Food Wine Sleep

The Italian words for garlic and oil are aglio and olio respectively. Not hard to see where this dish gets its name or its ingredients for that matter. If you love both of those things on their own you will love them together in this recipe. Someone once asked me what are the things I could not do without in the kitchen and after my knives of course, I would whole heartedly say I wouldn't even want to be a chef without quality olive oil and fresh garlic. Most people I know make their aioli with raw garlic but I like to roast the garlic first to give it that sweet nutty flavour as well as that lovely garlic flavour. Like I said you can throw out your jar of plain o...

Ah the humble crumble, in season sweet apples stewed with cinnamon and brown sugar, golden baked buttery topping and vanilla ice cream on the side! Is there a more appropriate thing to serve as dessert in the colder months? I think not.

The English have somewhat of an unfounded reputation for being a country with very little to offer the culinary world. A belief that may have been partially true 20-30 years ago, but certainly not now. Nowadays not many cities in the world can top London's cuisine and many of the best Chefs I have worked with have been English. Maybe they're such good Chefs because of the diverse food scene they come from, or maybe they are trying extra hard to shake off the remnants of that unjustified reputation. Whatever the reason I have learnt many things from English colleagues, and this recipe is one of those many things. As in most great recipes, what really makes this recipe is i...

Bearnaise and Hollandaise are, I believe, a couple of the major reasons many people dine out. I suppose they feel that these beautiful rich sauces are too difficult to make at home, what with all that clarifying, whisking, reducing and incorporating, but don't let these words or the actions they represent, scare you. Like all things cooking, it's all about practice and once you've done it a few times you'll wonder why you never tried it earlier. So go on get to it, it's easy!

I know some people who say "any idiot can cook; it's the sauces that make the meal!" Of course most of these people are Saucier Chefs and I've only heard them speak with this blasphemous tongue at 4:30 am on a Sunday morning in the last pub that will still serve us after a busy Saturday nights service in the restaurant. Just in case there is some truth in what they say though, you would do well to learn a few classic sauce recipes and what better place to start than Beurre Blanc. This sauce can be used on any number of dishes and is very adaptable to new ideas and styles of cuisine, infuse it with some unique spices, add some citrus or virtually any herb you can...

One of my favourite things about the calendar flipping into autumn is pumpkin soup. I know what you're thinking, why wait until autumn? You can buy pumpkin year round now. True yes, but in my mind it still tastes better when you know you are cooking with ingredients that were grown locally, are in season and haven't been stuck in some crate in stagnant air for weeks on end in the hull of some dirty old ship or the trailer of some truck. Plus the seasons are nature's way of getting us to eat a variety of foods, and Mother Nature is a lot older than us, so I imagine she knows best.

Of all the barbecues I have had, one thing is certain of all of them. Regardless of how many other cuts of quality steaks I may have on offer, given the choice, my friends will always choose this one. I suppose I can’t blame them, the lengthy marinading time means the meat absolutely melts in their mouths and that each and every ounce of it is permeated with the delicious Cajun spices. One other thing that is certain is that everyone that has it asks me how they can make it. I never tell them as then they will stop coming to my barbecues and I will have to start going to theirs and their beers are rubbish and their beer fridges not cold enough. So please don&...

Although you could just go out and buy premixed spices, making them yourself will give you a much nicer flavour and the comfort that you will not be consuming all sorts of preservatives, sugar, and anti-caking agents. For this recipe I have quoted the ingredients in parts in order that you can make as much mix as you like, whether that be a few tablespoons or a couple of kilo's.

A good Chicken Stock is the building block of many a good soup, sauce and stew. Quality home made stock is to the Chef as much a staple as good olive oil, butter, salt and pepper. Although there are many retail varieties of stocks now available, many of them I find too salty and contain a lot of unwanted additives. Plus I find something very enjoyable and therapeutic about making stocks for my kitchen. Not only can you claim to your quests that the entire dish is made from scratch but you will know exactly what is in the food you are eating.

