Reminiscence of a Food Tragic

Giorgio di Maria's Garagistes Lunch

2011-08-20T15:22:00.029+10:00

GIORGIO Di Maria from Sydney's Vini, Berta and 121 BC visited Hobart two weeks ago to present fabulous Italian wines from his native Piedmont while Luke Burgess threw together a 6 course Piemontese truffle lunch at Garagistes using Peter Cooper's Tasmanian truffles. It was by far the best and most generous lunch I have ever eaten. Once again Pauline Mak was there with her camera to capture the event.

No sooner had we finished nibbling on Luke's house made salumi than I received a tweet from Bell's Stefano Manfredi who confessed that Giorgio's passion for Italian wine was an inspiration to him. Giorgio stopped pouring the baccabianca to check it out.

Meanwhile Luke was busy plating up the truffle laden raw vegetables for the bagna calda.

First course was a bagna calda accompanied by a baccabianca 2006, tenuta grillo.

The colour of the baccabianca was the first surprise, the taste was out of this world.

Next came scraped wagyu fillet covered in truffles and coupled with a salty caramel like egg yolk.

The wagyu was teamed with a nebbiolo 2009 giuseppe rinaldi

Then came a wild rabbit agnolotti sprinkled with crumbled house made amaretti. A sensation.

Accompanied by a boca 1990, campo delle piane. This North Piemonte wine had rested in large botte from 1990 until 1999 when it was bottled. It was truly amazing.

As if this wasn't enough - a smoked tongue risotto with bone marrow and more truffles, house baked bread and truffle butter.

The wine was a gattinara san francesco 1999 antonolo

The last savoury course was waygu rib eye cooked over the restaurant's wood grill and served with a crema di cipollle al forno and fritto misto alla piemontese.

This time the wine was a barolo vecchie vigne 1998, giuliano corino.

The dessert created by Luke was a pannacotta, better than any I have ever tasted. The dish was made in Giorgio's regional traditional method incorporating egg white and was served with a truffle and mandarino chocolate sauce. The dish pannacotta tradizionale, gianduja, tartufo e mandarion was a triumph.

And perfectly matched with a sol 2007, ezio cerruti. What a lunch. Thanks Giorgio and thanks Luke.

Astrid's Macaron Masterclass

2011-07-31T10:24:00.037+10:00

Last Sunday Astrid Wootton taught a macaron class in our kitchen attended by Mary and me, Astrid's partner Jade, Ella Haddad and her two small girls and our Munsterlander, Minnie. It was a crowded house with some great results.

The first step in making chocolate macarons is to blend almond meal, cocoa and icing sugar and then put it through a sieve.

Next the almond meal and sugar is mixed with 80g of egg white and stirred through and set aside.

Then beat up another 80g of egg whites to stiff peaks while at the same time heating up 200g of caster sugar with 75ml of water til the syrup is at soft pull - about 140C.

This is the preparation for Itlalian meringue. The hot sugar syrup is then slowly whipped into the beaten egg whites resulting in a silky, partially cooked meringue which will defy gravity.

What follows is the macaronage. About half of the Italian meringue is stirred quite strongly into the almond meal, sugar and egg white mix and when mixed through gently fold in the balance of the Italian meringue.

It is mixed correctly when you can pull the spoon out and wave it around the bowl and ribbons form on the surface.

The mix then goes into a piping bag ...

... and is piped on to a baking sheet. The discs are then set aside for 30 minutes before cooking begins.

The same method is followed for the pistachio macarons with ground pistachios taking the place of the almond meal and cocoa mix.

A tiny amount of green food gel is stirred into the macaronage for a more vivid colour.

The macaron halves then go into a pre - heated 125C fan forced oven for 14 minutes. Take them out and leave the baking paper on the sink which should be ever so slightly moistened. Leave them for 10 minutes before pushing them off the baking sheet from underneath and placing them on racks to cool further.

The biscuit halves are then paired off for size and the chocolate macarons are gently spread with chocolate ganache or salted caramel and the pistachio with pistachio butter or salted caramel. As the halves are put together a gentle twisting motion is used to bring the filling to an even thickness and to the edge of the "foot" of the biscuit.

And voila.

Thanks heaps Astrid. You are a star and a great teacher.

And the recipes with precise quantities and more detailed instructions will be posted next.

Loaves & Fishes

2011-07-02T13:06:00.008+10:00

LOAVES and fishes. Evocative words. Simple fare. Egalitarian food for the masses. No restaurant could get them wrong - right? Wrong - cooking school has cured me of that delusion.

Cooking schools have taken off in Tasmania, as elsewhere, and we are particularly fortunate to have two of Australia’s best in Rodney Dunn and Severine Demanet's Agrarian Kitchen at Lachlan and Lee Christmas’ Red Feather Inn at Hadspen.

I have not visited the Red Feather Inn since its recent conversion although I must confess to one of Lee’s ethically bred and raised Wessex Saddleback pigs converted to a casalinga ham last Christmas. That I think though is another story.

My wife Mary and I have however, been fortunate to be able to attend a number of cooking classes and lunches at the Agrarian Kitchen. Rodney, a former food editor for Australian Gourmet magazine and a Tetsuya Wakuda trained chef last year won the Australian Traveller magazine’s Greatest Australian Gourmet Experience award.

Attending these cooking classes and learning about subjects such as Tasmanian truffles, processing heirloom tomatoes and the art of pastry making under the exotic names of Truffle Experience, Tomato Gluttony and Pastry 101, from such masters of their subject as former Gordon Ramsay pastry chef Alistair Wise, is in itself foodie heaven but I couldn’t say those classes have affected the way I look at how those foods are presented in restaurants. Loaves and fishes on the other hand – well, I am ruined for life.

Learning the secrets of sourdough from Oatland’s baker Graham Pritchard, (pictured above with Rodney Dunn), who bakes with dough made from wild yeasts in a wood fired oven under the shadow of the recently restored Callington Mill and being immersed in the passion of iki jime sensei and former Tokyo fish market doyen Mark Eather for the Tasmanian seafood he supplies to chefs including Neil Perry and Kylie Kwong, have forever changed my life. These cooking classes have totally revised my expectations of the loaves and fishes served to me in a restaurant.

I now want a high quality crust and good crumb in the bread that is served to me and I feel that chefs who serve house made bread should know about the hydration of their dough and about baking with steam and in a descending oven. And if fish has that metallic cloying smell that has put so many home cooks off cooking fish in their own kitchens, then no thanks, I know it is not sparkling fresh and I don’t want it. As Mark Eather (below) has proved to me the best fish doesn’t smell at all when being cooked or when it’s plated. If it smells of anything but the pleasant smell of the sea then it is the odour of decomposition you are smelling. Not nice.

