Author: Robert Beerworth

I love cooking, wine, travel, my three boys, and two girls, Avalon and my beautiful wife and best friend and cook, Nat...

Nigel Slater’s Pork Belly with Peach Salsa

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

Cudos where cudos are due.

My mother strongly suggested we cook this recipe, what with the narrow window where beautiful, ripe peaches are in season.

And we almost didn’t do it.

The fact that you’re reading it here would hopefully indicate that is was a win.

The spice rub and the salsa work so well together, especially if you get the crackling, really crackling. Leaving the belly in the fridge overnight, uncovered is a great way to achieve this, before adding the rub.

With a simple bowl of steamed rice and some Asian greens on the side, this was a wonderful, wonderful dinner and one which you should definitely try this summer.

While you can!

(Note: I did the salsa in a food processor and I am not sure why you wouldn’t.)

Ingredients

Pork belly, skin finely scored*
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp peanut oil
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
1 tsp Chinese five spice
2 spring onions, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped with seeds
3 peaches, peeled and finely chopped
8 cherry tomatoes, chopped
1 small bunch coriander, chopped
Juice of 2 limes
3 tbsp olive oil
Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

Method

  1. Crush the garlic to a paste and combine with the soy sauce, peanut oil, salt, chilli flakes and five spice and spread over the skin and flesh of the pork and allow to marinate for at least 4 hours or ovenight.
  2. Preheat the over to 220c and roast the poek, skin-side up, for 20 minutes.
  3. Reduce the heat to 200c and continue roasting for another 40 – 50 minutes, or until the skin is dark and crisp.
  4. Toss together the spring onions, chilli, peaches, tomatoes, coriander, lime juice and olive oil, season and serve with the pork.

* Leave the belly in the freezer until it is starting to freeze and at this point, scoring is a much easier task.

Neil Perry’s Prawn Scrambled Eggs

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 2 as a starter

Neil Perry is famous for his Asian omelettes and my first experience was in 1997 when I graduated from school (boarding school no-less) and in a surprise, my old-man picked me up and we drove into the Sydney CBD and had lunch at the original Rockpool.

We had Neil’s famous blue swimmer crap omelette and it was just awesome.

This particular dish is simpler – incredibly simple in fact – though it is that simplicity that makes it just such a wonderful treat.

What a cracking starter by Nat for a long afternoon of Chinese grazing.

Ingredients

300gm green king prawns, peeled and deveined
2 large eggs
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 spring onion, sliced

Sauce

2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
A few drops of sesame oil

Method

  1. To make the sauce, combine the soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil with 2 tbsp water in a small pot and bring to the boil, then remove from the heat.
  2. Break the eggs into a bowl and lightly break up with a fork.
  3. Heat a wok until it is almost smoking, Add half the oil and, when hot, stir-fry the prawns in two batches until almost cooked through. Remove the prawns and wipe the wok clean.
  4. Heat the remaining oil and stir fry the eggs until just beginning to set, then add the prawns and spring onion and gently toss together. Remove from the heat, spoon onto a plate and pour the warm sauce over the eggs to serve.

Neil Perry’s Stir-Fried Blue Eye with Snake Beans

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

Another cracking dried curry – which I love – and one from Neil Perry’s book Balance and Harmony: cooked by Nat no less as part of a long Covid lockdown lunch.

I appreciate that pastes can be painful on first inspection though take the time. This is how we make the food that we love, right?

Dried shrimp and shrimp paste are easily gettable and the rest is mainstream.

Enjoy. (I certainly did with a side-bowl of steamed white rice.)

Ingredients

300gm blue eye fillet, cut into bite sized pieces
8 snake beans, cut into 3cm pieces
100ml vegetable oil
2 tbsp grated palm sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tsp dried shrimp, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes

Spice Paste

1/2 tsp white peppercorns
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
2 dried long red chillies, deseeded, soaked in warm water for 30 minutes and chopped
1 tsp sea salt
3 red shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp finely chopped galangal
1 lemongrass stalk, tough outer leaves removed, chopped
6 coriander roots, scraped and chopped
1 tsp Thai shrimp paste, wrapped in foil and roasted until fragrant

Method

  1. To make the spice paste, lightly roast the peppercorns, fennel and cumin seeds in a dry heavy-based pan until very fragrant and dark, then grind to a powder in a spice grinder. The pound all the past ingredients in a mortar and pestle until you have a fine paste. (Or use a blender, adding a little water if necessary.)
  2. Boil the beans until tender, then drain and refresh in iced water.
  3. Heat a wok until smoking. Add half the oil and, when hot, stir-fry the blue eye in batches until golden, then remove. Add the remaining oil to the pan and stir fry the spice paste until fragrant, then add the palm sugar, fish sauce, beans and shrimp and toss together. Return the blue eye to the wok and stir-fry for 1 minute.

