Obsession

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Orchestrer la perfection.

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In the manner of Grand Chefs, Mövenpick is in a constant search for new
possibilities for taste and texture. Always keeping an eye open for the
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Festive fare
Christmas goes global
www.openhousemagazine.net

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New Zealand
Greenshell Mussels

CAB Audited. Circulation 20,255 — March 2010

OPEN HOUSE NEWS

Sepia Restaurant
wins top Sydney prize
Picking up the top award in the catering categories was
Events Management Catering at Acer Arena, which won
both the Caterer of the Year and Venue Caterer of the
Year categories.

Alfredo Bouvier
(left) is
congratulated
by Brien Trippas
from Restaurant
& Catering.

For foodservice, it makes sense to purchase prepared and
specialty sauces in 4 litre containers. But up until now, it’s
been almost impossible to decant sauce from a large
container into condiment bottles without spills, waste or
mess. That’s why the design of Fountain’s new
smartPOUR™ 4 litre bottle is so revolutionary.

I

t was a controversy-free night at last month’s 2010
Savour Australia Restaurant & Catering NSW
Metropolitan Awards for Excellence when Sepia
Restaurant was named 2010 Restaurant of the Year and
Contemporary Australian Restaurant of the Year.

• The new smartPOUR

bottle features a vented tube that
allows air into the bottle while decanting , greatly
reducing the glugging and sudden sauce surges that
lead to spills and mess.
™

This was in contrast to the Queensland awards night in
August when chefs and owners expressed surprise at the
announcement of several shock winners, including Drift
Cafe as Best New Restaurant (beating Matt Moran’s Aria).

• Its offset neck minimises

Also recognised on the night was John Szangolies
from the Bavarian Hospitality Group, who was named
Restaurateur of the Year, and industry stalwarts Peter
Doyle from Peter Doyle at the Quay and Brien Trippas
from Trippas White Catering, who were inducted into the
John K Walker Hall of Fame. Restaurateur Alfredo Bovier
was also recognised, receiving the Lifetime Achiever
Award for his outstanding achievements and dedication
to the restaurant and catering industry.
Other key winners on the night included Tetsuya’s,
Sydney (Fine Dining Restaurant); Jimmy Liks, Potts
Point (Modern Asian Restaurant); Hugos, Manly (Pizza
Restaurant); Intermezzo Ristorante, Sydney (Italian
Restaurant – Formal); Restaurant Balzac, Randwick
(French Restaurant); Zinc Café, Potts Point (Café); The
Australian Jockey Club, Randwick (Caterer at a Major
Event and Function/Convention Centre Caterer), and
Icon Event Catering, Narrabeen (Corporate Caterer).

sauce after-drip.

• The ergonomically designed

Victorian apprentices to get boost

centre-grip handle makes it
easier to hold and reduces
wrist strain.

Victorian apprentice chefs will have access to the
Victorian Training Guarantee as part of a $37.6
million Skills Reform funding boost designed to
enhance hands-on training.

• A second handle designed
specifically for carrying.

• The scalloped base can

Skills and Workforce Participation Minister Bronwyn
Pike said the investment would improve the flexibility
of the Victorian Training Guarantee for apprentices and
ensure more young people without a post high school
qualification have access to skills training.

reduce residual sauce
wastage by up to 25% saving you valuable dollars.

• It’s also smart enough to fit inside the fridge door for

So now you can quickly and easily share your favourite
sauces with your customers without spills, waste or mess.
And that’s got to be good for business.
For more information contact Cerebos Food Service on
1300 365 865 or visit www.fountainsauces.com.au

ARMORYCF2567_1_OH

Fountain’s innovation hasn’t stopped with the smartPOUR™
bottle. 12 of the 13 sauces in the range are gluten free,
packed with all the flavour you’ve come to
expect from Fountain®, making it easier to
meet your customers’ dietary requirements.

CONTENTS

“The Brumby Labor Government is standing up for
local jobs by providing a training place for all eligible

storage after use.

Victorians who want one,” Ms Pike said.
“The Skills Reform funding boost includes $15 million
to give every apprentice access to the Victorian Training
Guarantee, regardless of their prior qualifications.
In addition, we’re investing $10 million to freeze
apprenticeship tuition fees next year.”
Overall, the Skills Reform agenda is expected to
deliver “a training system that provides greater
flexibility and new opportunities” for young people
entering the workforce.

Industry news..................................04

Christmas menus.............................16

Cover story – New Zealand
Greenshell Mussels.......................08

Editor’s word

H

omelessness
is a major
issue for
communities
across
Australia,
affecting
thousands
of Aussies who are down on
their luck, so it’s fantastic to see
so many restaurants around
Australia supporting StreetSmart
Australia’s annual “Dine out
to help out” campaign.
On until Christmas Eve, the
campaign asks diners to add
a small donation to their bill
at participating restaurants,
with 100 per cent of the money
going to support grassroots
homeless shelters and charities,
selected based on their need and
proximity to the restaurants.
Last year’s initiative raised
$351,400, which is a fantastic
effort from everyone involved.
In the restaurant business we
rely on community support to
keep tables turning over and
money in the cash register. By
supporting initiatives such as
StreetSmart’s campaign, we’re
able to give a little bit back to
the towns and communities that
give us so much. Seems like a
win-win situation to me.

Ylla Wright
Editor

24

Seafood............................................20

Profile – Peter Gilmore, Quay.........10
Q&A – Lucio Galletto......................12

Uniforms..........................................23
Desserts............................................24

Consultant chef...............................14
.

Cooking the books...........................26

Origins of pepper............................14
.

Products...........................................28

Sustainable drinking water.............15

Culinary clippings. .........................30
.

Fresh ideas for dessert.

www.openhousemagazine.net Open House, November 2010 3

news

Food safety laws move ahead
N

ew South Wales’ Food Safety Supervisor
law moved into its final phase last month,
with food businesses required to appoint an
in-house Food Safety Supervisor to oversee
safe food handling practices within a 12-month
implementation period.
“Poor food handling accounts for over a third of
foodborne illness outbreaks in NSW, and costs the
community around $416 million each year,” said
Steve Whan, NSW Primary Industries Minister.
“This is on top of the suffering and inconvenience
to those people who become ill.”
The minister said that the new Food Safety
Supervisors will oversee food safety from the
front line, adding an “extra layer of protection to
the suite of initiatives already in place to ensure
NSW people have a safe experience when they
choose to dine out.”
John Hart, CEO of Restaurant and Catering,
said the initiative would be welcomed by the
hospitality industry.
“The industry was consulted with extensively
over this, and Restaurant & Catering is very
supportive of mandatory training for food safety
supervisors,” he said. “Having the right skills in
food handling is undoubtedly the best way to
ensure high standards of food safety.”
The law applies to hospitality businesses
including cafes, restaurants, takeaways, pubs
and clubs. Food Safety Supervisors will need to
be trained by a Registered Training Organisation
approved by the NSW Food Authority.

Native food controversy
Restaurateur Jennice Kersh has hit back at the
world’s number one chef Rene Redzepi’s failure
to acknowledge indigenous Australian food.
The chef, who is famous for foraging and using

native foods at his
Copenhagen restaurant Noma,
made the comments at last month’s Crave Sydney
International Food Festival.
“I thought Rene was great, but I found it offensive
and insulting to the indigenous people of
Australia that at no stage, even in passing, was
it mentioned that exactly what Rene was talking
about had been the philosophy of indigenous
people for 40,000 years,” Kersh told the Sydney
Morning Herald after the event.
Kersh, along with her brother, chef Raymond Kersh,
was one of the first restaurateurs to introduce native
Australian ingredients to diners at their restaurant
Edna’s Table, which closed in 2005.
As part of the Festival the pair hosted visiting chefs
and other guests at a six-course Native Australian
Foods Lunch in the Royal Botanic Gardens which
featured native ingredients including emu, wallaby,
samphire, warrigal greens, davidson plum, wattle
seed and lemon myrtle.

Kylie Kwong launches kitchenware range
Chef and restaurateur Kylie Kwong has announced she will
design her own range of fair trade kitchenware, to be sold
through Oxfam’s shops around Australia.

Kylie Kwong photo by Michael Myers.

The new range will be developed by Kwong in collaboration
with Oxfam and crafted by one of Oxfam’s key producer
partners in Vietnam, Mai Vietnamese Handicrafts, who are
renowned for their intricate, hand-painted designs.
This is the first time Kwong, a former graphic designer,
has ventured into kitchenware products. The range will
be influenced by Kwong’s Chinese heritage with a modern
twist, the philosophy also behind her Sydney restaurant
Billy Kwong.
Kwong is a long term ambassador for the Fair Trade
Association of Australia and New Zealand.
“The fair trade system puts people back front and centre of
the supply chain, and can make a tangible difference to the
lives of families in developing countries,” she said.

4 Open House, November 2010 www.openhousemagazine.net

Australian Avocados on
the road again
The Australian Avocados’ Fresh Avocados
Masterclass program which debuted earlier
this year recently teamed up with commercial
caterers Alliance Catering for its group
vegetarian tutorial program, showcasing the
starring role that the “alligator pear” can have in
a meat-free diet.
Alliance, a division of the integrated services
group Spotless, currently feeds 180,000 customers
a day across a wide variety of outlets, from schools
and aged care facilities to stadiums.
Attended by more than 400 chefs and site
managers nationwide, the sessions were hosted
by chef, author and educator Peter Howard, and
demonstrated the versatility of avocadoes and how
to offer diverse vegetarian menu options.
The session comprised of several avocado tastings
including a sensory exercise to demonstrate the
range of flavours that are possible with the fruit.
Guests also sampled tempura avocado with
daikon and mustard cress, an avocado and pea
mash canapé with tempeh as well as an avocado,
pickled mushrooms and vermicelli stir fry.
To date the Fresh Avocado Masterclasses have
been rolled out to a number of foodservice sectors
including gastro pubs, restaurants, clubs, cafés,
luxury hotels and commercial caterers.
For more information on the masterclasses, visit
www.avocado.org.au/foodservice.

Price of chicken to increase
The price of chicken has been tipped to increase
by the Australian Chicken Meat Federation
(ACMF) in the same month as a survey conducted
by McCrindle Research found that nearly 60 per
cent of consumers rated chicken as the best value

for money meat option.
“A point has been reached where prices will have
to increase for producers to remain profitable
and be able to meet increased demand for its
products,” said Andreas Dubs, the executive
director of the ACMF.
Prices have previously been kept low by passing
on the benefits of efficiency gains in production
however rising grain costs as well as increases in
energy, transport, water and labour costs over the
past year will lead to an inevitable increase in the
cost of chicken meat.
Grain represents the major cost into growing meat
chickens. The World Bank reports that “since midJune, global grain prices have been rising with a
56 per cent in global wheat prices and knock-on
impacts on other commodities such as rice, maize
and sorghum”.
Dubs stressed that chicken will remain affordable,
compared to other meats.