So am I better off for my cooking classes or have they just caused me to eat at home more? Certainly not the latter – with so many good restaurants in Tasmania such as Garagistes in Hobart and Ut Si at Perth who bake sublime bread and understand it and with such talented chefs as Philippe Leban at the Source at MONA and David Moyle at the Stackings at Peppermint Bay, who only work with the freshest of fresh fish, I think the experience has just made me more discerning. Ultimately such a result will benefit everyone in the industry and will enhance Tasmania’s reputation as a serious contender in the Australian food market.

Whole Chicken Soup

2011-06-16T09:58:00.009+10:00

This recipe originally published by David Herbert in the Weekend Australian Magazine has become a winter favourite of ours. It has a few ingredients admittedly but it easily serves 6 and so for Mary and me it provides a couple of meals.

Peel or scrub

6 carrots

3 parsnips

6 small turnips (or 1 small swede)

3 leeks

1 small onion studded with 2 cloves

2 celery stalks

1 clove garlic

Take a 1.5kg chicken put one of the sticks of celery inside it and place in a large pot.

Cut the leeks and all other vegies into 2cm (i.e bite size) thick rounds or chunks and surround the chicken with them. Add 2 bay leaves,garlic and 4 sprigs of thyme and cover the chicken with water or chicken stock. Bring to the boil and simmer gently uncovered for 1 hour. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve portions of chicken (e.g break into legs , thighs, breast pieces etc ) in bowls sprinkled with as much of 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley and chives as desired and ladle the broth over as much as desired.

Match with a chardonnay and serve with farm buttered sourdough (optional of course)

Tapas at Grape Wine Bar

2011-04-30T17:55:00.032+10:00

Grape Wine Bar has opened up a new way of eating for Salamanca Place. Cargo is well know for its pizzas and there are several good restaurants in Salamanca Square but when you are hungry but just want small plates with a drink, up until now you would have had to go to Ethos in Elizabeth Street in the Hobart CBD. Not any longer - Grape chef Ivan Haynes has commenced a really very good tapas menu and it's a must try.

After the magnificent West Australian sardines and the bacalao croquetas came marinated mushrooms - all pictured above.

Then some freshly shucked Barilla Bay oysters which had been in the water just two hours earlier.

The trilogy above was next - grilled local octopus, more of those magnificent mushrooms (which speaks for itself), and a tasty chickpea, roast capsicum and fetta salad.

Then came a spectacularly fresh ceviche of blue - eye with lime, red chilli and basil. Next to them for the meat eaters was a dish of fried sliced chorizo.

The ceviche was so good I thought it warranted a close up. You can sense the exquisite freshness from the photo. The dish was really sensational.

And to finish, a plate of garlic prawns cooked with quintessential Spanish simplicity. So what are you waiting for?

Philippe Jacques Leban - Chef Extraordinaire

2011-04-24T13:03:00.032+10:00

Last Easter the idea was born for a Web 2 lunch for Twitter and Facebook friends who had never met. Well this year it continued with a ferry ride, another visit to the MONA gallery and a late lunch for 10 at Philippe Leban's table at the Source. Philippe's chocolate dessert pictured above typifies his devotion to perfection.

Marc Bester, seated in the foreground above, was last year our master Easter chocolate maker but this year he became our very talented photographer using his (and my), favourite little camera, the Panasonic Lumix LX5 with a Leica lens with amazing macro capacity. The entrees - first below is my artichoke with slightly aerated goat's Tongola goat's cheese

Marc Bester's snow egg, with grated bacon.

Mary's green Spanner crab meat with PX jelly and foie gras.

Nathan's prawn bisque.

Sid's roast duck with Hassleback turnips.

My Yellowfin tuna with leeks and foie gras.

Veronica's John Dory with Tasmanian vongole and parsley foam.

Diane's roasted vegetables with powdered walnuts.

Marc's grassfed Cape Grim ribeye with bean shoots and Hassleback potatoes and green salad.

The wines - Gosset Excellence NV champagne, Francois Raveneaux 2008 Montee de Tonnerre premiere cru Chablis, Bruno Desaunay - Bissey 2005 Vosne Romaneee and a Philip Bouchard 2005 Gevrey Chambertin.

Fromage. Fou fou.

A Domaine de la Pigeade Beaumes de Venise muscat with the dessert course.

And the maestro himself who very kindly gave me a tour of his new lavish self designed kitchen. All modern high work benches and induction stovetops - not a gas ring to be seen and only one small sous vide bath. It was just amazing to see ducks slow roasting - resting on two wooden spoons in a pan atop the induction plates. A very lucky man and a very happy one.

Thanks Philippe. We'll be back - again and again. Merci beaucoup.

Last Service at Piccalilly

2011-03-26T09:22:00.020+11:00

Last month saw the last service at Piccalilly in Battery Point and the fabulously talented Iain Todd treated a full house of loyal followers to a selection of his best dishes created over the life of the restaurant. Piccalilly has now become the Battery Point Steakhouse and Iain's latest offering, Ethos at 100 Elizabeth Street in Hobart opens next Tuesday. The end of an era and the beginning of an Ethos.

Pauline Mak shoots the Agrarian Kitchen Seafood Lunch

2011-03-18T20:33:00.012+11:00

Brilliant young photographer Pauline Mak captured these shots from the engine room of the Agrarian Kitchen last Saturday where Rodney Dunn and Severine Demanet prepared a superb lunch with fish and shellfish supplied and spoken to by internationally acclaimed seafood guru Mark Eather

Poached southern rock lobster with "mustard" butter and mustard leaves paired with Domaine Beullard et Fils 'Mont Blanc' Ayse Sparling Savoie 2006

Gould's squid and braised black lip abalone with cucumber, mint, coriander, pea shoots and fried garlic paired with d'Meure Chardonnay Birch's Bay Tasmania 2010.

Yes you Severine !

Mark Eather describes his passion for ethically caught and ike jime killed fish.

Smoked yellowfin tuna belly with heirloom tomatoes, baby beans, pink fir apple potatoes and anchovy emulsion paired with Domaine de Belliviere 'Les Rosiers' Chenin Blanc Loire Valley 2008.

Wood-fire roast snapper with Spanish thyme and Jerusalem artichoke paired with Fanny Sabre Savigny-Les-Beaunne Chardonnay Burgundy 2008.

Damn that Snapper smells good Rodney.

Grilled Mackerel with eggplant and goat's milk yoghurt paired with Philippe Barnard 'Le Ginglet' Trousseau Jura 2008.

Seafood soup paired with Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet 'La Souteronne' Gamay Rhone Valley 2009

Brandy Snaps filled with goat's milk ricotta and mulberry jelly paired with Domaine Terres Dorees 'In Extremis' Beaujolais.

