Pizza Pie

Cold days outside, a brown velvet patterned couch, pillows, a blanket and snacks at the ready. I’d flick on the old television housed in a woodgrain laminate box finish, an image would appear out of the analogue snow that appeared momentarily while it warmed up and received the reception, I’d settle in snuggled up anticipation built. The weekend afternoon movie of the week starting with the introduction of movies of the era, a prelude with a usually notable theme. Black and white usually, characters would emerge as the story began. Sometimes an old war drama, a western (not my favourite but always elicited the interest of my Dad) a musical or a comedy and generally stars seemingly drawn from the same pool, the golden era of Hollywood. A, perhaps, unusual pastime for a child.

I loved these old movies and my afternoons snuggled up escaping into far off stories and locales. Wind and rain could batter the windows but, in my imagination, I was elegantly sweeping down grand winding staircases with show tunes my soundtrack or delightedly participating in some slap stick prank eliciting canned laughter. I was enamoured with Shirley Temple my own dancing toes tapping away on the couch in time with her deft moves. I was swept away with the romance of Gene Kelly spinning his dance partner around looking adoringly at her. I would giggle with mirth at Lucille Ball’s hilarious antics and laugh until my sides hurt at Jerry Lewis and his straight guy Dean Martin. Not only funny with their impeccable timing they’d launch into song on occasion too making them the perfect blend for my proclivities. Most notably in the 1953 movie The Caddy the song, perhaps more famous than the movie, was the famous song That’s Amore. It had a catchy tune, one that’s stood the test of time, that rings like an ear worm at various appropriate moments to this day. Even as a child though the one take away I gathered from that fun and romantic tune was the line that referred to pizza pie.

Whilst a fairly traditional family culinarily, meat and three veg anyone (?), we did indulge in the odd ‘exotic’ pizza. My dad’s cousin married an Italian fella who was a pizza chef and owned various restaurants around our area. With ‘mates rates’ we’d often dine in their eateries, lavished with love by them through delicious pizzas in abundance. The atmosphere would be festive, the food hearty and the hospitality warm. We developed a deep love of pizza through these happy evenings becoming astute pizza critics. I remembered asking our Italian relative a few times what pizza pie was, even trying to order one but was always met with a polite Italian shrug. Even he was a little mystified as to what exactly Mr Martin was singing about.

It's a culinary question that has stuck with me. No matter where I’ve travelled, particularly America, its one that’s stuck in the archives of my mind without an answer. Elusive and unanswered. I’ve also been challenged by the answer to a good and traditional pizza base having tried a plethora of recipes, until recently. As I flicked through the beautiful pages of yet another Italian cookbook (is there ever enough?) I was struck by the ease of the proffered pizza recipe. In my ongoing pursuit of said classic I steadied myself for yet another attempt at restaurant worthy homemade pizza. With little effort, basic ingredients and hope I’d found my go to recipe for pizza and the one I’d commit to memory for life.

But still, what the heck is pizza pie? Google elicits answers in the millions but nothing definitive. Armed though with technique skills and inspired by a now memorised pizza dough recipe I was determined to create a pizza pie as I imagined it. With a few tweaks to that wonderful dough recipe, layers of flavourful small goods, melty cheese, sauce, a few veg and some patience I built what I thought might be the dish in Mr Martin’s mind as he serenaded a sweetheart with notions of pizza pie and love. As I pulled that tray from the oven the rich aromas of pizza enveloping me a smile crept across my face. Allowing it to cool for a while before slicing into it whilst agony, an important step to allow some of that steam to rise out through the small chimney in the top layer. I felt like that young girl again the song quietly thrumming in my head “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s amoré…” Both childlike anticipation and memories swirling I finally cut into the round pulling a wedge from the tray, stretchy cheese strings breaking away. One bite and my eyes gently closed a smile creeping across my face and a lifetime of wondering no more.

I’ll never know if my pizza pie is the one of Mr Martin’s imaginings but it’s definitely the one of mine and definitely one for the recipe memory.

Ingredients:

400 gm plain flour (bread flour is great if you have it but don’t rush out and buy it if you don’t)

¾ tsp/5gm dried yeast

¾ tsp salt/5gm (I use fine table salt here not flakes)

¾ tsp/3 gm sugar

300 ml lukewarm water

1-2 Tb commercial pizza sauce. Aim for a spreadable one, I’ve used passata and will at a pinch but it’s quite wet and can create a soggy base.

½ tsp dried oregano

½ an onion finely sliced

75 gm sliced ham

60 gm finely sliced salami. Choose your own adventure here, we like it hot but you do you.

75 gm chopped bacon

1 cup/100 gm grated cheese. I like a flavourful mixture with bits from the fridge or cheddar but if you prefer milder mozzarella that’s fine too.

½ a small capsicum/pepper finely diced

80gm/1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 cup baby spinach leaves

1 egg beaten with a splash of milk for glazing

Polenta for the pizza tray. If you don’t have any just used baking paper.

HOT TIP! When you first think “hmmm pizza pie” ( or any yeast baking) turn the oven light on. NOT the oven temp just the light. This elicits enough warmth alongside the ovens closed draught free environment to create the perfect dough proving environment. Now as you were…the instructions!

In a stand mixer combine all dough ingredients and mix on med-low speed until combined, you may need to scrape down a couple of times. Increase speed to medium and mix for 5 minutes while you tidy up. If you don’t have a mixer do this first in a bowl with your hands until a shaggy dough then tip out onto a bench and knead lightly until smoothish. In a large bowl using your hand spread a splash of olive oil to grease, tip dough into the bowl and loosely cover with lightly oiled cling wrap (you can gently oil the top of the dough if oiling cling wrap feels fiddly). Place bowl in the lit oven and leave to prove gently in the there for at least two hours or more than doubled in size. If your oven doesn’t have a light or the light is on the blink as they often are leave in a warm draught free spot.

When ready remove dough from its proving spot and tip onto a lightly floured bench.

Preheat oven to 220c fan forced.

Divide into two even portions and lightly knead by had to form two balls. Pop onto a tray in a warm spot to rest while you get organised. They just need 15 mins to do so. Take these few minutes to prepare your toppings.

Prepare tray with a light spread of olive oil and a sprinkling of polenta grains. You could use baking paper if you prefer but the oil and polenta creates a lovely finish on the base. Take one ball and stretch by hand gently across the width of the pizza tray or to a 30 cm circle. Spread over your pizza sauce one spoon at a time leaving a 2 cm border. You may not need all of the sauce, see how you go, then sprinkle oregano leaves. Start your meat layer next with ham then salami then sprinkle over bacon. Spread over the grated cheese evenly. Then layer vegetables starting with spinach then mushrooms and finishing with capsicum, set aside. On a floured bench stretch or roll your second dough ball to equal size. Gently pick it up and lay over the layered pizza. It should fall to the edge of the sauce where the sauce free border is. Gently fold and crimp with your finger as pictured to seal. Snip a hole in the centre to release moisture as it cooks. Brush the pie all over with egg glaze and place in the oven for 25 minutes until golden brown and crisp on the base. You can gently lift with a spatula at the edge to check the base. Return for five minutes to crisp up if needed.

Remove from oven and leave to cool for 2 minutes before cutting into it. Serve with mood music of romantic tunes of moons and amoré and perhaps a lovely glass of Italian red wine.

NOTE: you’ll notice in the photos I have the cheese on top. I’ve since changed my method to allow the moisture and steam from the veg to escape easily without the cheese layer stifling it as described above.

Easy Aussie Beef Party Pies

105 years ago families and groups of friends trekked to a suburban cricket oval to cheer and support their football teams in the first Football Grand Final Game. Armies of fans gathered to support the warriors they’d followed for the winter months in a game unique to our land known for it’s brutal toughness and parochial supporters. Through the decades, lines were drawn across suburbs and regions defining an almost tribal fan base whose rivalries spilled over into conversations and relationships sparking many contentious though generally good-natured debates and battles. In more recent decades, football became a national game, it’s reach extending into all states and territories and it’s culture pervading sports fans who’d previously followed other codes.

Football rivalries have defined the histories of many Australian families, my own, no exception. My dad joined his own local footy club as a junior in 1949 as a 15 year old lad new to the area. Working as a porter at the local railway station, an older colleague and mentor, noticing his need to be involved in his community and make new friends in his new home, extended an invitation to him to come down to the nearby footy ground and watch a game. He soon joined the club beginning a sixty plus year membership. He was dedicated to his club and its members often siting the camaraderie he enjoyed there as the one constant in his life and solace that kept him young in old age and gave him purpose in his retirement and widowhood.

My mother’s family too were dedicated fans of the game, all following the ubiquitous Collingwood football club as did my paternal grandmother. Whilst all football allegiances are parochial Collingwood has an aura and presence all its own in Melbourne. It was one that enjoyed the loyalty of the workers and those who lived in the heavily populated, then, inner suburbs that ringed the city it’s following becoming generational continuing to today. In my early years I was a Collingwood supporter in the way as children we inherit other characteristics of our parents, almost like a genetic code. My memory of this is thin at best but I very clearly remember the turning point at which this changed.

As and eight year old in grade two of primary school one of my class mates was the daughter of a coach of one the more famed football teams. With stars in my eyes, their success during the season of 1989 came to my attention. Growing up in a home of two dedicated football fans, sports news was on the tv, radio and in newspapers ad nauseum so even as a child I absorbed these updates. It became increasingly clear as the year progressed that Collingwood was going to be challenged by its traditional rival and as is the way of children I was keen to back a winner. To her great credit my Mum didn’t try to sway me. Perhaps she thought it was a passing phase and the expected success of the family team would sway me back. At the end of an exciting season the finals culminated in a battle of the traditional rivals, Carlton meeting Collingwood. Battle lines were drawn between the two suburbs that bordered each other and across football loving Melbourne and inadvertently in our household. Calling on favours and friendships Mum managed to nab two tickets to the game that attracted nearly 114,000 enthusiastic fans. In scenes reminiscent of the great gladiatorial battles of the colosseum the game swung back and forth. Sat next to the Collingwood cheer squad some of those ebbs and flows of the game were tough for a little girl to swallow, indeed I remember I resting my head on mums shoulder at half time re-thinking my football rebellion. Perhaps she consoled me with some smugness thinking she was providing a child a tough lesson. As the game progressed and with controversy that remains questioned some 44 years later Carlton rose up and claimed victory and perhaps my mum learnt her own tough lesson about allowing a child to follow her heart my Carlton support cemented

In recent weeks the football season of 1979 has been on my mind as it has the minds of many football fans and the fans of the two heritage teams. In an exciting season and as the finals edged closer to the last Saturday in September a repeat of the 1979 Grand Final line-up looked ever possible, though alas it was not to be, Carlton missing out on a place in the final play off for the premiership cup at the final hurdle. What doesn’t change however is the festivity of the week. Football’s unique characteristic is its unifying nature. Not only does it provide community hubs for local teams and their followers and consequently a ‘home’ of sorts for members it brings communities together following the wider league. This weekend regardless of whether your team is playing or not groups of friends and families will gather for BBQs and to watch the big game together. Those whose team isn’t playing will switch allegiances for the day choosing a team to cheer on as will many who don’t follow a team but find themselves at festivities enjoying the event. I’m torn because let’s face it as a Carlton supporter I can’t follow Collingwood but as a Victorian I can’t cheer for an interstate team….the morals of footy run deep. I’ll decide on the day.

One thing the doesn’t change is the food. Aside from the obvious that always makes an appearance, this year I thought I’d have a go at making my own party pies, the natural accompaniment to the sausage roll or perhaps the traditional rival, just like footy teams.

I’ve tried to make them as simple as possible. I’ve used mince rather than making a chunky slow cook, reflecting the type of meat pie you’d enjoy at a footy game only miniature. In doing this I suggest using the best frozen pastry you can get your hands on. I’ve used Careme shortcrust, if you have a favourite recipe and the time to make your own by all means do so. In addition to mince and frozen pastry I also suggest using patty pan trays with their half sphere holes rather than a more traditional pie shape that you’d achieve using a muffin tray. Afterall you’ve cheering to do rather than fussing with pastry in tricky trays.