Brisbane cafes charging
most for coffee
Coffee lovers in Brisbane are being charged more
for their coffee fix than those in Sydney and
Melbourne, according to Brisbane-based coffee
supplier Gilkatho’s annual Cappuccino Price
Index survey.
The survey, which took in 600 cafes in
Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, found that
Brisbane coffee drinker paid on average $3.31 for
a takeaway cappuccino, while the same coffee
cost $3.22 in Melbourne and $3.06 in Sydney.
Overall, coffee prices had increased by an
average of 3 per cent across all three cities since

Comings & goings
Work has started on new premises for Vue
de Monde, Shannon Bennett’s three-hatted
Melbourne restaurant. The price tag for the
restaurant is reported to be $7 million.
Sydney’s iconic New York restaurant in Kings
Cross has closed its doors after six decades.
Stephen Seckold joins the team at Flying Fish
in Sydney as head chef. He has previously
worked at Flying Fish Fiji.
MasterChef winner Adam Liaw is to open a
Japanese Izakaya (bar/restaurant) in Sydney
early next year with former Tetsuya’s chef
Matthew Crabbe.
David Gray, the former manager of Manly
Pavillion in Sydney, is moving south of the
border to take up a role at The Atlantic in
Melbourne, opening at Crown in 2011.

If you would like to share news of
appointments, departures, restaurant
openings or closings with Comings & Goings,
email the details to news@rankpub.com.au,
with “Comings & Goings” in the subject line.

2009. This was less than the 5.4 per cent jump
noted in the 2009 survey.
Gilkatho managing director Wayne Fowler said
that the rising cost of green coffee beans and other
cost pressures, including higher rents and wages,
affected takeaway coffee prices.

Government urged to scrap
component pricing rules
The Productivity Commission’s annual
review of regulatory burdens has urged the
Federal Government to scrap rules requiring
restaurants to print different menus if they
charge a weekend or public holiday surcharge.
As it currently stands the Trade Practices Act,
which was amended in 2009, requires food
businesses to give consumers a total price for food
and beverage items. This means that they have
to print separate menus for weekends and public
holidays, rather than simply including a disclaimer.
Failure to comply with the Act can lead to
prosecution by the Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission.
The Productivity Commission’s review found
that “Sunday and public holiday menu
surcharges should be outside the scope of the
amendments as their inclusion has imposed
coasts on these businesses without providing
significant additional benefit to consumers”.

Westfield Sydney opens
new food offerings
Westfield Sydney has positioned itself as a new
dining destination, with eight new food offerings
opening their doors late last month. The new food
mecca, situated on level five of the complex, will
be known as The Sydney Room.
Amongst the restaurants to have opened are Eat,
Deli Kitchen, a new offering from Michael Moore,
owner of The Summit restaurant; Charlie & Co.,


Becasse chef Justin North’s new burger bar, and
Mexican chain Guzman y Gomez. Popular yum
cha venue Sky Phoenix has also reopened in
the centre, after nearly a year’s refurbishment
and with an increased capacity of 400. Further
offerings, including a rooftop restaurant and bar,
are expected to open in 2011.

Aussie chef under attack
Ex-pat chef David Thompson has come under
fire from Thai food writers after the opening
of a branch of his London’s restaurant Nahm
in Bangkok.
The chef has been quoted in the international
media as saying that Thai cooking is “decaying”
and that he is “striving for authenticity” at Nahm.
Suthon Sukphisit, a writer and authority on
Thai cuisine, said that Thompson is “slapping
the faces of Thai people” while another
Bangkok-based food writer likened the situation
to Osama Bin Laden declaring himself an
authority on Catholicism.
Thomson has responded by saying that the
comments were taken out of context and that he
is not attempting to teach the Thais how to cook.

New online “hub” for
organic information
The Biologiocal Farmers of Australia has
launched a new website, www.bfa.com.au,
designed as an information “hub” where users
can access a wide range of resources concerning
the organic industry in Australia.
The launch follows shortly after National Organic
Week Ambassador Toby Puttock, head chef of
Fifteen Melbourne, urged all Australians to switch
to an organic lifestyle.
“Although organic produce is a little expensive
right now, the more people that start buying it, its
cost is going to go down,” he said. OH

cover story

Sweet Summertime

Simply dynamite

With the warmer months approaching, it’s the perfect time
to plan a fabulous summer menu.

Plump, sweet and full of flavour, New Zealand Greenshell Mussels are the ideal mussel to use in
Dynamite Mussels and any number of other seafood dishes.

NESTLÉ Dessert Mixes can help make your job a little easier with an extensive range that delivers
spectacular results with minimal preparation. Perfect served alone or as a base for more
sophisticated creations, NESTLÉ Dessert Mixes are the secret to hassle-free dessert service.

A

mongst the dishes to
make the transition
from specialised Asian
menus to everyday fare in
recent years has been Dynamite
Mussels. This lip-smacking
Japanese dish combines mussels
and a Kewpie mayonnaise topping
flavoured with hon dashi pellets,
Sriracha (a hot chilli sauce), and
masago (smelt roe). The name
“dynamite” is said to come from the
popping of the roe when baked.
New Zealand Greenshell Mussels are
ideal for Dynamite Mussels, as they
are prized for their large, plump form;
sweet, tender taste, and attractive
jade green shells, which provide a
naturally sculptured serving dish.
New Zealand Greenshell Mussels

are a unique variety of mussels
found only in New Zealand’s
isolated waters. They are most
readily available in a convenient
ready-to-use half shell. With all
the hard work of cleaning, opening
and discarding of unwanted shells
taken care of, the mussels are easy
to prepare and available for use at a

moment’s notice.
New Zealand Greenshell Mussels
are a versatile and popular choice for
catering, bar and restaurant menus.
The shell adds visual appeal and
the understated flavour profile lends
itself to a broad array of flavours and
styles of cuisine.

Grown in New Zealand’s pristine
waters under careful stewardship,
this premium product complies
with the highest standards of
quality assurance, food safety and
traceability. They are individually
quick frozen on the half shell within
hours of harvest for maximum
flavour and nutritional value.

Pear & Custard Tart with Almond Praline.
Serving Suggestion

Get your FREE Sweet
Summertime recipe booklet

New Zealand Greenshell Mussels with Dynamite Sauce

Sweet
Summertime

Makes 24

24 frozen half shell Greenshell Mussels
1 pinch Hon Dashi pellets
½ teaspoon milk
½ teaspoon cream
¾ cup Kewpie mayonnaise (Japanese
mayonnaise)
1 tsp Sriracha (chilli sauce)
1 tsp Masago (smelt roe)
Pre-heat grill to 180 °C.
To prepare the sauce, drop dashi
pellets in a medium bowl and dissolve
completely with the milk and cream.

Add the mayonnaise. Combine
the mixture until smooth. Add
the Sriracha and fully incorporate
into the sauce. For a hotter sauce,
add a little more Sriracha. For a
milder sauce, add a few squirts
of mayonnaise. If the sauce is too
thick, thin the mixture slightly with
a few drops of half and half. The
consistency and viscosity of the
sauce should be like pancake batter
or a softened milk shake.
Add the masago and stir slowly to
distribute evenly into the sauce.

Spoon the sauce over each mussel,
allowing just enough to cover
the meat completely. Place the
mussels under the grill to cook.
Check frequently and rotate the pan
occasionally to even out the browning
and compensate for hot spots.
Cook until the sauce bubbles and
turns golden brown with a few
dark spots forming. Cooking time
should not exceed 15 minutes.
Serve immediately.
● For more information, visit
www.purenzmussels.com. OH

serving suggestion

DES019 RECIPE BOOKLET.indd 1

19/08/10 4:15 PM

We’re excited to announce the launch of our latest recipe collection, Sweet Summertime. Featuring a host of new recipes
that showcase the versatility of NESTLÉ Dessert Mixes, it’s the must-have resource for your summer menu planning.
Simply ask your Nestlé Professional Representative for your free copy.

Get in touch with us today 1800 20 30 50

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Profile

Gardener’s delight
For Peter Gilmore, head chef of Quay restaurant in Sydney, inspiration is as close to hand as his
veggie patch. His first book, Quay: food inspired by nature, was released last month.

W

atching Peter Gilmore walk
through the dining room of
Quay restaurant is like watching a
rock star being spotted by groupies.
A table of four whisper excitedly
and try to make eye contact; another
group, who have travelled from
Melbourne to eat at the restaurant,
send their waiter over to ask if Chef
will pose for a photo with then.

Most diners order the snow eggs
(a light-as-air poached meringue
egg confection, made with jackfruit
when Open House visited).
Peter Gilmore’s reputation as one
of the world’s best chefs is based
on much more than his MasterChef
appearances however. Quay has
three hats in the Sydney Morning
Herald’s Good Food Guide, has won
just about every restaurant award in
Australia, and is currently 27th on
the prestigious S.Pelligrino World’s
Best Restaurants list (the highest
listing for any Australian venue).
“I’m the sort of person who feels
really humbled by the accolades,”
Gilmore says. “I certainly don’t
expect to win. It’s just a matter of
doing what I do and hoping that it’s
appreciated by people.”

A
ARLEY
H

LE
SON MOTORCYC
DAVID

That at least half the groupies are
pint-sized and clutching sticky
spoons this late spring day during
the school holidays doesn’t seem
to worry Gilmore; it’s all part of the
deal since he appeared on this year’s
MasterChef finale, demonstrating
his famous Guava and Custard
Apple Snow Egg. One young fan,
aged about 10, makes a point of
searching him out to say goodbye,
even checking the men’s room, just
in case he is in there.
“The reaction to MasterChef blew
me away,” he says. “I probably
should have expected it, given how
popular the show was, but I didn’t.
We had 100,000 hits on our website
the day after the episode went to
air and 70,000 the day after that.
We had to shut down our online
reservations system for several
weeks because it was jammed. We’re
still booked out for lunch three
months in advance.”

