Duck affair

I went over to my friends house last week to cook, an old friend who I hadn't seen for years actually, but a friend who joined me when a group of us dined at Billy Kwong in Surry Hills.

We were so impressed with the duck dished served, with a rich plum sauce, that we decided to try to recreate it, the only difference was that our duck would not be deep fried (something I have found out since and obviously contributes to the interesting texture and absolutely amazing flavour).

I remember having seen the recipe in a Jamie Oliver Cookbook and it very similar to Billy Kwong so the recipe I have used is an adapted version of his.

First thing was first, we needed to find duck breasts. If I had time I would have gone to a suburb where there are a lot of Asian butchers as I know their duck would be fresh and at a good price as it is so highly demanded, but I was too busy at work to leave early so had t settle for the local shopping centre, Broadway, which has an ok butcher inside.

I did find duck breast, and they weren't frozen so that was exciting. However, the price did not excite me at all. It ended up being close to $50/kg, but to try something new, I don't mind paying for it.

Now duck is perfectly complimented with fruity sauces, and some that I have tried include fruits such as plum, orange, pomegranate, grape, papaya (for Thai dishes), but it can really be pared with any fruit, just make sure the fruit is in season.

This is something we found out that day, being May, Plums are not in season. Disappointment overwhelmed us, but we weren't disheartened and chose another fruit which we both enjoyed but some may think not sweet enough. Red Ruby Grapefruit. Sweeter than the regular grapefruit, this citrus fruit can be sour at times, but can also be sweet in peak season, which falls at the end of summer, early Autumn, well I have found in Sydney.

Ok, fruit. Check. Next ingredients to go in this sauce include palm sugar, soy sauce, chilli, cinnamon quills and star anise. It is a simple dish that you pretty much throw everything into a oven proof pot and then slow cook for at least 2hrs.

Once cooked we plated and tasted. It is quite interesting to see how different people's taste buds react. I personally thought it tasted too salty and needed more sugar to offset the bitterness of the fruit, which didn't add as much sweetness as plums would. However my friend thought it was not salty enough and needed more salt to battle this bitterness.

I suppose it is something that we would not agree on as everyone's tastes are different, but we still agreed it tasted really good, thick, plump, tender flesh with the spices, chilli and (bitterness) made it an enjoyable dish.


Duck with Red Ruby Grapefruit

Ingredients

2 large duck breasts
2 tbsps soy sauce
3 spoonfulls five spice
large handful of star anise
2 cinnamon quills
1 tbsp EVOO
1 small chilli chopped (keep seeds to give it a bit of a kick)
2 large Red Ruby Grapefruits, skin on, segmented
3 tbsp Palm Sugar

Method

1. Put all ingredients into an ovenproof pot and coat duck well.
2. Cover and marinate overnight.
3. When read to cook, preheat oven to 160 degrees and cook for 2 hours.
4. Serve and enjoy : )

European Weekend

The cooking continued today for Andrew, Maria and little baby Edward (who is so cute!), and today the menu would consist of Spanakopita, which was requested, a normal gluten full bread and the flourless chocolate cakes with some different bases.

Andrew is very lucky because after cutting gluten out completely for a good couple of weeks, he slowly reintroduced it back into his diet and found that it wasn't what was upsetting him, but rather the culprit was spicy food. I wanted to celebrate by baking a gluten filled bread...focaccia.

I had attempted this for Easter but wasn't to impressed with that first attempt. It was not soft enough and was quite dense which I think was due to the short time I let the dough rise. This bread should be rising for at least 3 hours I would say, to get a good texture, which was good for me as I made the dough before going to beach training and then to the grocery store to buy ingredients for the other dishes. So by the time I actually made the bread it had risen for over 4hrs.

I decided to top it with a garlic and rosemary oil. I love having a thriving rosemary bush outside my house as it is perfect with so many things. I used my newish mortar and pestle which my Yiayia gave me as an early birthday present by mistake, which is large and marble. It ground the garlic, sea salt, rosemary and EVOO up so well, and after letting it sit for around 20 mins, the flavours really infused into the oil.

I didn't hold back pouring it into the groves I had made with my fingers, making little puddles of flavour, then 25 mins later it was done and the smells wafted all through the house. It was soft and after cutting it up I was so happy I was quite busy in the morning.