Ingredients:

1 small onion finely diced

1 bacon rasher finely chopped

1 tsp each of finely chopped thyme and rosemery

2 tsps of extra virgin olive oil

500 gm beef mince

1 Tb plain flour

1 Tb worcestshire sauce

2 Cups beef stock made with good quality stock cubes (I use oxo)

2 tsp tomato paste

1 tsp salt flakes ( you may need to add more depending on the salt content of your stock cubes, traust your tastebuds)

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method:

500-600 gm frozen Shortcrust pastry. Use the best you can afford for flavour and flakiness. You may like to use a mix of shortcust for the base and puff for the top.

In a large fry pan, over medium-low heat, sauté onion, bacon and herbs until onion is translucent. Push this mixture to the edge of the pan, increase heat to med-high and add Beef mince whole to the pan and allow to brown on one side for a few minutes. Flip the meat as a whole to brown on the other side a few more minutes before breaking up and continuing to cook through. Once it’s nearly done start mixing the onion and bacon mix through. Keep an on the onion mixture while cooking the meat to ensure it doesn’t brown. You can move your pan off centre while cooking the meat to protect the onion mix.

Once the meat is almost browned, drain off most of the juices that have eeked out from the meat. Return to the heat and add the flour mixing through the meat and onion mixture and allow it to cook off for a few minutes as you would if making a white sauce. Once the flour is slightly browned and completely combined with the meat (it will look a little gluggy, this is fine) add the tomato paste and worcestshire sauce, stir through and cook for two minutes. Reduce heat to low and slowly add the beef stock stirring until completely added. Increase heat to med, bring to the boil before reducing heat back down to low and simmer for 15 minutes or until liquid has thickened and reduce by a third, it should still be fairly wet but thickened. Remove from heat and cool to room temp before popping the mixture in a sealed tub or bowl and refrigerating until completely cool, overnight is fine.

Preheat oven to 200c, grease and line two 12 hole patty pan trays.

Thaw pasty. Choose a pastry cutter or glass slightly larger than the rim of the patty holes in your tray. Cut your pastry rounds and place in the tray holes gently pressing into place. Keep your pasty off cuts to re-roll for the tops. Your pastry bases should overhang the holes by 1-2 mm to be able to seal the top to. Spoon meat filling into each pastry case no higher than the rim. Using remaining pastry and the same cutter cut a second set of rounds to top the pies. Brush the underside of the round with egg wash then place onto top of pie. I like to brush the whole underside rather than the edges to seal as it’s less fiddly. Gently press edges to seal and brush tops of pies with egg wash. Cook in the oven 15-18 mins. Serve hot.

Creamy Pork Pasta

Standing in front of the noticeboard, rifling around in my handbag for a pen and my diary my eyes scanned the roster. A groan of exasperation escaped. I had a split shift, not especially unusual on weekends where I’d wander to the gym or a walk around the city, I was loving working in but this one was 3 ½ hours. Too long to spend at the gym, at least for me it was and too short to go home and return, it was an awkward break that I was dreading.

A time before phones, social media and endless scrolling. A time when rosters were posted on noticeboards, when noticeboards were still a thing and schedules were maintained in diaries, it was the early 90’s and I worked in hospitality. I loved it, the pace, the variety and the joy of ensuring guests enjoyed a good time. I was a waitress by day, and on weekends, a ‘hostess’ on the door of the Hotel nightclub, all 5’3” of me. City hotels, their restaurants and bars held an air of glamour as did a night out enjoying the experience. The venue I worked in was extremely popular and a reservation in the themed restaurant or admission to the nightclub highly sought after and weekend staff very busy.

After a busy lunch shift caring for happy revellers dining before weekend theatre matinees or taking shelter from winter weather after morning city shopping sprees (also a thing of the past) I changed out of my uniform contemplating what on earth I was going to do with myself. A quick peruse through the entertainment section of the Saturday newspaper and I decided to take myself to the movies. It really was the time of the dinosaurs having to use a newspaper to choose a movie, where we’d see our favourite actor featured and blindly decide to see the feature without prior knowledge of the film’s story. Patrick Swayze was taking the leap into a serious role starring in a film, set in poverty stricken, Calcutta. I was 21, probably more naive than I’d have admitted at the time and it was the first time I’d taken myself to the cinema alone. Whilst the film does finish on a hopeful note it was, for very young me, somewhat traumatic. With no one to de-brief with and still 1 ½ hours to kill before my shift I decided I needed a lift and that in my newly asserting air of maturity (tongue firmly in cheek with the benefit of hindsight) I’d take myself out for an early dinner. Also a first time experience I walked down the road from the hotel in which I worked to a small Italian trattoria I’d been eyeing off keenly. Feeling very sophisticated I walked the tree lined entrance lit with gently waving festoon lights asking the host in his crisp white shirt and apron for a table for one. Taking my seat, I ordered a chardonnay (did I mention it was the 90’s?...Still love a Chardy too) and started people watching. Now to set the scene, remember no phones to scroll through and look occupied with, five pm and very few fellow diners, in fact none and a restaurant full of highly professional hospitality staff poised and ready to serve. There wasn’t a lot of people to watch, I’d sat myself with my back to the front window therefore couldn’t watch the passing parade and well I really had no idea what to do with myself. Reading the menu for perhaps longer than was strictly necessary, something that doesn’t happen now having thoroughly studied the menu online before venturing out, the waiter took his time greeting me and chatting with me possibly sensing my discomfort. Confused by the elevated nature of the Italian fare on offer the waiter directed my attention to a dish he thought I’d enjoy. An odd sounding dish whilst still quite simple in the way of Italian food that adventurous me was happy to try and agree to in my discomfit and be left to sip my wine taking in preservice preparations in the restaurant. From what was probably a quiet kitchen, my meal was presented to me quite soon after ordering. The aroma rose to greet me first, making my increasingly hungry stomach rumble. Steam mingled with the freshly grated parmesan cheese sprinkled over my meal by my attentive server adding another layer to the interesting bouquet enticing me. Left alone to enjoy my dinner I plunged my fork into the pasta tubes nestled in the pale coloured sauce threaded with small pieces of pork and dainty jewel like dice of carrot. Nutmeg tickled my tastebuds as I took my first mouthful and the cream swirled around my mouth. A layer of white wine revealed itself and a faint hint of freshness from flecks of parsley unfolded. I was suddenly very occupied of mind and distracted by the superb plate of handmade pasta before me. Deciding dinner for one wasn’t so awful after all, my full attention given to my carefully crafted meal completly undistracted by conversation just an internal discussion between my tastebuds and me to keep me occupied.

I’ve never forgotten that afternoon for all its lessons both in being adventurous and that wonderful combination of flavours.

Ingredients:

300 gm minced pork (not lean)

1 Tb extra virgin olive oil

1 eschallot finely minced

1 garlic cloved finely minced

½ cup carrot finely diced (I know this is an odd instruction but our ideas of what it’s a small carrot varies and actual measures works)

1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg and extra to finish

1 tsp salt flakes

125 ml white wine

250 ml cream

1 tb finley chopped flat leaf parsley

Your favourite pasta. I like to use a rigatoni or penne. We eat around 75gm of dried pasta person for the four of us. This quantity will coat that amount of pasta nicely.

Parmesan cheese to serve.

 Method:

Warm a medium sized heavy based pan over a medium heat. Add oil, turn heat down to low and add eschalot and carrot. Cook gently five minutes. Add garlic and nutmeg and cook gently for one minute. Push everything to the edge increase heat to medium and add pork. Brown five minutes until just cooked through breaking up lumps with your spoon as it cooks. Stir everything together, adding salt and increase heat to med-high. After a few minutes cooking at the higher heat, it should be starting to sizzle. Pour wine in, letting it bubble for a minute then reduce heat simmering until decreased by half. Pour in cream and simmer for a until slightly thickened, stir through parsley. Tip cooked pasta in and stir through until pasta is well amalgamated. Grate over additional nutmeg so the heat of the of the dish releases the lovely aroma. Serve with parmesan cheese sand black pepper sprinkled to taste.

Curry Chicken NoodleSoup

Reluctantly, I throw off the covers yawning. My feet hit the ground the cold under foot curling my toes registering with my brain and alerting me to what awaits. Blearily I pull on clothes and shoes, grab ear pods and head out. As I open the door a cold wind blasts my face, making me pull my head down in to my jacket collar like a turtle retreating into my shell hiding from the cold. Nonetheless I step forward and keep going. Even the morning chorus of birds is subdued still reluctantly unfurling from their slumber with a burgeoning winter song calling the dawn. Light is peaking through the trees emerging from the horizon as I hit my stride, one foot in front of the other my brain and body awakening….

Suddenly I’m startled.. The alarm on my watch is buzzing, trilling it’s pleasant tune, most probably composed after hours of research into notes that both awaken and don’t startle, the fine balance between alerting the wearer to the hour without setting their heart racing like the abrupt clanging of the old fashioned alarm clock. Yes awaken. The cold bracing morning walk of my dreams was exactly that, a dream. I’ve dreamed, both literally and metaphorically of being a morning person most of my adult life. That rumbling you feel right now as you read this is the earth jittering as those who know me personally read this and are currently throwing their heads back in hysterical laughter reminiscing, of moments with morning me, speechless until a morning caffeine hit and time to ease into the day. I’m just not a morning person, dream though I may of early starts beginning with a brisk stride under my belt followed by zen me sipping my morning brew fondly gazing at the scene through my window as birds flutter about joining me in my morning reverie before I launch into the day proper. Days finishing with an almost smug satisfaction as I reflect on the long list of ticks held in my head representing the day’s achievements. Alas I am not she and at nearly 52 I fear I may never be.

On the weekend, as I scrolled through emails, I happily noticed one of my favourites had arrived titled ‘I Need a Carrot.” Intrigued, I opened it expectantly hoping for a carrot recipe, I’m quite partial to a carrot…but I digress. She, similarly, spoke of mornings and went on to speak of her carrots. Little promises she makes to herself during the week to entice herself to complete otherwise challenging tasks. Promises of reward if you will, to keep putting one front in front of the other. Her and I spoke once in DM’s of mornings. She prompted me to focus on the feeling afterwards rather than the steps between where I lay and that feeling. It’s great advice though searching through my addled and foggy morning brain for that nugget Lindsay had offered me to throw back the covers is often a fruitless hunt, clearly. Like her earlier advice I also love the idea of a carrot, an attempt to fool myself into a prize at the end of completions to tempt me forwards to the finish line. But unlike Lindsay I’m yet to find the discipline to take the steps to win myself offered prizes and therefore the achievement of those goals, like rising early and meeting the day with a brisk walk (read: dreaded exercise) and a whimsical gaze out the window sipping coffee like some dreamy tv commercial.

One thing I do imagine and daydream about when I finally take my walk after brekky and coffee is what I’ll eat for the rest of the day. Maybe that’s my carrot, a delicious dinner that awaits me at the end of the day and the time to bring that together. Weirdly to some, that end of day kitchen time is like a meditation to me. Time where I stop and retreat to my happy place to respond to the day by creating something tasty. On days like the cold winter ones we’re experiencing at the moment I get through the days on the wings of the promise I make to myself to create a bowl of something warming to end my day with. Something laced with warming spice served with plumes of steam rising from it’s surface to lick the cold tip of my nose with it’s aromas and warmth.

I’ve spoken before of my deep abide love of soup both here and here. Like then, it endures as does my love of spice. Soup should be an experience of it’s own, hands warmed by the bowl, spoon plunging into its broth, swirling on the hunt for individual favourite ‘pearls’ of ingredients floating through its wake, and in this case, slurpy noodles coated in all its flavours. As I type this, having made Curry Chicken and Noodle Soup to photograph for you, I’m a little distracted. It’s cold, the scene outside my window is bleak, black clouds shrouding the day in a dusk like filter, but there’s soup in a pot on the stove for dinner. I’ll keep typing, no soup for me until the work is done.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

700 gm chicken maryland or similar pieces with skin and bone still attached.

