Thoughts From Becca

Rhubarb and Apple Crumble with Mum's Crumble Topping Crumble is one of my favourite comfort foods. It's warming to the heart as well as the tummy in winter. In summer, I still serve crumble (with a change of seasonal fruit) and serve it at room temperature or cold. There's a couple of ways I make the fruit filling for the crumble, but I always use mum's crumble topping; this is the one we ate at home as kids. For the Topping In all honesty, while I don't remember ever measuring the ingredients, here's my attempt to recreate with measurements. There are four ingredients butter (125g or 4oz), brown sugar (1/2 cup), plain flour (1 cup), rolled oats (1 cup). - Mix the dry ingredients. Add the melted butter. Stir, and loosely sprinkle on top of the fruit mixture. - After a hint from Chef Luke Mangan , I've recently created a 'friends to dinner' variation by adding little chocolate nuggets (I used dark chocolate roughly chopped) to the crumble topping mix...

Zampone Pig’s trotter filled with cotechino and celery, Mt Zero lentils, celeriac puree, Calvados jus This delicious recipe is on the current winter menu at Melbourne's award winning Italian restaurant Church St Enoteca which was recently awarded their first “chef’s hat” at the 2009 Age Good Food Guide Awards, and two “wine goblets” from the Gourmet Traveller Wine List of the Year. My very humble thanks to executive chef Ron O'Bryan for sharing the recipe when he learnt that pig's trotters is one of my favourite dishes. You can also read my interview with Ron about cooking and what inspires him on Inside Cuisine Ron tells me he "can’t take full credit for this recipe. Zampone dates back to about 1500 and is a specialty of the Modena area. Traditionally served with lentils, spinach and/or potato puree, I have tried to stay as true to this tradition as possible, only substituting the potato puree for a silky celeriac puree. This recipe can be prepared a day or two ...

There's something delightful about receiving a parcel. It's the discovery process in the opening that enchants. This holds true also for food. Cooking in parchment paper, ...... en papillote in French or al cartoccio in Italian, was one of the earliest cooking techniques that I experimented with as a child. Perhaps I was enchanted (then as now) with the hidden treasures of aromas and taste. When the best of the season's ingredients are folded in a pouch (of parchment, bag or aluminium foil) and then baked, the flavour is captured within and released as the parcel is opened. One of my most memoriable parcels was Tuscan perfection at Cibreo in Florence and provides the perfect example of cooking with this technique. A parcel of aluminium foil arrives at the restaurant table. The simple package is opened to reveal flat wild mushrooms, which had been baked in a little oil, and tickled with a few fresh herbs. All the flavour, all the aromas were retained. Simple! Delicious! M...

Every few weeks or so, if I've had the afternoon at home, I like to poach a duck for Sunday dinner. This is not a treat, it is everyday duck. And, from the poaching I get > 5 meals (> 20 portions) which certainly makes it economical. #1 Poached Duck For poaching the whole duck, I have many variations depending on the season: bay leaves, mirepoix (2 parts onion, 1 part carrot, 1 part celery) peppercorns and/or ... white wine, lemons, oranges, fresh ginger root, juniper berries, quatre epice ... endless options To serve on the Sunday, I remove the duck from the stock, rest, and remove the 2 breasts Slice the breasts to serve with a variety of vegetables ( a favourite is sweet potato / kumara mash or souffle) depending on the flavours of the stock base - or - sliced in a composed salad #2 Stock After I've removed the duck, I strain the stock twice (don't season until finished dish) Soups (of many varieties) are the obvious first choice for a second duck dish using the...

This belief seems so intrinsic to me that I hardly know what to write: love feeds us, and putting love into the preparation and cooking of our food nourishes us in a way that is greater than the nutrients of the ingredients. Connecting with those around me I know others of like minds. Yet I am constantly surprised when observing others who dont have the same central belief: that we take on the essence of what we intake. Take in food prepared with love for a happy loving life. Take in food prepared in angst and without feeling to deliver the result of the same hurried and angry approach to the world. This belief is one very good reason that I don't eat take away or prepared foods, and avoid those packaged foods on supermarket shelves. I like to cook from scratch and feed those close to me with not only the nutrients of the food, but to nourish them with love. A great honour, is always to be invited into someone else's home, to be allowed into their sanctuary, and to be honoure...

I've always had an interest in cooking in the way that is now called Slow Food. The movement to local is again gaining popularity. It never lost momentum with me. Flavour marriages are at a premium when you take the local produce from the same region and season; you can't go wrong! Classical food combinations are historically based on these regional and seasonal marriages. Although my reasons for cooking seasonal regional and fresh were always based on taste, there are lots of other reasons to use this base in understanding food, produce, cooking. For a start in our industrialised, and then technology based societies, (global) transport is easier and quicker so we've come to enjoy produce from other regions at any time of year. Long distance hauls have an impact, on not only flavour, but also have a huge cost to the environment. What is the impact to our world on transporting water in a bottle up to 15,000 kilometres (or sending pears to China from Australia?) Long stor...

During the week I've been following a regional food challenge limiting myself to food within a 100 mile (160km) radius of my home. I started the tough way by cleaning out the fridge and starting with an empty larder. Well, it would not have been a challenge otherwise. Always mindful of using fresh seasonal produce, limitations on distance from farm to table have proved interesting. What an education I've received. Was I crazy to think I would walk into the Sydney CBD and find local produce, or even find food for which the origin was known. On the first day, I spent (more than) my lunchtime walking the city. Just one helpful fruit stall (Pitt Street near Martin Place) had produce (known to be) from this state. His display of apples was from Batlow and I purchased three. To be sure of my distance obligation, a friend did his technical thing and checked, and Batlow did not fall within range from Sydney. Regional for sure! But I'm a Taurus and determined. I did not want to ...