Salsa Agresto

Every now and then, I experience a minor miracle: a food that my three children all like. Currently there are ten things on the list, and it is, indeed, a literal list, a dog-eared square of yellow card on our fridge naming the dinners my children have agreed to eat without fussing.

For the record, they are green pie, green tart, rice and lentils, pasta puttanesca (no chilli), pasta with olive and parsley sauce, pasta with tuna and peas, fried rice, tortillas with beans and guacamole, and couscous with chickpeas, cranberries and pine nuts. They will also eat homemade pizza they have topped themselves with olives and capers. It's not a very local list, and I struggle to find local foods that all three enjoy.

But this week, the miracle: salsa agresto! Salsa agresto is a sauce made from nuts, parsley and verjuice. It's principally used on meats and poultry, but I pretended it was a pasta sauce, tossed it through noodles and sprinkled it with parmesan. Boy, was it good.

It reminded me of a favourite salad I used to eat at a restaurant in DC made with fresh greens, and topped with homemade falafel balls, fresh grapes and toasted almonds. This was like eating the best bits of the salad in every mouthful.

At the base of the sauce lies verjuice*, which contributes a clear fruity flavour. Ordinarily I'd substitute something else; unlike lemons, verjuice doesn't grow on my neighbour's tree. However, the verjuice is what makes it. Its sweetness rounds out the flavours beautifully; straight lemon juice or vinegar would be too sharp. In any case, the word 'agresto' refers to grape juice, so without verjuice Salsa Agresto would have to be called something else.

The almonds were from our tree; the walnuts, local. If you are going to make this sauce, ensure you too are using fresh local almonds and walnuts. They're easy to find in the organic shops. Most imported nuts are rancid and will make your sauce sour and deeply unpleasant.

I based my sauce on a recipe in Maggie's Harvest. Maggie uses a combination of parsley and basil, but in my garden we don't see any basil until the parsley has well and truly gone to seed. In any case, I think the flavours of parsley, walnuts and almonds are quite enough, so I left the basil out.

Once the sauce was made, I reserved what we needed for one meal. The rest I placed in a very clean jar, covered it with a blanket of olive oil, and popped in the fridge. It should keep there for at least a week. We ate it with pasta; it would also go well with poultry, falafel or roasted root vegetables.

*Note: Verjuice contains sulphites; I realised this when I wandered around grumpily tight-chested for a couple of hours after the meal, then finally thought to check the bottle. If you, like me, are mildly sensitive to sulphites, consider warming the verjuice then simmering it uncovered for a few minutes. The heat will break down the sulphites into sulphur dioxide, which will evaporate (this is why you need to leave the lid of the saucepan off). Allow it to cool, then proceed with the recipe.

Of course, if you are highly sensitive to sulphites, cook something else; or try substituting half water, half lemon juice with a pinch of sugar, and adjust to taste; or even press your own grape juice from unripe grapes, which, in fact, is what I intend to do later this year as some of our grapes make a lovely juice, and the very thought of that delicate flavour as the base of this nutty sauce makes my mouth water even now.

Salsa Agresto - ½ cup freshly shelled walnuts - ½ cup freshly shelled almonds - 1½ packed cups flat-leaf parsley - 1 clove garlic - ½ tsp salt - ½ cup verjuice - about ½ cup olive oil Preheat the oven to 200°C. Roast the almonds and walnuts on a baking tray for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring from time to time. Remove from the oven when they smell lightly toasted. Rub any loose skins off the walnuts with a tea towel, and leave to cool. Place the parsley, garlic, salt and nuts in a food processor and whizz. Slowly add the verjuice, then enough olive oil to loosen it up. Check for seasoning, and serve. Adapted from a recipe in Maggie's Harvest by Maggie Beer. (Local: walnuts, almonds, garlic, parsley, olive oil. Not too far away: verjuice. Not local: salt.)

