Adam Balic

Steve - is there not room for a niche market, where people would actively bring their best wine to be served with excellent food? Certainly, there are places in Melbourne which I have specifically gone to for this reason.

Australia has a 44% sales tax on wine, yet there are many BYO places. How can these places survive, if they can't in Britian?

Interesting. The Wallaby that I have had wasn't particularly pale, although the falvour was different to kangaroo. Prehaps this is because "wallaby" covers a very wide range of animal species, who differ greatly in size, range and diet, while "Kangaroo" is slightly more specific, there being a much more restricted range of species (less then five I think). Almost certainly the kangaroo that you ate was one an Eastern Grey.

The Pinot Meunier that you have is most likely a Champagne clone (it is Domaine Chandon after all) and will be rather like a light Pinot Noir. Best's at Great Western in Australia have some very old plantings (19th C.) of this variety (a Champagne clone) which they have been making into a still red wine for many years. It is always quite light bodied, but can be rather nice, red berries and earthy flavours mostly.

OK, I went to the supermarket (UK, Sainsbury's) and bought a 1.8 kilo free range chicken. This was the most expensive chicken in a selection of about 50 birds. Due to limited herbs etc in the supermarket I modified Jim's suggestion to make a batto to stuff under the skin: Batto contained: Pancetta, tarragon, fennel seeds, carrot, celery leaves, garlic, salt and pepper. Batto placed under skin of breast and thighs. Chicken roasted for 2 hour on medium grill setting. Chicken was very tender, moist and had almost no flavour (except for the bits in direct contact with batto). Not even the legs. God damn supermarkets and their God damn rapidly matured, flavourless, sodding chickens. Didn't have time to brine, but even brining would have only have made this chicken taste of mild cured meat, rather then enhanced the flavour of the chicken. I have no idea how this chicken was raised or processed to make it so flavourless, but it does explain the large amount of pre-flavoured chickens on sale at the God damn supermarket. Down with Sainsbury's.

Mother of God what a couple of days! Sounds rather terrific at the last restaurant. Some information: Marron is a freshwater crustacean, native to WA, (most likely farmed all over now). They grow up to a pound per year and become quite large. My wifes favourite bug, due to the sweet flesh. Good use of blood peach, as they are rather thick skinned and stringy, but do have a very good white peach flavour. "Murray Bay cod" I think would be Murray River Cod, a native giant (hundreds of pounds once upon a time) freshwater fish, now farmed in large numbers. Again nice freshwater fish taste, but often muddy in flavour. Ocean trout are rainbow trout raised in saltwater, so equivalent of a north american steelhead, which is the same species. It is the Australian domestic equivalent to a seatrout (which is a brown trout at sea). Anyway, it all sounds fab.

Thanks Jim. Off to buy Chicken.

Adam, it only proves that people are idiots because I am NOT lying in this case. I do not appreciate being called a liar anyway (who does?). Yes, a certain Mr SP's name (NOT nameS) I have misspelled sometimes in error (it's a difficult name for us WASPS to spell) and sometimes, I admit, intentionally as an attempt at humour. BUT THAT IS IT! I accept your belated apologies, if your a man that is. Oh, Peter, you must be an idiot by your own definition then, as I am obviously only joking. Anyway, I don't have to point out that you are an idiot anymore as we have appointed people to do that job.

Hammer also works, but you don't have to hit it that hard really.

I had the same problem with opening fresh coconuts recently. My solution was to take my heavy chinese clever and tap on the surface of the coconut (use the back of the clever blade), while rotating it in my hand. Nothing happens for a few minutes, then a hairline crack apears which rapidly travels the circumference of the shell, it then falls apart in to halves. Draining the liquid inside through the one soft eye first is advisable. Use a knife to prise of large pieces of flesh, used veg, peeler to remove brown skin layer. Use coarse grade Microplane to get nice large flakes of flesh. Slowly toasted in the oven until starting to caramelise they are delicious in salads or eaten out of hand.

Glad I could help. Don't use duck eggs, they don't work very well for some reason (egg whites don't look very attractive).

Is very good. Either egg is left entire, so it looks like a fried or poached egg, or eggs are lightly mixed up. I prefer the former. Unless you have a really good pizza oven it is difficult ot get the egg cooked just right, so mostly add it in the final half of the cooking. If you are lucky the egg white is just set and has taken on some of the flavours from the pizza topping (much like when steam cook eggs ontop of rice pilaus etc, which take up the flavours of the pilau and has a completely new different type of texture to poached of boiled eggs).

Peter, I've already told you that everytime you adopt that cute little nickname for me, you are trolling. Do not provoke members on a personal level to draw attention away from their post. Alright Bux, enough is enough. Unlike you I do not work for Egullet therefore when I prepare my comments I am in a hurry and sometimes make spelling mistakes (as we all do) so BUX I was NOT 'trolling'! The last time I was 'told' something was in school. Peter at least have enough honesty not to make lie about about the mis-spelling of names. People are not idiots and have seen you mis-spelling names for months, often in a provocative manner. In Italy, what types of celery have you seen? Jinmyo: that was a gift for you.

