Garnish with sorrel and paprika. Season well. Serve with fresh farm grown lemon and tomato chutney.

Drink with: Turkey Flat Rose

Truffle Oil Tacos, photo credit: Teddy Kwok

As decadent as a Mayan sun God’s gold stash and tastier than melted cheese on chorizo.

Make the meat sauce with pork and veal, onion, chorizo, tomatoes, red chilli, Pedro Ximenez, Manzanilla, garlic, cumin, paprika, in that order.

Make the tortillas with wholeground Mexican stone ground white corn flour, mixed with truffle oil, salt, water and some sugar. Get the consistency to a point approximating smooth, dry play doh. Dry grill them in your biggest, heaviest pan.

Top with fresh tomato, avocado-heavy guacamole, heavy as a mofo sour cream, coriander, truffle oil and grated cheese. Put some lettuce or similar on the side.

Drink with a lightish Shiraz.

Mexican Frittata

We know the chickens (Marcia Hines, Kamahl and The Very Leggy Rhonda Burchmore) live happy lives because: a) they are so unafraid of anything they harass the dog if we’re not careful; and b) they lay three eggs a day, like clockwork. If you have equally happy chickens, or access to an egg shop, here is a solution.

1. Roughly chop up five large cloves of garlic
2. Caramelise those off in a large pan with a roughly diced leek in far too much olive oil, probably 1/4 cup of it
3. Add diced chorizo and a diced capsicum, fry that some more
4. Season with salt, pepper and cumin
5. Keep the heat on full, keep plenty of oil in the pan, add in a roughly diced avocado, in big chunks
6. Beat up 8 eggs and 3 tablespoons of butter, pour those over the top of the mix in the pan
7. Keep the heat on high and watch the eggs bubble a little – this aerates them
8. Turn the heat off, sprinkle with grated cheese
9. Put the pan in an oven pre-heated to 200 degrees
10. Cook for 15 or so minutes until firm and until a nice oily, eggy, cheesy, chorizo, leek and garlic crust has formed on the outside, but don’t over-cook so it dries out
11. Serve with a garnish and drizzle with black truffle oil
12. Amazeballs

The trick here is to be patient, especially when you’re starting out. If you get greedy and lazy, and start pouring too much oil in you’ll come unstuck. Canola oil is the key I think, if you base it on olive oil the taste is just so strong. This recipe is based on the Larousse Gastronimique version, with added extras for nom.

Here’s what you need:

• 6 egg yolks
• 3.5 cups of canola oil
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 tbsp wholegrain mustard
• 3 tbsp honey
• 4 tbsp water
• 4 tbsp mashed potato
• 2 tsp salt

Method

Combine the egg yolks and garlic in a blender. Keep blending on low and start adding the oil a few drops at a time. Increase the flow rate to a very slow drizzle once it’s started emulsifying nicely. Once you’ve added a couple of cups of oil, transfer to a food processor (the little blender blades won’t be able to keep up once the blender is getting more full). Keep adding the oil and then add the olive oil.

Mix up the rest of the ingredients (except the mashed potato) in a container and then slowly pour them in. Add the mashed potato and whiz on high for 30 seconds.

Et voila!

Risotto

• 1/5 fresh King of Fruit pineapple
• 1 cup rice
• 1/2 a Spanish onion
• 3/4 bunch of coriander stems
• 5 garlic cloves
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 3 apricots
• 1 vanilla bean
• 2 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 cup pinot gris
• 500ml chicken stock

Lamb Cutlets

• 12 frenched lamb cutlets
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 red capsicum
• 1/2 red onion
• 1/4 bunch coriander stems
• 2 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 bunch coriander leaves
• 2 lemons
• 4 tbsp olive oil

Method

Risotto

Dice the pineapple and apricots into centimetre cubes
Put the fruit, wine, rice, stock, cinnamon sticks and vanilla into a tagine (or a casserole dish)
Finely dice all remaining ingredients, grind the cumin seeds, and fry on high heat in a heavy saucepan
Mix everything in the tagine and bake at 180 degrees for half an hour, or until rice is cooked, fluffing up regularly with a fork

Lamb Cutlets

Dice 1/2 capsicum and other bits into a salsa, add the oil, juice from one lemon and marinate the cutlets for as long as you can. Ideally a few hours. A week might be too long. Don’t get carried away.
BBQ them with the 2 cinnamon sticks from the risotto, nom
Garnish with coriander leaves, cinnamon, lemon wedges and julienne capsicum
Drink some red wine. Lots of red wine.

By gosh, was it delish. We had to go before I could grab the recipe, but I think, *think* this was what’s in it:

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups of wholegrain barley, washed, and then boiled for 35-40 minutes in 5 cups of water. You could also probably soak it overnight in 3 cups of water and lime juice and then quickly cook it off. Don’t soak or boil it for too long or you’ll end up with mush. Let it cool down before you serve it.
• A block of good, strong, Greek goat feta, cut into cubes, or crumpled. 1cm Cubes would look better with the round pomegranate seeds
• The seeds from three pomegranates, or more if you’ve got heaps. Go nuts.
• Juice from two limes
• A tablespoon of olive oil
• A good handful of roughly chopped coriander
• A cup of mint leaves
• Pine nuts, if you want

Method

Put the ingredients in a bowl.

Vegetarian Nachos

I’m also discovering barbecues aren’t just for meat.

The place we’re staying is in a tiny little settlement called Flinders Beach on North Stradbroke Island, about 30km off the coast from Brisbane. I’ve been here many times before, but always with a gang of male carnivores. There’s usually enough smoke rising off the hotplates to start a war between the Sioux and Cherokee. This time it’s a little different, but I had the idea of putting the smoke to good use.

