With Christmas approaching and New Year just around the corner we're anticipating that there may be some celebrations afoot. And while we will be sending you some recipes for a cocktail party or two, you might like to think about something different to drink ….
Iranian Curry Powder has many uses - one example is to dust a whole fish before roasting. Also, it’s great mixed with some plain yogurt to serve with boiled chat potatoes or to marinate pieces of chicken before barbecuing. Try our recipe for Spice Roasted Macadamias. So versatile ....
How often do you look in the fridge hoping for some inspiration for the evening’s meal? We find that if we have some delicious homemade sauces and condiments on hand then the ideas come a bit quicker and easier ….
Have a jar or two of Candied Quinces in your larder, some whipped cream or ice cream and you’ll have a delicious dessert on the table in an instant. Or use them, as we’ve done, in our Quince and Almond Cream Cake, or our Candied Quince and Ricotta Cake. Try replacing the rhubarb with Candied Quinces in our Rhubarb, Orange and Almond Tart ….
These delicious Ginger, Cranberry and Pistachio Chocolates, made with the red, green and gold of Christmas, are too easy to prepare and too easy to tuck away too many ….
A jar of this glowing, orange-gold condiment will speak to you every time you open the fridge. What will it be today? Romesco Sauce with a piece of grilled fish? Dressing some barbecued chicken? Smothering a perfectly boiled egg? I love it spooned over some charred asparagus or beans and topped with some roasted nuts. Simple and tasty. The essence of Spanish cuisine ….
Arepas are a popular tradition in South America that are eaten throughout the day in numerous variations. This recipe for Arepas - Venezuelan Cornbread Buns - is made from a pre-cooked ground white or yellow corn meal known as masarepa, which is readily available in Australia from delis and major supermarkets ….
Nothing could be easier than this well-behaved, simple version of ganache. It takes no time at all, coats a cake beautifully and provides a wonderful base for decorating- try praline, fresh berries, roasted nuts, toffee shards or even edible gold or silver leaf as appears on our Chocolate, Hazelnut and Sour Cherry Cake ….
This Sweet Fennel Preserve is one component of a complex Thomas Keller dessert recipe but I’ve found that I quite like the sweet aniseed flavours in savoury dishes also. Try our version in our Chargrilled Halloumi with Sweet Fennel Preserve and Chilli recipe to see what I mean.
The time for Christmas menu planning has come around again and our family will be roaming the culinary globe this year ….
I’m taking the family to the subcontinent this Christmas. Not literally, unfortunately. But we will be feasting on dishes inspired by the cuisines of that area and nearby. Scented with herbs and spices, colourful and delicious, they’re sure to enjoy the spread …
Christmas this year is likely to be a very casual affair. Noisy, hands-on and a little bit serve yourself ….
Exotic dukkah was all the rage for a while and then the caravan moved on. Well, with this zingy version we hope to bring it back into focus ….
We’ve used dried apricots to make our Winter Apricot Jam, a deliciously thick and tasty version which will bring a taste of summer back into our wintry southern hemisphere kitchens ….
I thought these crunchy, little Hazelnut Nuggets would be good for an after-dinner treat. Just one or two a night was the plan ….
We’ve used memories of childhood and an adult palate to devise a version of Rocky Road using couverture chocolate, gluten-free marshmallows and candied macadamia nuts ….
This is a recipe for XO Sauce with a difference. It is gluten-free, of course, which is the first difference. The next is that XO sauces usually include dried scallops and seafood but we use readily available bacon and mushroom to create the savoury complexity expected in an XO sauce ….
Made to accompany our Christmas Dinner dish of Rolled Roast Turkey Breast, these Stuffins have proved themselves an ideal complement. But they could also add their flavour and pizzazz to almost any other roasted meat ….
Like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I fancy that having a cocktail in hand is befitting an occasion. And so we present our Christmas Cocktail, the first of our Christmas recipes for this year ….
When I came across the idea of this Carrot Jam – Moraba-ye Havij I was really quite delighted. Apparently, it’s been made in the Middle East since the twelfth century. But for me, the thought of the humble carrot – one of our most familiar and everyday vegetables – being sweetened up, spiced up and tweaked up with citrus, had a sure ring of novelty and promise ….
Snap, crackle, crunch. Ahh, Peanut Brittle. This decadent mix of butter and sugar, with peanuts scattered through just to add a few more calories, isn’t exactly what we might call health food ….
Tofu is high in protein and low in calories but often needs a bit of help taste-wise. So we’ve baked ours and topped it with a spicy Chilli Sauce which turned out to be the perfect foil ….
