relative of Cousin Boneless (Cow and Chicken, anyone?)

CHICKEN SCHNITZELS
I make in bulk and freeze, so here is a recipe which will make you at least 20 schnitzels the size of 6 year old's ear, or there a bouts.

You will need:
4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
250ml milk
seasoning - I use the generic supermarket season-all product, unless a more up-market manufacturer would like to sponsor me
1 cup of plain flour
2 eggs beaten
1 tablespoon of fine cornmeal or polenta
1 tablespoon of crushed peanuts (optional but my boy needs all the protein he can get)
a lot of dry breadcrumbs - I would say at least 1.5 cups in volume.

Auxillary Equipment:
rolling pin
baking parchment
3 medium sized bowls

1. Trim the surplus fat and bone fragments and sinews from the chicken thighs and lay them out flat.*
2. Take a clean board and cover with a sheet of baking parchment. Place chicken thigh on the lower half and fold the parchment over to cover. With the rolling pin beat until flat. ** 3. Discard parchment paper and cut chicken thighs to size, as a guide 1 thigh should yield five schnitzels.
4. Pour the milk in to a shallow rectangular dish and submerge the chicken. Cover and leave for at least half an hour. ***
5. The egg, flour and crumb station - if you already know about this go to step 7:

You will need plenty of bench space for this procedure which can be messy but well worth mastering. There are few palates can refuse the crunch of perfectly crumbed and fried morsel.
From left to right set up a large plate, a bowl of breadcrumbs mixed with the cornmeal and nuts, a bowl of beaten eggs, a bowl of seasoned flour and the soaking chicken. Tip the milk from the chicken in to the eggs and mix well.
6.

You are going to keep one hand for the dry part of the procedure and the other for the wet. Let's presume you're right handed. Feel like a special flower if you're left. With the right hand take 4 chicken schnitzels and drop in the seasoned flour. Pick up each one individually and pat in the flour until coated, transfer them to the egg bowl and let them submerge. With your left hand take the wet chicken schnitzels out of the egg wash and trail them over the rim of the bowls in to the breadcrumb mix. It is very important to have all the three bowls touching. Sprinkle crumbs over the wet chicken, pat on the side of the bowl to remove excess and place in a flat layer on the plate.
That's it.
Do remember to keep one hand for dry and one for wet as far as possible because this stuff claggs your fingers together if you mix it up too much.
7. If you are going to freeze any of the schnitzels put the plate in the freezer uncovered for an hour then transfer them to a sealed container or freezer bag.
8. To cook: Heat vegetable oil in a small pan to 180 degrees - it must be hot or the crumbs will sop up the oil soggily - and fry on each side until golden brown. Do put a knife through the thickest part of the schnitzel to test it's cooked; salmonella is messier to get off your hands than flour, egg and crumb mix.
If cooking from frozen, let them thaw out first.

I sometimes fry the schnitzels briefly to get colour on each side and then finish them off in the hot oven which is cooking the accompanying crinkle-cut oven chips. If I could get my son to eat tinned spaghetti as a side dish I'd be carried off on a wave of Pommy Childhood Nostalgia. Irretrievably if Pipkins was on the tv at the same time.
SuperMousse for dessert.

courtesy of

* by contrast to Audrey, this chicken dish needs the most fluffing, when raw. I have to get my finger and knife tips right in there to feel for tiny shards of bone left and nick out the head of the vein. And at this point when handling raw meat one should take a moment to marvel at anatomy. This is the ---- veing head I am removing, without which the chicken would not move. Respect.

** note to self don't turn head to watch johny depp in his vest when in the rytm of beating. ow. That's on tv in Public Enemies, not on my sofa in the flesh. Shame.

**why soak in milk? - American recipes usually stipulate this procedure in order to tenderise the meat and stop it from drying out. I am not certain of a scientific principle which upholds this tradition but I 'll get back to you on this one. When I do it I like to fancy I'm in a Nina Simone song. Or Betty Davis. Depends on the weather.

Broccoli Rabe and Cauliflower accompaniment. Better post titles welcome.

2010-06-22T11:25:00.008+07:00

Although we are 48 hours away from our winter solstice it's 23 degrees and bright sunshine this Sunday.I don't actually have my Australian Passport yet so I'd better make safe and spark up the barbie:- I can do without a visit from the Immigration Department and barbie-ing is The Law under these conditions.

