Australian

Mabu Mabu by Nornie Bero

Cookbooks are the cheapest and quickest way of travelling. Escapism through a chopping board and the hob as you explore the world from the kitchen. Some routes are more well-grooved than others with Thailand, China and India being particularly well-represented. You would however, struggle to find more than four titles on indigenous Australian food because well, to my knowledge there aren’t many more than that.

Mabu Mabu is the latest and if we take distance travelled as an indicator of value, then this book is a steal: buying it in the UK will whisk you 8860 miles away to Mer Island, a tiny place in the Torres Strait off northern Australia and the birthplace of Nornie Bero, author of Mabu Mabu and owner of the restaurant that shares its name.

The book opens with a tribute to Bero’s cultural heritage, the indigenous people of the islands of the Torres Strait and an acknowledgement of the lands her Ancestors have lost to imperialism. Mabu Mabu though is much more of a celebration of the ingredients and recipes of these islands rather than mourning anything lost. A vivid colour palette and attractive flat design bring a brightness and energy to the pages and the recipes on them.

The first three chapters are dedicated to Bero’s life, the creation of her restaurant and her use of food to educate and share her upbringing with others. The latter three covers ingredients and recipes with lists of interesting, unfamiliar foods and spices to those of us living on this side of the world. It’s here however, we find a fairly critical issue for a cookbook review: I can source almost none of them. My idea of a good time is spending an hour or five in my local international supermarkets finding new ingredients to cook with. Imagine my delight at being asked to find wattleseeds, crystal ice plant, karkalla, seaberry saltbush, lilli pilli, muntries and quandong. Imagine my despair at completely failing.

Turning to online suppliers didn’t bring much more joy. It would be quicker and more cost effective to fly to Australia than to have purchased every ingredient needed for Saltbush Pepperberry Crocodile. Replacing them is an option but also very much not the point. Swapping out ingredients more accessible for a European palette is how we ended up needing a book like this in the first place.

I did manage to cook a few dishes without any trouble though: Pumpkin Damper, a chunky unleavened bread served with golden syrup butter; Semur Chicken, a salty, hoppy and fragrant stew poured over vermicelli noodles, and Sop Sop, a sort-of hearty simmered mash of root vegetables and coconut milk. All were interesting, some delicious and most tasting vaguely familiar by using ingredients found in South Asian and Oceanic cuisines.

However, it’s ultimately a book for a part of the world much sunnier than here, where the ingredients are accessible in major supermarkets and can be appreciated in the ways they were intended. Which leaves this review to be continued. These ingredients feel exotic now but at one point, so was lemongrass and I can now get that from my local corner shop. It takes books like this to raise different ingredients into the collective consciousness and gain wider usage. For now, Mabu Mabu will sit on my shelf until perhaps one day, I can pick up a packet of quandong and a kilogram of emu from my local Tesco.

Cuisine: Australian
Suitable for: Australian-based cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Not rated as we just couldn’t test the recipes properly

Review written by Nick Dodd a Leeds-based pianist, teacher and writer. Contact him at www.yorkshirepiano.co.uk

Everything I Love to Cook by Neil Perry

Neil Perry defined 90s fusion cooking at his Sydney restaurant Rockpool. In 2020, he announced his retirement, selling Rockpool Restaurant Group for A$60million. He wasn’t gone for long; earlier this year he opened what he claims will be his last restaurant, Margaret, a glamorous neighbourhood brasserie, named after his late mother.

Everything I love to cook is not the cookbook of the restaurant, but it does share the same sustainable approach to food. Perry says in his introduction that ‘there’s no Planet B, so we have to do the right thing. Eat more plant-based meals’. So, there’s a chapter on vegetable main courses that, true to Perry’s eclectic, globe-trotting style, includes everything from Italian-style spinach torte to steamed silken tofu with black vinegar and chilli oil.

At over 450 pages long, there is plenty of room for a selection of favourite recipes culled from across Perry’s restaurant empire (he’s still a shareholder and consultant) including Rockpool salad with palm sugar vinaigrette; crudo of tuna with horseradish, coriander and lemon oil (from Rockpool Bar and Grill) and ramen noodle salad with chicken, ginger and spring onion (from Spice Temple Noodle Bar).

In addition to the comprehensive collection of 230 recipes, there’s articles covering kitchen basics like seasoning (‘the difference between a home cook and a professional chef is the amount of salt they use’) pasta (‘best hand made-I find pasta made in a food processor to be of inferior quality’) and desserts, which Perry says ‘can be as simple as a perfectly ripe piece of fruit…there is something sophisticated about being able recognise perfection and then standing behind it’.

