National Wog Day

Kitchen Stadium is full of late summer bounty - two big boxes
of sauce tomatoes. I love getting these in late February or March and cooking
them down to tomato sauce, to be kept for later. To bring a little touch of
sunshine to meals in the depths of winter.



Hands up if you remember “Looking for Alibrandi” – the Melina Marchetta novel that everyone was reading at high schools in the ‘90s. It became a film as well, with Greta Scacchi, Anthony La Paglia, and Pia Miranda. My clearest memory of that book was what they called “National Wog Day” – when the whole family got together to process and preserve the tomato crop. Well, I don’t have much Italian heritage (one great great grandmother), but it’s a tradition I like.


So, here I am on the last weekend in February, with two boxes of Roma tomatoes to convert into tomato passato. That’s 32 kg of tomatoes. Yikes! Better get on with it. At least, I know how to peel a tomato. After a while I have a regular production line going.


Cooked up with just some butter, oil, salt, pepper.


I have an ancient Mouli mill I bought for $1 decades ago from the Salvos at Tempe Tip, and it works a treat to pulp the toms and remove the seeds.





However, by National Wog day standards, it’s not entirely authentic. I’m not doing it in the backyard. I don’t have a line of nonne e zie helping to process the tomatoes. I haven’t improvised a vast Folwer’s Vacola from a 44 gallon drum with a fire underneath. And I’m not bottling them in recycled Resch’s Pilsener longnecks. But it is still fun, with a bunch of tomato passato to freeze as the reward

And, the next day, I found this online:



Clearly, I wasn’t the only one doing National Wog Day! Now,
for a plate of spaghetti al pomodoro ...

Gin Lane, Capital Hill ACT 2600

OK. So this is supposed to be a cooking blog, mainly. But, sometimes, you just need a drink. A stiff drink. Especially when the shenanigans trending in Canberra , and around the joint, are so bloody depressing. The ALP working hard to ensure multiple terms of Tony Abbot, PM.

So, as a result of all that is happening, I was reminded of this little bit of photojournalism. By one William Hogarth, Gent.

It’s called Gin Lane. And it depicts a bit of the chaos at the time. The picture was one that helped firm Hogarth’s reputation as a satirist and social documenter.

Frankly, since it’s after 6 pm somewhere on earth, the present situation calls for strong drink. “Why Gin, David?” I hear you ask! Simple, really. Because it’s widely believed to bring on Labor Pains. And is usually served with a dash of Bitters. Make mine a double. Cheers.

Preferably Bombay Sapphire.

I have actually cooked a few good things with gin. Years ago, Matthew Evans, Gent., in his days in the SMH Good Weekend, had a recipe for lamb braised slowly with juniper berries – which is, of course, one of the main flavourings in gin. For good measure, the recipe included about ½ a cup of gin in the braising marinade. It was delicious. I can’t find that recipe online, or in my paper files. But just do a simple braise of stewing lamb with tomato passato, onions, juniper, and gin. Wonderful.

But that recipe is decidedly “brown food” – rich braises suitable for the Ides of July, when we are cocooning inside, all cosy and Gemütlichkeit, nein? But it’s not much chop for the dog days of February.

Instead, I found this great-sounding recipe, for a sorbet of plums and gin. Plums are good and cheap now, in late summer, so I’ll be dusting off the sorbet maker and giving this one a whirl.

Who knows? Maybe the sugar hit will spark some caucus members up ...

Damson and gin sorbet recipe
By Diana Henry
Serves eight
Tart-sweet, intense, boozy, this is one of the best sorbets you can make.
140g (5oz) granulated sugar
750g (1lb 10oz) damsons
2½ tbsp gin
1 tbsp crème de cassis

Put the sugar in a saucepan with 125ml (4fl oz) water and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Boil for four minutes then leave to cool.

It's impossible to stone raw damsons, so put them into a pan with about 4 tbsp water and cook gently until the fruit has become completely soft. Stir from time to time. You aren't adding much water – just enough to get the process started, then the damsons will produce their own juice. Push the fruit through a sieve to get rid of the stones. Mix the resulting damson purée with the sugar syrup. Add the gin and cassis and leave to cool completely.

Churn the mixture in a machine, following the manufacturer's instructions, or put in the freezer in a shallow container. If using the freezer beat the mixture three or four times during the freezing process (first breaking up the harder stuff round the sides) in order to break down the ice crystals and make the sorbet smooth.

