Food has been getting political in our house recently. It started when our 7 year old son took his distress at seeing images of homeless and terrified Orangutans in Indonesian forests and decided to make our household palm oil free. This has been no simple task. An incredible 10% of supermarket products contain this cheap oil, demand for which is driving the destruction of Orangutan habitat in south east Asia and bringing this dear creature to the very edge of extinction. These products include the usual suspects – most processed snack foods from lollies to dry biscuits contain palm oil and the kids have quite happily banned all their favourite treat foods. Some are more surprising, such as the bulk of peanut butters in which the high value peanut oil is extracted and replaced with the cheaper palm oil. And good luck finding supermarket toothpastes, soaps and moisturisers without this ingredient.

My childrens’ dedication inspired to me to dig out the Ethical Supermarket Shopping book that Santa gave me for Christmas. Its a challenging read. The booklet notes boycott calls on Nestle, whose aggressive marketing of baby formula in the third world has been linked to infants deaths, a fact which has not gone un-noticed by the World Health Organisation. Then there is their child labour and workers rights records. Coca-Cola Amatil? Murder, kidnapping and torture of union leaders at their Colombian plants. Groundwater and soil pollution and exposure to toxic waste in India. L’Oreal and Proctor and Gamble continue inhumane and lethal animal experimentation. Even more unhappily, L’Oreal is 26% owned by Nestle and now owns the Body Shop. Major criticisms also for Kelloggs, Kraft, Mars, PepsiCo, Revlon and a host of others.

My initial revisiting of this booklet was paralysing. How can you make ethical choices when so much of what we find on Supermarket shelves contributes to pollution, slavery, environmental vandalism and more? I imagined that we would have to slowly compile a list of things its OK to buy, as the list of unethical items was just too huge. Then it dawned on me: there is a very clear correlation between what is good for your body and what is good for the environment and global community we all call home. The take home message is that cheap, processed foods with long ingredient lists are just not good for anybody.

I don’t really like to preach, but sometimes it seems necessary and no matter how you look at it comes down to this: inserting soft drinks and chips and bottled sauces and chocolate bars into your body is bad for you. We all know this. It gives you cancer and diabetes and it makes you fat and it inflames your arteries and slowly poisons you. If you’re a parent, it models this to your children, and as surely as drinking and drugs you are teaching them to be sick. Now lots of people seem to like to revel in this kind of behavior these days: It’s the food version of the general rolling around in its own abundance that the Western world likes to do. Whilst you could argue that it might be OK to do this kind of thing to yourself, I wonder how many people stop to consider the impact their choices are having on other people. When you buy a bottle of coke, you are essentially casting a vote for Coca Cola Amatil and saying “my desire for this product right now is more important than access to clean drinking water for people in India”. So it’s pretty simple – every single time you make a choice about what to put in your mouth you are casting a vote about what is acceptable behaviour in the arena of food politics.

After much agonising over ingredient lists and endless internet research, I came to the following conclusion: if its healthy for me, odds are its OK for everyone else. It’s not a perfect match I know and granted my “healthy” standard is probably set higher than it needs to be but its a start. Fruit and veg, mostly organic and / or local, ethically sourced meat, whole foods, simple fats, small producers, minimal packaging. So we’re stumbling along, my family and I, very imperfectly trying to change our food habits. The best thing is, though, that we’re having a a whole heap of fun doing it. The kids are profoundly inspired by their ability to take positive action – all they have to do is not choose the pizza shapes. Today we made toasted museli (because Uncle Tobys isn’t all that great either and the cereal munchers in the household are struggling for an alternative). The kids loved it – stirring big bowls of organic oats with cold extracted honey from small producer at the St Andrews market, fragrant with cranberries and mixed peel and vanilla. They know its story, they know why we’re eating it. Its real, its delicious and it minimises harm.

Cranberry and orange museli

The only part of this recipe you need to stick to is the oats, honey and oil and the method. Otherwise, its all about the flavours you personally like.

