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

WHY I LIKE FARMERS MARKETS

Things I saw this morning at the weekly markets - tables groaning under the weight of local avocados (Sharwills are coming to the end of their season and the Hasses are now being picked), black zapotes, fat organic asparagus, big bunches of beetroot, kale and cavolo nero, kilos of the sweetest strawberries (what an amazing season it has been this year), fish (I bought a kingfish caught just off the coast yesterday), deep red tomatoes, huge orange-yolked eggs from the Tweed Valley, local pecans and macadamias, bunches of rocket, parsley, spinach, coriander, watercress and lettuces picked yesterday - and these organic eggplants. This one is about 25cms/10 inches in diameter. Not sure what I will do with it yet. Maybe stuff it. Maybe smoke it and make baba ganoush. Maybe slice it, rub it with garlic and grill it. I never get this excited after a trip down the supermarket aisle.

WHY I LIKE FARMERS MARKETS

POLLO ADOBADO CON AGUACATE

Pollo adobado sounds better than marinated chicken. But that is what it is. This particular adobo is a mix of ancho chillies, cumin, oregano, garlic and coconut vinegar - plus some other goodies. Works a treat on chicken. Pork too. And some fish. A nice chook from Alstonville, about an hour away to the south-west of here. Not as good as the chickens in Mexico, but about as good as they get here in Oz. I am not sure what it is that makes Mexican chickens taste so good - actually, I do know. Lots of corn in their diets. Plus marigold flowers if they are egg layers. The first time I bought a chicken at the markets in Prado Norte in Mexico City, I had expectations of something good. They birds looked incredibly fresh. The taste was something I had forgotten - a richness that chicken so rarely possesses. And an unidentifiable flavour that I immediately recognised from my childhood - the way chickens tasted back in the 50s and 60s when a roast chook was something special. Pre KFC. Pre take-away BBQ chicken. So, until I return to Mexico, this will have to do.

POLLO ADOBADO CON AGUACATE

BROCCOLI FRITTATA

Not much to describe here - and for a writer, that is a really hard thing to accept. A frittata is a frittata is a frittata. This one started with leeks and garlic sweated in olive oil. Steamed broccoli and finely dice zucchini were added to this, then six eggs. A bit of salt and pepper and that is it. Four minutes on top of the stove, five minutes under the grill. A simple salad of baby heirloom tomatoes.

BROCCOLI FRITTATA

FLATHEAD WITH CANNELLINI, ASPARAGUS & LIME MAYONNAISE

When I was a kid, my parents would pack my brother and sister and me into the car every May school holidays and we would travel to Port Macquarie in the New South Wales north coast. Nowadays the trip from Sydney takes about 4 hours. Back then it was more like 7. The highway was single lane and there were always trucks lumbering up every hill - and there were plenty of them. Still, it was worth it for the two weeks spent fishing on the Hastings River or playing on one of the surf beaches. We mostly stayed in a cabin right beside the Hibberd Ferry. We used to rent an open clinker-built putt-putt. The engine was a cast iron thing with a fly wheel. The boats were called putt-putts because that is the sound the engines made. We would often fish up Limeburners Creek, a tributary of the Hastings. I used to enjoy being up the creek. As we fished on the creek there was no noise other than the gentle slapping of water against the wooden hull and the occasional bellow from a cow in a pasture by the creek. The fish we caught most frequently were bream and flathead.  Our fishmonger had some nice fillets obviously cut from some pretty big fish. With the local asparagus season in full swing, it seemed like a perfect combination, along with cannellini and a little mayonnaise and lemon juice.

FLATHEAD WITH CANNELLINI, ASPARAGUS & LIME MAYONNAISE

GREEN MASALA CURRY OF EGGPLANT & BEANS

Looks like a Thai curry. Almost tastes like a Thai curry. But it is Indian. Green masala paste with coconut cream as the base. Eggplants and beans because that is what Indians do - eat vegetables most of the time.

GREEN MASALA CURRY OF EGGPLANT & BEANS

SALMON WITH WOK-TOSSED AMARANTH AND GARLIC MARMALADE

An enlightening chat with my good mate Stan last night. Stan just about convinced me to create another Facebook-centric food site that would be a basic cooking course for everyone who wants to impress in the kitchen without aspiring to a Michelin rating. One of the things we talked about was how some people do not achieve results like a restaurant does with fish because most of us are afraid to use the intensity of heat that would be used in a commercial kitchen. This is a good example of how a home cook and a chef differ. At home, most of us use a heat setting too low. The result is that the fish stews in its own liquid. In this case I did two things that few people do at home. I set the oven to 200C. I heated a little ghee in a pan over the wok burner (set at about 3/4 heat). I let the ghee get hot enough that wisps of smoke just started to rise. I then put in the salmon, skinned side down. I gave it 60 seconds over the wok burner, then put the pan into the oven. I then cooked the amaranth leaves in peanut oil, light soy sauce and garlic in a wok over high heat, tossing constantly until wilted. I turned the wok burner off and took the salmon out of the oven - it had been in there four minutes tops. Some amaranth went on the plate first, salmon (flipped over so the crisp side was uppermost), garlic jam and a little salmon roe. That is it. Dead easy.