Roast lamb Saturday

Kitchen Stadium has moved — about 20 m south, 20 m west, and 12 m vertically upwards.


But, just as important as these changes in x, y, and z, is the new infrastructure — an oven.

Finally. No more bizarre attempts to recreate oven cookery without the oven. Well, not quite no more. Just one more, actually. This story has hung around, on the back burner, waiting for quiet time to be finished. A swansong to the old regime ...


One Saturday morning in Autumn, I woke thinking “Hmmm. Must eat roast lamb. Soon”. (Well, I’m a bloke, whaddaya reckon? Deep as a tea spoon. Eat. Sleep. Drink — that just about covers it, really).

So, off to the Pyrmont Growers Market, and armed myself with a good-looking Cootamundra butterflied lamb leg from the people at the Jelm stall.


Home. Cook.

I seasoned it with garlic and rosemary before rolling it into a neat little roast.



The stovetop oven doesn’t brown well, so into a pan first, then the camp oven.




The result was lovely tender, slightly pink lamb. Teamed with roast Nicola spuds and onions, peas, and Darling Mills cress. Add shiraz for a perfect Saturday night in!

Suleiman and the soufflé

Anyone who has read a bit of Elizabeth David’s writing on food may remember her comments on Suleiman, her one-time cook:

“During the war years in Egypt, when I ran a reference library for the British Ministry of Information, I lived in a ground floor flat located in a car park for the vehicles used by one of the secret service organisations whose offices, in a nearby building, were known to every cab driver in Cairo as The Secret House. My cook, a Sudanese called Suleiman, performed minor miracles with two Primus stoves and an oven which was little more than a tin box perched on top of them. His soufflés were never less than successful, and with the aid of a portable charcoal grill carried across the road to the Nile bank opposite (the kitchen was so small it didn’t even have a window, and if he had used charcoal he’d have been asphyxiated), he produced perfectly good lamb kebabs. The rice pilaff I named after him and the recipe for it which I published in my first book in 1950, became part of quite a few people’s lives at that time”.

This story has stayed with me for decades, as a wonderful example of making do, and the impulse to cook well regardless of prevailing conditions. But soufflés? They’re hard, right? Tricky. Need fine temperature control. Can’t make them without a schmick high-tech stove ...

Well, for some time I have been living in a flat with sub-optimal cooking facilities. I have no conventional stove. I cook on a small two-burner electric hotplate, and a butane canister tabletop stove like you’ll find in a Vietnamese restaurant. Inspired in part by Suleiman’s example, and feeling a challenge had been thrown out, I have been experimenting with a cast iron camp oven on top of the hotplate. Roasting meat was an obvious starting point, and more of that later.

The real challenge, of course, was to match Suleiman’s prowess with a soufflé.
Sitting the camp oven on the hotplate is pretty straightforward.



Temperature control is rudimentary. The small size of the oven means that opening the lid to look lets the very small volume of hot air out immediately — soufflé death. This is not simple. Real seat-of-your-pants cooking.

Here is my second effort at soufflé in this basic oven.



I was really happy with this — it rose beautifully, was slightly creamy inside, with a spongy, cooked texture, and tasted of cheese and eggs. Score! Previous experience has shown that this oven arrangement does not brown food well, and that is the case here. Next time, when cooked, I’ll hit it with a brulee blowtorch to quickly colour up the top.



Suleiman — the inspiration you have provided me with took a while to germinate. But necessity results in experimentation and innovation, with often surprising results!

Boeuf Bourguinonne and me

If this gosh-darned crazy old world meant anything, my middle name would be Beef Stewed With Red Wine. But it’s not. Dang!

I love big, beefy, wine-flavoured stews and braises. Our cold winter this year has meant ideal times for warming meals, gluhwein, nestling, candles, and general Gemütlichkeit. Recently, Delly and Bells wrote about boeuf Bourguinonne, inspiring me to revisit this classic dish. Winey beef stews have been my default setting for as long as I have cooked, and Burgundian beef stew is one of the best. BB is not the first beef – wine stew I ever cooked. That was its Greek country cousin, stifado — from Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food. But I love all of them.

So I pulled out my bible — Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking, and re-read her recipe. As usual, she adds lots of cultural and personal context. And, as usual, I followed the spirit, rather than the strict letter of the formula.


