The Elegant Sufficiency

20 Questions, 1 Light Dish, Number 3

"20 Questions, 1 Light Dish" is an (occasional) Elegant Sufficiency feature in which I ask the people who really understand flavour – chefs – to share a brilliant, light, guilt-free recipe for everyday eating.
Last chef to share his thoughts was Greg Malouf, who offered up a wonderful 18-Minute Chicken Tagine.
This time round, I’ve asked Maurice Esposito, chef/owner of Esposito at Toofey’s in Carlton, Melbourne, for a contribution. Maurice draws on his Italian heritage and his love of seafood to create fine, contemporary food. His brilliant recipe below — Red Emperor, Carrot Puree, White Asparagus, Carrot and Ginger Reduction — relies on a great piece of fish and the intense, concentrated flavours of a slow-cooked baked vegetable and reduced juices.

 

MAURICE ESPOSITO

1. Molecular gastronomy: yes or no?
Yes — it’s an evolution in cooking and it’s always important to push boundaries.
2. Chef you’d most like to meet?
Alain Ducasse. I believe in Ducasse’s philosophy – that all wonderful cuisine starts with wonderful product. In one of his books he states, “haute cuisine is 60% product, 40% technique”.
3. Restaurant you¹d most like to visit?
The Fat Duck – Heston Blumenthal really intrigues me. He’s challenging palates and I think his restaurant would be inspiring for any chef. I saw him on a science documentary on the Discovery Channel – you don’t see chefs in that context everyday. He challenges people’s perception of food and that’s the good part of molecular gastronomy for me. We need to go forward.
4. Most stained cookbook?
Grand Livre de Cuisine by Alain Ducasse – it’s also the biggest book I have. Ducasse is strongly influenced by the Mediterranean and so (it features) olive oil, olives, zucchini flowers – not heavy reductions. He brings traditional French into the realms of modern cooking – he is relevant to today.
5. Most memorable meal?
The French Laundry – 16 incredible courses, no duds. Aspects of dishes stay in my memory like a slab of candied smoked bacon – sweet, salty unctuousness; foie gras parfait with popcorn – a signature dish of Thomas Keller’s — with a glass of Sauternes. It was so bloody good.
6. Favourite dish your Mum cooked?
Braised rabbit with artichokes on pappardelle.
7. Desert island ingredients?
Rye sourdough from Baker D.Chirico and good salty butter like Mauri butter from Piemonte in Italy.
8. Favourite holiday destination?
Spain, anywhere in Spain.
9. Favourite kitchen utensil?
Hand-held Bamix. I use it to emulsify sauces – I like to use it for some dishes just before I plate up – if I introduce milk or citrus at the last minute the air lightens what could otherwise be a heavy sauce.
10. Favourite food store?
Mediterranean Wholesalers, Brunswick: I stock up on tinned tomatoes, unfiltered olive oil, pastas, olives – the standard pantry stuff.
11. Last food-related purchase?
I bought a restaurant in Carlton, that’s a food-related purchase isn’t it?
12. Biggest kitchen disaster?
The opening night when I was at Otto restaurant in Sydney. It was a new development in an old building and the sprinkler sensors obviously hadn’t been checked. As we opened the combi-oven to organise the first course, the steam that poured out of it set the sprinklers off. It was literally flooding in the kitchen and there were 100 people in the restaurant. They spent the rest of the evening being fed cold canapés and plenty of Bollinger and all left very happy (must have been the never-ending Bolly!).
13. Average breakfast?
Café latte with two sugars.
14. Guilty pleasure?
Valrhona chocolate semifreddo — a dessert at work I can't take off the menu.
15. What would you never give up?
Red wine – at the moment it’s Chestnut Hill Pinot Noir from Mount Burnett in Victoria.
16. Do you like a drink?
Hell yes!
17. Best snack for someone watching their weight?
A handful of nuts – almonds in particular.
18. Exercise regime?
I’m always at work, but I do like to go for a run once a week – if I’m lucky.
19. Hot weight-loss tip?
All things in moderation (including moderation).
20. Why this dish?
It’s seasonal, it’s healthy, you can eat this dish everyday – it’s not heavy, the flavours and textures are so simple but full of flavour.