The bread tasted so good, light, fluffy and soft, and the best bit was dipping it straight out of the oven into the cold infused oil that was leftover.....what a treat! Of course I wanted to share it with my family while it was warm and since my Dad hadn't eaten lunch I decided to make him a nice focaccia sandwich, although he requested the toppings: bastouma; haloumi; proscuitto. I added some fresh tomato also to balance the flavours and add some sweetness to it.....I think he enjoyed it.

Ok next up was the spanakopita. I went out to the garden again to grab some fresh mint and parsley. This was pretty much a chuck it all in mixture. Rough measurements too. I threw in the ricotta, crumbled in the feta, chopped the shallots, herbs and the cooked and very well strained spinach and seasoning. I know spanakopita usually uses filo pastry but I improvised with what was in my freezer and used puff. It still turned out beautiful and golden and still gives that crunch like filo does........what can you do when you have no cash and Franklins EFTPOS machine's are down...

The layers were then piled, two on the bottom and two on the top, neatly folded over to achieve a nice clean lid, then into the oven it went. A good 50 minutes later it was golden and when I pulled up a little segment it was steaming and the aromas were heavenly. I think the single ingredient which makes this dish is the shallots. They are necessary in giving a nice bite to the mixture to break down its heavy dairy content.

As I said earlier I also remade the flourless chocolate cakes, but this time experimented with different bases. The almond was very nice but other nuts work much better with the richness of the chocolate like hazelnuts or walnuts. The almonds are a bit blander than the other nuts, as they are less oil and the flavours not as strong, so I added a little brown sugar to the mixture this time. Now it was up to Andrew and Maria to tell me which combination they liked best.

So I took the food over and while I played with Edward, they had dinner and loved it. I now understand how little time parents have to prepare food and eat as they always have to have their focus on the baby, so if my meal gives them a break for even half an hour, I am happy : )

Garlic & Rosemary Focaccia

Ingredients
*Makes two loaves

750g pleain flour ('00' if you have it
2 teaspoons of salt
1 2/3 cups of luke warm water
4 tsps dry yeast.
2 tablespoons EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)

Infused Oil

1 cup EVOO
4 garlic cloves
2 lge stalks rosemary
1 tsp sea salt

Method
1. Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl then make a well.
2. Mix the yeast with the water and let stand for half an hour until it froths up a lot.
3. Pour the oil and the yeast mixture into the well and then mix to form the dough. Knead for 5-10 minutes or until the dough becomes elastic and springs back.
4. Cover the dough with baking paper and a blanket or tea towel and let it rise in a nice warm place for 4 hours (A nice sunn spot in the house is ideal)
5. Whilst dough is rising, combine garlic, sea salt, rosemary and a little EVOO in a mortar and pestle until a nice smooth mixture. Slowly add the rest of the oil until well combined. Let it sit until doughis ready to infuse.
6. Once dough has doubled in size, preheat oven to 200 degrees.
7. Seperate it in two and roll out each dough into a rectangular shape. Place them onto greased baking trays.
8. Using your fingers, make pits in the dough. Pour oil gnerously onto each dough, making sure you fill the pits and spread it all over. YOU WILL NOT USE IT ALL.....save some for dipping once it is finished.
9. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until bread has risen and is soft. You do not want it to get brown in colour, just a light shade as this is a very light and soft bread, not one with a thick crust.
10. Cut it diagonally and serve with infused oil and sea salt to dip.


Spanakopita

Ingredients

500g ricotta
1 cup feta (crumbled into small pieces)
2 eggs
touch of nutmeg
1 bunch shallots, chopped
2 bunches spinach
handful of chopped parsley and mint
pepper to taste
4-5 sheets puff pastry

Method

1. Steam spinach until wilted and drain ALL water out of it. (This is very important)
2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
3. Drain ricotta then combine with rest of ingredients until mixed well.
3. Lightly grease a baking dish and then line with well thawed puff pastry. One layer on the bottom and along sides, leading some overhand on the top. Try to be neat.
4. Spoon filling in and then fold over the edges. Top with two sheets of pastry to close the pie and then score the lid with portions.
5. Bake for 50 mins or until top is a golden brown.