With its near-encyclopaedic length and career-spanning content, the book would make a fitting finale to Perry’s 40 years in the professional kitchen. But with so many vibrant, inventive and delicious recipes, it seems that Perry has a lot more yet to share. Let’s hope that, unlike Margaret restaurant, Everything I love to cook is not a full stop but merely a comma in the chef’s influential and inspiring story.

Cuisine: International/Australian
Suitable for: confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars

Buy this book
Everything I Love to Cook: 150 home classics to return to
£30, Murdoch Books

Cook from this book
Barbecued lamb cutlets with lemongrass and ginger by Neil Perry
Crispy pork belly with red onion, coriander, peanuts and sesame seeds by Neil Perry
Flourless chocolate cake by Neil Perry

This review was originally published in The Caterer magazine.

Barbecued lamb cutlets with lemongrass and ginger by Neil Perry

Serves 4

Lamb cutlets are one of the great things to barbecue, and there is something really nice about piling them up on a plate and picking them off one by one. Holding onto the bone and chewing on the meat is wildly satisfying. Creamed corn (page 390) makes a good side.~

12 lamb cutlets
Extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground pepper
Lemon wedges, to serve

For the marinade
2 lemongrass stalks, tender inner stems only, thinly sliced
3 cm (1¼ inch) knob of ginger, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 tablespoons chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves
3 tablespoons chopped mint
¼ cup (60 ml) extra virgin olive oil

Remove the cutlets from the refrigerator 1 hour before cooking.
For the marinade, use a mortar and pestle to pound the lemongrass, ginger, garlic and salt to a rough paste. Add the coriander and mint and pound for a further minute, then stir in the olive oil.

Transfer the marinade to a large bowl, add the chops and mix well, then leave for about 1 hour to marinate.

Heat the barbecue to hot and clean the grill bars. Put the cutlets on the hottest part of the grill and cook for about 2 minutes each side for medium-rare. Transfer to a plate, cover with foil and leave to rest in a warm place for 10 minutes.

To serve, place the lamb cutlets on a platter. Mix a little olive oil into the juices left on the resting plate and pour over the cutlets. Finish with a good grind of pepper, then serve with lemon wedges.

Variation
Get your butcher to butterfly a leg of lamb, boning it out and flattening it, then spread with the marinade and leave to marinate for 3 hours at room temperature. Barbecue until a thermometer registers the core temperature of the meat as 55°C (131°F), about 20 minutes, then remove and leave to rest for 15 minutes – during this time the internal temperature should rise to 59–60°C (138–140°F), to give you some seriously delicious pink lamb. Carve into slices and serve with lemon wedges.

Cook more from this book
Crispy pork belly with red onion, coriander, peanuts and sesame seeds by Neil Perry
Flourless chocolate cake by Neil Perry

Read the review
Everything I Love to Cook by Neil Perry

Buy this book
Everything I Love to Cook: 150 home classics to return to
£30, Murdoch Books

Crispy pork belly with red onion, coriander, peanuts and sesame seeds by Neil Perry

Here is one of Spice Temple’s classic dishes that I think is perfect for summer, served with rice and perhaps some steamed Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce (page 399). The pork itself is easy to cook – just remember to allow a day or two beforehand for the skin to dry out – and it has many uses. By the same token, the red onion, coriander and peanut salad is great with, say, the meat from a store-bought roast chook, shredded off the bone and tossed through, to make a super-quick dish for a busy weekend.

1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) pork belly
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
½ spring onion (scallion), thinly sliced
Large handful of roughly chopped coriander (cilantro), leaves and stalks
Handful of unsalted peanuts, toasted in a dry frying pan and crushed
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted in a dry frying pan
1½ tablespoons Chinese black vinegar
2 teaspoons peanut oil
Sea salt

Place the pork belly on a wire rack set over a plate (to catch any drips) and refrigerate, uncovered, for at least a day to dry the skin out; 2 days would be even better.

Remove the pork from the fridge about 3 hours before cooking.

Preheat the oven to 220°C (425°F).

Put the pork belly on a chopping board. Using a sharp knife, score the skin deeply in a diamond pattern and rub generously with salt. Return the pork belly to its wire rack and place in a roasting tin.

Roast the pork for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 170°C (325°F) and roast for a further 20 minutes, or until the meat is cooked through and the skin is blistered and crispy.

Remove the pork from the oven, cover with foil and set aside in a warm place to rest for 20 minutes.

Cut the pork belly into 2 cm (¾ inch) cubes. Place all the remaining ingredients in a bowl and toss together, then add the pork and mix through. Divide between four plates and serve.