Red Emperor, Carrot Puree, White Asparagus, Carrot and Ginger Reduction
Serves 2

2x 200g fillet red emperor
Carrot puree and reduction:
1 bunch dutch carrots
¼ teaspoon coriander seeds
500ml orange juice (5-6 six oranges)
½ teaspoon tarragon leaves
½ clove garlic, crushed
2 whole star anise
sea salt
Asparagus salad:
12 spears white asparagus
1 sprig tarragon leaves
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
sea salt to taste

Carrot puree and reduction: Preheat oven to 220C. Peel carrots. Place coriander seeds in a flameproof baking dish and toast in the oven for two minutes. Add remaining ingredients, cover and seal with foil and bake in the oven for about 50 minutes until carrots are tender. (This sounds like a long time but you want  carrots to be very soft, full of the flavour of the cooking liquid.)
Asparagus salad: Trim the asparagus and blanch in boiling water for three minutes. Refresh immediately in cold water. Drain. Pick the tarragon leaves, chop roughly and sprinkle over the asparagus. Drizzle the asparagus and tarragon with the olive oil and season to taste. Set aside.
When carrots are cooked, cool carrots in the cooking liquid. Remove carrots from liquid and strain the liquid into a small saucepan. Blend the carrots in a blender, using a little of the juice, until they form a puree. Set aside.
Return the liquid to a medium heat, and reduce until it has the consistency of a syrup.
To cook the fish: Heat a frying pan that can go in the oven. Season the skin side of the fillets with salt and pepper and brush with a little olive oil. Place skin-side down for three minutes, turn the fillet and cook for one more minute. Depending on the thickness of the fillet, you may need to finish it in the oven for a few minutes.
To serve: Reheat the carrot puree, then spoon on to a plate. Place the fish on the puree, then dress the dish with the asparagus salad. Finish the dish with the remaining syrup and, if desired, fried shallots.

Apropos Nothing 1

Apropos nothing, Gwyneth Paltrow and orange-clog-wearing New York chef Mario Batali will apparently tour Spain together to produce a food program about Spanish food. (Bit of a concern that Gwyneth apparently doesn't eat pork or beef.)
And, while we're on the subject, I'd draw your attention to my right-hand column of links here, where my current "Article Spotlight" links to a terrific story in The Financial Times about the television-film chef epidemic. Lower down the column under the "Chefs" heading I link to a New York Times article about Batali's Michigan retreat.
I'm hoping that you find the time to browse through the archive of links in the right-hand column of Elegant Sufficiency, which I do update. I'd be interested in your feedback about their usefulness. As I think I've said before, to make my blog more appealing and useful, to get you to linger longer, I am attempting to be a gatekeeper for you — filtering content to bring busy people only what I believe to be worth reading. To a degree, I'm also doing it for myself, for a couple of reasons: many of the articles I link to may be useful background for myself in the future when researching and writing articles; and the articles under country headings hopefully will provide me (and you) with tips when I finally get to travel to those countries (a bit like the hard copy files I keep on different places I want to visit).
I am concerned that the way these links are presented really isn't terribly useful to you, but I don't have the time (or possibly the brain power) to nut out how to use the available Typepad technology to present the links in the way I'd like.
And here's my bigger issue: finding, then adding links (then, later, checking that the links still work), in addition to writing my own material for the blog, all takes time and I have a sneaking suspicion I'm starting to resent that. There's also a chance that, in the not-too distant future, I may be returning to full-time work. Much more demanding full-time work. (I must be mad to be even considering such a foolish thing!) Something may have to go, even the blog altogether, if I'm to maintain my sanity — and find time for other personal writing projects.
So please, tell me, do you want them? Do you use them? How can I make them more useful?

Five New Things I Know

Spent some time at Masterclass today and yesterday, two days of cooking demonstrations and classes that are part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. Local and international chefs demonstrating included Spain’s Andoni Luis Aduriz, London’s Sam and Sam Clark (Moro), New York’s Will Goldfarb (Room 4 Dessert), Rose Gray (one half of London’s River Café partnership), Vincenzo Cammerucci from Lido Lido in Cesenatico on the Italy's Adriatic Coast, Darwin’s Jimmy Shu (Hanuman), Adelaide’s Cheong Liew and Tony Bilson from Sydney.