Firstly to help us understand what clarified butter is, let us begin with what butter itself is. Butter is made up of three main components; around 80% fat and around 20% milk solids and water. When butter is heated, it melts. If it is heated for any length of time these components split apart from one another and settle into different layers. At the bottom of the heating vessel you will have a white cloudy substance; this is the milk solids and water. On top you will have the golden liquid known as clarified butter or what is know in Indian cuisine as ghee. Since the milk solids are what cause butter to burn, clarified butter can be heated to much higher temperatures...

A lot of people don't eat mussels at home. I think it may have something to do with the fact that they look so much different at the fish monger than how they do on a restaurant plate. Once you learn how to clean mussels properly you'll be eating them all year.

For a grain that mankind has been eating for over 5000 years and helps feed over 2/3rds of the world's population, it really is amazing that so many of us still don't know how to cook it. I suppose that may have something to do with the fact that there are close to 40,000 different varieties of rice on the planet, all differing in size, shape, absorption rates and just as many intended uses. The method of cooking rice explained here is equal to and not superior to the traditional absorption method but it is easy and very consistent and what I recommend to anyone having problems getting a consistently good result. It will give you perfectly cooked consistently fluffy in...

I'm not going to give you the time to cook your steak for, as it is a very individual requirement, you may have a really hot barbecue or you may have a not so hot pan, you may like your steak a few inches thick or you may like a very thin cut. I'm not going to tell you what is the ideal cut of steak or breed of cattle as again that is a very individual choice, if you would like some help in choosing a steak, please see our Tips & Techniques category and click on "Steak Cuts". I'm not going to tell you what is the ideal degree of cooked ness for your steak as that again is a very individual choice. I am however going to tell you the 7 fundamentally most...

The great thing about corn fritters is that they are perfect anytime of the day. Have them at breakfast with a little wilted spinach, some bacon and roast tomatoes. Serve them at lunch with a salad of arugula, fetta and salmon. Use them for dinner as the base to any seafood or chicken dish. When entertaining serve mini-fritters as a canape topped with a little smoked chicken and mango salsa. The options are endless and I trust that once you give this recipe a try, you will soon be adding to the list of endless possibilities. This recipe makes about 12 fritters so depending on what you are using them for adjust it accordingly.

I was on the phone to my friend Trevor the other day back in Canada, and as well as the usual catching up on each others distant lives, we talked food for a bit. During this conversation Trevor asked me how to make fettuccine Carbonara, as he had attempted it the night before and ended up with as is often the case, fettuccine a'la scrambled eggs. I explained to him the trick was to toss the warmed pasta through the egg mix away from the stove and by doing so the heat of the pasta will warm the egg sauce enough to cook it but not actually scramble it. I was thankful for that conversation because it is a classic dish I hadn't made in ages and since that phone call I have re...

Hearty clam chowder, delicate seafood bisque, rustic fish stew and deliciously fresh bouillabaisse are just a few of the wonderful seafood dishes that require a good fish stock as their main ingredient. In fact countless dishes in traditional French cookery build on the solid foundations of stocks. That's why making stocks forms a large part of a Chef's first year in Culinary school. In this recipe I have used snapper carcasses, however feel free to use whatever your fish monger has on hand, however avoid excessively oily varieties such as salmon. Ask your fish monger and he can steer you in the right direction.

Folding is quite simply the process of combining two or more ingredients by lifting rather than stirring. It is a technique most often used when attempting to mix ingredients where one or more is of a very delicate nature. A good example is when attempting to fold a thicker substance through whisked egg whites. Egg whites that have been whisked contain little bubbles of air in them and stirring them with another ingredient would simply knock all the air out of these bubbles. By folding the ingredients together these air bubbles are retained.

Fresh pasta is so easily done one actually wonders why it is not used more often. Fresh egg pasta is essential for all homemade filled or stuffed pastas such as ravioli, agnolotti and tortellini and more. Ribbon pastas like fettuccini, pappardelle and cappellini (angel hair). Alternatively if you do not have a pasta machine, then you can roll the dough as thin as poissible with a rolling pin, cut the pasta it into ribbons, or any other shape you like, by following the side of a ruler with a pizza wheel inb the exact shape you desire.