• 500gm rolled oats
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup mixed peel
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 160 celcius. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Heat the honey and oil to make the honey liquid. Add the vanilla extract to the honey and oil. Stir the combined liquids through the dry ingredients until well mixed. Cover a couple of baking trays with baking paper and spread the museli mix across the two trays in a thin layer. Place in the oven and cook for about half an hour until golden. You will need to stir it regularly to stop it from burning. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

When I was about 32 weeks pregnant with our first child, we made the decision to have a homebirth. Alex’s conception had been accidental and at 5 weeks in our local GP told us we had better take a tour of the local hospitals pronto and make our decision quickly. We had no idea what we were doing and were quickly sucked into the vortex of obstetric processing, testing and generally over-medicalised fear mongering that characterises publicly funded maternity care in Australia. I remain ever grateful to the friend who suggested that we opt out of hospital ante-natal classes and instead attend an intensive weekend session by birth educator Rhea Dempsey, the result of which was the decision to pursue homebirth. Shortly before my due date we went to collect a birth pool that we were renting from a couple who made such things. These lovely people helped us strap the pool to the roof of our tiny car, gave us a delicious fish pie for an easy meal after the birth and informed us that people who start with home birthing tend to end up in home schooling.

The home schooling thing hasn’t happened (although I can’t deny I’ve thought hard about it) but I often think about this comment becuase that woman sure was on to something. I am a powerful advocate of birthing rights, which are currently under sustained and pernicious attack in this country. Its not just that I am concerned by the medicalisation of the natural (if entirely epic) journey of pregnacy and birth. It’s that when a woman truly stands in the power of her own birth, however she births, she stands in the power of motherhood. Women who have stood in the power of homebirth are questioners of authority. They tend to trust themselves and their children. They don’t fret about feeding schedules or sleeping patterns, or the minuteae of developmental milestones. They do not entrust their understanding of their child to the experts. They strap that little mammal to their milky breasts and get on with their lives being with their children.

Some weeks ago I came across a business that will, for some undisclosed amount of money, send someone into your kitchen and teach your child to cook. I find this unspeakably sad. Cooking with your child is not something that should be farmed out to a suitably qualified professional. Cooking is not a technical skill, it is a labour of love. It is you spending time with your child, licking the beaters, peeling carrots and opening the oven door way more often than you should. It is being in front of the oven on a rainy day, making messes and mistakes. What do you want your child to remember? Time with Miss X learning to make the perfect pie crust, or long afternoons with you in the kitchen up to their elbows in cake batter? It was a public holiday today and I spent all afternoon in the kitchen with my 5 year old girl wondering in and out to help with banana bread, muffins, a meatball soup and a chicken casserole for tomorrow night. It was delightful. She cracked eggs and mashed bananas and got very sticky. These are the times I will remember, and the times I hope she remembers, too.

Persimmon and quince muffins

This recipe is great if you have some poached quince left over. To poach quince, you simmer the slices in a light sugar syrup (1 part sugar: 2 parts water) and a split vanilla bean until they are a deep rose colour. Alchemy, magic, beauty. Don’t move them around too much early on or they will break apart, but after they have been poached they “set” and are fairly sturdy.

• 4 slices poached quince, cut into thirds
• 1 cup of persimmon puree (if you are using the sweeter, hard variety of persimmon you will need to stew the pieces in a little water before pureeing)
• 2 eggs (lightly beaten)
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups self-raising flour

Preheat the oven to 180 celcius and line a 12 muffin tin with muffin cases. Sift the flour into a bowl. Mix the persimmon, milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla and oil until well combined and add to the flour. Stir until only just combined. Drop a dollop of batter into the bottom of each muffin case. Place a chunk of quince into each muffin and fill up the cases with the remaining batter. Cook for about 20-25 minutes until the muffins are soft and springy to the touch.

I grew up in a big rambling weatherboard house on a quarter acre block in the Melbourne suburb of Surrey Hills. My mum, dad, brother and I lived in the old part of the house. I remember pine floor boards, high ceilings and fragile stained glass windows. My bedroom had an open fire place and outside the sash window was a lilac whose smell I vividly remember quarter of a century later.

My maternal grandparents lived in an extension to the original building. Their “wing” was joined to the old house by a lurid green sunroom that would be luminescent in spring when the old oak tree came to life outside. The sunroom was the link between the two parts of the house and the gateway to the working spaces. The most mysterious of these was the darkroom. It was an alchemical, magical place where dad’s exquisite black and white landscapes would be forged.

The more prosaic shared spaces of the house were the laundry and kitchen. Although I’m sure my mum would have cooked most of my meals, it is Nana and Grandad I remember in the kitchen. They come from County Durham in Northern England and it is this culinary heritage they passed on to me. Nana did the baking and in her prime consistently produced a short crust pastry that was quite simply without peer. Suet puddings (mainly jam and ginger) were regularly provided and her Shrove Tuesday crepes (paper thin) remain legendary. My own children are now having the pleasure of dousing her endless crepes in lemon juice and sugar.

