Seafood Chowder

We have just returned from a gorgeous week long winter escape to Tasmania - just the thing to bring a bit of joy to what is often mid year blah-ness. I was lucky enough to win return flights to Hobart courtesy of Destination Tasmania, so the trip was an unexpected and much welcomed surprise. We had already decided there would be no trips for us this year, as we saving to buy a house over there, but it seems that the Goddess had other ideas and so off we went!

Tasmania in winter is just beautiful - cold? well yes.... we actually got snowed on as we stood on the banks of an alpine lake taking in the pristine beauty of it. Little snowflakes fluttering down on a face numbing wind. Breathtaking - literally! But with the harsh winter, there is also a lovely cosy feel too - the smell of wood smoke and open fires, everyone rugged up against the cold. And of course, plenty of seasonal comfort food - which is the inspiration for today's recipe.

Filled with fresh seafood and flavoured with leeks and eschallots, my seafood chowder will more than warm the cockles of your heart - especially when served with warm crusty bread on a cold winter night. I used fish, scallops and prawns for my version, but you can use any seafood really. It is also beautiful with the addition of mussels and clams. For a budget friendly version, you can use just fish and it will still be delicious.

As well as my chowder recipe, I also wanted to share a new addition to my kitchen. I have been searching for an old copper kettle for ages, and was thrilled to find one in Hobart. Being an antique, it has a few bumps and mends on it - but no holes, which is the important part! I think it is just beautiful and has heaps of character. It's going to be a pleasure to use. I love the thought of using something that has a history - I wish my new kettle could talk and tell me where it's been and whose households it has been a part of. Here it is, pre- polish.

My Antique Copper Kettle

Now back to the chowder - it is best eaten freshly made and is not suitable to freeze. But it is so delicious you're unlikely to have any leftovers. Serve it will warm crusty bread and lashings of butter. Roaring winter fire optional.

Seafood Chowder

You will need: 400g firm white fish cut into cubes, 6 large shelled and de-veined prawns, 6 scallops, 1 large potato, 1 small carrot, 1 leek- white part only, 4-6 eschallots, 1 clove finely chopped garlic, 2 cups fish or vegetable stock, 2 cups milk, 3 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 2 tablespoons plain flour, 2 pinches cayenne pepper, 2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley, a little extra olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

Method: Peel and finely dice the carrot and potato. Set aside.

Finely slice the leek and eschallots. In a saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Cook the leeks and eschallots on a medium heat for about 5 minutes, until very soft. Do not let them brown. Add the garlic, carrot and potato, season with salt and pepper and cook for another 5 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the pot and set aside.

Cut your prawns and scallops in half and season them with salt and pepper. Heat a little extra olive oil in the pan and cook them quickly on a high heat. The idea is to sear them and give them a little colour - they do not have to be cooked right through, as they will continue to cook in the chowder later. Remove them from the pan and set aside.

Now add 2 tablespoons of butter to the pan. Once bubbling gently, add the plain flour. With a wire whisk, combine the flour and butter thoroughly. It is important to use a whisk and not a spoon, as this will stop any lumps forming. Cook the butter/flour mixture for a few minutes on a medium heat.

Remove from the heat and whisk in the stock, combining well. Now return to the heat. Add the cayenne and milk and whisk it through. The mixture will start to thicken slightly. Add the vegetables back into the pot. Simmer gently for 10 minutes. If the chowder is too thick, add a little extra milk.

Add the fish and stir gently through. Allow to cook for about 2 minutes before adding the prawns, scallops and 1 teaspoon of chopped parsley. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper if required.

Spoon into bowls, top with the remaining parsley and serve with warm crusty bread. Serves 4 people.

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Pork, Cider and Apples

Pork and apples really is a classic combination, and today's recipe uses a leg of pork and Granny Smith apples, along with the delicious addition of my favourite summer drink - apple cider. The cider, pork and apples combine to form a beautiful rich gravy with the perfect balance and sweetness and tartness. Fenel seeds add some subtle aromatics that take the flavour to another level.

 This dish is very versatile. Serve it as is, with vegetables or rice. Turn it into a fancy cottage pie by adding creamy mash to the top and browning it in the oven. Or do what I did and use it as a filling for a wonderful golden crusted pie. Individual pies would be lovely too.

Be sure to choose a good quality cider for this dish - just like wine, if you aren't happy to drink it, it doesn't belong in your food! There are lots of good ones around these days. My favourite cider at the moment is Monteith's Crushed Apple Cider from the rugged west coast of New Zealand.  It is usually sold in packs of 4 bottles - which works out great. One for the recipe and three to drink while you wait for the pork to cook! This is a slow cooked dish (2 hours), so I don't recommend making this when you rush home from work. I cooked it on Sunday morning, let it cool and then popped my pastry on the top to cook at dinner time. You could also make it the day before you wanted to serve it. Easy.

