AU Culinary News:

Feast meets west

Posted by admin on May 23rd, 2010

JANE WILLSON AND SARINA LEWIS

Over the decades, influential Melbourne chefs have shaped a city-wide appreciation of the vibrant flavours of the Middle East. Jane Willson and Sarina Lewis have asked them to share their secrets, culinary cornerstones, their inspiration and all-important shopping tips.

GREG MALOUF

Malouf was born in Australia of Lebanese parents. He worked with various top chefs in Melbourne before spending time in Europe. Acclaim came in the early 1990s at O’Connell’s, the South Melbourne pub he turned into a restaurant destination. He’s now executive chef at MoMo, where he’s been since 2001. Also the author, with former wife Lucy, of four acclaimed books on the Middle East.

How did the cuisine of your childhood shape your palate?
My palate’s very acidic. As a kid we’d eat a lot of yoghurt, and even with meat there was a squeeze of lemon on it. There was a lot of . . . refreshing flavours, so a lot of sumac and mint and coriander and parsley. I think my love of heat comes from (later) travels through North Africa and parts of Turkey.

What was the state of Middle Eastern cuisine in Melbourne when you began experimenting at O’Connell’s in the early 1990s?
It was considered exotic. There wasn’t anything inspiring about taking the food to the next level, which means an interesting mix of technique and ingredients, plus making the food look a lot more architectural or sexier. I guess it was more about the taste of the dish and not the look of the dish.

When did that start to change?
In the early ’90s. I had this dream for many years to take Middle Eastern food out of its kind of greasy takeaway shops and supermarkets and put it into nice surroundings. O’Connell’s was a great vehicle for that. As the years went by the food matured. My palate started to clearly mature as well, and I developed a nice sense about how to put the food together, using my childhood memories and my travels to help develop those dishes.

Where do you find your inspiration?
I’ve got a pretty big appetite and if I’m in a different country I’ll usually focus on traditional dishes — I can interpret that in my own way and put a Middle Eastern slant on it. I might be in Tokyo and have some beautiful little quail dish. I look at it and try and make a connection between my past, that dish, and how I’d like to present it.

What approach to the cuisine do you hope Melbourne will further adopt?
We haven’t explored to the fullest extent what mezze is. It can be 20 little dishes on the table; things like raw chopped liver and raw onion with a little bit of spice; brains put into a salad; raw minced lamb with cracked wheat and spices.

What Middle Eastern country will next take Melbourne by storm?
I think Iran. Their pilaus are amazing. Their food is very different as well — more herbaceous and less spicy. The only meat that’s really used is lamb or chicken, and quite a bit of seafood both down south in the Persian Gulf and up in the Caspian Sea. There’s beautiful food up there and great seafood dishes.

What’s the future of Middle Eastern cuisine in Melbourne?
Melbourne is probably the epicentre of Middle Eastern, if not contemporary Middle Eastern food. We’re in pretty good hands with a younger generation of cooks, especially Lebanese cooks. Rumi is one place that I think is quite remarkable. And also Gigibaba. Some great dishes come out of those kitchens.

ABLA AMAD

Amad is one of the handful of people who have gone without introduction in Melbourne’s restaurant world for several decades. Her Lebanese restaurant in Carlton’s Elgin Street has been doing its thing for 31 years. Little has changed, just as the septuagenarian’s regulars like it.

The dish that most evokes your childhood?
Loubyeh bi Zayt (green beans in olive oil). Whenever I’m buying fresh green beans I can always remember my mother collecting lovely, fresh green beans from her garden.

Who taught you to cook?
My mother, mother-in-law and my Uncle Joe, who was already living in Australia when I arrived in 1954.

Favourite ingredient?
I have many, but if I must pick one then it would have to be tahini because it can be versatile. It can be used in dips or as a topping on fish or vegetables and in Lebanese sweets. Sensational mixed with carob molasses.

Most indispensable spice?
Allspice. It gives any food a great lift, and because it is a big part of my culture.

Dish that most defines you?
Chicken and rice, of course.

And the one dish that regulars return for?
As above, but I would also add ladies’ fingers and kibbeh as favourites.

Best-kept shopping secret?
The greengrocers Brunswick Fresh (Swift Street, Brunswick) and Barkly Square Fruit and Vegetables (otherwise known as Gangemi’s Quality Fruit and Vegies) in Brunswick.

What do you cook at home?
Kibbeh nayeh, rolled vine leaves, sheish barak (Lebanese tortellini in yoghurt) and lamb roast with lots of vegetables, because my children have always loved roast dinners.

Key to cooking well?
Everything should be fresh and cooked with love.

The advice you always gave your kids?
I always tell them to watch me cook and to feel the ingredients in their hands.

PIERRE KHODJA

Khodja came to Melbourne via Algeria, France and London, where he worked at Michelin-starred restaurants Bistro Bruno and Oceania. Two years ago, as executive chef at Hawthorn restaurant Canvas, he dabbled in a few signature dishes from his homeland. The customers loved it, and the menu today is “full-on Moroccan — my soul and my blood”.

Dish that most evokes your childhood?
Couscous, because it is the national dish of Algeria, and when I was a child we would eat it in one form or another every day.

First great inspiration as a chef?
My mother, Hadda. As a child I would help her in the kitchen and learnt how to feed a large family on a small budget. She taught me the basics of everything I know today.