Celebrating Mothers Day

Today I was so looking forward to cooking for my Mum and spoiling her with a nice dinner, especially since I am never home at nights to eat with the family, as I know that is something she would appreciate.

It was a bit of a hectic day though as we were supposed to meet the rest of the family for coffee in Leichhardt, but due to the rain we went back to my Aunt's house for lunch. Better for me as I was able to bake a cake before we went, as the time got pushed back.......well I told myself I had time. Half an hour isn't that late, and I still had to take the half baked cake to finish off in my Aunt's oven.

The cake I made was a take on a fantastic banana bread recipe I had. Yes I only had two bananas, and no sour cream, but instead I added yogurt, chunks of ricotta and roasted walnuts through it. The reason I think it took a long time to bake was that I added bicarb soda to the yogurt and ricotta mixture and it fluffed up tremendously. This affected the cake whilst baking as it rose a lot and was very light and fluffy but just would not bake in the centre. It did turn out lovely and everyone dug in, but I think cooking it at a lower temperature for longer (and being patient) would have been the way to go.

After we had enjoyed lunch and dessert tragedy struck when my Yiayia, who is 86, fell and broke her wrist. Straight to hospital she went and she was put in a cast. I came home while my Mum and her sister were at the hospital, to prepare dinner. I really wanted to make Mum the lamb shanks I made a couple of weeks ago with the cous cous salad, but slightly alter the salad a bit to compliment the meat.

See lamb recipe

As pomegranate's are going out of season and aren't very good at the moment, I decided to do a Moroccan style cous cous salad which was simply chopped dates, roasted almonds, olive oil, and lemon juice. It was a nice and fresh salad which could be enjoyed by itself, but was the perfect sponge to soak up the juices from the lamb.

One last thing I wanted to try, since I had quite a few garlic bulbs, was roasted garlic. So I put 2 bulbs in a ramekin drizzled with olive oil and roasted them in an oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes. After 10 I placed alfoil over the top so they would not burn. They turned out sticky and caramelized with a texture that makes it hard to not get them stuck in our teeth or at the top of our mouth. They were devoured by all of us and it was the one thing my Dad actually said he really enjoyed from the meal......well at least that is one tick.

Although we were all a bit preoccupied taking care of my Yiayia, we all sat down at the table together and enjoyed a meal, which is something we haven't done in a long time, and I'm sure Mum would have appreciated that.

Happy Mothers Day

I wrote this post also to share with the viewers of Kopiaste, written by an amazing and passionate foodie, Ivy. I am constantly on her site looking up other ways of preparing traditional Cypriot recipes, which I know my family and especially my Mum would love.

I hope you all like the post.

A night in Lebanon

I feel really compelled to write tonight. I just had a really good friend over for dinner, someone I have known for years. I wanted to cook meat, as I know I don’t eat it enough and need to make time to prepare it. As my favourite cuisines are middle eastern I decided to do lamb and use the following base ingredients which are very prominent in this style of cooking: garlic; lemon; parsley; pomegranate; almonds; and cumin.

I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare anything amazing, so I had to think of something which was easy to whip up yet still impressive. My friend, Brad, was bringing over cous cous and greens so I figured I’d do a simple salad with the cous cous however, I couldn’t try to add to many flavours to both as they could possibly clash and overwhelm each other.

Once I went to the butcher to buy the meat I decided how to do the lamb. I bought lamb shanks (which I have cooked before Moroccan Style) and this is similar but Lebanese use a few different spice mix. While Moroccan is generally cumin, paprika, cinnamon, lemon, red chilli and olive oil, for a standard spice mix, Lebanese uses cumin, garlic, lemon, green chilli and olive oil. I also added green olives and let the shanks just braise for about an hour, till they were soft and the liquids had reduced to a thick sauce.

The cous cous honestly took about 7 minutes to prepare, quicker if I hadn’t forgotten about the almonds toasting in the griller….which I smelt after they were well and truly charred.

Such a simple, healthy meal which is full of amazing flavours, and is impressive if you have time constraints. I am so satisfied after enjoying it too, I didn’t even want dessert, which is very rare for me.