Read the review
Everything I Love to Cook by Neil Perry

Buy this book
Everything I Love to Cook: 150 home classics to return to
£30, Murdoch Books

Flourless chocolate cake by Neil Perry

Serves 10
Flourless chocolate cake This cake was on my first dessert menu at Barrenjoey House in 1982, and is now a firm favourite with my daughters, who’ve mostly had it as their birthday cake for all of their young lives. The reason it’s been kicking around for so long is that it’s just a terrific cake, with a heavenly texture like a chocolate soufflé – and it behaves like one too. With no flour to hold it up, it rises as it cooks and falls as it cools, so do not freak out when it sinks in the middle.

400 g (14 oz) good-quality dark chocolate, broken up
6 eggs, separated
150 g (5½ oz) caster (superfine) sugar
2½ tablespoons Cointreau
300 ml (10½ fl oz) pure (whipping) cream
Cocoa powder, for dusting
Lightly whipped cream, to serve
You’ll also need a 900 g (2 lb) loaf tin

Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F). Lightly oil your loaf tin, then line it with baking paper.

Melt the chocolate in a stainless-steel bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water; don’t let the water boil, or you might scald the chocolate. Carefully lift the bowl of chocolate off the pan and leave it to cool slightly.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, beat the egg yolks and two-thirds of the sugar until pale and creamy. Add the Cointreau and beat until well combined, then add the chocolate and mix until completely incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream until soft peaks form.

In another bowl, start whisking the egg whites until soft peaks start to form, then gradually add the remaining sugar and keep whisking until firm peaks form.
Gently fold the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture, followed by the whisked egg whites.

Pour the mixture into the tin, then sit it in a deep baking dish or roasting tin and add enough hot water to come about 2.5 cm (1 inch) up the outside of the loaf tin. Bake for 45 minutes, then turn the oven down to 150°C (300°F) and bake for a further 45 minutes. Turn the oven off, but leave the cake inside for 20 minutes, then remove and allow to cool completely.

To serve, carefully run a knife around the inside edge of the tin, then turn over the tin onto a plate – the cake should slide out easily. Using a knife dipped in hot water, cut into slices, dipping the knife into hot water after each cut. Place on plates, dust with cocoa powder and serve with lightly whipped cream.

Tip
This cake keeps well for 2 days at room temperature; don’t put in the refrigerator or it will become hard and unpalatable.

Read the review
Everything I Love to Cook by Neil Perry

Buy this book
Everything I Love to Cook: 150 home classics to return to
£30, Murdoch Books

Australian Food by Bill Granger

Bill Granger could not have picked a better time to publish his first book in six years. With its bright, orange, red and yellow cover and vibrant, globally inspired recipes, Australian Food brings some very welcome sunshine from down under into these gloomy lockdown autumn days. Granger first came to international attention in 2002 when the New York Times dubbed him ‘The Egg Master of Sydney’ and described the scrambled eggs at bills restaurant ‘as light as the breath of an angel’.

The recipe (the secret of which appears to be quite a lot of whipping cream and some careful cooking) is included in a chapter of ‘classics’ that features other signatures such as chocolate banana bread, and ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter and banana, a dish much-copied by the likes of Nigella and Ottolenghi. These breakfast specialities might be the foundations of a restaurant empire that now includes London, Honolulu, Seoul and Japan, but Australian Food confirms there’s much to the self-taught chef’s repertoire.

Australian chefs have long been renowned for incorporating Southeast Asian flavours into their food (Neil Perry of Rockpool Dining Group is just one high profile example) and Granger does it better than most. Deftly sidestepping issues of authenticity and appropriation, dishes such as turmeric-spiced chicken in lettuce parcels with green chilli dipping sauce, or grilled pork chops with cashew satay with pineapple and cucumber relish employ ingredients with gleeful abandon to create something delicious and decidedly Australian.

Italy also looms large in Granger’s gastronomic imagination so there’s also recipes for braised lamb ragu with tagliatelle and pecorino and green herb risotto with raw summer salad. But he doesn’t stop there. With chapters on barbecue, bowl food, small plates and bakery (Granger is an excellent baker as his miso caramel brownies prove), the book leaves no culinary stone unturned. The sheer variety on offer makes Australian Food a pandemic kitchen panacea but Granger’s skill as a creative chef and recipe writer, honed over more than a quarter of a century, ensures it will have enduring appeal.