Almost. The tail feather thing is derived from some people suggesting that the pheasant is hung by it's tail feathers. As the tissues breakdown the weight of the bird makes it drop to the floor. The more feathers you tie up, the longer it will take for the bird to drop, but it need not be rotten. I once read of an anthropologists account of living with a group of Inuit, one of their food items was derived from placing any scraps of meat, birds with feathers, fish bones etc into the top of a seal skin bag, when full a portion woul be removed from the bottom of the bag, by which time it had composted into a blackish paste. The fearless anthropologist was given some of this paste to eat, which he did and then immediately threw it up, to his shame. He need not have worried, as it was brushed off and he ate it on the second attempt. At this point he was congratulated by the family and one of the men told him not to worry about throwing up the paste as the first time he had eaten a grilled steak in a whitemans home he also threw this up. The point of all this was that the anthropologist realised that what we found repelant was mostly cultural. The Inuit found the charred tough bloody piece of steak disgusting (similar to many latter day urbanites), until this point the Anthropologist had never questioned that what other people ate was suspect and what he ate was obviously all beyond all good and correct. Regarding fish sauce: I think that most people will taste it with pleasure once cooked, while it may have a strong amoma when 'raw' it has rather a mellow flavour when cooked (much like fermented prawn paste). The problem arises when people smell the raw product and are told "It's the juice of fermented anchovies, don't you know".

Yes, you get those four in the UK and Australia as well. To these you add purple broccoli and cauliflower, flowering heads of curly kale and various Asian broccolli/cabbage flowering things. The leaves on sprouting broccolli are thicker and of a different texture spinach, so I think that Thomas would be able to spot the difference. My immediate thought was that it may be silverbeet/Swiss chard, but again the texture isn' t the same and why would it be called broccoli? I think that the Italian use of some veg. is confusing to many people. Last year I saw a recipe printed in the UK for "Sepia Zimino", which is cuttlefish cooked with beet tops or Silverbeet/Swiss chard (which is the same species, if not the same variety), unfortunately this recipe used beet roots. Now I think that the recipe would have tasted interesting (earthy veg. and sweet cuttlefish), but if the author new this relatively obscure recipe, why did they alter it so much and retain the original name? Either ignorance of the actual nature of the recipe or deliberately making a faux recipe. Celery is another strange one. Most of the celery I have seen I the parts of Italy I have traveled in is used like a herb as it isn't like the newer self-forcing varieties that you get in the UK and Australia, but more like Chinese celery. Mostly you use the leaves more then the stalk. Although you can get the self-forcing kind as well. I wonder if the self-forcing kind will push out more primative kind, much like spinach has done to rape in Tuscany?

Tommorow I shall be using the rotisserie on my new oven for the first time. Here is your chance to suggest a recipe for a Rotisserie Chicken (actually two chickens, so the more suggestions the better). Ideas on what to stick under the chicken (eg. like those lovely potatoes one sees in French markets) to use the chicken juicings would also be good. All suggestions considered.

I like the sweet taste, but my wife hates them. A source of endless discussion at the Chinese supermarket.

I'm afraid that they all will be sweetish, although the degree changes from maker to maker. Some brands are much better then others, some have a distinct metalic taste which I don't like. Some of the sausages are made with liver and are therefore, much darker in colour. Still sweetish, but you may like them more.

There are a few of these around. Gourmet Pizza Company has an English Breakfast Pizza (bacon, sausage, black pudding) with an egg cracked in the middle. It's actually pretty good. Sounds wonderful. Incidentally, I love the egg cracked in the middle on Pizzas but that's Italian originally. Yes I know, much like pizza, which is also Italian. Although, some will say that pizza is American, but I really think that they are talking about one particular type of pie, rather then all things known as "pizza". I have had numerous things called "pizza" in Italy, only some resemble what most of us would call a pizza. I like pie.

Peter - I'm afraid that your intent isn't very clear from your posts, hence the confusion really. Has anybody seen an "Aussie" pizza in the UK (eg. A meat based pizza with an egg cracked in the middle)?

Thomas - I can find no reference to "Fraierelli" in any of my Italian books, nor has the Italian I work with heard of it, it is also not present in a google search using several different spellings. Is that the exact spelling they used?

Have enjoyed Chateau Carbonnieux in the past, especially with a few years of age. However, part of the reason for them not being popular is their expense and the lack of constistency, compared to some of the new world Semillion/Sav. Blanc blends (can't think of any New world muscadelle based wines, except Australian fortified versions).

Chefmate (=Pilot =Herald Group) also avalible in UK (Sainsbury's), however they don't have the copper base, still quite heavy duty with tempered glass lids. Five saucepans and a frying pan for twenty quid. Lack of copper a problem?

Go to bookshelf, take out "Thai Food", make basic red curry, add Roast duck and Lychees in last ten minutes of cooking. Serve with steamed rice and green pawpaw salad. Drink with Gewurztraminer, comment how the lychee flavour in the wine is underlined by fruit in curry. Laugh to indicate self-irony moment. Make custard using coconut milk, rather then cream and use lychees to make Asian style clafoutis. Toss lychee in vanilla sugar, roast for thirty minutes, serve fruit, vanilla/fruit syrup with icecream.

Try "Rill-ET-ties" . Or "rea-yeht" if you wish. Jinmyo - How would a Francophone Canadian say it?