2 large garlic cloves finely chopped

1 litre chicken stock

20 gm finely grated ginger

1 lemongrass stalk bruised, white part only

1 red chilli sliced, seeds in or out. The spice choice is yours.

1 makrut lime leaf crinkled with a squeeze in your hand

1 brown onion peeled and sliced

3 cardamon pods bruised with the back of a knife to crack the pod

1 tsp ground turmeric

3 tsp curry powder, the run of the mill kind

1 large carrot peeled and sliced in thickish slices, say nearly 1cm thick

¾ cup of sliced green beans

2 cups of water

200-300 pkt fresh egg noodles

Fresh herbs to serve such as basil, parsley, mint and dare I say….coriander (just not in my bowl)

Coconut cream to serve.

Method:

Preheat oven to 220c, stay with me here I know this sounds odd. In a medium baking dish drizzle olive then place chicken pieces in the dish, drizzle more olive oil over the top and sprinkle flakes over the chicken. Place in the hot oven and bake 25 minutes or until the skin and edges are just starting to brown and blister but the meat is not completely cooked through.

While the chicken is starting in the oven. Prepare the onion and spices. In a large heavy pot, over medium heat, warm a good glug of olive. Reduce the heat to low and add the onion cooking gently for five minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass and cook briefly until fragrant. Add the curry powder and cardamon pods and again cook for a minute to draw out the fragrance. Remove the chicken from the oven and add to the pot including any oil and drippings and the lime leaf. Stir to combine and coat the chicken in the spiced juices, pour over the stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 30-40 minutes or until the chicken comes away from the easily but not falling off.

Remove the chicken from the pot. Tip the vegies into the broth and increase heat slightly, cook ten minutes while preparing meat. With two forks gently pull the meat from the bones. Discard the skin but return the bones to the pot to eke out every last morsel of flavour while you finish the soup. Shred the meat before returning to the soup and if needed chop to bite size pieces of necessary. Return meat to pot and cook a further 5 minutes.

When you’re nearly ready to serve, cook noodles following instructions on the packet. Distribute noodles evenly amongst four bowls. Gently ladle soup over the noodles. Like you would add cream to pumpkin or tomato soup, swirl a spoonful of coconut milk over the soup and top with fresh fragrant herbs.

Chicken Cottage Pie

***Warning no chicken soup was made or consumed in the creation of this story or recipe***

I listened to this episode of Lindsay Cameron Wilson’s podcast, The Food Podcast on my walk recently. It’s one of my favourites so you’ll have heard me refer to it before. In the episode Lindsay takes us behind the creation of her podcast and storytelling. One of her centrepoints was the history in her family and that of others of chicken soup. While the podcast was a brilliant listen for those interested in podcasting, writing and sharing stories the chicken soup thing is the one that swirled in my mind as I walked that day, a brain worm if you will. For Lindsay’s family and Fanny Singer, her guest, chicken soup presented mixed feelings and memories of everything always smelling of broth and the constant of its aroma in her recollections. It got me to thinking about my own memories of chicken soup.

I’d never tasted chicken soup until perhaps my early teens. I’ve mentioned before my mother’s disdain for cooking, thus her small repertoire. Perhaps she brought to adult hood the recipes she remembered from her own childhood, perhaps my grandmothers didn’t’ make chicken soup for her. As a girl, at my friend’s house one weekend, offered lunch, I looked in the pot curiously at the chicken and vegetable soup offered. The pool of golden broth jewelled with finely grated colourful vegetables, noodles and tender poached chicken looked and smelled enticing eliciting a dutiful rumble from my stomach. Later that day I promptly reported back to Mum asking if she could make some, instead of our usual scotch broth or pea and ham. I’m not sure if she sought advice from my friend’s mum Joan or she winged it but it was just as lovely and joined it’s soup cousins on high winter rotation. It also began a love affair with chicken soup and indeed all soup for me.

When you fall down the rabbit hole of chicken soup it’s like a culture all it’s own. It’s a dish that in each cuisine in which it dwells tells a story of that cuisine’s characteristics and culture. The Thai’s combine theirs with noodles and spices, the Greeks their distinctive lemon threaded Avgolemono, the Italians Brodo, the Chinese the inspired union of chicken with Corn and of course the iconic mother of all chicken soups Jewish Penicillin, the answer to all that ails. One that’s perhaps not tied to a particular country of origin but rather of the culture of the jewish faith for whom all tradition revolves around food.

One commonality weaves it’s way through all chicken soup culture is the comfort it brings. That gentle golden flavour of a broth slowly simmered with the flavours of whichever vegetables, seasonings and herbs chosen to build the layers is unique in cooking in it’s universal ability to provide a sense of home, comfort and nourishment.

What, I hear you ask, does any of this have to do with Cottage Pie? Well my friends as much as I love soup I also live in a house full of men, though two are absent at the moment, and soup sometimes isn’t enough. One, in particular, calls soup flavoured hot water *insert eye roll* and the other two while soup lovers are quite partial to another traditional comfort food, cottage pie and there my friends is the intersection of chicken soup and cottage pie. All the flavours of salty chicken broth finely diced veg and chicken topped with a blanket of mash baked in the oven until the sauce ozoes and bubbles at the edges is the perfect marriage of the comfort and flavours of chicken soup with the heartiness of pie.

Ingredients:

1 kg potatoes cooked and made into mash. Just like you normally would for dinner with

loads of butter and cream.

500 gm Chicken Mince

2 Tb Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 leek, white part only chopped

1 carrot diced

½ stick of celery finely diced

1 corn cob, kernels sliced from cob

1 garlic clove crushed

2 Tb chopped flat leaf parsley

3 sprigs fresh thyme leaves stripped from stalks

40 gm butter

3 Tb plain flour

625 ml of chicken stock. Fresh, made from stock cubes, premade, however you like it

½ c frozen peas

1 tsp salt flakes and fresh cracked black pepper

2 Tb almond flakes

15 gm butter extra melted.

Method:

Make mash and set aside.

In a large heavy based pan, cast iron if you have it, warm 1 Tb of the olive oil over a med-high heat. Cook the mince both sides then breaking up until almost cooked through. Remove from pan to a bowl and keep warm.

Reduce heat to low, adding the second tablespoon of oil. Add the Leek, carrot and celery to pan and cook gently on low for 5 mins, until leek and celery translucent. Stir regularly to prevent any browning. Pop the corn kernels in and stir through leaving to cook for another five minutes. Add garlic and herbs and cook briefly until fragrant. Stir butter through veg until melted and completely combine. Increase heat to medium and sprinkle over flour. Stir thoroughly again and cook flour off like you would for a white sauce, 3’ish minutes. Reduce heat to low again and slowly drizzle in stock stirring constantly to combine well and prevent any lumps. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes so the sauce reduces a little and thickens. Stir through the frozen peas and cook for a further 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat oven to 180c. In a suitably sized ovenproof dish spread the chicken and veg mixture evenly. Cover the top in the spoonfuls of mashed potato, spinkle over almonds and drizzle the whole top with the extra melted butter.

Bake for 35-40 minutes until the potato peaks and almonds are crispy and sauce is bubbly and oozy on the edges.

Warm Chorizo and Potato Salad

So it’s the first of December, perhaps the official start of the silly season, or is it? More and more each year the season dawns ever earlier. Major sale days now have become major sale weeks with us all hunting bargains and ticking off shopping lists smugly celebrating the completion of parts of or whole shopping lists. Company Christmas parties now dot squares in the November page of calendars and diaries. Christmas trees and decorations adorn our homes in November festooning every corner with festive cheer. And of course our social plans fill with all the annual Christmas catch ups with family and friends.

It's a funny thing really, we’re all so busy feeling like our personal bandwidth has reached capacity yet we feel compelled to load up even more. Don’t get me wrong, the social side of the festive season is actually one of my favourite parts of farewelling the year. Life, in the thick of the year is busy, we’re distracted by all the weekly commitments and demands on our time so making the effort to commit to time with special people feels all the more precious. December seems to bring with it a slow sense of curtains slowly drawing to a close. It’s an atmosphere well suited to a time of year marked by gatherings with loved ones. Likewise, a time of year here, where the weather mellows and warms and we’re drawn outside, dining under gently waving trees, warmed by sunshine and serenaded by birdsong and chirruping crickets. In amongst all these events though life still tumbles along taking us with it. Indeed alongside this period of reunions can be a sense of frenetic lists to tick off. Work tasks to close out for the year, maybe holidays to pack and plan for and all the other commitments we feel compelled to fulfill. Would I change it? Not on your life! I love the atmosphere of all these fun lunches and dinner dates. We’re all a little reflective, reminiscing on all the milestones and events and hopefully excitedly looking towards what the year to come brings. Corks pop, barbecues sizzle, laughter fills the air and shoulders, set firm with tension start slowly descending.

In the midst of that festive paradox the last thing I need is to struggle with what to cook or bring to a dinner when asked to contribute while still trying to fill hungry tummies. Where I can keep it simple I will, relying on a few loved flavours and filling, hearty ingredients. Spuds, or potatoes more politely, are where it’s at aren’t they. No matter how they’re prepared, nearly everyone loves them, they’re cheap and filling and will be the thing that will get passed between diners the most. What better way to keep the conversation flowing and cater for everyone.

Ingredients:

1 kg potatoes unpeeled in large cubes/chunks**.

¼ c extra virgin olive oil

½ tsp smoked sweet/mild paprika

2 tsp dried oregano

Salt flakes

3-4 whole unpeeled garlic cloves, lightly bruised with a lite bash.

2 cured chorizo sausages chopped into large chunks

¼ c garlic aioli or sour cream (choose your own adventure) or more depending on you’re preference

2 spring onions sliced to serve

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Line a large roasting tray or dish big enough to hold potatoes in a single layer. In a large bowl whisk together oil, paprika and oregano. Add the prepared potatoes and stir to coat well. Tumble the mixture in the lined baking tray and sprinkle with the salt flakes. Pop into the oven and bake 30 minutes. Remove and stir and sprinkle over the chopped chorizo and return to the oven for 10 minutes or until potatoes are golden brown and sausage caramelising on the edges.

Now here’s the choose your own adventure part. Dollop over the top either the garlic aioli or sour cream and sprinkle the sliced spring onions. We prefer the aioli, it’s just that little bit richer and we love the extra garlic flavour it imparts, however if you’d prefer a lighter flavour try sour cream. As it melts down over the warm potatoes it will melt into the flavoured oil now infused with the chorizo flavours and form a delicious sauce to scoop up and drizzle over whatever protein you’ve served alongside.

**Floury potatoes are usually preferred for baking but don’t get hung up on that, if you only have white or waxy potatoes just go with it, they’ll be fine.

Herbed Beef and Macaroni

Nostalgia has been front of mind lately, like a chain, all it’s elements individual links forming its reach. I’m not sure what’s motivated it but I know it started with a conversation with Mel and our joint quest for an old high school home economics text book, both of us coincidentally in pursuit of a seemingly simple but comforting recipe for apple dumplings. It was a strange happenstance that we should both be motivated by the same recipe and that it should come to light quite deep into the conversation. It’s the comfort that such nostalgic recipes bring that motivates such a hunt and a big reflection and metaphor for who I am really.

At the nursery this week looking for new season herbs I came home with three bright pink fuchsia plants to fill a spot in my garden needing a lift. They were my Nana’s favourite plant and featured frequently in corners of her garden cascading from hanging baskets like ballerinas dancing in the breeze every spring. They fascinated me as a child their little buds popping with a gentle squeeze revealing the stamen and pistil ready to erupt. As a little ballerina myself I always ‘saw’ fairies and ballerinas fluttering their wings or pointing their toes from the jewel-coloured blooms. I can’t wait for the little buds to burst in my little fuchsia patch and hope somewhere somehow they make my Nana smile.

