Tapenade Like this recipe? You’ll love my online French cooking class featuring the Food of Provence! I love salt, so a dish made of black olives, capers and anchovies is right up my alley. Tapenade hails from Provence in the sunny south of France and is generally regarded as an olive paste, however the name […]
Poussin with Preserved Lemon Salata Poussins, French for chicks, are young chickens, sometimes called spatchcocks. They’re a good size to serve whole or halved, but you can also make this dish with a regular-size chicken and just increase the cooking time. I love the flavour of preserved lemon, and this delicious salata (Arabic for salad) […]
Spicy Slaw This spicy coleslaw is a great way to liven up a simple poached chicken, steak or piece of grilled fish. It’s also delicious on a sandwich with a hard cheese (like cheddar) or a fried egg. I like chardonnay with the richness of mayonnaise, but prefer something more like a Chablis than the […]
Steak Tartare As a reformed vegetarian, it’s odd that my favourite way to eat meat is raw, but I can rarely resist this dish when I see it on a menu. I love the theatre of it being mixed tableside by an experienced waiter and the traditional crinkly pommes gaufrettes with it, though crisped baguette […]
Chopped Salad Of course we all love to cook – but occasionally, there just isn’t time. That’s when I whip up a big bowl of this delicious chopped salad which keeps well for days in the fridge. Found all over the Middle East, it makes an interesting alternative to a leafy green salad (which doesn’t […]
Coq au Vin Coq au vin was one of the first French dishes I ever cooked, and it seemed terribly sophisticated in the early ‘80s. Literally ‘rooster in wine’, it’s a classic braise of chicken, onion, mushrooms and lardon (cured pork belly), sometimes thickened with the chicken’s blood (but not in my case). Coq au […]
Funghi Trifolati Trifolati is an Italian term for dishes cooked in olive oil with garlic and parsley; mushrooms, zucchini and kidneys are often prepared this way. This was one of my favourite starters in Sydney’s 1980s suburban Italian restaurants, where exotic oyster mushrooms seemed to be the funghi of choice, so use any mushrooms you […]
Steak Diane I love food history almost as much as I love food. I always thought this dish of steak with a garlicky sauce was a French classic. In fact, steak Diane originated in the USA in the 1940s, when tableside cooking was all the rage. Every recipe I’ve found is a little different; butter, […]
Bacon & Egg Pie Bacon and egg pie is perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner and, as it’s great served at room temperature, it makes ideal picnic fare. Best of all, the ingredients will be on hand in a well-stocked fridge. I was introduced to this pie by my friend Janni Kyritsis who makes his […]
Chicken Kiev I love this retro dish of deep-fried chicken breast wrapped around garlicky herb butter – it looks so impressive, but is really quite easy if you follow the recipe step-by-step. I use chives, parsley and tarragon because that’s what’s in the herb patch, but any combination of herbs works well. The traditional chicken […]
