I’ll never forget my visit to Penang, a busy island on the west coast of Malaysia.

Carol SelvaRajah Phoenix Theatre

I’d been invited by the Sydney-based food writer Carol Selva Rajah to join a group of foodies on a tour and although I knew something about Malaysian food, I’d not then discovered the spicy, aromatic Nonya cuisine.
Carol is one of the foremost exponents of Malaysian and Nonya cuisine in Australia and has written many cookbooks.
So when she invited me last week to a special Nonya meal followed by a play based on the life of a Nonya woman, I couldn’t refuse.
The play, Emily of Emerald Hill, has received rave reviews in Singapore and Malaysia – and after its premier in at the Phoenix Theatre in Coniston (Wollongong) last week, I understand why.

Emily of Emerald Hill

Actress Pearlly Chua takes us inside the home of a wealthy Nonya household in located near Orchard Road Singapore, skilfully moving with grace and ease from frightened young girl to shy child to domineering woman.
Her performance is mesmerising. In one scene she cooks a dish (without props), taking us through the recipe step by step and is so convincing that you can almost smell the food being cooked.
Carol’s banquet before the show included satays, curry puffs and crab rolls followed by Ikam Assam Joo chiat, Achar Penang, Nasi Lemak, Kambing Manis, Nonya Prawns and Beef Rendang.  For dessert, she offered sticky black rice with coconut milk and tropical fruit.
Carol explained to me that Nonya food has been difficult to document because the dishes are complicated and measurements were done by guessing (agak) and learnt by watching and practice.  It is hot and spicy, calling for the use of a lot of pungent roots, aromatic leaves, chillies, red eschalots, candlenuts and shrimp paste.

Nonya food spices

Pounding these spices to the right consistency (rempah) takes years to master, which is why Nonya food is difficult to find in restaurants and even in hawker stalls.  Prospective brides were judged on the quality of their rempah.  Most Nonya food is cooked in the home but with smaller families and women going out to work, it’s becoming difficult to find even in Penang.
Some locals predict it will die out soon, a good reason to hurry to Penang and Malacca – and to catch Pearlly Chua in this wonderful play which will be staged at the  Dougherty Community Center , 7 Victor Street, Chatswood on Tuesday 28 February 2012 at 6.00 p.m.
Cost: $110 per person and includes a Peranakan Dinner.

Phoenix Theatre, Coniston, Wollongong

When I was a kid, Sunday nights were special. That was the night my parents would take my sister and I to the Lean Sun Lowrestaurant in Dixon Street in Sydney’s Chinatown.

Kung-Hay-Fat-Choietest1

They’d arrange to meet friends there and we kids would sit at a separate table, well away from the grown-ups, and have a ball.

According to Annette Shun Wah and Greg Aitkin in their fascinating book, Banquet – Ten Courses to Harmony,  Lean Sun Low was in fact the first Chinese restaurant to open in Dixon Street, operating from the 1920s on the site where the Eastern August Moon is now located.
These were among our first dining out experiences and I recall that the staff were very friendly. As Shun Wah points out, Westerners rarely ventured into Chinatown in those days and the Chinese community there was close-knit.
I’ve often wondered if it was my mother’s Chinese inheritance that unconsciously lured her there. Her grandfather, Ah Way, had come to Australia from Canton – or Guangzhou – in the 1860s to take part in the Queensland gold rush (Guangzhou is the birthplace of Cantonese cooking). She’d also take us shopping for fruit and vegies on Saturday mornings to Paddy’s Markets, right in the centre of Chinatwon.

Paddy's Market Haymarket Sydney

The menu at the Lean Sun Low was typically Cantonese – in those days in Sydney, we didn’t know that other regional cuisines existed.  As we grew older and became more adventurous, we’d try different dishes such as the delicious won ton soup.
Years later, we’d often gather at the New Tai Yuen where I always ordered the combination omelette. The New Tai Yuen was a favourite Labor hangout and we’d often spot former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam or Tom Uren or Neville Wran.
Today, we are truly spoilt for choice.

