A Japanese Menu, Part II - 'No Fish, No Life'

Miso-Marinated Black Cod

Earl Grey Ice Cream

A sashimi breakfast at Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji fish market sounded like a good idea. I’d get up early, wander the stands, take some pictures, generally work up an appetite, and then sit down to eat what may arguably be some of the very freshest sashimi on earth. But, as it turns out, a morning of looking at fish, breathing-in a miasma of fish, even being splashed unexpectedly with flying bits of fish, does not an appetite to eat that very same fish make!

In stark contrast to the gleaming clean of Tokyo’s streets, buildings, parks, and trains, Tsukiji is mayhem. A mayhem organised by its own principles perhaps, but to the uninitiated, remaining outside the path of a speeding fork lift, or free from flying fish juice is a full-time concern. Smack in the middle of the most sanitised and corporate part of Tokyo, the market offers a reminder of how it’s the cogs that turn largely out of sight that ensure the otherwise well-oiled city may run smoothly.

Processing over 2,000 tonnes of seafood every day, Tsukiji is the largest wholesale fish market in the world. Under threat of relocation for years, it seems that these threats are about to become a reality. Next year the market is reportedly moving from its historical central Tokyo position to the distant outskirts of the city.

I managed to avoid being run over, and hastily snapped some pictures before fleeing for the shower...

Click to read more, and for recipes...

Or click here to see collected recipes from previous posts

A Japanese Menu, Part I - Lost in Translation

Beef Tataki with a Ponzu Dressing and Micro-Cress Salad

 

Light & Crispy Shrimp Tempura with Tentsuyu dipping Sauce

 

Chicken with a Miso & Ponzu Marinade, Namasu Salad & Wasabi Yuzu Kosho

To say that things get ‘lost in translation’ in Japan is an understatement. And, more to the point, implies that there is an attempt at translation being made in the first place. Travelling in some of the lesser-touristed parts of Southern Japan for instance, where an English menu is just not on offer, and an English speaking restaurateur nowhere to be found, means sitting down to eat without any of the usual choices, expectations, descriptions, or explanations. Which, as it turns out, was actually quite enlightening. (Though I am not telling the entire truth here concerning translations, they were to be found very occasionally. One ‘English’ menu included, for instance, ‘Hail clothes deep frying of the Japanese icefish.’ Intriguing, but not necessarily helpful!).

Topping the list of things that this strange experience taught me, is that there may be some truth to idea that if you eat something you dislike repeatedly, you might actually come to like it. So far, I’ve only ever heard of this technique proving successful with fussy children, (fussy adults being a little bit more difficult to trick into repeatedly harassing their taste buds, although I have tried). But, after seven days of non-stop and unavoidable tofu, when it dawned on me that I was actually happily anticipating being presented with another primarily tofu-based meal, I realised there may be something to whole idea. Although it’s likely the effect is only a temporary one, as I can’t say I’ve touched tofu since. Let alone the bright pink ‘Sakura’ tofu ubiquitously trotted out in celebration of the cherry blossom season.

Which brings me onto a concept, that, while quintessentially Japanese, has a wider appeal perhaps, than pink tofu. The term ‘mono no aware’ refers to the particular beauty the Japanese identify in transience, in fleeting, impermanent things, exemplified by the delicate blossoming of the cherry trees that occurs in a south-north sweep, and heralds the beginning of spring. A slightly stiff breeze, or sudden rain shower is enough to send the petals fleeing from their branches, which, while resulting in a very momentarily beautiful snow of pink, can leave the trees sullenly bare again in a matter of moments.

The moral of the story being, although my love of tofu may have been fleeting, it was certainly beautiful while it lasted. Or, when things change, as they always do, it’s worth remembering that the beautiful moments might be thought of more beautifully for it…

Click to read more, and for recipes...

Or click here to see collected recipes from previous posts

Snow & the Savoie

Tartiflette Savoie

 

Tarte aux Framboise

Grolle

I’ve seen more snow this year I think than ever before. Not just on the ground (though there has been a lot of that), but snow actually falling, great white wafts of the stuff thickening and brightening the air. Unluckily, this has not resulted in my having become snowed-in at any stage – which I’ve always thought sounds like quite a lot of fun. Instead, for the most part, it seems as though I’ve been in a car during most of these incredible snow falls, either driving or as a passenger, and that experience has led me to conclude a few things…

Click to read more, and for recipes...