SALMON WITH WOK-TOSSED AMARANTH AND GARLIC MARMALADE

OCEAN TROUT ON MUSHROOM & BLACK BEAN RAGOUT

Mmm, ocean trout. Could it be my favourite fish? Possibly. A Euro/Mexican thing going on here. I had some black bean stock reserved from cooking black beans a few days ago. I reduced this with a little olive oil and garlic, then added a mix of mushrooms - chestnut, Swiss brown, shimeji and king oyster. Some vibrantly fresh asparagus from the markets and that is dinner sorted.

OCEAN TROUT ON MUSHROOM & BLACK BEAN RAGOUT

TUNA WITH BABY HEIRLOOM TOMATOES & FLOWERS

OK, so I played sous chef tonight. The intention was a nice lunch after returning from Melbourne, but a fog rearranged plans. Returned three hours late - but not too late to buy some great tuna at Ferry Road Market, along with baby heirloom tomatoes, Yarra Valley unpasteurised salmon roe and assorted edible flowers - all of which found their way onto the plate thanks to Sharon.

TUNA WITH BABY HEIRLOOM TOMATOES & FLOWERS

CRAB & COCONUT CAKES WITH TOMATO SALSA

Mexico meets Asia - which it did when the Spanish started trading with China from Acapulco. Via the Philippines. They took chillies to Asia and brought back things like coriander - which is now as much a part of Mexican cuisine as it is in Thailand. The fishmonger had some sand crabs (also called blue swimmer crabs) from Hervey Bay, a couple of hours north of here. Mixed with an egg, coconut, serrano chilli jam, fish sauce, onion, coriander and rice flour. A simple salsa cruda for accompaniment.

CRAB & COCONUT CAKES WITH TOMATO SALSA

HUACHINANGO EN PIPIAN VERDE

It is believed that the squash was first domesticated in Mesoamerica somewhere between 8,000 and 6,000 BC. Along with corn and various beans, these were the foundation of the local diet. The Maya ate every part of the squash, including the plant itself. What they loved most were the seeds. They used to toast them and add them to tamales. They would make spreads for tortillas - like the Yucatan’s  sikil p’aak. This sauce is most frequently served with chicken - and in fact the chicken is partly or sometimes completely cooked in the sauce. There are many recipes for pipian verde. Most have a combination of hulled pumpkin seeds, fresh coriander, green chillies, ground oregano or marjoram and stock. I also used epazote leaves and a few leaves of cos lettuce in this version. Here I have pan-fried red snapper (huachinango) and spooned the pipian on top. Having used pumpkin seeds in the sauce, it seemed natural to serve roasted pumpkin with this.

HUACHINANGO EN PIPIAN VERDE

COCHINITA PIBIL

In the Yucatan countryside, cochinita pibil would be traditionally cooked in a pit. Peoples from all over the world employ a similar style of cooking - the Hawaiian luau, the Maori umu, the Fijian lovo. It gets its name from the Mayan word for pit, pib. In Oaxaca, they use a similar pit to cook the cores (or pineapples) of agave to make mezcal. We are lucky to have neighbours with a banana plantation so we can easily get leaves in which to wrap the pork. We also have an avocado tree in our garden and these leaves are also great wrappers. The pork is covered in a paste made from annato seeds, cinnamon, cloves, oregano, cumin, garlic, coconut vinegar and  Seville orange juice (or a mix of navel or Valencia orange juice and lime juice). In the absence of a pit (and for those of you living in apartments, pits are extremely difficult), this works just fine in a Dutch oven (lined first with foil, then banana leaves and topped with more leaves and sealed with foil. I used pork neck for this. Ideally cooked for about 4 hours at 140C. But it can be done in 3 hours at about 170C. A perfect condiment is finely slice red onion left for half an hour in a gentle vinegar (coconut, for example).

COCHINITA PIBIL

REEF COD WITH SMOKED CAPSICUM ESCABECHE AND BLACK BEANS

What is a food lover with a conscience to do? We are told to eat less beef because beef production accounts for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gases. We are told to eat fish because it is good for us. But we are told that the ocean is being raped and fish stocks depleted. Do we go vegan? Some do. But I cannot. I love vegetables and will often eat a meal without flesh. But I do like a great piece of beef, a great roasted chicken, a fresh fish. So, reef cod ... enjoy it while you can. Not a strong-flavoured fish. Nice big flakes. I crumbed it in panko and cooked it in ghee. The capsicums were lightly smoked then gently cooked in a little corn oil with white balsamic and sugar. Some shredded epazote from the garden. If you are not from Mexico, you might not be familiar with epazote. According to your attitude, it is a herb - or an edible weed. It certainly grows profusely here. I found some at a local nursery and planted it in pots. Now in its fourth season, it pops up amongst the gravel between pavers and I have harvested thousands of seeds from last season which I will plant when I have enough land to grow a commercial crop. A wholesaler in Sydney will buy 50 kilos of dried leaves if I can supply them - and if you know epazote, you would know that 50 kilos of dried leaves means planting tens of thousands of plants.

