Is this a sad picture?

The Accuser

For years I wanted a cake stand, so that it might sit on my bench, proclaiming welcome to all who entered my home. Unfortunately it seems that it wasn’t as practical as I had hoped. Instead of proclaiming emphatic welcomes to my visitors, it seems to glare accusingly at me and accost me for not being more domestic.

I still love it, I just love it more when it’s full of cake.

It seems that there are many items in my kitchen which spend very little time in use. The tiny blowtorch used for crème brûlée has been used only a handful of times, the salad spinner is in the top of a rarely opened cupboard and I feel that my ever growing collection of cookie cutters, while ambitious, indulges a ridiculous fantasy life. All these things laze in my cupboards, sleepily basking in light when the doors are opened, yet deep inside knowing that their time has not come.

I can always see the importance of having good basics, sharp knives, saucepans that heat evenly and enough plates to serve the meal on, but I find that it’s the extras that make cooking truly enjoyable. I find that having these things in my cupboard, enhances my freedom to explore. When I read a recipe that calls for an electric whisk, I become more confident as I know I am equipped to take on the job, and when I read a decadent cake recipe I become more seduced by the opportunity to use my beautiful cake stand.

KFC without the "F"

Yes, it hardly seems believable, but below I print a recipe that bears a striking resemblance to Kentucky Fried Chicken. Only Healthy.

Now let’s not kid ourselves here, this is hardly the real thing. Anyone expecting the grease-slicked grin of contentment that comes from gnawing the flesh off a bucket of original recipe and washing it down with gallons of fizzy might be slightly disappointed by the promise that this recipe seems to make.

If however, you’ve been politely declining invitations to dine at the Colonel’s establishment whilst patting your seemingly ever-expanding waistline as an excuse, this might just help to satisfy those cravings in the meantime.

16 chicken drumsticks (you can do this with chicken wings too for nibbles at a party)

500 mL buttermilk

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp salt

2 tsp Cajun seasoning

1 tsp paprika

1 tab oil

Soak the chicken drumsticks in buttermilk. This can be done up to two days ahead, or as little as a couple of hours.

Preheat your oven to 180℃ and move the drumsticks into a different container or plastic bag, shaking and squeezing as much as possible of the buttermilk off, then put the flour and seasonings in and give everything a good shake.

Spread oil over the bottom of a big roasting dish and place all the chicken pieces in. Bake for about an hour or until they’re nice and brown and crispy lookin. Drumsticks have enough fat to keep them moist so if you overcook a bit they’ll just become more tender. Check them at about the 45 minute mark, sometimes they’ll appear a bit floury on top, if this happens I pour a bit of the fat out of the dish into a jug and pour over the dry bits. Don’t turn them as this will just mess up the crispiness of the coating

Serve with mashed potato and gravy and coleslaw for authenticity, and provide fingerbowls with slices of lemon to make it classy.

Bringing home the bacon

Maria's, best breakfast in Beckenham.

Glorious, fatty, salty bacon! I love it in so many things that I try to keep a few rashers in the freezer at all times, lest the mood for bacon strike and I turn, Mother Hubbard-like, to a sadly deprived store.

On a recent visit to the UK I ate my fair share of English breakfasts, sampling the wares of many different venues. At first bite in London, I suspected maybe I was just ravenously hungry. The second time I mused that it was just the sweet taste of a well-deserved holiday. But upon returning to Australia it became undeniably clear that the quality of bacon here is (even in high-end delis, as opposed to the quality of even supermarket bacon in the UK) bitterly disappointing!

It’s hard to put one’s finger on exactly what it is that makes good bacon good and sub-standard bacon utterly abysmal. From those mouth-watering-sizzly-pop memories of London it has something to do with the ratios of fat and salt, the crucial elements of bacon. The UK bacon feels different as you peel the fine ribbons of it from the packet. In contrast ours crumbles and flakes. The meat and fat of UK bacon are almost indistinguishably flavoursome, whereas here the fat becomes hard and the meat seems waterlogged and tasteless,

Oh how I long for just one more rasher of bacony goodness! How I kick myself for not being more grateful at the time! The bacon here is an attention-seeking bore compared to its friendly ancestors in the north!

Roast Lamb with Garlic and Rosemary

Rosemary flowering in our garden

This weekend I made roast lamb, though there is nothing remarkable in that. I do it almost every week as, I am sure, do many Aussie families. I’ve not yet landed on the perfect roast lamb recipe but I have done it several ways and the recipe that follows is one of my favourite combinations.

To a novice cook, a roast might look like a daunting prospect. One might imagine medieval banquet tables, groaning with food. The truth is a far cry from this because a roast is a most simple and comforting thing to cook. There’s a little bit of staggered preparation and then you may go on your merry way while your home fills with gorgeous Sunday scent.

Below are the only ingredients I’m going to insist on, add whatever other vegies you like. I like sweet potato, onion and beetroot roasted, and some steamed greens as well. I feed six with this recipe, but obviously with more vegies you could make it go further.