But what to cook?
I'm going to work backwards today. I turn my back on the barbie (Icannot type that while I still hold a British Passport, it's got to be BBQ) and spy my vegetable beds. Raised zinc vegetable beds. Oi, oi Tufty - your number's up: Broccoli Rabe.

Rappini, Broccolini, Broccoli Rabe. Bitter, leafy, stalky and eventually I am told, flowery. But always full of vitamin C and iron. Erect outer leaves cut off at the stalks, plant still growing. Wash, cut in to four or five sections of 4cm lengths and blanched.

Moisture squeezed out and thrown in to a pan containing sizzling sliced red chilli, a teaspoon of roasted garlic and lots of olive oil. Let the greens steep in the aromatics and be coated with the flavoured oil. Add half a cup of water and put the lid on, simmer for 5 minutes, lid off for 5 to let water evaporate. (Hey, that's just like the Tzh Tzai Choi , guess this must be the best tried and tested cross-cultural fail-safe way to get the most out of bitter, dark green leaves! Why, yes, yes it is! Toast pine-nuts in the olive oil for curly kale leaves, add lots of black pepper and finish with grated parmesan).

So far so good, what's in the fridge? Boiled cauliflower florets. I sense a contrast of flavours, colours and textures afoot: Mild musty cauliflower and intense, fresh rappini. Darkest green broccoli rabe and anaemic cauliflower. Shreds of leaf still with a bite and mush. In fact I mush the cooked cauliflower between my fists to purge the water - few things do I detest more than watery food. In to the rappini pan with some oil from a jar of anchovies, a fillet or two set to melt in the bottom. Mix well and let bubble then splash in cream to bind. Salt and pepper to taste. In fact, and this almost never does cauliflower any harm in fact it is character building, let it get a crispy bottom. N.B. this is also superbly low-carb and will go with any well flavoured meat. You know who you are.

Time to think of the main act.
Not sausages. Not Australian BBQ snags. Don't get me started. The German butcher is shut and there are no boerworst at my fabulous GorBlimey local butcher, Steve, today. But there is steak. It must be steak.

You know how to barbecue steak right?
Well fill in your own captions to the following. And if you don't then beg me in the comments box below.

The gravy was made by taking the steak juices over the heat while the steak was resting on a warm plate and stirring in dijon mustard and straining directly over the plate.

Now I have earthy, salty vegetables cut with cream for texture which will mop up the meat juices and gravy, I need a blend of fresh/sweet/acid to finish the job.
Tomatoes with garlic chives, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Perfect. You know how to skin a tomato, right? No tomato should be eaten with it's jacket on in winter. Too tweedy. Gah.

I do not stack or tower or deep fry shredded baby leeks nor do I smear or even sprinkle at the point of presentation. I 'm not technically a chef and I more concerned with ease of eating than with fuss.

Suffice to say the Holden full of officers from the Department Of Immigration and Citizenship drawn up at the front were satisfied. Plus my mother in law was watching The Dockers in her Uggs.*

* not really.

Chicken 3-Way

2010-06-16T13:12:00.008+07:00

You know how to cook a chicken, right?
Well then just look at the photos this week, the northern afternoon light does stream through my kitchen blinds in a most fetching way I confess.
If you would like to add to your knowledge of how to obtain 3 dishes from a simple single chicken, read on.

All cultures have chicken soup. And the basic reason is that from bathing your chicken in simmering water with local and customary aromatics you can a) cook the meat b) extract the goodness in liquid form and c) make a single beast go a long, long way.

Here's Audrey, as we'll call her. She's just come out of her aromatic bath leaving behind the gorgeous and wholesome liquor or stock. Shame Audrey didn't have the grace to shut her legs. I have hidden her unsightly cavern behind a passionfruit leaf to protect the sensibilities of my readers.

She's had a bath in 3 litres of hot water with carrots, celery tops, half an onion, a shake of season-all generic spices you can get at the supermarket and perhaps this is what loosened her up in the pelvic region - chinese rice wine. There has to be some ingredient to give savoury depth of flavour, to pull it all together and make it Broth. Or Stock. Make it savoury.

When Audrey had cooled somewhat I pulled her apart. Eased her limbs from her body and the flesh from her limbs like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. I took the opportunity to discard her nubbly bits and her tendons, her skin and her gristle and came up with chunks and shreds of her sweet meat. Place to one side.

