WILD BARRAMUNDI WITH CHAR-GRILLED WITLOF AND ASPARAGUS

Is chicory the vegetable equivalent of Tara (as in the United States of Tara)? It seems to have as many personalities. It certainly has more names. Chicory, witlof, French endive, witloof, radicchio, Belgian endive. The version we call witlof in Australia is grown in darkness to inhibit the development of colour on the leaves and is picked when still a tight bud of maybe 8 or 10 cm. I parboiled some spears of organic asparagus then plunged into ice to stop the cooking, before draining and drying. I halved the witlof and shook with some olive oil then grilled in a ribbed cast iron skillet, adding the asparagus after about 10 minutes to heat through. I bought these gorgeous fat fillets of wild barramundi in Brisbane this afternoon. They were seared, skin side down, over fairly high heat then moved to the oven to complete cooking. Murray River salt, pepper and lime juice over the top. A choice of tomato kasaundi or lime mayonnaise as condiment.

WILD BARRAMUNDI WITH CHAR-GRILLED WITLOF AND ASPARAGUS

TUNA WITH A DRY ADOBO, PINTO BEANS AND BABY HEIRLOOM TOMATOES

What could be more Mexican? Fish accompanied by three Mexican culinary gifts to the world - avocados, tomatoes and beans. Adobos are mostly wet. The mixtures vary, but they include a number of different dried chillies and often cinnamon, cloves, oregano, maybe annato, pepper, cumin. In the wet varieties, the dried chillies are softened on a griddle, then immersed in water to rehydrate. In these less common dry versions, the dried chillies and ground to a fine powder with the other spices and then rubbed into the fish (or chicken, pork or beef) before cooking. The local avocados are gorgeous at the moment - incredibly buttery and decadent as chocolate, another gift from Mexico.

TUNA WITH A DRY ADOBO, PINTO BEANS AND BABY HEIRLOOM TOMATOES

RIB OF WAGYU WITH GRILLED CHICORY & POTATO

Some times dishes taste brilliant but do not photograph that way - well, do not photograph that way in the completely incompetent hands of someone like me. So what you see here is a poorly art directed pile of red and brown stuff. I can tell you that it tasted sublime, even if the evidence does not support that claim. Good wagyu (and yes, there is some less than good stuff around) is extraordinary in its richness. Something about chicory that has been grilled. A sweetness comes out in the vegetable that is not evident when raw. A simple wild rocket salad and a good mustard was all that accompanied this.

RIB OF WAGYU WITH GRILLED CHICORY & POTATO

EGGPLANT AND REEF COD CURRY

A couple of ales at The Beach Hotel in Byron this afternoon. One eye on the TV screen, the other one elsewhere. Nice way to while away a couple of hours. This has nothing to do with dinner. Well, not directly. It did leave me feeling a bit tired, so dinner needed to be something simple - like this South Indian inspired curry of reef cod, eggplant, tamarind and coconut milk, amongst other stuff. That is enough writing for today. Off to take care of a glass of wine.

EGGPLANT AND REEF COD CURRY

PANKO CRUMBED CHICKEN WITH BEANS & BABY ZUCCHINI

Remember when zucchini flowers were a novelty? Neither do I. But I am pretty sure they were. At some point in time. I remember I used to buy big bunches of them in Mexico - and at my age, remembering anything beyond today is an achievement. For some reason, we only used to see male ones over there, whereas here it is almost always the female flowers with the fruit attached. We mostly see the long thin green variety of zucchini here. Occasionally the variegated spherical guys. It was a great surprise to see these baby yellow zucchini in the markets. This dish started with these great vegetables. I had to buy some chicken thighs for dinner last night. It seemed churlish to buy just 2, so I had a couple to use tonight. A couple of other things thrown in and that is dinner taken care of.

PANKO CRUMBED CHICKEN WITH BEANS & BABY ZUCCHINI

POZOLE ROJO

Día de los Muertos. Day of the Dead. All Saints Day. This is tomorrow, so I guess we are a day ahead of ourselves. Actually, two days ahead, because Australia is already 15 hours ahead of Mexico. Why am I mentioning Day of the Dead? Well, it is Halloween here. In Australia, Halloween is a recent fabrication of commercially-charged minds who see the American celebration of Halloween as another opportunity to make some money. I much prefer the Mexican celebration of Day of the Dead to the American celebration of Halloween. In Mexico right now there will be tables set up outside many stores, including supermarkets. The tables will be filled with bottles of tequila and beer, plates of tacos, frijoles, pan de muerte, sugar skulls, vases of marigolds and crucifixes. Tomorrow night (by Australian time), families will assemble at the graves of loved ones. hey will light candles, share plates of food (and especially the favourite foods of the departed) and sip beers, mezcal and tequila through the night. Anyway, at the thought of Day of the Dead I felt I had to cook something quintessentially Mexican. Hence these bowls of pozole. Quite simple to make, this is a dish of chicken stock, pork, ancho chillies, garlic, oregano, cabbage, radish and lime juice. Maybe it was pure luck, but a Cotes du Rhone turned out to be the perfect partner.