IN
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HOW TO PARTICIPATE
For much of the last year, what
Gilmore has been “doing” has been
putting together his first cookbook,
Quay: food inspired by nature
(Murdoch Books, $95), featuring
the innovative, seasonal dishes that
have put him at the top of his game.
“We did the photography over 12
months to capture the whole year of
what we do here at Quay,” he says.
“So much great produce is only
available for a couple of months
and I wanted to make sure there
were winter truffles and spring
vegetables represented.”
As the title of the book suggests
Gilmore finds the inspiration for his
food in nature, and often, in his own
backyard veggie patch. Gardening
not only helps him destress but also
allows him to follow the produce he
grows through its natural life cycle
and experiment along the way.
“One of the first things I started
growing were peas and one of the
things I discovered was that the
flowers were not only beautiful,
but tasted like peas too.” he says.
“Since then we’ve been using them
as a garnish. Radishes are another
example. If you let them go to seed
they produce seed pods which are


really delicious if you pick them
quite young.
“It’s by observing nature at its
different stages that you learn
things. I discovered that if you pick
almonds when they’re still green,
they’re really soft. By blanching
them for 10 seconds, they become
sweet and jelly-like inside; it’s
almost like eating a grape.”
Not surprisingly Gilmore bypasses
the regular markets in favour of a
network of specialist producers
growing the hard-to-find and
heirloom produce such as Japanese
turnips, red carrots and Mexican
sour cucumbers that he favours.
“Without the passion of the
producers and farmers we deal with
we wouldn’t be able to achieve half
of what we do at the restaurant,” he
says. “The guy who supplies our
lamb, for example, Richard Gunner,
is so passionate about Suffolk
sheep [a breed specifically bred
for the table], that he contacted all
the hobby farmers keeping them,
collected breeding stock and grew
the population of the breed to the
point where he’s producing lamb on
a commercial scale. If he hadn’t, it’s
possible that the breed might have

been allowed to die out and that
would have been a shame. Once a
species is gone, it’s gone forever.
“Losing rare and beautiful breeds of
animals and vegetables is a bigger
issue for me than ‘sustainability’. In
a way, unless you actually use and
consume produce there’s no reason
for them to be sustained.”
Key to Gilmore’s overall food
philosophy is the idea of natural
ingredients and “real” cooking
techniques, rather than molecular
gastronomy. Most recently he’s
been experimenting with ethical
foie gras from Spain (the geese are
not force fed to fatten their livers),
teamed with chopped up morels and
pumpernickel bread.
“I was thinking about making a
stuffing for a partridge breast but the
stuffing became the main thing I was
interested in,” he explains. “It has
the most amazing flavour, almost
like a savoury Christmas pudding.

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“For me, the exploration of flavours
is the most important thing. I’m not
really focussed on food trends.”
No, but as arguably Australia’s best
chef, he definitely starts them. OH

Conditions apply see www.unileverfoodsolutions.com.au. Open to eligible employees or business owners of Aust. and NZ registered businesses who are authorised to personally enter by the business. Some businesses & government authorities
& their employees are ineligible. Retain original or copies of all invoice(s) for all entries/claims. Only 1 entry/gift card claim permitted per qualifying transaction. Draw: 20 Cambridge St, Epping NSW 2121 on 11.02.11 at 12pm AEDST. *Prize is the
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Q&A

A taste of regional Italy
The Council of Italian Restaurants in Australia is encouraging
Italian chefs to go back to their regional roots. The council’s
president Lucio Galletto explains why it’s important.
Q: How did the idea for the Council of Italian
Restaurants in Australia (CIRA) come about?

being one cuisine. How important is the idea
of regionality?

A: CIRA was started in 2004 by a group of
friends, chefs and restaurateurs who have
a great passion for Italian food and Italian
hospitality in common. We were tired of
seeing traditional Italian dishes mistreated and
misrepresented – both in the media and on
many menus around town. We used to meet
up at Buon Ricordo after work and Armando
Percuoco would cook us wonderful food while
we discussed our part of the industry and its
problems. On one of those nights Armando
said “Guys, we have to form an association”.
Six years later we are proud of our ever
growing, not-for-profit organisation. It is run by
volunteers and not attached to any government
or commercial identities.

A: Italian food is very much a part of the
country’s culture and new dishes are born out of
a specific historic event or situation, geographic
position, seasonality, and of course, the local
produce, so regionality is very important.
Regionality is tradition and we’d like people to
respect that. The cuisine of my region was the
only cuisine I knew when I was growing up.
There were no cook books and no contact with
other regions. My mother cooked the dishes that
had been passed on to her from her mother.

Q: What is the group trying to achieve?
A: We want to safeguard traditional and regional
recipes. We want to protect our gastronomic
culture and make sure it is passed on to the next
generation of cooks and food lovers. We want to
increase public knowledge of both traditional
and evolving values of Italian cooking. We also
encourage our members to strive for excellence
in their individual market area – whether it be
a trattoria, pizzeria, cafe, caterer, restaurant or
providore. We are also available to answer any
questions about Italian food – including correct
spelling. We know it can work; we learn a lot
from each other.
Q: What are the key cooking traditions you’re
worried are vanishing here in Australia?
A: Our main worry is that traditional dishes are
being changed bit by bit and soon no one will
remember what the original was really like.
Q: Australians tend to think of Italian food as

Q: Is there a trend towards more regional
Italian restaurants opening in Australia?
A: Yes, there are more and more regional
restaurants appearing now and that is great.
Gone are the old days of Italian restaurants all
having similar menus. Hopefully soon, people
will say “let’s have Ligurian tonight” – not
just Italian.
At [annual Italian food festival] Gusto, four
of us present our regional take on a particular
dish. This year it was Armando Percuoco
(Naples), Giovanni Pilu (Sardinia), Alessandro
Pavoni (Lombardy) and myself (Liguria) and we
all prepared a stuffed pasta. All the dishes were
so different, and yet all were so traditional.
We all learnt something new about each of the
other’s regions.
Q: You originally came from Liguria. What
characterises the food from that region?
A: My favourite way to describe Ligurian
food is with three words. Simplicity. Poverty.
Originality. Simplicity because we retain the
seasonal flavour of the ingredients; poverty was
an historic fact of the region so people learned
not to waste anything, and originality because
it has been influenced by many other cultures
(thanks to both invaders
and sailors travelling
the world bringing back
new ideas).

Clockwise from left:
Council members
Armando Percuoco,
Nick Salerno, Alessandro
Pavoni, Jonathan
Barthelmess, Giovanni
Pilu and Danny Russo.


Olive oil, also called the
gold of Liguria, is king
– It appears in every
preparation. Beautiful
herbs such as thyme,
rosemary, oregano,
marjoram and basil
all grow wild and give
Ligurian food its unique
flavours. We have a
great variety of savoury
pies, some using
seafood but mostly
using vegetables;

the most famous
being the Torta
Pasqualina. Ravioli
(invented in Liguria)
is our main special
occasion dish. Very
little meat is eaten
in Liguria and when
used it is the cheaper
cuts, tenderised by
long slow cooking
Lucio
methods. A great
Galletto.
example is the
classic Tocco di
Carne where the meat is used to make the pasta
sauce, but the actual meat is eaten later as a
main course. Another classic is the Cima alla
Genovese [stuffed veal]. Anchovies are very
much part of Ligurian cuisine – either eaten
fresh or preserved to flavour many dishes.
Every household has their own little barrel of
anchovies in salt.

LLION DOLLARS
MI

Q: Surely cooking is something that evolves
over time. Is CIRA against innovation and
moving forward?
A: We do protect tradition but we understand
that a great cuisine needs to evolve. Which is
why our motto at CIRA is “Innovation within
tradition”. We are all for innovation and it is
something that we debate a lot in our meetings.
But where do you draw the line? Is bok choy
and fetta ravioli with a chilli con carne sauce
acceptable? Discussions continue.
Q: What’s the biggest mistake many
Australian Italian restaurants make?
A: Catering to what they think Australians
want to eat. They should just do what they
know and do it well. Australian people travel
a lot, they know what good food is and they
are adventurous.
Q: Your restaurant Lucio’s is famous for the
artworks on its walls, from artists such as John
Olsen, Tim Storrier and Sidney Nolan. What
do cooking and painting have in common?
A: I love to work surrounded by art works. It
makes my life much easier! Art is my other
passion (food is my first). I love it, but most of
all I love the artists. I love the way they see the
world. I love the way they portray life. I think
art and food have everything in common. They
complement each other; they are both born out
of a great passion for life and they both make
our lives special. I have yet to meet an artist
that doesn’t like to sit at the table with family
and friends.

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Q: After 25-plus years serving Italian food to
Sydneysiders do you ever get bored of it?
A: I have had the pleasure of serving
Sydneysiders for the last 27 years and I still
enjoy it very much. For me every day is a new
day of learning and meeting people.
This is not a job for me; it is my life. There is
no greater joy for me than to see happy people
going out the front door and coming back
again and again.
For more information, visit www.cira.com.au. OH

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Origins of...

Sustainability

Pepper

Be (drinking) water wise
Water – still, sparking or tap – is a part of every restaurant’s menu but it can come at an
environmental cost. New technology however is allowing businesses to minimise their impact.

A must for every mise en place and table,
pepper has a long history.

T

hroughout history pepper has
been prized not only for its
pungent spiciness as a condiment
and flavouring for food but also as
a medicine and form of currency.
Native to the Malabar Coast of India,
in the area now known as Kerala,
pepper has been used in India since
at least 2000 BC, and was one of the
first spices to be traded.
Ancient Egyptians were amongst
the first civilisations to embrace the
spice, using it in their mummification
rituals. Black peppercorns were
found inserted into the nostrils of
the Pharoah Rameses II, placed there
following his death in 1213 BC.

Black pepper was also a well known
and widely used spice in the Roman
Empire, although the distance and
difficulty of securing it ensured it
remained expensive. Pepper was so
valuable that it was often used as
collateral or even as a form of currency.
The barbarian warrior Attila the Hun
is said to have demanded a ransom
of more than a tonne of pepper from
Rome when they laid siege to the
city in the 5th Century.

By 400 BC pepper was also well
known in Greece, where it was
prized as a medicine credited with
digestive and aphrodisiac qualities.