The one thing I did not do however, was take photos. I was enjoying the cooking and the conversation that I didn’t want to take time out to set up the shots this particular time….but don’t worry, I’ll be cooking tomorrow night and will definitely document that in images.

Lamb braised with garlic, lemon and green olives

3 cloves garlic
½ Spanish onion
1 green chilli, with seeds
2 lemons
Cumin
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
1 ½ cups Chicken Stock
3 lamb shanks

Method

1) Chop garlic, onion and chilli finely. Sautee in a pot with EVOO on a low heat until onions translucent.
2) Add lemon juice, cumin, stock to pot and then season. Add shanks and mix around so they get coated in liquid. Simmer with a lid on for at least an hour. (You must monitor the amount of liquid and every so often turn the shanks so they are immersed in liquid. If it starts to dry up, add extra water).
3) Serve with cous cous and greens (see below)


Pomgranate, Almond, Parsley and Lemon Cous Cous

½ pomegranate
1 ½ cups almonds
parsley
1 lemon, juiced
1 ½ cups cous cous
EVOO

Method

1) Clean Pomegranate seeds into a bowl.
2) Toast almonds until browned, then once cooled, crush or cut coarsely.
3) Chop up parsley very finely.
4) Put cous cous in a large bowl and add 1 cup boiling water, a generous drizzle of EVOO and lemon juice then mix until absorbed well. If it is too dry, add more water. Should be moist and fluffy.
5) Add pomegranate, almonds and parsley to cous cous and stir through, adjusting amount of lemon juice to your liking.

Paella

This challenge was given to me by my Mother. She knows how much I love to cook, but often, just cook dishes which they don't get excited over most of the time and to be honest, I actually end up throwing a lot out as it doesn't get eaten unfortunately.

So with this challenge I really wanted to impress Mum so that she would really enjoy the meal. I researched a lot about the different ways of making Paella, the pan, seafood and how one of the best bits is the crispy layer at the bottom of the pan.

However, I started off on the wrong food before I began cooking. It was a Friday night and I ended up finishing work an hour after I would normally. This meant that by the time I got to Hurstville, the fish store had closed which absolutely shattered me. I was therefore reduced to buying frozen prawns, and whatever other seafood I could find at the supermarket.

Once I go home I took all my ingredients and prepared them so they were all ready to go in at once. I crushed the many cloves of garlic, chopped the onion, sliced the peppers and uncorked the wine.

Originally I thought that 5 cloves was too much so I reduced how much I actually put in to about 4, but I think for the amount of rice and after simmering for so long, I think that it would have been fine....should have used my instincts, but I think I was still disappointed about the seafood.

One thing whilst I was cooking however, did boost my excitement, using a new ingredient. Saffron. I used the whole little box I bought, which probably weighed 0.5g and still cost around $6. It is such a fascinating product and the most expensive ingredient in the world. This is due to the way it needs to be hand picked and dried immediately withing the 35 days that the flower flourishes in Autumn. Although expensive, the smallest amount will give dishes a nice edge to them and a beautiful yellow colour. It is a staple ingredient in Paella and if I did not find it, would not even consider my dish of rice and other pieces a Paella.

Well the majority of things had gone in, it was time to let it simmer and not touch it so it could achieve that crusty layer at the bottom called soccarat. This is the prized part of the dish that everyone fights over. Once the rice soaked up a lot of the liquid it was time to put in the seafood, which I was still not happy about, but I suppose since I also have chicken and chorizo, it didn't need too much seafood to make it a hearty and meat filled dish.

It smelt wonderful though, the spices, garlic and seafood smells went all through my ridiculously small kitchen and before I knew it, it was done. Time to eat.

For my first try, after work on a Friday night, with access to only a handful of ingredients and without the proper pan or cooking it on a grill of my bbq or over coals, it was not too bad. It didn't have the same flavours as other Paellas I have eaten before, I think a little chilli would have improved it, but my Dad does not touch chilli, so that was not an option.

The verdict from my Mum? It was nice, the chicken was really tender and she thought it was better than the small Spanish place she went to for Valentine's in which she received ONE prawn, ONE mussel and ONE piece of chorizo. I think the thing she likes most about it was that she didn't have to cook for the night and could just relax and steal a glass of wine from my bottle while she relaxed after a week of work.