Garagistes Puts Tassie Food On The World Map

2011-01-19T11:06:00.011+11:00

Coming Soon - The Doctor Syntax - The New Law Pub?

2011-01-03T09:46:00.001+11:00

Taste Festival 2010

2010-12-29T09:38:00.015+11:00

Xmas Traditions

2010-12-27T12:35:00.033+11:00

Who says we don't have Christmas traditions in Australia! We do, it's just that they are a bit eclectic and inherited from hither and yon. This year we borrowed from European and Asian customs. From threepences to pig's feet and casalinga ham to glass noodles. It was a lot of fun.

Knowing that we were being joined for Christmas lunch by two of our Chinese student friends, Joshua Yao and Helen Han, Mary and I gave some thought to a meal that had an East/West balance.

We set our Christmas table with our Bavarian table centre cloth, mince pies made by Anna, one of our Italian neighbours and pfeffer kuchen made by Allison a young, former neighbour with strong German food links.

The Christmas crackers complete with corny jokes, tacky novelties and silly paper party hats have been present on our Christmas tables for as long as Mary and I can remember and we carefully explained to Joshua and Helen that we didn't actually take them seriously and that boys could take their hats off if they liked after the first course.

The first course has pretty much been an Australian Christmas food tradition since the groovy 70's and the lobster went on top of shredded iceberg lettuce and avocado in a parfait glass and was liberally doused with a home made Thousand Island dressing made with Rosella tomato sauce. No picture is necessary - or desirable - but the taste was timeless.

The second course was not one many Tasmanians would be used to at Christmas. We had a box of pig's feet in the fridge. Free range Wessex Saddleback pigs, ethically bred and raised by Guy Robertson and Eliza Wood at Mt Gnomon Farm near Penguin. I had discussed with Joshua a pickle sauce dish that was customary at celebratory feasts in Shanghai and this dish was painstakingly prepared by Josh on Christmas Eve. The chewy tangy feet were coupled with an equally cooling dish made by Helen with glass noodles, cucumber, egg, mushroom and pork. A delightful first for us on both counts. These dishes were balanced out with abalone stir fried in butter, oil and garlic picked from Mary's herb garden.

The fourth dish was more familiar to Tassie summer Christmas tables. Cold ham with potato and broad bean salad and a mixed lettuce salad with walnuts and goat's cheese. The pinkeyes and broad beans were also dug and picked from Mary's garden on Christmas morning and the beans twice podded. The dressing was made with mustard and chopped green onion. The ham was accompanied by a home made mustard piccalilli featuring zucchini and peppers. The walnuts were from a friends tree and the goat's cheese a Belstone, made by a lady at Bonnet Hill near Taroona south of Hobart.

The ham was prepared casalinga style by a guy in Launceston. The pig was a free range Black Berkshire, ethically bred and raised by Lee Christmas of the Red Feather Inn at Hadpsen. The holly ( out of season) was from our tree and the pudding was made by Mary from my late mother's family recipe. It was served with Creme Anglaise instead of the traditional (in my family anyway) brandy sauce. The silver threepences were boiled and once singing in the pot, were buried in the pud with appropriate warnings to Joshua and Helen about the hazards of biting one too hard or swallowing one.

Allison's pfeffer kuchen with spicy cinnamon and ginger notes were decorated with Callebaut dark chocolate. Along with Anna's mince pies they were a great end to the lunch, nibbled with Chinese tea carefully prepared by Helen.

Well Josh had a good day. Presents, Sichuan peppers and a big smile to start the afternoon.

Mary and Helen checked out the Thermomix article in the Tasmanian Chinese language newspaper after discussion about how easy it was to make the Creme Anglaise in the TM.

And fortunately Josh's Christmas cracker yielded a gift of a tape measure with which he could empirically establish the effect of the 6 courses just eaten.

And finally, the kitchen cleared it, was time for a sleep in a chair in the lounge room before listening to the Queen's Message.

Christmas traditions ? Yep - we've got 'em ok - it's just that sometimes we don't recognise them as our own. Now for macaroni cheese made with leftover ham.

World Party 2010

2010-10-24T09:30:00.044+11:00

Food, music and violence towards international students were the catalysts for World Party. Designed to bring our diverse community together, the Party worked a treat. About 6000 people grazed and grooved and shmoozed over 10 hours last Sunday. And the goodwill didn't stop at the door. Hobartians of all sorts, carrying away sushi by Masaaki Koyama and Greek sweets by the Estia crowd, engaged happily with each other going along the streets leading from the City Hall and on the buses on their way home. World Party made a lot of students and recent arrivals in Hobart more confident and gave cause for great pride to the older arrivers to our shore who partied with them. It was inspiring to see everyone happy in their own skin.

As you will see from the photo a couple down from here I had my hands full with the requirements of some 20 international food stall holders and a similar number of musical and dance acts that stretched from 2.00pm until midnight so I am once again indebted to my good friend, the very talented Marc Bester for his great photographic record of the day. His pic of this conger line formed by the Greek dancers early on captures the mood of the day very well.

Jonathon Poh a UTAS student who usually makes mooncakes made these gorgeous coconut desserts which burst in the mouth with their liquid centre. Unfortunately the recent Mooncake festivals in Hobart had cleaned all our Chinese stockists out of mooncake ingredients otherwise we would have seen Jon's beautifully crafted and coloured examples of this delicacy.

All the usual suspects were there. Some just having a beer and a chat ...

and some - well what can I say Rob. The dreamiest Clean Team worked tirelessly to make sitting down and eating a pleasure for all. Thanks also to Janet Carty, Fiona and Peter Davis, Robert Jarman, Jude Franks and Kim Foale.

Bree Mooney , alias Mondo Mama sold out in no time her hundreds of Italian bombolini.

These citrus flavoured Italian donuts were variously filled with chocolate, Meyer lemon curd and rosehip jam and then rolled in sugar.

Bree's bombolini were beautifully matched with Barista Sista, Anja Boot's coffee, the location of which had to be explained to our hard working security staff. I am happy to say however, that this all ages, licensed, day/night event was totally without incident or excessive consumption of alcohol.

One of the star attractions was Geeveston sushi genius Masaaki Koyama whose exquisitely crafted offerings were snapped up from the time he and his partner Lucy commenced operating.

These fried tofu wrapped sushi rice offerings named after the Shinto god Inari were a feast for the eyes as well as the palate. They were the best example of their kind I have seen.

And among Masaaki's customers I have no doubt would have been the amazing and stirring Taiko drummers who delighted the crowd early in the afternoon's line up.