Pottering in another part of my garden bright green buds almost reminiscent of fresh figs with ruby red centres had just started opening on one of the many orchid plants from my father’s collection. A hobby he took up in retirement, the accumulation, nurturing and sharing of his collection became a passion. I always smile fondly when they flush making sure to gather the long lasting stems and bring them inside to enjoy their elegant adornment almost like having my dad around again, popping in to visit.

They’re simple pursuits that consume me and occupy my mind and time. Nothing too fancy and definitely not particularly sexy. Indeed some may find them mundane and hokey, perhaps even frown on them. I’ve often looked on my passions myself that way even answering questions in polite conversation about them in hushed tones, brushing over them, trying to seem more intellectual and interesting. It was whilst listening to this episode of my favourite podcast this week that this came to mind and indeed I almost felt like Lindsay and her guest were giving me permission to remain elbow deep in the flour and soil and creativity. Noting their love of their individual interests motivated by nothing else but their love of them rather than any societal presumptions of them that can sometimes superficially be attached to such simple pastimes gave me pause. These pursuits bring comfort be they born from nostalgia like mine or otherwise. No matter how simple nor highbrow they may seem to others I realised that they really are like a soft crocheted blanket from nana ( did I mention my love of a blankie? ) tucked around your lap on a cold evening, they allow you to breathe out feel ‘warm’ in all the ways and offer you escape and indeed an intellectual flex in a way that’s meaningful to you…and that really is the thing that matters most.

Much like my simple pursuits beef mince is a simple ingredient often forming the basis for simple meals. There’s usually always a tray of it in my freezer, so much so I could almost write a book of mince recipes. It’s an ingredient often associated with nostalgic meals like this one and more often than not comfort food. Maybe it’s that air of nostalgia that’s prevailed recently that reminded me of this dish from my childhood. Herbed Beef and Macaroni was one of my mum’s specialties from her Women’s Weekly Recipe Card Collection box. Remember those? They were a prized collection taking pride of place in thousands of Australian kitchens in the 70’s and 80’s. As was the case in that cooking era it featured a few convenient hacks using tinned soup and packets. Working from memory and a preference for working from scratch, I was keen to reconstruct this family fave. I was thrilled to plunge my fork into a warming bowl of this hearty dish and even more so to taste a dinner that tasted just like it did at mum’s hands.

Ingrendients:

1 Tb olive oil, you know the drill, extra virgin

1 brown onion finely diced

1 carrot peeled and very finely diced or grated

1 garlic clove crushed

150 gm bacon chopped in chunks

500gm beef mince (not the low fat stuff, it’s dry and flavourless)

400g jar of tomato passata/puree + a jar of water

1 Tbs dried mixed herbs – the old school variety

1 tsp dried oregano

1 beef stock cube

1 ½ cups of small shaped dried pasta like macaroni or elbows

1 c frozen peas ( I use baby peas, they’re much sweeter)

Method:

In a large frypan, that has a well-fitting lid, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the bacon and fry off until the edges start to caramelise, about five minutes.

Reduce heat to low and add onion and carrot and cook gently until softened but not browned, another five minutes.

Increase heat to medium high and add the garlic cook briefly until the garlic aroma wafts up. Push all this to the edge of the pan and add the pat of mince allowing it to brown whole for a few minutes each side like you would a whole piece of meat. After you’ve browned both sides break it up and continue browning the meat. You don’t need to cook it through completely but rather brown it mostly.

Sprinkle over the herbs and stir briefly allowing them to warm and release their fragrance. Pour in the passata and using that jar add a jar full of water. Crumble the stock cube over the mixture and stir to combine.

Tumble the pasta shapes into the mixture and stir to combine well. Turn heat back down to low, pop the lid on and cook for ten minutes stirring half way through to ensure it doesn’t catch on the bottom.

Remove the lid, stir again and taste check the pasta for doneness and check for seasoning. Add salt and black pepper to taste now. Try not to do this earlier as both the bacon and stock cube add a lot of flavour and needs time to cook down a little before you taste and season. Allow to simmer for a few more minutes with the lid off to let some of the liquid reduce. Finally add the peas and simmer a further five minutes or until the pasta is tender but not too soft.

I like to serve it with a sprinkle of gremolata to freshen up the flavour. Chop a small handful of flat leaf parsley, grated rind of a lemon and a garlic clove together until fine and sprinkle to taste.

Muesli Bars

The cheers of my friends 7 year old screaming “ he’s walking” erupted from the lounge while we adults chatted in the kitchen. We rushed to the see what all the commotion was about to find my friends young son teaching my 11 month old to walk. It was our second wedding anniversary and not only had she brought us flowers to celebrate but her gorgeous boy had helped our son reach one of those much anticipated milestones. He’d rolled early, ten weeks, he’d babbled and chatted on schedule, gobbled up all that was offered and now was on the move. We all cheered and sat on the floor with him reaching our arms out to him encouraging him forward happily rejoicing with every step.

Parenthood is like that isn’t it? Anticipating all those milestones and all the rejoicing when they arrive. Some arriving on time, each one ticked off the list, others arriving on their own schedule sometimes causing anxiety and efforts rallied to help your young ones forward. Each rung of the ladder is exciting and each one marks the passage of time. No matter what others tell us in the midst of these exciting and busy years we do watch and wait with a mix of emotions.

As each one arrives so too does our own days and routines. Running around after mobile toddlers, taking them to preschool, starting the school days and all that brings including all the educational goalposts and extra curriculars. These milestones all act as building blocks to their lives and in turn our own.

As the early years of our children’s lives unfolded all the parenting moments and milestones of my emerged. Some challenging me others working to my strengths. As my eldest edged towards starting school I imaged myself creating all the gourmet lunches you could possibly think of. My young fella had a good palette and loved a wide range of foods. I couldn’t understand what other mothers bemoaned. To me I thought it was going to be a creative boon for this food lover. I soon learnt yet another lesson from parenthood. Coming up with variety and emptying picked through lunchboxes at the end of busy days soon became old. Each year would begin with purchases of the latest ‘lunchbox’ cook books and magazine special editions determined to do better and find new ideas. In turn each year would end with vegemite sandwiches and apples as we dragged ourselves to the finish line.

Then, in what felt like the blink of an eye, the school years were coming to an end and the lunch box ‘grind’ was too. I rolled through that first summer without a return to school and two adult men inhabiting the space formerly consumed by little boys with all the fervour of and excitement of a woman released from self-imposed shackles. Until I started to crazily miss it. Was it a metaphor for the loss of the little boys no longer running around? Probably. I’m immensely proud of the strong, self-sufficient and hard working men they’ve become but finding your place in the lives of your adult off spring can be a milestone of it’s own and a tricky path to navigate. But here’s the thing even adults still need parenting, it just looks and feels different and has a different scale.

At night as the boys prepare for the workday to follow and lunches are compiled, by htem now, I still often hear “mum what can I make for lunch?” you’ve read before about this one which has become one of Boy 1’s go to’s. But he also loves a hand held version, as it were, to munch on in the car on the way to work, as the sun rises over the suburbs and he sips his takeaway coffee in traffic. No longer taking shaky steps in the lounge room to outstretched arms but leaping through life away from the arms that now cheer him and his brother on in awe.

Ingredients:

120gm unsalted butter chopped

2tb honey

¼ c brown sugar

1tb olive oil

1 c rolled oats

1/3 c sunflower seeds

1/3 c pumpkin seeds

1/3 c chopped raw almonds or sliveded almonds

80 gm dark chocolate chopped

½ c dried fruite of your choice (I’ve used currants and chopped medjool dates)

1/3 c shredded coconut

¼ tsp salt flakes

Method:

Preheat oven to 160c (140c fan forced) and grease and line a 19.5cm x30cm slice tin.

Over a med-low heat, gently melt butter honey and sugar together until sugar is just dissolved without letting the mixture bubble. It will need your undivided attention as you may need to hold the pan off the flame a few times and swirl a little to keep it off the bubble. Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature. If you don’t mind an extra dish to clean pouring the mixture into a wide bowl like a pasta bowl will speed this up.

While you’re waiting for that to cool, combine all remaining ingredients ensuring any sticky ingredients like dried fruit are broken up and covered in the dry ingredients.

Once wet ingredients are suitably cooled pour over the dry and stir to mix thoroughly until there’s no sign of dry ingredients. Some of the chocolate may soften and even melt a little. This will depend on how cool your butter was and how warm/soft your chocolate was. So long as the chocolate is still mostly whole it’s fine. In fact it will even help flavour the bars. Press into prepared tin pushing down to flatten. Pop in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Allow to cool almost completely in the tin. Gently lift out of the tin onto a rack and slide paper out from underneath.

When completely cool cut into the shape and size you desire. The outer pieces will be crispy and the inner ones chewy. The perfect mix for families of various tastes

Cornish Pastie

There’s a belief that we all experience our childhoods differently. All members of the one family reflect differently on all the events, traditions and milestones in their own way and colour in the images in their minds and hearts with their own ‘paint palette.’ Maybe this is driven by the age each individual member is at each moment in a family’s history or maybe their own character steers these memories. Our own journey through the years we traverse fills in gaps lost to time and the emotions we hold around these moments adding light and shade. Many of these recollections will hold food at their centre, it’s place at the heart of such chapters the jewel in the memory itself.

Marjorie Constance was our unassuming matriarch. A quiet country heart ensconced in the city after decades of battling milking eczema on dairy farms in the days of hand milking. Their pursuit of farming coinciding with running the town post office and whatever else her and Alfred could turn their hands to in order to make a living in their humble way. Papa a Cornish born gentleman and WWI Veteran and her an equally unpretentious country girl from rural Victoria. Salt of the earth types, as the saying goes, for whom family and home were everything and enough. They built their tribe, a son and nephew raised as brothers, as country families in Australia often did back then. Then their offspring gathering as cousins and sharing all the shenanigans and recollections of extended families. In her quiet gentle manner Nana cleverly gathered us all together twice a year taking full advantage of our Papa’s June birthday at the halfway point of the year and our love for him and of course an obligatory xmas celebration, unwaveringly, the second Sunday of December. She never pushed or imposed, it was just inked into the family calendar, bringing everyone together.

As a child I relished these gatherings, literally skipping through their beautiful garden carefully manicured borders, lining my path shaded by towering pine trees and abundant fruit trees. The kitchen table would be heaving with multiple desserts a collection carefully curated ensuring everyone’s favourites were catered to. The meal, never anything modern or fancy, rather it was always the best roast you’ve ever eaten and all those delicious sweets.

My cousins, the loganberry pie lovers, most probably see that as their highlight, always sat at the street end of the dressed-up trestle tables. I remember the apple pie and slices and the bench I sat on at the kitchen end of the table. We most likely recall the feelings and enjoyment of those meals differently too. What doesn’t differ is our love of a dish that never appeared at these evenings but is unerringly one of our favourite dishes from our Nana’s kitchen, Cornish Pastie.

Sharon, my cousin, says each vegetable was layered I don’t recall that. How the pastry was made has mystified us too. I suspect lard Sharon is certain it was butter. She’s also several years older than me so her role, working at Nana’s side, differs from the tasks a much younger me was set and again those experiences leaving a different story on the narratives of our lives. And that’s the thing, our memories are our stories coloured with our ‘paint box.’ Recipes will take their own shape and colours in your own hands. What matters the most is the feeling that first mouthful evokes. If, to you, it tastes like your memories and you recreate that feeling, you’ve recreated that recipe…enough.

Swede, as it’s known here, is the predominant flavour in pastie, it’s sweet earthiness the first flavour layer you taste. Other root vegetables follow with a savoury bite of beef and tingly white pepper foils the salty umami. I haven’t unlocked the pastry mystery but have let go of the pursuit of it’s secrets and wrapped the story in my rough puff pastry and that first flaky bite is immensely satisfying. You can use store bought if pastry making isn’t your jam but as always try and get the best you can obtain and afford, it really does make a difference. I’ve explained my pastry method below if you want to give it a go. Traditionally Pasties are made like individual parcels crimped on top almost football shaped. Nana always made hers as a slab, perhaps to make it stretch further and perhaps making a little less work for herself. We still prefer it that way.