Even id the dish wasn't as I would have liked, my Mum's reaction and contentness, made it a success for me.

Trish's Paella

Ingredients

5 cloves garlic crushed
1 large spanish onion chopped finely
500g chicken thigh
2 chorizos
2 peppers sliced thinly
3/4 cup white wine
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cups chicken stock
1 1/4 cup arbrio rice
2 pinches saffron
500g prawns with shells on
1 cup scallops
1 1/2 cup frozen peas

Method

1. Sautee the garlic and onions for a few minutes until the onions become transluscent.

2. Add the chicken and chorizo and cook until lightly browned.
3. Add the peppers, wine, tomatoes and chicken stock and bring to the boil.
4. Once boiled, add the rice and saffron and simmer with a lid over the pan and leave for 15 minutes. (Do not stir as you want to achieve the crust)

5. Add the prawns and scallops and cook for a few minutes until just under cooked then add the peas and cook for a few more minutes.
6. To serve, spoon into a bowl, then top with some of the rice scraped off the bottom of the pan.

Ricotta & Spinach Gnocchi with Burnt Butter and Pine Nut sauce

Prep time: 1hr
Resting time (letting dough set): 30mins - 1hr
Cooking time: 15 mins
Serves 4

Ingredients

300g Ricotta
1 large bunch English spinach
100g flour
50g Parmesan grated + extra to garnish (I used Grana Padano as I could not find Reggiano which is much nicer)
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp butter
salt
pepper

Sauce

250g butter
150g pine nuts
3 large English Spinach leaves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
salt


Method

1. Wash spinach and cook in a pot of boiling water. Once cooked, cool under running water and remove excess water with paper towels.

2. Chop spinach finely.
3. Add ricotta and spinach into a pot and cook for 3 minutes until excess moisture is absorbed.

4. Combine flour, eggs, nutmeg, butter, parmesan and ricotta mixture in a bowl. Add salt and pepper as necessary.

N.B. Mixture will be quite wet and will firm up after being in the fridge, but if too wet add additional flour.

5. Put mixture into the fridge for at least an hour until it stiffens a bit more.
6. In the meantime, cook the additional spinach for the sauce and chop into strips.
7. Once set, using a dessert spoon get balls of mixture and roll with your hands to form dumplings then coat with flour and set onto a plate until ready to cook.

8. After the gnocchi is ready, prepare the sauce by melting the butter in a saucepan with the pine nuts and nutmeg. Cook over a low heat for about 5 minutes until it starts to turn golden and burnt. Add the spinach and stir through.
9. To cook gnocchi bring a large saucepan of boiling water to boil and add the gnocchi in gently. The gnocchi will rise after a couple of minutes and continue to cook for 30 seconds afterwards.
10. Let the gnocchi rest in a bowl lined with paper towels to absorb water.
11. Plate gnocchi and top with sauce, grated parmesan and cracked pepper.

A good guide would be 5 gnocchi per person (if they were as big as I made them which is roughly double the normal gnocchi size.

Being Inspired

After spending a beautiful Saturday in Wollongong with a friend of mine I hadn’t seen for ages, I suddenly had the urge to make gnocchi from scratch. Sonia’s mother was known for her gnocchi and we thought it would be a nice idea to surprise her and cook it for her one day.

On the Sunday I had planned to see another friend and cook at her house. Even when I had woken up that morning I was clueless as to what to cook. All I could see in my fridge was about half a kilo of ricotta. It was a gloomy day, clouds rolling in, so my mind was swaying towards some comfort food.......gnocchi.

I knew gnocchi was normally made with potatoes but it takes a bit longer doing it that way, so after a bit of research I discovered that by combining ricotta, spinach, flour and eggs, you can form the little dumplings just as successfully, and in a lot less time.

I arrived ready to cook just after 11:30. We jumped straight to it boiling the spinach ready to make the dumpling mixture. We combined everything together very quickly and put it in the fridge to get a bit stiffer. While we waited we thought about sauces. One of the best combinations with ricotta and spinach is a burnt butter sauce but I felt that it needed one more ingredient to give it a third dimension. Burnt butter sauces can use sage, but since I already had so much spinach I decided to use pine nuts instead to give it a bit of crunch. We melted the butter with the pine nuts int he pan and cooked it over low heat until it became slightly golden and burnt.