Favourite ingredient? Olive oil. The best-quality olive oil is the starting point of every dish.

Best spice? Cinnamon, because it has a beautiful aroma and I use it for savoury and sweet dishes — it has a wonderful, rich flavour that enhances every meal.

One dish you hope your kids master? I want them to make a good couscous, using the traditional method and not the instant instructions on the packet.

Tip for apprentices? Leave it or love it.

Favourite place to eat?We’re spoilt for choice in Melbourne. But I’d have to say at home with my family on a Sunday night.

The one cookbook you’d recommend? French Provincial Cooking, by Elizabeth David. The first French cookbook I owned. Full of traditional recipes that the amateur chef can aspire to.

Best-kept shopping secret? Laikon Deli on Bridge Road, Richmond. A family business that’s been there for 42 years and is full of treasures — and serves a wonderful short black with biscotti.

ISMAIL TOSUN

Tosun was born in Melbourne and raised by his Turkish grandparents. He was an apprentice at the Regent and Marchetti’s Latin before moving to Perth where he opened his first restaurant, Eminem. Back in Melbourne in late 2008, he opened Gigibaba on Smith Street, Collingwood. It buzzes most nights, but he’s reluctant to measure success that way. “Hey, it’s a small place,” he says. “I only do what I do.”

Favourite Turkish city?
Istanbul.

Dish that doesn’t translate to Melbourne palates?
Tripe soup — I eat it a lot when I go back.

Where?
Many places, but Ciya, in the fish market district of Kadikoy, is a standout.

Earliest cooking inspiration?
There were two: Dining at est est est when I was an apprentice, and Greg Malouf — obviously.

Favourite spice?
Cumin.

What was the goal at Gigibaba?
What I’m doing now is a take on my grandparent’s food — extremely good cooks.

Favourite dish to cook?
Everything that comes out of Gigibaba’s kitchen.

What are your plans?
I want to grow, do different things. Not make Gigibaba bigger, but do other things as well.

SHANE DELIA

Delia was born into a food-loving Maltese family and has an Australian-Lebanese wife. He was head chef at the Yarra Valley’s Chateau Yering before opening Maha in the city in partnership with George Calombaris, among others.

Who taught you to cook?
Impossible to name one person, but the most influential, in order of impact: Nannu Nenu (grandfather Carmelo Delia); Guitta Maroun (mother-in-law); Toufic Maroun (father-in-law); head chefs during training; Doris Delia (mum); Nanna Mary (grandmother Mary Camilleri).

Your earliest food memory?
Mum’s Easter Figolli, a Maltese Easter sweet that’s given in place of Easter eggs. A short almond and orange biscuit is filled with sweet almond puree and coated with a thin sugary icing. After eating hundreds of different types, hands down my mum’s is No. 1.

The most underrated Middle Eastern ingredient? Orange blossom water. It is such a unique flavour with sweet and savoury applications.

One spice you couldn’t live without?
Aleppo pepper, without a doubt.

What do you cook at home?
The only meal I cook at home is Sunday breakfast for Maha and Jayda (my wife and daughter). All other meal periods I’m at work

Favourite place to eat out?
Longrain. I love it because I can’t cook it — and I don’t want to know how.

The one cookbook you’d recommend?
A Taste of Thyme Culinary Culture of the Middle East, edited by Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper

Best-kept shopping secret?
Bas Foods, Victoria Street, Brunswick — a wonderland of all things Turkish.

What inspiration have you and George Calombaris drawn on for Saint Katherine’s, your new venture in Kew? The menu is being developed around a huge Turkish-style open charcoal grill and wood-fire oven that are being custom built. The food will reflect a communal, fresh and healthy eating style, embodying the flavours and culture of our childhoods: a big dining room, funky bar and mezze area, plus function rooms upstairs. Looking at late-2010 opening — fingers crossed.

CATH CLARINGBOLD

Claringbold cooked with Stephanie Alexander, Jacques Reymond and Greg Malouf before going on to open Mecca Bah and Livebait in Melbourne, and Mecca Bah Brisbane and Canberra. Referred to as one of Malouf’s earliest disciples, she sold her interest in the Mecca Restaurant Group in late 2008.

Your affair with Middle Eastern cooking started exactly when?
Probably working for Stephanie Alexander in the late ’80s. She introduced me to my very first tagine made from lamb shanks, olives and preserved lemon, and the flavours were a revelation. Abla Amad’s restaurant also expanded my horizons and working for Greg Malouf in the ’90s at O’Connell’s sealed the deal.

Favourite ingredient? Right now, it’s quinoa. It’s not technically Middle Eastern, but it works fantastically with Middle Eastern flavours and, not only that, it’s a wonderful product — it is very good for you, really quick to cook and absolutely delicious; consequently it has become a staple ingredient in my kitchen.

Spice you cook with the most?
Possibly cumin, followed closely by fennel seed.

Favourite place to eat? After a recent trip to Spain I am longing for some razor clams at Pinotxo Bar in the La Boqueria Market in Barcelona.

Favourite Middle Eastern food destination? Morocco and, in particular, Marrakesh.

The best book for the passionate cook but Middle Eastern novice? A timeless classic: Claudia Roden’s A New book of Middle Eastern Food. It contains a mountain of recipes and lots of valuable information but, sadly, no beautiful photographs to illustrate just how wonderful this food is. Other choices would be anything written by Sam and Sam Clark (the team behind London’s Moro).