This recipe comes from Adam, an old friend and colleague of mine. I worked with Adam as a Sous Chef to his Head Chef in the early to mid 90's. As I'm sure you'll recall that was a time when "fusion cooking" was all the rage. A time when simply mixing wasabi through anything and everything made it French-Japanese fusion. A time when adding grilled vegetables to any dish made it modern Mediterranean. Now I know cooking is like fashion and the envelope needs to be constantly pushed in order to be tested, but I fear that what some chefs were passing off as "fusion" back then is the fashion equivalent of "fusing" Mr T's jewellery and hair cut to S...

I learnt the recipe for this versatile marinade/paste/rub/dip from one of the worst head chefs I have ever worked for. I know, that's probably not going to make you want to cook it, but allow me to explain; Do we judge Rocky I on the fact that Rocky IV and V were subsequently made? No. Do we judge our favourite one-hit-wonder bands on their, mediocre follow up albums? No. Do we judge Bruce Willis or John Travolta on Armageddon and Battle field earth? No, we try to remember Moonlighting and Welcome Back Kotter instead. Well this is the logic I use to judge the head Chef in question and original source of this recipe. The man lets call him "Carl" may not have k...

Bearnaise and Hollandaise are, I believe, a couple of the major reasons many people dine out. I suppose they feel that these beautiful rich sauces are too difficult to make at home, what with all that clarifying, whisking, reducing and incorporating, but don't let these words or the actions they represent, scare you. Like all things cooking it's all about practice and once you've done it a few times you'll wonder why you never tried it earlier. So go on get to it, it's easy!

When I worked at a restaurant that specialised in breakfast I remember poaching over 400 eggs every Saturday and Sunday morning. I've never done the numbers that we used to do in that place. The other Chefs and I would arrive at 5:30 am to start service at 8:00 am. Right through until 11:30-12:00 o'clock it was go go go, and if one of the team was not feeling well, it was a nightmare as we had to carry one another through this insane service. Why would one of the team not feel so well? Well these are Chefs you're talking about here and they are not used to having nights off, so most weekends at least one of the team was hung over from a big night before. Unfortunate...

When it comes to organic food, I don't think I would be able to tell you the difference between an organic piece of parsley and a non-organic piece of parsley. However when it comes to chicken the difference is night and day. Organic chickens are more tender, the skin crisps better and the flesh tastes 100% like chicken. Non organic chickens are fed copious amounts of antibiotic growth promoters and the end result is unnaturally large birds with bland tasteless meat. Organic birds, even though usually twice as old when slaughtered are often still smaller than these unnaturally oversized counterparts. Having to feed and house the animals twice as long obviously adds a...

There is nothing better than a homemade dressing. This one lives in my fridge all the time as I find it indispensable. I use it as a dressing on salads, on steamed vegetables, on virtually any seafood and even dress my chicken with it when once I take it off the barbecue. It will last about a week so don't bother making too much if you don't plan on using it.

Mash Potato, sounds like a recipe right there doesn't it. Pretty simple dish to prepare, one would think, yet based on the amount of times I have ordered it and received something closer to cemented or watered potato, I thought it appropriate that we put a recipe of it out there. That and the fact that we receive countless emails requesting us to. Proper mash potato is something most of us remember from our childhood, rich, creamy, buttery flavour all whipped up into something that is surprisingly light and fluffy in texture. I think the reason for it reminding us of childhood is that, since adolescence most of us, (the western world anyhow) have been running to the hi...

A mirepoix is a finely diced mixture of; carrot, celery and onion. It is often sweated off in the first stages of a recipe to enhance the flavour of sauces, soups, stews and numerous other dishes. Although usually finely diced, some recipes, such as a stock recipe might call for, 'mirepoix roughly chopped' in this case it simply refers to the three vegetables of carrot, celery and onion. 'Mirepoix au gras' is simply mirepoix with meat and usually refers to the addition of bacon or ham.

Although you could just go out and buy premixed spices making them yourself will give you a much nicer flavour and the comfort that you will not be consuming all sorts of preservatives, sugar, and anti-caking agents. For this recipe I have quoted the ingredients in parts in order that you can make as much mix as you like, whether that be a few tablespoons or a couple of kilo's.