For the Chinese, red is a lucky colour

You can find lip-smacking green onion or pork pancakes at Mother Chu’s Taiwanese (for $2.50 – $3 each); sweet boat noodle soup thickened with chicken blood at Chat Thai; garlicky Russian salad and Uygur-style BBQ lamb skewers at Kiroran; and deep-fried lamb cutlets topped with roasted garlic, chillies, black beans and shallots at East Ocean.  Here, the menu has been overhauled to include dishes from other regions of China including Shanghai, Sichuan and Beijing.  Fusion dishes such as the West Australian snow crab stir-fried with goose liver pate and served with a glass of pinot noir will make you re-think your assumptions of traditional Cantonese cuisine, as will the wasabi prawns, an inspired dish of plump, crispy deep-fried prawns, coated with vivid green wasabi mayonnaise flecked with black sesame seeds. 

Hand-made Chinese noodles

You’ll find plenty of theatre in Chinatown too: you can watch hand-pulled noodles from Xinjiang being made at the Chinese Noodle Restaurant, sweet conical ‘roti tisu’ being shaped at Mamak and tiny warm cream puffs being moulded and filled at Emperor’s Garden Bakery (one of Sydney’s best bargains at 4 for $1).

Emperor's Puff

Sydney’s Chinatwon today is a banquet with choices as far ranging and wide as Asia itself, stretching from Turkey in the west to Japan in the far east.

What’s on your Australia Day menu?
Kanga burgers?

Kanga burger

Hot Smoked Lemon Myrtle Crocodile?  Barramundi with Green Ants?  Wattleseed pavlova?
Just kidding.
But it’s odd, isn’t it, how we still shy away from using native Australian ingredients in our cuisine.
Here we live on a continent which offers up to 4,000 different varieties of edible bush foods, yet how many of them do we use in our actual cooking?
Kangaroo meat is one; barramundi another; the quandong a third.

Quandongs

You could stretch it to 40 or 50 if you include yabbies and some seafoods.
But really, who among us has tasted a Davidson Plum or a lillipilli or a red monkey nut?  We’ve all heard of witchetty grubs, but how many of us have eaten them.
What about the cheeky yam, emus, pigweed and wild rice?
And despite all the current talk about foraging, which of our leading chefs are making use of these foods?

Macadamias

Not only has Australia, in contrast to other continents, contributed almost no edible crops to the world food supply – one exception being the macadamia nut (and it took the Americans to grow it commercially) – but Australian immigrants have not incorporated anything native into their diets, unlike the American settlers who have at least embraced pumpkin, corn and cranberries from the native diet into their 21^st century diets.
We’ve been busily patting our back over the past decade or so for our acceptance and adaptations of different cuisines (Vietnamese, Thai, Brazilian, Chinese, Italian, Argentinian) while continuing to ignore what is all around us – and which, quite literally, often stares us in the face.
Over the past 220 years, we’ve not embraced a single aspect of Aboriginal cuisine,  yet we dare to talk about a developing Australian cuisine.
Absurd, isn’t it?

Gum nut blossom

Hurry, hurry – book in now to my Mini Chef Kids Cooking Classes  Junior Mduring the school holidays.

Madi, one of my students, with her recipe in the "Junior Master Chef" book

My aim is to teach children to prepare a wholesome, nutritious meal which they love to eat and can reproduce easily at home. This is not celebrity chef restaurant-style food. Hygiene, nutrition – and loads of laughs – are also on the agenda. Classes are held in a charming domestic setting in North Sydney. The children eat the food they have prepared at the end of the class and take home whatever is left over.  I also take them into my cook’s garden to identify (and pick) organic vegies and herbs, weather permitting.