What are you up to?
Enjoying a balanced life, working on different projects. I have been consulting, food writing and styling, private catering, hosting cooking classes and learning all about high-level dessert techniques from my husband, Darren Purchese, and his business partner, Ian Burch. I’m loving it.

JOSEPH ABBOUD

Abboud is classically trained, but draws on the Lebanese influences of his childhood at Brunswick East’s Rumi, which moved into a larger space on Lygon Street last year to cope with demand (and secure a bigger kitchen).

First great inspiration as a chef?
Dinner at Jacques Reymond when I was a second-year apprentice. I never knew food could be that good. Raw tuna with apple salad — wow.

Favourite dish at Rumi?
The cos salad. It’s so fresh, full of herbs, and dressed with an Iranian-inspired sweet and sour dressing. It really ties the whole Rumi meal together.

Spice you couldn’t live without?
Allspice, aka pimento. It’s called allspice for a reason.

Where do you eat out?
Donnini’s in Carlton and Golden Terrace in Brunswick, but lately the family and I are loving Supermaxi and Next Door Diner, both on St Georges Road (Fitzroy North and Northcote respectively).

What do you cook at home?
Very little. But when I do, it’s fish (with lots of mess).

Best cookbook? White Heat (Marco Pierre White). Something about that book (testosterone?) and being an apprentice that clicked. The first Moro cookbook was also hugely influential.

The job that changed my life est est est. Donovan Cooke and Josh Emmet were just the combination to sort out a wog boy who lived with his parents in the ‘burbs and thought he knew too much. (I also learnt that there was more to music than Prince).

GEOFF MALOUF

Not a chef, but a long-time restaurateur in Melbourne — ZumZum, Arabesque and now Mama Ganoush. Also, Greg’s brother.

Dish that most evokes childhood? Remembering my grandmother cracking away with the hand mincer, mincing the lamb for kibbeh, the smell of freshly cracked black pepper as she kneaded the lamb with the burghul and spices.

Favourite ingredient? Freekeh, which is wheat picked before it ripens then barbecued to give the grain a smoky taste. Used by the Egyptians when they stuff pigeon, but the Lebanese and Syrians cook it like rice and top it with slow-cooked lamb shanks off the bone, sprinkled liberally with pine nuts and pistachios.

Favourite dish at Mama Ganoush The beef kofta tagine with giant couscous and potatoes baked with an egg.

Spice you cook with most often? Allspice and cinnamon — both give a hint of sweetness to meats, especially chicken.

 Best-kept shopping secret? Miramar Nuts (Lygon Street, Brunswick). Freshly roasted nuts, ground Arabic coffee and spices essential to the Arabic kitchen.

Favourite Middle Eastern food destination? Aleppo, Syria. This is the mother of the Arabic kitchen. The mosaic of peoples that live in Aleppo have contributed to an amazing cuisine that has filtered right through the Arab world. The Armenians are renowned for their cured meats of sujuk and basturma and the Turkish influence is there with the use of chilli. My favourite dish is the sour cherry kebabs, tangy and sour. The city competes with Damascus as being the oldest continually inhabited city in the world.

MATTHEW FEGAN

Matthew Fegan won acclaim — and a hat in The Age Good Food Guide — cooking Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-inspired food at Kyneton’s Royal George Hotel. One year on, he’s set to return to his love, cooking at soon-to-open Mr Carsisi, his first place with wife Clare, also in Piper Street.

Most evocative food memory?
Mum’s lemon delicious pudding — not very Middle Eastern, but it helped develop my terrible sweet tooth and love of food in general.

Why Middle Eastern food?
A visit to Turkey when I was 22 inspired me. The food was just astoundingly good. And being surrounded by the assault on the senses that is the bazaars and markets, the activity, the smells of the strange spices, all things I hadn’t encountered in Australia before. Back home I was inspired by the likes of Cath Claringbold and Greg Malouf.

Favourite ingredient?
Turkish Delight.

Spice you use most?
Cinnamon.

Favourite place to eat on your travels?
No one place — it is always street food that excites me the most, wherever we are. Some of the best things we’ve come across have been things we didn’t have a clue what they were, but if locals are queueing for it, it must be good.

Favorite Middle Eastern food destination? Istanbul for the range — from freshly fried fish cooked by street hawkers near the river to the contemporary restaurants in this city straddling two continents.

And cookbook?
Saha. It’s visually beautiful, but Malouf also writes in a way that makes it achievable for all cooks.

Secret?
Sydney Road — but it’s no secret, is it? I head there to pick up authentic spices, teas, fantastic sausages and other meats that can be difficult to get in Kyneton. But it’s really an excuse to go to A1 bakery for shanklish and chilli pide.

Your goal with Mr Carsisi?
To create a warm, inviting place where people come to share beautiful Middle Eastern dishes. Opening July 2 for breakfast and lunch, and dinner when we get a liquor licence.

Source: The Age

Is pasta a recipe for weight gain?

Posted by admin on May 20th, 2010

Pasta is the type of food that some experts say we should be staying away from. The logic is that because it’s a carbohydrate it’s going to make us instantly fat. But is that really true? Should we be overlooking the carbs in favour of protein? Or have carbs just been misunderstood?