Cuisine: Australian/International
Suitable for: Beginners/Confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars

Buy this book
Australian Food
£20, Murdoch Books

New releases round-up December 2019

The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook by Annie Gray

So, this is a quick and nasty cash in on a world-famous TV franchise, right?Well, it will undoubtedly make a few quid off the Downtown name, but there is nothing quick and nasty about it. Written by the acclaimed historian, cook and broadcaster Annie Gray this a pukka piece of work that takes the fictional Downtown Abbey as a jumping off point to chart the history of British country house cooking in recipes and a series of short articles

Killer recipes: Palestine soup; Cabbage as they served it in Budapest; mutton with caper sauce; the queen of trifles; beef stew with dumplings; treacle tart; rice pudding.

Should I buy it?: You don’t have to be a Downtown fan to buy this book but it will help if you are one. There are quite a lot of photos from the set of the TV series which won’t mean much to those who don’t follow the show. That said, it’s a sumptuously produced book with some lovely food photography by John Kernick and the quality of the writing and recipes means it will appeal to anyone with an interest in British food and its history.

Cuisine: British
Suitable for: Confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook
White Lion Publishing, £25

Super Sourdough by James Morton

Another book about sourdough, really? Yes, really. Like the shelves aren’t already heaving with them. If you don’t own the ten year old Tartine Bread: (Artisan Bread Cookbook, Best Bread Recipes, Sourdough Book) by legendary San Francisco baker Chad Robertson then you really need to rectify that massive mistake immediately, and then you can still buy Super Sourdough. Although Morton’s 20 page recipe for Pain au Levan shares many striking similarities with Robertson’s 40 page Basic Country Bread recipe, what Morton is particularly good at is helping novice bakers through the process every step of the way. The troubleshooting guides on sourdough starters and bread making are particularly useful and reassuring.

Should I buy it? If you’ve never made sourdough before and are looking for a new hobby, this is a great place to start. It’s not just an instruction manual; once you have mastered the basics of sourdough there’s plenty of fun to be had knocking up Chelsea buns, pizza, crumpets and even cornbread.

Cuisine: Baking
Suitable for: Confident home cooks/professional chefs
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
Super Sourdough: The foolproof guide to making world-class bread at home
Quadrille Publishing Ltd, £20

Week Light by Donna Hay

So what is this, the 900th Donna Hay cookbook? Calm down mate. She might be the self -styled ‘Australia’s leading food editor and best-selling cookbook author’ and have sold ‘over seven million copies worldwide, with the books translated into 10 languages’ but in fact this is ‘only’ her 29th book.

That’s still about half a dozen more books than Charles Dickens ever wrote. What has she got left to say about food that anyone wants to hear? Well, how about, ‘No longer the side dishes, the back up dancers, the understudies, vegetables have EARNED THEIR PLACE to be front and centre on your plate’ (capitals, Donna Hay’s own).

Radical. Except didn’t Bruno Loubet say something very similar about 5 years ago with his brilliant book Mange Tout ? Its unlikely that there’s much overlap between Hay and Loubet’s audience. And there’s nothing truly new in cooking anyway is there, so stop quibbling.

Sorry, but before we go any further, WTAF is that title all about? That has got to be the weakest pun in the history of publishing. It’s never explained or referred to at all in the book, it’s almost as if it was an after thought. Weeknight/Weeklight? Who knows?

So what’s the USP then? Healthy food that’s easy to prepare and which ticks all the modish boxes of the last few years including ‘bowl food’ like cheat’s chilli cashew tofu larb; a version of banh mi made with marinated tofu; chipotle chicken and cauliflower tacos, and ‘pizza’ made with a base of mashed sweet potato, almond meal, flour and eggs.

Christ on a bike. She knows how to suck the fun out of food doesn’t she? Actually, a lot of the dishes look extremely appealing in a fresh, green sort of way. Perfect for when you want your weeknight to be weeklight!

Just drop it, it doesn’t work does it? Don’t let the stupid title put you off. If you can stomach the endless shots of Hay being the perfect Aussie mum to her perfect Aussie kids in perfect Aussie settings and the relentlessly upbeat tone of the whole thing, then you might actually get a lot use out of the book.

Are you actually suggesting I buy Weakpun? There are worse things you could spend £20 on. And you don’t want your veggies to be understudies and back up dancers for the rest of their lives do you? After all, they’ve EARNED THEIR PLACE front and centre.

They earn it every weeklight baby, every weeklight.

Cuisine: International
Suitable for: Beginners/Confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Three stars

Buy this book
Week Light: Super-Fast Meals to Make You Feel Good
Harper Collins, £20

Dishoom

by Shamil Thakrar, Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir

Dishoom, oh I love that place. The breakfast bacon naan rolls are to die for. Get you, Mr London hipster. Some of us have to settle for a greasy caff.