I always use chuck, shin, or other cheaper, tougher cut for these dishes. I think they have great flavour, and I’ve never been able to bring myself to use expensive rump in such a dish. Chuck, and especially shin, have a lot of fine connective tissue in the meat, which breaks down over slow, gentle cooking to give richness and body to the sauce I almost always flame the casserole after deglazing, with a splash of brandy. And, beside, flaming the brandy pleases the little boy in all of us! But I more or less followed her method.




With my basic cooking set up, fine temperature control is hard, so I tended to hover and peek more than normal. You don’t want this pot to boil, but just simmer very gently. It takes hours, so do this on a wet Saturday arvo while you read the paper or watch Elvis movies. You can also cook it in a slow oven. After a while, the flat had a wonderful beef stew smell. When the meat was tender the sauce was a bit thin, so I drained it off and reduce it hard for a while to a thicker consistency.

As usual, it was rich and very satisfying. The speck and mushrooms add great depth of flavour. For a bit of fun I garnished it with heart-shaped croutons, which is a classic French bistro touch. And lots of mash to soak up the sauce.


And I’ll be back again, as I am a few times each winter, to revisit this great recipe.

Papardelle fresca fatta in casa — a tale of two books

I have tried making homemade pasta from time to time over the years, and have commonly been dissatisfied with the results. Texture, rather than flavour was usually the problem. The noodles were thick, heavy, and floury. I was inspired to try again recently, and turned to the book Lygon St. by Michael Harden.

This fascinating book is part cookbook, part reminiscence, part social history, written about the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, and its main drag. Carlton, and Lygon Street in particular, has a colourful history, ranging from mid-Victorian beginnings as a focus for small businesses and arriviste residents, through post WWII immigrant settlement, repeated association with the Melbourne criminal underworld (think Underbelly and the Carlton Crew), to late 20th Century inner urban grunge and subsequent gradual gentrification. In many ways it parallels the history and social milieu of Leichhardt in Sydney. Claims that Lygon St had the first grocer, first espresso machine (though this is disputed), first pizza, uphold its reputation as a social laboratory of Australian culture.

Harden’s book could barely avoid a recipe for handmade pasta, given the enormous influence of post-war Italian migrants in the history of Carlton. His recipe is simplicity itself, as fresh pasta recipes should be: 1 kg of flour and 8 eggs. So off I set. As a single bloke, and given that this was an experiment, I opted for a smaller volume of flour and eggs to start with, so I scaled it back to 250 g of flour and 2 eggs.


Flour. Eggs


Mix 'em up ...

In the end I added egg #3 — it is always difficult to scale recipes up and down exactly. But I kneaded diligently, and, for the 1st time in all my pasta-making efforts, felt happy about the way the dough started to come together, as a non-sticky, slightly springy and resilient ball.


...and knead.
And I rolled the pasta sheets with equal diligence, achieving something approaching the thin, transparent quality I have read about but never before achieved.

Rolling out. The bottle (a quite decent Marlborough sauvingnon blanc, actually) is my rolling pin.

Still rolling ...

One sheet down!

The book says the pasta will become transparent. This is. A bit. Well, more than politics in NSW, anyway

3 sheets, drying.

Cutting papardelle. Roughly.

Drying the papardelle.

Done!
The papardelle were delicious. Fine, with that prized silky texture that pasta fresca can achieve. Rolling thin made a lot of difference — I remember previous attempt where the pasta remained in thick, stodgy lumps. I made a simple autumnal sauce with mushrooms, prosciutto, and pine nuts to go with the best papardelle I have ever made. Then I enjoyed every mouthful.


So, the FAQ of homemade pasta: “Is it worth the effort?” After all, dried pasta (pasta ascuitta) is cheap and easy. It comes down to whether you want to spend time developing a craft skill, or prefer the convenience of making something quick and easy. I think there is a place for both. Certainly, pasta fresca is labour intensive. To get good results, you can’t stint on either the kneading or rolling. It is something to devote a bit of time to, when you fell like putting in the extra effort. Don’t try to knock this off as a quick meal after a hard day’s work ... But, as a project on a wet, cold Saturday afternoon, it is deeply satisfying. As a cook, I am used to seeing the fruits of my labour devoured in a matter of minutes. Don’t do cooking if you want real objects hanging around for years as testament to your craft skills. Become a bricklayer, or carpenter. Take up knitting. Or tie dry flies. Cooking projects disappear in front of starving family and friends as though they have been inhaled. But, when we get it right, they leave happy memories of a good meal, that compensate for the transitory nature of the exercise.