For the D’Angelo family from Matraville, in Sydney, cutting out the carbs would be sacrilege! As far as Salvatore’s concerned, pasta’s the food of the gods.

“I’m 76 now, 75 years I eat the pasta,” he says.

Mama Rosa makes her own pasta several times a week. She believes she’s doing the right thing by her family, but is Rosa right? Should pasta be a staple part of our diet? Or should we cut the carbs completely, as all those trendy diets tell us?

Time to meet someone who’s got some real answers.At the University of Sydney, nutrition scientist Joanna McMillan-Price, put the whole carb thing to the test. She began by putting 129 people on four different diets.”Two were high carbohydrate diets with a high and low GI respectively and then two we reduced the carbohydrate and upped the protein and again had high and low GI respectively,” says Joanna.Okay, stop right there — what does GI mean?Joanna: “GI stands for glycemic index, which sounds immensely complicated and scientific, but all that means is glycemic is just glucose in the blood and glucose is the type of sugar that is the major fuel that courses through our blood, feeds our brain and the rest of the tissues in our body.”So this is the breakdown:

  • The glycemic index goes from 0 to 100.
  • Pure glucose has a GI of 100.
  • High GI foods have an index which is higher than 70.
  • Low GI foods have an index which is less than 55.

Here’s what it means when you’re choosing food in the shops: high GI foods tend to be more processed, like white bread and crumpets. Though even natural foods can be high — potatoes are a good example. Unprocessed grains and most fruit and vegetables are low GI.Why does it matter whether a food is high or low on the index?“We know from lots of research that if you have high GI foods as part of a meal you get hungrier quicker and you tend to eat more at the next meal. Whereas if you have low GI foods it gives you much more sustained energy, so if you have a low GI breakfast then it gives you much more sustained energy through the morning — you don’t get those highs and lows, you don’t have that midmorning slump where you feel like you need something to eat and you’re less likely to eat so much at lunchtime. So, in fact, there’s a carry over effect to the next meal,” says Joanna.But is low GI the way to go if you want to lose weight?Joanna’s four diets in the trial were:

  • High carbs, which were either high or low GI.
  • High protein, with either high or low GI carbs.

The winner was the high carbohydrate, low GI regime. Dieters lost just as much weight on the high protein diet, but the high carb plan proved better for the heart.”High carbohydrate with low GI foods reduced blood cholesterol and, specifically, the type of bad cholesterol called LDL that we know is linked to heart disease,” she says.The high carb diet certainly worked for Deborah Mystakidis. Over the last two years she’s lost 22 kilos.So how hard was it for Deborah to stick to this diet?“You know what? It was actually really easy. The funny thing was, I didn’t feel like I was on a diet at all. It was actually really natural and really filling. I never was hungry.”So what are the key ingredients in Deborah’s weight-loss success? Natural foods like oats and bran for cereal. Wholegrain bread, brown rice, fresh fruit and vegies — all these are low GI.And there’s more: “sweet potato — they’re really good, oh and pasta,” says Deborah.Hang on a minute — pasta on a diet?“So here’s the good news — pasta does have a low glycemic index. And although this is made with white flour it might sound confusing, well how can this be low? It’s the physical structure of pasta that actually takes a long time to break it down and absorb it,” says Joanna.

  • So carbs are great for losing weight.
  • You still have to watch your portions.
  • Low GI does not mean low calorie.

So there’s no need to pass on the pasta.Well now you know. You’re actually doing your body a service by eating pasta — so bring it on! But it’s best to aim for pasta cooked with a tomato-based sauce and no creamy four-cheese toppings.Fast facts

  • How good is your GI knowledge? Here we’ve got two kinds of rice — jasmine and basmati. They look the same but score very differently on the GI index. Do you know which is low GI and which one is high? The jasmine rice is very high — almost like eating pure sugar. But the basmati has more complex starches, which are hard to breakdown, making it low GI.

Sydney restaurant soars up world’s best list

Posted by admin on April 28th, 2010

Peter Gilmore of Quay, Sydney – Sydney’s Quay restaurant is the 27th best restaurant in the world and Australasia’s finest.

The restaurant, which debuted at No.46 last year, leaped 19 places to its new ranking on the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards, announced in London overnight.

Tetsuya’s was the only other Australian restaurant to make the top 50, dropping to No.38.

But two other restaurants – Marque of Sydney and Attica of Melbourne – were also picked at No.67 and No.73 respectively in the top 100, with Marque being honoured with the Restaurant Breakthrough Award.

The List:
Greg Doyle’s Pier, which debuted in the top 100 at No. 94 last year, did not make it into the list this year.

Peter Gilmore of Quay restaurant has long been recognised as one of Australia’s best.

The eatery has taken out the Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year title for four years in the past nine.

Tetsuya’s chef Tetsuya Wakuda first arrived in Sydney 28 years ago with just a suitcase and no English. His Japanese-French fusion eatery, has received numerous accolades for its cuisine in Australia and internationally.

Tetsuya was humble, as usual.

“Even making it on the list is always a great honour,” he said. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would even make it this year as there are so many new restaurants from all over the world, from places like Finland, Japan, Sweden, Mexico and Singapore.”

Attica chef Ben Shewry said he was dumbfounded to learn his Ripponlea restaurant had been named the 73rd best in the world.

