clareskitchen

As per previous post, here's the Reputation maker no. 1 - roast chook. This is one of those dishes I 'just do' so it's been a bit of a challenge to quantify it! The end result is a balance of the bright lemon oil flavours of the rind with the sweet succulence of the chook, the earthy satisfaction of the sea salt and roasted garlic flavours and the green resinous flavours of the parsley: Roast chook with potato, parsley and lemon stuffing 1 free-range chicken about 1.5kg large bunch of italian parsley from my garden 2 - 4 lemons (preferably fresh from tree or at least organic and non-waxed) 1 large - 2 medium potatoes flaky salt (I use Murray River salt, a beautiful light flavoursome salt from ancient seabeds in Victoria, Australia) freshly ground black pepper (I use fresh local stuff, Aussie Pepper, from growers just south of Cairns) full fat sour cream (probably about 150g worth or 1/2 to 2/3 cup) butter (about 1/3 cup) 2 heads of garlic dried Greek oregano on the branches quality medium bodied olive oil some pumpkin for roasting (enough for 4 people) green veggies (I usually use silverbood or broccoli) for 4 people Steam peeled potato, then mash with butter, sour cream, about a teaspoon of flaky salt and about a dozen grinds of pepper. Mash until smooth and creamy, then add 1 cup of rougly chopped Italian parsley and the grated rind of 1 -2 lemons (probably about 2 tbsp's ?). Taste for flavour balance, add more salt if needed. Leave to cool. Heat oven to 175-180oC fan forced. To prepare garlic, cut the tips (easiest with fine scissors or a pointy serrated knife) of each clove off, leaving the whole head of garlic intact. Check for soft collapsed spots as these could be mouldy spots - if so split skin of that clove to check and remove if needed. Cup garlic heads in foil and dress with flaky salt, few grinds of black pepper, some olive oil, and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Cut pumpkin into slices or medium chunks. Use paper towels to pat off any juices from the skin and interior of the chook, then squeeze some lemon juice into cavity and wipe that out too. Drip a bit of olive oil into cavity and rub in, grind some pepper into the cavity, then take a good thumb-and-three-fingers pinch of flaky salt, toss into cavity and massage in to interior flesh. Fill cavity with cooled potato mixture until almost bursting, then secure opening with a small skewer. Truss wings and legs so they are secured against chook. Gloss skin of chook with some olive oil then grind over pepper, then pat on flaky salt (another good pinch or two) and shake over a generous amount of dried greek oregano. Thread chook onto rotisserie stick for your oven if you have one, otherwise set on an upright chicken roasting support, or on a raised rack in a baking dish. Set chook into the oven's rotisserie and place a baking dish below with two heads of garlic, each cupped loosely in foil (leave some opening at the top for random juices to drip in) and some sliced pumpkin. Drizzle with a small amount of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. Cook for between 50 minutes and 1 hour 10 minutes depending on your oven. Check at about the 40 minute mark if on rotisserie, and 30 minutes if in a dish (and baste with juices at the same time). With the rotisserie I find it is generally ready in 55 - 60 minutes. Spear base of thigh to check juices - they might be slightly pink due to blood in the meat of that section, but if they are red, keep cooking and check in 10 another minutes. Steam broccoli for a few minutes in a steamer until cooked but still with a little firmness, or saute roughly chopped silverrbeet in a pan with a lid on high heat with a little flaky salt and lemon juice for 1 - 2 minutes. Drain the chicken juices out of roasting pan that haven't been absorbed by the pumpkin. Break the garlic heads in half, place in a bowl and pour chicken juices over. Serve everyone at the table, with some stuffing, chicken, pumpkin, greens, garlic and juices spooned over the top. Encourage guests to squeeze the roasted garlic out of it's shell and smear onto greens, stuffing or chicken as a thick 'sauce'. A generous meal for 4 people.

