The Collective Cook

The Lost Art of Buying From a Butcher - NYTimes.com

via www.nytimes.com

Feather and Bone

Another great Sydney food supplier:

Since 2006 we’ve been building relationships with a network of wonderful producers and clients committed to quality and provenance. Our clients are restaurants, cafes, butchers, delis and domestic customers across Sydney. 

Omelettes

The food we choose to prepare for ourselves and for our friends and family can be encased in all manner of messages and meaning. The world of subtlety, as Elizabeth David once observed, can be infused into the serving of a dish of eggs. No one alludes to this more eloquently than Gertrude Stein.

via www.kingstribune.com

The bush food connection

Redfern café and catering business, Purple Goanna, is finding good tucker brings people together.

Gamilarray woman Suzanne Grech and her brother Corey were pleasantly surprised by the strong demand for their modern twist on bush foods when they first began catering in inner-Sydney in 2006.

“Not many people know much about native products or native food. It inspired me to get it out there and say ‘try, try, try!’ and I was quite surprised to find just how many people were interested and wanted it for their events, meetings and conferences,” Suzanne says.

via www.indigenous.gov.au

Cornucopia bakery, Canberra

No visit to Canberra is complete for me without dropping into the Cornucopia bakery in the inner northern Canberra suburb of Braddon. Partly this is nostalgia. When I lived in Braddon in 1987 - 89, Corunucopia was a godsend in something of a culinary desert. Here's a more recent review:

Cornucopia has all the trappings of a great bakery, with hand-made bread from scratch, sausage rolls, amazing croissants and cakes to boot. It’s a great place to pop in to first thing when everything is fresh out of the oven… but even early on a Saturday morning you might need some luck getting a table, so it might be an idea to take it away to enjoy at home. Don’t forget the coffee.

Canberra can very fickle when it comes to food, so it is good to see this place still going, still producing great bread (Canberra sourdough and potato are my favourites) and some great cakes,including the snails (pictured above). They also do a wicked lemon tart and something called a fagottini. This latter usely refers to a pasta pocket filled with some savoury items, bit at Cornucopia it is a sensational pastry pocket filled with some fresh cheese concoction (I presume ricotta), they are wonderful.

Yorkshire Pudding recipe - Best Recipes

Yorkshire Pudding

via www.bestrecipes.com.au

Must try this one. Obviously takes longer than Jamie Oliver's version for his 30 minute meals - but would be all the better for it, I reckon. Happening this weekend.

Hock and lentil soup - a real winter warmer

Yumm, filling and good for you. Hocks are the bit left over at the end of a leg of ham, full of flavour and some meat too. Soak 500gms of French variety green lentils (they're grown in Australia) in cold water overnight. Use good quality lentils, after all this is the heart of the dish, and green ones hold their shape better. And let's face it this is a cheap meal on a per serve basis so you can afford to lash out on decent lentils. Put some oil in a big pot (remember the hock or hocks have to go in whole so you'll need something like a stock pot); finely dice some onion, celery and carrot and saute in the pot with a pinch of salt over a low / medium heat for a few minutes until they begin to soften (this releases the sugars and is critical to the final flavour of the soup). I like plenty of vegies - but at a minimum an onion, a large carrott and a few sticks of celery. Put in one or two hocks. When you're buying hocks look for good size ones that look like they might have a bit of meat still on them - some are a bit scrawny looking. I use two - more ham and ham flavour the better. I love good lentils but if you don't have plenty of ham and veggies you just end up munching through lentils - a little boring. Cover with chicken stock and water. You can use chicken stock only, and the final flavour will show it or you can play down the chicken flavour by going half stock and half water. (I make my own stock from chicken carcasses kept frozen until I have a few and need some stock, or I use Campbell's liquid stock or similar). Drain lentils and add to the pot. Make sure the fluid covers everything. How much fluid depends on how much you want in the soup at the end. You can always add a bit more later. Throw in three or four fresh bay leaves (or one or two dried). Bay is commonly used in soups and stews, it is quite strong but adds some pepperyness and depth. Cook covered on a slow heat for many hours - at least 2. It's ready when the lentils are the right texture - firm but easy on the tooth. Slow cooking is good for soups and stews - so if you can put it on a low heat and let it simmer slow for half a day - the flavour will be better, and the house will smell wonderful. Let it cool down. Remove hocks. They'll be hot so you need to let them cool down to a heat that you are happy to work with. Now you will rip them apart and remove the meat. Discard bone, skin, fat etc. Dice the ham, to about same size as carrot etc, and return to soup. Heat and taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper as, and if, required. You'll get a lot of serves out of this - it freezes well, it's easy to reheat in a microwave and its great for lunch or a quick dinner on a cold night with some toast or crusty bread. And, per serve, it's a pretty cheap and healthy feed.

Jamie Oliver's 30 minute roast beef

Got the book, and did my first recipe last night. Including my first ever yorkshire puds. All an outstanding success. 

Esquire Magazine Food Critic John Mariani — How 'Italian Food' Became A Global Sensation : NPR

Italian food, once considered cheap peasant food, now appears at three-star Michelin restaurants and on menus around the world. Italian food, once considered cheap peasant food, now appears at three-star Michelin restaurants and on menus around the world.

via www.npr.org

My mushroom risotto

Risotto is something to do to use up some leftovers for a sunday night dinner, like a tortilla or frittata, so you can be flexible. Nevertheless, I think mushrooms are ideal.

Soak a small handful of porcini (dried mushrooms) in a cup of boiling water. Put some olive oil (about two tablespoons) in a deep frying pan and saute some finely chopped onion and two or three chopped cloves of garlic. After it is all nice and soft add some salt and pepper and four diced rashers of bacon, cook for a few minutes. Chop some mushrooms, a couple of handfuls, any will do and using a variety is good. Add the mushrooms to the mix and begin cooking them down. Strip leaves from a small handful of fresh thyme and add to pan. Add a splash of verjuice. (This way of cooking mushrooms is from a Maggie Beer recipe). Add two cups of arborio rice and stir to get it all nicely coated. Add a cup of white wine and cook for a few minuutes until the alcohol is burnt off. Remove the soaked porcini and retain. Add the fluid from the porcini, it will be dark and flavourful, to the rice and cook until it is reduced and there is little fluid left. Chop the porcini and add to rice. Now you begin the process of adding chicken stock a little at a time (about half a cup) on a low-medium heat until it is aborbed stirring gently now and again. When the rice is nearly cooked, add a handful of chopped fresh flat leaf parsely. When the rice is cooked ie firm but not chalky add 50 gms of butter cubed and a handful of grated parmesan stir, turn off the heat and cover with a lid. This is a Jamie Oliver tip and it really makes the risotto creamier. Leave for a few minutes and then eat with a glass of red wine and a slice of crusty bread. Fantastic.