Or, check out my new and improved recipes page for a collection of dishes from past posts!

Carnevale di Venezia

Homemade Gnocchi with Ragù Bianco

 

Frittelle con Zabaione

The noise is audible from inside the train carriage as we glide across the Ponte della Libertà and into Santa Lucia station. Whistles, horns, drums, occasional shouts, festive choruses, and bursts of laughter. With too much luggage in tow, I disembark the train. From the top of the station steps the scene below is arresting – a full-swing masquerade party is in motion on the streets. Women in curled white wigs and enormous bustles, men in every manner of decorative mask, and children decorously dressed as little barons and baronesses (or less decorously, and more frequently, as little superheroes!).

It is the central weekend of the Carnevale di Venezia, an unseasonably warm and bright day in February, and, I now realize, the entirely wrong day on which arrive needing to traverse Venice carrying three weeks worth of luggage. My plan had simply been to stride down the stairs, onto a waiting vaporetto, disembark at the Rialto, and be all settled into my temporary new home in the space of thirty minutes. With the normally efficient railway piazza transformed into an uncrossable terrain of revelry however, there is simply no option but for me and my baggage to join in the festive crush of human traffic, and get pushed where the flow is to take us…

Click to read more, and for recipes...

Or, check out my new and improved recipes page for a collection of dishes from past posts!

A Week For Dairy

Last time I wrote about travelling to our Coomboona farm, I likened the experience to Alice’s falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland. I was speaking metaphorically of course, there was never actually any white rabbit, until this trip, when, in a strange instance of life intimating art, there suddenly was…

On one of the farm properties stands a little old house, surrounded by a once lovingly tended rose garden, planted in the 1950s. Beyond the garden, there is only open space, no other dwellings, just acres of fields stretching out flat into the distance. The house itself is no longer inhabited, but the roses are still going strong, growing a little more wild perhaps than they once were, but beautiful in bloom. I was in the garden this January, early one evening picking some rose petals with which to decorate the rosewater panna cotta pictured above, when suddenly I saw it. A flash of white moving fast out of the corner of my eye, then it stopped. Ears aloft and alert, just by the entrance to its burrow, sat a large white rabbit. For I while, I looked at it, and it looked at me. How had it gotten here, this domestic rabbit, miles from the nearest town? Then I reached for my camera and the spell was broken. The rabbit darted down the hole, and, in beginning another week in Coomboona, I tumbled straight down after it (metaphorically of course)!

Click to read more, and for recipes...

Or, check out my new and improved recipes page for a collection of dishes from past posts!

Curly Kale & Pancetta Risotto

Summer Cherry Clafoutis

Rosewater Panna Cotta with Raspberry Coulis

Venice by Cicchetti – A Tour with Recipes

The Venetian light, ethereal and translucent as it shimmers off the shallow waters of the lagoon, has been the focus of much praise in literature and art. In ‘Death in Venice,’ Thomas Mann describes a ‘vaulted sky of delicate azure and utter purity,’ light like ‘dazzling crystals dancing;’ while Turner’s famous Venetian watercolours depict the city always through a veil of golden mist, sparkling evaporate blurring the skyline of distantly visible spires and campaniles. This trip however, after the fete days of Christmas have passed, and the fireworks and festivities of New Year’s have given way to the inevitable hangover, we encounter La Bella Venezia in an altogether different mood...

With clouds drawn in like heavy drapes, the light low and air damp, the city appears to turn back in upon itself, and, as though taking advantage of the brief lull afforded by the beginning of another year, returned to pay quiet homage to the element that has always most ruled her fortunes – not air, but water. 

Creeping over the cobbles of the piazzetta, lapping up and over the edge of the Riva Schiavoni, the acqua alta, or high tide, has stealthily taken the city in its watery grasp. Persistently leaking skies and an atmosphere of chilly damp mean that all but the bravest of tourists are hiding indoors, first in the shops, galleries, and museums, and then later, in thickly carpeted hotel dining rooms, or in the more well-advertised restaurants. The famous gondole, forlorn and dripping, are temporarily abandoned to float high on their wooden tethering stakes and wait out the deluge, ‘closed for business’ tacitly indicated by their faded cloth covers.