I am always playing with different ingredients, recipes, food traditions. But one central force in my kitchen universe that always sings is the seemingly humble roast chicken (or chook as we call it colloquially). So, Reputation maker no.1 - roast free-range (and preferably also organic) chicken, which I cook with umpteen variations on it's baste and stuffing depending on my mood, herbs in the garden, spices in the cupboard and produce in the fridge. I'll post one variation here, a very simple one. Reputation maker no.2 - pasta alla vongole which I make with fettuccine and pippis I've gathered that day from the beach. I've recently blogged on that recipe on my blog so I'll cut and paste that now into this post, then come back and post the roast chicken. Yesterday The Plumber and I went to one of the local coarse sand beaches to gather pippis to make fettuccine alla vongole. This particular beach has an abundant population of pippis. We started scanning the tide line on the lookout for their little air bubbles in the sand or to see them tumbling in the wash of the tide, and found a patch almost immediately. I’ve found the best way to work is in a team, with one person standing just below the high wash mark and shuffling into the sand with their hands or feet, and the other person standing below them. This way, the top person can grab any that are dredged out of the sand beneath their feet / hands, and the second person can grab those that get tumbled into the water by the wash. So, within half an hour we had a good haul of pippis to take home. The next phase is cleansing them of sand so you don’t end up with a crunchy meal. Do this by putting them into a bucket of fresh water as soon as they’ve been gathered, and fill another bucket with sea water to take home. Leave them in the fresh water for an hour or two, then drain it off and leave them dry for an hour in a cool place covered by a damp towel. Then place them back into sea water, and they will then open up and suck lots of sea water in and out and so cleanse themselves. Finally, place them into the fridge in their sea water until you are ready to cook. Pippis are mostly used for bait here in Australia and some people can’t be bothered with them because of their small amount of meat. I love their sweet sea flavour and they make the most divine pasta sauce, which tastes all the better for having gathered them yourself on a blue sky day from the local beach. Fettuccine alla vongole (pasta with pippis) Fettuccine alla vongole (equipment: need one pasta pot, one deep sided frypan or wide saucepan, and three bowls for sorting cooked pippis) for two generous serves enough uncooked good quality pasta for two people (I prefer fettuccine) about 2 kg (7 – 8 cups) fresh pippis in their shells 1 cm slice butter (about 50g / 1/4 cup) 1 tbsp olive oil 2 heaped tbsp fresh thyme 2 tbsp finely chopped Italian parsley 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh tarragon 2 finely sliced cloves garlic 1 tsp salt for cooking pasta 1 cup dry white wine 3/4 to 1 cup sour cream Melt butter and add olive oil, then add garlic and thyme, cook briefly until garlic softens but before it goes golden or brown, then immediately add a batch of pippis and half a cup of dry white wine, turn heat to high, put on lid and hold down to increase heat and steaming. (Meanwhile, put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta.) Steam pippis for 1 – 3 minutes in small batches, just until all pippis are open, then remove each batch from pan with a skimmer into a bowl and place the next batch in the pan. Put pasta into boiling water with 1 tsp salt. Keep an eye on pasta while completing the next step of removing meat from pippis. Remove pasta from heat and strain when al dente, reserving some liquid (in case it is needed at the end to thin the pippi sauce). Remove all flesh from the pippi shells and reserve flesh into a bowl. Strain cooking juice through muslin in a sieve to catch any remaining grit. Pour strained pippi juices into frypan and bring to a rolling boil, add remaining wine and reduce to about 1 cup liquid. Reduce heat to medium and add half of fresh parsley and tarragon then 3/4 cup sour cream and mix until incorporated. Add pippi meat and heat for another minute or so until pippis are warmed. Taste for salt and season if needed (shouldn’t need to due to sea water in the pippis). If the sauce is too thick add a little bit more white wine or some cooking water from the pasta. Then add fettuccine to pan and mix through until well coated with sauce. Remove from heat, serve into two bowls, garnish with remaining parsley and tarragon and serve. Can add some finely grated parmesan, or a little bit of finely sliced fresh chilli, but I generally find the flavours of this dish are perfect without adding anything further.

I prepare alot of produce for use in recipe testing, so I have a few freezers (two above fridges, one small one for the item I'm about to mention, and a large produce one). Most of my stuff is the usual suspects, but there is one frozen article that's probably a bit different. Cane toads. They are a pest that verges on plague proportions here in north Australia, and as well as being highly toxic if touched on their glands or eaten by predators, they bump local frogs out of their habitats. People dispose of them in all sorts of ways (mostly not particularly humane) but my approach is the kindest. Put on disposable rubber gloves, go out into the garden, grab the buggers that are flopping around, and pop them into a biodegradable bag and into the cane toad freezer. Then they make their way to toad tip heaven on the next week's council garbage pick up!

Love the mushroom theme through these posts, they were the first foraging I remember, for the huge field mushrooms in cow paddocks after rain. Then later it was nardoo (an Australian water plant, bush tomatoes and quandongs in the local bush. Later I moved to the coast (Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia) where lots of European pines have been planted a long time ago. With them came the spores of beautiful big apricot coloured pine mushrooms, and I was fortunate to have a big patch regularly sprout on my front lawn! Cooked them with garlic, fresh herbs, a dash of white wine and sour cream and ate them on crusty sourdough toast, or fettuccine. Now living in the tropics of Australia and I've been foraging local indigenous rainforest figs, mangos from feral mango trees, jackfruit, limes, the occaisonal mangosteen (highly prized!) and lemon myrtle leaves (taste similar to lemongrass or lemon verbena). We also go down to the local coarse sand beach and shuffle into the sand at the tidal mark to scoop out pippis, to take home and transform into fettuccine alla vongole, probably my most favourite pasta dish. I was happy to discover, via my car dealer (!) who is of southern Italian heritage, that his family know of a spot on the tablelands where pine mushrooms grow. It's their secret, of course, but I'm alerted now to their presence here in the north so I'm now keeping my eye out for this deicacy.

I live in the tropics in Far North Queensland, Australia, and have a big herb and veggie garden. Into doing most of my cooking with stuff we can grow here (which is a lot as there are so many microclimates in this part of the world). Interested in hearing from other members who live in the tropics about the specific and special local herbs, salad greens and green leafy vegetables that you have, and use. I'm keen to plant as wide a variety as I can so I can experiment with cooking a range of fresh dishes from the tropical parts of the world. Currently I have brazil spinach, kangkKong, aibika, bok choy, tatsoi, ceylon spinach growing in the green leafy vegetables and curious to try more types (have grown amaranth but have run out of seed). Herbs I have include lemongrass, tumeric, ginger, cuban oregano, thyme, oregano, french tarragon, sage, rosemary, sweet basil, pandan, and I'm keen to try more, especially Asian herbs. Salads I'm out of at present as about to replant new ones, but tend to grow Darwin lettuce (a north Australian variety, tropical hardy)and rocket(aragula). I'd love to hear suggestions, and any tips you have on growing them and how you tend to use them. Thanks!