Dates for next classes:

Wednesday 18th – fully booked

Sang Choy Bow
Pizza
White Chocolate Blondies
Chocolate Rocks
Fruit Frappes

Friday 20th – a couple of spaces available

Bruschetta with various toppings
Thai-style Chicken, Capsicum and Basil Stir-Fry
Fruits of the Forest Crumble Cake
Triple Chocolate Brownies

M0nday 23rd – a few spaces available

Tacos
Watermelon Basket with Fruit Salad
Afghans (Yum Yums) or Rocky Road
Hummingbird Muffins

Wednesday 25th: Australia Day Menu

Home-made Sausage Rolls
Echidna Pavlova
Australia Day Lamington Cake
Fresh fruit smoothies & frappes

Eloise Moore, daughter of celebrity chef Michael Moore, with the stir-fry she made last week

Cost of classes: $65

Deposit of $30 required – I’ll send details sent when you make the booking.  I am based on the lower north shore, just over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Ages 8-16. Minimum of 8, maximum of 10 – 12 per class.

Please wear closed in shoes. Aprons & chef hats will be provided. I’ll provide all ingredients, recipes to take home, plenty of food to eat and an experienced child-friendly assistant
If you wish to join the class, there will be a charge – please contact me to find out details.

Kids Cooking classes are held during the school holidays for 8- 12 olds (depending on capability, allow a year either side).

Hurry, hurry – book in now to my Mini Chef Kids Cooking Classes during the school holidays.

Madi, one of my Mini Chef students, with her 2011 Junior Master Chef award

My aim is to teach children to prepare a wholesome, nutritious meal which they love to eat and can reproduce easily at home. This is not celebrity chef restaurant-style food. Hygiene, nutrition – and loads of laughs – are also on the agenda. Classes are held in a charming domestic setting in North Sydney. The children eat the food they have prepared at the end of the class and take home whatever is left over.  I also take them into my cook’s garden to identify (and pick) organic vegies and herbs, weather permitting.

Dates for next classes:

Friday 13th – a few spaces left

Chicken, Vegie and Hokkien Noodle Stir-Fry
Watermelon Basket with fruit salad
Raspberry, Coconut and White Chocolate Muffins
Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

Wednesday 18th – fully booked

Sang Choy Bow
Pizza
White Chocolate Blondies
Chocolate Rocks
Fruit Frappes

Friday 20th – a few spaces available

Bruschetta with various toppings
Thai-style Chicken, Capsicum and Basil Stir-Fry
Fruits of the Forest Crumble Cake
Triple Chocolate Brownies

M0nday 23rd – a few spaces available

Tacos
Watermelon Basket with Fruit Salad
Afghans (Yum Yums) or Rocky Road
Hummingbird Muffins

Wednesday 25th: Australia Day Menu

Home-made Sausage Rolls
Echidna Pavlova
Australia Day Lamington Cake
Fresh fruit smoothies & frappes

Eloise Moore, daughter of celebrity chef Michael Moore, stir-frying in my kids cooking class yesterday

Cost of classes: $65

Deposit of $30 required – I’ll send details sent when you make the booking.  I am based on the lower north shore, just over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Ages 8-16. Minimum of 8, maximum of 10 – 12 per class.

Please wear closed in shoes. Aprons & chef hats will be provided. I’ll provide all ingredients, recipes to take home, plenty of food to eat and an experienced child-friendly assistant
If you wish to join the class, there will be a charge – please contact me to find out details.

Making Baked Eggs

Kids Cooking classes are held during the school holidays for 8- 12 olds (depending on capability, allow a year either side).

Happy new year.  And hello summer!  Here in Sydney, where I live, the sun is finally showing its face and the skies are blue.
I’ve had a blissful few days at the beach and when I returned home yesterday, I could no longer put off the dreaded job of tackling my fridge.
Ugh.