Fen Zhou the Chinese lute player also enchanted the large crowd of 1000 plus who flowed in as soon as the doors opened.

The Tibetan Buddhist monks stall featured the traditional dumplings known as Momos and they were a huge hit, including with the Chinese Buddhist monks who later took the audience's breath away with the most athletic and meticulously choreographed Lion Dance Tasmania has seen. Thank you Master Wang.

These Momos were one of the few things I actually found time to sample and with the Tibetan's hot, and I mean hot, chilli sauce they were absolutely what I needed.

The Indonesian student's stall was carefully decorated and they had a great day they told me as well as a very successful one - selling out completely by the end of the evening. Their elevated mood typified the goodwill in the City Hall that was palpable all day long.

The Madi Tribal Dancers from the southern Sudan also rocked the crowd with their drumming and rhythmic movement. The African kids all had a great day and the young rappers and funk performers later on were also a huge hit with their polished performances.

Cultural cuppas were in evidence and were free, as I should say, was water, all day long thanks to the generosity of Richard Dobosz of Wellington Springs.

Indian food was represented by the Indian Kitchen and the Zaika Indian restaurant.

These pappadams and naan breads were seen everywhere and were just a fabulous accompaniment to the curries.

This beautiful and graceful Bhutanese dancer was one of the true artistic highlights of the day. Her great talent and grace belied her mere 14 years of age.

The World Party was also a quiet remembrance of murdered Chinese student Tina Yu and it was wonderful to see the Chinese PRC Student's Society so well represented and accompanied by their friends including food stalls by Four Seasons and Wah Yuen

The Chinese students stall had a beautifully decorated backdrop and was a popular spot for the Chinese artists during the breaks in their acts - including show stoppers Jason Xu and the Hotkings.

More Indonesian ...

and still more

The Thai stall - Zapp Thai was also a crowd pleaser

And the Greek ladies desserts were to die for.

Overseas students were seen taking large bags full of baklava and kourabiethes back to their accommodation as fuel for their study for imminent exams. It was a delight to see.

Some of the best baklava I have ever tasted. It was very kind of the Hobart Greek Community to turn out in such force. They also ran the bar and a souvlaki stall.

And the World Party would not have been possible without this man who arranged 10 hours of the most amazing and uplifting global music and dance. Non stop and seamless - thanks Martin Blackwell. All these artists came from within Tasmania and appeared without fee or for a nominal amount. This was a free, not for profit event and was a party to remember.

World Party Tasmania

2010-09-27T20:52:00.009+10:00

If you have been wondering why no new posts, it's because I have been flat out with the organisation of World Party - a free, not for profit food fair and concert to be held at the City Hall Hobart on Saturday 16 October to celebrate the global flavours and sounds of Hobart. Rock against intolerance. Love to see you there.

Agrarian Kitchen Secrets of Sourdough

2010-09-11T14:40:00.047+10:00

Linseed fruit loaves, sourdough cobs and batons, baguettes, pide, brioche, bagels and chocolate cake - all made with only native yeasts from stoneground whole grain and unbleached organic flours. These are Graham Prichard's (pictured) secrets of sourdough taught as a 2 day class at the Agrarian Kitchen and at courses at his Companion Bakery under the shadow of the Callington Mill at Oatlands in Tasmania.

Batons and cobs of linseed fruit loaves made with pepitas and figs and walnuts are pictured above and perfect sourdough loaves below, all made by students at Graham's meticulously taught course and cooked in the Alan Scott wood oven at Rodney and Severine Dunn's Agrarian Kitchen at Lachlan.

Some of my own results at the end of Day 1 - brioche, fruit cob and baguette are not to0 bad and smell like heaven.

After some explanation by Graham as to the science of wild yeast and making sourdough starters from scratch in a cup covered by a fern and left in the forest, the first day gets started straight off with making a dough from scratch. Each student supervised by Graham's ubiquitous presence.

Flour is weighed, grey salt added to water, starter in ...

... and then it's hands in the dough folks and mix, mix, mix.

The dough is then left for 20 minutes before Graham's strenuous French artisan method of kneading is employed - lifting the 2 kilo piece above the head, slamming it onto the bench, pulling it back and folding it over. A quarter turn and then do it again - 300 times before a secret gluten test to see if it needs more.

Then the dough is bulk proved before scaling and balling up. The bulk prove can be for 3 to 4 hours at room temperature or even overnight in the cellar or fridge. You can of course pinch out a bit of dough after a little while to use to make pide for lunch.

After lunch it's on with the job.

The bulk proved dough is scaled and folded into balls for cobs and batons for classic loaves. The shaped dough is rolled in flour and gently placed into well floured bannetons made from willow.

850g of dough in each loaf.

Next the oven. The wood fired oven starts when this fellow crows ...

... and the wood pile is raided to light the fire and let it burn down to coals.

After the fire dies down the coals are scraped out and the sole of the oven swabbed clean of all dust and charcoal.

The loaves are then gently tipped out of their bannetons and slid onto the sole of the oven.

At this point Rodney and Graham are very happy and the short wait for bread begins as the unbelievable aroma fills the kitchen.

Next comes the moment of truth. The bottoms of loaves are tapped along their whole length for that well baked hollow sound. Colour is examined...

... students become very excited at the golden crisp brioche ...

... and bread is tumbled onto racks to cool and then onto the bench. Ciabatta mingle with baby brioche and kugelhopf.

More brioche - made from 1kg of flour, 5 eggs and 500g of butter!

Ciabatta is made from the basic sourdough dough but with extra water added until the dough runs like lava and is heavily floured before being shaped into rolls.

The classic cob looks spectacular as it comes out of the oven with the floured marks of the willow banneton contrasting with the bare strip which has formed from the slash around its crown with a lame razor blade.

And a happy bunch of students praise the master, who incidentally, is behind the camera.

And the real photographer of the day, to whom thanks must go for all these fabulous images, is Pauline Mak - seated next to me - front left - and who had spectacular success with the linseed fruit mini loaves pictured below. Quite a feat!

And a happy ending. Thanks Graham for your hands on tuition and for your generosity in sharing your secrets. If you want to see Graham at work check into sourdough.com and watch the webcam in the bakery.

The Fat Duck

2010-08-31T13:34:00.041+10:00

A friend of ours (or at least she was 'til she told us), told Mary and me last week that while she was in London recently she was able to secure a table at The Fat Duck at short notice. Huh? We didn't ask. We just drooled over her pics of the meal. First course, red cabbage gazpacho with grain mustard ice cream. "Tell someone who cares", I said.

Then followed an homage to the great chef of Mionnay - Alain Chapel - a jelly of quail with crayfish cream served with chicken liver parfait, oak moss and truffle toast. Ok you've got my interest.