Pork, Apple & Cider Pie

Ready to serve with an icy cold Monteith's Cider

Apples make this dish taste fabulous, but did you know that there may be something in that old saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away"? Apples and apple cider have a high concentration of phenolics and antioxidants which can be helpful in preventing heart disease, cancer, and other ailments. Bring on the Monteith's I say!

Other good ciders to look out for are Pipsqueak Cider from Little Creatures Brewery in Western Australia and Huon Cider which comes from Tasmania. If you can't get these, Magner's or Bulmer's - probably the most common cider you see around, is fine. Strongbow have been selling cider for a long time, but I'm not a huge fan of it. There are better ones out there and any large bottle shop will be sure to have a selection.

Served with creamy mash and Sauteed cabbage

Served on my favourite second hand French  flea market plates

This recipe will easily serve 4 to 6 people and is ideal to freeze as well. So don't be put off by the lengthy cooking time. Make it when you have time and heat it up when you don't. I used a smallish leg of pork for my dish, but any diced pork with a little bit of fat on it would be fine. Just don't choose pork that is too lean for this - you are cooking it for a long time, so lean cuts will just dry out. Save those for grilling or pan frying. You can also experiment with different varieties of apples - but I recommend using apples that are a little on the tart side for best results. The eschallots break down, caramelise and become very sweet, so a tart apple stops the dish from being too cloying.


You will need: 1.5 - 2kg boneless leg of pork, 10-15 eschallots, About 330ml apple cider (I used 1 small bottle of Monteith's Crushed Apple Cider - my favourite), 2 cloves garlic, 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard, 1 litre chicken stock, 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1 tablespoon cornflour, 1 tablespoon fennel seeds roughly chopped, 1 tablespoon sweet paprika, 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley stalks, 3 Granny Smith apples peeled and cored, salt and pepper, olive oil.

Method: Preheat the oven to 160C.

Remove the skin from the leg of pork. Cut the pork into cubes about 4 cm each. Place them in a bowl with a splash of olive oil, the paprika and a very generous seasoning of salt and pepper. Mix well (your hands are best for this)

Heat a pan on the top of the stove that can be used on your stovetop and then transferred to the oven - cast iron is great for this. Splash in some olive oil and cook the pork in batches. You want it to have a bit of colour, but it doesn't need to be cooked through. Set the pork aside.

Now put the eshallots in the pan with the fennel seeds, garlic and parsley stalks. Cook them for a minute, then add the pork and stir well. Pour in the stock and the cider. Add the mustard and season with salt and pepper. Put a lid on the pot and transfer to the oven - preheated to 160C. Cook for 1 hour with the lid on.

Cut the apple into bite sized pieces. In a cup, mix the cornflour and a couple of tablespoons of water together until smooth.

Remove the pork from the oven, stir through the cornflour mixture and the apples. Turn up the oven to 200C. Return the pot to the oven and cook uncovered for another hour, stirring occasionally.

You can eat the pork at this stage with mash or vegetables - or like I did today, allow the mixture to cool, transfer to a pie dish, cover with pastry and bake until golden to make a delicious pie. I served mine with creamy mash and sauteed cabbage.

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Rugging up...Cosying down

Brew me a cup for a winter's night.

For the wind howls loud and the furies fight;

Spice it with love and stir it with care,

And I'll toast our bright eyes,

my sweetheart fair.

~Minna Thomas Antrim

The winter weather has brought us wild and wooly conditions here in the past week or so - not great for getting out into the garden, which I have been dying to do since we got back from overseas. I have a whole lot of winter plants to get in the ground that sadly remain sitting in pots at the back door, waiting for a break in the wind and the rain so I can go out and plant them. But where my attempts to get out in the garden have failed so far, the weather could not be more perfect for heading to the warm kitchen and creating some comfort food.

Combine the comfort food weather with a lazy long weekend and some new French cookware, and you have the inspiration for today's recipe, a slow roasted shoulder of pork, flavoured with the delicious warming aromatics of juniper berries and fennel seed. Add succulent caramelised eschallots with baby potatoes, carrots and delicious in season Buerre Bosc pears and you have a beautiful winter dish full of warmth and flavour. The pears make a lovely change from the classic pork and apple combo. As well as tasting amazing, they also look beautiful too.