The heavenly smells were wafting through her house. It was a beautiful combination as her house overlooks Coogee, and watching it rain, just made it so much nicer to be inside cooking.

Once the ricotta mixture had stiffened a bit, we attempted to make the gnocchi, but having been our first time, they ended up a very broad range of sizes, but all of them were larger than normal gnocchi.

The test to if the worked would be if they rose. We waited, and waited, and when we thought we had made a mistake in the mixture or by making them a lot larger, they started to float to the top. Smiles grew on our face as we watched the green speckled blobs bob around the top of the pot. After 30 seconds they were done and laid to rest on some paper towel to soak up some f the excess water. Once they were all cooked, the sauce hot and ready to go, we plated our creations and then sprinkled freshly grated parmesan on top. Our plated looked and smelt delectable.

We took a bite and the were so nice. Very cheesy yes, but not like a cheddar, a lot lighter and mixed with the spinach they were perfectly balanced, especially with the addition of the pine nuts. A lot of people may not think I would eat something with butter poured over the top, but to be honest I don’t think a tomato sauce or a cream sauce would have worked as well, and I will say that I enjoyed EVERY SINGLE bite, butter and all. I will admit though, I could only get through three gnocchi as they were so large and heavy, but leaving us wanting more, however I .......needed to save room for dessert as well.

View Ricotta & Spinach Gnocchie Recipe

Dessert was a bit or a ‘Read Steady Cook’ episode as we had a few ingredients to start with......70% Lindt and a bowl full of fruit. I suppose we were also on a time limit as Kelly had to get to work within an hour, so my vision of doing a Kahlua, raisin, chocolate tart would not work. I wanted to show her something that was ridiculously easy yet still looked impressive to others. For that I needed puff pastry as it always seems to do this job.

The aim was to do a selection of tarts using these different fillings. The first tart I though would use the classic combination of apples, cinnamon, brown sugar and a little honey. The shape of this tart would end up like a little pillow to compensate for the mount of apples in the centre. The second ‘tart’ was more like a pastry twist. I filled it with the chocolate and would have liked to make a smoother chocolate sauce, like a ganache, to line the twists but time and ingredients available did not allow that. Not to worry though as I would still indulge in a line of 70% Lindt wrapped with pastry. Pure decadence!

View Pastry recipes

Once in the oven they don’t tale long at all, and even less time to devour in the couch watching dvd’s, especially while it was still pouring outside.

What a great way to spend a lazy Sunday with a friend cooking, and especially rewarding after trying a new dish which worked really well. Now I think Sonia will hold me to surprising her Mum with some beautiful gnocchi.

Moroccan Braised Lamb Shanks with Soft Polenta

Preparation time: 30 mins
Cooking time: 4hours

Ingredients
- 3 Large Lamb shanks
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 onions
- 1 cup water
- 400g (1 can) diced tomatoes
- 400g chickpeas
- 3 cups spinach leaves
- 1/2 cup polenta
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp grated Parmesan

Morrocan Spice Mix
- 2 tsps cumin
- 1 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsps crushes coriander seeds
- 1 1/2 tsps dried chilli

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Saute garlic, onions and spice mix in olive oil until onions go translucent.
3. Add tomatoes and water and bring to the boil.
4. Place lamb shanks in an ovenproof dish and pour tomato mixture over the lamb and cover tightly with either aluminium foil or a lid so that the liquid does not evaporate. Cook for 2 hours.
5. Add chickpeas and then reduce temperature to 150°C, then cook for another 2 hours.
6. Half an hour before serving make the polenta by bringing the chicken stock to boil, then add the polenta in a thin stream, stirring constantly. If the mixture gets too dry too quickly, add extra water and cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes.
7. Stir butter and parmesan into polenta.
8. Take lamb out of the oven and stir through spinach leaves.
9. To serve, place half the polenta into each bowl then top with lamb shanks and some liquid from the casserole dish.