After the fall of Rome control of
the pepper trade shifted into the
hands of Arab and Italian traders,
especially in the city states of Venice

Glenn Austin

www.xtremechef.com.au

Understanding canteen policy
In an effort to improve the eating
options for school children a great
deal of confusion has unintentionally
been created, not just for canteen
managers but for manufacturers
and distributors as well. In reality,
what seems at first glance a
myriad of complex and confusing
information actually does provide
clarity and even some consistency.
A few years ago NSW Health,
working with NSW School Canteens
Association and a range of other state
organisations, developed the Fresh

Tastes @ School strategy. This became
the minimum mandatory standard
for schools in New South Wales.
Queensland Health later followed
suit with their Healthy Choices
Department of Education and Victoria
introduced the Go for your life
Healthy Canteens strategy, once again
based on the Fresh Tastes @ School
strategy. The Western Australian
government launched the Policy
and Standards for Healthy Food and
Drink in Public Schools which is
underpinned by the Federation of
Canteens in Schools (FOCiS) criteria.
The consistent issue with these
government strategies is the slight
variances from state to state which
on the face of it may not be great
but for manufacturers can have a
profound impact on their bottom
line. Manufacturers do not create
products for just one state. The
economies of scale dictate that they
must supply to national and even
international markets to survive.
The confusion for canteens comes
about when state-based magazines
or Buyers Guides are circulated into
other states where the ratings do not
match their own state guidelines.
Product Registration Programs


and Genoa.
It is commonly believed that pepper
was used to mask the flavour of
rotten meat during this period,
however as pepper was a luxury
item only available to the rich, many
historians believe this is unlikely.

in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas.
They quickly lost control of their
monopoly however as the Arab
and Venetian traders continued to
smuggle pepper past their blockades.
By the 17th Century the Dutch and
British had also entered the trade.

The exorbitant price of pepper
during the Middle Ages led to
Portuguese attempts to find an
alternative sea route to India.
Successful in their attempt to sail
around Africa, Portugal was granted
exclusive rights to the parts of the
world where pepper came from

As supplies of pepper into Europe
improved the price of the spice started
to decline, making it more readily
available to the general populace.

were introduced to reduce the
confusion, simplify the selection
of an appropriate variety of menu
items for schools and to encourage
manufacturers to develop better
products. There are a few state
based registration programs but
only the one national program.

nationally or in just one state (if that
state had a registration program).

The FOCiS National Registered
Product Program has for the
past 15 years assessed products
against the FOCiS criteria which
are consistent with the Australian
Dietary Guidelines for Children
and Adolescents. This means that
a company can register a product
as being a healthier option either

These days, pepper accounts for one
fifth of the world’s spice trade, with
Vietnam the largest producer and
exporter internationally. OH

With the introduction of the various
state government strategies FOCiS
reviewed its criteria to ensure that
only products that are categorised
Green (every day foods) or Amber
(eat in moderation) in these
strategies can be registered. This
has proven to be quite difficult with
some products as the state strategies
assess them under different criteria
and make no allowance for new
and innovative products. However,
FOCiS is committed to reducing
the confusion and providing some
national consistency.

FAQ
Q: Does a product have to be
registered to be sold in a canteen?
A: No. The products must simply
meet the minimum government
standards for that state. Note that
the nutrient criteria for a Red
(occasional) food are identical for
all states (NSW, QLD, VIC and WA).
To determine what this is refer to
your relevant government criteria.
Q: My distributor says his
products are registered but how

do I know for sure?
A: Ask to see a copy of his certificate.
Every product registered is certified.
Q: My distributor says his products
meet the criteria for the state
strategy. How do I check this?
A: Check the nutritional
information against the guide
provided for your state strategy
(that is the nutrient criteria for a
Red food). If in doubt contact your
state school canteen’s association.

espite the fact that the vast majority of
Australians have access to clean, drinkable
water straight from the tap, we spend more than
half a billion dollars on buying bottled water every
year. Along with the huge financial cost is the
environmental cost of producing, packaging and
delivering all that H2O, not to mention disposing of
the bottles afterwards.
A major part of the problem is the PET bottles
most bottled water comes in, which are
made from oil, a non-renewable resource.
Environmental group Do Something! has
calculated (based on figures from the Pacific
Institute) that approximately 52.5 million litres of
oil was used in 2009-10 to produce the PET bottles
used to package bottled water in Australia. With
more energy required to fill the bottles, transport,
refrigerate, and recycle or discard the empty
bottles, the NSW Department of Environment and
Climate Change has estimated that about 200ml
of oil is used to produce each litre bottle of water.
Australia’s bottled water use also generates more
than 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions –
the same amount 13,000 cars emit over the course
of a year.
To make matters worse, Australia recycles only
around 35 per cent of PET plastic water bottles,
with most ending up as waste in landfill.
Peak industry association the Australian Bottled
Water Institute (which has partnered with
other drinks producers and environmental
bodies to create better recycling infrastructure,
and educate consumers about the importance
of recycling) believes it’s unfair and wrong
to single out the bottle water
industry from “among the
thousands of food, beverage
and commercial water users”,
stating on their website that
“to single out bottled water
packaging is to ignore the fact
that today’s society demands
and relies upon packaged
food and drinks”. They
have a point but it doesn’t
make the statistics any
less concerning.
With many consumers
choosing bottled water
because they’re not happy
with the taste, odour or
colour of tap water,
removing bottle
water from menus
altogether isn’t going
to be practical for
most restaurants.

Or cost effective: with still and sparkling water
often ordered instead of soft drinks or as an
adjunct to other beverages, it’s no secret that
water sales can make a significant contribution to
a business’s bottom line.
Taking steps to minimise the environmental
harm of serving bottled water to patrons can be
as simple as always recycling bottles, choosing
brands of water that come in glass bottles
over PET plastic, or investigating some of the
“greener” water options now available.

Filtered water on tap
Culligan Water has recently launched the
Purezza Premium Water System (below left)
which turns ordinary tap water into premium
still or sparkling water, which is then served in
customised and refillable bottles.
The Purezza is based on a unique turnkey system
that analyses the operators’ water and then
provides tailored filtration solution to remove
inpurities that can affect taste and odour. It’s
designed to help restaurateurs reduce their carbon
footprint by eliminating the transportation, storage
and refrigeration costs associated with traditional
bottled water.
Available in a choice of a counter top or under
bench unit, the three-way tap system can produce
ambient still, chilled still and chilled sparkling
on demand. Reusable bottles are supplied with
operator branded stickers to seal the lids, keeping
bubbles in and reassuring diners of quality.
● www.culliganwater.com.au

Good vibrations
Brisbane-based company Good
Vibes for You announced the
release of the first 100 per cent
biodegradable and recyclable
bottle into the Australian market
earlier this year.
The bottle uses an organic
compound to alter the properties
of traditional PET plastic allowing
it to biodegrade naturally. Should
the bottles end up in landfill or a
waterway, both the cap and the
bottle will naturally decompose
leaving behind only useable soil.
While it’s still early days
for the company, they’re
hopeful that the new
compound presents a longterm solution to the problem

Photo by Johannes Wienke.

Consultant chef

D

Dilphius of Siphonos, was the
first person to note its use as a
culinary condiment when he
recommended pepper with scallops
in the early third century BC.

of plastic bottles ending up in landfill.
● www.goodvibesforeyou.com

Out of thin air
The Water Micron Atmospheric Water Generator
is an alternative to conventional purified water
system, creating pure, fresh, environmentallyfriendly drinking water from the atmosphere.
The energy-efficient generator can produce up to
30 litres of water per day, depending on humidity
and temperature, from the air. Any chemicals in
the air are eliminated during the filtration and
UV sterilisation process, guaranteeing quality
and flavour.
The unit will dispense both chilled fresh drinking
water and hot water at the touch of a button and is
fitted with an automatic recirculation procedure to
ensure stored water remains fresh.
To operate at its full potential, humidity ideally
needs to be above 50 per cent. Below that level
the unit will still make water however it will
take a little longer to fill the storage tanks. In
extremely cold conditions, the unit can be
connected to tap water and it will produce high
quality purified water.
● www.watermicron-australia.com OH


Christmas around the world

Photo by Christian Ferrari,
www.christian-ferrari.blogspot.com.

Festive fare

Canola oil, for deep-frying
20 won ton wrappers
1 smoked rainbow trout (approximately
200g flesh)
2 long red chillies, seeded and finely
shredded
1 large handful of mint leaves, torn
3 kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced
1 large handful of coriander leaves
125g good-quality chilli jam
4 tbsp crispy shallots
50g salmon or trout roe

Create a festive menu without resorting to the same tired old dishes by
seeking inspiration in traditional dishes from around the globe.

W

hat does the phrase “festive
food” mean in Australia
these days? Roast turkey with all the
trimmings, glazed ham and cherries
jubilee, or oysters au natural, whole
baked salmon and pavlova?
Despite our climate the food
traditionally served during the
Christmas period has been the roast
meats, heavy puddings and brandyand fruit-laced cakes of our AngloIrish forefathers.
More recently, chefs and home
cooks alike have turned to lighter
dishes more suitable for our hot and
humid conditions. Fresh seafood,
salads and fruit-based desserts
and platters now jostle for space
on the Christmas table with more
traditional fare.
Throw our increasingly multicultural

dining culture into the mix and
it really is “anything goes” when
it comes to designing Christmas
menus. Inspiration can be found in
the broad array of fresh, seasonal
produce available throughout the
summer months, as well as in the
many festive customs and foods of
our cultural melting pot.
Vive le France!
The French share a taste for
chestnut-stuffed turkey and roasted
goose with their British neighbours
but luxury items such as oysters, foie
gras, escargots (snails) and smoked
salmon also grace the Christmas
table. A favourite dessert is the
bûche de Noël (known as a Yule log
in English), a traditional cake which
is thought to date back to the Middle
Ages. Made from sponge cake rolled

and filled with chocolate or chestnut
cream, bûches are often served
with part of the cake cut off and
set on top of the cake to resemble
a chopped off branch. Bark-like
texture is created by dragging a fork
through the butter cream icing and
they are often decorated with leaves,
fresh berries and powdered sugar to
resemble snow.