Grandad would cook fried breakfasts on the weekend, the sort you simply never see any more: bacon fat dropped in to lubricate the pan before the bacon itself, black pudding, egg, fried apple and fried bread. When cooking his own breakfast he would pour the fat (the “juice”, as he called it) over the top at the end. Mum didn’t let him do that for us. He was also the man for making Yorkshire Puddings, which he still sometimes provides. Suet would be heated to blistering temperatures before the batter was poured in to create a golden pillow of dough, the perfect boat for beef gravy and horseradish cream.

The Sunday roasts of my childhood have assumed a fantastical quality in my mind, although I actually suspect my memory is not far from reality. Quite often they would be followed up by a “light” tea: little crustless sandwiches (salmon, cucmuber and egg) and fairy cakes pillowed with whipped cream and dusted with icing sugar. In winter, sometimes this was served as a picnic in my own room in front of the fire.

Some recipes and experiences do not benefit from modernisation. A roast dinner, for me, does not need re-imagining but there is no doubt that they are labour intensive to make. Timing has to be right and the use of lots of pots and pans is inevitable (never good in a dishwasher free household). So it is good to have an alternative for those times when you feel like a roast but can’t bring yourself to create the whole experience. This roast chicken is a quick and dirty version of a slightly more complicated French dish. There is nothing to it really, but the mixture of garlic, tarragon and roasted grapes makes for a truly bountiful experience and an amazing family meal that can easily be served on a weeknight.

Vintner’s Chicken

• 4 Chicken Marylands
• 4 large potatoes, cut into half lengthways, each half cut into thirds lengthways
• 2 heads of garlic, cloves pulled apart and lightly bruised
• 10 sprigs tarragon
• 500gm red grapes, divided into about 5 bunches
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil

Warm your oven to 220 Celsius. Place the potatoes in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Boil for about 3 minutes, then drain. Mix the potatoes, chicken pieces, garlic, tarragon, oil, salt and pepper together in a roasting dish. When all the ingredients have been mixed well, arrange the pan so that the Marylands are resting skin up on the potatoes. It might not hurt to sploosh on a little more oil and salt at this point. Roast for about 20 minutes, giving the pan the occasional shake. Drop the temperature to 200 and tuck the grapes around the chicken. Return to the oven and cook for a further 20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the grapes are soft and the chicken juice runs clear. Looks pretty great served on a big platter in the middle of the table.

When those horsemen bear down a smart mouth, a working knowledge of the Aboriginal Heritage Act and the ability to inflate a duck with a bicycle pump will not serve me well. There are however people with real skills out there. They are growing food forests, darning socks and building earth ships. They are generating electricity out of sunlight and killing animals with their bare hands. They make wine and cheese from things they have grown themselves and they now how to make perpetual motion machines from hand woven twine and pieces of prickly pear.

Through the marvels of social media I am now able to lurk on the fringes of this community. The Ballarat Permaculture Guild is one such group, where I listen avidly, try to keep my mouth shut and attempt to retain useful knowledge. I have  also become virtual friends with a very clever and lovely man. He is an Iaido playing friend of my husbands, always a good start as those Kendo and Iaido people are largely terribly decent folk. Through his Facebook feed I have built a picture of him, his beautiful and evidently also very clever wife and gorgeous young children. They grow food, they eat food, they lovingly maintain a sourdough starter, they are building an underground cellar out of wooden pallets. He’s making honey mead and his own bacon. There’s no magic, mystery or self-satisfaction involved. Just lots of hard work and passion.

I was therefore thrilled to get a message in my inbox this morning announcing that he had been quietly working on a blog and was now preparing to share it more widely. I gobbled down about 10 posts before coming up for air: there is a lot to be learned from this blog. It’s called I am Not an Urban Hippy (although, of course, he is a bit) and I suggest you get onto it. I was thinking of this blog today as I made a quite delicious rabbit and juniper pie with a wild rabbit ironically purchased cryo-vacced from the local supermarket. When the Apocalypse comes, these will be the folk with the access to the bunnies and possibly the juniper berries as well. Giddy-up!