This recipe is a good one to have up your culinary sleeve. The brittle components can be changed to suit your preference or to match the flavours in an accompanying dessert. Use other seed or nut combinations - think sesame and pistachio, black sesame and ginger, almond and walnut ….
This Saffron Rice Pilaf makes an excellent alternative to baked potatoes at Christmas. It can be made ahead, you only need to peel two onions instead of twenty potatoes, and it leaves the oven free. It’s also great with gravy and tastes fantastic ….
Full of seeds and dried berries, cacao nibs and honey, tahini and coconut, our Sweet and Seedy Slice is a healthy way to hit your sweet tooth. It’s the perfect balance – no sugar; no dairy; no gluten; no egg; no skill required; no standing for hours in the kitchen and no guilt after eating ….
We’re yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like Lemon Curd – and what’s not to like about the buttery richness and the sweet ’n’ sour kick it delivers? Even children seem to like the tangy sourness. Most people have a recipe handed down from a Grandmother or favourite cook. There are many methods and slightly varying ingredients so we’re now adding our recipe into the mix ….
When this photograph was taken recently we were enjoying dinner together, which we rounded up with a lovely Cherry and Ricotta Tart. What a difference a week makes! Now that we’re all involved in social distancing, we’re reminded of all the wonderful relationships and friendships we share and the closeness we normally take for granted ….
It’s not as if anyone needs anything more to eat after feasting on a big Christmas meal but, personally, I always think that the indulgence needs to go just one extra mile on such a big day and I love to produce a BIG plate of special little sweet treats ….
The recipe for these delicious morsels, called Eugenies, is from Annie Smithers, the chef and owner of du Fermier in Victoria. She explains that when she was an apprentice chef travelling in France she ate at Michel Guerard’s restaurant, Les Pres d’Eugenie where she first sampled these orange and chocolate treats ….
Red Capsicum, Walnut and Pomegranate Dip and Smoky Eggplant and Tomato Salad are great additions to a mezze table. Obviously, for us, they are gluten-free but if you’re also looking for vegetarian or even vegan side dishes then these recipes tick all the boxes. Plus they’re healthy and delicious ….
Everything about a quince is quirky and beautiful: the brilliant yellow of the skin, the soft down that coats it, the amazing fragrance ….
I have a really sweet tooth. I love honey. I also love crunchy things, especially roasted almonds. Nougat de Montelimar is a French nougat that has all of the above rolled into one, and it’s my very favourite sweet treat. My kind of nirvana ....
Along with sushi, teriyaki is one of the staples of Japanese restaurants in Australia. It’s been popular in Japan too, since the 17th century, when cooks began to heat soy sauce with sake or mirin, together with some sugar or honey to create a marinade and dressing ....
We’re revisiting one of our favourite and most popular recipes this week with our Revenge Lavosh. It is very easy to make, inexpensive and versatile. We have friends (gluten-intolerants and tolerants alike) who often request a batch to be brought along to a lunch or dinner ....
Here we go again, turning our thoughts towards Christmas.
It’s only four weeks till D Day, or rather C Day, so getting ourselves prepared is not such a bad idea. In the next four weeks we’ll be posting lots of ideas for your Christmas meals, in fact we have so many we’ll be posting twice as often as usual but just in case you’re a real Scout and would like to be prepared NOW, we’re here to help ....
Our Pickled Rhubarb is a very versatile condiment to have on hand in the fridge. We've served it with duck breasts for Christmas, topped sticky rice cakes with it for a pre dinner nibble, tossed it through salads, served it with cheese, cured meats even on a stick of celery. It's vibrant colour starts to fade after a couple of weeks so eat it up quickly or eat it pale pink.
Some years ago I found an interesting herb garnish on my salad in a Vietnamese restaurant. I didn’t recognise it but my mother, the green thumb in our family who couldn’t identify it either, suggested that I take it home and stick it in a glass of water. I did and roots sprouted. Now, I have a garden that is verdant with perilla ....
I’d been at a conference all day. He’d been at home, in the studio. We met in the city and wandered down to the newish Barangaroo precinct on Sydney Harbour. We decided to try a few different restaurants on the strip so he chose the Spanish Bórn, where for our first course we had delicious little morsels and sampled for the first time a gluten-free beer and a chardonnay from Spain ....
Make a batch of our Beetroot Chutney and you’ll find you won’t be able to live without it. Make a double batch, decant into handsome jars and you’ll always have a delicious gift to give ….