Makes 20

Twelve apostle supper
A 12-dish Christmas Eve supper
is traditionally prepared in many
Eastern European countries,
including Poland, Lithunia and the
Ukraine, with each of the meatless
dishes representing one of the 12
Apostles. Dishes vary from country
to country however poppy seeds
are widely used, as they symbolize
abundance and prosperity, along
with fish, mushrooms, and boiled or
fried dumplings.
Bella Italia
Like most Italian cuisine, Christmas
foods have evolved along regional
lines. Typical dishes include
antipasto, baccalà (dried salted
codfish), baked pasta dishes such as
lasagne, capon and turkey. A common
tradition in the Southern parts of Italy
is The Feast of the Seven Fishes, eaten
on Christmas Eve, and consisting of
seven fish dishes symbolising the
seven sacraments of the Catholic
Church. While there is no set menu
for this meal dishes might include
calamari, clams, mussels, baccalà,
prawns and a baked whole fish such
as snapper or salmon.
Spiced is nice
Germans enjoy a range of
highly spiced treats during the
festive season. One favourite is
Christstollen, or Stollen, a dense,
dry fruit cake that is said to be
shaped like the baby Jesus in his
swaddling clothes. Stollen contains
candied fruit, raisins, spices such
as cardamom and cinnamom, and
often marzipan or nuts. Gingerbread
houses decorated with sweets are
also popular. Gluhwein, made from
red wine which is heated and spiced
with cinnamon sticks, vanilla pods,
cloves, citrus and sugar, is a popular


Smoked fish salad on
crispy won tons

drink around Christmas in Germanspeaking countries.
Baked to perfection
In Scandinavian countries, families
will get together in the lead up to
Christmas to make pepparkakor,
thin, brittle gingerbread biscuits in
the shape of stars, hearts and moons,
or gingerbread houses. Norwegians
are so keen on baking around
Christmas that they call the sudden
thaw following the year’s first heavy
snows the “biscuit thaw”, because
it’s said to be caused by the raised
temperatures coming from all the
ovens baking biscuits.
Balancing sweet and salty
A Christmas Eve tradition in Portugal
is for families to eat a supper of
bacalhau (dried salted codfish)
served with boiled potatoes. On
Christmas day a lunch of roast meats
such as turkey, goat and lamb and
sweets such as rabanadas, made from
slices of white bread soaked in eggs
and wine, dredged in sugar, and fried
until crisp, is served.
Turkey with a twist
Turkey is native to the Americas and
a popular Christmas dish throughout
Latin America, however methods for
preparing it differ greatly. In Brazil,
for example, the turkey is marinated
in rum, onions, garlic, tomatoes,
lime juice and other spices, and it
is served with coloured rice and
vegetables. In Guatemala, tamals
made of corn and rice, and filled
with turkey, prunes, raisins and a
sauce made with local spices, are an
integral part of the Christmas meal.

Eastern influences
With plans for Christmas menus
well underway, chef, restaurateur
and television presenter Pete Evans
turns up the heat with a selection
of Asian-inspired canapés from his
new book My Party.

Snapper tartare with
yuzu dressing
Makes 20

Yuzu is a citrus fruit from Asia with
a unique flavour that is perfectly
matched to seafood. This is a classic

Japanese dressing that works with
just about any type of seafood you
choose to chop, slice and serve
raw. Some of my favourites are
scampi, prawns (shrimp), scallops,
any type of white-fleshed fish and
also the fattier fish such as salmon,
trout, mackerel and tuna. You
could even just drizzle it over a
freshly shucked oyster for a match
made in heaven.
250g snapper fillet, skin off
50ml yuzu juice
1¼ tablespoons soy sauce
½ teaspoon freshly cracked pepper
½ teaspoon finely grated garlic
6 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1 jalapeño chilli, finely diced, to serve
Small shiso leaves or chopped coriander
leaves, to serve

I was recently in LA cooking with
Curtis Stone and the legendary
Wolfgang Puck’s catering team for
“G’Day USA”. We had to cater for
800 people. The following recipe
is one of the canapés I created for
the night. When I serve this at a
function, I normally present the
fish salad on betel leaves (edible
leaves from South-East Asia that
have medicinal qualities). However,
on arrival in LA, I found that
betel leaves weren’t available, so I
decided to serve the fish on crispy
fried won tons as an alternative.
To be honest, I think the won tons
worked better as they are easier
to handle and add great texture to
the end result. For a larger serving,
just add some finely sliced green
mango, papaya or glass noodles for
a refreshing salad.

nam jim
4 red Asian shallots, chopped
2 red bird’s eye chillies
2 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon chopped coriander root
100ml lime juice
75g grated palm sugar (jaggery)
50ml fish sauce
To make the nam jim dressing,
pound the shallots, chillies, garlic
and coriander root using a mortar
and pestle and then add the lime
juice. Season with the palm sugar
and fish sauce for a balance of hot,
sour, salty and sweet.
Heat the canola oil to 180°C (350°F)
in a wok or deep saucepan. Separate
the won tons and gently fry in
batches for 1–2 minutes turning
once until light golden. Drain on
kitchen paper and allow to cool.
Flake the smoked trout and
combine with the chilli, mint, kaffir
lime leaves and coriander leaves.
Dress with some of the nam jim.
Place a teaspoon of chilli jam on
top of the fried won ton wrappers,

Dice the snapper into small 1 cm
(½ inch) cubes and place in a
chilled bowl.
To make the dressing combine
the yuzu juice, soy sauce, pepper,
garlic and grapeseed oil in a jar
and shake well.
Pour over the snapper and toss to coat.
Divide between small glasses or
spoons and serve immediately with
the jalapeño and shiso to garnish.
Note: Yuzu juice has a distinctive
sharp taste and is available bottled
from Japanese supermarkets. You
could substitute with fresh lemon
juice if you like.

place a small mound of the fish
salad on top and then sprinkle with
the crispy shallots and top with the
salmon roe.

2 spring onions
Finely shredded
Vegetable oil, for frying
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
250g wagyu sirloin
Olive oil
1 tablespoon finely snipped chives
Ponzu
½ white onion, finely diced
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
¼ teaspoon finely chopped ginger
Tataki dressing
2½ tablespoons soy sauce
80ml rice vinegar
1 teaspoon bonito flakes (optional)
To make the ponzu, place all the
ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Wagyu tataki with
crispy garlic and
shallots
Serves 20

My catering business does a lot
of top-end catering around the
country and this item always
stands out as a clear winner. It
has the most wonderful dressing
and the crispy garlic is a nice
surprise that will wow your
guests. Tataki is a finely sliced,
piece of seared meat that is rare
inside – you can use kingfish,
tuna, salmon or beef but to take
it to the next level, use a lovely
piece of wagyu.

To make the tataki dressing, combine
all the ingredients a bowl.

The 12 chefs of Christmas
N

eed more inspiration? Open
House asked 12 chefs what
festive dishes they’ll be putting on
their Christmas menus this year.
A couple of the dishes
we are going to add
as specials to our
menu include
figs wrapped up
in fatty pancetta
and grilled on
the flat plate until
the pancetta starts to crisp and
then placed on a platter with
some fresh radicchio and
marinated truffled honey, and
yabbies grilled and served with
grilled peach and watercress
salad, Trebbiano dressing and a
splash of oil.

1

David Magill,
The Italian Kitchen & Bar

Rinse the spring onions under water
for a few minutes then drain and
refrigerate.
Heat 2 cm of vegetable oil in a small
deep saucepan over medium heat.
Sauté the garlic slices until golden
then strain and drain on kitchen
paper. Sprinkle with salt.
Preheat a chargrill pan to high,
lightly brush the beef fillet with
some olive oil and season with salt
and pepper. Sear the beef on all
sides until medium rare.
To assemble, slice the beef into thin
slivers and arrange in small dishes
or shot glasses. Pour half a teaspoon
of the tataki dressing and half a
teaspoon of the ponzu over
each piece. Add a couple of
garlic crisps to the wagyu
and finish with the chives
and spring onion. OH

Recipes and images
from My Party by Pete
Evans (Murdoch Books,
$49.95).

My salad of heirloom
tomatoes with foire
di latte will be
on the menu for
sure and despite
the warm weather
I’ll serve my great
grandmother’s
chocolate Christmas pudding
with rum and brandy custard. It’s
been handed down through the
generations in our family.

2

Anthony Sullivan,
Forte Catering & Events
Last year we put
some specials on
that we will no
doubt do again
this year: a
Christmas tart
with cinnamon
mascarpone made
with dried fruit and nuts
soaked in a boozy mixture
then set with eggs in a pastry
case, and I’m sure we’ll be
doing something similar to
the stuffed poached turkey
galantine served cold with a
truffle potato salad and turkey
ravioli with english spinach
and chestnut sauce.

3

Matt Merrick,
The Terminus Hotel

With Christmas
being in summer
in Australia,
people always
want something
a bit lighter as
opposed to rich,
heavy foods. At the
same time, because it is the festive
season, people like to eat foods that
are a bit special. Based on this,
I devised an “Indian High Tea”
which is available at Aki’s over
the festive season. People can
snack and sample on tasty little
morsels, such as chocolate naan,
rather than sitting down to one
big dish. It’s a great way for people
to treat themselves.

4

Kumar Mahadevan,
Aki’s and Abhi’s contemporary
Indian restaurants

7

This festive season
my restaurants will
be showcasing
a beautiful free
range heritage
breed ham with
the Depot’s spiced
pickled cherries.
Jared Ingersoll,
Dank St Depot

We’re going to include
two options for
special Christmas
dishes at
Aperitivo – one
that would
feature on an
Italian Christmas
menu and another that is more of
an Australian dish. For the Italian
Christmas dish, we are going to do
a dish using wood fired porchetta

8

– a moist boneless pork roast –
served with wild fennel and apple
vermouth sauce, and a healthy
serving of roasted vegetables. For
our Australian Christmas dish we
are going to offer salmon fillets that
have been stuffed with herb bread
crumbs and wrapped in pancetta,
barbecued whole and served with
a side of watermelon, grapefruit
and fennel.
Joe Cavallo,
Aperitivo

9

This Christmas we’ll
be including such
Italian favourites
as lobster salad,
prawn pancetta
and berry panna
cotta on our menu.
Guy Grossi,
Grossi Florentino

We have a beautiful
seafood platter
that we put
on the
menu over
the festive
season. Being a bar
and bistro people
often like to enjoy a meal they can
share and enjoy with wine and
other drinks, and this is more so
over Christmas. As we have recently
opened an outdoor bar area, we
are also looking to do a seafood
style barbecue, something that is
a part of many classic Australian
Christmases.

10

Frederic Booms,
Helm Bar & Bistro, Darling Harbour
We don’t do the
traditional French
Christmas dishes
as it’s too hot.
Instead, we’ll
feature dishes
which are more
suited to our warm
climate such as roast suckling pig
with truffled potato; open ravioli

11

of Western Australian
scampi, warm crayfish
salad, and venison with
either griottes (cherries) or
Grand Veneur (a cognac-style wine).
Geraud Fabre,
France-Soir
This Christmas we
will have just
opened the Eat
Space Deli at
Westfield in
Sydney, so I’ll be
spice brining and
dry spice rubbing the
Christmas turkey and slow cooking
it on my new French rotisserie for
all the Christmas shoppers. We’ll
also be serving a version of this at
The Summit.

12

Michael Moore,
The Summit

Classic ideas always
work for Christmas
so I’ll be serving
gorgeous
hand rolled
and stuffed
roasted turkey
accentuated
with bunches of mini currants.
I also don’t think you can
underestimate the excitement a
colourful trifle can bring to party,
reminding people of when they
were young (well, it does for me
anyway!).