Chicken with Marjoram

I am a sick woman. At least, that's what my husband says, because every time I see a cow I get hungry. A beautiful beast with soft eyes is gazing limpidly at me from a field, chewing the cud. My husband is ruminating on the idyllic pastoral scene, and I'm wondering aloud where I can find a good steak.

Other people understand. I met one such gentleman at Northcote Lake. He was feeding stale organic sourdough to the ducks (this is the inner north, after all), and we had a delightful time debating the merits of Duck a l'Orange, Peking Duck and duck with sour cherry sauce.

The lake at Malmsbury makes me hungry, too. It is populated by a flock of geese, and each time I see them my mind is flooded with an image of a perfectly golden roast goose surrounded by baked apples; my mouth fills with saliva. The day one goosed me, I was particularly tempted.

And now we have chickens. They are beautiful birds; they make me laugh; they have distinct personalities; I like to stroke them... and they are so plump.

I'm like some ravening beast from a cartoon show. Yet I have almost never cooked meat, testament to a long-standing commitment to consume less. I do eat meat when we're out and about, which is rare these days; but I don't cook it at home. We stick to eggs, pulses and fish.

But when we're not eating eggs, I've been wondering about the sustainability of this commitment. Sure, I soak Australian pulses, but when I'm in a rush, which is often, I reach for the cans from Italy. Yet buying canned vegetables from Europe feels environmentally insane – the food miles! – and ethically dubious. Those Albanian field workers aren't treated too well.

On the other hand, the more I read about overfishing and the working conditions of many fishing crews, the less keen I am on fish. Half the time I can't find anything from the sustainable fishing guide at the fish shop; and in any case my kids don't really like fish, except mackerel (unavailable in Australia), salmon (which is usually farmed, pumped full of antibiotics and fed ground up by-catch) and canned tuna (and the sustainable ones give them a rash. What is that about?).

I'm starting to think that eating local chicken might be better.

So last week, in a radical move for our household, I made my first tentative foray into cooking poultry. I bought some local free range drumsticks and roasted them with marjoram and lemons. They came out of the oven burnished gold. The marjoram lent sweetness and interest, and the lemons were lightly caramelized and syrupy.

The drumsticks disappeared quickly, and one child begged for more. She then spent the week telling friends in great detail about the delicious meal I made, and has asked me to cook it again.

Like her, I love to eat meat, but I have to admit that I'm no great evangelist. To me, it's more of a guilty secret because, no matter how thoughtful the farming method or how low the food miles, meat means the death of a sentient being with little or no acknowledgement or gratitude. All I can say is that I suspect a responsibly farmed local chicken is more sustainable than Italian pulses and most fish, it's easy to prepare, and it's tasty; and I can choose to give thanks before I eat.

Chicken with Marjoram - 5 or 6 chicken drumsticks (they're easy for kids to hold, and amusing to play with) - a lemon - a big handful of marjoram - salt - olive oil Preheat the oven to 200°C. Wash the marjoram, and check for bugs. I left mine on the stem, but you can pick the leaves off if you wish. Chop the lemons roughly and randomly, into perhaps a half-inch dice. If necessary, trim the chicken of any dangly bits. Rub with a little salt. Place in a baking dish with the lemons and marjoram. Drizzle with olive oil, and use your hands to combine. Ensure the marjoram has a little oil on it; otherwise it will dry out and burn. Roast at 200°C for 35 minutes. Turn the drumsticks over, and roast for another 20 minutes at 160°C or until they are golden. Roasting temperatures from the very useful How to Eat by Nigella Lawson; the food porn photograph of a goose and apples is in her absolutely wonderful book Feast: Food that celebrates life. Photograph shows a piece of chicken which is clearly not a drumstick; sometimes I use drumsticks, other times, every part of a chicken I can get my hands on! (Local: chicken, marjoram, lemons, olive oil. Not local: salt.)

How to eat an artichoke

I came to artichokes like I came to babies: ignorant, and full of trepidation.

