Roasted Lamb Rack

This roasted lamb rack is cooked with Jamie Oliver's homemade barbecue sauce (from his Jamie At Home series) slowly in the oven and served with potato chips and guacamole.

I bought this beautiful rack of lamb from the butcher this morning (smaller racks, around 4 cutlets, are usually readily available at butchers). I love this cut for its tenderness and its outer layer of fat that seals in all the juices during cooking. Best served rare to medium rare, lamb cutlets are deliciously pink and juicy on the inside. With the barbecue sauce, the lamb is smoky and fragrant with a hint of sweet and hot. Homemade potato chips and a tangy guacamole dip make this a fantastic meal to share between 4 (or an epic meal between 2!).

Jamie Oliver's Homemade Barbecue Sauce

1 heaped teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
5 cloves
Salt and pepper
1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves picked
1 bunch rosemary, leaves picked
1 orange, zested and juiced
1 bulb garlic, peeled
4 heaped teaspoons sweet smoked paprika
6 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
½ cup organic tomato ketchup
8 tablespoons olive oil
10 bay leaves

Grind cumin seeds, fennel seeds, cloves, salt and pepper in a mortar and pestle.

Chop thyme and rosemary leaves, orange zest and garlic together finely.

Combine with herbs in a large bowl and add all other ingredients.

Roasting the lamb rack

Using a large zip-lock bag, place in the lamb rack and half of the barbecue sauce. Rub the sauce into the meat.

Add jalapeño peppers for some heat.

Seal and marinate in fridge for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200˚C.

Roast for 40 - 60 minutes, depending on how rare you want your lamb. Baste the rack with the remaining barbecue sauce halfway through.

Rest for at least 15 minutes so that the meat relaxes and retains maximum juiciness.

Carve and serve!

Homemade potato chips

1 potato
1 sweet potato (optional)
Oil for deep-frying
Salt to season

Heat the oil in a wok over medium high heat.

Cut the potatoes into thin slices (about 2-3mm).

To find the perfect temperature for deep-frying, place a thick piece of potato in the oil. When it turns golden brown, the temperature of the oil is just right.

Drop potato slices carefully down the side of the wok. Cook the potato in batches to keep the oil at the right temperature.

When golden brown, remove from oil and dry on paper towels.

Salt lightly.

Guacamole

1 avocado
½ brown onion
6 - 8 yellow grape tomatoes
Juice of half a lemon
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon chopped chives to serve

Blitz the avocado, onion, tomato, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a food processor to your desired consistency.

If you can't find yellow grape tomatoes, finely dice 1 red tomato and mix in by hand.

Garnish with chives.

Enjoy!

Pastabella, Glebe

89 Glebe Point Rd
Italian restaurant
Call 02 9566 4488 for bookings

Known to locals for the best homemade pasta and a passion for fresh ingredients, Pastabella is an intimate corner of Glebe with a lovely candlelit courtyard out back. My friend Nini and I had a girl-date here tonight and I was very taken with the place. Simplicity and freshness are key to its menu, with all pasta made on the premises and a different risotto and ravioli each day depending on what's in season. I generally don't order lasagne when I eat out - what is it about lasagne and bolognese that make them so easy to stuff up? bad wine? bad tomatoes? - but the lasagne was so fresh you could taste the sweetness of the full-bodied tomatoes.

Lasgna di casa ($18)

Prawn ravioli, served with asparagus and tiger prawns, $26

The prawn and asparagus were fantastic with the sweet and smoky sauce. Naturally, the texture of the pasta was smooth and perfectly al dente.

Unfortunately, Pastabella is BYO but there is a bottle shop just down the road.

Vietnamese Chicken Roll

Chicken and dim sim roll from King's Hot Bread Hurstville, $5.30. The very best Vietnamese chicken roll in Sydney! I like mine with lots o' chilli and coriander. Best eaten in the plastic bag to catch all the beautiful soy juices that leak out. This is the proper way to succumb to fast food.

