Everything about a quince is quirky and beautiful: the brilliant yellow of the skin, the soft down that coats it, the amazing fragrance ….
NOUGAT NIRVANA
HANDY TERIYAKI
ONE OF OUR FAVOURITE THINGS, PLUS ONIONS!
IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS
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 ....
PICKLED RHUBARB
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.
YOU SAY SHISO, I SAY PERILLA
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 ....
FIRST THINGS FIRST
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 ....
BEETROOT CHUTNEY
DON'T LOSE YOUR TEMPER
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 ....
WOK FRIED EDAMAME
HOISIN SAUCE
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 ....
SALTY SPICE
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 ....
NIPPLES OF VENUS
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 ....
PICKLE IT
GLORIOUS ONIONS
WITLOF, ROCKET, FENNEL, BROCCOLINI, CHILLI AND GARLIC SALAD
NUMBER ONE CHRISTMAS MENU
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 .....
PARTY WITH A DIFFERENCE
NEAT SWEET SOY SAUCE
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 ....