POZOLE ROJO

TUNA TATAKI WITH SILVERBEET, CANNELLINI & GOMA-DARE

They say that we all come from somewhere else. I guess that is true. Every civilisation must have started when someone migrated, invaded or drifted from one place to another at some time in history. The people of Jamaica mostly came from Africa. The people of the Americas are believed to have come from what is now China. Via Alaska. And then these people interbred with more invaders. First the Spanish. Then more Africans. Then immigrants from Europe. Then Asia again. All of this is a preamble to what is on this plate - a multicultural melange of mostly Italian and Japanese influences. Tataki is a Japanese style of searing the outside of (usually) beef or tuna so that the middle remains raw. Goma-dare is a Japanese sauce made from white sesame seeds with dashi, mirin, sake, soy sauce and ginger.

TUNA TATAKI WITH SILVERBEET, CANNELLINI & GOMA-DARE

AH, XALAPA, I LOVE YOUR FRUIT

These fat meaty chillies are jalapeños. They are named after the town of Xalapa in Veracruz on the east coast of Mexico. The Spanish settlers would have spelt them this way, because the nahuatl x is pronounced like a Spanish j - like an h. Confused?

I bought these guys this morning at the weekly markets. Of all the fresh Mexican chillies, this is the one most commonly seen here in Australia. In Mexico, the serrano is probably more common, but these would run a close second. I have had some that are disappointingly mild. But the best have a real bite - not as strong as serranos and nothing like the searing intensity of habaneros. I have photographed them in a bassalt molcajete, a brilliant mortar because the rough and tough bassalt grips the ingredients, making grinding a breeze.

How do we use them? Raw and sliced in tacos and quesadillas. Pickled - jalapeños en escabeche - as a condiment with just about anything. Stuffed - with crab or cheese - and roasted. Shallow fried until the skin blisters - great with barbecued steak. In salsas, mixed with charred tomatoes, lime juice and coriander or with tomatillos.

When fully ripe and deep red, these are smoked over mesquite wood and are called chipotles. In this form they make another brilliant condiment, chipotles en adobo. This can then be blended and added to home-made mayonnaise, which works brilliantly with tuna, salmon, chicken and steak.

The endless creative ways to use each chilli variety is something I love about Mexican cooking. No chilli is used solely for heat. Each is used because it adds a certain flavour complexity that works with other ingredients.

AH, XALAPA, I LOVE YOUR FRUIT

REEF COD WITH A ROASTED RICE CRUST & THAI SALAD

There is fish in there. Somewhere. I guess it is appropriate. Reef cod spends a lot of its time hiding in ... um, reefs. So now it hides under a mountain of shrubbery - cucumber, baby spinach, green chillies, cabbage, sprouts and coriander, as well as fried eschallots and ocean trout roe. The crust of roasted rice is easy to do. For some of you, it is as easy as going to your nearest Thai food store and buying some ground and roasted rice. For the rest, it is a simple thing to do. Dry roast a cup of uncooked rice in a wok or pan over low/medium heat until the grains get a light tan. Then place into a clean spice grinder (I keep a small electric coffee grinder specifically for this purpose). Voila ... as the Thais might have said if, like Vietnam, they had been colonised by French.

REEF COD WITH A ROASTED RICE CRUST & THAI SALAD

STEAMED FISH CURRY WITH BEAN SALAD

There is a special dish from Thailand that is basically a fish curry that has an egg mixed into it and is then steamed. It is normally made with a red curry paste. but I need to make some more red paste, so I used green. And it tasted just fine. The steaming sets the curry into a soft, coconutty bowl of deliciousness. I would use snake beans for the salad, but snake bean season has finished, so green beans (as opposed to mauve or vermilion) are the go here. This is a really simple but wonderful Thai dish. Give it a go.

STEAMED FISH CURRY WITH BEAN SALAD

BREAST OF CHICKEN WITH AN ASIAN INFLUENCE

The problem when you cook something that is not a traditional dish from a particular country or region of a country is that there is no traditional name for that dish. By default - or is it pure laziness? - you end up with these wishy-washy borderless vague non-committal tags that really do nothing to help communicate the flavours or ingredients. So, on the one hand I am apologising for this pathetic title. On the other, I am confessing that I am not at my literary best in the evenings - so chicken with Asian flavours is about as good as it is going to get tonight. If pushed to be more specific, I would say that the influence is largely Thai - maybe Vietnamese. The chicken (skin and half wing attached) was marinated in palm vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, chilli and holy basil leaves, then grilled. The salad is a mix of lettuces with fried eschallots, pork skin and peanuts with a dressing of palm vinegar, peanut and sesame oils, sugar and lime juice.

BREAST OF CHICKEN WITH AN ASIAN INFLUENCE

WHOLE ROASTED KINGFISH WITH SALSA VERDE

There is a fisherman at the weekly markets. He sells fish caught on his family trawler, as well as some other produce from around the area. Today he had nice looking prawns from Ballina just down the coast, but it was the whole kingfish caught locally that caught my eye. I brushed it with olive oil and sprinkled it with salt, then roasted it at 180C for 25 minutes. The salsa verde contains parsley, garlic, anchovy, cornichons, olive oil and white wine vinegar. Another family at the markets grows lettuces and herbs - and that is what went into the salad.

WHOLE ROASTED KINGFISH WITH SALSA VERDE