Chocolate Almond Rochers are lovely sweet, crunchy treats which, if the chocolate is tempered (melted) correctly, will stay in perfect condition for several weeks. The almonds are very simply candied in the oven and then tossed in dark, milk or white chocolate, or all three. They key to success is in the tempering of the chocolate ....
These smoky, wok fried edamame are streets ahead of the normal steamed ones. Give them a try.
Traditionally hoisin sauce is made with fermented wheat and soy beans. It is flavoured with five spice powder and is robust, sweet and garlicky. While gluten-free versions are available, we prefer to make our own and use black bean sauce as the base for our hoisin sauce. Once you have your gluten-free black bean sauce, home made or purchased, then making our Hoisin is a ten minute exercise ....
I was inspired to convert to gluten-free some of Kylie Kwong's recipes from her cook book 'Simple Chinese Cooking' but as most coeliacs and gluten-intolerants will know it’s often not so easy. Many common Asian ingredients such as soy sauce and even rice wine can contain gluten and while gluten-free versions of a lot of these ingredients do exist, often they’re not readily available resulting in a trip to a specialty shop at the expense of spontaneity ....
Ever since seeing the movie ‘Amadeus’ many years ago, I have lusted after the large and rather provocative looking chocolates which were offerred to Mozart’s wife by the composer, Salieri. My memory is that he tells her in a rather seductive way that these delicious looking morsels are called Nipples of Venus and that she promptly wraps her plump lips around one of these generously proportioned items, wide eyed and giggly ....
Don't throw out the rind after devouring the delicious, juicy flesh of an ice cold watermelon. Pickle It! Delicious with cold meats, oily fish, chopped finely and tossed through a salad, as a garnish for canapes or wherever you'd like a bit of zing ....
The onion is said to be the oldest known vegetable – meaning people have known their onions for a very long time ....
All the ingredients for this salad can be prepared beforehand and tossed together at the last minute ....
Many of you have been asking for ideas for Christmas meals so we’ve put together a couple of menus to help you with your planning. Most of the elements of our menus can either be prepared the day before, or even a few days before or quickly thrown together on Christmas Day. We think our menus resist the usual .....
A dear photographer friend of ours is a man who loves many things but parties and music would have to be up near the top of his list. Births, deaths, marriages, spring, summer, autumn, winter, any excuse for a party and we're all invited ....
Recently I wanted to make an Asian dish that called for Kecap Manis, the sweet soy sauce that’s an essential ingredient in so much Indonesian and Malaysian food.
While gluten-free soy sauce is readily available these days, gluten-free Kecap Manis is still a bit of a rarity, although, as I’ve since discovered, it’s a piece of cake to make a pretty good version at home ....
Searching through one of my recipe files recently, (the overstuffed and disordered one - I’m sure you have one of these too) I came across this odd recipe for a cauliflower pizza base ....
When a cook starts blending together eggs, garlic, a touch of lemon juice and olive oil the expected result is mayonnaise. And yet when the eggs are fish roe the outcome is taramasalata. Having made it recently, I’ve only just realised that the classic Greek dip is in fact a form of mayonnaise ....
This easy but delicious accompaniment can be made even easier if you can commandeer a friendly partner to peel the onions for you. I usually take unfair advantage and hand over kilos. My partner will happily peel away as long as he is positioned in front of a football game so it seems that in our house onion marmalade is a winter, weekend production....
Sensitive to seafood? Anaphylactically reactive to peanut and sesame products? Lactose intolerant? Wheat intolerant? Coeliac?....
I had just arrived home in a rush. Any minute friends were coming for drinks before heading out for dinner together. Some sort of hors d’oeuvres were immediately required....
April is a good month for inexpensive figs so having bought some recently I went looking for my grandmother’s jam recipe...
The go-to source of information on all things gluten-related is the organisation Coeliac Australia, with its quarterly magazine, The Australian Coeliac, (http://www.coeliac.org.au).
n the lead-up to a wedding in the family, (catering for a completely gluten-free reception for 40 people, but more of that later) my husband came home with some shopping, beaming, because he’d managed to score 14 punnets of beautiful strawberries for $7.50...
For the last few years I have added the Russian roulette thrill of eating padrones to our Christmas holiday tradition. A kilogram box, picked and posted from Queensland’s Midyimeco and delivered the next day in Sydney, holds a wealth of....surprises....
I make a lovely honey mousse – yes, I know I shouldn’t be saying it myself – but it has a really luscious but melting texture..