Garlic and Butter Pork with Creamy White Wine Sauce

Garlic and butter pork loin chop, served with spinach and mushroom in a creamy white wine sauce. I love days like this in the kitchen!

75g butter
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ onion, finely diced
1 teaspoon olive oil
400g pork loin chops
100g button mushrooms, stalks removed and sliced
200g baby spinach leaves
White wine
3 tablespoons cream
Salt and pepper

Serves 2

Cook pork chops, half the butter, olive oil, onion and garlic in a pan over medium, careful not to burn the butter. The pork will take 3-5 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the chops.

Remove pork, onion and garlic from the pan, leaving the oil and juices.

On low heat, add a bit more butter and sautée mushrooms for a few minutes.

When the mushrooms are soft and silky, turn up to medium heat and add just enough white wine to cover the base of the pan. Wait till the alcohol is cooked out.

Add remaining butter, cream, spinach and the onion from earlier and stir until the spinach has wilted.

Season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy!

Shitto

Shitto (a Gharaian chilli and fish paste) with rice, chopped basil, orange zest, ground cardamom and raisins.

I bought this shitto pre-made from an African food store last week. I was very lucky to get my hands on a small jar, packed personally by the woman at Mokola African Market. It smells of fishy, oily and richly spicy goodness and the taste is beautifully intense. I would liken it to belachan (a South-East Asian shrimp paste) or tom yum without the sour. Making shitto involves a long process of drying and grounding fish and cooking slowly in oil with ingredients such as cayenne pepper, tomato and garlic. Make it incorrectly and the fish rots, but make it with care and it keeps for months in an airtight container in the fridge. For this, I admire that Ghanaians eat this every day as a household condiment.

I wanted to learn about African food and what a fascinating way to experience it.

African Food Safari: Mahindi Ya Naz

Translating to mean 'corn in coconut sauce', this Swahili Coast dish is made of up three parts: mahamri, a deep-fried coconut and cardamom bread; corn slowly cooked in coconut milk, onion, tomato puree and turmeric; and suqaar, a stir-fry of lamb, onion, capsicum and tomato puree.

The first thing I noticed while looking at this recipe is that it's easy on the spices and cooking time. Nonetheless, it took quite a bit of labour to make (around 2 hours).

The mahamri was the most fun to make. Making the dough was simple enough (combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients) but because of the coconut and cardamom, it instantly smelt like no bread I've ever tasted. I'm just a little disappointed that I used desiccated coconut instead of coconut milk powder and my mahamri didn't rise as much. In any case though, it turned out fragrant and delicious.

The corn and suqaar were surprisingly mild in taste. The corn and onion were juicy and sweet, complemented nicely with the smooth and creamy coconut sauce. The natural flavour of the lamb is the focus of the suqaar, slightly sweetened by the onion, capsicum and tomato. When combined with the corn and mahamri, each mouthful was strangely delightful - sweet, mildly spicy, meaty. In other words, exotic yum!

Recipe by Shukri Abdi in the Food Safari cookbook.

In Search of Exotic Spices

This month I am going to cook everything in the Africa chapter of the Food Safari book. As it is my objective to learn everything I can about the food I cook and eat and the food of other cultures, I find African cuisine incredibly interesting and exciting. Copious amounts of onion are cooked slowly, without oil, for up to an hour to start off the long cooking processes to soups and meat stews; spices are used to build flavour rather than heat; curries and spice mixes are sometimes made a few days in advance to let the flavours intensify. In short, I will be spending long, long periods of time in the kitchen.

Today I paid my not-so-local African food store (Mokola African Market, Fairfield) a visit in search of spices and traditional starch staples in African cuisine. I couldn't find everything I needed but I picked up some shitto (a chilli and fish paste, served with soup and fish or plain rice), fufu mix (a thick, starchy porridge), red palm-fruit oil (used as a base for cooking) and some African dried fish (cooked in soups). I still need to track down some berbere (a red spice mix), cardamom seeds, nigella seeds, fennel seeds, dried African basil and African mint.