Ajoy Joshi’s Pepper and Garlic Chicken

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4 – 6

Another cracking Ajoy Joshi recipe, where according to Ajoy, this recipe began life at the Nagarjuna Restaurant in Bangalore where it is renowned for this Tamil Nadu dish.

The steaming of the chicken is clever, finishing it in ghee (Ajoy asks for oil and unsalted butter) until golden.

We served this on steamed rice with mint sauce, lots of chutney and coriander… and it was excellent. It reminded us of eating Nilgiri’s (Ajoy’s wonderful lower North Shore restaurant) and on that basis, it has to be typed.

Ingredients

1 cinnamon stick, about 7.5cm long
2 tsp green cardamom pods
1 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp whole peppercorns
1/3 c chopped fresh coriander
36 fresh curry leaves
Juice of 1 1/2 lemons
1 fresh mild long green chilli, finely chopped
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tsp tamarind concentrate
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp salt
1kg skinless, boneless chicken thighs, trimmed of fat and halved crosswise
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 unsalted butter (N.B. We substituted oil/butter with ghee)
Mango pickle/chutney to serve
Steamed rice to serve
Coriander to serve
Mint sauce to serve

Method

  1. In a spice grinder, combine cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and peppercorns and grind to a fine powder. Transfer ground spices to a small food processor and add coriander, curry leaves, juice of 1 lemon, chilli, garlic, ginger, tamarind, turmeric, and salt. Process until a paste forms.
  2. Place chicken pieces in a non-reactive bowl. Add remaining juice of 1/2 lemon and turn to coat. Let stand for 5 minutes. Add paste and turn chicken to coat well. Set aside for 15 minutes to marinate.
  3. Line a large bamboo steamer with baking paper. Arrange chicken on a single layer on paper, cooking in 2 batches if necessary. Place basket over a wok or other pan of simmering water, Cover and steam until the chicken is cooked through and tender, about 12 – 15 minutes. Transfer chicken to a plate.
  4. In a large frying pan, heat oil and butter (or ghee) over a medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook, turning once, until golden brown on both sides, 1 – 2 minutes per side. Serve with rice, fresh coriander, mint sauce and chutney.

Coco’s Green Smoothie

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Serves: 2

My sister in law Court (Coco) shared this awesome breakfast smoothie with us.

Perfect for our new year’s resolution!

Highly commend and can be made the night before ready to be blitzed with ice in the morning.

Ingredients

1 cucumber
1 stick celery
1 banana
Kale (or baby spinach)
Dollop of Greek yoghurt
Minced ginger*
Splash of cold water or almond milk

Method

  1. Blitz together all the ingredients in a blender and serve with ice.

* Pro tip. Cut up your ginger, peel and put in a ziplock bag in the freezer ready for this smoothie, or any meal. Ready to grate when you need it!

Mint Sauce

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Serves: 1 cup+

There is more to mint sauce than mint.

Ingredients

1 c full fat yoghurt
1/4 c coriander leaves
1/4 c mint leaves
1 green chilli
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 – 1/2 tsp sugar
Salt to taste

Method

  1. Place coriander leaves, mint leaves and green chilli in a blender and process until smooth, adding 1 – 2 tbsp water to bring it together.
  2. In a small mixing bowl, spoon in the yoghurt.
  3. Now add the green herbs mixture, salt, sugar, cumin, garam masala and lemon juice to the yoghurt. Whisk together until well combined, cover and chill until needed.

Josh Niland’s John Dory Tagine

.Reading time 6 minutes.

Serves: 6

Wow, this is a just a brilliant tagine.

The heat is perfect. The unusual addition of thyme and fish sauce and anchovies.

The f-you preserved lemon yoghurt.