Snail porridge - "you have got to be joking". "No" she said, "not when accompanied by Jabugo jamon and shaved fennel".

Ok. Then on to ethical roast foie gras served with gooseberry, braised konbu and crab biscuit. "Oh really" I said. "I had that last night. Anything else"? "Well yes" she said, "9 more courses actually".

The mock turtle soup was next with the Mad Hatters gold watch on a chain melted into the soup like a banker's teabag. "The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily; then he dipped it into his cup of tea".

The "Sound of the Sea" was an audio/oral course with the foamy rock pool accompanied by a conch shell concealing an iPod with head phones to allow two diners to listen to the sea while grazing in the tidal pool.

Continuing the fishy theme came salmon poached in liquorice accompanied by artichoke, vanilla mayonnaise and golden trout roe. Now I am seriously overwhelmed and make jokes about a slide evening.

Then she got my attention with a blokey dish of powdered Anjou pigeon (circa 1720), served with blood pudding, potted umbles, spelt and pickles. Heston Blumenthal - you genius.

The spookiest experience of the evening my friend said was the hot and iced tea which was molecularly manipulated so that it passed over the palate hot one one side and cold on the other.

This led to the first of the 4 dessert courses, macerated strawberries with olive oil biscuit, and a chamomile, coriander jelly and ice cream cornets and an edible serviette.

Just a warm up for the BFG...

... and the whisk(e)y wine gums and

the grand finale - the lolly bag - "Like a Kid in a Sweet Shop"

Impressed ? Me?

Random Plates at Chez Nous

2010-08-30T13:03:00.021+10:00

A Cold Night In

2010-08-21T11:49:00.020+10:00

One friend drove from Launceston, one had driven to Launceston and back. One had been to a meeting at Port Arthur and another had been painting a mural in a cold concrete building under construction. Roads were closed, there was snow in the suburbs and everyone was freezing cold on the outside. Enter a good log fire, a few exceptional bottles, a world class free range ham from Guy and Eliza at Mt Gnomon Farm and some collaborative effort in the kitchen.

First a French onion soup topped with Gruyere gougeres and a Normandy sparkling cider with a Calvados chaser. Now we are warming up. Then poach off some figs in star anise, coriander and mustard seeds and cardamon pods.

Soak, simmer, glaze and bake the ham and serve with the spiced figs and potato and fennel galette. Wash down with heroic amounts of 2005 Puligny Montrachet. Getting warmer.

Then a cheese course, Roquefort, Roy de Vallees and Edel de Cleron with an 2001 Big 'd Big Barolo and back in to the kitchen to assemble dessert.

The piece de resistance! Tiny hazelnut and chocolate pastry cases made from local hazelnuts, filled with King Island cinnamon and honey yoghurt and topped with pieces of preserved Franklin cherries. With? A 2002 Chateau d'Yquem of course.

It's a bit warm in here don't you think?

Eating South Africa

2010-08-11T18:42:00.020+10:00

While teaching advocacy to young South African advocates (read barristers), with an international team in January this year Mary and I put out a Twitter call to find a place to eat in Cape Town. Sydney Twitter pal and food critic Simon Thomsen came to the rescue with Bistro Bizerca, an award winning restaurant run by Cyrillia and Laurent Deslandes, who not long before had run a very popular eatery just outside Sydney. Their friends told them they were mad going back to South Africa - hence the name. The highlights ? The trio of tomato, the beetroot tart, the Kudu carpaccio and the Karoo lamb stew.

The Very Talented Mr Bester

2010-08-01T14:49:00.042+10:00

One of the guests at our Web 2 lunch this Easter just gone was Marc Bester. The last photograph on that blog post is of Marc' stunning house made chocolates. Well, he is not just a great cook, he is also a very talented photographer as the picture above and the ones that follow demonstrate.

Now I know next to nothing about photography and any good pics I get for our blog are the result of my taking many shots and having had the good fortune to purchase last year a Panasonic Lumix DMC ZR 1. But I am looking to improve. So it was, that when I saw an amazing nature still taken by Marc last weekend I asked him about his camera.

Marc very kindly sent me this link to the site for the camera he has now taken 15,000 pictures with. It's also a Panasonic Lumix but it's an LX3. The Leica lens on the Lumix cameras is outstanding and the LX3 is able to focus closer than a standard digital SLR and so is probably the best compact camera some one with my penchant for food could own.

As can be seen from the pictures above the camera is also, (if you'll pardon the pun), brilliant for taking sharp food shots in low light. All this Marc explained to me. And he lent me all these images to prove it.

These luscious strawberries also bear witness to the camera's ability to take wonderfully sharp images in good light. I just love taking photographs of fruit and desserts and the selection of Marc's pics below are evocative and mouth watering.

Now the Panasonic Lumix LX3 is about to be superseded by the LX5 due out later this month. So check it out here. At a rrp of probably $650 - $700 AUD it represents good value for some one who only wants to own a compact but wants to take professional quality shots. And make no mistake it's not just a camera for food - the photographs Marc takes on his regular bushwalking expeditions and shares with his Web 2 friends are some of the best I have ever seen. Have a look at Marc's collection on Flickr

Seafood to Die For

2010-07-24T15:15:00.012+10:00

Until recently I held the view that one of the great ironies of living in Hobart was that world class fish, including our own, was unobtainable here. I was wrong. This weekend Iki- jime Southern Blue Fin Tuna Toro sashimi with Momofuku pickles and Tataki style with Togarashi, salt and spice green Kuruma prawns with grits, bacon and slow poached egg and duck egg tagliatelle with green spanner crab meat.

Fresher Than Fish

2010-07-17T14:56:00.011+10:00

If you dig deep among Tasmanian fishermen and suppliers it is perfectly possible to find here in Hobart the same live Rock Lobster and live Stripey Trumpeter that grace the Tokyo Fish Market and the tables of Australia's handful of world class restaurants. But dig a little deeper and you can find sashimi fresh fish that would not normally be considered as available in Tasmania. This plate of Coral Trout, Moreton Bay Bug Tails, King Prawns and Spanner Crab came to my table recently at about 6.30pm on the same day as it was landed in Queensland. And it can be done every week, along with the likes of line caught Rock Cod, Pike and Bluefin Tuna.

With fish so fresh there is little you need to do to prepare a banquet. The prawns were eaten with brown bread and a Spanish Chardonnay vinegar. The crab was picked and served with a Chinese dipping sauce made up of finely chopped ginger and spring onion mixed with sugar and brown vinegar and soy sauce, all stirred together and simmered then allowed to cool.

The Coral trout was treated to equally simple treatment, stuffed with handfuls of coriander and spring onions and partly squeezed lime, topped with diced chilli rubbed with oil and salt and pepper and then roasted for an hour at 180C. It was served with steamed snow peas and plain rice.