There’s a grove of paperbark trees nearby and I know Alby Mangels and Co. loved baking with the stuff. The BBQ where I’m staying had no lid, but I figured out a way to use a couple of cast iron pans to create a smokey-dokey setup which channeled the fumes of delicousness onto the food without also funneling ash. Results varied between raging bushfire and birthday candles, but ended up under control and not entirely dissimilar to the way I saw it being done on a beach in San Jose Del Cabo a few years ago.

Mexican food should be smokey. I had no chipotles but I had enough capsicum and birds eye chillies to improvise.

Ingredients

Mushy Bits

• 1 can of red kidney beans
• 1 brown onion
• 2 birds eye chillies
• 1 red capsicum
• 2 tablespoons of cumin (or more, or less, to taste)
• Squeeze of lime
• 4 roma tomatoes
• 2 corns
• 3 garlics
• 3 tbsp white truffle oil (optional, but divine)

Other Bits

• Gourmet fancy-schmancy corn chips
• Guacamole (make it yourself, it’s dead easy)
• Coriander leaves to garnish

Method

• Char-grill the tomatoes and corn on the BBQ and dice everything else (don’t dice the guacamole or chips, actually, do, it’ll be funny).
• Put all the mushy bits into a cast iron pan and place it on the BBQ
• Wrap the outside sides of the pan with paperbark bark
• Place a larger cast iron pan over the top of the first one so that it holds the paper bark in. Make sure there’s room for air to circulate into the first pan.
• Cook until the smell of smokey paperbark and nacho mushy bits is so overpoweringly delicious you have to eat it.
• Eat

Thai Scallops

Orange Chilli Dipping Sauce

• Peel from 1.5 oranges or so, loosely chopped, don’t get too excited
• 1 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup ginger, loosely chopped, skin on, be lazy
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 roughly chopped chilli
• 1 finely diced chilli
• Fish sauce

Simmer that and reduce it to a syrup which is somewhere between water and honey in viscosity. Strain the syrup into a bowl and add in one very finely diced chilli, a slice of orange and two tbsp of fish sauce. Refrigerate.

Scallops

Put the ginger dregs of what you’ve strained to make the dipping sauce into a cast iron pan and fry it off for 5 mins in sesame oil. Drain that and set aside. Sear the scallops in it later.

Veges

Mix up/make your favourite Thai/Khmer/Vietnamese chilli paste in a wok or large saucepan. Add coconut cream. Reduce way down. Add in some tofu, bright veges (beans, capsicum, purple cabbage). Simmer quickly.

Noodles

Vermicelli

Serve

With a drizzling of fish sauce and fresh coconut cream, scatter heaps of coriander, mint and Vietnamese mint about the place. Drizzle some of the dipping sauce over the top. Add chilli to taste.

Bircher Muesli

Bircher Muesli used to be something of an enigma for me. A metaphor for health retreats and people named Sven. An option on a breakfast menu you chose if you didn’t eat bacon. It contained sultanas, and oats and fibrous things which stirred the bowels but not the soul. Then I discovered blueberry sauce and vanilla soy milk.

This bircher muesli recipe is still super-healthy, but it’s delicious and creamy and as boring as a weekend away with Bear Grylls. You need to make it the night before. Or for best results, two nights before.

Muesli Ingredients

• 2 Cups of oats. Good ones
• 2/3 cup of apple juice
• 1/3 cup of mandarin juice
• 1 cup of natural greek yoghurt. As healthy or as fatty as you like. Doesn’t matter either way
• 2 large teaspoons of vanilla paste
• A sprinkling of cinnamon

Mix all that in a bowl and leave overnight.

Blueberry Sauce Recipe

• 2/3 cup of blueberries
• 1/3 cup of strawberries, stalks removed
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup water

Put that in a saucepan and simmer over a medium heat until it’s bubbling slightly. Mash it up with a potato masher. Reduce it a little until it’s syrupy, but not tooo syrupy, it needs to be easily pourable. Strain it into a jug so there’s no pulpy bits. Refrigerate.

Serving

The next day (or the day after) put the muesli in a bowl. Pour a large hint of vanilla soy milk over the top. Cover gently with strawberries, blueberries, mango, macadamia nuts and a big dollop of mango yoghurt. Drizzle with blueberry sauce. Add a sprig of mint.

OMG.

Corn Fritters

I had Bill Granger’s corncakes not long ago. At his signature restaurant in Surry Hills. They were f***ing terrible. As was everything else about the restaurant. They put bacon on my vegetarian girlfriend’s plate. They didn’t even realise they hadn’t wiped the table down until 3/4 of the way through the meal. They got the coffees wrong. They said they were out of potato and leek soup and that we could have pumpkin instead and then brought potato and leek soup anyway. They were even out of orange juice, at breakfast time. And we weren’t the only ones complaining. Don’t go there.

Corn cakes should be so easy to get right, I don’t know how people fail. They always come out too dry. The trick is to go heavy on the corn. And add onion for sweetness. You want mostly corn in there, with two grains of flour and enough egg to make it stick together. Get them crispy on the outside, but don’t burn them.

Ingredients

• Corn. Der. Heaps of it. So much corn you vision turns yellow. Cut up a few cobs or use a whole tin if you’re lazy. About a cup if you have to measure.
• 1/2 cup flour or so
• 4 eggs
• Coriander leaves, 1/3 loose cup
• Cumin
• Salt
• 1/3 of a small red chilli
• Juice from 1/3 of a lime

Method

• Mush
• Fry in oil, like pancakes, but with more oil

Serving Suggestion

• Rocket and lime juice on the side
• Avocado/Tomato/Coriander/Lime/Salt/Spanish Onion salsa
• Greek yoghurt

Serves: 2.5 people