Ingredients:

1 swede peeled and finely diced

1 potato peeled and finely diced

1 carrot peeled and finely diced

1 parsnip peeled and finely diced

1 eschalot or small brown onion peeled and finely diced

½ tsp heaped salt flakes

¼ tsp ground white pepper

2 tsp finely chopped parsley

250 gm minced/ground beef

2 sheets puff pastry measuring 30cm X 40cm

1 egg beaten and mixed with a drop of milk (as Nana would have said) for an egg wash.

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Combine all the vegetables in a bowl with seasonings stir to combine and leave to sit for a few minutes while you prepare everything else.

On a greased and lined baking sheet/tray lay one of your sheets of pastry. Leaving a 2cm border around the edge, pile your vegetable mix in the middle smoothing out the surface to be flat. Now here’s the part that was my job when I was little, scatter all across the top little blobs of the minced beef. This will almost cover the top in a thin layer. Paint the edge of your pastry around the filling with the egg wash. Lay the second sheet of pastry on top and roll the edges over folding and crimping all the way round. Brush the egg wash over the top. Poke small holes with either a fork or point of a sharp knife in several spots across the top to allow it to vent. Pop in the oven for 60 minutes. For ten minutes more, bump the temperature up to 200c to burnish the top and cook off any remaining moisture from inside. I like to turn the tray half way round after 30 minutes. Every oven I’ve ever owned is hot at the back and doing this allows it to cook evenly.

Rough Puff Pastry:

400 gm cold butter cubed

400 gm plain flour

1tsp fine salt

150-180 ml cold water

Method:

Combine flour and salt in a bowl and tip onto the bench in a mound. Sprinkle over the butter cubes, it will look like a lot don’t panic it will all come together. Using the sharp edge of a pastry scraper chop through the mound as if youre cutting something up, changing the angles of the scraper. If you don’t have one you can use a large knife to do this. Once it looks well chopped up and mixed through make a well in the centre and tip half the water in. Using your hands bring the mess together. You’ll need to add more water but it’s easier to add it little by little until you have a rough shaggy dough than add more flour to correct it. Resist the urge to knead it just massage it to the mound until it will hold into a big lump. Shape into a disc, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Remove from fridge and on a lightly floured surface roll out to a large rectangle. Nudge the edges into shape to achieve this, it’s a soft dough with such a high butter content so will be pliable. Fold each end into the middle then fold at the middle again like a book dust cover. Fold that bundle in half on itself, cover and refrigerate 30 minutes. Repeat this process 3 more times then rest again for 30minutes to an hour. It’s a good one for a slow day each roll and fold only takes a few minutes.

When ready the dough will be very smooth and ready for rolling as required. Cut in half and roll to required size. This recipe is the perfect amount for the sheet of pastie.

Brussels Sprout Gratin

With all the hutzpah and imagined sophistication of the young woman I was I stood in the golden waning light of a light spring evening, breeze gently billowing through my pink linen dress. The air scented by the heady fragrance of the rose garden in which we gathered, the late spring evening warmth carrying the perfume through the air. With anticipation I accepted a glass of straw-coloured sparkling wine, the new vintage which we’d gather to celebrate having just been sabred to much applause and celebration. Sipping happily laughing and chatting with friends the mood light, the tummies had begun to rumble. Waiters had begun to circulate offering light appetisers carefully curated to begin the evening and signal the excited mood. Oysters were presented, my friends all happily accepting them while I politely, and I thought discreetly, declined. My youth showing, one of my friends enquired as to my tastes and refusal of a plump pearlescent mollusk. Trying to maintain my façade of maturity and sophistication I tried to wave off the comment but his tenacity prevailed. “Try one,” he insisted…”what’s the worst that can happen….you confirm you don’t like them and move on.” He’s a hard man to argue with even to this day and he had a strong point. By this time he’d called our server back and taken a shell for me thrusting it forward and instructing me on how to eat the delicacy au naturele. I mean what a baptism of fire! No bacon of the Kilpatrick variety or oozy gooey mornay, we were starting hard core. He informed these treasures were flown in especially every year for this special event, remembering this was in the day when flying food around for such an indulgence was a rarity. Anyway, loath though I was to admit it, because frankly 25 year olds hate being wrong, but he was right. And to this day I love oysters, in all their guises, and artichokes, another of his culinary lessons.

In a fit of swings and roundabouts fast forward 22 years and we again had gathered surrounded by all our adult children, fast flowing conversation and a variety of food filling the dining room. Again a young 20 something, my friend’s son, politely turned his nose up at one of the many vegetable sides on offer. And as we do in middle age I recounted my oyster story and challenged him to try something different. Begrudgingly he took a small scoop, the conversation resumed and, so he thought, he took a bite discreetly. Quietly he reached forward and served himself a second helping and continued eating under the gaze of his mother and I sharing a gentle grin. A few years on and James still like sprouts.

It’s always worth trying those foods you think you don’t like, if you don’t like it you don’t have it again and if you do you explore that new food in all it’s forms. Nothing culinarily ventured nothing deliciously gained.

If a young man can enjoy brussels sprouts almost anyone can. I mean who doesn’t like something smothered in creamy sauce topped with a little crunch from sourdough crumbs. And of course the salty pop of prosciutto or bacon and gentle bite of pine nuts rounds the dish out perfectly. I promise! Just have a go.

Ingredients:

300 brussels sprouts trimmed at the base and halved

3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove bruised

2 french sallots

50 gm finely sliced prosciutto

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1 Tb pine nuts

40 gm butter

1 ½ Tb plain flour

1 ½ C warm milk

60 gm finely grated gruyere cheese

½ C course breadcrumbs made from stale bread preferably sourdough tossed in 1 Tb Extra virgin olive oil.

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Grease a shallow gratin dish or pie plate with better set aside.

Blanch the prepared brussels sprouts. If you’ve not blanched veg before it’s super easy. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Drop the sprouts and as soon as it returns to the boil remove and plunge into a bowl of cold water and ice cubes immediately. This stops the cooking process while giving them a brief cook but you need to remove them straight away they’re not in there to cook.

Warm olive oil in a pan, big enough to hold all the sprouts in a single layer, over medium-high heat with the garlic clove. Place all the sprouts cut side down in the pan cooking for 2-3 minutes until they start to char slightly. Remove and place in the prepared dish/pie plate face side up.

In the same pan on medium-lo heat, gently cook the prosciutto until starting to caramelise. Turn the heat to low and add the shallots cooking until translucent but not browning. Remove and sprinkle this mixture over the sprouts.

Again using this pan return it to the heat and turn down to low. Add the pine nuts and nutmeg stirring constantly for 1-2 minutes to release the aromas and again sprinkle over sprouts.

In the same pan you’ve been using, melt the butter. Add the flour and whisk with a balloon whisk. Slowly pour in milk whisking constantly and continue doing so until smooth. Keep stirring until beginning to thicken, sprinkle in cheese and cook a further minute or two until completely combined and thickened. Pour over the sprout mixture. Sprinkle prepared breadcrumbs over the top and bake for 20 mins.

Notes:

James’ mum and I love this dish with fennel. You can either add fennel to this at a ½ & ½ ratio or make it all with fennel. If using all fennel, trim and quarter and either sear in a griddle pan for pretty lines and another layer of flavour or gently caramelise in the pan skipping the blanching step.

If you prefer a firmer bite to your sprouts you can skip the blanching step but do caramelise them in the pan and do so a little slower to begin the cooking process.

Spaghetti Bolognese

What’s your favourite dinner? The one that makes you smile when you reminisce and remember your younger self eating it. The one you make for your own kids now and that you want them to love. The one that weaves it’s way through your own memories. The comfort food dinner. If I’m honest, for me, it’s spaghetti bolognese. I have many memories attached to the iconic dish, many of them around it’s evolution in my cooking world to the dish I make today. Now my kids have many memories around ‘Spag Bol,’ as it’s affectionately known here, and it’s the one meal unfailingly met with smiles at every serving and the one they now want to learn to make themselves. Indeed I imagine as their version evolves so too will the flavour and their own memories around the dish.

My first encounter with a bowl of noodles encased in meaty tomatoey sauce was in a family restaurant we visited to celebrate family milestones and special occasions. My family didn’t know any Italian folks nor were my parents particularly adventurous in the kitchen so any pasta dish beyond Kraft Macaroni Cheese from a box or tinned spaghetti seemed very exotic. After much nagging my poor mum who wasn’t particularly adept in the kitchen gave it a go. With no recipes or friends to guide her she cooked up some dried pasta pouring the wiggly worm like strands into the bowl and topping it with tomato paste. I don’t need to explain how that went except to say from there it was Campbell’s tinned Bolognese sauce all the way….for many years.

In my early 20’s, chatting with an older friend who was quite an accomplished cook, she was horrified by my bolognese journey and set herself the task of helping me master the art of the wholesome favourite. More cans and short cuts ensued but we were at least on the way to homemade version of some sort. This one involved Campbell’s again only this time a can of their condensed tomato soup and a dash of curry powder….. I know. But in my defence I was young and still pretty inexperienced in the kitchen. I thought I was almost Italian and indeed was finally able to teach my mum how to make ‘proper’ spaghetti. As stir through sauces appeared at the supermarket Mum would bounce between them and the tomato soup and curry method, both obviously usurping the tub of tomato paste on hot pasta method.

Now I’m the mum and my kids want to know how to make our family version of the classic dish. My eldest son, who’s nearly 23, is heading off with his friends on an adventure early next year. They’re planning a half lap of Australia heading west, touring in their 4WD’s camping and living off grid. I’m all parts excited for them and terrified. It’ll be the longest he’s been away from us and we’ll miss him enormously. Last Christmas one of the gifts I bought both boys was a recipe journal with plans to write in any favourite dishes they want to be able to make for themselves in their own homes in years to come. Boy 1’s first request was Spag Bol, but here’s the thing….After decades of making something by sight, smell and feel I had to really think about how I create something that’s second nature. It’s forced me to slow down and really note how it all comes together and record it for posterity as much as pass on to him.

So with your indulgence, I hope you don’t mind pasta two weeks in a row, I thought I’d share with you our version of the aussie Italian hybrid that’s equal parts a nod to Australia’s multicultural heritage as it is to the evolution of my cooking skills and our little family’s food story.

***A little note on my method for cooking my sauce. You’ll note that after bringing everything together on the stove I cover the pot and pop it into the oven for a few hours. I stumbled on this idea when two commitments collided but I needed dinner ready for a visit from my diabetic dad. I suspected that on a low temperature I could let the pot bubble away in the oven without a lot of supervision as opposed to cooking it on a stove as I had until then which of course requires your attention and stirring. Not only did the sauce look after itself that afternoon but the richness it developed in the oven versus the stove was a revelation. And, as I did that long ago Sunday with a get together with the neighbours, you can relax and enjoy a little glass of wine while dinner bubbles away. You can still cook yours on the stove if you prefer as my son will need to do on a camping stove in the wilds of outback Western Australia next year.

Ingredients

2 tb Extra virgin olive oil

100 gm prosciutto, pancetta, bacon or ham (you can even use left over roast pork chopped up)

1 large onion finely diced

1 carrot finely chopped or grated if you prefer. The kids can help you with that step perhaps.

½ celery stick finely chopped

1Kg beef mince. Don’t choose the lean one, all the flavour is in the meat fat.

3 garlic cloves crushed or grated

1 tb dried oregano leaves

2 tbs tomato paste

2 400 gm cans of crushed or chopped tomatoes PLUS two cans of water/beef stock

2 beef stock cubes if not using beef stock for above

1 700g bottle of passata

A generous grating of fresh nutmeg

1 tsp of salt flakes

Black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 180c.

