Spring in the Adelaide Hills

Amazing how fast six months can pass by. Last time I wrote, Autumn was just beginning to assert its influence over a Summer-parched garden and we were about to bring in the garlic harvest. It's all gone now, although it lasted us most of the way through Winter, alongside the greens like kale, broccoli, silverbeet and cauliflower.

It was a remarkably benevolent Winter come to think of it, with few frosts and rain like I haven't ever seen since I moved here. This meant our second crop of potatoes was allowed to grow all the way through to June and we're still eating them now. Mind you, I think we'll have to put most of what's left aside for seed potatoes, cos it's spud plantin' time again! The coriander loved the mild wet conditions as well. We had a 2 by 1.5 metre plot that gave us and everyone who visited bundles of the stuff for months on end. It's bolted now, but once the seed has set we'll have next year's crop, plus enough to dry, roast and grind up in an endless flow of curries and other spiced delights.

So now we're well into Spring and are reaping all the benefits that lie therein. I'm still getting over the novelty value of living in a place that has such clearly defined seasons. The subtropical Northern Rivers really only had two or maybe three seasonal shifts - Hot & wet, cold & dry, hot & dry - but in the Hills, you could mark the change of season from one day to the next. All at once our lawn is up to our knees because the temperature's rising and it's been raining so much. The paddocks surrounding our shallow valley, emerald green at sunrise, turn a vivid yellow around mid morning every day as the daisy-like weed that flourishes all through the region opens its flowers to the day's warmth. The days lengthen markedly and all of a sudden it's time to plant the tomatoes.

Spring in the vegie garden is a truly exciting time in our temperate/ mediterranean climate. The asparagus we've been patiently waiting for over the past three years is finally ready to harverst and has been producing handfulls of crisp, fat spikes for the past couple of months. I didn't think we'd have enough broad beans from what we had planted, but because of the wet weather, they had more time to devote to upward and outward growth. Now the warm weather has returned and the bees with it, it's practically raining with the fat little buggers at our place. I've picked three large mixing bowls full of them in the past week alone! Those that make it to the kitchen past my 18-month-old daughter's attentions have been finding their way into just about every meal cooked in our kitchen for the past six weeks. Indeed, they feature in the recipe at the end of this post.

This weekend we took a vote and decided to sacrifice half the beans to put in the first of our tomato seedlings. They'll love it, because not only do the remaining bean plants shelter them from the increasingly harsh afternoon sun, but they've also enriched the soil with their very presence, being the nitrogen-fixing legumes they are. We've also set up a framework and planted climbing beans, put in a trio of globe artichokes that should be coming into their own around this time next year and planted several little nasturtiums that will hopefully cover most of the ground under the grape vines by the middle of Summer.

Glorious Spring. The Blue Wrens have returned from wherever they spend their Winters, as have the Black Cockatoos, whose languid wing beats I've always found strangely reassuring - they're obviously not in any hurry, so why should I be?

But now for a recipe that I hope captures all that rich, vibrant Spring energy and reinvigorates you, the eater, with a sense of hope and renewed purpose (or, at the very least, fills your stomach and leaves a smile on your face). I made this last Sunday and because I only realised halfway through that we had no bread, I knocked up a loaf of one-hour soda bread. Thankfully, it complemented the other ingredients well, so I've included the recipe for this as well.

Spring Poached Eggs for Two

Soda Bread
2 Cup Plain Flour
1 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
100g Butter
1 Egg
1 Cup Yoghurt or Buttermilk

How
- Mix dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls, except for the butter.
- Rub butter into dry ingredients until a crumble-like consistency has developed.
- Mix in wet stuff and combine into a dough.
- Knead on a floured bench until smooth (usually about 2-3 minutes).
- Roll into a ball and bake on a greased tray for 40 minutes at C-170.

The Rest
1.5L water
Quarter of a cup of white vinegar
Four eggs (free range, nothing else will do)
3 rashers of bacon
1.5 cups of broad beans (or thereabouts)
8 aparagus spears
Two large field mushrooms (we're growing our own in the shed, so they're legitimately seasonal)
2 sprigs each of thyme and lemon thyme

How
- Add vinegar to water and bring to the boil. Once it's there, reduce temperature to an unsettled simmer.
- Heat a frypan and, having cut bacon up into half-centimetre strips, fry them until they begin to go crispy.
- Slice mushrooms thinly and add to pan, along with the herbs, chopped roughly.
- Using a sieve, blanch broad beans and asparagus in the simmering water for about 30 seconds then add to frypan. It's not necessary at this point to drain them too well, as any excess water will help deglaze the pan.
- Mix all frying ingredients well and grind in black pepper to taste. Remove from heat after a minute or so.
- Toast one thick slice of soda bread per eater.
- Stir water in a circular motion to create a vortex then break in eggs one at a time. Poach them for about two minutes, so the whites have pretty much cooked through but the yolks are still lovely and runny. If you don't like your yolks runny (you're wrong, but who am I to judge?), cook longer.
- Drain the cooked eggs, put them on the toast then add the fried mix around the base.
- Just before eating, squeeze some fresh lemon juice onto the fried vegies and bacon, then eat up and watch the smiles spread slowly across the faces of those eating. Mission accomplished!