1. The River Cafe Almond Tart with Berries (above)

Divine and, for a pastry klutz like me, seductively rustic. The beauty of this tart is that, according to chef Rose Gray, it can “take you through the whole year”. River Cafe partner Ruth Rogers broke a hip skiing just before Masterclass and was not able to attend, so a solo Gray talked about using plums on the tart in autumn, Seville orange jam under the frangipane filling in winter, blackberries in summer. Curiously, they use a cheese grater to grate the pastry into the flan tin, then press it in by hand – “we like it to look rough,” Gray said. This minimises the amount the pastry is handled. And they always use whole almonds rather than almond meal, which can be less than fresh.

350g plain flour
pinch of salt
225g unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes
100g icing sugar
3 egg yolks
Filling:
350g blanched whole almonds
350g unsalted butter, softened
350g caster sugar
4 eggs
750g strawberries, washed and stalks removed, or raspberries
100g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Pulse the flour, salt and butter in a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the sugar, then the egg yolks, and pulse again. The mixture will immediately combine and leave the sides of the bowl. Remove, wrap in cling film, and chill for at least an hour.
Coarsely grate the pastry into a 30cm loose-bottomed fluted flan tin, then press it evenly onto the sides and the base. Bake blind for 20 minutes until light brown.
Reduce the oven temperature to 150°C. For the filling, put the almonds in a food processor and process until fine. Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is pale and light. Add the almonds to the butter and sugar and blend, then beat in eggs, one by one. Pour into the pastry case and bake for 40 minutes. Cool a little.
Cut the strawberries into halves lengthways, or quarters if they are very large. Push the strawberry pieces into the tart, standing them upright, while the tart filling is still warm.
Dust with icing sugar and serve with crème fraiche.

2. Why We Should Eat Australian Salmon

I’d never heard of Australian salmon and all of a sudden I’m hearing about it left, right and centre. Plus, I saw it at the markets (at Prosser’s seafood stall) last week for the first time ever, all gleaming and seaweedy. It is actually a member of the perch family, and no relation at all to salmon. Aliases include bay trout, blackback, kahawai  and sambo. It is commonly caught in the waters of Port Phillip Bay (the bay that gives Melbourne some pretty ordinary beaches). I’ve never tried the fish, but apparently it can be strongly flavoured and stringy.
At Masterclass, it came up in a discussion about sustainable seafood between Canadian chef Robert Clark, from Vancouver’s contemporary fish restaurant, C Restaurant, and Melbourne’s Paul Mathis (SOS vegaquatic restaurant). When Clark’s Australian sous chef heard that his boss was going to be cooking bay trout during his Australian visit, he was scornful. “We put it in crabpots and feed it to our cats,” the sous chef told him.
The point of the discussion was that Australian salmon is a sustainable species that we should be eating in preference to the many other varieties of unsustainable fish that we more commonly devour. Clark told the audience that he had cooked it all week during his guest chef stint at SOS, to some acclaim. “It reminded me of a sardine and I treated it like a sardine,” he said. That meant salting it to prevent deterioration, then brushing it with a quince jelly and caramelising it in a hot pan.
Next time I see it at the markets, I’m going to grab some. Perhaps I’ll cook it as Greg and Lucy Malouf suggest in Saha (Hardie Grant, 2005): brushed with olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper, then grilled or barbecued and served with a lentil tabbouleh (lentils, lemon juice, mint, parsley, shallots, tomatoes, allspice, cinnamon).

3. Vincenzo Cammerucci's Gnocchi-Making Method

It’s new to me, but Cammerucci’s technique is based on a choux pastry and the result is exquisite (smart Sam at Becks & Posh wrote about this method a year ago). The Michelin-starred Cammerucci, known for his “New Italian and European” cuisine, was demonstrating “Gnocchi soffiati di zucca con sgombro affumicato rapa rossa” – pumpkin gnocchi with smoked mackerel and beetroot. I’ll leave it to you to come up with your own sauce.

250ml water
salt and pepper
100g butter
175g flour
5 eggs
225g pumpkin puree (steamed pumpkin, pureed)
2tbsp parmesan cheese

Boil the water with salt, pepper and butter. Put the saucepan to the side of the stove and add flour, beating quickly as you add it. Return the saucepan to a gentle heat and continue beating the mixture, extremely vigorously, until it falls away from the sides and the spoon. Add eggs one at a time and continue beating vigorously. You may not need all the eggs – you are looking to achieve a soft and smooth consistency. Add the pumpkin puree, cheese and season to taste.
This is the bit I like: To cook, bring a pan of salted water to the boil. Take a strong, clear plastic bag and slice a 2cm hole in one corner. Filling the plastic bag like a piping bag, take a strong grip on it in your left hand (if you are right handed), forcing the mixture into the corner. In your other hand, take hold of a good sharp knife. Start squeezing the mixture out slowly and, as it comes out, swipe the knife down to slice off a small disc of gnocchi, letting it drop into the water. Dip the knife in the boiling water every few cuts so the gnocchi cuts cleanly. Cammerucci did this swiftly, elegantly, and in a terribly sexy fashion. The gnocchi won’t take long to cook: it’s ready when it floats to the surface.

