SALMON IN AN ADOBO OF ANCHO CHILLIES

No two chillies are the same. Anchos have very little heat, but a wonderful raisin-like fruitiness. They are great stuffed with a mix of minced pork, rice, maybe some finely diced zucchini or sliced zucchini flowers and then steamed. Here they have been turned into a marinade. The salmon fillets still have the skin on. They rested (flesh side down) in the marinade for about 10 minutes and then went onto a very hot cast iron skillet skin side down for 30 seconds before going under the grill for 4 minutes. I bought these miniature heirloom tomatoes at James Street Market in Brisbane.

ADOBO OF ANCHO CHILLIES

8 ANCHO CHILLIES
6 CLOVES OF GARLIC (WITH SKIN ON)
1/4 TEASPOON OF CLOVES
1/4 TEASPOON CUMIN SEEDS
1/2 TEASPOON BLACK PEPPERCORNS
1 TEASPOON SALT
2 TEASPOONS DRIED MARJORAM OR OREGANO
150 MLS CHICKEN STOCK OR WATER

Rinse the chillies, remove stems and seeds. Heat a griddle over medium heat and cook the chillies on each side until fragrant. It is OK if a little smoke rises - but not too much or thee chillies will burn and taste bitter. Put the chillies into a bowl and cover with hot water for 20 minutes. Cook the garlic in the same hot skillet, turning until the skins are slightly burnt. Grind the dried spices and salt to a fine powder. Place the soaked chillies, spice mix, peeled garlic cloves and stock or water (you can use 150 mls of the water in which the chillies soaked) into a blender and blend until you have a smooth, shiny paste.

To make the marinade for the fish, mix a tablespoon of dark brown sugar and 1 1/2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar with 4 tablespoons of the adobo. The remainder of the adobo will keep up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator or can be frozen.

Some of you will know we were in partnership in a fish cafe in Coolangatta. A disaster. I mention it now because we used to serve a salad there that was crap. The menu was devised by our partner - not the one who was the conman but the one who was his accomplice - and the best amateur cook of Chinese food I know. This did not necessarily make her the perfect person to devise the menu of a fish restaurant. The salad was primitive. The dressing was made with distilled white vinegar. Because there is so little going on in a salad, every element is critical. Here some beautiful mixed lettuces share a bowl with slices of Sharwill avocado. Sharwills are about to come to the end of their season here. There are many avocado growers around the area who only eat Sharwills. Wonderfully smooth, nutty flesh. A dressing of macadamia oil, lemon-infused olive oil and white Balsamic.

SALMON IN AN ADOBO OF ANCHO CHILLIES

CHICKEN WITH ARTICHOKES

How to speak Italian ... Speak English. Wave your arms around a lot. End of lesson. How to cook Italian ... Cook English. Throw it out. Start again. Love the simplicity of Italian food. Chook legs ( I cooked the front half last night) roasted with chilli, salt, pepper and olive oil. Artichokes quartered and braised in chicken stock (made with the carcass of the chook), lemon juice and garlic.

CHICKEN WITH ARTICHOKES

NORTHERN LIGHT

What are the great food towns of the world? New York? Paris? Milan? How many of you named Copenhagen? Maybe its time has come. According to the Wikipedia listing the name is a contraction of two words "nordisk" (Nordic) and "mad" (food). I like the fact that food is mad. Maybe the chef is also mad. Maybe you have to be mad to have on your menu a dish called radishes in edible soil. René Redzepi is 32. He worked in a couple of serious kitchens - The French Laundry in the Napa Valley and El Bulli in Spain. He now owns what Restaurant magazine named the best restaurant in the world in 2010. This is a beautiful cookbook. It breaks with tradition by seducing the reader with photos of food, produce and places up front and gathers the recipes in the back. For those of us with lots of cookbooks, this comes as a breath of fresh air. Quite cold fresh air. With so much of a our food based on French, Italian, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Mexican traditions, a cookbook with a strong Scandinavian influence introduces new ingredients and new ways of preparing food.

