by Kate on April 18, 2012
Drink in one hand, crunchy spiced bite in the other, and a bunch of friends to clink glasses with. The perfect celebration drinks are intimate, elegant, and supremely fun. These recipes appeared in my Sunday Life column, The Perfect… Check out the next one on Sunday, or see it at Daily Life here.
Oyster po’boys
A New Orleans palm-sized sandwich, piled high with glorious fried oysters.
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup plain flour
2 tsp smoked paprika
½ cup panko crumbs
20 oysters, shucked
2 cups rice bran oil
4 small soft white rolls
1 baby cos lettuce
4 cherry tomatoes, halved
spiced mayonnaise (see below)
Whisk together egg and milk, season and set aside. Combine flour and paprika on one plate, panko crumbs on another. Dust oysters in flour mixture, then dip in egg mixture, then panko crumbs. Heat oil in deep heavy-based frypan. Use tongs to drop oysters, in batches of 5, into hot oil. Deep-fry oysters until golden, 30 seconds each batch. Be careful, oil may spit. Drain on absorbent paper. Fill rolls with lettuce leaves, tomato, mayonnaise and oysters. Add a few sprigs coriander if liked. Serve while oysters are still hot. Makes 4.
Chilli fried school prawns
Heads on or off, these fun crunchy are perfect with bubbles or beer.
Take the heads off 500g raw school prawns (optional). Dust prawns in seasoned tapioca flour. Heat half of 750ml rice bran oil in a wok or large, deep heavy-based frypan. Cook one-quarter of the prawns in very hot oil, until crispy and golden. Transfer to absorbent paper. Repeat with remaining prawns, adding more oil as needed. Season well with salt flakes and dried chilli flakes. To make spiced mayonnaise for dipping, combine ¼ cup Japanese mayonnaise with juice from ½ lime and ½ tsp smoked paprika.
Food photograph by Katie Quinn Davies.
PLAYLIST: Bright, happy, cheers-worthy tunes for celebration drinks with Awkward, an EP by San Cisco.
by Kate on April 16, 2012
Love the photography of Melbourne-based food and travel photographer Bonnie Savage. You’ll know her work from Australian Gourmet Traveller and the SMH’s Good Weekend. I just adore it, all peaceful and moody at once, with lovely non-garish pops of colour. Look at the drinks pic below for heaven’s sake. Bonnie did a string of photos of a milkbar, where she followed the dear apron-clad owner around and took snaps of her feet up a ladder and peeking between jars of things. Check out Bonnie’s site to see them. Nothing is too polished in this photographic world of Bonnie Savage’s, but it’s all magically gilded and sparkles with real life.
by Kate on April 14, 2012
From footpath cooks to alcoves, bars and nooks, here’s where Tokyo insiders stop for delicious, inexpensive meals, writes Kate Gibbs.
Tokyo’s neon-lit alleys are packed with food carts and hole-in-the-wall haunts where queues of in-the-know locals and visitors seek ramen, soba, yakitori and tako-yaki. In a city known for its Michelin-star options and with 160,000 eateries – four times the number of Paris – street vendors win loyal customers by satisfying the desire to eat quickly, well and inexpensively.
“People in Japan are very particular, they are perfectionists,” says Kazuki Watanabe, who manages an elegant izakaya-style restaurant called Higashi-Yama in Meguro-ku. “This includes eating the best possible food, no matter if it is bought by the side of the road.”
Golf-ball size tako-yaki filled with tender octopus is the mainstay of food-on-the-run. Typically cooked in cast-iron custom-made pans by the roadside, the balls have a crisp exterior, are drizzled in a syrupy sweet and salty sauce, then mayonnaise, and topped with smoky, delicate shaved bonito fish flakes.
Some of the best food in Tokyo is found near or within train stations, as people like to eat before they commute home. Outside Shibuya Station, for example, a popular nook called Gindaco serves eight balls of tako-yaki for ¥500 yen (about $6).