The first time round, having a baby seemed like a nice idea, if a little weird. But as my belly grew and grew, I began to get anxious. I realised I didn't have a clue how to care for one. I didn't know anyone with a newborn; I didn't know who to ask. Until I had my own, I never held a baby, and I learned everything I needed to know from books and professionals. It was a bit hit and miss there for a while, but somehow we muddled through – and now I'm quite baby-mad!

Similarly, I never ate a fresh artichoke until I grew my own. There was a certain gap in the garden. The soil was dry; the other plants in the bed were silvery-grey; and I needed something that would grow quick and fast. So I planted an artichoke. It shot up and out and filled the space, just as I had hoped. But as for eating the things...

Well, last year, I felt anxious. I dithered, and picked the artichokes late; they were tough and tasteless and the choke was full of fluff.

This year I am better prepared, more confident. The other night I wandered out with a knife and cut seven tight buds from the plant, gloating all the while; then I cooked them up for dinner.

I served them with warm melted butter flecked with parsley. My husband and I ate our artichokes with gusto, dipping leaves into the butter, slurping and sucking, and letting the juice run down our chins. Had we not had three young squabbling children present, only one of whom would try their artichoke – the same child who later sent the other four members of the family berserk so that there was a great deal of screaming and no songs at bedtime – the experience might have been quite erotic. Alas, my friends, that is the story of my life.

Artichoke

O heart weighed down by so many wings

Quite so. Thank you, Joseph Hutchison (as quoted in Ted Kooser's delightful book The Poetry Home Repair Manual).

Just Artichokes - artichokes - a lemon - a bay leaf - salt - a great knob of butter - a few stalks of flat-leaf parsley Bring a large nonreactive pot of water to the boil. (An aluminium pot will discolour the artichokes and itself.) Prepare the artichokes by slicing off the top quarter or so of the head, and rubbing the cut surface with lemon juice. Remove the bottom two rows of leaves, and rub those surfaces with lemon, too. Leave at least 10 cm of stalk, as the inside of the stalk is delicious. Salt the water and throw in a bay leaf or two. Drop the artichokes into the pot. Weigh down with a curved pot lid or plate to keep submerged, and boil for 20 minutes, or until tender. Chop the parsley finely. Melt the butter, and stir in the parsley. When the artichokes are done, remove from the pot and leave upside down for a minute to drain. Serve. To eat, tear off the leaves one by one, dip them into the butter, and, using your front teeth, scrape the morsel of flesh from the base of the leaf into your mouth. Rip open the stalk, and pull out the tender strip. Dip it, and eat. When you get to the heart, peer at it. If it's hairy, discard it. If it's young and tight and smooth, as once were we all, demolish the lot, smacking your lips and sighing with pleasure from time to time. Many books describe how to prepare an artichoke in great detail. See, for example, Maggie's Harvest by Maggie Beer, or The Cook's Companion by Stephanie Alexander. Maggie suggests cooking the artichokes with bay leaves; Stephanie, serving them with parsley butter. (Exceedingly local: artichokes, lemon, bay leaves, parsley. Not particularly local: butter, salt.)

 

Leek Tart

What fools those food writers think we be. Time and again I make a recipe and it is clear that there is twice as much sauce as should be, or stock, or sugar; time and again I look at a picture, and it is not what it claims to be. The latest offender is Maggie Beer. In her gorgeous if somewhat precious book, Maggie's Harvest, we have a full-page picture of a 'Pumpkin Picnic Loaf'. I asked my four year old to examine the photograph and tell me what was in the sandwich. 'Um, pumpkin,' she said. 'Feta or maybe chévre. Onions. Basil.'

Correct. My four year old can identify the ingredients in a photograph of a sandwich. And in the recipe, do we have feta or chévre? Onions? Basil?

No, we do not. Not a skerrick. The recipe calls for gruyere, not a white goats cheese; zucchini, not onions; and parsley. While the basil in the photograph could possibly be baby spinach leaves – also absent from the recipe – it could not by any stretch of the imagination be parsley.