The Bugs, so fresh and green, cook beautifully in minutes, pan fried in butter mashed with lashings of crushed garlic and flamed off with a good slug of Pernod. This is food anyone can cook with no fuss. The Bug tails mix beautifully with lightly sautéed Oyster mushrooms from the Huon Valley.

Washed down with ? Well for lunch try a bottle of Freixenet Cordon Negro the world's largest selling sparkling white at $14 a bottle. It works a treat.

World Cup Rabbit

2010-07-15T18:04:00.019+10:00

Not being able to put my hands immediately on the Octopus, I settled on rabbit for a dish to accompany the World Cup final. Rooting for Spain I decided to cook a Catalan dish where the rabbit is braised in a tomato based sauce thickened with a "picada" made from chocolate, nuts, saffron and parsley. Here is the method.

In the blender whiz up a tablespoon of parsley, 2 cloves of garlic, a dozen each of blanched almonds and hazelnuts, a pinch of saffron strands and 15g of good chocolate (xocolata or la pedra if you can get it).

Cut the rabbit into serving size pieces and brown in olive oil and set aside. In the same large frying pan saute an onion until golden and then add a bay leaf, a 400g tin of tomatoes, 300ml of chicken stock, a tablespoon of parsley, 2 sprigs of rosemary and salt and pepper and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

After simmering, return the rabbit to the pan and cover and simmer for another 20 mins. Turn the rabbit pieces 2 or 3 times and add more stock or water if needed. It shouldn't be.

While it simmers, first soak 40g of raisins in water or sherry and second work about 6 tablespoons of the liquid from the rabbit pan into the dry picada mix. Then spoon the picada over the rabbit and add the raisins and simmer again, covered, for a final 10 minutes to thicken.

Believe me it works a treat and the recipe is probably the quickest I have used for rabbit. The result is well worth while assembling the ingredients, the rabbit is tender and moist and the sauce a perfect consistency and a flavor sensation. I serve it with saffron or biryani rice. Try it with a Spanish sherry - a dry Amontillado or a Palo Cortado

Getting Serious About Shanks

2010-06-19T21:09:00.015+10:00

Brown shanks in 2 tbsps oil and remove. Melt 50g butter and sweat 2 each of sliced onions, garlic cloves. leeks, potatoes, carrots, parsnips and celery sticks. Add back shanks, 1/2 cup pearl barley, a bay leaf and a sprig of thyme. Add 2 litres of water and simmer for 3 hours. Remove shanks, allow to cool and break up meat and return to soup. Add salt and pepper to taste and garnish with chopped parsley and lemon zest.

Saracino's Way

2010-06-05T15:12:00.016+10:00

Ida Saracino (below left) is a friend of ours and teaches with Mary's younger sister Therese McDevitt (below right). Ida has been cooking her Nona's gnocchi recipe for many years and is good at it. There is gnocchi and there is gnocchi. Ida's is the lightest and most flavoursome I have ever eaten. Today she took over our kitchen for a gnocchi masterclass. Judge for yourself.

First the recipe. Take 900g of Dutch Creams, weighed after peeling, cut them in quarters and steam them for 20 mins. Then put them through a potato ricer or a mouli legume and let them cool completely (I put ours outside on a cold day for an hour and a half). Then sift 225g of plain flour into a bowl and break two eggs into a jug and whisk with a little salt and pepper.

Next, make a well in the bowl of potato and mix in very gently with your hands 1/3rd of the flour and 1/3rd of the eggs and repeat till all the eggs and flour are combined with the potato and formed into a ball of dough.

The trick is not to over knead the mixture and not to let it get too wet and sticky. Just fingertip it and if necessary add just a little more flour. But remember don't make it too dry either because you will be rolling it out on a floured surface to stop it sticking to the board and it will take up a bit more flour then.

Cut slices off the ball of dough and cut again into pieces about the size of a medium onion. Then roll them out into lengths about as round as a thin sausage. Then cut the lengths into about 2cm pieces .

The next trick is to roll the cut up pieces so that they have a hollow underneath to hold the sauce. You can press them gently down the tines of a table fork with your thumb to mark them and shape them like half moons or you can acquire a ridged gnocchi board and roll them across it widthways with two or three finger as shown above and below.

When they are all done, (and the mix makes about 150 and feeds about 6 people for a main course), boil up a big boiler of salted water and add about 25 gnocchi at a time. As soon as they start to rise to the top, about a minute, fish them out with a spider or slotted spoon and keep them warm in a serving dish until they are all done. Then pour over your sauce. Today we had a puttanesca sauce with grated parmigiano reggiano, but melted gorgonzola dolce with a couple of teaspons of white wine makes a very simple alternative sauce. Go on, give it a go. Oh and a glass of Soave to wash it down.

Where the Heart Is

2010-06-01T13:30:00.032+10:00

I have spent 35 years of my professional life endeavouring to avoid publicity so it was with some trepidation and more than a little reluctance that I accepted Linda Smith's offer to do a piece in the Mercury on my kitchen. Well, it turned out more like a life story but she is a very talented young woman and the result was most pleasing. Thanks Linda and thanks Sam Rosewarne for the great photos. For anyone who wants to read it at the Mercury online it's under the title "Advocate of Home and Hearth" The pictures below are Sam's but the bottom two are from my advocacy teaching week in South Africa in January and February this year as mentioned by Linda in the article.

Brisbane or the Stix

2010-05-24T16:03:00.040+10:00

Gaythorne may not be out in the sticks but Stix is out in Gaythorne and since he moved into the neighbourhood folks have been happy. Travis Griggs, aka Stix, is the chef and co - owner of Grub Street, a little 18 seater eatery at 440 Samford Road, 10 minutes outside Brisvegas, and he and his wife Tamara are making food so good some locals spend all day there.

Before Stix moved in to the tiny corner location Grub St occupies, local cafes came and went and went and came and went again. According to my old journo mate Pip Courtney, now of Landline fame (pictured below with Stix), when Grub St started serving up seriously good breakfasts and lunches she told her cameraman husband John Bean that he had better support the place. John took her at her word apparently and has been known to graze at Grub St all day.

Last Saturday Mary and I took our Brisbane host Peter Steele to brunch with Pip and we had a lot of fun catching up on old times while Pip devoured her GF corn cakes with jalapeno scented avocado mousse and tomato salsa. It truly was as delicious as it looks and boy what a change for a light but satisfying brekkie dish.