Kerbside eating can involve ceremony, too. It’s not uncommon to place an order by buying a meal ticket from a vending machine by the front door of a tiny bar and walk through two squares of fabric into a place that has served the same secret ramen recipe for the past 150 years.
Glutinous rice balls spiked on to a stick and grilled with a sweet cloying sauce are often served outside temples and train stations. Odango-ya is sweet and one of the best-value street foods in the city.
This is an extract of an article published in The Sydney Morning Herald. Read the full article on SMH here.
Photographs by Kate Gibbs
by Kate on February 10, 2011
How sweet it is to visit Kangaroo Island’s colony of Ligurian bees, writes Kate Gibbs
Perhaps its their renegade status that keeps us enthralled with the bee: hard workers, mass producers, a sense of social order, the mystical ability to turn an egg into a queen, and a violent sting to boot.
“Next to humans, bees are the most studied living things on Earth,” the manager of Island Beehive and a quietly spoken authority on all things honey, Peter Davis, says.
[FULL STORY here: 8 February 2011, The Sydney Morning Herald]
by Kate on February 10, 2011
Watching produce being created builds up an appetite, writes Kate Gibbs.
It’s milking time at the station and children are counting the sheep. This is culinary adventure tourism on Kangaroo Island, where you can walk with the animals, talk with the producers and watch soil, sea and man turn things into food.
A litre of milk, taken from each ewe every morning and mid-afternoon, is transferred to a refridgerated vat in the factory to be pasteurised and turned into Island Pure fetta, haloumi, Kefalotiri and yoghurt, either plan or swirled with local Ligurian honey.
This paddock-to-plate theme is the general premise of the island’s gastronomic attractions. The tourism mainstay of farmers and food producers is showing visitors exactly what they do and then how it tastes.
[FULL STORY here: 8 February 2011, The Sydney Morning Herald]
by Kate on February 10, 2011
This cooking school is the perfect opportunity for beginners to get their hands dirty, writes Kate Gibbs.
It’s a wet, monsoon-like morning in the Adelaide Hills and at 9.30am I have shrimp paste pushed under my nose to smell. It’s followed by coconut milk, coriander and fish sauce, each scent more powerful than the one before. It’s a less on how to cook a Thai feast and a lesson in the virtues of spices to shock you out of a morning blur.
Guest chef Kelly Lord, head chef at Noosa’s Spirit House, is leading the Thai Feasts for Friends class at the Sticky Rice Cooking School.
He explains the five elements of Thai cooking: hot, sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Above him, a wall is scrawled with the autographs of chefs who have gone before and in front is an impressive array of gnarly roots and fragrant herbs, 18 sharp knives, 18 plastic boards, 18 aprons and 18 eager students.
[FULL STORY here: 8 February 2011, The Sydney Morning Herald]
by Kate on February 10, 2011
Harry Trotter is snorting and his bristled face is caked with mud as he ambles up to rare-breed farmer William Marshall. ”Good pig,” Marshall says to the animal and gives him a pat.
Trotter is a Large Black, one of 27 breeds of rare animals Marshall painstakingly raises on Kangaroo Island in an effort to save them from extinction and bring new flavours to the plates of Australia.
I’m the Indiana Jones of rare breeds,” Marshall says of his ability to track down pigs, cattle, sheep and poultry either facing extinction or being inter-bred with other strains of animal that will threaten their future as pure breeds.
[ FULL STORY here: 8 February 2011, The Sydney Morning Herald]
by Kate on January 9, 2011
The omelet is an oops-we’ve-run-out-of-everything lifesaver. If all you have are a few eggs sitting alone in the fridge, you have dinner, or breakfast. A traditional French omelet of two-to-three eggs per person should be beaten, cooked and served in 90 seconds, the experts say. In respect of this culinary folklore, have the filling completely ready before you cook the eggs. An omelette should be served baveuse, cooked by still soft, never well-done.