The Piazza di San Marco is an eerie place on such a night. No crowded outdoor café tables, not a soul in sight in fact, even the famous pigeons adjourned to their hidden roosts in the tiled roof tops. Just two sombre rows of lighted hollow arches and an expanse of empty space to see. But listen carefully, and you’ll hear the distant but distinct sound of heels against cobble. Follow the sound across the square if you are game, and out its farthest side – in the darkest days of a Venetian winter, it is necessary to depart from the better trodden tourist tracks to find a little nightlife!

Weave through the darkened lanes of San Marco, and cross the Grand Canal at the Accademia to arrive in the less-frequented Sestiere di Dorsoduro. Here, a quick right at the end of the bridge, and then the very next right again will lead you to a peaceful canal crossed by a single arched ponte – the Rio di San Trovaso. 

Stop and take a look, between rain showers the opaque green waters of the canal are pond-still and darkly reflective in the night. Where the water becomes shallow though, like on the stone steps that lead down into the canal itself, it is perfectly clear and clean, beckoning almost. As though to suggest that if you were to descend the stairs into the water, and submerge yourself below, there might be more to see down there than just foggy darkness. As though, perhaps, and just perhaps, you might instead see miraculously clearly through the ancient depths, and in doing so, somehow be witness to all of the magnificent history of the city at once, as well as to all her darkest secrets.

But don’t stare too long, lest this urge translate into action! Onwards, south along the canal, listening still for signs of life – just by the ponte and tucked away on the left. A small sign that reads ‘Vini al Bottegon,’ windows fogged thick from the inside, and soft yellow light casting a small arc on the cobbles outside – Cantinone Gia' Schiavi the little bacaro we’ve set out to find…

Click to read more, and for recipes

Sarde-in-Saor

 

Polpettine dei Bacari

 

Risotto Al Nero with Scallops and Radicchio

A Swiss Boxing Day Supper

Beef Consommé with Fino Sherry

 

 

Tian of Braised Beef with Celeriac Purée and Marsala Jus

 

We arrived in Zermatt on Christmas Eve just as twilight was giving way to night. High cloud and darkening skies obscured the towering Matterhorn from view, but, ‘tomorrow,’ we said, looking out the window, ‘we’ll be able see it then, just like on the Tolberone, rising there to the right, or is it maybe just to the left?’ ‘Well, we’ll see, tomorrow.’ And then the first flakes of snow started to fall…

On Christmas morning the valley was white and the sky thick with low cloud. The snow continued to pater down, gently at first, and then, just as we decided to venture up the slopes, a little more enthusiastically. There was nothing for it but to eat, and drink, and so first there was tuna carpaccio, and foie gras with brioche, and Valais meats, and cheeses, and white wine, and then red, with roast lamb, and pastas, and rösti and some more cheese (because it’s only polite), and then apfelstrudel and custard, and sachertorte and whipped cream, all finished off with a round of strong fruity Grog served in a circular vessel made from wood with four drinking spouts and the strict instruction that it be passed from person to person until finished without being put down if the coming year is to bring good luck.

But evidently the luck was to be some time away, as on Boxing Day the snow was heavier again. Great drifts had fallen overnight, blanketing the roofs and the trees like freshly whipped meringue, the air a zillion-flaked blur of white driven gently downwards by the wind. We Google-image search ‘the Matterhorn,’ click to enlarge, and prop the result up in what we think is the representative position in the window, ('to the left? No, to the right!')… ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ we repeat again, before bundling up in clothing and trundling up the mountain for another very long lunch of cheese and wine, but very little in the way of skiing.

That evening though, twinkling through a hole in the heightening cloud, a tiny first star, and then finally, the next morning, through the ice-tinged windows, the rosily sun-lit face of the Matterhorn – rising up to the right, (where I thought it was all along!).