So that's my Spring recipe. Hope you all (fictitious readership) have time to stop for a moment in the next month or so and make the most of a gorgeous Spring morning before we descend once again into the relentlessly oppressive heat of Summer.

Buen apetito!

No can do

Got a new job at the CSIRO's Prevantative Health Flagship, the one that produced the Total Wellbeing Diet books etc. Makes me think twice about many of the things I'm eating, but not quite enough to change my ways.

But am now working two jobs, 50 hour weeks every week. My lady's doing it tough herself, looking after the bub single-handedly. I miss them both and look forward to the time when we can spend some real time together.

Needless to say, I'm not doing any cooking, nor having any exciting adventures with food (unless you count sneaking out from work late at night to pick up a Pad Thai), so the blog remains my poor neglected third child (after Tilly and the dog).

The situation may improve some time in the future, but for now we'll just have to wait and see...

The kangaroo of thanks

As I pointed out in my last post, I've been a bit laid up lately with a shattered ankle (boo hiss). I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but at the same time I'm not looking for sympathy, not for self inflicted injuries. My point is, during this time my long-suffering and unfeasibly wonderful better half took care of me, our daughter and everything else around the house while I slumped on the couch feeling sorry for myself.

So now I'm mobile again (sort of), I decided to cook her a special meal to say thanks, not that one meal will make up for a couple of months of convalescent care.

The Menu:
Marinated kangaroo fillet on candied sweet potato with green beans and an orange & star anise sauce.

Kangaroo is such an under-rated meat. It's got everything going for it - high in protein and iron, low in cholesterol, it's amazingly tender and produced with a minimal impact on the environment - all that and it tastes great too! I've heard arguments that it's too gamey for some people, but with the fillet that's just not an issue. To be honest, I think people are just finding excuses not to eat it because of some self-imposed mental barrier to eating skippy. get over it I say. The arguments for it far outweigh those against.

The Meat
Put your trimmed kangaroo fillet in a bowl with five cloves of crushed and chopped garlic and a spice mix consisting of ground black pepper, turmeric, cumin, coriander and caraway seeds. Add a generous dollop of olive oil and a teaspoon of harissa (ours home-made gear, made with a recipe in Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion, is super hot so I use it sparingly). Mix the lot together and leave to marinate while you prepare all the rest.

The Sweet Potatoes
I love sweet spuds with a nice crispy candied layer on the outside. First pre-heat your oven to 200C. Peel the potato and slice it laterally (crosswise) about an inch thick. Boil the slices until the outside has started to soften. While this is going on, dissolve a tablespoon of brown sugar in the a couple of spoonfuls of water and reduce it almost to caramel. Once the spuds are soft, put them in the pan with the sugar mix and allow it to form a layer around the sweet potato slices. Place them on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper and chuck them in the oven for about 20-25 minutes.

The Sauce
Combine a cup of chicken or beef stock with half a cup of orange juice, the leftover sugar syrup from the sweet potatoes and spices, including a stick of cinnamon, two whole star anise thingies and a teaspoon of whole coriander seeds. Reduce on a simmer for around 30 minutes, about the same amount of time it takes to cook the roo and spuds.

Bringing it all Together
When your spuds and sauce are about 10 minutes away, heat up a frypan on the stove until it's almost smoking. Add a drop of oil and sear off your roo fillets, making sure you add all the marinating liquid as well, browning them on both sides. If your pan has a metal handle, chuck the whole thing in the oven to cook through, or else just turn the stove down and cook to your preferred taste (anything more than medium and you're wasting a great cut of meat).
To present, place three of the slices of sweet potato on the plate, top off with a handful of green beans then slice your roo fillet artfully on top. Take the juices from the frypan and from the board you used to cut the kangaroo and add them to the sauce. Mix it quickly and drizzle over the whole concoction.

For a meal like this I had to find a wine to match, so I headed over the hill to the Bird in Hand winery, hoping to snag a bottle of their lovely Pinot Noir. But when I got there I found they were all out. Not to worry, after a quick perusal of their bottles I settled upon a Merlot, described as having "generous fleshy fruit (flavours) and a succulent and supple texture". I found its mellower, more intense fruit flavour better suited to the kangaroo than a more robust red like a Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon, which seem more appropriate with a fattier animal like beef or lamb.

Needless to say the whole meal went down a treat and went at least part of the way to saying thank you. Now, if anyone wants me, I'll be in the kitchen washing up. There's a lot of ground to make up yet...

Still eating, still cooking

It’s ok everyone, I’m still alive. I know it’s been almost nine months since my last post but a lot of stuff has happened since then. Most notably, the birth of my beautiful daughter Matilda. This obviously brought about big changes in my life and coming to grips with them, combined with struggling to finish off the final semester of my degree, left me little time to devote to voluntary pursuits.

Just as I was about to get back into it after graduating, I had to go and break my ankle into five pieces, a state conducive to sitting around writing you might think. Instead I chose to spend my convalescence sitting around mastering the Lego Star Wars game my brother thoughtfully sent me.

So there you go, and here we are in 2009. Another year and a fresh start for my blogging exploits (at least that’s how it’s planned). Hopefully I’ll get my act together enough to regularly chart my culinary exploits post university, post fracture and post 2008.

Until next we speak, happy eating.