And the pine nuts toasted with salt and then sherry vinegar.

I mean it when I say, skip now to that part of the recipe and simply do the pine nuts as a snack. They are addictive.

(If they lose their crunch, refresh them in a hot oven for a minute or two.)

This was our first Josh Niland recipe from his book Take One Fish and I really don’t know why we delayed buying his books or cooking his stuff. We have every other cookbook in the world, and there is a reason he won James Beard Book of the year.

We didn’t source John Dory darnes because we didn’t have the time to get to the markets; and also because we’re not entirely ready for whole fish-tail in our tagine. (It’s us Josh, not you.)

We cooked cubbed Snapper, though next time I’d do cubbed Dory or even Barramundi.

As Josh interestingly points out, the whole piece of John Dory tail with the bones means you get the addition of gelatine into the sauce which would just wonderfully balance it out: I guess it dependents on whether you’re a fish-tail tagine sort of person.

Either way, this tagine is absolutely on point. We just loved it.

Put the kids to bed, open a cold Chardonnay and do this next Saturday.

Ingredients

6 x 150gm John Dory tail shank chops or darnes (or 1kg firm white fish, cubbed)
1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt flakes
1/4 c currants
1/4 c coriander leaves
1/4 c mint leaves
Couscous to serve

Tagine Paste

1/4 c chilli flakes
1/4 c ras el hanout
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp ground coriander
2 tbsp ground turmeric
3 tsp sweet paprika
3 large onions, finely diced
6 large garlic cloves, finely grated
100gm peeled ginger coarsely chopped
2 long red chillies, seeds removed
12 thyme springs, leaves picked
1 bunch coriander, washed
1 bunch flat leaf (Italian) parsley, washed
12 salted anchovy fillets
1 c extra virgin olive oil

Tagine Base

100ml extra-virgin olive oil
2 x 400gm tins crushed tomatoes
1/2 star anise
500ml brown fish stock
Pinch of sea salt flakes
1 x 400gm tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 large fennel bulb, coarsely diced
Generous pinch of saffron threads, soaked in 60ml boiling water
1/4 c honey
Zest of 1 orange
Lemon juice, to taste
Fish sauce

Salt and Vinegar Pine Nuts

1/2 c pine nuts
1 tsp fine salt
3 tsp sherry vinegar

Preserved Lemon Yoghurt

90gm preserved lemon, pith removed
350gm natural yoghurt

Method

  1. To make the tagine paste, blitz all the ingredients in a blender until completely smooth.
  2. For the tagine base, warm the olive oil in a large, wide-based saucepan over a medium heat. Add the tagine paste and cook, stirring, for 10 minutes, until thoroughly cooked out and aromatic. Add the crushed tomatoes, star anise, stock and salt. Brind to a simmer and cook for 25 – 30 minutes until thick and fragrant, then add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
  3. Rub each of the John Dory shanks with a little olive oil and season lightly with salt flakes.
  4. Using a tagine pot or flameproof casserole dish with a fitted lid, pour in enough of the sauce to completely cover the base to a depth of roughly 2.5cm, then nestle the shanks/cubbed fish into the sauce. Bring to the boil over a medium-heat, then cover with the lid, reduce the heat to low and leave to simmer very gently for 6 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through. (46 – 48c if cooking the tail). Remove from the heat and leave the residual heat of the tagine to finish cooking the fish.
  5. To make the salt and vinegar pine nuts, add the pine nuts and salt to a dry frying pan and set over a high heat and toast for 3 – 4 minutes, tossing the nuts as you go, until evenly coloured all over.
  6. Add the sherry vinegar and continue to cook, tossing for 2 minutes until the nuts are thoroughly dried out. Remove from the heat.
  7. For the preserved lemon yoghurt, place the preserved lemon in a blender and blitz to a fine paste, adding a splash of warm water if necessary to deliver a simply smooth finish. Stir into the yoghurt and set aside until needed.
  8. To serve, bring the tagline to the table and serve with the pine nuts, preserved lemon yoghurt, currants, coriander, mint leaves and couscous.

Gretta Anna’s Potato Pancakes

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4 – 6

These potato pancakes are a wonderful invention.

Nat cooked them as part of an American Linnar (Lunch/Dinner which is now my new favourite meal) with ribs and a wholesome, creamy salad of greens.