REEF COD WITH SMOKED CAPSICUM ESCABECHE AND BLACK BEANS

SALAD OF CHICKEN, HERBS & PEANUTS

I do like Thai flavours. I like to be assaulted. Not that I cannot also appreciate subtle food. I have a soft spot for that too. But give me a robust combination of chillies, tang of lime juice and fish sauce, some sweetness from palm sugar, the freshness of herbs, pungency of eschallots, comfort of roasted peanuts ... well you get the drift.

This is not a recipe, but more a list of basic ingredients. I figure you can work out what to do from this list.

So, in this salad is - two sliced roasted chicken cutlets (thighs with bone and skin), a couple of tablespoons of coarsely ground roasted peanuts, a bunch of mint, a couple of handfuls of coriander leaves, a sliced Lebanese cucumber, a teaspoon of ground roasted rice, some sliced lemongrass. The dressing is a mix of palm sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, coconut vinegar, peanut oil, sesame oil and a teaspoon of potent chilli paste from David Thompson - page 298 of his Thai Cooking book.

SALAD OF CHICKEN, HERBS & PEANUTS

CHICKEN WITH CAVOLO NERO AND CANNELLINI

Three classics of Italian cooking. Chicken with chilli. Cavolo nero. Cannellini. Between the cavolo nero and the cannellini, we are getting healthy doses of beta carotene, vitamin C, vitamin K, lutein (great for your eyes), zaexanthin (another carotenoid that helps reduce the incidence of macula degeneration), iron, magnesium and folate. From two veg! Not bad. I figure I can afford to do something not so screamingly healthy with two stars like these. So the skin is left on the chicken because that is where the flavour is. Served with kalamata olive tapenade. Green, white and black - could be the Afghanistan flag.

CHICKEN WITH CAVOLO NERO AND CANNELLINI

CONFIT OF OCEAN TROUT WITH BABY BEETROOT AND RED QUINOA

Everyone is talking about cooking sous vide. I overheard a couple of kids talking about it in the shopping mall yesterday. Today it was a gaggle of pensioners at the poker machines. Tonight I think I heard a couple of rugby league forwards discussing it. I cannot be sure on this last one. One was either giving the other some tips about cooking sous vide or threatening to  rip his testicles off. So this is a sort of half sous vide, half confit technique. A mangle of French. Gorgeous ocean trout from the markets sealed in bags with goose fat flavoured with lemon zest and other goodies, air removed, then placed in a water bath and roasted at 90C for a couple of hours. Quinoa is something else people are talking about. A super food, it is a member of the goosefoot family (which might make it a distant relative of the goose fat used above, but probably not). It is close to being the complete protein food.

CONFIT OF OCEAN TROUT WITH BABY BEETROOT AND RED QUINOA

BEEF CHEEKS WITH MASH & GARLIC BEANS

If you have never bought or cooked beef cheeks, you are missing something. Extraordinary flavour and melt in the mouth tenderness. And they are cheap. Well, cheapish. They would be cheaper if top chefs had not discovered them. I reckon restaurants would account for the majority of beef cheek sales in Australia. Anyway, they are brilliant braised very, very slowly in a warm oven (about 140C). Maybe 4 to 5 hours with red wine and other goodies. A very light, fluffy mash made with King Edward potatoes. Proper home cooking.

BEEF CHEEKS WITH MASH & GARLIC BEANS

CAJUN TUNA WITH BLACK BEAN SALSA & CHIPOTLE CREMA

What is it about chipotle chillies? We tend to measure chillies by degree of heat. Scoville units were invented specifically for this task. But there is no science to adequately describe the flavour of chipotle chillies. Yes, there is heat. But this can vary from chilli to chilli. There is also the strong smokiness from the mesquite wood over which they were smoked. And there is a fruitiness that is hard to define. Depending on the variety of chilli smoked, they can be a glossy deep red, like an impenetrable wine. Or they can be a matte leather brown. I think I have described crema in a previous post. A mixture of double cream and buttermilk or plain yoghurt is left somewhere warm until it sours. It is not as strong as sour cream. The green under the fish is kale - bought at the local markets from the Clarke family in Crystal Creek - who happen to also sell brilliantly rich deep orange-yolked eggs.

CAJUN TUNA WITH BLACK BEAN SALSA & CHIPOTLE CREMA