5

Clinton Brown,
Laissez Faire catering
We will be doing a
range of Viennese
petit fours over
the Christmas
period, reflecting
my Austrian
heritage – vanilla
kippfle (vanilla
crescents), Basler Lackerli (spiced
honey cookies) and Basler Brunsli
(chocolate and almond spiced
cookies). We will also have Sri
Lankan love cake and Sri Lankan
Christmas pudding, brought to
Sri Lanka in the 1600s by the
Portuguese.

6

Peter Kuruvita,
Flying Fish

seafood

Moving toward sustainability
are educated, the more suppliers
will have to come up to scratch.”
Being flexible about the species you
put on the menu and familiarising
yourself with the stocks that are
on the “no go” list is vital. To help
out chefs and consumer alike, the
Australian Marine Conservation
Society has published a guide to
more than 60 common Australian
seafood species, sorting them into
three main categories – Say no
(red), Think Twice (orange), and

Better Choice (green) – and listing
information about its biology and
specific conservation concerns.
Species on the overfished list
include blue warehou, deepwater
shark, eastern gemfish, orange
roughy, oreos, Redfish, School
sharks, silver trevally and southern
bluefin tuna, while broadbill
swordfish, bigeye tuna, other sharks
and rays and yellow fin tuna are
considered vulnerable.
Another useful resource is the

Try Omega

MSC’s searchable database of
Chain of Custody Certified
businesses that will supply certified
sustainable seafood.
By embracing sustainable seafood,
chefs also have an opportunity to
engage and educate customers.
By making a feature of an
ingredient’s provenance, adding a
short description of the fishery’s
sustainability record to the menu,
or additional materials and
resources to your business’s website
for example, you add value to their
experience. Let your customers
know what you’re doing and why,
and chances they’ll become as
excited by it as you are.

Mussels
and Clams!

They’re washed,
scrubbed, cleaned
and lightly cooked
ready to heat or eat

Pan fried snapper, summer clam & tomato stew,
horseradish foam

M

aurice Esposito is the latest
chef to join the select band
serving only sustainable seafood,
opening Saint Peter’s (named after
the patron saint of fisherman),
Melbourne’s first sustainable seafood
restaurant, last month.
Over in Sydney, Tom Kime, executive
chef of Fish & Co in Annandale
(co-author of Fish Tales with Bart
Van Olphen of Fishes, Europe’s first
sustainable fishmonger), is working
with the Marine Stewardship Council
(MSC), an international not-for-profit
organisation that certifies sustainable
fisheries, to ensure all the fish he uses
in the restaurant is sustainable.
Fish and other seafood currently
on the menu at Fish & Co include
Coorong yellow eye, school
mulloway, New Zealand Hoki, and
Coorong surf clams, all of which
come from MSC Fisheries certified
as sustainable. Others species such
as deep water hake from New
Zealand come from fisheries that
are in the primary assessment phase
for certification and are expected
to have full certification within the


next 12 months.
At a recent seminar held at the
Restaurant 10 show in Sydney,
seafood specialist John Susman from
consultancy Fishheads told the
assembled crowd that Australians
are lucky because “the reality is
that we live in a first world country
and act under law that demands
we produce seafood, whether wildcaught or farmed, to a sustainable,
certifiable level”.
However, with demand for seafood
exceeding the amount we can
produce locally, 77 per cent of
seafood is imported and that’s
where chefs can potentially run into
problems with sustainability.
Chef Peter Kuravita, co-owner of
Flying Fish in Sydney suggests that
chefs who are interested in using
sustainable seafood find out as much
as possible about the seafood they’re
buying. Question not only where it
comes from but how it was caught.
“Educate yourself; talk to your
supplier; start asking them real
questions,” he says. “The more chefs

Horseradish foam
300ml cream
25g freshly grated horseradish
2 gelatine leaves

Heat a heavy based pot. Add
mussels and wine and place on
lid. Steam for 3 minutes until
mussels open. Strain and reserve
the liquid. Discard any unopened
mussels and pick the meat out
of the remaining ones. In a clean
pot sweat the shallots, celery and
garlic cook until soft. Add the
tomatoes and cook out all the
liquid. Once mixture becomes dry
add tomato paste and cook out for
2 minutes. Deglaze with vinegar.
Add chicken stock and reserved
mussel stock cook for 20 minutes.

add the gelatine and strain once
chilled place into a soda siphon
Pan Fry snapper skin side down
for 8 minutes in a 260°c oven or
until just cooked. Place clams
into small pot and add a ladle of
stew mixture, bring to boil and
correct the seasoning, then add
enough cream to enrich the stew
and cook until clams open. Place
into stew bowl and top with
snapper. Dot with horseradish
foam. Serve with calasparra rice
or crusty bread.

To make the horseradish foam,
cook cream and horseradish down
until infused, correct the seasoning,

Recipe: Matt Merrick, The
Terminus Hotel, Clifton Hill.

Natural Juice
NO additives
• LESS labour • LESS waste
• 12 MONTH shelf life
• EASIER food safety
• EASIER quality control

NO hidden costs
Ideal for:
• canapés
• soup
• pasta
• paella
• buffet
• bar meals

1kg

1kg

FREE TRIAL
Email jo@phrprocessing.co.nz
and receive a free sample
1Kg mussels or clams for trial,
area restrictions may apply.

OPH1001

The tide is turning for seafood, with the
number of restaurants choosing to serve only
sustainable seafood on the rise.

4 x 180g pieces local snapper
1kg summer clams
1kg mussels
300ml white wine
10 shaved shallots
5 garlic cloves
1kg ripe tomatoes
1 litre chicken stock
3 sticks of celery, thinly sliced
100ml cream
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

www.omegaseafood.com


Uniforms

The future of fishing
Wild, farmed, fresh and tinned, we’re now
eating more fish than ever before. Paul
Greenberg outlines the “big picture” steps
society needs to take to protect seafood stocks,
now and in the future.

W

e are now at a point where we
know something about fish.
We know that overfishing can and
does happen. That, as with terrestrial
animal husbandry, fish farming has
problems of waste management,
disease, and industrial pollutants.
Nevertheless, we are still not
grappling with the quandaries
of fishing and fish farming in
a manner commensurate with
the contemporary battles of the
food-reform and land-based
environmental movements.
It is not that we don’t have choices
to make. But the choices ahead are
large societal ones that require our
careful attention and our active
political engagement. After forty
years, beginning with the near
global collapse of wild salmon we
have seen numerous examples of
oceanic disasters interspersed here
and there with real improvements.
Wild fish globally are declining,
but the examples of science-based
successes are marked, accurately
documented, and clearly replicable.
Pollution and dead zones have
grown, but, unlike the terrestrial
environment, the essential habitat
of much of the world’s marine life
remains reclaimable. If left alone,
marine ecosystems have a tendency
to rebuild themselves.
What is needed now is a societal
choice to give priority to a set of
clearly achievable goals for wild
fish. Those priorities should include:
1. A profound reduction in
fishing effort.
The world fishing fleet is estimated
by the United Nations to be twice as
large as the oceans can support. This
overcapacity is being maintained
primarily through government
subsidies. Many billions of dollars
are paid by governments to support
fishing fleets that without subsidies
would not turn a profit. Subsidies
thus make wild fish unreasonably
cheap. A move away from large,
heavily extractive vessels that

employ very few individuals is
critical. An emerging “artisanal”
sector of respectful fishermenherders that will steward the
species, as well as catch them, needs
to be encouraged and higher market
prices will be able to support that
kind of activity.
2. The conversion of significant
portions of ocean ecosystems to
no-catch areas.
Up until the last decade, the default
assumption with the ocean has
been that any ocean habitat could
and should become fishing grounds
if fish are present in abundant
numbers. There is, however,
growing evidence suggesting that
key fish breeding grounds and
nursery habitat must be reserved
as safe havens if overexploited
fish populations are to rebuild to
harvestable numbers. It is still a
matter of controversy how much
territory should be put aside for
fish reserves, and today an average
of only one per cent of the world’s
ocean habitats is protected from
exploitation. Surely developed
nations that already protect around
10 per cent of their land areas could
see fit to come up with a similar
amount for their ocean holdings.
3. The global protection of
unmanageable species.
Species or stocks that straddle
too many nations or that occur in
unowned, international waters have
been shown with very few exceptions
to be unmanageable over the long
term. In the face of hard science,
politicians of multiparty treaties
“negotiate” catch allocations that go
against scientific reality. Developing
nations balk at not being given their
“fair share” of these depleted stocks,
but if a species shows continued
decline over time, as has the Atlantic
bluefin tuna, the only “fair” thing to
do is to completely close the fishery.
If bluefin tuna were elevated and
accorded the same kind of protection
tigers, lions, whales, and other
sensitive transboundary species are


given, it could shift public perception
of fish and give regulators a line in
the sand past which a species is
simply not allowed to decline.
4. The protection of the bottom of
the food chain.
With the boom of aquaculture and
the rise in the use of fish as feed for
pigs and chickens, small forage fish
like anchovies, sardines, capelin,
and herring now represent the
largest portion of fish caught. And
yet we really do not understand
the population dynamics of these
smaller forage fish. With the scalingup of so much aquaculture, we run the
very real risk of what Dr. Ellen Pikitch
of the Pew Oceans Commission called
“pulling the rug out from underneath
marine ecosystems” – that is,
removing the basic food source of the
ocean and causing fisheries collapses
from below.
We must therefore take a
precautionary approach to the very
bottom of the oceanic food chain.
We must also seek to rebuild the
bottom of the food chain we have
already lost by restoring the habitats
where forage fish are born and
reared. Estuaries and river systems
are vital zones of food production
and not simply “natural” spaces.
Four very good, noble, and
ultimately effective principles that
will rebuild the seas. Goals that are
more and more becoming part of
a new phenomenon taking root in
conservation policy: “ocean zoning.”
As more users compete for space in
the ocean, some places in the world
(the island of Asinara off Sardinia,
for example) have implemented
overall zoning goals, much in the
same way municipalities plan a
town with commercial space, green
space, and residential areas. The
advantage of zoning the ocean now
is that it gives wild-fish advocates a
chance to stake out territory before
wildness has been relegated too far
to the margins. Hand in hand with
ocean zoning is the rising trend of
“ecosystem management.” Rather
than managing individual species,
ecosystem management seeks to
manage entire systems, modelling
patterns for fishing and restoration
that work toward re-establishing
the balance of the many demands of
prey and predator.
But all the very good and noble
goals of ocean zoning and ecosystem
management become meaningless in
the presence of one ominous factor:
human demand.
In spite of campaigns, boycotts,