The first way:
Audrey's breasts I chopped. Not too fine. They formed the prize in a versatile blend of sauteed spring onions, mushrooms and bacon (saute in bacon fat if you have it), along with sweetcorn kernels, dried herbs and more of the same generic spice blend. Sprinkle in Audrey's chunks and half a can of condensed mushroom soup. Now cut a heaped dessert spoon of cornflour with a cup of her bath water and blend till smooth and add to the pan. Bring to a simmer and hey presto: - the filling to chicken and mushroom pies for son #'s lunch box. Form and freeze.

The meat in the sandwich:
Because I don't want anyone to find Audrey's remains directly, she's all going in the freezer. Parts of her will end up like this: Jewelled domes of frozen chicken and mushroom soup. It's very easy: In a large pan put the other half of the condensed soup, some more of the cornflour/stock mix, a can of creamed sweetcorn, some finely sliced mushrooms, milk and of course the glistening shreds of thigh and wing and throat which Audrey yielded. When all this goodness is simmering throw in a handful of uncooked rice, put a lid on it and simmer for 12 minutes. Again, pour in to many bowls for that large surface area action, portion and freeze. 8 supper-sized soup portions for son#1.

And finally:
Her bath water I strained and poured in to as many large bowls as I could fit on my bench-top in order for maximum surface evaporation - I want to get this stuff cooled down an what would be Audrey's ring around the bath tub flotsam away from the broth so I can package what I won't use today in to boxes to freeze. Chicken Stock: basis and booster of so many dishes. I even cook fussy son#2's maggi noodles in it so that some of the Audrey-y goodness is absorbed in to those squiggly cheap flour strands he loves so much.

"easy" Paella.

And speaking of boxes, in my inbox I found a request from a reader (aka a mate I had emotionally black-mailed to read Crackling) for Paella, or rather something easy to use up her chorizo and chicken knocking around in her fridge. You want me to put on a Mantilla and click the castanettes as well?
I worked at an event for a Spanish family doing the canapes while in the back room were 4 generations of Spanish women sitting tightly around a 1.8m diameter paella pan, its contents unctuous and savoury in the extreme. No one out side the family, especially no one in Catering was getting near that baby and the secrets it held. They were, however very happy for us to carry it and it's moltenly scorching and slopping contents up 2 flights of stairs to the poolside for service. The women had spent days on it and now doubt spent litres of sweat while smuggling in goodness knows what cavities the requisite authentic ingredients on their last long-haul flight from the mother-land. So now that we know there is no such thing as an easy paella, we can know that there is an easy and tasty way to use up chicken and chorizo and chicken stock and put on an Antonio Banderas dvd and be close.

To serve 6 or 4 with leftovers for tomorrow's lunch My mate will need
1 large sliced chorizo
about 300g or 6 thighs, two breasts chicken - if not already cooked then break in to joints and put in a roasting dish with salt and pepper and olive oil and cover with foil. Roast in 180 degree oven for 35 minutes, keep the juices and set aside
liberal quantity of olive oil
1 finely diced onion
1 clove crushed garlic
250g rice (any type but basmati)
can of tomatoes drained, juice reserved
a glass of any kind of wine
about 600ml chicken stock
paprika to taste
thyme, dried or frexh
150g or two handfuls of frozen peas
100g some kind of capsicum - bottled or roasted but not raw and NOT unpeeled. So if you can bear to roast it and peel it do.
stoned olives of any type
salt and pepper

In a large pan heat 20 mls of olive oil and sweat the onion. When transparent add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes.

Now for the aromatics and the fruit: Add paprika and stir through, let it sizzle. Then the chorizo. Allow the slices to char a little and to release their lardy goodness.
Then the strained tomatoes, mixing them in and breaking them down a little with a spoon. This will intensify the flavour and sweetness of the dish. Now the wine, let it, yes, sizzle.

Now for the rice, but first please add the tomato juice to the stock and bring to a simmer - any liquid for rice cooked this way must be hot. Take the unwashed rice and add to the pan, stirring well to coat with. Add the hot liquid and stir well. Reduce the heat.

Now get the rice cooking while stirring often to prevent stickage ( no body likes to wash off burned rice. No one, I tell you). After 5 minutes of cooking add the cooked chicken and attendant juices.

After another 5 minutes, or when the rice is 3/4 cooked add the capsicum and olives, thyme and salt and pepper. Puth the lid on the pan and turn off the heat. Wait 5 minutes. Throw in the peas and stir. Replace lid. Wonder how much farther Melanie Griffiths will go to keep Antonio and then check the seasoning and serve.
Buono Estente

And from the North Western Quadrant...