Over a medium flame on the stove warm the olive oil in a heavy based pot that has a well fitting lid for later.

Sauté Prosciutto, bacon or whatever pork product your using and cook until starting to crisp at the edges. Add onion, carrot and celery to the pot and turn heat to low cooking gently for up to 10 minutes until soft and translucent. Return heat to medium and pop the garlic and nutmeg into the pot warming a minute or two until fragrant. Push all that to the edges of the pot and drop the mince in the pot increasing heat to med-high. Leave the mince whole for a few minutes letting it sear and brown before turning the meat whole and repeating that sear again. Once both sides are brown you can start breaking up it up to continue browning the mince. When almost don’t stir the vegies and prosciutto/bacon into the mince. Add the tomato paste to the mixture, stir through thoroughly and let the paste cook off for a moment or two. Turn heat to high and pour in the wine letting it bubble up and cook off for a few minutes reducing in colume slightly.

Stir in tomatoes and passata, water/stock (pop the stock cube in now if using in place of stock), oregano and salt and pepper. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid and place in the oven. After the first hour remove and stir. Pop it back in the oven for another hour and your done. Check for seasoning and adjusting as required.

***Notes***

If you think the sauce is getting too thick too quickly you can add water to return some moisture to the dish.

If you need an extra to hang out with the neighbours/read a book/play with the kids/ do the shopping etc turn the oven down to 160c. It should buy you another 45to sixty minutes but keep a little eye on the moisture.

As I mentioned previously I don’t have a lot of gadgets including a slow cooker. If you want to be uber organised you could probably do this in the slow cooker. You might like to use this handy tool to convert my instructions.

A weird but tasty addition is some leftover roast pumpkin mashed into the sauce just before going into the oven. Trust me…Delicious but shhh don’t tell the hubs I fed him pumpkin.

Oven Roasted Tomato and Salami Pasta

The grains rain down from the bag as I pour them from the crinkled bag. Straw coloured and fine they remind me of dry fine sand from an exotic beach somewhere. I briefly run my fingers through their soft feather light texture almost like the beginning of a meditation, the gentle sweep through the grains setting the scene for my hands, my mind switching off from the swirl of life around me. My fingers leave a crater in middle of the mound ready to receive warm water to transform the grains to a soft pillowy dough. Swirling through the mixture as it amalgamates into a rough ball my fingers warm up, start to stretch and squeeze, coaxing the two forms into one. I notice flour and water have joined and a rough ball has formed, I notice I’ve switched off from the world and almost in a trance have given my whole mind to the process.

Flexing my hands the rough ball lands on the bench from the bowl, stretch, fold, turn, repeat…over and over until the craters, dimples and blemishes smooth out. My hands and eyes talking to each other, feeling the dough as I knead, registering it’s increasing pliability, the surface losing it’s imperfections to a silken smooth outer like the proverbial baby’s bottom. I can feel it’s alchemy emerging, it’s lightness pillowing with each turn. It’s time. Tucking my pasta dough under a cover for a rest it’s time to let it relax, I notice the satisfied feeling in my muscles and the calmness in my mind. The satisfaction of creating something from two simple ingredients and the moments of tuning out to the world and into the union of the elements almost invigorating.

I’m often asked If I have fancy kitchen gadgets like an air fryer or thermomix. Indeed as an avid cook you’d think I would. I confess, as a lover of technology and cooking I am often tempted but I love the process more. Maybe it’s my version of exercise, I do know it’s my way of switching off. And while doing so I get to nourish, nurture and create, three things that are important to me. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes the kneading of a dough may be more ‘vigorous’ than others or indeed the stirring of a bubbling stew less enthusiastic but it’s always satisfying.

So do I have a fancy pasta making machine? No. I actually love tuning into the ingredients in my hands, building an intangible intuition and allowing it to let me know when it’s ready. Trusting and enjoying the process regardless how arduous or enjoyable the day allows it to be.

I’ve recently revisited my love of making pasta guided by this book. If you’d like to try and make your own basic pasta this is an excellent place to start. There really is nothing like the taste and texture of homemade pasta. Maybe it’s the satisfaction, almost smug-like if I’m honest, of knowing something so nourishing was created with my own hands but the flavour and freshness of it compares to nothing else.

While I massage the dough with my hands my mind invariable always wanders to the final flourish of any pasta dish and how it will be adorned and dressed. Sometimes the pasta will be evolve while a rich ragu bubbles away in the oven (Yes the oven. I’ll come back to that one another day but trust me cooking your pasta sauce in the oven slowly is a game changer). But other times the desire to make the pasta precedes the planning so to speak. Often time while that dough naps under cling wrap, I’m found in the pantry and fridge fossicking for inspiration.

This is one such creation. It’s easy and full flavoured belying the ease with which it comes together. It’s a great end of the week dish using all those tomatoes sitting in the bowl on the bench, in fact will be all the better for some extra ripeness. And yes the bench! Don’t store your toms in the fridge, they last longer at room temp.

Ingredients:

750 gm of mixed fresh tomatoes. The more varieties the better and the riper the better.

3 Tb Extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt flakes

3-4 garlic cloves unpeeled

1 onion peeled and cut into 8 wedges

1 400 gm can crushed tomatoes

½ tomato can of water

100 gm flavourful salami

Method:

Preheat oven to 200c and place a baking tray in the oven to also preheat.

Fill a large pot with salted water and place on the stove over a large flame to bring the water to the boil.

Gather and weigh your tomatoes. Remove any green stalks if you have truss toms and cut any larger ones into wedges similar size to cherry tomatoes if you’re using a mixture (as pictured). Gently toss onion wedges, tomatoes and garlic in the oil and softly tumble into the warmed baking tray, drizzling any leftover oil from the bowl over the top. Spinkle the salt flakes over and place in the oven for 15 minutes. We want the tomatoes to begin to blister and the edges of the onion pieces to char and caramelise.

Remove from the oven and add the canned tomato and half of that can of water. Gently fold the ingredients together. The onion will start to separate which is fine as that’s how we want to serve it. Return to the oven for a further 15 minutes. It will begin to bubble and thicken slightly.

At this time pop the pasta of your choice in the water to cook.

Remove from the oven for a second time. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper as required though not too much as the salami will add flavour in the next step. Lay the salami slices across the top in a single later and again return to the oven, this time for 10 minutes. The salami with crisp and brown at the edges.

The pasta should be cooked at this time. Drain the pasta and add to the sauce. Fold through and serve.

If you’d like to give pasta making a try this is a good place to start. Mine is ‘rustic’ shall we say but it all tastes the same right.

Curry Chicken Rice

“What’s for dinner?” Did even reading that line make your toes curl? It’s the lament of parents the world over. The late afternoon question that rings through homes around the globe. The question that evokes an audible eye roll from every household’s cook. Logically the more years we cook for our families the more our repertoire grows and indeed the greater the library of skill and recipes we theoretically should be carrying around and able to call on. BUT that’s simply not how it works is it? I mean I clearly love cooking and love creative cooking but even I am frequently stumped literally having no idea what to whip up. The trouble when you love food and cooking is the many questions that rattle around in your head. What do I feel like eating/cooking? I can’t actually be bothered after a busy day…in the kitchen…queue that headache inducing eye roll. And literal cook’s block, like a writer’s block only hunger inducing and frustrating and narrated by a chorus of voices demanding an answer to the age-old late afternoon question that is the language of hungry tummies.

It can be easy to call on the plain wholesome Aussie old school favourite of meat and three veg but that can be boring, and frankly require as much work as many more elaborate offerings. With the current crazy prices of vegies in Australia, hello $10 lettuce, and you over there…$12 strawberry punnet…sit down we’re not indulging in you this week, those veg next to the piece of protein frankly feels almost indulgent. If you’ve hung out here for a while you’ll know I like a one pot wonder, a fast take on a more laborious favourite like this one and the family love rice, it’s cheap, filling and results in leftovers for lunches the next day. We also love a curry and the use of the, albeit, not traditional but delicious none the less, Indian style curry powder makes it super simple.

My curry chicken and rice is a one pot dish, that simple to prepare and needs only 25 minutes cooking time on the stove. It’s calls on the techniques of both risotto and pilaf methods combining to make what is reminiscent of the two combined into one. It’s a gentle curry for younger diners and can be dialled up or down according to the palettes of your family but also marries nicely with spicy condiments if there’s varying needs at your table.

Ingredients:

2 Tb Olive oil or ghee

500 gm chicken thigh cut into chunksm roughly 6 pieces per thigh

1 brown onion sliced

1 tb grated fresh ginger

1 large or 2 small garlic cloves crushed

3 tsp curry powder

½ tsp garam masala

4 cardamon pods bruised

1 cinnamon stick

¼ tsp ground ginger

4 curry leaves

1 cup rice, I use doongara

1 cup coconut milk

2 cups chicken stock

2 hand fulls baby spinach leaves

Extra curry leaves to serve

Method:

Heat 1 tb of the oil or ghee in a pan over med to high heat, brown chicken pieces until starting to brown on the edges, five minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep warm.

Add second tb of oil to pan and reduce heat to med-low. Cook onions gently until translucent, 5 minutes. Add garlic and ginger and and cook til fragrant but not browning. Add spices and cook until fragrant 1 minute. Add rice and stir until coated in the spice and onion mixture. Return chicken to pan and increase heat to med-high. Pour in coconut mil and allow to boil for 1-2 minutes. Add stock and curry leaves. Bring to boil and immediately reduce het to low and cook covered 10 minutes. Remove lid stir well ensuring it’s not sticking to the bottom and cover again and cook an additional 10 minutes. You’ll need to keep an eye on it at this stage to prevent it catching on the bottom. Just give it a quick stir if it does. Taste rice to be sure it’s nearly cooked, if so add spinach fold through and replace lid cooking for a final 3 minutes, again with lid on. Remove lid, stir while continuing to cook for a few more minutes to reduce any remaining moisture. Turn off and leave it to sit with lid on for five minutes until serving.

***Notes:

Let’s be honest sometimes you either don’t have all the spices or are in a hurry and can’t be bothered. When this strikes just bump up the curry powder with a third teaspoon. It’s pretty forgiving and will still be delicious.

If spinach will leave you stretching a friendship with kids, you might like to try substituting this with frozen peas or sliced green beans.

We like to add additional spice at the table with various condiments such as, chilli jam, dried chili flakes or even chilli oil.

For those more sensitive palettes you might like to add a bowl of yoghurt to the table, but this is a very mild dish.

Double Chocolate, Peanut & Miso Cookies

Ensconced on the couch, head on a mound of soft cushions, fluffy mohair blanket gathered around me I assumed my position for the days that lay before me as I moved through my turn at the dreaded virus. I’d chosen a Netflix series to begin my week of iso, which as the last one to fall in our house didn’t see me confined to my bedroom. Thankfully winter sun streamed through the windows it’s winter arc through the sky bathing my position in it’s warmth. I’d considered myself extremely lucky to have made it this far without infection indeed the whole family only endured the dreaded lurgy this year. We felt like the unicorn family, having escaped infection and exposure what felt like a million times. We were almost smug really, revelling in the health we’d enjoyed not only avoiding covid but all the annual winter bugs that normally prevail. But then the hammer fell and like a domino trail in slow motion one by one we dropped. First the 19 year old, then the husband, then simultaneously me and the 22 year old, who didn’t even know he was infected. From my spot on the couch my view towards the tv was interrupted by a pile of books that had grown recently with the balance of books read and acquisition of said books being somewhat out of balance. Normally the prospect of a week stuck on a couch with such a stack staring at me coaxing me to choose would be my idea of heaven but covid brain is real my friends. Concentration was sadly lacking so I turned to my streaming selection and started watching. Though concentration and energy was absent my appetite was not. Distracting me from my viewing was a jar of chocolate coated peanuts, a jar I’d been nagging my son to put away. Reaching for it and dipping my hand in the jar for a little snack. Not normally a flavour combo I would seek out or a treat I would yearn for the little crunchy chocolate nuggets hit the spot. As you can imagine the contents of that jar slowly dwindled over the following days as did my son’s patience with my indulgence of his chockies. His consternation sparked an idea. I’d been contemplating a chocolate biscuit idea for a while but hadn’t had a chance to experiment too much.