Ages 7-12: I heart eggs omelet
This is the height of culinary chic, seven-year-old Ava learns as she gently beats the eggs with a fork. This is the most essential basic skill for any budding chef and the cornerstone of French gastronomic tradition. If you can master the art of a perfect omelet, you can step proudly forward in any kitchen, knowing that you can create a masterpiece out of a few simple ingredients. “I don’t know about all that,” Ava says. “I just like eggs.”
4 eggs
1 bunch asparagus
2 teaspoons butter
1/3 cup freshly grated cheese
Beat the eggs with a fork just enough to blend the yolks and whites. Season to taste. Meanwhile, blanch the asparagus in a saucepan of boiling, salted water for 3-5 minutes. Refresh under cold water, cut stems in half and set aside. Melt the butter in a medium-sized non-stick pan over a medium heat, tilting the pan to film the base and sides with butter. When the butter starts to colour, pour in the eggs. With a fork, pull the edges of the egg towards the centre as it thickens. Let the liquid part run into the vacant spaces. Quickly repeat so there is no more liquid, but the eggs are still soft. Scatter the cheese and asparagus over the eggs. Lift the handle of the pan so the omelette rolls over itself and on to a warmed plate, then serve immediately. Serves 2.
by Kate on November 30, 2010
Boys at elite English school Eton invented this dish. Apparently the top-hat wearing children smashed the school pudding of meringues, strawberries and cream to make this downright Eton mess. Let the juice of the crushed strawberries and raspberries dribble down the inside of glasses, and add less cream for a healthier version.
Ages 3-7: Downright Eton Mess
Three-year-old Lulu looks up at me as if I’ve done something incredibly naughty. With mouth open and eyes wide, humoured and worried at once, she says: “You broke them!” The second she cottons on to the fact we are allowed to destroy the perfect meringues we’d made, she’s all-hands-in embracing the task, only slightly withholding her obvious delight at the mess we were making. As luck would have it, this recipe combines two of Lulu’s favourite things, “raspberries” and “pavlova”. Close enough.
Whites from 3 large eggs
1 pinch cream of tartar
1 cup castor sugar
1 punnet fresh strawberries
1 cup frozen raspberries
250 ml cream, whipped
To make the meringues, preheat the oven to 120C and line two baking trays with baking paper. Using an electric mixer, or a whisk, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat on the highest speed, until stiff peaks are formed but still soft and a little wet. Gradually beat in two tablespoons of sugar and beat for two to three minutes, until very stiff. Fold in the remaining sugar using a metal spatula or spoon, until lightly mixed. Using two large spoons, dollop the mixture onto the trays to form meringue shapes, leaving a space of at least two centimetres between each. Bake for 1½ hours, then remove from oven and let cool. To make the Eton mess, place four meringues in a plastic bag and crush until broken into two-centimetre shapes. Combine half the strawberries and all the raspberries in a bowl and mash with a fork, until juicy and pulped, then add cream and broken meringues. Carefully spoon the mixture into six glasses, then top with remaining strawberries, sliced, and serve immediately. Serves 6
by Kate on October 12, 2010
Peas are a do-able vegetable in the kingdom of kids. They’re small, round and sweet and can be chased around the plate with a fork or thrown at your sister. What’s not to love? Stirred into this other old favourite, macaroni and cheese, it’s a win-win recipe for mini chefs.
My Kitchen Cadets column in The Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Living covered the ever-reliable Mac and Cheese last week. Check out today’s Kitchen Cadets column, where Ava (7) makes raspberry pikelets. Pretty cute.
But meanwhile, from last week, Archie (5) makes herby Mac and Cheese… “Oh, so I have to basically just make a roux. That’s easy,” says “five-and-three-quarter”-year-old Archie as he reads through the recipe before embarking on cooking. “And then we just put everything together and then put it in the oven basically. Easy.” And when he wasn’t making the roux and slowly adding the milk, he’d check his iPod to make sure the embattled soldiers in some game were where they should be. And then back to adding the peas and ham to the sauce, then back to the iPod. There’s a lot to balance in life when you’ve got to cook dinner and beat your top score.