“I grew up in the real back country in New Zealand, so it’s impossible to imagine anything like this happening. Just impossible. We’re just absolutely stoked. It’s kind of a dream come true,” he said.

“For a small restaurant in the suburbs it seems like an impossibility, especially as we don’t have a (public relations) budget whatsoever.”

Famed Spanish restaurant elBulli lost its crown after four years at the top, beaten to the number one spot by rising star Noma in Copenhagen.

ElBulli’s defeat is another blow for the eatery and its trailblazing chef, Ferran Adria, after he announced in January the venue would close for two years from 2012.

The 47-year-old chef put the decision to shut the restaurant on Spain’s north-eastern Catalan coast down to fatigue and a need to plan for the future.

But Adria, known for his avant-garde approach to cooking which uses hi-tech methods to “deconstruct” and rebuild ingredients in surprising ways, was still recognised at the British awards when he was named chef of the decade.

Danish restaurant Noma – voted best in the world by the panel of more than 800 international critics, journalists and food experts – serves up Nordic specialities in a converted 18th century shipping warehouse.

Headed by 32-year-old chef Rene Redzepi, it has become a favourite of gourmets worldwide for using seasonal and local ingredients to create dishes such as radishes in edible soil. It was number two in last year’s list.

“Copenhagen is no longer the last stop on the gastronomic subway,” said Britain’s Restaurant Magazine, which organises the awards.

The 2010 awards, which were announced at the Guildhall in London, were notable for the abundance of new talent, according to the magazine.

“This year’s list is an exciting one that highlights in particular the wealth of young, dynamic chefs bringing new ideas to the world of gastronomy,” said magazine editor Paul Wootton.

“Rene Redzepi’s rise to the top shows that the (judging panel is) keen to recognise this new wave of talent rubbing alongside those with more established international fame.”

It remained to be seen whether Adria’s “considerable achievements” in the awards – elBulli came out on top a total of five times in the past decade – could ever be matched in future, added Wootton.

British restaurant The Fat Duck outside London, run by chef Heston Blumenthal, took third place in this year’s list.

Blumenthal and Adria have since the 1990s been at the forefront of efforts to use science to “deconstruct” and rebuild food, both astonishing diners and delighting reviewers.

Europe performed well in this year’s list, with Spanish and Italian restaurants taking five of the top 10 spots.

The United States also had a strong showing, with three restaurants in the top 10.

Les Creations de Narisawa in Japan was named as the best restaurant in Asia, coming in at number 24 on the list.

Other surprises were Daniel (US chef Daniel Boulud) up 33 to 8, and The French Laundry (US chef Thomas Keller) down 20 to 32.

smh.com.au, AFP and theage.com.au

Bring back compulsory cooking classes at school

Posted by admin on April 13th, 2010

All those arguing over which version of history should be contained in the national curriculum might want to think about a subject that could mean our current generation lives long enough to achieve some level of appreciation of that history.

Food is on our minds this week, with the return of MasterChef, which last year many commentators hailed as the saviour of real food in our homes. It’s not you know.

On Friday we were told obesity has overtaken smoking as the leading cause of premature death and illness in Australia. Someone who’s never been taught to boil an egg is hardly about to rush out and snap up the ingredients for a batch of Poh’s dumplings.

Until we teach kids to cook rice, make an simple stir-fry or whip up a low-cost bangers and mash, the myth will be allowed to perpetuate that it’s cheaper to feed your kids at McDonalds than to cook for them at home.

And with a whole generation of parents who weren’t taught themselves, it’s time cooking was made compulsory for all high school students, boys and girls.

Amid the multiple ads for golf clubs during the AFL broadcast on Saturday night was a stark illustration of the food wars going on in Australia.

Coles was running ads for its campaign “feed a family of four for under $10.” It might be cynical, but it’s still got to be admired.

The supermarket giant has signed up celebrity chef Curtis Stone to provide recipes for meals you can buy the ingredients for with a blue note.

The very next advertisement was for Red Rooster, with a harried (and slightly deranged looking) working Mum deciding it was better to race through the drive through on the way home and drop more than double that on something alleging to be chicken with some kind of unidentified stuffing.

Then straight away another ad for a McDonalds “family dinner box”, which for nearly $20 contains four burgers, four servings of fries and four soft drinks. The campaign for this product promises you’ll have more time to spend reading and laughing with your kids if you don’t have to wash up.

No one is stupid enough to think their children are better off eating fast food than something they’ve cooked themselves, but if you don’t know how to cook, or you think you don’t have the time, the idea can be terrifying.

The Punch spoke with Accredited Practicing Dietician Julie Gilbert, who said many parents now are completely overwhelmed by the sheer choice of food in our supermarkets.

“They are lost and confused,” Gilbert said. “They don’t know how to read food labels, they don’t know if something is really 97 per cent fat free, and they are so busy they think they don’t have time to work it out.”

“We have completely deskilled ourselves.”

Gilbert now has clients who have absolutely no idea how to prepare even the simplest of dishes, how the food groups work, or the vaguest notion of appropriate portion sizes.

She said teaching cooking at school went out of vogue because it was considered sexist and now “we’ve missed a whole generation.”

There’s a pretty simple solution to that perception of sexism. Make the boys learn too.

No doubt with MasterChef back on our screens there’ll be lots of pieces by enamoured columnists about how their six year old whipped up a braised beef cheek extravaganza after school the other day and we can all rest easy about the obesity crisis for another couple of months.