publications, documentaries, and
every other means of persuasion
known, the global human
population keeps growing and
humans keep eating more fish every
year, not just in aggregate but on
a per capita basis. And because
seafood is such a global, boundaryfree business, whenever a restaurant,
a city, or a country takes to the moral
high ground and tries to reduce
or improve the footprint of its
seafood consumption, another, less
scrupulous restaurant, city, or nation
is ready to step in and continue the
bad practices that the more evolved
parties have abandoned.
So if we take as a given that
humankind will keep eating fish,
more and more of it every year, then
we need to come up with a way
to direct that appetite away from
sensitive, unmanageable wildlife
and usher it toward sustainable,
productive domesticated fish.
What is needed above all is a
standard for boosting fish supplies
in as sustainable a manner
as possible. Humans should
purposefully select a handful of
fish species that can stand up to
industrial-size husbandry with
the goal of compensating for the
huge gap between wild supply and
growing human demand. Of course,
if the global human population
continues to grow unabated, no
solution will work; in such a
population-growth scenario, only
the stars can save us. Indeed, with
terrestrial food production now
reaching its limits, the ocean is,
in a sense, the final option, the
only remaining way for humans to
convert more of the world’s biomass
and sun energy into more humans.
We therefore have a very clear
choice. We can carefully select
the fish that work well both in
conjunction with human farmers
and alongside the wild ocean food
systems that still function. Or we
can run roughshod over the wild
ocean, install feedlots up and down
the world’s coasts, and continue
to reap short-term kilojoule credits
irrespective of the long-term
ecological debits. If humans are at
root rational creatures, then we must
without question choose the former
path over the latter.
Credit: This is an edited extract
from Four Fish: the story of fishing
and what’s left to eat by Paul
Greenberg (Viking, $32.95). OH

Dressed for success
Choosing the right uniform for staff can help set a restaurant’s tone, differentiate it from
competitors and reassure customers about the experience they’re about to have.

W

hether you’re running a casual
suburban cafe or a fine-dining
restaurant, the uniforms staff wear
help to set the tone for the venue.
The appearance of front-of-house
and increasingly, as the popularity
of open kitchens grows, kitchen
staff makes an implicit statement
to customers about the standard of
restaurant they’re entering and the
level of service they can expect.
“A smart uniform indicates to
the customer a high level of
professionalism and reflects on the
image of the restaurant,” says Mygyn
Peters from hospitality uniform
supplier Retro Chef. “It shows that
the restaurateur knows how to run
a good business, and makes the
customer confident they’ll have a
good experience.”

Raja Farah from Robbie Barsman
agrees. “The way staff appears
is an engaging link between the
venue and customer, and if done
correctly, can differentiate a
business from competitors in a cost
effective way,” he says.
For front-of house staff, jeans and
a funky t-shirt point to a cool, laidback venue; a uniform of smart
pants, long-sleeved shirt and tie
or even a tailored suit, suggests a
more formal dining experience.
The right uniform can even have
a demonstratable effect on your
bottom line.
“Clever uniform choices can help
up-sell a customer depending on
the environment a staff member
works in,” says Farah. “For
example, for staff predominantly

serving alcohol, a sexy, fashionable
uniform says something different
than the formal attire you’d find in
a fine-dining restaurant.”
It’s a theory many restaurants and
hotels internationally are investing
in, commissioning top fashion
designers to create a unique look
for their staff, and by extension
their venue. In New York, Narcisco
Rodrguez has in the past designed
uniforms for chef Mario Batali’s
eatery Del Posto, Calvin Klein
has outfitted staff at Jean-Georges
Vongerichten’s Perry St, and staff
members at Nobu 57 wear Yohji
Yamamoto. Singer Gwen Stefani, the
creator of clothing line L.A.M.B, has
designed sexy little black dresses
for staff of the W Hotels chain. Staff
at the Metropolitan Bangkok hotel

wear Comme des Garcon.
Uniforms don’t have to be designer
or expensive however to effectively
position and differentiate a business.
A basic uniform of dark pants and
a long-sleeved shirt can easily be
individualised with a restaurant’s
logo or identifying emblem, or by
injecting a touch of colour. Peters
suggests red and black for Japanese
restaurants; red, white and green for
Italian restaurants, and yellow and
blue for Mediterranean restaurants.
For kitchen staff, clean, crisp white
shirts and aprons remain the best
way to reassure customers that
your business is the sort of clean,
hygienic place they want to eat
in. In the restaurant business, first
impressions really do count. OH

FraserandHughes

The Australian Chef ’s Uniform

The Cooks Shop

Parramatta
Darlinghurst
(02) 9633 2924
(02) 9360 4760
www.cooksshop.com.au

Not so sweet things

Photo by Stuart Scott.

Desserts

and add 40g caramel. Seal under
vacuum and cook at 95°c for 5
hours. A water bath is the best.
For the sorbet, bring the water, castor
sugar and invert sugar to the boil
for two minutes. Leave to cool then
add the stabiliser, and whisk in the
cream cheese and softened gelatine.
Leave to mature overnight. Churn in
an ice-cream maker.

Desserts that blur the line between sweet and savoury challenge chefs’ ingenuity and customers’
palates. Think outside the square to take advantage of this exciting trend.

A

mongst the Top 10 dessert
trends identified by The Food
Channel earlier this year was “the
unexpected complement”, the
idea of combining non-traditional
ingredients such as bacon and
chocolate or caramel with wasabi
peas to shake things up and
challenge perceptions of what
constitutes “dessert”.
It’s not a new idea – savoury
ice creams were served as far
back as Victorian times – but
what’s changed in recent years
is the public’s willingness to try
unusual combinations, fuelled
by exposure to food from around
the globe and television programs
such as Heston’s Feasts in which
chef Heston Blumenthal from
The Fat Duck in Britain (number

Simped’s

three on the S.Pellegrino World’s
50 Best Restaurant list) whips
up whimsical dishes such as
lobsterchinos and beetroot and
sherry vinegar slush puppies.
Blumenthal is perhaps one of the
best known proponents of savoury
ice-cream, along with Ferran Adria
from El Bulli in Spain (number two
on the S.Pellegrino list), serving up
varieties such as smoked bacon and
egg ice cream to willing diners.
However, Blumenthal
acknowledges that perception is a
big factor in terms of what people
will eat, telling Good Housekeeping
magazine: “call it crab ice cream
and no one will touch it but change
the name to frozen crab bisque and
it’s a different story.”

SPECIALIST MANUFACTURERS
AND SUPPLIERS SINCE 1969
All product processed and
packed under externally audited
HACCP criteria

Over 40 Years

• Frozen Berries, Tropical &
Deciduous Fruits

New York-based pastry chef Pichet
Ong told Open House when he
visited Australia for the 2009
Sydney International Food Festival
that he thinks “savoury ingredients
such as miso, various cheeses,
vegetables, salts and even bacon
often make surprisingly good – and
addictive – additions to desserts.”
Ong always adds the “flavour of
animal”, in the form of cheese,
eggs or milk rather than meat, to
his desserts.
Here in Australia chefs such as
Mark Best from Sydney finedining restaurant Marque are also
experimenting with combining
sweet and savoury flavours in a
way that blurs the line between
traditional main and dessert
courses. Best’s dishes include
chocolate cannoli with olive
nougat, and a goat’s cheese
marshmallow with strawberries,
rhubarb and beetroot granita.
Patissier Adriano Zumbo, arguably
best-known for his candy-hued
macarons, includes cheeseburger,
vegemite sourdough and sweet
corn, vanilla and saffron varieties

• Fruit Purees

amongst the flavours he sells in
his Sydney shop. Other creations
include a choux pastry confection
made with dukkah sable,
pistachios, crème mousseline, Dijon
mustard crème anglaise and fresh
raspberries, and a chocolate, blue
cheese and walnut gateaux.
“For me, the secret to a good
dessert is balance and that’s where
combining sweet and savoury
flavours works,” says Zumbo. “If a
dessert is too sweet you don’t taste
all the flavours and it ruins it.”
While sweet-savoury combinations
such as salted caramel, chilli
chocolate and avocado ice-cream
(a signature dish of Sydney caterer
The Avocado Group) challenge
palates without appalling them,
there is, of course, the risk of going
too far with flavour combinations.
In Japan, where even Kit Kat
chocolate bars come in Wasabi,
Soy Sauce and Green Tea varieties,
such outlandish concoctions as
ox tongue, prawn and octopus ice
cream are common. Try them at
your own risk.

1

Sable

200g castor sugar

100g softened butter

100ml mineral water

200g castor sugar
1 pinch sea salt

Cream cheese sorbet

1 egg yolk

800ml water

300g plain flour

200g castor sugar

100g roasted and crushed hazelnuts

50g invert sugar
5g stabiliser
200g Philadelphia cream cheese
2 sheets gelatine

For the dark caramel, place the
sugar and 50ml of the mineral water
into a heavy based pot. Bring to

the boil and reduce until it begins
to colour. Continue until wisps of
smoke appear. Swirl in the pan to
mix evenly. Remove the pan from
the heat and place the base into a
pot of cold water. Add the remaining
mineral water. Place back onto the
heat to dissolve and lumps and
reserve at room temperature.
Remove the cheeks from the apples
leaving leaves and stalk attached.
Place each apple into a vacuum bag

To serve, cut a small “bite” from each
apple with a 20mm fluted cutter.
Square off the base of each with a
sharp knife and stand in the middle of
a plate. Add a little sable to each plate
and then a quenelle of ice cream.
Recipe by Mark Best, Marque
Restaurant, as featured on the
Aussie Apples website,
www.oneadaysuperfood.com.au. OH

Want to have your customers raving about you
and your desserts on Facebook and Twitter today?
Get your creative juices going, by starting with a
delicious chocolate base!
Here’s some we prepared earlier….

Unexpected complementary ingredients

• Salads and prepared Fruit and
Vegetables (NSW only)

2

Macarons

3

Beer and dessert matching

4

Deconstruction of common desserts into component elements

5

Mobile dessert trucks

6

“Darwinist desserts”; the evolution of one dessert into another

7

Specialised bakeries

8

Bite-sized desserts with big flavours

9

Ice cream floats, combining fizzy drinks (or even beer) with sorbet
or ice-cream

• Frozen Specialty Vegetables
including Asparagus, Okra,
Snow Peas
• Fruit Concentrates
The widest range available with
processing facilities to value add
your business

IQF
Apple
Segments.

Perfect Partners for menu ideas.