Christmas leftovers

It was groaning with all the usual suspects at this time of year: leftover turkey, ham, plum pudding and ice cream.
I started with the turkey, as it was taking up most of the room – stripped it of meat and put the bones into a stockpot, covering them with water and adding an onion, bay leaf, carrot, celery stick and some cloves.  I let it simmer away for a couple of hours until it transformed into a flavourful liquid gold, then strained it and let it cool before pouring into plastic containers and freezing it.

Stockpot

I’ll pull it out over the coming weeks to use as a base for risottos and marvellous soups such as borscht and tortellini in brodo.
With the meat, I’m going to make a version of that retro classic, Coronation Chicken, following a quick simple idea of British chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s.  He makes a dressing with  2 tablespoons “good spicy fruit chutney” (try  mango – in keeping with the Anglo-Indian theme), mixed with 1 tablespoon “good Madras curry powder” and equal parts Greek yoghurt and mayonnaise tossed through the cubed or shredded turkey meat.  Leave it to marinate for a couple of hours in the fridge and serve garnished with toasted almonds and chopped coriander.
For a summer lunch, scoop a spoonful or two into crisp lettuce cups.
You’ll find more good ideas for Coronation Chicken (or Turkey) on the web here.
Ham on the bone also lends itself to good flavourful stock which can be frozen and used later for pea and ham soup.  Leftover ham adds flavour to pasta sauces and is delicious diced and combined with diced onion, mushrooms, cream and freshly grated parmesan.

Eggs Benedict

If you’re not on a diet, make eggs Benedict with leftover slices of ham for breakfast; or add diced ham to quiches and frittatas.
And don’t forget sandwiches, wraps and  jaffles: always delicious with leftover turkey meat or ham.
Jacquie Tuck, who lived in South West France for many years, suggested this Cabbage Gallette, an old peasant dish from the Auvergne region.  It serves 6.

Cabbage Galette

Half a savoy cabbage, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
200g thick cut thick cut ham
2 eggs
3 eschalots, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
A full bunch flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
200 g flour
250ml milk

Heat oven to moderate (80 degrees C ).  Steam the cabbage in a saucepan for 3 mins. Set aside. Smear a deep pie dish with olive oil and heat in the oven.  In a bowl, mix together the ham, eggs, shallots, garlic, parsley and seasoning. Add the flour and milk and mix into a smooth dough.
Remove the hot pie dish from oven. Spread half the mixture over the base of the dish, pile on the cabbage and pack it down with your hand, then cover with the remaining dough. Bake for 35 mins until golden and firm. Good served hot or cold.

And for the leftover plum pud?  Crumble it and fold it through softened vanilla ice-cream.
Or do as the English do, and serve a wedge for breakfast, fried in butter and sprinkled with sugar.
Such a wicked way to start the year!

A successful Christmas meal is dependent on careful timing, and its preparation is an important part of the Christmas day ritual.

The groaning traditional Christmas table from my book, "Entertaining At Home" - photo by Rodney Weidland

The reason why my family leave our feast until later in the day is so we have time to set the table, prepare and cook the turkey, vegetables and make the the creme anglaise.
If you prepare as much as possible ahead, there should be no reason to panic on the day.
If you’re having a traditional plum pudding, you can make it up to six months ahead. It will mature, becoming richer and darker.

Our traditional Christmas plum pudding - flame it with brandy and served with creme anglaise and hard sauce

It will need extra steaming on the day, so make sure you allow time and room for that.
The brandy butter can be made a couple of weeks ahead and stored in a sealed container in the fridge.  Gingerbread men and mince pies can be made a few days ahead (though the mincemeat filling is best prepared months ahead to allow it to mature).
A feast such as this calls for out-of-the-ordinary ingredients, so you will have to plan your shopping (see suggested menu below).
Hopefully you’ve ordered your turkey and ham and champagne and wine.
Make sure the silver is polished and the placemats and napkins clean and starched.  Check your cutlery and glasses and put together your floral arrangements.

Christmas side table (from my book "Entertaining At Home")

If you have a staircase in your home, tie the bannisters with red and green bows.