In food as in all things I admire people who have a red hot go and it was refreshing to see a knock about kinda guy like Stix out in the burbs but seriously in pursuit of excellence. Peter Steele, a most demanding world travelled diner, looked aghast as he had to turn the Sat Nav on his wife Linda's new 250 AMG in order to find our friendly diner in Gaythorne, but as you can see he had a smile all over his face after he and Mary had checked out the menu and the specials board.

Peter chose the green eggs, perfectly scrambled with pesto sitting atop a wedge of Gooralie free range ham carved off the bone and, for a porkstar like Pedro, accompanied by some Gooralie bacon on the side as well.

I had eggs too but with a sensational mushroom duxelle, also with Gooralie bacon, on sourdough bread and Mary chose the special, white bean and chorizo ragu potted eggs with Manchego toast ( pictured above top). She pronounced it a "dead and gone to heaven" dish.

So, next time you are in Brissie and want to escape the city for a leisurely breakfast, grab a cab and head out for a short ride to Grub St. I promise you it will repay the effort. Oh and as you leave pick up a jar of Stix's tamarind chutney!

Remi's Cave a Manger - Oh Lord Please Don't Let Me be Misunderstood

2010-05-16T16:08:00.040+10:00

I was wondering last week whether Hobartians were really understanding what the new Remi de Provence at 252 Macquarie Street is actually all about. I said so to Mary. In fact I didn't get it myself at first. Hobart's most experienced food writers, Roger McShane and Sue Dyson tried to explain it to me. But it wasn't until I was chatting in the foyer of Remi's on Saturday evening with nationally acclaimed food legend Fiona Hoskin, formerly of Launceston's Fee and Me, that I realised that if you move too quickly up the stairs to the dining room you risk missing altogether what this sensational cave a manger has brought on to our doorstep.

What Remi's is not about is fine dining. Remi is adamant that his food is everyday food. Food so priced you can afford to drop in a couple of times a week on your way home from work for a plat du jour and a glass of wine. But you don't have to go up the stairs to the dining room at all if you don't want to. You can opt for a wine and some excellent cheese or a plate of pate, terrine and rillette with cornichons and warm bread in the elegant lounge at the other end of the wine cellar.

The charcuterie is classic French and a bottle of wine from what is Hobart's best selection of French and top end Australian wine can be very affordable when bought at what is a bottle shop price to which is added a surprisingly modest corkage.

But if you don't fancy settling in for food and drink when you have to drive home then you can pick up some olive oil and vinegar, maybe some honey and magnificent French cheese, grab a bottle of wine from the cellar and head home.

Remi's selection of French cheese is evocative and second to none in Hobart and Remi's great knowledge is personally available to help you take home what will really be to your taste.

By all means do go up the stairs to the dining room. Some people just keep coming back, treating it as an extension of their own kitchen. Is the food good - well, Mary and her favourite foodie friend Julie have not as yet stopped raving about the Squid Martegale followed by a pear poached in sauterne and served with Roquefort ice cream and my colleague Greg Melick, who has eaten all over the world and has Hobart's finest private wine cellar of over 7000 bottles, is definitely going back for more of the slow cooked lamb forequarter which he found a perfect accompaniment to the wine he had chosen to show. At main course prices from around $24 going back is very easily affordable.

The dining room itself is very elegant with one wall dominated by a massive Tom Samek mural. French food experts and commentators Roger McShane and Sue Dyson recently posted the picture shown below on Twitter, commenting that it was another fine rump steak from Remi. And it needs to be remembered that if the plates du jours are not what you fancy on the night, Remi is the only restaurateur in Hobart stocking grass fed beef from Cape Grim which he continues to dry age in his coolroom. You can also take these steaks home to cook yourself, as can you any of the complete range of cuts of Wild Clover Lamb from North Motton in Tasmania's North West.

You can also take home, at prices from about $16.50, any of Remi's other dishes, for example the Squid Daube and the Cassoulet pictured below.

In fact you can ask Remi for potato gratin and green beans to take home as well. Perfect on a winter's night. All these dishes are vacuum packed and can be re-heated in minutes in a pan of simmering water.

But, I think whatever you do you need to keep in mind the multifaceted convenience of this cave a manger. It is open 6 days a week from 10.00am until 9.00pm and offers us options not available anywhere else in Hobart. The very nature of the place is to be celebrated as Jay and Emma from Hobart's best cafe, Pigeon Hole, said to me last Friday. And it is wonderfully warm I must add.

As you can see from the signboard, Remi's is a Bistro and Grill, Wine Bar and Fine Wine Centre. But the sign board also says "Fine Wine - Good Food". Not fine food, but good food. It is good, very good, but Remi is the first to say and does say that his providor, wine cellar and dining room is not about fine dining. If you want fine dining then I would recommend Piccalilly which I regard as the best restaurant ever to grace Hobart.

I actually asked Iain Todd the chef/owner of Piccalilly, privately, what he thought of Remi's. His answer, given to me as a public response on Twitter - "We think Remi's is good. Simple food, cooked well and then presented in a rustic way. Love the wine and the concept"

And of course there's the Calvados.

Wise By Name

2010-04-13T21:10:00.028+10:00

“I hate this,” Gordon Ramsay said. “I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.” He was about to dip his spoon into the first soufflé Alistair Wise had made for him.

Tasmanian-born Wise had just joined Ramsay’s London brigade, and this wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for. But all was not lost. “I hate this,” Ramsay said, “because it’s bloody perfect.” (Gourmet Traveller September 2008).

The same Alistair Wise, who was later showered with praise as pastry chef at Gordon Ramsay at the London in New York, generously shared the secret of his souffle with me at the Agrarian Kitchen's Pastry 101 Class taught by him last Sunday! So kind was he that he later emailed me with the complete recipe and detailed notes on the method. Wise by name and wise by nature but also a true gentleman.

Above are our dolce delice tarts with the salted caramel made from Agrarian Kitchen goat's milk and below the very difficult to bake Portuguese custard tarts perfectly cooked at 295C.

Then came Tarte fine with Rodney and Severine's apples. Note the angled cut on the apple slices which help keep the stack level on the puff pastry.

Chocolate eclairs of course - so yellow inside from the Agrarian Kitchen Barnvelders' eggs. These were filled with whipped cream and pastry creme made with my own fair hands. These were the best eclairs I have ever eaten.

Lunch on the run was a courgette tart with confit tomatoes. The tarts were blind baked in French hoops and cooked in the wood fired oven.

Speaking of which. The croissant, pain au chocolat, almond flaked and plain were all cooked in the wood oven. A beautiful sight when the oven door was removed, not to mention the smell.

Alistair, who was photographed below by Chris Chen for Gourmet Traveller in September 2008 is now back in Tasmania and with his wife Teena Kearney creates mouth watering sensations under the name of Sweet Envy.