Rabbit and juniper pie

• 1 rabbit, cut into four pieces (this is assuming you buy one that’s already been processed. If you’ve killed one yourself there will be some additional steps involved. I have no idea what they are)
• 2 medium onions, halved and sliced
• 1 green apple, peeled and sliced
• 2 parsnips, peeled and cut into large dice
• 200gm of bacon, cut into large dice
• 1 fresh bay leaf
• Freshly ground salt and pepper
• 1 small bottle of apple cider
• 1 teaspoon lightly crushed juniper berries
• 40 gm butter
• 40 gm flour
• Double quantity of shortcrust pastry. Recipe here: http://www.libby-cooks.com/2011/06/the-imperfect-pearl-winter-pear-flan/

Place the rabbit pieces in large saucepan and add all other ingredients apart from the butter, flour and pastry (that last one is fairly obvious, I would have thought). Bring slowly to the boil and then remove the scum that rises to the surface. Cover and simmer gently for about 1.5 hours until really tender. With a slotted spoon remove the rabbit, fruit and vegies from the pan, leaving the cooking liquid aside. When the meat is cool enough to handle, carefully pick through it for bones. This takes a bit of effort as their little ribs can be quite tricky to find.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small pan and add the flour, stirring until bubbling and well combined. You want to cook the floury taste out of it. Slowly add the mixture to the reserved cooking liquid while it simmers happily on the stovetop, stirring constantly until the sauce becomes smooth and thick. Return the pie mixture to the pan and stir through well.

Make the pastry an hour before you need it. Divide into two portions and refrigerate for half an hour. When the resting time is up, line the base of a pie dish with one  portion of the pastry and place the lined dish in the freezer while you warm the oven to 200c. When the oven is warmed, remove the pie dish. Cover the pastry with foil or baking paper and place baking weights or a pyrex dish on top of it and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Then remove the weights and the foil and bake for a further 5. Pour the hot pie filling into the dish, roll out the second piece of pastry and make a lid. Make sure you cut a little hole in the top to let the steam out. Brush with milk and pepper and return to the oven until the pie is golden brown.

I served this with a simple salad made from sliced apples, raspberries and fresh thyme. These flavours matched the pie perfectly and a the crispy texture of the apples was a lovely contrast to the unctuous pie.

The early morning chestnuts came from the grove of one our members. The nuts are glossy and mahogany red, unbelievably fresh and begging to be roasted. Some of them are sitting on my dining room table right now. Their days, possibly even their hours, are numbered. The day, however, got better. This year our event is to be catered by Steve Earl, head chef of local restaurant La Bimba. Steve is also a man who has harnessed the awesome power of the Otways to grow fungi: he is a man in possession of a productive truffle-farm. I knew little of his property and the things that occur there when I turned off the Great Ocean Road and drove up into the hills. Stepping out of the car I was nearly knocked sideways by the smell of woodsmoke on an early Autumn afternoon – the smell of Lapsang Souchong and leather boots drying by the fire.

It all started out fine. Steve’s lovely mother in law greeted me at the house and instructed their dog to take me to the shed and his master. We talked for a while about the Feral Feast, about the hunting and storing of deer and other matters. So far, so good, although I was starting to find Steve’s enthusiasm for ethical, wild harvest meat production infectious and at least half my mind decided to occupy itself with fantasies of late dusk deer hunting. Sometime between the discussions on the availability of rabbits and startling information about eating local hermit crabs my grip on reality broke somewhat. The rest of my time at Steve’s place largely consisted of me trying to keep my cool in face of the ridiculous beauty and productive capacity of his property.

Coral pink Pine Mushrooms and strong, yellow Slippery Jacks were plucked from the lawn for me to feel and smell. The heritage apple orchards and heirloom tomato patches were investigated. A plant that Steve described as a Hawthorn was plucked out of a creek. It has a tuber that can be used like an especially fragrant sweet potato and the flower, fleshy but with an ecstatically delicate fragrance, is apparently used in African goat curries. We passed stands of elder-flowers and a fruiting feijoa. We drove past the truffiere with its young but healthy stand of English Oaks and Hollyoaks. Dolores the truffle pig was sadly unavailable for viewing. Up past the truffiere we came to the paddocks upon which Steve lovingly grows his meat – special breed sheep and cattle. The animals are perched on hillsides with million dollar views to the horizon, marinating in the salt howling in from the Southern Ocean. The animals are friendly, docile and content. Steve is in no hurry to grow them and their meat will marble well. They are processed comparatively locally in Colac to supply La Bimba. Their life is good and their food miles low.