Here is the current lunch menu -

Dried scallops and watercress
Biodynamic cereals and beech nut

Oyster and the sea

‘Læsø’ onion
Onion cress and thyme


The hen and the egg

Deer and wild thyme
Red beets and red fruits


Hay and chamomile
Sorrel and wild herbs

“Gammel dansk”
Milk and woodsorrel

Buy the cookbook. Try a few recipes.

NORTHERN LIGHT

BREAST OF CHICKEN WITH PRESERVED LEMON & TOMATO KASAUNDI

What? No photo? Sorry. Camera battery died. So, I will make up for the lack of photographic evidence with a recipe instead.

But first, about the chicken ... Monday is not a good day to be a chicken at Alstonville. Monday is killing day. If chickens were brighter than they are, they might notice that their numbers are reduced every Monday. If they were brighter, they might take to hiding on Mondays to avoid be killed. Maybe they could dress up as something else. Small shrubs, for example. Cow dung? Land mines? Anyway, chooks are not that bright and so every Monday the number of chickens on the Alstonville property are reduced. On Monday night a box of the newly slaughtered and dressed chickens are driven to the coast. Not for a swim, but to the home of our butcher Paul. And so today, Tuesday, we can go to his shop and buy one of these tasty and fresh Alstonville chooks. I broke the chicken down into breasts (with half wing) and legs (to be used tomorrow). I will use the frame to make chicken stock.

So here is a recipe for breast of chicken with preserved lemon.

BREAST OF CHICKEN WITH PRESERVED LEMON

2 CHICKEN BREASTS WITH SKIN & HALF WING INTACT
2 WEDGES OF PRESERVED LEMON
2 CLOVES OF GARLIC
GROUND ROASTED CHILLIES
EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL
SALT & PEPPER

Peel and slice each garlic clove into three. Line a baking tray with aluminium foil and baking paper. Place three garlic slices under each breast (skin side up). Place a wedge of preserved lemon on each breast. Sprinkle ground roasted chillies onto each breast, anoint with olive oil, coarse sea salt and coarsely crushed pepper.

Preheat the oven to 220C. Place the chicken in the middle of the oven and turn the heat down to 160C. After 20 minutes switch to the grill setting, turn up the heat to 180C and raise the tray to about 15 cms from the heat source and cook another 5 minutes max to add colour to the skin.

I served this with tomato kasaundi and a salad of watercress, asparagus and avocado.

BREAST OF CHICKEN WITH PRESERVED LEMON & TOMATO KASAUNDI

STIR-FRIED PORK WITH BEANS AND GREEN PEPPERCORNS

OMG, what an assault on the taste buds! How come the best Thai chef is Australian? Never mind. David Thompson is a genius. OK, the original recipe would have been boar, but this Bangalow pork loin sure is more civilised. Cannot believe the intensity of flavour from a relatively modest number of ingredients. Lots of tiny dried prawns and quite potent dried chillies in the paste. More big slabs of fresh chilli, squeaky beans, soft pork and crunchy pea eggplants (not in the original recipe). Plus L-A-R-D. A lot of people recoil in fear at its mere mention. I love it. Lard does things to food that other fats can only dream of. If fats dream. Maybe they do. I must dig out my old Introduction to Applied Psychology textbook to see if Freud or Jung or David Hume covered the dreams of shortening. If you do not possess this cookbook, do so immediately. You have to love a cookbook that runs to 150 pages before the first recipe - and then gives you, oh I am guessing, maybe 1,000! AND it is covered in hot pink Thai silk. Pure decadence.

STIR-FRIED PORK WITH BEANS AND GREEN PEPPERCORNS

PRAWNS WITH EGGPLANT, BAMBOO AND GREEN PEPPERCORNS

Tonight Thai is my favourite cuisine. Tomorrow it might be Italian. Or Mexican. Or French. Or Chinese. Or that cuisine without a country that has the adjective Modern in front of it. Modern Australian. Or Modern American. Or Pacific Rim. Or Asian Fusion. Or Con Fusion. Anyway, for tonight I am happy to nominate plain Thai as my fave. Great crunchy Thai eggplants, pungent fresh peppercorns, lots of basil, big fat local prawns, kaffir lime leaves from the garden, home made green curry paste and slices of bamboo shoot. I think it might be a summer of Thai tastes. Looking forward to mango season getting into full swing and coming home from the weekly markets with a tray of decadence.

