Vic Cherikoff
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Posts posted by Vic Cherikoff
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May I humbly suggest you look over the following websites?
Authentic Australian ingredients (www.cherikoff.net)
Dining Downunder TV cooking show (www.dining-downunder.com)
Australian herbs and spices (www.australian-herbs-and-spices.com)
Benjamin Christie - celebrity chef (www.benjaminchristie.com)
Vic Cherikoff - celebrity chef (www.cherikoff.blogspot.com)
There's even an online store which can get stuff into the USA in a few days.
To summarize, Australian cuisine is Pacific Rim fusion in style but made unique by using the authentic flavors only found in Australia and as were once only foods to Aborigines. These are now being commercialized and marketed all over the world and promoted - in fact, I am in Japan until July, show cooking and featuring an Australian menu at the Hilton hotels in Nagoya and Osaka with colleague and chef, Benjamin Christie.
Cheers,
Vic
PS. Oops. I just saw Benjamin's post on the same topic. Seems we read the same stuff, even from different hotel rooms.
Anyway. Make sure the pavlova you make is a rolled Wattleseed pav and you can't go wrong.
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I'm from Sydney Australia but visit the US every few months (I just love sitting still for 13 hours and being served by grandmothers) and will check out the Starwich offering in a few weeks. It amazed me that in London, sandwiches are so popular even when the temperature drops and I'd kill for a hot soup, Londoners grab a chilled and extremely boring white bread sanga (as we Aussies call them). And not a cup of hot anything in sight.
So a gourmet sandwich is something to try and I look forward to the selection in NYC. May I make one suggestion? Here in Australia I provide several bakers with innovative, indigenous ingredients including Wattleseed or Lemon myrtle sprinkle (also known as Oz lemon). These breads, amongst others, are deliciously appealing and the ingredients can be functional too. Wattleseed bread has a lower glycaemic index (GI) to the same bread without the Wattleseed making it healthier and more filling. Incidentally, Wattleseed is an Australian wild grain, once used only by Aborigines in a similar way to the American Indian use of corn. For a contemporary history of its new life, check this out.
I'd welcome any inquiries on potential flavors for breads. After all, what's the first and usually the last taste in your mouth when you eat a sandwich? it's generally the bread.
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If you want some really interesting spices go to this great site where you'll find a range of Australian herbs, spices and seasonings..
Otherwise penzeys would be OK. Also International Foodsource.
The Spice House has probably the poorest quality product I know - badly packaged, old and flavorless product and I know he doesn't pay his suppliers so don't go there.
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I fill my new cast iron pans with salt and heat it over high heat. The salt seems to stabilize the metal and reduce the oxidation. Once cool, wipe with an oily paper towel and store.
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Vic - can you fill us in a bit on what you know of the history and development of the coffee culture down under? Did it begin with Italian immigration... was it enhanced by adjacency to the great coffees of Indonesia? How did a country with a historical connection to the UK move away from tea and towards coffee?
It's widely understood that McDonald's serves crap food yet they remain very popular and do lots of business. It's my understanding that Amercian fast food chains have been less than wildly successful in their efforts to propogate their businesses on a widespread basis in Australia. Why is that?
Australia was developed at breakneck pace from the point of invasion in Sydney out to the very Centre - the Outback. Perhaps it was because the invaders were English and Irish, peoples with no real food traditions and cultures with a history of repeated invasions themselves, that the plant food resources of our indigenous people were entirely ignored. In fact it took until the 1980s when I was able to research Aboriginal food resources and then commercialise them (see www.cherikoff.net/cherikoff/#who). Readers might have heard of Wattleseed which I developed in 1984 as a roasted seed from selected Acacia species and which is now used by those in the know, as a caffeine-free coffee substitute but it is more like a chai and appeals to tea drinkers than die-hard coffee addicts. It is often used as a flavoring in ice cream, breads, desserts and sauces where its roasted notes and coffee-chocolate-hazelnut characters are deliciously applied.