2010-06-14T10:04:00.012+07:00

Lemon Meringue Pie for dessert. It's a triple layer of science: Pastry, Custard, Meringue.
One of my guilty pleasures is watching Canadian Pastry Chef Anna Olson's series Sugar. Man, I 'm surprised that woman has any teeth left. She is, however, technically valuable. For example she tells one to strain the custard ( there are always claggy, eggy floaters) and to put the raw pastry shell in the freezer to firm up. And she's right.
You can have a look at her recipe for yourselves, I 'll just bang on about the way I did it. http://www.lifestylefood.com.au/recipes/9352/lemon-meringue-pie
Oh, and it went down very well as the last course of the Family Fusion Feast. Except for fussy son #2 who had crisps.

Changes: I used cream not egg to bind to pastry - it worked.
I used a ceramic pie dish, however, next time I will be using a loose bottomed metal pie tin. A bit like this one* The holes in the bottom encourage the moisture in the pastry to evaporate promoting a crisp bottom. Soggy bottoms often let pie and tarts down. Make your own joke.

*After spending 8 minutes of my life trying to find a picture of one online I come to the conclusion this is Not The Best Use of Anyone's time, particularly when my kitchen looks like this.
However, I do know a man who sells them. From this shop - more of which later on this week.http://www.basicsandbeyond.com.au/

Ms Olson makes good points about the pastry - firm up the shell in the freezer for 10 minutes before baking, give it an al-foil collar half way through cooking and let it sit in the turned-off oven for 10 minutes after baking time.

All these steps are worth taking time over as the crispness, yet tenderness of your pie shell is what will count.
Pastry = Science. More of that later.

The lemony custard filling of a LMP must be firm and sharp and sweet, so don't skimp on the lemon juice nor the cornstarch.

The meringue must be crisp on the outside and yielding on the inside.

Sure enough, the one I produced was all of the above, however I did not bargain for the extra catergory of Sloshy.

Because, like the best of us, I can be a Fat Handed Twat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQyxGTjZi2I, as I pick up the finished pie to transfer it to the fridge I drop, it just a little: it leaks a clear fluid. Mild Panic. Have I stuffed up the meringue? The egg whites are not plasticised in the centre and are oozing water? I dip in one of my fat fingers and the liquid is lemony-sugary syrup. In my mild panic I knock an olive oil bottle on denting the meringue top and after explaining to my son why I am swearing I excise 2cm square piece for further investigation. It is not the meringue - that is continent, it must be the filling. The pastry is not soggy, so I must be the filling. I tip the dish and more lemony-sugary syrup trickles out. The filling has separated. What is the science behind this? Eggs = Science. Have the stupendously effective insulating properites of egg white prohibited the escapte of the steam from the re-heated filling? Is it merely lemony condensation?
Anyhow, I am thankful I drained the pie before serving or would a thorough chilling have re-amalgamated the filling?
Dunno, but I won't be cutting no watery slice of pie I can tell you.

On the whole, I got it about 85% right. Thanks for the tips, Anna. It was gone in 85 seconds.

Fusion Family Style

2010-06-12T10:01:00.005+07:00

I am only going to say this once, for those who may not know: I am Suzy Wong by marriage. Mr Wong's heritage is Chinese, ancestral home Sabah, East Malaysia.

And this week one of the many cousins and his family is here in holidaying in Perth. There is food. Lots and lots of food. Not fancy. Not restaurant standard. Not painstakingly thought out. Not complicated. Not towered nor stacked nor served in trios or quartets. Not garnished. Food we like. Food we are good at Making. Food we want to share with our family. Fusion.

Just for example on Monday night the table was loaded with Vegemite and Mozzarella on Toast for fussy son #2, satay beef in gravy not on skewers, bok choi cooked in single malt Irish whisky (duty free) because we'd run out of Chinese rice wine, scallops cooked plainly in olive oil, portobello mushrooms sliced like steak and fried, rolls of smoked salmon, rolls of leg ham (no olek-sambal aioli to pull the influences together)

and, best of all, something straight out of the back yard.
That's what I admire so much about the way the Chinese cook: they use everything they have. In family cooking there is nothing too humble to put next to the grand. My Mother In Law (MIL) plucked these from the back yard.

The leaves of the sweet potato plant which grow haphazardly in the yard, the tubers themselves too small and knobbly to use. So she uses the leaves. Washes and washes and washes them and blanches for 2 minutes. She fries the typical Chinese Malaysian blend of aromatics for vegetables of red chili, minced garlic, dried prawn and salt in light olive oil (fusion) until golden and then chucks in the potato leaves and stir fries for 2 minutes.