4. Tony Bilson’s Technique to Cook Fish

Bilson, whose Bilson's Restaurant at Sydney’s Radisson Plaza Hotel specialises in fine French food, told the session that he was reading Escoffier when he was 13. I suppose you have to pay attention to a man who claims that. So, his fish method: He heats his pan, then puts his fish, skin side down, on a piece of lightly oiled/buttered silicone paper. (“If you see it burning and it bursts into flame, you’ve got the wrong paper.”) The fish cooks on the paper in the pan and even browns through it. As you would if you were cooking it without the paper, you turn it over when the time is right. The benefits of this method? It doesn’t stick to the pan; you can cook several pieces of fish at one time on one larger piece of silicone paper and remove them all simultaneously; “the finish you get on the fish is incredibly clean”; and, if you’re using a barbecue plate, the method guarantees “no flavour transference” (from a dirty, or well-used plate). Similarly, you can cook a number of things on the same plate without flavour transference between the items. So there.

5. Jimmy Shu’s Sichuan Salt

Came in late to Jimmy’s session but was intrigued by an idea he threw out – Sichuan salt. In a mortar and pestle, pound one part Sichuan peppercorns to five parts sea salt. Jimmy suggested sprinkling the resulting salt over salads, or over Chinese ban ban chicken (I know it as bang bang chicken), or using it as a dip with olive oil.

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.)

20 Questions, 1 Light Dish, Number 1

"20 Questions, 1 Light Dish" is a new, regular Elegant Sufficiency feature that will ask the people who really understand flavour – chefs – to share a light, guilt-free recipe for everyday eating. It’s not about science, just about flavour.

TONY TAN

1. Jamie Oliver or Gordon Ramsay?
For sex appeal, neither. For technique, Gordon. As a human being, Jamie.
2. Chef you’d most like to meet?
There are two of them. One, Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz restaurant in San Sebastian. He has movie-star looks and cooks like a dream. He also has real humility, a zen-like quality, and understands flavours. The second is Yuan Mei, who was a chef for a Chinese scholar during the Qing Dynasty. He understood the harmony of food and the seasons. I’ve been following his life through several Chinese gastronomical books.
3. Restaurant you’d most like to visit?
Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck in Berkshire. He’s not afraid and I like to be challenged.
4. Most stained cookbook?
Yan-Kit So’s Classic Food of China (Macmillan, London, 1992)
5. Most memorable meal?
My sister cooked me a meal when I was about five – she made an extraordinary version of dung po pork and to this day I don’t know how she made it.
6. Favourite dish your mum cooked?
My mother’s roast chicken; she made it when she was working as a cook at the government resthouse in Kuala Lipis in the state of Pahang during the dying days of the British Empire. The marinade included Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, mustard, soy sauce and butter.
7. Desert island ingredients?
Garam masala, salt, five-spice powder.
8. Favourite holiday destination?
Ronda in the south of Spain – it’s one of the most romantic spots in the world.
9. Favourite kitchen utensil?
A wok, or a sharp knife.
10. Favourite food store?
Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne.
11. Last food-related purchase?
Mangoes from Prahran Market, Melbourne to make a mango ‘carpaccio’ with basil icecream.
12. Biggest cooking disaster?
Trying to cook foie gras around midnight.
13. Average breakfast?
Wholemeal or multi-grain sourdough with jam or marmalade.
14. Guilty pleasure?
Eating icecream.
15. What would you never give up?
Chocolate.
16. Do you like a drink?
Yes, can’t you tell?
17. Best snack regime for someone watching their weight?
Fruit.
18. Exercise regime?
I walk – early-morning, two or three times a week, along the Yarra River for 5km and every Saturday morning with Stephanie Alexander.
19. Hot weight-loss tip?
Eat seafood – particularly fish – with plenty of greens.
20. Why this dish?
It’s simple – and wonderfully adaptable. It’s one of the most popular salads served in Thai restaurants. The recipe has similar flavours to the northern Thai beef larb, a minced raw beef salad with a heady mix of aromatic herbs including pak chi farang or foreign coriander (cilantro), a long leaf herb similar to fresh coriander. The roasted rice powder isn’t essential but it does give the finished dish a smoky nuttiness.