Red and green bows tied onto bannisters

Bunches of holly are perfect tied with red bows and will last for weeks.
For me, these are the ingredients for a happy Chrismtas.  Familarity is an important part of the season and there is something very special about the Christmas meal with those you love, be they friends or family.  Bringing your own ideas to existing traditions will add your personal stamp to the occasion and contribute to your own special memories of Christmas.

A Festive Christmas Menu

Serves 10 – 14

Grand Marnier Pate
Oysters

Glazed Leg of Ham
Roast Turkey with Pork & Veal Forcemeat Stuffing, served with Roast Vegetables
Candied Sweet Potatoes
Brussels Spooruts and Chestnuts
Steamed Green Beans
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce

Royal Christmas Pudding
Custard and/or Hard Sauce

Mince Pies
Gingerbread Men

I’ve hung the wreath on the door, taken the tall gold angels out of the cupboard and placed them in the hallway.

Christmas wreath

Today I’ll take down the boxes filled with Christmas decorations and brush off the dust.  Guaranteed, there’ll be lots of sneezing.
So begins another Christmas.  My mother actually prepares for Christmas all year – she goes to sales, buys gifts and stores them away in cupboards.  An idle moment might catch her pushing cloves into oranges or topping up the fruit mince with brandy.
All families have their own traditions and ours is no exception.

Christmas Swan

When we were younger and still living at home, my parents invited friends to visit on Christmas Eve.  Outside, the garden statues were decorated with red and gold bows and a sprig or two of holly, and the trees strewn with fairy lights.
Inside, the bannisters were tied with bows, mirrors hung with garlands of flowers, and gingerbread men, Christmas cookies, oranges, nuts and dried fruit were set in bowls throughout the house.
In the dining room, a table groaned with food.

Christmas side table (from my book "Entertaining At Home") : photograph by Rodney Weidland

On the table in the front hall sat a gingerbread house, waiting to be demolished by little hands and mouths during the evening.  For that was the night on which spirits were high and we children full of anticipation and excitement.
We would spend weeks preparing for this party, baking cookies, creating papier mache ornaments to hang on the tree, and making and wrapping edible gifts to give to friends.
These days, it is our children and grandchildren who fill the house with Christmas spirit, and our main celebration – after opening presents under the tree on Christmas morning, is either a mid-afternoon lunch or an early dinner on the day.  We usually eat a good breakfast of thick slices of ham with fried eggs and toast accompanied by champagne and orange juice which appeases appetites until early afternoon. And we always leave something out for the reindeer – though, come to think of it, perhaps it should be for kangaroos in our part of the world.

Christmas reindeer

The day I fell off a donkey and into some blackberry bushes is one I shan’t forget, nor recommend.

Blackberries

Just what  those blackberry bushes were doing right in the middle of a grassy paddock, I don’t know. When the settlers introduced the blackberry to Australia, little did they realise it would be declared a noxious weed in some areas.
In my latest book, The Cook’s Garden, I point out that of all the berries, it is probably the prickliest, so I guess I should count my blessings — apart from numerous  scratches, the damage wasn’t too bad, and it hasn’t put me off the berries. The intense flavour of wild blackberries is not to be underestimated.
A day strawberry picking, though, is one I would recommend. I first picked strawberries in Tasmania as a teenager, and I hadn’t seen them growing until then.

Strawberries

We ate as many as we picked. The owner didn’t mind a bit
as he had so many. The sweetness and fragrance of those juicy, freshly picked strawberries has lingered.
That is the ideal way to eat berries — picked fresh from the plant. Strawberries are not difficult to grow.
Apart from their lusciousness, they are pretty, decorative plants which spill over borders and tumble down hills.
They also give a quick return, bearing fruit in less than a year. The ones most often grown are hybrids of various American species, most of which were introduced to Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, although some claim the cultivated berries, even at their best, do not equal the wild berries.
The soft fruits that show the next quickest return are raspberries, blackberries and loganberries.