Back in Sabah she would use Sayur Manis (Malay) or Tzh Tzai Choi (Hakka).
One can breath in the vitamin and iron vapours coming off this dish. It is perfectly balanced as a nutritional compliment to small amounts of protein and rice of a simple family meal and tonight it is a flavoursome high point to the melange of dishes on offer.

My cousin also tells me snow peas and snake beans can be cooked in the same way.

Sit Fan (eat food)
Dig In.
Eat Fusion food without spotting the influences, the flavours. Without scoring points for identifying the most polarised ingredients matching one another. Eat what your family thinks is good.

Restaurant Reviewing when Mature

2010-06-06T08:35:00.010+07:00

I'm old-ish, I 'm European, I 'm gobby and I ruffle up the wrong way very easily. Would anything I say influence a) the restaurant or b) a diner's choice and experience? I'm not so sure. So I couldn't help but wonder, is restaurant reviewing in a small city like Perth something I should touch?

Cantina 663, Mount Lawley, Last night.

Tappas bars in Spain have the dishes on the counter near where the money changes hands ergo, well-lit and simply easy to see. That's why they work. Take a pawful and your glass of vino tinto to the corner of the bar and stand with your friends in the dark because you got to see the goods at point of sale. That's why they work.

I don't like waiters to hang their buttocks over my food when serving the adjacent table because the dining room designer has left such a narrow gulley between tables that the waiters are forced to stand sideways. - what can you do?#

I don't like it when the waiter drags his knuckles over my cutlery on my plate when he puts down new dishes - what can you do?#

I don't like it that the lovingly executed presentation of the poletna-crusted sweetbreads, the jamon croquettes ( not a good idea to serve them on oily pimento alioli, there is enough oily sweetness in side the well-flavoured croquettes which I am over-joyed to notice are just as wet and fragile as the ones I make) nor the gremolata prawns is obscured by the dreary gloom of the ill-lit dining room. - what can you do?*

I don't like it that the lighting is so dim I can't read the menu nor see the food from the feeble rays of the single tealight on the table - what can you do?*
The wait staff can't see the food either:- I am told that the mound of deliciousness accompanying the excellent duck liver parfait is quince paste when it is onion confit. Clarity in the dining room is needed, clearly

# answer - absolutley bugger-all: If you don't know you're doing this and you're still working then fergeddaboutit.

* answer - when you (well me, blogs are all me, me, me right?)bump in to the head chef on the way back from the powder room you can, because you are older and have more insurance (Thelma and Louise - do keep up) can tell him that his food is wonderful and much appreciated but he needs to tell the precious interior designer to spit out the style dummy and bite the common sense bullet and put some more light in the dining room.

Sorted.

I shall not be reviewing restaurants any more. Impossible to even put a toe in the shadow of Giles Coren and AA Gill. Plus these guys are doing a fine job here in Perth
http://perthfoodengineers.wordpress.com/about/#comment-613

Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake

2010-06-03T17:13:00.001+07:00

A friend of mine who lives an idyllic Famous Five meets Cranford lifestyle deep in the English countryside is taking her family on a picnic tomorrow. She will pack nice ham, cheeses, chicken, salad leaves, tomatoes and nice crisps. Clearly her children will pick at these items and indicate loudly that they wish they'd stopped at Gregg's on the way and why is that man in the bushes over there taking such a long time to do his buttons up. However, my friend is trying her best to complete the picnic idyll and she has requested the following recipe for the sweet finish:

She needs to, oh hell let's use her name: Edith....
Edith needs to set her oven to 180 degrees, oh hang on I know for a fact she's got a shonky aga, well I guess the bottom oven but to be honest I dunno. Slow oven I would imagine.

Edith needs to line a loaf tin with baking parchment.

Right, she's ready to go.

75g good plain chocolate
100g soft butter
150g caster sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract - none of your imitation nonsense
3 eggs
1 teaspoon of grated lemon zest
150g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
50mls milk

1. Melt the chocolate in a small bowl set over a pan of simmering water
2. In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
3. Add the eggs one at a time beating well inbetween eggs
4. Add the vanilla and lemon zest
5. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and fold it in well. You may need to add the milk because you, sorry how impersonal, Edith wants a good dropping consistency so quite a wet batter.
6. Get another bowl
7. Put a third of the mix in this nice new bowl and mix in the chocolate.
8. Drop large dollops of the two mixtures (I have another friend called Joanne who physically shudders when she hears that word, mixture. And another friend called Julian who exhibits the same phobias over the words "fret" and "holler")into the cake
9. Give them a little smoothing spread with a spatula to get the marbling effect. Pick up the tin and drop it on the work top to knock out any air pockets and bake in your proper 180 degree oven or, Edith, your trial and error shonky aga. About 35 minutes, but poke it with a skewer. You know the drill

Bon chance, Edith.
I hope your picnic is bucolic in the extreme and you spend the balmy summer evening galloping with stallions.