I made pasta fresca about the same time as I discovered A Tavola, an exciting restaurant around the corner in Victoria St, Darlinghurst.


I have been back a bunch of times since. House-made pasta is the real feature here — a screen between kitchen and dining room is formed by a curtain of drying papardelle. The daily specials will include three or four dishes featuring pasta fresca made in house. Expect such seasonal delights as a wintry papardelle al ragu d’agnello e fagioli. Add to this friendly, knowledgeable service, good Italian wine list, and the conviviality of the long communal table.

Thinking about pasta fresca sent me back to re-read parts of Bill Buford’s Heat. This remarkable book is essential reading if you are interested in pasta fresca. Buford was a New York journalist who indulged has passions for food and cooking, by working in Mario Batali’s famed Manhattan restaurant Babbo, travelled in Italy learning kitchen skills, and researched the history of making pasta. His book is part kitchen gonzo, in the style of Kitchen Confidential (albeit less testosterone-drenched), part travel memoir, part scholarly dissertation on la cucina Italiana, and part meditation on the links between food and its culture. On the way he gives fascinating biographical insights into Batali and one of his mentors - the equally demanding and prickly Marco Pierre White; a line cook’s description of a working kitchen life; and an insight into why home-cooked pasta dishes will never be quite the same as those from a restaurant — it’s all about the cooking water. Read this book!

One of Buford’s research obsessions became discovering who first used eggs in pasta, and when this quantum leap occurred. I won’t give the game away by revealing his conclusions — as I say, read the book. Just as important is his discussion about the proportions of eggs to flour. He decides on 1 egg per etto of flour. (An etto is a really useful Italian measure — basically 100 g. But it is just the right quantity to order when you are at the deli counter, making up a mixed antipasto — an etto of prosciutto, one of salami, one of olives, and one of provolone). So Buford’s recipe, at 10 eggs per kilo of flour, is eggier than the 8 egg Lygon St. book makes it. He maintains that all the moisture needed should come from the eggs, with no need to add water.

Next time I will try making my pasta fresca with this 10:1 ratio. And make more, for a bunch of friends.

My sauce good*

The Australian Constitution gives Parliament, inter alia, “ power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth”. One of its better efforts is the Standard for the uniform scheduling of drugs and poisons, which lists, in Schedules 8 and 9, items like heroin, LSD, methamphetamine, and cannabis. Fortunately, the mandarins have yet to discover ayvar.

Ayvar is my latest fave rave foodstuff. It is a capsicum paste, used as a sauce or relish in Balkan cooking. And it is seriously addictive.

I have seen this in the supermarket for years, but not taken any notice of it. I first tasted it at a Balkan eatery in Lilyfield, imaginatively called The Balkan Eatery. It’s run by a friendly Bosnian couple from Mostar (the bridge) and Sarajevo (Franz Ferdinand). All the Balkan classics — grilled lamb and chicken, stuffed capsicums, cabbage rolls, sensational plum jam biscuits — are here. But the great discovery, the must-try menu item, is a bread roll, stuffed full of grilled chevapi sausages, and dressed with ayvar. It is wondrous, a revelation of how good a sausage sandwich can be. Forget the netball girls outside Bunnings on Saturday — this is the snag sanger to die for. And at least part of its charm comes from the ayvar sauce.



Ayvar is brick red, spicy, and comes in mild or hot versions. You can use it as a relish on grilled lamb or other meat. I love it scooped on an egg with toast. The soft, bland, eggy egg and the spicy, umami-like relish — unforgettable! The perfect Sunday breakfast, along with the papers and good coffee. I also use it on pasta — make a Napoletana-type sauce, substituting ayvar for tomatoes. I have studded mine with a few black olives and capers.


This is a great foodstuff — A Good Sauce. There is lots of scope to experiment with ayvar. Just do it soon, before this much fun is outlawed

* My Sauce Good is a bright new Sydney band playing “addictive French Swing, original tunes, soulful Latin-American folksong, a haunting Hebrew lullaby, Bohemian Jazz from the 1920’s onwards and contemporary songs given a new lease of life”. Think gypsies, Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grapelli, continental cafes ... Some of their material has a real Balkans feel. Listen! And thank you to La Fanciulla for the heads up about this great band, and the wonderful CD!