This spread of exploration was followed promptly by transport lines (often over the top of walking tracks of Aboriginal groups as they managed their lands and maximised their food supply). At the same time and often building the roads, railways and ports, immigrants from Italy and Greece poured into Australia bringing with them the beginnings of our coffee culture. Interestingly, out in the bush, on stations and rural towns, tea is still the beverage of choice and it's impossible to get a decent coffee west of an hour or two out from the city limits. Never ask for a cappuccino in an outback town unless you want a tea-like, dilute, instant coffee which would be nearly identical to the stuff I learnt to avoid in the US.
And as for McD... Here in Australia we have McCafes with (almost) reasonable coffee made espresso style as the most popular corner of McDonald outlets. A double shot of the coffee they use is not too bad as a heart-starter on a long country drive although they only offer their regular stewed crap if you ask for the free cup on offer to drivers as part of our community Driver-Reviver program. C'est la vie! We live in hope that taste will prevail - eventually.
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Coffee, coffee everywhere but none you'd like to drink.
On a recent trip across the USA which started in New York City, went on to Newport, RI then over to Chicago and fianlly on to the left coast to San Diego it became patently obvious that you just can't get a decent coffee in at least 4 States.
That celestial chain would have to rank amongst the worst culprit serving a beverage closer to the water left over after washing a stack of very dirty dishes in a lot of water (not that I've ever drunk any but it smells the same). Little wonder it's common to add sickly sweet syrups - anything to hide the taste.
I tried brewed, espresso, cappuccino, filtered, regular, double and triple shots - all undrinkable for someone who comes from a coffee culture. Here in Australia we seem to have discovered what the Americans still don't know. You don't just burn the beans for flavor. You can't cook the bejeesus out of the aromatics and expect to end up with any taste you'd enjoy.
What I will do next time I'm in the US is go to a roasting establishment, teach them when to stop roasting and introduce the coffee drinkers of America to the rich, deep noted taste of a wider range of aromatics than you can expect from near ashen beans.
Good coffee is meant to be enjoyed. You stop. Sit down. Take in the complexity of flavors. Notice the chocolate notes. The toasty roasted characters with their hint of bitterness. There's a fullness of mouth-feel, almost a creamy texture which adds to the satisfaction of drinking coffee. It is certainly missing from the thin, lacklustre swampwater and what Americans call caufee. No wonder they buy it in a rush and swallow it while dashing to work or a meeting or just because life's always in a hurry. I suppose it's also recommended to drink and drive because if you spill some, you don't have to drink as much.
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The whole thing about Bush tucker is that the industry has moved on to a more sophisticated cuisine offering. Sure, the origins of the species is Aboriginal food resources gathered in the wild but nowadays, more is plantation grown under organic growing methods. It has had to develop this way since my company, at least, does most of its business overseas.
If you want to keep up with happenings in the Australian native food industry, have a look at my blog at My Webpagehttp://cherikoff.blogspot.com and that of a colleague's at Benjamin's webpagewww.benjaminchristie.com
Wattle they put in beer next?
in Beer
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Introducing flavors into beer may be sacreligious to some but when that ingredient imparts some functionality, I believe it should be well considered.
Wattleseed in both ground or extract form is becoming a force in flavors as an ingredient in ice cream, cream, sauces and now brewing.
While some devotees have attempted to introduce Wattleseed (which is a roasted seed from the genus Acacia) into the wort as a fermentable, economy suggest there must be a better way. The extract has been used in commercial trials in Australia and added post-brewing and pre-pasteurization. At 1% addition to a light bodied beer, Wattleseed enhances the intrinsic qualities of the brew only expressing its own flavor late on the palate. The result is that the beer exhibits a subtle coffee, chocolate, hazelnut character ending in a very clean finish effectively wiping any residual hop bitterness from the tongue. This means the palate is made ready for the full flavor of the following sip and drinkers do not get that 'furry tongue' feel of hop build up. It makes a true cleansing ale.