Influenced by Idris

2010-06-03T10:01:00.000+07:00

Well, they turned out bulky. Robust, smooth with chocolate sheen and lipsmackingly delicious.

An exquisite, dainty confection they were not. Guess I 'll have play Amelie in the background if I want that kind of effect

Ann Willan's instructions were most informative: Add the flour in one hit to avoid lumps, remember drying time in the oven is just as important as baking time.
She should know what she's talking about. She ran La Varenne http://www.lavarenne.com/ for many years and is a luminary in the American Culinary Scene. I feel a piece about Ann and women like her coming on. What are they made of? Why are they Home Economists not chefs? Are they the women who would have been Cooks in large households pre-1939?

Any how.....next from the Sainsbury's Masterclass volume is Sarah Nop's Cold Lemon Souffle.

Poor neglected Creature. Or "I only call you when I want something"

2010-06-02T08:52:00.000+07:00

Did you miss me? Did you? Huh?

No of course not.
There are legions of other food blogs out there and besides, you have Your Own Life.
I didn't miss me/it/this either to be frank. However, I was under the impression that the remaining months of my year would be taken up with a foundation science course at uni as a prerequisite to a Masters in Food Science but that is not the case: course postponed for re-grouping and starting in 2011.
So I have decided to immerse my 60s born self in the second decade of the 21st Century and blog in earnest for 6 months; to see what comes of it, to leave proof that I Was Here (the archeologists of the future will not recreate salient citizens of yore with brooche fragments or arrowheads but by numbers of comments and links to uber-bloggers.

I do not know where this blog is going, to whom it would be remotely useful or interesting. But every other fecker seems to have one and so shall I. (put that on the fly-jacket of the ensuing book version, at least it's honest)
Although I am somewhat aimless, charmingly or irritatingly, I have a morning free in front of me and in order to kick-start Crackling I shall learn to make profiteroles from The Sainsbury's Masterclass cookery book - a step-by-step to classic dishes published in Full Colour in 1988. I shall also have episode 11 season 1 of The Wire on in the background. Idris Elba. Mmmmmmmm.

Ann Willans, Home Economist, will be guiding me through profiteroles.

Home Economists - a much neglected and seemingly pedestrian breed, however I feel a renaissance coming on.:strokes beard and ponders.

Black Forest Gateau - Happy Birthday Norwegian Internet Sprite

2010-02-12T18:38:00.001+07:00

Well the Angel Food cake was polished off and the plate licked by the ladies in the school canteen. I can take off my hair shirt now.

I know an internet sprite in Norway who may be tempted to make Black Forest Gateau for her own birthday cake:

N.B. you really need to make this a day or a morning at the very least in advance. And make sure the kids are not underfoot you will need to give it your full attention but it is so very worth it.

Cake:
175g butter or margarine
175g caster sugar
3 eggs separated
150g self raising flour
75g best quality cocoa powder
1 tsp coffee powder
a little milk to bind
Method:
preheat oven to 170 degrees
line a 7 inch cake tin with a loose bottom
beat the sugar and fat until pale and fluffy and beat in the egg yolks one at a time. Sieve dry ingredients on to baking paper and set aside.
In a large spotlessly clean bowl beat the egg whites until stiff. In a third bowl mix in alternate spoonfuls of the two (start with the sugar and butter and spoon in a big metal spoon's worth of egg white and fold gently). Use a little milk to bind until the mix is wet but not runny - what they used to call a soft dropping consistency in Home Economical Days. Turn in to the cake tin and bake for about 35 minutes or until risen and springy and just starting to come away from the edge of the tin. It is best to leave it to cool in the tin, cover with plastic and chill overnight but not a hanging offence if you don't have time.

Cherry filling:
250g fresh cherries
125ml water
100g caster sugar
dash of vanilla essence
vodka

OR a 400ml or thereabouts jar of morrello cherries.

Method:
Pit the cherries and put in a pan. Add the sugar and water and dissolve over gentle heat. Give them a poke and splash in the vanilla stew them for 10 minutes. Strain them reserving the syrup. Rinse the cherries in a sieve. Reunite with the syrup and lace liberally with vodka.