Now, the recipe looks good. The sandwich looks better. But the disjunction between the two makes me mistrust the recipe and the writer, and I feel slightly miffed – how stupid do the editors think I am, that I can't identify the ingredients in a full-page photograph?

On the bright side, it gives me permission to make the sandwich the way I want – and when I make it, I will use chévre and onions.

As I think about not following recipes, I find myself recalling last night's leek tart and salivating. We had a dozen people for dinner, plus kids; so I made a green tart and a leek tart (doubling the pastry recipe to make two tart cases, of course), a cabbage and apple coleslaw, and a beet and pumpkin salad. Someone brought roast chickens, and that, plus 5 or 6 bottles of wine, formed the main course. Not too shabby for a Tuesday.

Every recipe I have seen for leek tart uses cream and, usually, egg yolks. As much as I love cream, I usually find it a bit rich in a savoury tart. So I made my tart with full cream milk and whole eggs, and it was simply delicious. The tart came out of the oven burnished gold, and the filling simply melted in the mouth. Perfect.

The recipe follows the Green Tart recipe almost exactly; even so, I will post it in full so you can follow it without referring to the Green Tart recipe.

Leek Tart For the pastry: - 120g flour - 50g unsalted butter - 3 tbs water - pinch salt For the filling: - 1 large, 2 medium or 4 skinny leeks - a skerrick of freshly grated nutmeg - 200g cheddar cheese - 5 eggs - 1 ½ cups milk Make the pastry: Place the flour, a pinch of salt and the butter in a food processor. Process for 30 seconds, or until the butter and flour are incorporated; there will be no loose flour flying around. Add the water a tablespoon at a time, and process for another 30 seconds to a minute or until the mixture resembles tiny soft pebbles. Flour the bench and a rolling pin. Tip the pastry onto the bench, and gently form into a flat disc with your hands. Roll it out, rolling from the centre to the edge and turning 90 degrees between each roll, until it fits your dish. (Mine is 25cm in diameter.) Drape the pastry over the rolling pin and lift it carefully into the dish. Pat into place. Trim the edges. Place the dish into the freezer, and leave it there until you need it. Preheat the oven to 180C. Top and tail your leek(s). Slice down the middle, and fan out under running water to remove any trapped dirt. Shake and pat dry. Slice into half moons about ½ cm wide. Melt 50g butter in a wide skillet. Add the leeks and a pinch of salt, and leave over medium-low heat to sweat for 30 or so minutes, or until the leeks are incredibly soft. Do not let them colour. Leave to cool slightly. Grate the cheese. Beat the eggs lightly, then whisk in the milk with a skerrick of nutmeg. Remove the tart shell from the freezer. Spread the grated cheese over the base. Spoon the leeks over the cheese, then gently pour the egg and milk over the leeks. Slip into the oven for 45 minutes or until the top is puffy and golden. Leave to cool for at least ten minutes, during which time it will set further, before serving. (Local: leeks, eggs, milk. Not particularly local: flour, butter, cheese, nutmeg, salt, pepper.)

 

Green Tart

Late in rainbow chard season, the leaves become extraordinarily wrinkly. I cut out the toughest part of the stem, wash the leaf, and find myself thinking always of old judges. The wet leaf hangs in my hand like a judge's wig, crimped and curled and ready to drape over head and shoulders. I think of red velvet robes and white ruffs; hooked noses and pinched faces with mouths like cats' bottoms, gavels held in gnarled and knobbly fists; or perhaps ruddy cheeks, a brandy-nose, and piggy eyes sunk deep in fat. I'm swimming in some Dickensian world of dark timber and ominous shadows; then the voice of one of my children breaks through, and I surface again to cook dinner.

It doesn't say much for my view of the judiciary. Perhaps I ought to accompany my husband – a lawyer – to court one day and see a young modern judge wearing slacks. But then where's the fun?

This week rainbow chard, beet leaves and warrigal greens made their way into a tart sort-of-thing. It's what I make when the egg carton's full and warrigal greens are surging over the garden path.