Before I left I was lead through a series of small gardens, dark and Autumnal, dotted with tables and secret places, across old lichen covered wooden bridges and down a gully where a waterfall drops into a little pool. Here Steve showed me one of his latest experiments – a few small Wasabi plants the colour of freshly peeled broad beans. Their future is uncertain: Steve is waiting to see if they will withstand the fast moving waters that come down these streams in heavy rains. I, for one, will be keeping my eye out on the menu at La Bimba as I walk down the Main Street. What an afternoon. I tried not gush, really I did, but I can quite honestly say that I have never looked forward to an AGM as much as I am right now.

This year, as the season has turned, I have for the first time come to a better understanding of my own changes. My approach to cooking also shifts with the season.  In Spring and Summer I look outwards, seeking the exotic. My cooking becomes expansive. More ingredients, more dishes, more effort. Come the Autumn, however, and my view becomes more local and seasonal. Less ingredients, slower cooking, greater focus on a single theme. This is is when I regret the fact that I am a terrible gardener and hover between jealousy and admiration of the basic productive capacity of others. I would love to have produce to barter but I lack the skill of growing it. I do have something to trade though, and that is my love of working with the produce at hand.

Apollo Bay is a surprising hub of foodies and cooks and I have no more knowledge and skill than most of them. What I do have is a certain childlike delight in home-cooking. I experience a giddy pleasure at being presented with an ingredient and having to do something with it. And so this is what I offer: bring me your excess, the stuff you don’t use but are loathe to waste. In return I will give you something I have made. Maybe it will be from the produce you have given me, maybe it will be something else. Give me your tamarillos, I may give you some quince jam. Let me trade my love of cooking for your skills in growing.

On my stove top right now is a pot of soup featuring that kale and a juicy smoked ham hock. We had it for dinner with handfuls of shredded basil and grated Parmesan. I sat at the table with the man I love and ate soup and drank wine and talked and laughed. We’ve been so busy lately, moments like this are a rare oasis and those first pots of autumn soup always blissful. Later we will move on to a bowl of rhubarb stewed in spices and vanilla essence. The equinox has passed and as we move toward the solstice let us glory in its bounty.

Spice – stewed rhubarb

• approximately 12 stems of rhubarb, trimmed, washed and cut into 2inch pieces
• 3 apples, peeled, cored and cut into a large dice
• 1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
• 2-3 tablespoons of water
• 1/3 cup of brown sugar (feel free to adjust to taste)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1/4 of a teaspoon of ground allspice
• 6 cardamon pods

Combine ingredients in a heavy based saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar his dissolved. Cover, and allow to cook over gentle heat until fruit has softened, about 10 minutes, stirring regularly.

By and large, I don’t really do maternal guilt. Well, at least not much. Not for me, the hand- wringing, the constant self second – guessing and personal recriminations. Maternal guilt is the first step on the path to martyrdom, a plague that stalks all parents. If succumbed to it causes you to lose your sense of self, to sacrifice the things that bring you joy, to estrange you from your lover. Eventually you find yourself competing among your peers in the joyless competition sport of whose life sucks the most. Every parent eventually learns that martyrdom doesn’t lead to heaven, it leads to purgatory.

But of course everyone has their weak spots. The breaking point for me nearly always comes after three nights of take away in any 5 given business days. Take away in this context has a broad definition. It can have the standard meaning (things with chips, pizza, take away Chinese) but must also include processed foods in containers from the supermarket (pre-marinated satays, Chicken Kievs etc). Weeks like this happen in families where all available adult/s have commitments other than parenting. You know, just those small commitments like paying the bills, study, paying the bills, maintaining hobbies and interests and paying the bills.

We’ve been having plenty of weeks like this lately. I’ve been absent from home a lot, driving across half the state for meetings and then returning home dazed to meet my regular commitments for a few days before packing my bag and leaving again. It’s not just that there’s no time to cook, more difficult is finding the creative energy to decide what to cook. Thinking of what to feed your family night after night is relentless and exhausting at the best of times, when you’re under other pressures it’s nearly impossible. Your brain aches like your bones do, the world is ringing in your ears, and simple decisions become overwhelming. You can’t think, let alone cook, and before you know it it’s fish and chips. Again.