Actually, there’s now eight Dishooms, inspired by the Persian-style Irani cafes of Mumbai, including branches in Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh so its long past being a hipster hangout, if it ever was you suburban ninny. OK, I know, I’ve read the book’s introduction thank you very much. Dishoom is an all day dining destination, so there’s recipes for mid-morning snacks like keema puffs, lunch dishes including aloo sabzi (vegetable curry served with bedmi puri bread), afternoon refreshments such as salted laksi, ‘sunset snacks’ like…

Sunset snacks? They’ve made that up! Its a thing apparently; street food from vendors on Girgaum Chowpatty beach including pau bhaji, a spicy vegetable mash served with toasted Bombay bread buns. Of course there’s also recipes for dinner dishes such as soft shell crab masala, lamb biryani and spicy lamb chops.

I’m still hungry, what’s for pudding? No one gets to pudding in an Indian restaurant. But if you do have room then there’s the likes of basmati kheer (rice pudding with cardamom and a brulee topping) or berry Shrikhand (a type of thick, sweetened yoghurt popular amongst Gujarati families).

I’ve got loads of recipe books from modern Indian restaurants already, why do I want another? Besides the delicious recipes, the book looks beautiful, is a great read and gives you more than enough detail about Mumbai to plan a truly sybaritic holiday there.

So I should buy it then? Does a naan roll have bacon in it? Get clicking the link below.

Cuisine: Indian
Suitable for: Confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Four stars

Buy this book
Dishoom: The first ever cookbook from the much-loved Indian restaurant: From Bombay with Love
Bloomsbury Publishing, £26.

From the Earth by Peter Gilmore

What’s the USP? One chef’s obsession with heirloom vegetable varieties explored in recipes, detailed ingredient profiles and features on specialist growers.

Who’s the author? Peter Gilmore is one of Australia’s leading chefs. His restaurant Quay overlooking Sydney Harbour has held Three Chef Hats in the Good Food Guide (the Australian equivalent of three Michelin stars) for 16 consecutive years and was listed for five years on the World’s 50 Best Restaurant list. He is also executive chef of Bennelong in the Sydney Opera House which holds Two Chef Hats.

What does it look like? Even by the uniformly high standards of modern cookbook production values, From The Earth is something special. The book’s large format adds extra impact to Brett Stevens’s full page shots of Gilmore’s exquisitely presented dishes and the artfully arranged vegetable portraits that you’ll want to frame and hang on your wall.

Killer recipes? Tartare of wagyu, fermented chilli, redmeat radishes; salad of violet de Provence artichoke; braise of Gagon cucumber, green-lipped abalone, shimonita onion; salad of raw trentino cabbage turnip with caper vinaigrette.

What will I love? This is no veggie bandwagon jumping exercise. Gilmore has been a dedicated cultivator of rare heirloom varieties for more than a decade and really knows his stuff. He is passionately pro-biodiversity and anti-genetic modification but restrains himself to a few words on the subject in the introduction saying, ‘this book is not about the politics of food’ and lets his imaginative and creative dishes do the talking.

Ingredient profiles have been expertly put together by Gilmore’s wife Kathryn, who spent ‘countless hours researching each featured vegetable, referencing and cross-referencing information on species, origin and history’. All that work shows in the detailed and fascinating finished product. Want to know about the history of radish cultivation? Look no further (the Egyptians got there first in 2000 BC apparently).

The four grower profiles that include provide an interesting insight onto Australia’s specialist produce scene and are illustrated with photographs that show the Aussie landscape in all its rugged glory.

What won’t I like? By its very nature, From The Earth presents all but the most dedicatedly green fingered chef with the problem of sourcing the raw ingredients for many of the recipes. You may not be able to easily get your hands on Cherokee White Eagle corn, Gete Okosomin squash or Kyoto red carrots but you will want to cook the delicious sounding dishes so, as Gilmore points out, you can ‘use the recipes as a starting point to experiment with all sorts of varieties’ while you grow your own crops or convince a supplier to do so for you.

Should I buy it? Informative, inspiring and stunning to look at, From The Earth is a fresh take on vegetable cultivation and cookery that could well have an impact on how you serve vegetables in your restaurant. It’s also a lovely, aesthetically pleasing object that will be catnip to all cookbook enthusiasts. How can you resist?

Cuisine: Australian/progressive
Suitable for: Professional chefs/confident home cooks
Cookbook Review Rating: Five stars

Buy this book
From the Earth: World’s Great, Rare and Almost Forgotten Vegetables
£ 35, Hardie Grant