Filling and decoration:
600ml double cream
50g chopped toasted hazelnuts
150g very dark chocolate
gelatine

Assemblage:
In a small pan bring 200ml of cream to a gentle simmer. Stir in 50g chopped chocolate and chill.
Dissolve a teaspoon of gelatine powder in a little hat water and mix it in to the chocolate cream and chill again for 20 minut
Clear the decks, you will need lots of space. Slice the cold cake in to three horizontally and put on to three plates, one of which will be your serving plate because once this baby is assembled it ain't going nowhere prettily. Drain cherries dousing each cake with the syrup * if you are using bottled cherries do the same but use no more than 100ml of their juice and don't forget the vodka. *
Stack the cake layers ending with the plain cake.
Beat 400ml of the cream til stiff. Spread half of it on one cake and top with half the cherries, repeat. That gives two cakes spread with cream and cherries. Don't eat it yet. Spoon a little chocolate cream on the the top of the cake and sprinkle with nuts.
Make chocolate shards or curls - I am too cack-handed to do the curls - and stick them round the side of the cake into the cream. There Will Be Gaps.
Using a piping bag pipe rosettes of chocolate cream on to the top, I suggest 10 of them to give a cutting guide.
Put a cover on and chill for 2 hours.
Ta -Daaaaaaaaaa!

It's no Angel

2010-02-11T19:44:00.000+07:00

I am certain Angel Food Cake served in any smart town-house on the Eastern Seaboard, no let's narrow it down to the genteel cafes of North Carolina, does NOT come out like this: Further south the ladies of Maycomb county would hide this disgrace in the cleft of an oak rather than send it round to Boo Radley.

Marshmallowy. A stench of sugar on the burn-turn and the leathery yet oozing and sticky surface of Jabba the Hutt. What went wrong? Does anyone know? There must be a perfect alchemic formula, a golden proportion of egg white, sugar and flour. And then of course there is the final piece of the perfect cake puzzle: Know Thine Oven Like The Back Of Thine Hand. I am between ovens at present, waiting for a new one to be fitted. I used my Mother-in-Law's fan-forced electric. Only I now know it to be a fan-fettered electric. My Mother-in-Law likes to cover fans with tin foil; the one in her oven, the top of the outside air-con unit. Dunno why. Maybe she got spooked by Angelheart.

However, never wishing to miss an opportunity to experiment I filled the two layers with what I fancy is a butterscotch pastry cream: Butter and raw sugar cooked together for some minutes and finished off the heat with milk and cream. Back on the heat with cornflour stirred through until it is cohesive and set.

My word, it is delicious. Not pretty or easy to serve. Delicious.

Hmm..... trial and error is the only way to learn. I shall pursue my quest for the right recipe and right method (and very likely right mood) for this American Classic. Watch this space.

Now American Chocolate Fudge Brownies, the type that Alicia Keys' PA vetoed, now those I CAN DO.

Pleasant

2010-02-08T16:55:00.000+07:00

The Beach Boys, the two remaining members Bruce and Mike (oh yes first name terms) and their band, are extremely pleasant.
They clear their own plates, they eat white bread and candy and they laugh a lot. However, backstage at King's Park on a balmy summer afternoon it's pretty hard not to be. I'm not mentioning no names or nothing.

I have a lot of cookery books. Many of them snaffled from my bibliophile mother's formidable collection. I don't know where to start. In a fit of unoriginality I go with A to Z. So this week it's Patricia Lousada's American Sampler, A Sainsbury Cookbook from 1982. 75p.

I 'm going with the big classics for all the family: Chef's salad, New York spinach and bacon salad with hot dressing, chicken tamale pie, tuna noodle casserole, popovers, Angel food cake.

You may notice Chocolate Brownies are not on the list. You may be aware I have already mistressed those squashy brown squares of gooey goodness. But that's another story.

Now the kids are back at school I shall be able to give attention to learning how to drive this blogging contraption put in some direction and plot to it all.

What's for your dinner?

Grohl kept his mouth shut. Pasties

2010-01-21T08:29:00.000+07:00

And drummed for 90 minutes straight. Joy all round. Sublime joy. Them Crooked Vultures. What a show. One felt one had been fluffed by Josh Homme, ** by Grohl and struck up the post-coital with JP Jones. Job done.