Raspberries

Eighteen  months after planting the canes you will be able to enjoy the fruit. Raspberries are the most popular, probably because they are the most perfumed and have such an intense flavour. White, red and black varieties exist. Over the years raspberries give bigger crops for the space they occupy than any of the other soft fruits.
The word ‘berry’ can in fact be rather confusing. Strictly speaking, a berry is a fleshy fruit that doesn’t split open and has one or more seeds but no stone (pit). It develops from a single enlarged ovary: grapes, tomatoes, eggplants (aubergines), currants, blueberries and cranberries all fit in this category. The popular understanding of berry is somewhat different and, for our purposes, I have chosen to follow this rather looser definition.

Loganberries

Berries are fragile fruits. They don’t travel well, a good reason for planting some in the kitchen garden. However, they do freeze well, an excellent way to retain some for year-round use. Hull them or remove stalks beforehand. Put them on trays each separated from the other and pop into the freezer. When frozen, bundle into plastic freezer bags so they won’t stick together in a lump. Ask your local nursery about the varieties available, and consult the different seed catalogues. That way, you’ll be able to grow some of the more unusual ones yourself.

Berry canes

Of all the stone fruits, the peach is the one I love most.  The others – nectarines, apricots, plums and cherries, come a close second, though, because I am a devoted fan of all stone fruits.

Heavenly peaches

I think they’re best eaten fresh.
And, as I mention in The Cook’s Garden, they also make lovely gifts, placed in a basket, wrapped up in cellophane and tied with a bow.

Freshly picked peaches

When stone fruit is in season, it’s not just the bees who are drunken with hilarity.
Their fragrance alone is enough to make you swoon. And if that doesn’t do the job, the taste surely will.
“For the taste of the fruit is the tongue’s dream”, exclaimed Erica Jong. As poet Andrew Marvell also knew in writing of “the nectarine and curious peach”, there can be real poetry in fruit.
Surrounded by such summer beauty, who wouldn’t be ecstatic? Now is the time to savour these fruits – and savour, in its full meaning, is the word. There’s the charming delicacy of the white clingstone peach, Fragar;  the sumptuous richness of the Red Gold nectarine – to mention just a couple.
The nectarine, in fact, is supposed to be named after nectar, the drink of the gods.

Nectarine Nectar

Stone fruits belong to the rose family and, like the rose, are fragile and must be handled with care. Ideally, peaches and nectarines (which are smooth, plum-skinned varieties of the peach) should be eaten fresh from the tree and not tampered with, though few of us have that luxury.
“If you eat a Fragar picked straight from the tree, you’d never eat anything else,” says Bob Wickson, program leader of Deciduous Fruits, NSW Agricultrure, Bathurst, and secretary fo the Australian Fresh Stoned Fruit Growers Association.
He points out that growers often pick the fruit too early to ensure they travel well, but that this affects the development of full flavour.
“Consumers have to start demanding fruit picked at the right maturity,” he adds.
Not all stone fruit is best eaten straight from the tree.  Some, like the Damson and the Santa Fosa plums, are very tart and can be put to better use in jams, preserves or cheeses (a paste made with fruit and sugar).  It’s a good idea to taste before you buy, though most shopkeepers won’t let you do this. Cooking plums, as distinct from dessert plums, are usually too sour to eat raw.
It would be helpful for the consumer if varieties were labeled and a little information given about them, not just a price per kilo.  Fortunately, the industry is about to start its own funding of research and promotion, the aim of which is to find out what consumers want and to tell them what to look for. Sturdy yellow Golden Queen peaches, used mostly for canning, are a very different proposition from the delicate clingstone Fragar and are different again from the freestone yellow J.H. Hale and Redhaven.

Poached Peaches (from my book "Seasonal Entertaining")

There are so many varieties available these days that even the growers find it hard to keep up. Can you tell the difference when you go shopping?