If you don't love quality extra virgin olive oil and saut�ed golden garlic, then you won't understand this recipe. Those of you that do, well you'll know exactly what a simply magnificent Italian creation this is. I have said it numerous times before and I stand by my words to this day, "If there were no such things as good extra virgin olive oil and garlic I would not have become, or continue to be a Chef!" They are my absolute 2 favourite ingredients and in this dish, the Italians let these ingredients shine in simplicity.

Pate a choux is also called Choux paste or pastry or Chou dough and is a basic dough for many savory and sweet dishes. Pate a chou is the base for traditional cakes such as the Gateau St. Honoré, Paris-Brest and the Croque-em-bouche or individual pastries like éclairs and the children favorite Choux puffs.  But choux paste it can also be fried into Beignets, Crullers and Churros, or used as the base for hot soufflés and mixed with mashed potatoes for Dauphine potatoes. In Austria this same basic dough is also used to make sweet knoedels (dumplings), where a fruit is incased into pate a choux filled and then poached...

Ever wonder how they get the skins off the tomatoes you buy in cans? It's really quite a simple process. In this tip I'll show you exactly how and also how to take the seeds out.

I usually make pesto when basil is at its best, fortunately when basil it at it's best it's also abundant and cheap so I usually end up making it in big batches. I leave some in my fridge, jar some up for friends and freeze the rest. The freezing affects it slightly but in winter when there is no fresh basil I've still got better pesto than I can buy from any deli or shop. In those colder months I toss it through my pastas, dollop it in my soup or spread it on toasted French bread.

Next time you prepare a dish that leaves you with a lot of crustacean waste i.e. lots of prawn (shrimp), crab, lobster, or bug heads and shells do not throw all those wonderful bits out, instead knock up this oil and you will regret every time you did throw them out. With this oil in your fridge you will be able to add a beautiful richness to a plethora of dishes.

A correct flaky, buttery and light puff pastry or “Pate feuilletee” is the most important ingredient to so many dessert and savory dishes. Preparing and baking the puff pastry takes some practice, is fairly time consuming and tedious process, but the final product will be so much more rewarding, whether you are making a vol-en-vent, mille-feuille or the famous Napoleon.

A Chef I used to work with once said, 'A jus prepared correctly and served with a crusty bread roll is a 5 star meal to me.' In fact I've seen many a Chef call that dinner. Usually when the head Chef wasn't looking of course. Jus's are like liquid gold in restaurant kitchens. Most kitchens have one stove and sometimes even entire kitchens designated to the slow process of making these decadent sauces. First the veal bones are roasted golden brown in high temperature ovens, then the vegetables are chopped, herbs are selected and then it's all put in a pot and covered with water and simmered for days on end. The resulting stock is then, strained numerous times, red wine is...

Reduced Balsamic is one of those incredibly simple items to prepare, it is simply Balsamic Vinegar that has been thickened by way of evaporation over heat. This is a great ingredient to have on hand in any kitchen. It's sweet yet slightly tart flavour not only is the perfect complement to many dishes but makes a very visually appealing garnish. Try it over grilled vegetables or salads and even on some desserts. When preparing this item I would not recommend you use your best and most expensive Balsamic vinegar as you will lose about 2/3rds to evaporation, however I would also avoid using a very cheap and acidic variety, as no matter how much you reduce these; they remain...

When I was a teenager I worked briefly in a pizza joint as a delivery driver. When there were no deliveries I was assigned various jobs by our recently out of jail 'Chef', not that he was too busy to do so but he had to go hassle the waitresses and beg for bourbon from the bartender. One of the jobs that the 'Chef'; used to get me to do in this classy place was to prep the garlic bread. This job involved taking some anaemic highly processed and cottony soft bread rolls and cutting them in half, dipping them face down about 1 centimetre into some dirty old vegetable oil that had 2 cloves of garlic sadly sunken on the bottom, then I would take chopped parsley and sprinkle i...

This is a great winter soup. At a time of year when we are probably eating a little bit too much of the good stuff in life such as butter, cream and rich desserts, this soup is the perfect option to lighten our dietary load. You’ll find that thanks to the sweet potato’s much lower glycaemic rating than regular potato you won’t find the inevitable post eating blood sugar spike and subsequent crash of many energy rich winter meals. Add to that ginger’s excellent properties as a digestive aid and you have a great start on helping your body deal with a lot of those richer meals you’ve been eating. Then take the ultimate comfor...