1.5 kg leg of lamb
30 cm sprig rosemary, strip the leaves off the stalk (if you’re getting it from a supermarket go home and plant a bush, the difference in flavour is astonishing)
about 6 average sized garlic cloves, quartered
1/2 cup red wine (If you don’t have that lying around, you really should open a new bottle for this, not just because it is so essential to the flavour, but just because any excuse to open a bottle of red is a good thing!)
2 tabs extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper
6 potatoes, cut into 3rds
1 tab honey
1 tab soy sauce
2 tabs flour
2 cups beef stock

Preheat your oven to 180℃ while you prepare the lamb. Put it in a baking dish and make 16 slits, about 2 cm deep, in the top. Into each press 1/4 clove of garlic with 6 or so leaves of rosemary then pour over 1/4 cup of red wine and 1 tablespoon olive oil. I rub the olive oil in a bit but there really is no need, sprinkle on a bit of salt and pepper and put the leg in the oven.

About half an hour later, when you’ve had a glass of red and a second scan of the Sunday paper, get started on the roast vegetables. Cut them all up so they’re around the same size, throwing them in a plastic bag as you go. Pour in the other tablespoon of olive oil, and give a quick grind of salt and pepper. If you’ve still got a few leaves of rosemary lying around, throw them in too then give everything a good shake so it’s covered in oil, pour them into a baking tray and make sure everything has a rounded-side-down (if the flat side is down they will stick to the tray and make a big mess and deprive you of half your vegetables when you go to serve.) and pop this in the oven.

The roast should take about 2 hours in total, by which time your roast veg will also be done. Give the leg a jab with a skewer a few times in different places, it’s good if the juices run clear on the outsides but it’s still a bit bloody and rare in the middle. Take it out, set it aside to rest with a tent of al-foil over it and get on with your gravy. (This is a good time to steam your vegies as well.)

Pour most of the fat out (we keep an empty tin can in the freezer for this purpose) and then throw the flour in the baking dish and stir it around to absorb what’s left. Put the dish on the stove on a medium/low heat and pour in the beef stock, honey, soy sauce and remaining red wine. You’ll need to simmer this, stirring for 5 minutes or so til it thickens up and becomes a good consistency. I strain mine into a jug when it’s done.

The final and possibly most stressful job is serving. I like to heat the plates in the oven as it cools, this takes most of the stress out of serving as I know the meal is not going to get cold as I wait for the last vegies to cook, or quickly reheat the gravy. It’s also handy if you can get someone else to carve for you. Your table needs mint jelly to accompany this and maybe some sour cream for the potatoes if you have it to hand.

Try to muster up a flustered and stressed demeanour as you sit down to eat your meal, you wouldn’t want your guests to know that such a delicious dinner was a breeze for their hostess!

Like a chicken?

Schnitzel and Cacciatore - (coop from Rentachook)

It took me a while to settle on a term that described my food philosophy accurately enough to encapsulate what my blog is about. And then, gazing out at my chickens foraging in the garden, it came to me.

After all, free ranging for chickens is all about freedom. A chicken should never be made to eat only factory pellets, it should have the opportunity to scratch and forage and try lots of different things. Mine happen to love watermelon. But enough of that, what has that got to do with me?

I don’t want to ingest, or feed my loved ones with loads of factory-processed, flavourless “food” packed with preservatives, and it makes me sad when other people choose this path. I want to eat food that has been mindfully prepared and I want to serve this kind of food to other people.

Some people in the food industry would seek to mislead us with buzzwords and jargon about what makes good food. Words like “farm fresh” and “all natural” have been heavily abused in our supermarkets to the detriment of consumers and their families. Misconceptions about wholesome food lead some people to think that only hairy hippie types eat such food, and that lifestyle couldn’t be simple or chic.

A chicken that leads a real free range life, produces the most flavourful and vibrantly yellow-yolked eggs you will ever see, far brighter than anything from a supermarket shelf. I believe that good food has the same effect on people, they are happier, friendlier and produce great beauty in all areas of their lives.

Food! Glorious food!

Standing in the vegie patch I stared at the cabbages with impatience. I tugged my beanie down over my ears and stomped my gumboot.

“Well... When?”

My father then began his speech, tapping the top of the cabbage and talking about hearts, hardness, sun, rain... The rain soaked the cabbages but Dad’s words could not penetrate my grumpiness.

The huff disappeared several weeks later when we sat down to eat Mock Chow Mein, made from our own cabbage! I had helped of course, shooing the chickens out of the garden when they “flew” over the fence, washing and chopping the vegetables and setting the table.

From a very young age food has been an important part of my life, in all stages of production, and oh how I love to eat! A fact which is attested to by the fact that my clothes never fit well for very long.

Which is why I am writing this;

- I need a reason not to just stick to my favourites.

- Food is the only thing I can talk about constantly without getting even slightly bored!

- I need to write because I feel like maybe I’m a writer trapped in an English teacher’s body, and I can’t let my enthusiasm for writing and reading continue to stagnate under my “work”.

I am committing myself to a minimum of two and a maximum of three blogs per week.

I am allowed to talk about anything I like to do with food at any stage of development.