6 Gala apples

Top 10 international dessert trends

• Fruit Mixes (incl. Fruit Salad)
• Fruit Fillings

IQF
Sliced
Rhubarb.

Caramelised apple with cream cheese sorbet

For the sable, beat the butter and
sugar together with a wooden spoon.
Add the salt and beat in the egg
yolk. Fold in the sieved flour and
hazelnuts. Make a flattened mound of
it and wrap in cling film. Refrigerate
for two hours. Then roll between two
sheets of baking paper to 5 mm thick.
Rest for two hours then bake at 170°c
until golden. Cool then crush.

www.simpedfoods.com.au

NSW: (02) 9521 5384 VIC: Victorian Food Brokers (03) 9576 4231
SA/NT: Blackwood Agencies, Tel/Fax (08) 8177 1263
QLD: Foodchoice Pty Ltd (07) 3862 7388
WA: Harley Sales & Marketing, Tel 0418 946 875; Fax (08) 9444 9778


10 Artisanal ice cream sandwiches made with brownies, cakes

or brioche.
Source: The Food Channel, in conjunction with Culture Waves and the
International Food Futurists, May 2010.

Making gourmet desserts couldn’t be easier when you use Poppy’s
Chocolates Dessert Cups and our gourmet range of handmade chocolates
and truffles. Available in Dark, Milk and White Chocolate.
In 3 versatile shapes: Circle, Heart and Triangle.
Ordering is easy! Contact your local Bidvest branch or local quality food
distributor or visit our website today to download our chocolate catalogue.
PLUS be sure to check out our amazing recipe ideas online!

Tel: 07 3807 1936 Email: sales@poppyschocolate.com

www.poppyschocolate.com


cooking the books

Cherry picking

What’s on shelf this month?

Nothing says summer like cherries, eaten fresh or added to any number of dishes. Here, Michael
Moore, owner of the Summit restaurant in Sydney shares one of his favourite recipes.

Slow-cooked lamb tortelli with poached and roasted cherries, cherry toffee
Serves 4–6

800g (1½ lb) lamb shoulder
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 lemon, sliced
2–3 sprigs fresh rosemary
Sea salt and pepper
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 French shallots, finely chopped
100ml (3½fl oz) red wine
500ml (17fl oz) beef stock
4 x 4-bone lamb racks
Cherry toffee
300ml (10fl oz) red wine
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch ground ginger
Pinch ground nutmeg
1kg (2lb) fresh cherries, with stone removed
90g (1½ oz) brown sugar
60ml (2fl oz) balsamic vinegar
1 quantity of pasta dough

In a saucepan, warm the wine, caster sugar
and spices, simmer for 3 minutes then add the
cherries. Bring back to the simmer and remove
from the heat and allow to cool in the syrup.
To make the cherry toffee, place 6 cherries into a
small saucepan. Add brown sugar and balsamic
vinegar and simmer gently for 10 minutes, stirring
occasionally. Strain liquid into a small serving jug,
return to the saucepan and reduce to a toffee-like
syrup consistency.
Season the lamb rack and roast in a medium
(180°C/350°F) oven for 14 minutes
until pink.

Allow to rest and slice into cutlets.
Remove the cherries from the syrup and roast in
a hot oven for 10 minutes.
To serve, place tortelli with cherries down the
centre of each plate. Arrange cutlets neatly and
drizzle the glaze down either side of plate.
Recipes and images from Moore to food by
Michael Moore (New Holland, $49.95).

Bentley: Contemporary cuisine by Brent Savage
(Murdoch Books, $69.95)

Quay: food inspired by nature by Peter Gilmore
(Murdoch Books, $95)

Writing with domestic cooks in mind Brent Savage has
broken each of his recipes down into its component
elements, however that’s the only concession the chef
makes in this cutting-edge – and incredibly stylish –
book. Even the most seasoned chef will find dishes such
as caramelised pork cheek with beetroot and salmon
“ravioli” inspiring. Prepare to be surprised.

There is a reason that Peter Gilmore has been named
one of the top 50 chefs in the world and that reason is
abundantly clear from page one of this book of inspiring,
produce-driven recipes. This book took over a year
to complete, ensuring every season’s best bounty is
represented, and it’s sure to inspire for many more
years to come.

500 Cheeses by Roberta Muir (New Holland, $19.95)
Semi-soft, washed rind, triple-cream, mixed mould,
stretched-curd, fresh, semi-hard... There are dozens
of styles of cheese and thousands of specific varieties
globally – this handy little volume covers 500 of the
most commonly-known and includes provenance, tasting
notes and wine-matching tips. Keep it on hand for
planning cheeseboards or experimenting with different
flavours and textures in recipes. OH

Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F)
and place lamb shoulder
into a baking dish. Sprinkle
with 2 cloves garlic, lemon,
rosemary, salt and pepper
and half the oil. Cover
with foil and roast for
45 minutes. Remove foil
and continue cooking
for a further 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and
cool completely before
slicing or pulling meat apart.
Heat remaining oil in a large
pan over medium heat and
cook shallots and garlic for 3–4
minutes. Add cooked lamb, wine
and stock and simmer for 30 minutes
or until thick and liquid has evaporated.
Adjust seasoning and cool completely. This
is the tortelli filling.
Roll pasta dough out thinly. Place spoonfuls
of lamb mix along the pasta, brush around the
edges with a little water then lay another sheet
of pasta over the top. Cut into circles then shape
into tortelli by using your little finger to indent
one side. Cook in a pot of boiling salted water
until tender.


Products

Drink up, eat the cup

named the winner of the “From the Earth”
category in the recent 2010 Produce Awards.
● www.australiancapers.com.au

Planter pots with a difference

F

orget washing up, Amanti’s Chocolate Lined
WaffleCups are the coffee cups customers can
eat after they’ve enjoyed their favourite brew.

Bysteel planter boxes are ideal for seperating
dining and public areas, or providing
a screen for unslightly service areas.
Weatherproof LED lighting allows the
boxes to be illuminated at night, creating
ambiance and atmosphere. The boxes can
also be customised to include your venue’s
logo or design motifs.

Coated with premium quality chocolate,
WaffleCups can withstand the temperature of
milk-based coffees, hot chocolates and even
espresso shots. Or try serving babychinos in
them for your littlest customers.
The chocolate-lined WaffleCups are also ideal for
serving desserts, ice-cream and gelato, and fruit,
becoming an intrinsic part of the dish. Customers
of all ages will enjoy the unique presentation and
delicious taste.
● www.CoffeeGateway.org

Lotus & Ming’s BBQ Pork & Plum Spring Rolls
recently took out the Best New Catering Product
award at Fine Foods Australia. The spring rolls
are part of Lotus & Ming’s gourmet dim sum
range, which also includes sugar cane skewers in
a range of flavours, salt and pepper prawns and
salt and pepper squid.
Products in the range are handcrafted using
premium ingredients, and they contain no MSG
or preservatives. Gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan
options are available.
● www.lotusandming.com

Simply smokin’
Angelo Po has a new accessory addition to its
extensive range of combi steam ovens, SmokerStar.

Online rostering option
JustRosters is a new online rostering solution that
allows its users to build their own roster online,
share it with staff, manage shift swaps, forecast
labour costs and notify staff of their rosters via
SMS and email.
Easy-to-navigate for both management and staff,
the system is designed to simplify the rostering
process and cut down on scheduling problems.
The program is currently used by more than 100
Australian business including hospitality, retail
and tourism operators.
Clients such as World Vision have been quick
to praise the platform. “JustRosters helps us
manage more than 330 staff over 55 locations
in a much more efficient way saving us both
time and money. Letting staff login to the
website and fill out unavailability has removed
the need for us to chase and re-enter that data
into a separate spreadsheet.”
JustRosters is currently offering a free 14-day trial
of their software.
● www.justrosters.com.au

Magenta melons in-store now
A new variety of melons, grown in Australia for
the first time, will be available from this month.
The Magenta melons, exclusive to Perfection Fresh
Australia, have an intense orange hue, juicy yet
firm flesh, and a sweet refreshing flavour.
Perfect for eating fresh, tossing into salads or
enhancing fruit platters, their striking colour is
bound to stand out during the festive season.
Magenta melons are picked ripe and ready to eat
and do not ripen further. Store in a cool, dry place
and use within a few days. They will last 10-14
days if stored properly.
● www.perfection.com.au

This clever add-on product allows chefs to
hot and cold smoke any number of products
including hot and cold meats, fish, cheeses,
vegetables and seasonings, significantly
extending their menu options.
By no longer needing to buy smoked goods from
outside suppliers, users are able to control quality
and save money.
SmokerStar can be easily installed by the user
on 32 different models of Angelo Po combi
steam ovens, including older models. It is easy
to use and clean – simply steam or rinse out the
combisteamer when finished.
● www.angelopoaustralia.com

Crown Commercial launches
unbreakable range
Crown Commercial has launched of
polycarbonate drinkware, which the company
claims won’t break, chip or crack, even if it a
truck was to run over it.

range looks like glass but meets legislative
requirements for some hospitality venues to use
plastic drinkware. The range includes weights &
measures compliant options, nucleated bases
in Empire and Conical designs, an embossed
lip jug and unique stackable beverage and old
fashioned styles.
Crown Commercial’s polycarbonate products are
made from food grade material, are reusable and
100 per cent recyclable, OH&S compliant, BPA
free, stain and odour resistant, and dishwasher
safe. Smart designs across the range mean there’s
minimal post-dishwasher water pooling in the
upturned bases.
● www.crowncommercial.com.au

Aussie capers now available
Gourmet producer The Australian Caper
Company produces a range of caper products for
the foodservice market, including Caper-buds in
Sea Salt, Caper-buds with Extra Virgin Olive Oil,
Caper-berries in Wine Vinegar and Caper Salt.
The South Australian range is the first to use
caper buds and berries that are grown, processed
and packaged in Australia and was recently

Made from high-grade polycarbonate the

More recipes than you can
poke a drumstick at.
www.inghamfoodservice.com.au
ARM0240 Ingham_Web_Ad_Open_House.indd 1

The new Ingham Foodservice
website is packed with exciting
ways to create delicious customerpleasing chicken and turkey
meals. To ﬁnd out more, visit the
professionals’ choice today.

ARMORY_IN2643_1_OH

Spring rolls win approval
at Fine Foods

Made from aluminium and stainless steel,
this stylish Italian range is manufactured
to withstand the harshest of outdoor
environments and won’t chip or rust.
It uses sustainable manufacturing processes
by recycling any cut outs and waste materials,
and uses recycled metal sheets in the fabrication
wherever possible.
● www.bysteel.it OH

10/8/10 3:27:53 PM


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