Food

Christmas is a time when many of us feel compelled to give people gifts and, as the year starts to collapse in on itself, the urgency builds. Where to go shopping? What to buy? Will they like it? Can I afford it? My advice? Forgo those sterile shopping centres, avoid the packed high streets, and do a little shopping at your local fruit and nut shop. Then, head home to your kitchen, crank up Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and get baking.

I think it’s probably relevant to talk about the weather. Summer’s here and the sunshine is a good excuse for mussels. These mussels are in a green chilli paste that I first started using on octopus in the restaurant. I’ve adjusted the recipe, deleting some of the salt and adding mussel juice. I tend to marinate the mussels on the day, but they can be marinated overnight to take on a slightly pickled quality.

It was some of Charles Fourier’s wilder notions that created the fodder for my banquet menu. In my research I found lovely stories about old hens, his love of a funny little cake called a mirliton, and his much discussed notion to re-engineer the Earth’s climate in order to change the sea from an unpalatable brine to lemonade. And hence this appetiser or entree of cured kingfish. Salt and sugar in the cure, sprinkling a little on the fish afterwards to give a little crunch, the coldness of the fish’s flesh, the slight hint of lemon and a little garnish of mint. Pure, simple and redolent of a sea of lemonade.

There are very few things better than a fresh-baked cheesecake. For me, it is all about the perfect, creamy texture. Here, it is topped with cream, baked rhubarb and strawberries. But there are many variants. A simple dusting of nutmeg. A lovely crisp crumble of caramelised oats. Fresh raspberries.

When you wish to roll the pastry tart, lightly butter the form. Remove the pastry from the fridge, shape into a four-centimetre roll and slice into one-centimetre thick disks. Place the disks in a fish-scale pattern in the base of the tart form. Using your fingers, push the pastry down to create a smooth surface and up the sides to fill the tart shell. Alternatively, you could roll the pastry out to a three-millimetre-thick sheet and line the tart form with this.

So why should we eat chicken sandwiches on Melbourne Cup Day? Because they are delicious, they are reasonably healthy, easy to transport and, let’s face it, they tend to soak up alcohol. For me, the perfect chicken sandwich starts with a gently poached chicken.

The flavours that I’ve used for this recipe are vaguely Moorish. I’ve been obsessed with the flavour combination of quail and pistachios since eating a quail flatbread served with yoghurt and pistachio nuts at a restaurant in London named Moro. That would have been almost 20 years ago.

Green and pink. Pink and green. Two of my favourite spring colours. Whether it be the beginnings of the berry season, the soft downy centres of broad bean pods, or the subtlety of spring lamb, they are colours that keep reappearing in the palette of my spring dishes.

This is a great example of a recipe that can really highlight the quality of chocolate. Too often, chocolate gets piled up with other flavours. Here you really taste the nuance – the different notes in the chocolate. Because it’s cooked at a lower temperature, these flavours are not damaged.

Ostensibly, I would think of this recipe as a breakfast dish. Having said that, though, some days when the week has been long and harsh and comfort is needed, there is nothing better than poached eggs for dinner. Asparagus, morels, eggs, chervil. Spring is truly here.