Thoughts From Becca

I adore saffron. Sometime back I decided to play around and add saffron to a cake and came up with this recipe .   As it turns out, just today I read that saffron is used to make a traditional Christmas cake in Sweden for St Lucia Day, which is celebrated on 13th December. Legend has it that Lucia as a young girl, about to be a bride, gave her entire dowry to the poor of her village and admitted that she had become a Christian. She was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake on December 13th, 304 A.D. (She is also the patron saint for Italian fisherman, and is said to guide them through a storm).   I've read that in all the Scandanavian countries, on St Lucia Day, breakfast is served at dawn, and is celebrated with saffron buns and gingerbread. My homage to St Lucia is this cake. Why not try serving it dusted with icing sugar to represent the white gown usually associated with the Italian medieval saint. And, in Australian summer of December 13th, seasonal fr...

Yesterday I took a jaunt to Sydney's newest (and oldest) retail butcher. I knew something was different as soon as I saw the window in Queen Street Woollahra. Paintly boldly is the motto: "If Pigs Could Fly". In the window is a small whole pig with wings and in the base of the display a bed of white feathers. This is no ordinary butchers. Father and son, Vic and Anthony Puharich are suppliers to many of Sydney's finest restaurants. "The Churchill's Butchery site has been a butcher shop since 1876, so it seemed only appropriate that we opened our flagship shop there" say Anthony Puharich, CEO of Vic's Premium Quality Meat . Anthony was kind enough to take time out of a busy Saturday to proudly yet humbly show me around the store. There's a fine range of goodies, including charcuterie, traiteur and rotisserie. Not sure if the secret's out yet but my favourite mustards and salts are also stocked there. There's even dessert. While we were...

This week was an exciting moment in the food blogging world as the movie Julie & Julia opened. (here in Australia we've still got a couple of months to wait though ... and my fingers are tapping the kitchen table impatiently). The movie features two stories: the memoirs of Julia Child and the story of food blogger Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia's recipes. One of the things I'm delighted about with the movie is that it features some of my French (classic) favourites. They've never gone out of style with me. They are the dishes I taught myself as a teenager and have been cooking ever since. Every winter since I first cooked this recipe, I've warmed family and friends with Boeuf Bourguignon. Here's my adaptation using mustard, not flour, for thickening. Where possible, for added depth of flavour, I prepare a day ahead of eating, and start preparations with the marinade the day before that. Boeuf Bourguignon 1.5 kg (3 1/2 lbs) casserole beef ...

I love sharing food with friends, and cooking for them, and there is no greater honour than being invited into a friend's home and having them cook in a labour of love to share with me. A couple of weeks ago I spent a leisurely Sunday lunch in the home of my friends Georgie and Janos. That day they treated me to homestyle Hungarian fare. I've never made Csipetke, and they've been kind enough to give me a lesson, shared here with you. They even took the photo.   Csipetke: home made pasta for soups   80g continental flour  1 small egg salt  Mix flour with egg and knead until firm dough forms. Sift a little flour on a hard surface and roll dough with a rolling pin until it is 1mm thick. Dip your fingers into flour and pinch small pieces from the dough (about 5mm x 5mm). Add small pieces of dough to boiling soup (such as gulyas soup) or boiling salty water. It is cooked when it comes to the surface (about 2 - 3 minutes).  If we're lucky maybe they'll share the...

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...