And that, for me, is when the maternal guilt kicks in. I do not want to find my children dead in front of the TV, killed by the excess consumption of trans fats and cheap carbs. I want us back around the table where we should be, eating the food I prepared with love, food that is healthy and tasty and good. And there is a particular dish that is the panacea to my maternal guilt. It is quick and simple, healthy and tasty. Its easily adaptable to the ingredients at hand and best of all, I make it so often that I don’t have to think about it at all. This marvellous dish is, of course, chicken noodle soup.

Chicken noodle soup

• 1 litre Chicken Stock
• 2 finely sliced chicken breasts
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon minced galangal or ginger
• Zest of 1 lime or 2 Kaffir lime leaves
• Juice of 1 lime
• 3 whole coriander roots
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce
• Half an iceberg lettuce, roughly shredded
• Handful of snow peas, trimmed
• Handful Asian greens (any sort)
• Fresh Coriander
• Dried chili flakes
• Egg noodles, prepared to package instructions

Place the stock in a medium saucepan. The pre-made stock is fine – this isn’t a fancy dish, it’s just a quick healthy weeknight fix. You might like to add a couple of extra cups of water to make the broth go further. Add the garlic, galangal or ginger, lime and coriander roots. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. This is a good time to slice your chicken and prepare your veggies. Add the fish sauce and sugar and bring back up to a good boil. Throw in the chicken and drop the heat back to medium. Let the chicken poach gently until just cooked before adding the vegetables and simmer for a further few minutes. Divide the noodles between deep bowls and serve the soup, garnishing with the coriander and chili flakes to taste. Season with salt to taste.

]]> http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/03/comfort-food-chicken-noodle-soup/feed/ 1 http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/02/in-the-genes-simple-malaysian-beef-curry/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-the-genes-simple-malaysian-beef-curry http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/02/in-the-genes-simple-malaysian-beef-curry/#comments Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:26:22 +0000 libby http://www.libby-cooks.com/?p=431 Continue reading →]]> It’s a primordial soup, here.  The clouds and the rain have settled in, sandwiching the town between the smell of the forest and the salt tang of the sea. The Otway Ranges are wet, temperate rainforest sliding down into the Southern Ocean, just about the very bottom of mainland Australia, the dark heart and lungs of the Great Ocean Road. Today it’s gray and it’s wet and it’s humid. My husband has been reading Heart of Darkness. His word of the moment is “miasmic” and it’s miasmic here right now. Acts of creation are taking place. There’s a curry on the stove you see and I am, at this very minute, breathless with anticipation

Malaysian curries. How I love them. All the dark complexities of Indian food plus the delicate high end notes of south east Asia. I can’t think of another cuisine that so perfectly balances Baroque complexity with home-cooked comfort. The curry on my stove-top right now could hardly be more simple. Onions, garlic and ginger fried until softened, a large amount of a Malaysian meat curry powder, cinnamon, star anise and  coriander roots. A stem of lemongrass bobs in the thick golden gravy. A red oil is just now starting to rise to the surface. When the fibres of the meat have broken down some more, I’ll throw in some potatoes and finish it off with coconut cream.

It is magic, alchemy. Nothing more than a cheap cut of meat, potatoes and a small handful of other ingredients. There’s no tricks, no special instructions. All you need to do is bring the components together and they will transform themselves without intervention, the perfect unfolding of a culinary gene sequence that has been repeated for generations. The bowl of miso I had for lunch seems like a long time ago now. My husband was hard pressed to leave the house for Kendo because of this curry and I will be hard pressed to wait for his return to eat it. My seven year old son is in awe of its fragrance. At this point in his life he won’t eat it – he has an uncanny ability to detect and reject tiny quantities of chili within an enormous ocean of food – but Malaysian food is in his genes, courtesy of his father, and I believe that one day he too will fully embrace the many alchemies of his cultural inheritance.

Eating curry in the clouds between the rainforest and the ocean. I am dancing at the feet of my lord, all is bliss, all is bliss.

Simple Malaysian Beef Curry

• 600 gm of topside or blade beef, large dice
• 2 red or brown onions, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons minced ginger
• 3 tablespoons of Malaysian meat curry powder
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 2 whole star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspooon salt
• 3 Coriander roots (whole)
• 1 stem of lemongrass, bottom half only, bruised to release flavour
• 2 potatoes – cut into dice to match the size of your meat
• 1/2 cup coconut cream

Heat the oil in a heavy based frying pan over medium heat. Add the onions, ginger and garlic and fry until soft. Mix the curry and chili powders together and add just enough water to make a stiff paste. Add this paste to the pan and fry for about 1 minute to release the fragrance. Add the meat, cinnamon stick, star anise and salt and stir until the meat is completely coloured and well-covered with the spice paste. Then add the water, lemongrass and coriander roots. Bring to the boil and then cover and simmer gently until the meat is just tender. I used a topside which is very tough and so this took about 2 hours. A blade cut may only take about 40 minutes. When the meat is tender, add the potatoes and continue to cook until they are just cooked through.  Stir in the coconut cream at the end, only long enough for it to warm through, and serve with steamed rice.