Yes the program has created a great level of interest in food, but it’s also scarred many people into thinking that if you’re going to cook at home you’d better be Matt Moran.

There’s a happy place in between gourmet and fast food and the only place left to ensure we continue to get there is our schools.

That’s something worth having an argument about.

Why is it tough to go cold turkey on junk food?

Posted by admin on April 2nd, 2010

Midweek menu: try a St Patrick’s Day feast

Posted by admin on March 17th, 2010

St Patrick’s Day feast! – By Rebecca Davies

It’s Ireland’s most important day of the year on Wednesday, March 17, so why not celebrate with Recipe Finder’s top 20 Irish dishes.

20. Champ
This budget grub is made from mashed potatoes, chopped spring onions (which they call “scallions”), butter and milk. The Irish sometimes describe less intelligent people as being “as thick as champ”! Try making your own champ variation this Wednesday by adding ham, parmesan and leeks.

19. Brown lemonade
When workers at old Belfast shipyards were banned from drinking alcohol on their lunch breaks, they avoided looking “girly” by filling up pint glasses with lemonade and adding brown colouring, creating a great ale imitation.

18. Skirts and kidneys
Poorer 17th-century folk would use crusty white bread to mop up the juices of stewed pork backbone trimmings and kidneys, while the more expensive cuts of meat were sent off to more lucky British Empire society.

17. Irish farls
Flat pieces of bread cut into quarter circles, Irish farls are still used to mop up sticky yolks from greasy Irish breakfast plates today.

16. Bacon and cabbage
Because most families reared their own pigs and grew their own veg, it was common for them to serve boiled gammon with mashed spuds and cabbage. Extra-hungry ones added a white parsley sauce and turnips too.

15. Goody
This Irish dessert, which was traditionally eaten on St John’s Eve, is made by boiling bread in milk with sugar and spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg.

14. Steak and Guinness pie
What could be more Irish than steeping steak in their world-renowned stout? Braised with mushrooms and carrots and topped with a billowing pastry hat, this dish is common fodder on cosy Irish pub menus. Try it this St Paddy’s Day with horseradish mash and peas!

13. Corned beef supper
Similar to bacon and cabbage, this dish consists of mashed potato, corned beef and cabbage and is the yummy offspring of an Irish-American blended food culture.

12. Boxty
These Irish potato pancakes made from grated and mashed potato, flour, baking soda, buttermilk and egg were often fried in butter. A poem written about them claimed: “If you can’t make boxty, you’ll never get a man”!

11. Coddle
Consisting of layers of sliced pork sausages and rashers of fatty bacon with potatoes and onions, this Dublin dish is the ultimate in Irish comfort food and is fondly immortalised by literary masters such as James Joyce.

10. Soda bread
Superstitious cooks in the 1800s would add a cross to the top of this quick white buttermilk bread to ward off evil or let the fairies out. Damper is an Aussie version of soda bread brought here by Irish immigrants.

9. Drisheen
Drisheen is a black pudding made from a mixture of pig or sheep’s blood, milk, breadcrumbs and fat. It is boiled, sliced, then fried and often served as part of a traditional Irish breakfast. Not everyone is brave enough to try it!

8. Barmbrack
Raisin bread barmbrack (meaning “speckled loaf”) is still served piping hot with fast-melting butter at afternoon teas. At Halloween, the Irish bake objects such as coins and rings into the loaf for luck.

7. Crubeens
On returning from the local pub, many booze-hazy Irish individuals would tuck into these salted and braised pig’s trotters with their bare fingers.

6. Dublin lawyer
Lobster smothered in butter, Irish whiskey and cream was and is still regularly seen on more affluent dining tables in Ireland.

5. Oatmeal biscuits
Although oatmeal used to be seen as a “peasant” food in Ireland, it is still used to make rolled oat biscuits and cookies, ideal for celebrating St Patrick’s Day.

4. Ulster fry
Ulster fry fans need monster appetites! This traditional breakfast consists of bacon, eggs, sausages, farls, mushrooms, baked beans and pancakes.

3. Irish coffee
After a hearty dinner, many Irish diners wash down their food with this cocktail made from hot coffee, Irish whiskey, sugar and thick cream.

2. Colcannon
Colcannon, which is basically mashed potato with kale or cabbage, used to be served with coins inside it, giving scoffers little cash treats between mouthfuls. A song about this dish describes it as “like a picture in a dream”.

1. Irish stew
Irish stew is a traditional winter-warmer made from lamb or mutton slow-cooked with potatoes, carrots, onions and parsley. Try dunking chunks of wholemeal bread into the meaty broth.

Sydney restaurateur hit by second major blaze

Posted by admin on January 22nd, 2010

GEORGINA ROBINSON – Totally destroyed … Cafe Otto. Photo: Nick Moir

A Sydney restaurateur says he is devastated by the second major fire in just over a year to tear through one of his businesses.

Neil Mirani’s Glebe restaurant, Cafe Otto, was completely gutted yesterday, just 13 months after a kitchen fire at his Paddington cafe caused $900,000 in damage.

“We don’t believe it,” Mr Mirani said.

“I feel like I’m destroyed as well because I’m 21 years [in Glebe].

Yesterday’s blaze broke out before 3am, police believe, and took 20 firefighters more than two hours to extinguish.