My nibbles of my son’s chocolate coated peanuts reminded me how delicious the two flavours are together combined with my new obsession with miso an idea was born, that after a few iterations, has resulted in these delicious cookies. Crisp on the outside, fudgy in the middle, almost reminiscent of a brownie and encasing chunks of dark chocolate and crunchy roasted peanut. They’re a little bigger than a chocolate coated peanut of course but in my humble opinion a whole lot tastier and even more hard to resist.

Ingredients:

160 gm unsalted butter softened

75 gm brown sugar

165 gm white sugar

2 tb white miso paste

1 tsp vanilla paste/extract

1 egg beaten

175 gm plain flour

¼ tsp salt flakes

30 gm dutch process cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

100 gm chopped dark chocolate

110 gm roasted unsalted peanuts

Method:

Preheat oven 180 c and line two cookie sheet trays with baking paper.

Combine the flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl, whisk to combine thoroughly and aerate, set aside.

In a stand mixer cream butter and sugar until lighter in colour and fluffy. Add vanilla, miso paste and egg mixing again until well combined, scraping down the sides during the process to ensure it’s all mixed.

Sprinkle in the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just combine. Remove and fold in peanuts and choc chunks with a wooden spoon. This will take a little effort as it will be quite stiff. Place bowl in the fridge for 15-20 minutes to firm up while you tidy up. If your kitchen is particularly warm you may like to refrigerate for 30 minutes. This step helps control the cookie’s spread when they hit the oven.

Working quickly roll into golf ball size portions allowing room on the trays for them to spread during cooking.

Place in the oven for ten minutes. Remove at the end of cooking and allow to cool for five minutes on the trays before transferring to cooling racks to completely cool.

Apple Crumble

The door shuts with a thunk, voices waft up through the window on a soft summer breeze from the driveway like birdsong and the baby gurgles in my arms. My Nana alights from my parents’ car, small box in her arms brushing off offers of assistance from my parents. I hear her uneven footsteps approaching the front door the legacy of childhood polio and her happy chatter, coming to spend time with her great grandson a much-anticipated treat and an opportunity to show her love. Even in her eighties she remembers those first days and weeks of parenthood. The pea soup fog of joy, exhaustion and elation are never too far back in the recesses of a mother’s memory. I open the door, babe in arms to her gentle loving smile and box of goodies is offered forth. She crosses the threshold proudly carrying her offerings through to the kitchen unpacking and explaining without skipping a beat. She’s brought us a sheet of Cornish pastie, a recipe passed down from my Cornish great grandmother, my favourite slice for a treat with coffee and a tray or apple crumble. She knows apple deserts are my favourite, this one whipped up in lieu of the apple pie she knows I love, her arthritic hands too frail to work the pastry. I’m flooded with relief knowing dinner is sorted, my heart swollen with love for this beautiful humble woman. She never took a compliment batting them away with shyness and modesty. Her humble nature content to know she’d showed her love for us and made a few nights easier on us we settle in for a visit and cuddles with our new babe and making memories with two lives who, unbeknownst to us, would only enjoy each other’s company for the brief crossover of time in which they both shared the world before she passed.

This is the first memory that always comes front of my mind when I scoop a spoonful of apple crumble into my mouth. One of the first I reflect on when I think about my Nana. It typifies her spirit and reminds me how loved we were. She was a woman of few words not especially effusive, though she loved a chat she relied on actions to show her love and food was top of her list.

When I savour a mouthful of my apple crumble the golden sweet crunch in the topping with a hint of a salty foil melts in the mouth amongst the oozy soft apple bed on which it floats. The additions amongst that apple compote are not entirely those of my nana’s but I think shed approve. Butter, sugar and Calvados blend to create a not too sweet caramel threading it’s way through the soft apple slices and bubbling up through the crumble topping. Strictly speaking this is a little off script from the traditional one of my childhood but I think Nana would approve. Also controversial is the absence of oats. I’m not sure why our family’s crumble didn’t have but as a result crumble with oats has never been my preference.

The addition of Clavados is my modern twist not something you’d have seen in the kitchen of traditional country cooks of old. If you want to omit the booze just substitute with apple juice or for a little tang, lemon juice.

Ingredients:

140 gm Plain flour

100 gm brown sugar

2 tbs desiccated coconut

½ tsp salt flakes

125 gm butter cold and cubed

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp all spice

¼ tsp ground ginger

5 cooking apples peeled, quartered and sliced

30 gm butter extra

2 tbs Calvados

2 tbs caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tb demerara sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Combine, flour, sugar, coconut and salt. Toss through butter cubes and rub through until the mixture is like damp clumpy sand. Set aside.

Peel, core and slice apples and place in large bowl. Pour calvados, sprinkle over sugar and combine vanilla extract. Toss this all together and pour into a well greased ceramic or glass ovenproof dish. Pinch off pieces of the remaining butter dotting over the apple slices. Sprinkle over crumble topping mixture crumbling with your fingers as you scatter it over. Don’t worry if there are gaps as this allows the juices to bubble up in between.

Pop in the oven for 45 minutes uncovered baking until golden brown and oozy at the edges.

Allow to cool slightly before serving as the syrup that forms during cooking can be very hot. Serve with custard and or cream. My husband like his with ice cream, I forgive him this transgression, so long as it’s good vanilla ice cream. My boys and I prefer custard of the homemade variety. The below is my go-to custard recipe, perfect every time and never fails. It’s delicious for a few days stored in a sealed container or jar in the fridge if it lasts that long.

Shared with the generous permission from Sophie Hansen from her second book A Basket by the Door.

Combine 1 ¼ C each of milk and cream in a saucepan with a halved and scraped vanilla bean and it’s seeds over medium heat. Warm until almost boiling. Remove from heat and allow to cool a little. Whisk together 1/3 c Caster sugar with 1 Tbs caster sugar and 6 egg yolks until pale and creamy (freeze the left over whites for a pavlova another day). Splash some of the warm milk/cream mixture into the egg mixture and mix until well combine then slowly our in the remaining while whisking until well combined. Return to the saucepan and stir over low heat until thickened and coating the back of wooden spoon, about five minutes.

If you’ve bought a bottle of calvados to try in this recipe and aren’t sure what to do with it you might like to try some of these, you can thank me later.

Crustless Potato Quiche

Sun streams through the window warming my face. Gumtree shaped shadows dance across the pages of my book distracting me while I read, inspiring idle daydreams, a choir of warbling magpies my serenade and soundtrack. I’m snuggled under a fluffly red mohair blanket contemplating a nap or a walk or perhaps concentrating on the words in my book. The words win out, they usually do. It’s a lazy Sunday, the day after the federal election and change is emerging. Everyone’s tired, maybe it’s another chapter of pandemic recovery closing and the next era dawning, maybe it’s fatigue from the constant news cycle we’ve just endured.

As the afternoon slowly meanders by marked by the fall of the sun through the trees and towards the west horizon the reality of life ambles towards me. Early evening draws closer and I contemplate the collection of leftovers from last night’s gathering of friends awaiting us in the fridge.

We gathered around a long table, enjoying each other’s company, all the more aware of the joy of breaking bread together, multiple conversations dancing across the table in rapid fire banter. Plates of colourful vegetable offerings brought by our guests pass back and forth, scoops of slow roasted boneless chicken on a bed of unctuous cherry tomatoes and tender spiced lamb shank nestle alongside. Wine is shared, sloshed into glasses, it’s readiness dissected while others enjoy a variety of frothy lagers. The remains packed away we retire to the fireplace outside in the dewy night air, more laughter, more food, bowls of bubbling apple and rhubarb crumble and custard warming our hands. Satisfied sighs and bellies surround my contented happy soul, having spent a contented afternoon cooking for dear friends and family one of the greatest acts of love and appreciation I can offer.

Whilst dinner was gratefully devoured there’s always a surplus when you’re notorious for serving a heaving table. Returning to the present I reluctantly put my book down and haul myself from the couch, open the fridge, ponder the contents of the tubs stacked inside….hmm not quite enough for tonight’s dinner. Another corner of my mind is settling around memories of elections past and my parents. What they’d think of this most recent period and the weekend’s result. The fridge alarm pings….day dreaming again…back to reality. Thoughts of my mum, a tenacious hard working social worker, come to the front of my mind and inspiration strikes. Her signature dish of her later years, a recipe brought home from work scribbled on a torn envelope by one of her clients and later passed around through her own family and friends. A simple easy to construct comfort food recipe perfect for the end of week bits and pieces in the fridge and to pad out a small buffet of last night’s surplus. A contented smile breaks across my face and I get to work. Never underestimate the value of daydreaming, the power of food memories and the simple dishes that fill our recollections.

Crustless potato quiche, as Mum would call it, is super versatile being one of those meals suitable for all three mealtimes. It will work as a picnic dish, with a salad for a light lunch or dinner or even a prepared brekky or lunch box item. You can use leftover potato or cook potato especially for your quiche. Any of the ham/bacon family will work as will other smallgood like salami and chorizo. You can also experiment with the vegetables you add again leaning on leftovers from the fridge or using bits and bobs from the crisper. I’ve tweaked Mum’s recipe making it a little lighter but bulking it up for a hungry family.

Ingredients:

1 onion diced

2 garlic cloves crushed or finely chopped

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tb unsalted butter

4 large eggs lightly whisked

1 cup whole milk

1 cup grated cheddar cheese (any flavoursome hard cheese will work, even a mix if needed)

1 tsp salt flakes

½ cup self-raising flour

2 potatoes diced cooked to just tender. (This equals roughly 2 cups of diced leftover potatoes if you’re using leftover potato)

1 cup of vegetables of your choice (see note)

100 gm prosciutto, ham, bacon or other similar meat.

Method:

Preheat oven to 220c. Grease a 20 cm square ceramic dish or round pie plate.

Melt butter with olive in a small pan over med-low heat. Gently cook the onion and garlic until translucent. If using bacon and you prefer it cooked you can also add it here and cook it off. Allow to cool while you gather and prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Whisk together eggs and milk. Stir through cheese and sprinkle over flour folding through until just combined. Add, onion and garlic mixture including the melted butter and oil, potato and any vegetable and meat your using. Gently stir through additions and pour into the prepared dish. Bake 30 minutes or until golden brown on top, set in the middle and gently pulling away from the sides. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Notes:

If using spinach for your veg addition use chopped fresh baby spinach leaves. No need to cook first indeed doing so will add moistrure.

Other lovely veg additions that work well include corn, peas, capsicum, zucchini and even cubed roasted pumpkin.

Cubed cooked sweet potato is a delicious alternative to regular white potato.

A mixture of grated cheese adds flavour and is a handy use of all the small leftover bits of cheese in the dairy drawer.

Chicken Ratatouille

The days are getting cooler here. The wintry damp air is descending, windows kept closed, curtains drawn at night and fire lit. In the late afternoon as the family trickle through the front door at the end of their days they arrive cold, tired and in need of something warm in their tummies. There’s nothing more comforting after a long day at work or school than being greeted by the rich smells of dinner wafting through the door as you step over the threshold.

My family almost always respond to that first sniff of dinner with the standard “what’s for dinner?” Often in the colder months the answer will include some kind of casserole or slow cook. I prefer autumn and winter for many reasons but one of the biggest ones is the food. A kitchen warmed by a purring oven housing a pot of some kind of rich and hearty has a special comforting quality like no other.

My Chicken Ratatouille is one such dish. Garlic, capers, tomatoes and all the sweetness of vegies cooked slowly bubbling away in the oven is one of those evocative aromas that always makes me smile with anticipation both knowing how much the family will enjoy it and equally how satisfying a dinner it is.