Grilled Beef Salad (Yam Nuer)
Serves 4-6

½ cup raw glutinous rice (for 1tbsp roasted rice powder – optional)
250g beef sirloin (or fillet)
1tbsp sweet dark soy sauce (kecap manis)
1tbsp vegetable oil
Dressing:
100ml lime or lemon juice
50ml fish sauce
1-2tsp palm sugar to taste (use a sharp knife to shave the sugar from the block)
2 fresh hot chillies (for a good pinch of roasted chilli powder)
Salad:
½ cup mint leaves
½ cup coriander leaves
1 spring onion, finely sliced
1 small Lebanese cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced on the diagonal
1 red shallot, peeled and thinly sliced
2tbsp pak chi farang (optional)
3 kaffir lime leaves, julienned

For roasted chilli powder: Toss the chillies in a frypan over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Cool, and grind to a powder in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. (This powder can be made in a batch and stored in an air-tight container.)
For roasted rice powder: Dry-fry rice over low to medium heat in a frypan or wok, stirring frequently, until it is golden brown. Cool, then grind in a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle to a fine powder.
Rub soy sauce over the beef and leave to marinate for up to 30 minutes. Heat a grill or skillet. Just before grilling, rub beef with oil and grill or fry over medium to high heat until rare, or to your taste. Rest for 10 minutes.
While the beef is resting, combine all ingredients for the salad dressing. Taste – it should taste hot, sour, salty and slightly sweet.
Slice the beef and combine with salad ingredients. Pour dressing over the salad and toss gently. Sprinkle with roasted rice.

Malaysian-born Tony Tan is a Melbourne chef and cooking-school proprietor. In February 2007, Tony will relaunch his cooking school in expanded premises. Web: http://www.tonytan.com.au/

A Culinary Genius

I can’t shake the memory: a tour bus and a drive south from Ho Chi Minh City to the Mekong Delta; drive-by views of women in woven conical hats, knee-deep in water bending to pick lotus flowers, water buffalo, rice paddies, coconut palms and thatched huts; and Tony Tan lurching up and down the aisle of the bus insistently pouring out cups of Mekong rice wine for each of those in his tour group to try. (He wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t add that his lurch had very little to do with Mekong rice wine and everything to do with Third World road infrastructure.) Later, after a boat trip through the Delta and through the sort of rain that only the tropics knows how to turn on, he switched hats – from comedic tour leader to food scholar and sage. Over lunch in an open, barn-like, waterside restaurant, Tony revealed great Indo-Chinese culinary secrets (at least, I think that’s what he was doing – thudding rain on a tin roof stole away most of his words), all the while rushing around the table to check that his charges were sucking the insides out of charred prawns, using the the correct dipping sauce with the crisp-fried elephant ear fish, and working out what the steamboat was all about.

Tony is one of Melbourne’s finest chefs; I would rather eat his food than anyone else’s. But the great tragedy is that, despite my nagging over some years now, he refuses to open a restaurant. The extraordinarily knowledgeable Malaysian-born chef has been there, done that, and now focuses his attentions firmly on his small cooking school and on his regular overseas guided food tours (mostly to China and Spain). His food is simply exquisite – he has the touch of an angel; the attention-to-detail of a Virgo; a generosity of spirit that drains him. Oh how I wish I had recorded and photographed every dish I had ever eaten at his table ... almost always Asian, or with the touch of an Asian. I remember: immaculate Hainan chicken rice, beef rendang, precious dumplings, a Portuguese-influenced Singaporean curry, airy crab ravioli, mee goreng and any number of other miracles, sophisticated and rustic.

I was in his kitchen again this week, gratefully (what can I chop? I’ll do the dishes… let me mop the floor … can I make you a cup of tea?), as he prepared for one of his classes. Two young couples celebrating a birthday were his students for the night and sipped wine as he cooked and talked. Afterwards, when the final garnishes were set, they sat at his 200-year-old dining table and ate in wonder. 