The restaurant’s roof collapsed inwards as the flames tore through the dining room’s timber interior.

It was an even more vicious replay of events from December 2008, when an exhaust motor or shorted wires were believed to have sparked a major fire in Mr Mirani’s Paddington eatery, Mickey’s Cafe.

“That took about six or seven months to rebuild and we finally got it up and running,” he said.

“It destroyed the kitchen but there was a lot of smoke and water damage as well.”

The final repair bill came to about $900,000, said Mr Mirani, whose restaurants were both insured.

Police said they would not be able to pinpoint the cause of yesterday’s fire until heavy lifting equipment was available to lift off the collapsed roof

“[Fire investigators] want to look under the roof first before they give their final suspicious or non-suspicious ruling,” Leichhardt police duty officer, Inspector Sean Daley, said.

Inspector Daley said police were aware of the earlier fire but did not believe there was any link to yesterday’s incident.

Mr Mirani said he did not know how the fire started but police told him it appeared to have smouldered for quite some time before flaring up.

“My neighbour called me at 3.50am and he said ‘Get over here; your place is on fire’ and I raced over,” he said.

The restaurant was closed from 11pm on Tuesday. Mr Mirani left earlier, about 9.30pm, he said.

“My supervisor said she went to do a double check [there was nothing left on] and she said no,” Mr Mirani said.

“I asked all the boys in the kitchen … it was a bit of a quiet night. They said: ‘We cleaned things extra [well] and made sure everything was bright.’”

Mr Mirani said he would probably rebuild.

“I don’t know what else to do after 21 years,” he said.

“It’s funny going to work six or seven days a week and all of a sudden it’s not there.”

A lesson in popsicology

Posted by admin on December 29th, 2009

It has taken generations of great chefs and rich patrons to perfect the frozen treats we now take for granted, explains Matt Preston of MasterChef.

George Washington went into debt over it, Nero sent slaves across his empire because of it and the success of the cafe owes a huge debt to it. Not sex but just about the next best thing: ice-cream.Legendary chef Georges Auguste Escoffier claimed that no other area of cookery offered “more opportunity for culinary fantasies and masterly presentation”. He went on to prove it with 192 recipes for sorbets, ice-creams, iced mousses, parfaits and granitas, as well as less well-known ice concoctions such as marquises and spooms, in his book, The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery. That list doesn’t even include his ice-cream dishes, such as Peach Melba, named after our own operatic dame.

Those who doubt Escoffier need only to look at the menus of ice-cream parlours and restaurants. The motto today seems to be: “If you can infuse it, you can use it.” Herbs and spices are now joining more traditional flavourings such as fruit, chocolate and cheeses. Australia’s restaurants and ice-cream parlours offer everything from chocolate-chilli and lemon delicious to basil and blue-cheese flavours, alongside the traditional chocolate, vanilla and lemon sorbet. We’ve still got a long way to go, however, to match the invention of Manuel da Silva Oliveira, whose ice-cream parlour in Merida, Venezuela, had more than 830 varieties, including squid, fried pork rind, trout and tuna ice-creams.

The Chinese are credited with being the first to add salt and saltpetre to snow or pounded ice to lower its freezing temperature through evaporation in order to make a frozen dairy dish. Some experts claim the process may have started as early as the Han Dynasty (206BC to AD220) but Robin Weir and Caroline Liddell only present hard evidence from the Tang period (AD618–907) in their hyperbolically but deservedly named Ices: The Definitive Guide. The love of iced desserts and drinks dates back much further; the earliest ice-house (2250BC) was unearthed in Iraq in the Sumerian city of Ur. Nero loved his “slushees” of snow flavoured with honey, fruit and wine. The Arab world had their charabs, the Turks their chorbets and, after his conquest of Egypt in 332BC, Alexander the Great had 15 trenches dug and filled with snow for his cooled “punches”.

While that old fraud Marco Polo might have claimed that it was he who introduced iced creams to Europe from China, it seems much more likely that their popularity had spread west earlier. There are reports of the endothermic effect of salt on ice in Indian writings from the fourth century and Arab texts of the 12th century, while according to Weir, the Mogul Court of North India was enjoying kulfi as early as the 1400s.

Initially the food of royalty, it wasn’t until the 17th century that the craze for ices filtered down from the top tables of Europe. The 1660s saw water ices in Spain, Vienna, Paris and what is now southern Italy, while Venice had its iced creams. However, it took the birth of the cafe to make them a popular fashion. When a Sicilian named Procope opened Paris’s first cafe in 1686, it was the sorbets and ice-creams that entranced Parisian society as much as the coffee or the ornate mirrors and chandeliers.Within 100 years, iced desserts had incorporated eggs, captivated diners from the US to Scandinavia and were being sold as an attraction for the promenaders at the “pleasure parks” that had sprung up around London.

In the 1850s, an editor of The Age newspaper in Melbourne, James Harrison, invented the ice-maker and the refrigerator, thus making ice more readily available through the year. The US’s obsession with ice-cream started with Washington, who ran up a $200 bill for the stuff in the summer of 1790.

It was at the St Louis World’s Fair of 1904 that the recently patented ice-cream cone — or cornucopia — became a hit, replacing paper cups and glass dishes.