For now, my mission is to find a specialty spice store. I have a feeling it'll be as difficult as finding an African grocery store. If anyone knows where I can get these ingredients, please, please, please feel free to leave me a comment! (In fact, that's not a request, it's a demand.) Otherwise, wish me luck and stay tuned for African cuisine!

Holy Basil, Canley Heights

233A Canley Vale Rd
Laos & Thai restaurant
02 9727 7585

I don't venture out West in Sydney too often, so when I planned a trip to an African grocery store in Fairfield, I was set on making the most of it. Tom Mai excitedly suggested a Thai place he loved: "Are you ready for the best Thai of your life?" Can't say I wasn't told. Holy Basil is caught between Vietnamese restaurants and fresh fruit markets on the quaint and bustling end of Canley Vale Rd. At first glance it is exotic chic, with just the right amount of kitsch to make it trendy, but relax a while at a table that looks out onto the street and chat to the friendly staff and you'll be pleasantly surprised by how laid-back the space is.

The menu is distinctly Lao with a Thai-fusion touch, using lots of spices, herbs and fruits to flavour the food: chilli, kaffir lime leaves, tamarind, sweet basil, papaya and currants to name a few. With so much to try, I easily resisted the urge to order a pad thai. No regrets either, because everything was delicious!

Sticky rice, $3; khao pad sapparot (Thai fried rice with fresh pineapple), $12.90

Nok tod (deep fried crispy marinated quail), $10.90

Traditional Laos pork sausages, $9.90

Gang dang (red curry) with beef, $10.90

On a Friday night this place fills up by seven, though it still retains its quiet and relaxed atmosphere. The prices are very reasonable, perfect for ordering many dishes and sharing it with friends. Enjoy your meal with a classic cocktail or fresh fruit juice (I recommend the jackfruit smoothie).

Quick Seafood Salad

A quick seafood salad after a late night at work. Calamari, Atlantic salmon and prawns marinated in olive oil, parsley, garlic and cracked pepper. Pan-fried on medium-high heat for 4 minutes. Served with green coral lettuce, watercress, bean sprouts, red onion (soaked in lime juice, à la Nigella) and pomegranate seeds, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Ridiculously Rich Chocolate Cake

I received this set of Simple Essentials cookbooks by Donna Hay for my birthday last year (thanks Barb!). When every recipe in this chocolate edition is absolutely drool-worthy, there's only one thing to do: combine 3 of them to create a monster of a cake! With almost one kilo of chocolate and half a kilo of butter in it, this is by far the most indulgent cake I've ever had.

Chocolate mud cake

375g butter, softened
1⅓ cups brown sugar
3 eggs
2 cups plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
⅔ cup cocoa powder, double sifted
200g melted dark chocolate
¾ cup milk

Preheat oven to 160°C. Cream the butter and sugar with an electric beater for 8-10 minutes, or until the mixture is light and creamy. Gradually add eggs and beat well. Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa powder, then fold into the butter and sugar. Fold melted chocolate in. Spoon mixture into a 22cm round cake tin (I used one with a removable base), lined with baking paper. Bake for 1¼ hours. Cool in tin.

Wrap the cake in plastic and place in freezer for at least 2 hours. Using a bread knife, level off the top of the cake. Turn upside down so the base is the top. Cut the cake in half, horizontally.

Chocolate mousse filling

2 teaspoons powdered gelatine
2 tablespoons water
200g dark chocolate, chopped
75g butter
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
4 eggs, separated
1 cup single or pouring cream
3 tablespoons icing sugar, sifted

Place water and gelatine in a bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes. Melt chocolate, butter and cocoa in a saucepan over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat and stir in gelatine mixture until dissolved. Pour mixture into a bowl. Add egg yolks gradually, beating well. Set aside. Whisk the cream with electric beater until soft peaks form. Set aside. Whisk egg whites with electric beater until soft peaks form. Gradually add icing sugar. Whisk until thick and glossy. Gently fold egg white mixture with chocolate mixture. Fold the whipped cream through.