 

]]> http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/02/in-the-genes-simple-malaysian-beef-curry/feed/ 3 http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/02/family-table-grilled-honey-chicken-with-thai-green-beans/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=family-table-grilled-honey-chicken-with-thai-green-beans http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/02/family-table-grilled-honey-chicken-with-thai-green-beans/#comments Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:12:31 +0000 libby http://www.libby-cooks.com/?p=421 Continue reading →]]>
When I was first pregnant with my son, we had invited guests to lunch. It may have been nearly a decade ago now, but for various reasons (other than my savant-like food memory) I remember what we served them: pan-fried lamb back straps, a roast beetroot and feta salad and lemon and garlic roast potatoes. Their lovely children struggled with it and we were informed that “we would have to stop that kind of cooking once we had a family”. I’m not sure what they meant by “that sort of cooking”. Nutritious? Tasty? Whatever, really, my immediate reaction was: balls.

And balls it remains. When did feeding your family become so fraught and complicated? Why are we all so wound up about it? Is is our horrendously busy lives? The fact that cooking is a dying art? Is it the experts who are constantly freaking us out about how our children should be born / raised / educated? I’m not sure, but being the home-birthing, co-sleeping, intuitively driven parenting mammal that I am, I’ve always been pretty happy to give the experts the conceptual big finger. Food is rarely a drama at my table. My kids don’t eat everything, but they’re pretty good and extremely open minded. I am a long, long way from being a food nazi, but they tend towards healthy choices most of the time. We enjoy eating together, we like talking about food and they are interested in all aspects of cooking. Now all this may be nothing more than sheer, dumb luck but  I suppose it is possible that some of the choices I’ve made have shaped this result. So here are some of my thoughts on the family table (in order of importance):

Eat together at every possible opportunity. This means at the table, people, not in front of the telly. We have our best conversations around the table and our kids see their parents eating a huge variety of foods. Eating at the table together weaves food into the fabric of everyday life. Dinner is a ritual, a place of bonding. Our kids talk to us and we talk to them beyond the usual routine of answering questions and issuing orders.

Don’t make separate meals for your children. Every parent wants their child to eat well. The risk in making separate meals for your kids is that you will repeatedly make the few things you know they will eat. If you shape their tastes towards a limited range of foods, surely the outcome will be unadventurous eaters.

Keep cooking the same way you always have. Your kids have come into your life. You don’t have to change anything much. And this doesn’t just apply to food, by the way. Listen to your own music, not the bloody Wiggles, keep up your hobbies, go to music festivals, travel, whatever it is you do that makes your life meaningful. Your children are adaptable and they will learn to eat what you teach them to eat. A good trick is to put a few things on the table, a combination of stuff you know they’ll eat plus some potentially more challenging items. That way, they can try a few different things without the pressure of having to commit.

Don’t worry if they don’t eat it. Seriously. Let it go. They’ll be fine.

So having said all that, the following recipe is a prime example of how these ideas work at my place. A south-east Asian meal served on a number of dishes in the middle of the table for everyone to pick at as they choose. The chicken is golden with honey and easy for little people to eat, the beans sweet and salty with deep tropical flavours. Fresh red chili optionally available on the side. Bland steamed rice is their comfort food, will always be eaten and fills small stomachs. Your kids are great, food is great. Enjoy them together.

Grilled honey chicken with Thai green beans

For the Chicken:

• 2 Chicken breasts, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon of honey

Toss the chicken strips through the soy, juice and honey and set aside while you cook some rice and prepare the beans. When the rice is cooked, quickly cook the chicken on a BBQ or stove top grill plate. Set aside and cook the beans.

For the beans:

• 500 gm trimmed green beans
• 1 red onion, finely sliced
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons grated ginger
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh coriander.