Prohibition gave ice-cream another boost as bars turned into ice-cream parlours, while competition and immense consumption between the wars saw the birth of ice-creams and ices on a stick, the Eskimo Pie and rocky road ice-cream. Clarence Vogt’s continuous freezer made large-scale commercial production economical and the spread of domestic refrigeration in the 1930s assured ice-cream’s success.

In more recent times, we have seen the ’60s boom of “odd” flavours, the arrival of super-rich premium ice-creams and a move towards lower-fat alternatives such as sorbets and frozen yoghurts.

The way to a man’s heart

Posted by admin on December 1st, 2009

housewifeIf you love him, feed him. That’s the opinion of the author of this light-hearted recipe book, writes John Bastick.

Lana Vidler is a 28-year-old who has self-published the book Meals Men Love – How to Catch a Man in 3 Courses. She has concocted recipes that are “simple, wholesome home-cooked food, nothing frilly or fancy”, all with a hefty dollop of humour. Her recipe names include “Land a man lasagne”, “Nana was married for 69 years because of these cookies” and “Gentlemen prefer brulee”.

Her intention was to have a bit of fun and to provide good, easy, simple recipes with an onus on food men traditionally like.

“There are no tofu recipes in there,” she says. “There are a thousand cookbooks out there and mostly they’re by professional chefs and whenever I cooked anything from them my boyfriend always found it too fancy. I’d do something simple like a schnitzel and he couldn’t stop raving about it. That’s where the idea for the book came from.”

The former Ascham School student works as an office manager for a homewares company and has a degree in marketing from the University of Sydney. The book’s inspiration, she says, came from what she saw as a yawning gap in the market.

A year in the making, the book has 168 recipes she says she unashamedly pinched from friends, family and colleagues.

“I really researched what recipes went into it,” she says, “I’d ask boyfriends what they liked to eat, male friends, even girlfriends what they cooked for their boyfriends and husbands. The book’s for any woman who likes to impress a man with food. It could be your boyfriend, your husband, a mate, your dad even.”

Vidler says many of her generation have lost their zeal for home cooking and prefer to eat out, while many young women simply don’t cook at all.

So, for the truly hapless, the book comes with tips to ensure a successful evening at home. These include: have everything pretty much ready for when he arrives, don’t forget to clean the house, set the table and don’t use flimsy glassware – men hate that, apparently.

On the other side of the coin, the biggest error a man can make, Vidler says, is to fail to turn up. “That would break a girl’s heart.”

As a measure of her own success, Vidler says her lasagne helped woo her current boyfriend, a surgeon at Sydney Children’s Hospital.

“Well, I’m sure he loved me too but the food helped a lot,” she says. “He’s got a tough job, stressful, with long hours, so for him to come home to a home-cooked meal, he just loved it. And I happen to think leftovers are one of the best presents a girl can give a guy . . . it’s a lovely way to show you care.”

Her critics could argue the idea of winning a fella’s heart by fattening it up is, dare we say it, an old-fashioned one. Vidler baulks at the claim and argues she’s a thoroughly modern young woman.

“When my sister heard about the book, she said, ‘You’ll put women back 20 years if you write that.’ But even she’s come around, she’s using the book, she’s cooking for her man and they recently got engaged, so I like to think the book played a small part in that.”

Undeterred, she has plans for book No. 2 – a curry book for men.

Meals Men Love by Lana Vidler, $19.95, is sold online. See mealsmenlove.com.au.

Celebrity MasterChef winner swimmer Eamon Sullivan wants TV career

Posted by admin on November 25th, 2009

953606-eamon-winsErin McWhirter, TV Editor - The Daily Telegraph

SWIM star Eamon Sullivan hopes his next major TV turn after winning Celebrity MasterChef will be on a lifestyle or travel program.

The Olympic silver medallist won Australia’s first Celebrity MasterChef series after cooking off against Miss Universe Australia Rachael Finch and INXS guitarist Kirk Pengilly last night.

The Perth-raised 24-year-old, who lives in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, said he was yet to be approached by a network for more TV work, but hoped to continue his small-screen career.

“If an opportunity came up for a cooking and travel show or doing a cookbook or something I would love to do that outside of swimming,” he said, adding he was not interested in being a commentator or general presenter. 

Despite stumbling in round one of the TV show, he triumphed largely due to a 30/30 score for his chocolate delice dessert.

“It was pretty stressful – I was very lucky,” Sullivan said from Canberra, where he’s competing in the AIS international swimming meet.

Sullivan had gone into the Network Ten cooking competition determined but said he was surprised to win after struggling through the taste test when he mixed up rosemary and thyme in a Spanish paella.

“I thought I was probably going to stuff up the rest because I was so angry,” Sullivan said.

“I was lucky enough I could get some nerves together and muster up something to get back in the competition.”

Sullivan won over the judges in the second round, cooking a chocolate delice with judge Gary Mehigan even licking the plate.

“I kid you not, that is one of the top three desserts I’ve had this year – that is absolutely stunning,” Mehigan said.

In the final round contestants were required to cook a roast chicken in salt crust and hay created by Melbourne chef Andrew McConnell, with Sullivan struggling before coming good.

Sullivan attributed his cooking prowess to his lifestyle.

“You learn early on when you’re a sports person how to cook for yourself and how to cook the right things for yourself and that teaches you the fundamentals of cooking something well,” he said.

INXS member Kirk Pengilly came second, with Miss Universe Australia Rachael Finch third.

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