Since returning from our honeymoon, I had been dying to try out our new Le Creuset French oven - a gorgeous wedding gift that I felt needed to be christened sooner rather than later. This comforting pork dish fitted the bill perfectly. You will notice that the cooking time for this recipe is long - 2hours 15mins to cook with 15 minutes resting time for the meat. Definitely not something you would attempt to whip up after rushing in from work one night! It is however, worth the time and in actual fact takes very little effort. A great weekend dish that you can pretty much set and forget, while you curl up on the couch with a glass of wine and a good book, as the house fills with the delectable aroma of the dish.

I have used pork shoulder (with the skin on) for this recipe - I love this cut of pork, which is full of flavour and is less likely to dry out than the much more expensive pork loin. I've noticed that pork loin seems to be favoured by cook books and magazines because it looks good when it is carved, but in my opinion, pork shoulder runs rings around it's admittedly prettier counterpart. It's all about flavour for me, so pork shoulder wins the day every time.

3/4 of the way through the cooking process

note my beautiful new red Le Creuset French oven!

When we were in Paris a few weeks ago, I noticed the French penchant for cooking peas with lettuce (sometimes they add a little lardons or cubes of speck/bacon too) Peas are amongst my favourite vegetables, and cooking them with lettuce and a little butter really brings out the sweetness of the peas. The crunch of the lettuce, the sweetness of the peas and the lushness that a touch of butter gives, makes this my new favourite accompaniment to any kind of cooked protein. - Beef, lamb, chicken, fish, all kinds of game and of course pork.

If you are thinking "Cooked lettuce?...Ewwwwww!" Trust me when I say that it is delicious. If you give this a try, I promise you will be a convert. My preferred lettuce to use is baby Cos, if you can get it. You need lettuce that has some structure and crunch - don't attempt this with soft lettuce varieties - you need something that will not totally wilt to nothing when you apply a little heat to it.

I chose to make a gravy out of the pan juices from today's dish (directions below) but if you really can't be bothered, then just drizzle the pan juices over the top. The flavours of the juniper and fennel combined with the pork, eschallots and pears are a knockout - aromatic and warm and delicious and the perfect comforting winter fare. Enjoy!

Slow cooked fennel and juniper baked pork

with caramelised eschallots, Buerre Bosc Pears

and French style peas

You will need:

For the pork: 1.5kg peice of pork shoulder with the skin on, 12 peeled whole eschallots, 12 baby potatoes (you could also use Kipfler potatoes or just cut larger potatoes into smallish peices - either way, leave the skins on), 3 Buerre Bosc pears, 12 dutch carrots (or use baby carrots of any variety), 1 teaspoon juniper berries, a couple of pinches of cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, 2 cloves finely chopped garlic, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 tablespoon blood plum vinegar (if you don't have this, raspberry or pomegranate vinegar would be a good substitute), salt and pepper.

**If you want to make a proper gravy like I did (instead of just drizzling the pan juices over the finished dish), you will also need: 1 heaped tablespoon plain flour and about 2 - 3 cups chicken stock.

For the French style peas

2 cups peas, 3/4 cup finely sliced cos lettuce (or any firm style lettuce), 1 tablespoon salted butter, salt and pepper to taste.

Method: First, pat the pork dry with paper towels and then score the skin quite deeply crossways. (You can also tie the meat up with kitchen string at this stage if you wish - it will help the meat hold it's shape)

Now, make the marinade - Place the juniper berries and fennel seeds in a mortar and pestle and pound until finely crushed. Combine this spice mixture with the olive oil, vinegar, cayenne pepper, garlic and a generous seasoning of salt and pepper. Rub generously over the pork and allow to marinate for at least an hour (overnight is even better if you have the time)

Wash and scrub the carrots and potatoes (you do not need to peel them - leave the skins on for more flavour) Preheat the oven to 180C. In a heavy pan (cast iron is ideal, but any heavy casserole dish will be fine) drizzle a little olive oil, then add the pork and eschallots. Cover with a lid and cook for 1 hour, basting the pork once or twice during this time.

After 1 hour, add the potatoes, baste the pork again with the pan juices and cook for another 30 minutes with the lid on. As the eschallots cook and caramelise, they will become very soft and delicate - take care when handling them so that they do not break up too much. Turning them with a large spoon is a good idea.

Remove the cores of the pears and cut them into quarters. Add the pears and the carrots to the pot and cook for another 45minutes, basting a few times during this last stage of cooking.

Remove the pork from the pan, cover with foil and allow it to rest for about 15 minutes before serving. Once rested, carve into slices and serve with the vegetables. Drizzle the pan juices over the top or serve with gravy.

If you are making gravy: Remove all of the vegetables from the pan, leaving all of the juices on the bottom. Put the pan on the top of the stove on a medium heat and sprinkle over the flour. Using a whisk, combine the flour well with the pan juices. The aim here is to ensure that the flour is cooked well before adding the stock - otherwise your gravy will just taste of raw flour. Gradually add the chicken stock, whisking all the time to ensure that there are no lumps. I always use a whisk for this task - never a wooden spoon - as I find using a whisk gives perfect velvety gravy every time. Simmer until thickened and serve with the pork and vegetables.