Easter Facebook & Twitter Lunch

2010-04-06T16:51:00.047+10:00

On Easter Monday Mary and I had lunch at home with three very good friends we had never met before and two extremely close friends we only met recently for the first time. The old notion that you must meet people first and then become friends has been turned on its head by Facebook and Twitter. On these social media platforms you can get to know some people very well and then have the joy of meeting them. It has happened to us many times in the last year and it is a wonderful window to new friendships.

We started in the garden at 12.30 on a lovely April day with a 2003 vintage Bellavista Italian sparkling rose and warm Gruyere gougeres. The gougeres had been cooked while juggling dishes between the Smeg and the IXL wood stove in my kitchen. I had lit the IXL about 7.00 am that morning when the shoulder of Wessex Saddleback pork from Guy and Eliza at Mt Gnomon Farm at Penguin had gone in, rubbed only with Murray pink salt flakes, for a 7 hour slow roast with massive red onions.

We reluctantly came inside to the table and Mary and 4 of our food pals started on a 2005 Toolangi Reserve chardonnay and a 1994 Leeuwin Estate Art Series while I plated the first course, enthusiastically photographed by Victor Khoo former chef proprietor of Melaka Restaurant at Franklin.

First up was a baccalao gratin, made with salt cod from the Italian Pantry which I had soaked for 3 days. The baccalao was served on a bed of stewed tomato and potato cooked with fresh oregano and just a touch of the tomato paste Mary and I had made at the Agrarian Kitchen Tomato Gluttony day a couple of weeks ago.

The baccalao had been baked in milk in the wood stove for 2 hours and then each piece topped with a sauce made from Ortiz anchovies and Strathbogie Ranges olive oil and then with parmigiano reggiano before being finished under the grill. The fish had an eery hot cross bun resemblance with the Ortiz sauce.

The second savoury course was the slow roasted shoulder of pork with potatoes a la boulangere. These bakers potatoes were also slow cooked for several hours in the fuel stove but the onion and potato layers were treated to a special ingredient before being topped with Ashgrove Farm butter and flowering thyme.

The secret stock was made from chicken's feet lovingly prepared and cooked with celery, thyme and bay. The jelly like stock I store in glass jars in the fridge and it lasts for weeks. It is so rich and flavoursome that the bakers potatoes would just not be the same without it. And the chicken feet cost next to nothing.

As to the pork, well what can I say. I have spoken before of Guy and Eliza's fabulous ethically raised and killed rare breed Wessex Saddlebacks. I personally have not tasted better pork. So moist and tender it brought tears to Victor's eyes. A fine cook who knows pork!

Victor's partner Steve, aka Reb of blogging fame, was so moved by the sight of the pork and the potatoes boulangere that he insisted we pose while Victor took a photo. Steve as you see was dressed for a regatta outing and looked the part when we later adjourned to the pergola for a rest between the dessert courses. Very Wind in the Willows!

I plated the pork and the potatoes with the crackling served separately with sage leaves from Mary's herb garden fried crisp in butter and accompanied by peas mashed with parmesan and olive oil. It didn't last long. We washed it down with a Chateau Neuf de Pape.

The first of the two desserts was a fig tart tatin made with late figs from Mary's garden and bay leaves from our tree. The clincher for this course however was a goat's milk ice cream we made from Meredith's Dairy goat's milk, which incidentally is available every Tuesday at the Salad Bowl store in South Hobart. The method for the ice cream was Matthew Evans' adaption of Nick Haddow's Bruny Island Cheese recipe. The goat's milk flavour, so evident in chevre shone through in this ice cream and cut the unctuous taste of the figs and caramel and bay just beautifully. This course was matched with a Dr Loosen Reisling.

It was about then that Toad and Mole and I decided it was time for a walk along the riverbank. Michelle and Melitta agreed and so we went. Well at least as far as the pergola where we perched and chatted while Mary took the cork out of a Veuve Cliquot Ponsardin Demi Sec chosen to pair the second dessert. Then back to the table with looks of greatly renewed enthusiasm.

This course was an adaption of a Michel Roux recipe. I used chocolate pastry as a concession to the Easter Bunny instead of the Waterside Inn's pate sucre. The blind baked tart shell was filled with raspberries and a little julienned mint and then covered with a ganache made from Callebaut dark coverture. I served it with nothing more than a Meander Valley clotted cream.

The end of this six course lunch was not marked by my own dish however but by the stunning handmade chocolates crafted by a man I had never met before. My good friend Marc Bester.

Raspberry Ganache Tart

2010-03-27T20:51:00.010+11:00

Pizza Obama Style

2010-03-24T17:10:00.016+11:00

The Windy City, home town of Barack Obama and Charlie Trotter's is also the home of Chicago Pizza. This deep dish, double layered pizza is the specialty of Giordano's, foremost among several of the city's great pizzerias. Chicago pizza resembles pizza pie or a sort of flat Calzone but the unique nature of the dish in which it is cooked is at the heart of the amazing experience.

My journalist mate Pete Wels put me on to Chicago pizzas but before we could get baking I had to search the web to locate and import the deep dishes. They can be found and in fact I was able to buy 4 online fairly quickly. They are 30cm in diameter and 5cm deep and have a perforated bottom to ensure a crisp crust and a well cooked bottom layer.

You will need more than the usual batch of dough. I use 3 1/4 cups of flour, 3 teaspoons of sugar, 1 tablespoon dried yeast, 1 1/4 cups of tepid water and 2- 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

For the bottom layer I use fresh grated buffalo mozzarella, sliced onion, spinach, mushrooms and piquillo peppers. Then when the second layer of dough goes on I top it with tomato sauce, tomatoes, olives and basil, or spicy paprika sausage for the non - vegetarian version.

The tomato sauce is interesting because it has grated parmigiano reggiano (or grana) mixed in with it. I use crushed tomatoes, passata, olive oil, oregano, basil, salt garlic and the parmesan.

So the top deck should look like the picture below when you have roughly tucked the overhanging bottom layer of dough in all around. I say "roughly" advisedly because you can't go wrong with this pizza. No matter how ugly it looks when you put it in the oven it comes out looking crisp and golden and perfectly shaped.

As to baking, again you don't have to worry too much. Pre - heat your oven to 230 C and place the pizza on the lowest shelf for 10 minutes and then transfer it to the middle shelf for 25 -30 minutes or less if it is golden brown and the crust is hard.

The results, as can be seen above and below, are fabulous. The contrast of the texture of the crispy crust with its tomato, olives and smoky salumi and the bread like interior with its runny mozzarella and spinach and piquillo peppers is a sensation.

It really does repay the effort of making the first one. After that they are no more difficult than making ordinary pizza. And a single Chicago pizza goes a long way believe me.