Click to read more, and for recipes

Cooking in Coomboona

 

Stuffed Artichokes - Chicken Cotoletta - Mum's Tomato Salad

My Mum lives in a place called Coomboona – though very little evidence exists to confirm that this is even a ‘place’. You can't get there following road signs, for Coomboona has no signage to indicate its existence; there is no township; no post office (though legend has it that there was one, once); and Google Maps is in the unfriendly habit of ignoring us altogether in favour of adding the prefix ‘North’ to the name of the nearest town (a substantial distance away) and lumping us in with them. For all of this though, Coomboona is what the place has always been called, and despite its apparent obscurity, it’s not all that difficult to get to from Melbourne … or not until the very last minute at least. Heading north for about 2hrs or 200 kilometres on the huge corridor of the Hume Highway, Coomboona is just one exit away. Well, one exit, and one barely marked little right hand turn.

The road onto which this hidden turn takes you is very long, and runs straight as a die. A distant line of bush shimmers at its end, glimmering green forest gums marking the edge of the Goulburn river. The straight set of the road is deceptive though, for as you drive along, a circuitous cast of characters and scenes to rival Alice’s experience in Wonderland appear out the window to either side...

First, there are the Alpacas to the right. Though normally found on chilly Peruvian hillsides, they seem, to me at least, equally happy munching down the dry summer grass that grows high along the fence-lines of the flat river plain, (though what might constitute an unhappy alpaca face, I don’t know). Next, and to the left, are some pomegranate plantations, flowers red and large like hibiscus on lush green shrubs lending an incongruous tropical feel. Further, and to the other side of the road, are acres of vineyard and a little winery bottling up classic French varieties grown half a world away from their original home. A small distance further again, across from some orchards of apple and pear, a hundred or so little brown and white dairy goats wander curiously at the feet of the lofty knock-kneed camels who are their strange new field-mates, (this recent and particularly unlikely addition to the roadside menagerie a surprise even to me).

But past all of this, when you seem to be almost at the bush line itself, and when black and white dairy cows are beginning to appear to both sides, you are finally almost there. Look up for the glimpse of white roof above the trees, and turn in through the black iron gates – a final rabbit hole through the rabbit hole – Coomboona Homestead, the green garden oasis amidst an Australian bush backdrop of eucalypt and sun-burnt yellow that my Mum calls home.

Click to read more, and for recipes...

Kenyan Safari Picnic

It is 30 minutes by Land Rover from the local airstrip to Naboisho Camp, unless it is your first time on safari, in which case it is a 2 hour drive. Or so we are told by the local guide who has driven out to meet the little propeller plane in which we have just traveled from Nairobi. At first, I can't quite work out what this slightly enigmatic statement might mean, but two minutes later, and a few hundred metres from the airstrip away, when we spot a group of giraffes and I am standing on the seat of the car, head out of the open roof, taking the first of what will be hundreds of giraffe pictures, the mystery is promptly solved. Another minute later with only a further ten metres driven, two bull elephants come crashing picturesquely through the undergrowth. Our guide stops and resignedly turns off the engine completely - 2 hours suddenly began to seem like an optimistic estimate...

Click to Read More...

Zanzibari Feast, Part II

 

Slow-Cooked Spice Beef Curry - Cardamom Chicken - Lime Coconut Octopus with Star Anise - Vanilla, Cardamom, and Coconut Pumpkin - Zanzibar Spice Pilau Rice - Banana Caramel Tart

The movement of the tides may dictate daily life on Zanzibar, but the island’s historical life owes more to another natural phenomenon – the winds. The first colonisers to blow in on the breeze were Arabs and Persians in the 9th century. Their dhows brought previously unknown spices, citrus, and tropical fruit, but by the 15th and 16th century, with Portuguese colonisation sweeping East Africa, dhows were replaced by galleons, and recently acquired South American staple foods such as maize and manioc were added to the mix. Next to arrive were the Omanis whom, courtesy of established trade routes with India, introduced new East Asian spices, and established Zanzibar as in important port in the global spice trade. Along with the spices came the recipes to utilise them, and, by the end of the 17th century, samosas, curry, masala, and biryani were being made in kitchens all over the island, adapted to suit the local ingredients, and influenced by the Arabian and Portuguese inflected cuisines that had come before.