Peruvian Ceviche

Peruvian Ceviche
Many different countries in South America eat Ceviche, but have a different take on the dish. Some use a seafood mix, others use just prawns, and others use white fish such as sea bass, flounder, kingfish etc. There are different juices (lemon and lime) and different accompaniments also which distinguish different countries take on this dish. Well this is my take on it.

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 5 minutes

Ingredients
- 300g white fish
- Juice of 4 limes
- 1/4 cup finely chopped chilli (try to us small chillis that are strong as the longer chillis are not hot enough)
- 1 Spanish onion chopped very finely
- 1 sweet potato
- 1 cup of corn (I used corn cobs, but in hind site unless I scraped the kernels off the cob, we didn't even touch it)

Method
1. In a pot cook the corn and sweet potato.
2. While that is cooking, prepare the chilli, onion and lime juice, then put in small bowls or plates.
3. Wash the fish and cut into 2cm wide strips and place in a bowl ready to be marinated.
4. Plate up the sweet potato and corn and then place all of your 'prep' ingredients on the table where you are eating.
5. Sprinkle the chilli onto the fish then add the lime juice. While it is curing, mix through the onions.
6. After about 5 minutes you will see that the fish is starting to cook and turn white, but wait another 5 minutes at least so that the fish absorbs some of the lime flavour.
7. Eat straight away with the sweet potato and corn.

Catching that rabbit

Upon the day I was to arrive home from apartment sitting we were having a long family lunch so we can all catch up around a table, talk and enjoy good food.

I wanted, as per usual, to cook with a meat I have not used before but in particular some sort of game. I was tossing up between Quail, Duck and Rabbit when my choice was made for me. I walked into Black Bull Butchery, Potts Point. I had had duck the night before for dinner so I was not too interested in cooking with it so soon. So my choices narrowed. I walked to the fridge where the game was kept. No rabbit. No Quail. I inquired. There was quail available in the freezer at the back and were frozen in packs of two OR the butcher had just gotten in a fresh whole rabbit that day that he was happy to prepare for me however I would have liked it. Now really the choice stops here, fresh produce or frozen meat.

Even though I was quite set on cooking quail wrapped in vine leaves on a rocket salad with feta and a pomegranate sauce, and had gone into Fratelli Fresh for a week straight asking when they were getting pomegranates in again, I was very excited that I was given such a piece of game. I could do anything with it, stew it, grill it, slow roast it, stuff it, roll it.........
I needed some inspiration so I went over to the bookshop and looked through a few Italian cookbooks. As it was a warm summers day I did not want to make a stew or a roast so I was immediately limiting my palate of styles. I came across a Ligurian recipe for a stuffed and rolled whole rabbit which was to be poached and then pan fried.

This seemed very interesting and had scope to be played with a bit. So I walked back to the butcher and asked him to de-bone and butterfly the rabbit for me. Once done I had to go shopping for ingredients. I remember the first time I had rabbit it was rolled into the shape of a cigar and wrapped in filo pastry. Although a very strong flavoured meat I fell in love with its earthy characteristics and how well it worked with the crisp and buttery filo, so I wanted to integrate this into the recipe.

The stuffing was made of pistachio's, parsley, lemon thyme and garlic. I ground it up in the mortar and pestle and laid out my beautiful rabbit. I smeared the stuffing all over the meat and then rolled it as tightly as I could trying not to let it unroll. I then wrapped it in this strips of pancetta and tied it tightly with butchers string. At this point I was supposed to poach it but I was wear of poaching the pancetta and thought it to be silly to add the pancetta after poaching as it would be very fiddly to attached so I instead wrapped the whole roll in filo pastry, which were only lightly oiled as the fat from the pancetta would seep through whilst I baked the whole log.










I added diced baby fennel to the baking dish as this is a vegetable which works excellently with game due to its strong flavours which some find unattractable whilst raw, but when roasted they soften slightly and become sweeter and not so strong in aniseed.




Once baked I cut the log into slices and then pulled out the string. I actually forgot about the filo part of my plan while tying, but that is ok, it was easily fixed. This was the end result. I will admit that due to not being used to a fan forced oven I might have slightly overcooked the meat, which was not as soft as I imagined, but still very tender and with an amazing flavour, not too strong as it was not a wild rabbit...........but possibly comparable to chicken (Jaime Oliver's words, not mine)