1. ‘I love to play,’ Tony says, and he’s doing ever more of that since he discovered the food of España. Here, jamón is wrapped around avocado and served with flaked smoked trout, salmon roe and flying fish roe (tobbiko). It’s drizzled with an oil that has been cooked on low heat for 30 minutes with diced jamón and smoked Spanish paprika. To finish, a lemon zest syrup. (Served at a previous TT occasion.)

2. Bak Kut Teh: Food as therapy and incredibly simple to make: a ‘teabag’ of Chinese medicinal herbs and spices (available at Asian foodstores) is simmered with halved bulbs of garlic, peppercorns and pork ribs.

3. TT in full flight.

4. Fish sauce: I love this label almost as much as that on Japanese ‘baby doll’ mayonnaise.

5. A TT curry.

6. TT’s mee grob.

Rump Stakes

I met the chef John Torode once and, the circumstances being what they were, and with at least one glass of wine under my belt, I told him that I thought he was arrogant and rude. I was involved in a cooking demo he was giving and I also decided that he was a lightweight, a shallow celebrity chef who made his living cooking for rich Londoners and collecting a pay packet from Sir Terence Conran. (I didn't share these conclusions with him.)

John, I’m sorry. I thought you were glib. I thought you were rude. I thought you were mightily pleased with yourself. And maybe you were. But I’m really loving your recipes. Tonight I tried yet another one from your Mezzo book, and again, it was brilliant. As ever, my recipe search was about looking for something light—as in low in fat and carbs but high, high in flavour.

I found your Marinated Rump of Lamb with Sweet Potato Mash. The fat content: whatever the lamb rump might have contained (the rump has more fat than lamb fillet, but beats fillet in flavour and succulence stakes); a bit of vegetable oil for a marinade; whatever carbs might be in the sweet potato; and whatever was in the salad I plonked by the side, which included avocado and some macadmia nut oil. Last night, I got the marinade going. When I got home from work tonight, I thrust a rather large sweet potato in the oven. About 200 degrees, just sitting on the oven rack. I couldn’t believe how fast it cooked: it seemed to be in there for only about 30 minutes before it started to split and ooze, and the flesh just under the skin had started to caramelise beautifully. Meanwhile, the marinade aroma was wafting through the kitchen, a heady, promising mix of spices that had been so easy to pound in the mortar and pestle the night before.

I’m no butcher, but from what I can gather, the rump is the cut between the mid-loin and the topside and thick flank. And, as my new friend John Torode says, this is an excellent barbecue recipe.

Marinated Rump of Lamb, Sweet Potato Mash

2 rumps of lamb (about 425g each)

4 red chillies, deseeded

4 tbsp coriander leaves

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp cardomom pods

1 tsp cloves

2 tsp black peppercorns

1 tsp turmeric

2 garlic cloves

2 tsp sea salt

250ml (1 cup) plain yoghurt

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1kg sweet potatoes

sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

2tbsp lemon juice

1tbsp vegetable oil

Olive oil for drizzling

1 lemon, quartered

The day before: Score the fat of the lamb in a criss-cross pattern and set aside. (Your lamb rumps may not have a layer of fat to allow you to do this—mine didn't.) Place the chillies, half the coriander leaves, the cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, black peppercorns, turmeric, garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle and pound to a paste consistency. (John suggests a blender or food processor but a big strong mortar and pestle will do the job just as well, although a larger quantity might be more challenging to pound.) Transfer to a shallow bowl and stir in the yoghurt and oil. Spoon the mixture over the lamb, rubbing well to cover all the meat, and set aside for 24 hours.

On the day: Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Bake the sweet potato(es) for 40-50 minutes, until soft. Allow to cool slightly, then peel and mash until smooth. Season well and mix in the lemon juice. Keep warm. When ready to cook the lamb, preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Brush a heated griddle or heavy-bottomed frying pan with the oil and sear the lamb, fat-side down, for five minutes. Turn and repeat on the underside. Transfer the lamb to an oven dish and roast for 15-20 minutes, until just cooked through but still pink inside. Remove from oven and leave to rest for five minutes, then slice each rump into six slices. Pile a mound of sweet potato mash in the centre of each plate and lay three slices of lamb on the top. Drizzle a little olive oil around the outside, and serve with wedges of lemon. Serves 4.