Method for French style peas: Cook the peas in water or stock until tender. Drain the peas. Melt the butter in a pan and toss the peas and lettuce together for a minute or so until the lettuce wilts slightly (you want the lettuce to retain some crunch, so don't overcook it) Season and serve.

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First Harvest

I have always had a hankering to have my own garden, but living in apartments in the inner city of Sydney with not even a balcony for the last 20 years or so, it has never really been a viable option. So, when Andrew and I moved into a house with a small garden in September last year, (still in the inner city) I was really keen to try my hand at growing the things I like to eat.

The past few months have been a big learning curve, as I discovered all about creating a basic garden - what plants like what growing conditions, what bugs like what plants and how quickly (or slowly) things grow. There have been some disasters, including sad looking coriander that just would not thrive, no matter what I did and discovering that my love for eating strawberries was matched by a whole barrage of bugs that loved them too. They would even wait until they were almost ready to eat and then scoff the lot, leaving only pale pink stalks. How very dare they!! I have conducted snail patrols at night, removing the culprits that levelled all of my oak leaf lettuce in one night's work and cursed the catterpillars that decided my capsicum leaves were super tasty. Not wanting to use nasty chemicals, I have had to employ the squash and destroy method for those critters!

Our garden beds are pretty much filled with flowers, trees and shrubs - so my herbs and vegetables have all been grown in pots/tubs. I have been amazed at how well things grow in pots and how simple they are to take care of. They also have the advantage of being easy to move around if required. At the moment, I have a few different varieties of lettuce, 6 different kinds of tomatoes (including heirloom varieties), capsicum, beetroot and chillies. In the herb department, we have continental and traditional curly leaf parsley, lemongrass, tarragon, sage, rosemary, lemon verbena, mint, 3 different kinds of basil (including Thai), dill, oregano and thyme. It has been fanatstic to just pop out the back door to pick fresh herbs whenever I want them.

Last week the first of the beetroot and tomatoes were ready to be picked, and I was ridiculously excited to see what began as tiny seedlings grow into actual vegetables! The tomatoes tasted beautiful - a world away from those awful floury things they try to sell in the supermarket. And the beetroot? Well, they are one of my very favourite vegetables, so I wanted to create a dish that showcased their beautiful earthy nature and natural sweetness - not to mention that stunning dark ruby colour.

Before:

Beetroot harvested from my garden

(and my first baby Roma tomatoes)

So, what did I do? First, I washed and trimmed the beetroot (removing the stalks/leaves) and boiled them in plain water for about 15 minutes. For the last couple of minutes of cooking, I added 8 whole, peeled eschallots. After cooking, I drained the whole lot. Then I put the eschallots in a bowl and set them aside. I put the hot beetroot in another bowl of cold water and rubbed the outside, removing the tough outside skin.

Next step, I put the beetroot and eschallots in a ceramic dish with 6 cloves garlic, 2 tablespoons olive oil, a tablespoon maple syrup, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, plenty of salt and pepper and 1 cup of water. I baked it all covered in foil for 50mins at about 190C. Then, I removed the foil, gave it all a stir and let it cook uncovered for another 30 minutes. I let everything cool down a little before tossing the mixture trough some baby spinach leaves and drizzling it with the juices from the pan. And this is what I ended up with...

 

After:

Roasted baby beet and caramelised eschallot salad

I could not believe how meltingly soft and delicious the garlic and eschallots were, and how sweet and caramelised the beetroot turned out. I chose to use the combo as a base for a salad, but this would also make a brilliant accompaniment for red meat or game. I think that this dish was made even more special by the fact that the beetroot came right out of my very own garden. There is still more beetroot to come - I am going to let the rest of the plants grow bigger and I have 2 long garden boxes full of them. Plenty for other recipes.

As for the rest of the garden -  I've noticed that my first capsicums are coming on and the chillies are loving this hot weather. I have been picking lettuce for the last week or so and the heirloom tomatoes I planted have doubled in size in a really short time. It all seems to be working so far. I have already started thinking of other things I want to grow - it is just so much fun and so satisfying. My humble little corner of the inner city landscape is just bursting with growth and it really does bring a bit of special lush green magic into my world. As my garden has grown, I have become super aware of all the creatures that live there - (as well as the bugs that like to share my crops!!) there are bees, ladybirds, pretty spiders and butterflies - all making my garden their home. I'm just getting so much pleasure from all these living things. Yep -  I think I'm going to like this whole kitchen garden thing!

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