PRAWNS WITH EGGPLANT, BAMBOO AND GREEN PEPPERCORNS

RED EMPEROR WITH A COMPOTE OF VEGETABLES AND SALSA VERDE

Red emperor is a species found along most of the Queensland, Northern Territory and the upper half of the West Australian coastline. As the fish grow they tend to move into deeper water, but they will return to shallower water during winter. They are caught all year. They have gently-flavoured white flesh. I pan fried parsnip, leeks and fennel over low heat, then added some steamed and peeled broad beans just before serving. the fish was also pan fried after being rolled in panko crumbs.

RED EMPEROR WITH A COMPOTE OF VEGETABLES AND SALSA VERDE

TUNA ADOBADO WITH ROASTED CORN SALSA & CHIPOTLE CREMA

Yellowfin tuna. Fun to catch. More fun to eat. Really beautiful fish, maybe cut a little thinner than I would like but at 6.30 the fishmonger was closing up and hosing down for the day, so I took what I could get. A dry adobo rub and then pan fried over ferocious heat to sear the outside whilst keeping the centre raw but warm. A warm salsa of roosted corn, orange capsicum, agave nectar, lime juice and coriander. Crema blended with chipotle chillies. Proper modern Mexican food - and very simple to prepare.

TUNA ADOBADO WITH ROASTED CORN SALSA & CHIPOTLE CREMA

SHOULDER OF LAMB WITH ROOT VEGETABLES

Winter. It reminds me of Colombo. Just when you thought he was about to leave the room, he would turn and come back with a penetrating question. A wet and cool day here. Good thing I was equipped with something to fight off the cold - a shoulder of lamb. Slow braised with carrot, parsnip, Spring onion & bintje potatoes (plus lamb stock, garlic, thyme and bay).

SHOULDER OF LAMB WITH ROOT VEGETABLES

REEF COD, PRAWN & FENNEL STEW

It is magic what can be done with some fish stock, saffron, tomatoes, onion, garlic, some seafood and some diced fennel. Reef cod seemed to be the right fish for this since it keeps its shape through the cooking process. Blue eye would have worked. Ling too. But not barramundi.

REEF COD, PRAWN & FENNEL STEW

KINGFISH WITH FRIED LEEKS, SNOWPEA SHOOTS & ESCHALLOT SESAME VINAIGRETTE

Kingfish is a summer fish, but like lots of species, it is available before and after its main season. Maybe global warming is responsible. Maybe not. Anyway, here we are in early spring and kingfish is being caught off the coast. This has been given a vaguely Asian treatment, with fried leeks, snowpea shoots dressed with eschallot vinaigrette and a little Japanese sesame sauce over the top after plating up.

KINGFISH WITH FRIED LEEKS, SNOWPEA SHOOTS & ESCHALLOT SESAME VINAIGRETTE

FLATHEAD WITH ASPARAGUS, ZUCCHINI, BROCCOLINI & TAPENADE

In a couple of weeks there will be an influx of fisher folk from around the country. They will come to the Gold Coast to participate in a two-day fishing competition, the Flathead Classic. It is not a good time to be a flathead. Dozens of anglers will be out, drawing on their fishing skills to entice fish to bite at their lures. It must be disconcerting to a fish to have a meal fight back. The fish see something tasty, gulp it down, then instead of being allowed to digest their meal in peace, they get hoisted out of the water, laid on a plank marked in centimetres to indicate their length, photographed and then deposited back in the sea. I can just imagine the stories those fish have to tell as they sit around the front bar of their local watering hole. Anyway, this is a long way of saying that flathead are around at the moment. My brother, who manufactures many of the lures used in the Flathead Classic (find his lures at www.bozos.com.au), caught a lot of them last week. Some also found there way to our local fishmonger - and from there to our dining table. Three green vegetables under the fish and a black one on top - the tapenade made from kalamata olives.

FLATHEAD WITH ASPARAGUS, ZUCCHINI, BROCCOLINI & TAPENADE