Skipping the traditional step of browning the chicken first actually gives the dish a special flavour with meat almost poaching in the sauce below it and the skin roasting and crisping up, juices running off it’s surface and flavouring the dish further. Most importantly this little trick also speeds things up and that hour in the oven gives you a little time to hang out with the family hearing about their day.

Ingredients:

1 Tb extra virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves finely chopped or crushed

4 shallots peeled and halved

1 large carrot chopped in large chunks

1 small celery stick diced

1 small capsicum chopped in large dice

1 cup of cubed eggplant

1 cup thickly sliced button mushrooms

1 Tb salted capers washed

Small bunch of fresh thyme

1 cup chicken stock

6 chicken thigh cutlets (skin on bone in)

2 400gm cans of diced tomato

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Warm the olive oil in a shallow oven proof pan over medium to low heat. Turn heat down to low and add carrot, celery and shallots cut side down and cook gently for ten minutes. Add capsicum and garlic and cook for a few minutes until fragrant. Increase heat to med and add mushrooms and eggplant stirring for a few minutes until they’re beginning to sweat. Sprinkle in capers and thyme and cook briefly until they release their aroma. Pour in tomatoes and stock. Stir everything to combine thoroughly and bring to a boil. Gently place chicken cutlets on top so they’re floating on the veg and sauce, sprinkle with salt flakes and drizzle a little more olive oil over them. They will both poach underneath and roast on top. Place the pan in the oven uncovered and cook for 1 hour.

Serve with a a green salad and some crusty bread. You may also like a bowl of steamed baby potatoes or soft polenta to mop up the sauce and veg.

Bircher Muesli

“Order up!” Bellowed the brusque Scottish head chef on my first day of my first hospitality job. Twenty one, hands shaking, cheeks flaming under the guidance of my supervisor I reached across the pass shelf and took the large glass bowl of a creamy white gloopy concoction. It was 6.15 am and though bleary at such an early hour I still didn’t recognise what I carried out to the buffet in preparation for, soon to arrive, guests. “What is it?” I enquire. “It’s Bircher Muesli,” he barked across the kitchen, “now hurry along.” Now if you’ve ever worked in a hotel restaurant or kitchen you’ll know this exchange was not one meant with any malice on his part rather an indication of the rising adrenaline of impending service. I often reflect on this as I watch reality tv set in restaurants or cooking environments wondering if this is a tactic secretly employed by chefs the world over to build tension like a screenwriter would in a blockbuster suspense thriller or a football coach at half time wanting to rev up the team and inspire performance. At the time I was a little rattled and perhaps even somewhat shocked. My supervisor, a seasoned hospo professional from London, though well used to such shenanigans reassured and encouraged me and I in turn grew a little and became a little bit more adult as you do in your early 20’s contrary to how you perceive yourself at the time. As that morning progressed I asked what indeed Bircher Muesli was. She explained what was in it and where it had originated from and offered me a taste. Until then I’d always eaten toast or muesli with the occasional bacon and eggs, very vanilla 1980’s Australia. Suddenly a whole new world of breakfasts opened up to me as the offerings on that buffet grew that morning and indeed my curiosity piqued so too did the variety of things I enjoyed for breakfast grow from working there.

Reflecting on this I’m reminded how the maturity of our taste buds can be like markers for the passage of time and indeed our own maturity. Our willingness to try something new that we may have previously thought we disliked or in fact had never heard of transcends from the table and kitchen to our greater lives if we’re lucky and we look beyond toast and coffee both literally and metaphorically.

Historically bircher muesli was created by a swiss doctor in the early 20th century. Traditionally it was made with oats nuts and fruit soaked overnight in apple juice and boosted with fresh grated apple in the morning. Originally intended to be a nutrition packed breakfast for ailing patients in hospital it remains a dish you can load up with all the essentials to get your day started well. You can make ahead in jars ready for a quick breakfast in the morning and indeed make a few at once given they keep well in the fridge for a few days. The recipe below is my concoction I make and keep in the pantry having it ready for mixing at night ready to go rather than lots of measuring and mixing each time. To make things a little easier I use dried apple which plumps up nicely overnight and marries well with the spices. Alternatively, my mixture can also be eaten well as a traditional natural muesli unsoaked with Greek yoghurt or with your favourite milk or milk alternative poured over with some fresh fruit.

Ingredients:

3 C rolled oats

¼ C LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond ground up and mixed. I use this one for bonus points. You could replicate it by whizzing 2 TBs of chia in a grinder, blender of stick blender to chop it up and make it palatable if unsoaked)

¼ C slivered almonds or your favourite nuts chopped up

¼ C oat bran

¼ pumpkin seeds

½ C dried apple chopped into small pieces

1/3 C shredded coconut

¼ currants

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp of fresh nutmeg grated

¼ tsp ground ginger

Method:

Combine all the above and store in a well sealed contained.

The night before eating add 1/3 C of your homemade natural muesli mixture from above. Place in a jar and just cover with your choice of milk and stir. Add 100gm your favourite yoghurt (I use Greek for myself but my son prefers vanilla Greek) and stir well. Seal jar and and place in fridge overnight. Top with fresh fruit and a drizzle of honey and serve. You can pop some fruit in the jar the night before if you have a busy morning ahead for grab and go convenience.

Corn and Potato Chowder

Do you still have your wisdom teeth? We’re a family with none now. Our youngest had his removed last Friday. As a parent it was a strange experience stepping through the doors of the very same, very small suburban hospital in which mine were extracted 33 years ago, albeit with a different surgeon thankfully. Day surgery in covid times is very different from what we’re used to, forcing a brief check in and more perfunctory goodbyes. These days a wisdom teeth patient is returned home hours after their surgery where parents don their Florence Nightingale persona and care for the ‘patient.’ Part of this was catering for the long list of eating do’s and don’ts. Lots of soft food, very little texture, acid and colour. It’s been a stretch. I peeked early with Sophie Hansen’s Winter Sun Soup from her book In Good Company, full of flavour, ginger, garlic and turmeric for healing. From there it went downhill quickly, the menu featuring such sterling culinary offerings as overcooked pasta, eggs for days and fluffy white sliced bread. Then I remembered this old favourite. Thankfully the weather is cool in the evenings here now as the seasons turn. Likewise in the northern hemisphere with cold weather lingering you too may be nursing a ‘patient’ in need of something to fill a belly and heart with a big warm bowl of the best comfort there is…soup.

Potato and Corn Chowder is a bowl of goodness to nourish the body and soul. It’s all those comfort flavours, starchy filling potato, smooth rich cream and sweet corn. It’s delicious served with warm crusty bread, hot buttered toast or just a sprinkle of a flavourful cheese like parmesan or gruyere. I like a dollop of sour cream on top because there’s never enough creaminess and a sprinkle of bacon at the end adds a little hit of texture and saltiness.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 TB extra virgin olive oil

3 rashers (approx. 150gm) of bacon chopped

1 leek white part chopped

1 garlic clove finely choppe

1 celery stick finely diced

25 gm butter

1 TB plain flour

1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels

2 cups diced peeled potatoes (roughly 2cm dice)

Generous pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

1 tsp of chopped fresh thyme

1 Ltr chicken or vegetable stock

2/3 C thickened/pouring cream.

METHOD:

In a large heavy based saucepan warm olive oil on medium heat and fry off bacon pieces until almost crispy on edges, it will keep cooking off the heat. Remove bacon with slotted spoon keeping oil and juices from bacon in pan. Turn heat down to low and gently sauté leek for five minutes stirring frequently to prevent browning. Add corn, celery, garlic, thyme and nutmeg and cook for 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Add butter, melt and stir through vegies to coat. Sprinkle in flour and stir to combine thoroughly and cook off flour for a couple minutes. Pour in a small amount of stock whisking to combine with the vegies and roux ensuring there’s no floury lumps. Tip in potatoes and remaining stock stirring gently to combine. Bring to a simmer still over medium to low heat. The liquid should reduce and thicken to a consistency of a soup that’s simmered for hours. Simmer for 40 minutes stirring occasionally to prevent sticking on the bottom but go gently to keep the potatoes in shape. When ready to serve, stir through cream, and stir lightly to combine but still carefully for those little spud cubes.

Serve with a sprinkling of the bacon and top with a dollop of sour cream and or grated cheese such as parmesan or gruyere.

Porcupine Meatball Curry

There’s a lot to love about camping holidays, particularly at the moment. Long days in the sun, swimming, exploring and generally relaxing. Reading books at leisure in the shade of towering old gum trees while the waters of a river or creek gentle bubble by, no chores to draw you away or distract your mind and hands. All this vacation utopia until the tummy rumbles, the one task that follows you everywhere. Now don’t get me wrong I actually enjoy the challenge of a campfire cook and creatively throwing together what’s in the camping fridge but I also enjoy the break and have employed the greatest camping hack ever!! In the week or so leading up to a trip I have a bit of a cook up and vacuum pack meals. Portioned in just the right amount and sealed up for easy and safe packing in the fridge, dinner becomes as complicated as choosing and warming up.

In doing my pre-holiday cook this time around, I tried to think of something new using some old ideas. If you grew up in Australia there’s a whole lot about this recipe that will be familiar. The alchemy of three ideas into one my Porcupine Curry is pretty easy, healthy and can be turned up or down for little palettes or older ones.

PS: This holds almost no semblance to anything evenly remotely authentic but if you love a curry you’ll most likely still enjoy it.

NB: I promise no porcupines were harmed in the making of this dish. 

Ingredients:

1 kg Mince Beef (Any minced/ground meat will work though)

1/3 c uncooked rice

2 tsps grated ginger

2 tsps grated garlic

1 heaped tsp curry powder

1 ½ tsp salt flakes

2 tbs ghee

1 onion sliced

1 c beef stock

2 Tbs Indian style curry paste

1 700gm bottle tomato passata/sauce (the Italian style)

100 gm frozen spinach (vegies sorted)

1 Tb peanut butter

Method:

Combine meat, uncooked rice, ½ the ginger and garlic, curry powder and salt flakes in a bowl. Work with your hands to thoroughly combine. Doing this well, squeezing the mixture through your hands activates the proteins making it sticky enough to amalgamate without additional ingredients like egg and breadcrumbs. Form into balls the size of golf balls or small passionfruit and pop in the fridge on a plate in a single layer to firm up while you make the sauce, we’re not going to brown them.

Heat a fry pan big enough to hold all the meatballs in a single layer over medium heat. Melt/heat ghee until beginning to bubble. Add onion and fry gently over low heat until soft, moving around occasionally to prevent browning, around 5 minutes. Add remaining garlic and ginger and fry 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Turn heat up to medium-high and add curry paste and fry off until also fragrant, 3’ish minutes. Add tomato passata and frozen and spinach, stir to combine until spinach is broken up. Allow sauce to simmer after this for 5 minutes until it’s gently bubbling. Stir in peanut butter until thoroughly broken up and combined. Turn heat down to a gentle simmer and gently return meatballs to the pan in a single layer. Gently spoon sauce over balls to ensure they’re all coated in sauce, cover and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. This is when the meatballs will start to cook and firm up allowing you to be able to stir later. After 15 minutes remove lid and allow to simmer for a further 45 minutes. This is when the magic happens and the balls will grow little porcupine spikes as the rice cooks in the moisture. Some rice grains will escape and float in the sauce, this is totally fine and delicious. Serve with additional rice and yoghurt and other yummy Indian style accoutrements.

Notes:

If you want to turn the volume down on the spice try using a milder style curry paste before you add less paste to maintain the delicious curry flavour and balance. I’ve used a korma paste in the photo but it’s fine with all styles. The curry powder in the balls doesn’t really add to the heat so start with the paste if you want a milder dish.

If you’re using minced/ground chicken go gently placing the balls in the sauce as it’s a much wetter product. Resist the urge to add an absorbing ingredient like breadcrumbs as this will absorb the sauce and affect the rice cooking well.