It’s just comfort. Nothing complex. Just solidly good, satisfying food.

I’d have them for breakfast. As a hot dish with a cold buffet. As a finger food.

And definitely as a side to ribs or really any grilled meat.

Ingredients

2 – 3 rashers rindless bacon, chopped
25ml vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tbsp plain flour
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 large potatoes, peeled and grated
2 tbsp chopped chives
50ml olive oil

Method

  1. Sauté the bacon in a frying pan with the vegetable oil over a medium heat for about 10 minutes until slightly crisp. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel.
  2. Beat the eggs with the flour and season with salt and pepper.
  3. Place the bacon, egg mixture and grated potato in a bowl and add the chives. Leave the mixture until ready to cook, when it will be very watery.
  4. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Place tbsps of potato mixture in the oil and cook for about 5 minutes each side, until golden. Turn the heat up if necessary.
  5. Serve immediately, or keep in a 100c oven on a cake rack to ensure the pancakes remain fresh and crisp until needed.

Grace Parisi’s Pappardelle with Veal Ragù

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 8

The most viewed recipe on my blog is consistently Gordon Ramsay’s Slow Braised Beef Ragù with Pappardelle.

An amazing dish as I wrote up 6 years ago.

Recently we have cooked this Ragù twice and it is just as wonderful.

Simple like Ragù is, though just as rich as an amazing Ragù is and should be.

For me, a long Italian lunch in the sun – one white pasta, one red pasta – is the absolute definition of heaven.

I commend this Ragù to your next such session.

Have a medium-bodied Chianti Classico ready to go and it is bliss.

Ingredients

2kg boneless veal shoulder, cut into large chunks*
Salt and freshly ground pepper
All-purpose flour, for dusting
1/2 c extra virgin olive oil
1 large white onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 1/2 tsp ground fennel
1 1/2 c dry red wine
4 c chicken or veal stock
1 1/2 tbsp minced rosemary
1kg fresh pappardelle
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano to serve
Chopped, fresh Italian Parsley to serve

Method

  1. Season the veal with salt and pepper and dust with flour, tapping off the excess. In a large, heavy casserole, heat 1/4 of the olive oil. Add the veal and cook over a moderately high heat until browned all over. Transfer the veal to a plate and do in batches if need be.
  2. Turn the heat down to low, add the remaining 1/4 c oil to the casserole. Stir in the onion, garlic, coriander and fennel and cook for 5 minutes until softened. Add the wine and boil until reduced to 1/3 c. Add the tomatoes and cook over a moderately high heat for 5 minutes. Add the stock and rosemary and bring to a boil. Add the veal, cover partially and cook over a low heat until falling apart and thickened. 3 – 5 hours.
  3. Cook the Pappardelle in a large pot of boiling, salted water until al dente. Drain, add the Ragù and toss over a low heat until the pasta is coated. Serve with the cheese and parsley.

* I’ve found it increasingly hard to source veal, which could be in-line with questions about the ethics of its consumption. I persevered and got there in the end. One butcher told me the issue is that he wouldn’t sell veal if he couldn’t verify it. Not sure what the answer is. We used veal chuck which broke down beautifully after 5 hours, twice.

Tony Roma’s Baby Back Ribs

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4

One of my parent’s traditions was a visit to Tony Roma’s for the birthdays of any of the kids.

And we loved it.

The ribs. The onion loaf. The potatoes with sour cream. And creaming soda back then.

Both Tony Romas shut in Sydney years ago, though every time we make it to Waikiki (Honolulu), we visit Tony Romas.

Of course our kids have been and love it just as much as we did when we were kids.

The ribs are sensational and it has to be a full rack with cold beer:

Straight off the charcoal.

The longer you can keep them in the oven, the better of course. And if you can access charcoal, finish them off as the full Monty.‘

Ingredients

1 c ketchup
1 c apple cider vinegar
1/2 c golden syrup
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce
4 large, full rack pork ribs
Cold beer to serve

Method

  1. Combine all the ingredients except the ribs in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 – 40 minutes until thick.
  2. Heat your oven to 150c. Coat the ribs front and back with the sauce, wrap in foil and. Bake for 2 1/2 hours.
  3. Remove the ribs from the foil and smother with more sauce. Preheat an grill on high and grill until darkened and caramelised.