20 Questions, 1 Light Dish, Number 2

"20 Questions, 1 Light Dish" is a regular Elegant Sufficiency feature that asks the people who really understand flavour – chefs – to share a brilliant, light, guilt-free recipe for everyday eating.
This month, I’ve interrogated Greg Malouf, the acclaimed Melbourne exponent of “Modern Middle Eastern” food and co-author of Arabesque, Moorish and Saha. Greg, whose parents were both born in Lebanon, has lived through not one, but two, heart transplants and, to one degree or another, has watched his diet his whole life. In the next few months, Greg will fire up the kitchens at the new incarnation of the landmark Melbourne city restaurant, Mo Mo. Below, his recipe for 18-Minute Chicken Tagine with Dates and Ginger.

Photograph: Mark Chew

GREG MALOUF

1. Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay?
There’s an honesty about both of them but I think there’s more of a bolshie honesty about Ramsay. Oliver appeals to women … they want to mother him or well, f--- him.

2. Chef you’d most like to meet?
Joel Robuchon … it was a honeymoon lunch in his restaurant that hooked me back in 1994. I remember the rouget – it was just perfectly cooked – but also this little veloute, or soup, that had little morsels of seafood, the tiniest octopus and shrimps, and it was so delicate. As a young chef, the whole place overtook my palate … I was in awe.

3. Restaurant you’d most like to visit?
I don’t have a wish list of restaurants but I’m looking forward to discovering the pilafs and eggplant dishes of Turkey when I go there in March to research my next book with my co-author, Lucy.

4. Most stained cookbook?
The Time Life cookbook series and Claudia Roden’s bible, the Book of Middle Eastern Food.

5. Most memorable meal?
It’s something I still dream about: when I was living and working in Paris as a young man, about 25 years ago, my aunt took me out to dinner for my 21st birthday to a small local Italian restaurant. I had zampone (pigs trotter stuffed with cotechino sausage) for the first time. It was thickly sliced and served in a bowl of intensely flavoured broth, garnished with mint, chervil and chives. Nor can I forget roasted suckling pig I had in the mountains of Córdoba, southern Spain, or my favourite – roast goose noodle soup in Hong Kong 

6. Favourite dish your Mum cooked?
Kibbeh nayeh (chopped raw lamb): Every Lebanese son will put up their hand and say their mother makes the best kibbeh nayeh … it’s a given. Often a potential bride is judged by her ability to make it. Traditionally it’s pounded in a mortar and pestle until it is very fine … almost a sticky paste … my mother’s was a lot coarser and she seems to get the balance of spices and cracked wheat right every time.

7. Desert island ingredients?
Yoghurt, olives, sauerkraut, garfish, eggplant, crème fraiche, egg noodles, pigeon.

8. Favourite holiday destination?
Anything that has nothing to do with runners or track-suits … so mostly indoors. Also Aleppo, Syria. It’s a biblical town that reinforces what I’ve done over the past 40 years with cooking. The markets are in front of you, behind you, there are donkeys in the street … you kind of just want to fit in with them and go with the flow.

9. Favourite kitchen utensil?
An electric mincer. It’s a cost-effective way of using the by-products of things … and you can produce the most simple things or lavish things from it, from sausages to a silly thing like making breadcrumbs.

10. Favourite food store?
There’s a place in Milan called Peck; it’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant. The first thing that comes to mind is prosciutto crudo. Closer to home you can’t go past A1 in Sydney Road, Melbourne, and its little open-faced meat pastries and squeaky haloumi cheese turnovers. Then I’ll have a snoop in the aisles for whole sumac berries and giant couscous and chocolate halva.

11. Last food-related purchase?
Some Iranian orange-flavoured candy floss from Sydney Road, which I took to Stones of the Yarra Valley, where I’m cooking Middle-Eastern banquets every Sunday. It garnishes a red-fruit plate.