I shall be using this space to culture my own fantasies. I believe that is what blogs are for, if the fantasy of a thousand readers chuckling and clucking is on the receiving end surely the giving end must be filled with one's own fantasies. Chief among mine is that I can still shop at Waitrose. And by jingo I still can: I can click on "SHOP" on the Ocado menu and whether that is "shop" the verb or the noun, I can browse the aisles and fill my virtual basket. Without nasty indents on my upper ulna from the plastic handles.

So today, I choose http://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Steak--Stilton-Pasty-Waitrose/43683011?parentContainer=|20001|20002|20135|20172. Hand crimped. Hopefully by someone with a fresh pair of latex gloves. Best eaten cold with one hand while driving home up Hornsey Rise. Do remember to put it on the checkout conveyer belt last for easy access.

I'm going to make my own version this week and if anyone gives two figs I 'll let you konw how I got on.

Feeder update: Now shape-shifted in to Renegades http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renegades_(band) with lots of gigs lined up , I guess Mark Richardson is busy working on the new Skunk Anansie CD. Feeder had to call their website "FeederWeb" on account of attracting the wrong kind of fans to just "Feeder". A deadly art.

Do excuse lame links, I can't drive this thing yet.

2010-01-19T07:34:00.000+07:00

Them Crooked Vultures in 13 hours. I am going to see Grohl drum.
I've never seen John Paul Jones. I saw Josh Homme actually as a support for Foo Fighters with QOTSA at Stratford, East London in August 2000. Blimey that was a long time ago. Around that time I was cooking for the Welsh band Feeder who were recording Buck Rogers with the fabulous and wonderfully talented producer Gil Norton (that's the man who gave us the sound on The Colour and The Shape and the Pixie's Doolittle. Oh yes: He's the DADDY). This is what I cooked them for dinner one night. It was the days when Coriander was King and I used to buy fat bunches of it at the Greek Cypriot Green Grocer's in Crouch End. And those honey soaked dried figs .... ah London. It all seems so dated now. Perhaps it's time for a 90s come back.

Chicken baked with garlic and rosemary - I 'm sure I lifted that from a Sainsbury's Magazine recipe by Nigel Slater
Avocado and rocket sald
Caramelised onion foccacia

Tiramisu - that came from a Tesco's magazine. They were written by proper home economists and used to give costs per portion
Grapes and Honeyed Figs

Pretty much the same time I was cooking and delivering food for a cafe without a kitchen in an art gallery in Westland Place, Old Street. Number 15. It was a gorgeous old building. The Gallery closed a year later and was taken over by some rich restaurateur who named it simply after its street number. I have a feeling he put in a substantial kitchen on the ground floor.

Can you guess who it was yet?

Beginning

2010-01-18T21:20:00.000+07:00

So let's get the Me ME ME ME out of the way:

By day I am a vovlo-driving suburban Mum, in Perth Western Australia. By other times I am an English Expat, on the cusp of past-it rock-chick and a cook to the stars with an excellent pedigree and plenty of experience. I am only Chinese by marriage.
Years ago I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and cooked for bands in a North London recording studio. There followed a break for breeding and emigrating then back to the coalface working in event catering but chiefly backstage catering at outdoor music shows in Perth.
I like to cook, I like to name-drop (although if I can't say anything nice I won't be saying anything at all - I still work in the industry) and I like to amuse myself with degrees of separation I have to most of the music industry circa 1999). I adore slow cooked pork shoulder and BBQ shapes dipped in mayo and chili sauce. Though of course not on the same plate. If I could cook for three people tomorrow (two of whom are in Perth as I type) I would select The Reverend Al Green, Dave Grohl and Anthony Bourdain - even though he's usually over-joyed with fried beef slurry on a stick. And of course a rescue team in Haiti. I could whip up a temporary canteen and hearty food in a few hours. (Did you send your money in?).

For dinner tonight I 'm going to make a laksa with a fumet I have in the freezer made from the bones of a potato cod - here's the first tip: Learn to fillet fish, make a fumet with the carcass to freeze for later and never pay 32 bucks a kilo again. And make sure you gouge all the meat out of the head and cheeks. Oh and do it the night before your bins go out so the scraps don't stink out your kitchen,

Tomorrow night I 'm going to see Them Crooked Vultures and what's more I actually paid for the tickets. I am tremendously excited. A-quiver, no less. I-pod docked in Volvo, New Thang at full blast while taking the kids to the pool

This is my first blog so if you feel the need to comment don't worry about being kind and fluffy just make sure you're witty.

Bon Chance, mes amis.