Place bottom layer of chocolate mud cake back in the round cake tin. Pour chocolate mousse filling on top. Wrap up top layer with plastic again. Fridge for 2 hours. Remove from cake tin (this is where the removable base comes in handy) and put top layer on. Set aside in fridge.

Chocolate truffles

400g dark chocolate, chopped
¾ cup single or pouring cream
Cocoa powder, sifted

Melt chocolate and cream over low heat until smooth. Pour mixture into a 15x18cm dish lined with baking paper. Fridge for 2-3 hours. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls. Dust with cocoa powder. Fridge for another hour.

For a nice touch, decorate the top of the cake with chocolate truffles around the edge. If you're not serving it immediately, I suggest serving the chocolate truffles on each plate as they will melt if left out of the fridge for too long.

Chocolate mud cake, chocolate mousse filling and chocolate truffles recipes from Simple Essentials: Chocolate by Donna Hay.

Enjoy!

Garfish, Kirribilli

1/21 Broughton St
Seafood restaurant
02 9922 4322 (No reservations for after 6:30pm)

As a very thoughtful gesture, my boyfriend Dan made a reservation at Garfish Kirribilli for Valentine's Day. That made the day exciting for two reasons - I got to put on a nice dress and visit a restaurant whose objective is to serve 'the freshest fish available'. Even after a little dress drama with the drycleaners, I was still psyched about dining here because I love, love, love seafood. We ate from the Valentine's Day menu - 3 courses and a glass of wine for $85pp.

Sydney rock oysters, fresh with mignonette dressing

Sydney rock oysters, grilled with bacon and worcestshire sauce

Roast barramundi with colcannon and sauce nantua

Grilled snapper with sweet corn risotto

Mango crème brûlée with spiced tuile

The seafood was amazing. The oysters were fresh and seasoned perfectly. The snapper and barramundi were tender and juicy and their natural flavours were brought out beautifully. I did have tiny gripes with the food though - the colcannon (Irish mashed potato) and risotto were too much like the texture of baby food to be served with tender fillets of fish and the crème brûlée didn't crack and was served half lukewarm, half cold. All in all, Garfish know their fish. Whether you've loved fish long time or you want to get into fish, Garfish offers variety and freshness.

Nice restaurants aside, love is staying up late to watch the food channel together. Hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's Day.

Balsamic Glazed Chicken and Bacon with Roasted Beetroot

As promised, here is the recipe for my balsamic glazed chicken and bacon, roasted beetroot and warm garlic and leek dressing. It's a simple and dynamite combo - not to mention a vibrant celebration of what's in season.

You'll need:

2-3 medium beetroot bulbs
6 cloves garlic
150g thick rindless bacon
2 chicken thighs
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
1 leek stalk
Juice of a quarter of a lime
2 tablespoons cream
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Serves 2

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Lay down 2 layers of aluminium foil. Place beetroot and garlic cloves (skin on, crushed) in the centre and wrap up foil, sealing tightly.

Roast in oven for 1 hour.

Sauteé leek slices in olive oil over low heat. Remove from heat when the leek is translucent. Place in a measuring cup or deep bowl.

Cut chicken into 1 inch cubes and bacon into strips. Wrap bacon around chicken in an S-shape, put on metal skewer.

In the same pan used for the leek, heat olive oil on a medium heat. Place skewers in. Brown on all sides. 15 minutes will give the chicken enough time to cook all the way through (metal skewers will cook the chicken from the inside too).

Remove skewers from pan and deglaze pan with balsamic vinegar and sugar. Put skewers back on, coating them with the glaze. Remove from heat and set aside.

To the leek, add the roasted garlic, lime juice, leftover oils and juices from the pan, more olive oil if desired, cream and salt and pepper. Blitz to a pureé.

Peel beetroots. The skin should come off easily by lightly pressing it. Cut into eighths.

If you want the dish to look gourmet, remove the meat from the skewers. Arrange the meat in the middle of the plate and place beetroot slices around. Dollop dressing on top.