12. Biggest kitchen disaster?
I was a first-year apprentice studying at William Angliss College and working at a restaurant called Haggers. It was the night before an apprentices’ cook-off. My boss, Dennis Hagger, trusted me with the keys to his restaurant to practice after service. It was a disaster: a buddy was watching me and we spent too much time chatting. At three in the morning I got fixed on the idea that I needed fresh tarragon and chervil for the béarnaise sauce I was going to serve with beef tournedos or something the next day. I sent my mate out and told him, “don’t bother coming back without them”. He jumped a nursery’s fence and eventually, about 5am, returned with a little pot of each. I was half an hour late for the competition the next day, but came second ... I was the only one using fresh herbs. I still thought what I cooked was shit though.

13. Average breakfast?
Black label Jalna natural yoghurt with fruit.

14. Guilty pleasure?
Brioche and foie gras … anything that’s a recipe for a triple-bypass.

15. What would you never give up?
Kibbeh nayeh.

16. Do you like a drink?
Yeah, anything bitter or sour because my palate’s sour … anything that has citrus flavours, or anything that’s kind of brown with a touch of peaty-ness.

17. Best snack for someone watching their weight?
Raw vegetables: carrot, celery, fennel. But make sure you buy carrots with round tips – they’re sweeter than the pointy ones.

18. Exercise regime?
Waddling every now and then around the city.

19. Hot weight loss tip?
As a quick weight-loss program, stop sugar and alcohol. And minimise your carbs.

20. Why this dish?
The dates add a lovely caramel, toffee-ness to the dish and, when you start to layer it with spices, the sweetness starts to soften, especially when you add a little bit of heat to it – and then you hit it with some lemon …

18-minute Chicken Tagine with Dates and Ginger
Serves 2

80 ml olive oil (not extra virgin)
6 pearl onions, quartered; or two medium onions, cut in large chunks
1 leek, white only, cut into 1 cm dice
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
2 long red chillies, seeds removed, cut into strips 
½ teaspoon fresh black pepper
10 threads of saffron 
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
600g free-range chicken leg meat, skin removed, and cut in large pieces
½ tsp sea salt
500ml chicken stock
80g fresh Medjool dates, seeds removed, chopped in chunks
6 Dutch carrots, peeled, leaving stalks on, cut in half (peel around the stalk to remove any grit)
2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 400g tin chickpeas, drained and lightly rinsed
½ cup parsley
Juice of ½ lemon

Heat olive oil in a heavy-based saucepan and, before it’s too hot, add the onions, leeks and garlic. Fry over a low heat until softened. Add the chilli, pepper, saffron, cinnamon and ginger and stir well.  Season the chicken pieces with sea salt and sauté in the spicy mixture for about 2 minutes, until well coated.  Add the stock and bring to the boil.  Lower the heat and simmer for 8 minutes. (Cook as gently as possible, which will help keep the chicken tender.) Add the chopped dates, carrots, tomato, chickpeas and stir well, making sure the carrots are submerged in the stock. Bring back to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for another 8 minutes or until chicken pieces are tender.
Add the parsley and lemon juice. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.  Serve with plain steamed couscous or a simple rice pilaf with natural yoghurt.

(20 Questions, 1 Light Dish, Number 1: Tony Tan.)

Comments

[plum]

Thank you for that! I really enjoyed reading it.

[Jane]

I was at Stones on Sunday and as usual Greg's Arabesque feast was exquisitely sumptuous and lip-smacking. True to his inherent generosity, it felt as though there was enough food to feed us for a month - I recall him saying in one of his classes at The Essential Ingredient, that he was incapable of offering small, dainty portions...too right! I couldn't face another meal for about 24 hours.

I was recently lucky enough to receive the updated version of his first book 'Arabesque' for my 40th birthday. It is beautiful and inspiring - in fact I have all Greg and Lucy's books, and even those of Lucy's sans Greg. Lucy's voice has inspired me and together they have taught me so much over the years about Middle Eastern food that I can't wait to expand my repertoire on seeing what they unearth on their trip to Turkey.

[jules]

love the idea of 20 questions one light dish.
am a big fan of the Maloufs so thanks for this one...a great read

[Kibbeh]

Great interview....bad photo....did Mr. Malouf stumble out of the Alfred's cardio-vascular unit to make the photo shot?

[Jane]

Well it' s definitely not a recent photo. From what I spied at the restaurant, Greg is looking healthy, rested and is as brown as if he had been dipped in chocolate.