Heat oil in a wok or frying pan over high heat until very hot. Throw in the beans, onions, garlic, ginger and cumin and toss briefly to mix. Add the water, toss another 10 seconds and then cover. Leave to cook until the beans are just tender. This will not take long. Remove the lid and add the fish sauce and sugar. Toss briefly then add the coriander and serve. Serve the beans and chicken on separate plates with a bowl of steamed rice and some sliced red chilies on the side.

 

]]> http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/02/family-table-grilled-honey-chicken-with-thai-green-beans/feed/ 0 http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/01/bright-moments-stir-fried-chicken-with-thai-basil-and-red-chili/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bright-moments-stir-fried-chicken-with-thai-basil-and-red-chili http://www.libby-cooks.com/2012/01/bright-moments-stir-fried-chicken-with-thai-basil-and-red-chili/#comments Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:34:29 +0000 libby http://www.libby-cooks.com/?p=399 Continue reading →]]> Transcribed from my notebook as I sat at the beach this evening:

Sometimes, blissfully ecstatic experiences arise unexpectedly. It’s 40 degrees outside, or so they say and it sure feels like it. Our cheaply – built little house with it’s token gestures to insulation is an unbearable sweat-box by midday. The pool, farcically, is closed due to the New Year’s Public Holiday. Oh, the humanity! The northerly wind is blowing in hot air from the central desert and whipping sand up along the Apollo Bay Main Beach. One of the few places left to retreat is the relatively protected mouth of the Barham River where it flows into the open ocean. The Barham is a perfect Otways River. Flowing down from the rain forest, the water is clean (if not clear) and lovely. Before the river discharges into the Southern Ocean it opens out into a large, still pond at the back of the beach.

Duly we inflate the lilo, slather ourselves in sunscreen and drag ourselves out there. We are by this stage semi-comatose with heat. Dazed, confused and sweating we are concerned the winds are going whip the sand up into a frenzy of exfoliation but by the time we arrive they’ve dropped off and the place is a blissful oasis. The kids are ecstatic. The water is just warm enough to be cooling and comfortable and deep enough to be fun without being dangerous. The frolic. They embody joy. Pete and I take turns to head down to the surf, running across the burning sand to where the wild and immaculate Southern Ocean comes pounding onto the beach. The ocean is always cold here, even in this heat, and the waves are big and the undertow strong at the river mouth. We stand up to our knees watching walls of aqua blue swell up before us, golden sunlight dappling across the crest before they crash down and drench us to our chins in pure white foam.

I am already thinking about dinner and at mid-afternoon we head home. Pete has a projection shift at the local cinema so we’re having a late lunch / early dinner. I dump the wet towels on the porch, strip out of my bathers and head straight to the fridge for a cold cider to keep me company while I cook: stir fried chicken with heaps of fish sauce, sugar, Thai basil and mountains of fresh red chili in a coconut milk sauce. It’s so simple and so good: quick, clean, hot Thai food. Sweet and salty. Sweat drips from Pete’s forehead and I am nearly knocked sideways with sunshine, cider and chili.

After dinner, Pete heads off to work and the kids and I head back down to the river. The light now is pure gold and a glorious haze has settled over the beach. I’m sitting on the sand with my notebook while my two small ones dance in the river and make friends with the kids who have come to holiday in this incredibly beautiful place I now call home. I guess we’ll head back to the house at some point. The night will be a scorcher and sleep won’t come quickly. Pete will work late and I will wait for him, just like I did 20 years ago when at 17 I found myself a 26 year old projectionist. Then, he worked in a big Melbourne cinema, now he’s working summer holidays at a small seaside movie house. If I could have imagined so distant a future back then, I could not possibly have imagined a life better than this.

Chicken with Thai basil and red chili

• 2 Chicken breasts, thinly sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped or finely sliced
• couple of handfuls of green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
• couple of handfuls of snow peas, trimmed
• 1 tablespoon canola, peanut or vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 teaspoons of sugar
• 2 red chilies, minced
• Cup of finely sliced Thai  Basil (Apollo Bay locals, I got this from the egg man!)
• 1 cup of coconut milk
• Steamed rice, to serve.

Heat the oil in a hot wok and add the chicken, garlic and vegetables. Toss until the chicken has sealed, making sure to keep it moving quickly so it doesn’t stew. Then add the fish sauce, sugar and basil. Toss for a few seconds before adding the coconut milk. Toss until the coconut milk boils. At this point, serve out for your kids if (like mine) they don’t do chili, then add the chili, heating it through briefly until ready to serve. Serve with steamed rice.       


 

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