Enjoy!

The Deck, Milsons Point

1 Olympic Drive
Mediterranean cuisine
Book online or call 02 9033 7670

Just a few steps away from the Harbour Bridge, The Deck is located on the waterfront and quite fittingly serves modern mediterranean cuisine. With its trendy interior, minimalist and chic booths and ambient lighting, this place is great for an elegant and understated dining experience. I would suggest going on a weeknight to make the most of the atmosphere. The menu is inventive and exciting, playing with the flavours of unusual and fresh foods. If you are sick of paying $20 for bland and predictable dishes, The Deck is two steps up.

Mussels cooked with white wine, cream and fresh herbs, served with crusty baguette, $14

Warm Barbary duck breast salad, walnuts, pomegranate, sour plum chutney and radicchio, (main) $27.50

I've got to say this was a very fun dinner. I like to think I'm a seafood connoisseur but I have never had mussels as silky and tender as these. I was really excited about the bold choice of flavours in the duck salad. The walnuts and sour plum with the duck didn't really do it for me, but the fresh pomegranate and duck was a genius combination. I've decided I'm going to have the parmesan gnocchi with roast pumpkin, rocket, toasted pine nuts and parmesan cream (Bracken, 'picked it!') when I take Dan here next time.

PS: Just up the road and through the tunnel on Broughton St is a lovely cafe called The Mad Italian where they do a mean pistachio gelato.

Marshmallow and Fig Jam Slice

This was inspired by my newfound love for figs and a tip-off from my friend Tom Mai that Rockpool is doing passionfruit-flavoured marshmallows in cocktails (definitely on my to-try list!). A layer of biscuit, a layer of fig jam and a layer of marshmallow (melted in a double boiler) combined with passionfruit pulp. Yum! Tom Mai had doubts about this experiment but I'm having the last laugh (and the last bite).

You'll need:

1 packet Monte Carlo biscuits, cream scooped out
50g butter
St Dalfour's Royal Fig jam
250g white marshmallows
Pulp of 3 passion fruits

Combine biscuits and butter in a food processor until you have fine crumbs. Pour into a shallow round dish like a flan. Flatten with the bottom of a glass. Set in fridge for an hour.

Melt marshmallows in a double boiler over low heat. When it looks like melted ice cream, remove from heat and stir in passion fruit.

Spread a thin layer of fig jam on the biscuit base. Pour marshmallow over. Set in fridge for 2 hours.

Enjoy!

How To Lose a Day in the Kitchen

It's been one of those days where I've spent the whole morning and afternoon thinking about and making food. I can spend hours in a fresh food market and be fascinated by the wonderful colours and shapes. My favourite part is ripping apart herb leaves and smelling and tasting them (while no one's looking, of course).

These holidays I've been putting more thought into what I cook. Time and patience make cooking a cathartic experience. From the creativity of putting flavours and textures together (it's amazing how we can imagine the visuals and tactility of food) to the humdrum of chopping vegetables (when we get to really know our food), cooking is an all-consuming experience. It gives me peace of mind, time to think. I plate things up and I'm a better person.

Today I decided to try out an oldie of mine (chicken and bacon on skewers, glazed with balsamic vinegar and sugar) with something I'd never tried before (roasted beetroot in a salad of beetroot leaves, cos lettuce and raw leek). To that I added a dressing of pureed roasted garlic and sauteed leeks, olive oil, lime juice, cream, salt and pepper. The skewers of meat were smoky and sweet, which went together beautifully with the creamy, garlicky and slightly acidic dressing. And the mellowed beetroot was surprisingly delightful (I'm not one who enjoys beetroot in burgers, but this I loved).

The best part of today? I've come up with a new dish to add to my repertoire, I've learnt how to improve it (for one, the raw leek has to go) and I've had a long, enjoyable day in the kitchen.

I'll be putting up a vlog for this recipe soon, very soon, so keep your eyes peeled. In the meantime, keeping cooking and expanding your comfort zone, and please feel free to comment with suggestions!