The menu below attempts to make the most of this unique and extraordinarily rich culinary heritage, by starting each recipe with a similar set of ingredients and spices readily found on Zanzibar. The trick then, has to been to try and take each recipe in its own direction by featuring a particular spice or ingredient more predominately amongst the others, such that this ingredient is ‘showcased,’ so to speak. The beef is all about cloves (Zanizbar’s most important spice both historically and at present in terms of trade); the octopus about star anise and woody cinnamon; and the chicken influenced by Indian cuisine and defined by its strong use of cardamom. The other thing that I have varied in order to make each dish unique is cooking time. A long cooking time gives the beef a melting texture, the octopus is grilled to add flavour before cooking in spices and coconut milk, while the chicken is marinated for a long time before being cooked only for the time necessary.

If you want to make these dishes all together, as part of a big feast, they’ve been designed to each offer something a little different and work together well. Otherwise, pick and choose, and serve with the vanilla pumpkin or pilau rice, or both, on the side!

Click to read more...

Zanzibari Feast, Part I

Life on Zanzibar’s shores moves in rhythm with the tides. At high tide, when the sea rises to just cover the fringing reef, local sailing dhows or ngalawa, set off to fish the deeper waters beyond the reef. After they’ve set sail and the tide begins to drop, the beach extends outwards, doubling, then tripling in size to form a series of shallow pools in which a variety of marine creatures find themselves temporarily trapped. At lowest spring tide, these shallow pools formed by rock, reef, and sand, extend all the way out to the barrier of fringing reef itself. When this happens, and it is possible to walk out for hundreds of metres where there was water only hours before, coastal villagers come down to the beach to comb the rich pickings offered by the pools. Armed with nets, buckets, sacks, and hands, octopus are grabbed from beneath rocks, crabs are quickly gathered up into bags, and clams expertly prised from their rocky holds. Then, as high water begins to sneak back over the reef, progressively deepening the pools and forcing the foragers ashore, the task of trading on the morning’s pickings begins just a little further up the beach….

Click to read more

Trio of Spice Chutneys

As we wander between the plantings of Zanizbar’s spice fields our local guide (turned MD) is dispensing homeopathic advice. Each crop that we pass has its own purported benefits – ‘red cinnamon bark for cholesterol,’ ‘cloves for nausea,’ ‘nutmeg for restoring strength,’ and lemongrass for a particular kind of urinary problem described to us in more detail than warrants repeating on a blog about food. ‘And what’s this good for?’ I venture, leaning down to examine a tiny chilli plant crowned with fiery-looking red pods. ‘Keeping warm in the rainy season,’ comes the answer. Well, fair enough. ‘It is also,’ he adds, ‘very good for chutney.’ Now we are talking, and looking out across the loosely ordered spice groves interspersed with tropical fruit trees and coconut palms, the whole place seems suddenly to offer up a zillion different chutney combinations just waiting to be trialled. Fortunately, at this point our guide reveals that he is the son of chef, and swaps the medical advice for chutney preparation tips...

Click to read more

The 'Real' Spice Island Spice Cake

The sun always shines over the coral fringed beaches of Zanizbar’s coast, but high in the hilly central hinterlands, where spice plantations stretch as far as the eye can see, angry tropical clouds gather, and clump, then fitfully spit down sudden bursts of warm rain. We’ve taken refuge under the umbrella of an enormous banana leaf, but this shelter is partial at best - as the leaf fills with the heavy drops, little cascades form along the edges, overflowing to drench any part not securely ensconced beneath the centre of the palm. Fortunately though, the deluge is over as suddenly as it began, and with the coming of the sun, we spot our guide to Zanzibar’s spice fields emerging from a similar leaf shelter and walking over to meet us...

 Click to read more

'Zanzibar Dreaming' Spice Cake

Or, Banana-Chocolate-Marble-Spice Cake, or (my favourite name of all for it), Ballistically-Excited-Holiday-Food-Pre-Emption Cake. You see, at the time that this post is set to auto-publish, I will be about to touch down on the tropical island of Zanzibar! But, going back in time to (the present?), I’m still just sat at home in Qatar getting ridiculously excited about the whole trip. (Though not, of course, funnelling any of this excitement into the useful activity of packing. Because the only thing worse than packing is unpacking. But not to worry too much about unpacking just yet as that really is getting too far ahead). Instead of packing, and not entirely unpredictably, what I am doing is reading about Zanzibari food, and, in particular, how the rule of different colonising powers, as well as Zanizbar’s role in the spice trade, has resulted in a unique kind of island-fusion cuisine.

Click to read more