Roasting large joints of meat to the correct doness can be fairly difficult at times and once the roast too much done, there is no turning back anymore. The difficulty starts by getting people to agree on one uniform system. While in classical French cooking (and most of the European countries) only 4 degrees of doness (blue, saignant, a point and bien cuit) are used, in the rest of the world and certainly in English speaking countries we generally use five degrees of doness (rare, medium rare, medium, medium well and well done). Some even order the meat by percentages e.g. from 25 % for rare, to 70%, 80% and obviously 100 % for well done. Whatever method one prefers, the...

Bell peppers (capsicum) are pretty delicious and tasty as nature makes them, however roasted or grilled they become all the more tasty and more versatile. Once roasted they are the ideal addition to any antipasto, beautiful in a salad, perfect in a pasta and not to mention an amazing base to many beautiful sauces or soups

Semi dried tomatoes, say it to some and they'll scrunch up their nose and make a "yucky" face, say it to others and they'll smile and move closer to you. The difference I think is that some have only tasted the jarred variety, while the latter group has tried the homemade variety or tasted them from a nice deli. The difference is quite staggering; the ones from the jars often taste like an oily shoe with liquorice laces. While a proper freshly dried tomato can taste like you're actually eating a dozen tomatoes, with a bunch of fresh herbs and a whisper of extra virgin all in the one bite. Once you realize how easy it is to do your own you'll wonder why you ever...

Sugar syrup is to the bar what stocks are to the kitchen. Simple to make and an indispensable staple item to have on hand.

This is stuff I grew up on and it is still one of my favourites. Although mainly used as a breakfast cereal, back in my childhood it was also occasionaly served as snack on hot days or even as a light meal or fruity dessert at times. Muesli was invented/created around the turn of the century by Swiss doctor Maximilian Bircher for the patients in his hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. He was a pioneer in nutritinal research and "healed" his patients with a balanced diet of raw fruits and vegetables, a revolution, considering the eating habits of the people at that time. The term "muesli" comes from the Swiss dialect word of "mus" lite...

One of the nicest things about dining out in restaurants is experiencing foods you can't make at home, having said that, it doesn't have to be that way. All chefs during their first year of training are taught how to make perfect stocks, stocks from which they are later taught to make virtually every sauce possible. Once you learn to make the perfect stock, all those restaurant sauces that make the meal worth paying top dollar for will be well within your reach.

The term concasser as defined by the Larousse Gastronomique (The Chef's bible) defines it as: The French term for chopping or pounding a substance, either coarsely or finely. When skinned deseeded tomato pulp is finely chopped it is known as tomato cancassee. In this recipe it is the latter definition referring to the tomatoes that we explore. Tomato concasse although used in many traditional sauces, it can also be used many other ways; tossed through pasta, garnishing, salsas, bruschetta's and soups.

There are quite a few reasons why we truss or tie chickens ahead of the roasting them, if not just because, traditionally, it has always been done that way and sometimes we just should not question our culinary fore fathers. Something’s just shouldn’t be changed or abandoned to save preparation time. Firstly they just look better. Nothing worse, than birds with the legs and wings spread, “lying” in a roasting pan when they come out of the oven. Secondly, if you are using a rotisserie or spit over a BBQ, the snug fitting legs and wings of a well trussed chicken will prevent uneven rotations. It will ensure that the chicken is...

When you whisk egg whites what you are actually doing is whisking air into them. The result is tiny little bubbles of air living inside your egg whites. It is these air bubbles that give egg white based desserts that light and airy texture. A great example to demonstrate how these little air bubbles live inside the egg whites is that of the souffle. A souffle consists of predominantly whisked egg whites, in other words eggs whites full of little air bubbles. These air bubbles when put in the oven expand (as any air does when heated) and it is this expansion of air trapped in those little bubbles that causes a well made souffle to so impressively stand up out of dish....

The French have a name for it and the Italians have a name for it. I'm not sure who created it (and who really cares?) it tastes great, is simple to make and can turn any fruit into a rich and impressive dessert. Ok, my money is on the Italians, but if you know otherwise drop us an email.