Green Tart For the pastry: - 120g flour - 50g unsalted butter - 3 tbs water - pinch salt For the filling: - a bunch of greens. (This week I used about 500g greens, a combination of rainbow chard, beet leaves and warrigal greens*.) - 6 anchovies (optional but good) - a few strips of lemon zest, chopped very finely - 200g cheddar cheese - 6 eggs - 2 cups milk - a sprinkling of pine nuts (also optional, also good) Make the pastry: (This is exactly the same base as Onion Tart.) Place the flour, a pinch of salt and the butter in a food processor. Process for 30 seconds, or until the butter and flour are incorporated; there will be no loose flour flying around. Add the water a tablespoon at a time, and process for another 30 seconds to a minute or until the mixture resembles tiny soft pebbles. Flour the bench and a rolling pin. Tip the pastry onto the bench, and gently form into a flat disc with your hands. Roll it out, rolling from the centre to the edge and turning 90 degrees between each roll, until it fits your dish. (Mine is 25cm in diameter.) Drape the pastry over the rolling pin and lift it carefully into the dish. Pat into place. Trim the edges. Place the dish into the freezer, and leave it there until you need it. Preheat the oven to 180C. Boil a pot of water. Wash your greens well, and chop coarsely. Blanch the greens in several batches, cooking each batch for a minute then scooping out to drain in a colander. Warm a swirl of olive oil in a wide skillet with the anchovies. Push them around until they are a sizzling paste, then add the greens and the lemon zest. Stir to combine, then leave to cool. If you are worried about someone getting a chunk of anchovy, briefly pulse-chop the mixture in a food processor until combined, but before it is sludge. Grate the cheese. Beat the eggs lightly, then whisk in the milk. Remove the tart shell from the freezer. Spread the grated cheese over the base. Spoon the green mixture over the cheese, then gently pour the egg and milk over the greens. Strew pine nuts over the top, then slip into the oven for 45 minutes or until the top is puffy and there is just a very slight wobble in the centre. Leave to cool for at least ten minutes, during which time it will set further, before serving. *If you are using warrigal greens, also known as New Zealand spinach or tetragon, it is absolutely imperative that you blanch them first. They contain high levels of oxalates, which can cause a tightening of the throat, nausea and worse when consumed in large quantities. Blanching removes the soluble oxalates and also some of the salts. Leave the lid off the saucepan while blanching so that condensation does not drop back into the saucepan, and discard the blanching liquid. For more on warrigal greens, see Wild Lime: Cooking from the bushfood garden. This book is out of print, so hard to find; but the author has more recently written the glossier Wild Food: 100 Recipes Using Australian Ingredients, no doubt also worth a look. (Local: greens, lemon, eggs, milk. Not particularly local: flour, butter, cheese, anchovies, pine nuts, salt, pepper.)

Broad beans and chicory

 

Each year I plant broad beans. Each year I realise with dismay that yet again I haven't planted a quarter the plants I need to feed a family, and have to top up our harvest with store bought beans.

Broad beans are ready to pick just when the mint goes ballistic. For all the dire warnings I received about mint – that it would invade our garden and I'd never be able to contain it – I lost a dozen plants before I hit on the outlandish idea of growing it in an old bathtub filled with potting mix and compost. The tub provides room for their roots to go deep. I can dump in a bucket of water from time to time to keep it moist. When it's looking seedy I throw in a handful of desiccated chook poo and it takes off again. And, because every mint plant I've ever grown naked has been quite literally munched to death, the lot is draped over with small gauge bird netting, so small that no butterfly or cabbage moth can get in and lay their dratted eggs.

For the last few years we've had the biggest mint harvest in Brunswick, I am sure – a bathtubful. We eat it in tabouleh, we use it in drinks, we toss it through salads. And, of course, we use it to flavour broad beans.

This broad bean and chicory mix is delicious served atop bruschetta: thick sourdough bread brushed with olive oil and grilled on a hot cast iron ridge pan until criss-crossed with char lines. In the absence of a cast iron griddle, you can also serve it atop a nice thick piece of toast.

Broad beans with chicory - 1 kg broad beans in their pods - 500g chicory or other strong green, washed and chopped coarsely - 8 to 10 stalks mint - 2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced - 6 to 8 anchovies - a lemon - olive oil - salt, pepper Pod the broad beans. Bring a pot of water to the boil. Cook the broad beans and mint for 5 or so minutes – less for very young beans, more for very old ones. Drain. If the beans are very large, pop them out of their grey skins. Otherwise, leave them as they are. Drizzle with olive oil. Warm a good swirl of olive oil over medium heat in a wide skillet. Add the anchovies and garlic, and sprinkle with salt. Stir constantly until you have a paste; but take care not to scorch the garlic. Add the chicory, and stir. Clap the lid on, and leave it to wilt. When the chicory has wilted, add the broad beans. Stir well to combine. Dress with lemon juice, and a drizzle with a little more olive oil if you wish. Serve. Simplified and adapted from a recipe in The River Cafe Green Cook Book. (Local: broad beans, chicory, mint, garlic, olive oil, lemon. Not local: anchovies, salt, pepper.) Photo shows chicory with borlotti beans, another good option!

Hollandaise Sauce

Some couples come back from their tenth wedding anniversary pregnant. Us, we came home with an assignation. And a couple of weeks later, as arranged, my four-year-old and I headed up country and met with an eccentric man wearing a gaudy apron; we came home with four chickens.

Now these ladies are pecking and preening their way around our garden. They gobble up slugs with relish; they eye off the weed seeds and strip them clean; they endlessly turn over the compost heap; they peer in our windows and check what we're up to; they follow us around as we work in the garden. And they lay eggs.

We are totally smitten. My four-year-old spends hours each day carrying one chook or the other, or sitting on a little wooden chair in the run and chatting with them as they peck around her ankles. My six-year-old came home from school yesterday. 'I'm tired and cross,' she announced, then went and read with the chickens. She came in an hour later much refreshed. And I stand at the kitchen sink, looking out and laughing at the little heads peeking out from behind a flowerpot or popping up from a clump of grass.

All of us, young and old, crow with delight when we find an egg. It's like finding treasure two or three times a day. And I find myself wondering, what took me so long?

I can castigate myself for putting it off. Or, better, I can celebrate that we have an abundance of fresh eggs just as asparagus comes into season. Between asparagus, eggs, and a lemon from the neighbour's tree, we're most of the way to poached eggs and asparagus with hollandaise sauce.

I trim the asparagus and simmer it for a few minutes in a wide skillet until just cooked – not squishy, but not crisp either; meanwhile, I poach eggs in another skillet. And in a breathtaking feat of kitchen management, while the asparagus and eggs are cooking I whip up this hollandaise sauce ready to blanket the lot.

For more on how to poach an egg, click here.

Hollandaise Sauce - 2 egg yolks (freeze the whites for meringue) - 2 tbs cream or top milk (that is, the first bit of a bottle of unhomogenized unshaken milk) - 1 tbs lemon juice, or to taste - 4 tbs unsalted butter - salt, pepper Put the 4 tbs butter somewhere in easy reach. Place the yolks, cream, lemon juice and salt into a deep pan. Whisk together. Heat over a medium flame. Holding the saucepan with one hand, whisk rapidly and continuously with the other. Make sure you whisk right to the edges of the pan. The instant it thickens, take the saucepan off the stove – keep whisking – and walk to the butter. Throw it in, and whisk and stir until it is combined. Serve. Precautions: Do not stop whisking or you'll end up with scrambled egg yolks. If you are timid, you can make it over a double boiler (or a bowl resting over a saucepan of simmering water), but the double boiler method usually results in a thin undercooked sauce. Using direct heat is riskier, but as long as you remain observant it is easy and quick. Adapted from a recipe in Robert Farrar Capon's The Supper of the Lamb, reviewed here. (Local: eggs, cream, lemon, asparagus. Not local: butter, salt.)