Secret Women’s Biscuits & The Great CWA Swindle.

Spontaneous snacks which don’t immediately trigger obesity and diabetes can be tricky to find, and occasionally this means a muesli bar appears in our household. Except that their fragile health claims are further threatened by three undercoats of chocolate and a lacquer of “yoghurt”. Olivia and I shared a muesli bar recently, which I think was from the lesser known 1998 vintage, and it made me wonder why on earth one was in the house, and specifically, in my mouth.

More importantly, why had we paid for a bastardised version of oats, one of the cheapest digestive materials known to man?  And why was I eating something expensive which tasted like the contents of a chaff bag?  My guilt steered me towards The Good Book. The Book which can right all modern wrongs. The Book  which can drag kids from the couch, turn the telly off, eradicate divorce, eliminate the scourge of depression, and most importantly, solve the obesity crisis through gargantuan doses of  butter and sugar. The Country Women’s Association Cook Book.

Despite my penchant for an apron, I am neither a woman, nor currently residing in the country. This does not preclude me from owning The Book, or attempting its recipes, but it does mean I’m not in possession of the secret code required to make most of these recipes work. My first hurdle came in attempting a chocolate cake for our school cake stall. Only as I was loading the cake into the oven, did I twig that my default “fan forced” setting was unlikely to be the same setting deployed at the formulation of this recipe - which was no doubt penned closer to European settlement than to the Sydney Olympics. However, ingenuity, an Alpine Strawberry garnish straight from the garden, and a render of icing allowed me to resurrect my cake (see Exhibit A, above) and it was amongst the first and most valuable sold on election day. KPIs achieved.

Which is why it’s all the more surprising I didn’t pay attention when attempting some seemingly very simple biscuits to counteract the satanic indulgence of the muesli bar. Or perhaps I was fooled by the fact the recipe was only four lines long and contained only six ingredients. O ye of too much faith. Here is the recipe lifted verbatim from The Good Book -  it’s to be found  just after Jellied Vegetable Salad and Puftaloons, but before Pineapple Fruit Melange and Candied Plums:

Rolled Oat Biscuits

Put 200g (2 cups) rolled oats in a bowl with 230g (1 cup) soft brown sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder and a pinch of salt. Melt 125g butter and mix in. Lastly, add 1 beaten egg. Stir well until thoroughly combined. Put teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking tray. Bake in a 180°C oven for 15-20 minutes.

Sounds simple, but I challenge anyone, anywhere, to make it work. First, I forgot the fan-forced issue and torched the pioneering batch. The outer rims of the biscuits fused permanently to the baking tray and are now part of a scrap-metal consignment destined for China where they will become a car or a hospital.

On the second attempt, I chose to ignore The Book’s suggestion of teaspoon sized servings, nor did it specify the required spacing between deposits, and the entire thing amalgamated into a solitary tarmac of biscuit. (The piles in the picture below were too close together and merged into one unhappy family.)

On the third attempt, my junior assistants added the butter before the egg, so its binding role went tits up. The sugar surged to the outer rim forming a toffee, leaving a pile of butter-toasted oats-crumble in the centre. Which tasted superb, but under no circumstances could be deemed a biscuit. If your afternoon tea blows away in a breeze, then it’s probably not right.

One of the dads at school told me the fruits of his most recent attempt at a CWA recipe were inedible; so this issue is either gender based, era specific, or geographically-centric. My Aunty makes a very high quality version of these oat biscuits. Not only is she a woman living in the country, but she’s also an active member of her local CWA (a robust gathering, some members are still actually breathing). This of course means she’s got the secret code to make these recipes work. And even though I've got two daughters and another one on the way, they have not yet reached the age of CWA recipe consent.

I’m not sure which particular recipe my Aunt uses (I’m guessing it contains flour), but the CWA version is so fraudulent I’ve completely re-written it for the modern era. My recipe produces biscuits the size of tractor wheels and fragile as spider webs, but all that oxygen and aeration merely boosts the flavour profile.  The main problem with the CWA approach is a lack of binding, but I want to honour the original version and keep the ingredients unchanged. I assume that out there, a Country Woman, somewhere, made this recipe work. Or perhaps the ink got smudged by leaking rain in the Cobb & Co saddle bag transporting the recipe to town and someone at CWA HQ just typed up the bits they could read.

Unless it's 1935 at your place, here’s the recipe that actually works. Just don’t expect to take them anywhere.

Rolled Oats Biscuits – For All Humans, Regardless of Gender & Location:

1)   Put 200g (2 cups) rolled oats in a bowl with 230g (1 cup) soft brown sugar, 1 teaspoon baking powder and a pinch of salt. Break up any large lumps of sugar.

2)   Melt 125g butter and mix in with a wooden spoon.

3)   Last, mix in 1 beaten egg until mixture is thoroughly combined. Ideally, allow mixture to rest in a cool place for 20-30 minutes and then remix to combine well.

4)   Line a baking tray with greased baking paper. Deposit teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the paper and shape into high domes.  Space each dome at least 10cm apart as the mixture will spread when cooking.

5)   Pre-heat oven to 170°C on baking setting. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

6)   Remove from oven. After 5 minutes, use a slice to gently remove the biscuits from the paper and place on a wire rack to cool.

This produces sufficient biscuits to sustain a family of eight throughout The Great Depression.

From Monkeys to Wallabies: A Short History of Saffron

“The cook who is mean with his saffron is capable of seducing his grandmother.”

Norman Douglas, Venus in the Kitchen.

Years ago on television I saw a saffron grower in Wales battling to harvest her rain-soaked crop before the moisture made it impossible to remove the stigmas from her crocuses. Watching someone in Wales growing an ingredient I identified with Mediterranean cooking made me really tune in. This was almost a decade ago and it ignited my dream of turning our wind-spanked hillside on Kangaroo Island into Australia’s La Mancha - the chalky, windy, barren plains of central Spain from which  millions of crocus sativus flowers erupt each autumn to produce saffron. Surely our Mediterranean climate of Kangaroo Island was better suited to saffron than mouldy old Wales? But as with most agricultural matters, things haven’t precisely gone to plan.

Like many before me, this led to an obsessive desire to learn more about, and grow, this ancient little flower. Wild crocus sativus was first domesticated somewhere in the vicinity of Greece during the Bronze Age.  It took a clockwise journey east into Kashmir before 500BC, then into the Middle East, and on to Spain with the Arabs. It was first valued by Romans and others for its ability to dye cloth. The Romans introduced it to Britain where it disappeared with the fall of the Empire, to be re-introduced both there and in France by returning Crusaders. In England there is a great tradition of cake and bun recipes containing saffron and a vast industry existed in Essex for centuries. No volume I own notes my role in the history of saffron and its introduction to Kangaroo Island.

Before I added the final chapter in saffron’s story, I had to work out how to grow it. Extensive research revealed the flowers emerge from a corm which looks very similar to a garlic bulb.  Better news yet, I learnt the corms produce several daughter corms each year, so the size of the crop – theoretically – increases exponentially.     
  

I knew someone in Tasmania was growing saffron but my enquiries led me to uncover something about a $20,000 investment. On contacting them, they must have detected a less than enthusiastic note in my voice, as the prospectus I requested never materialised. So I went searching overseas and eventually found a supplier of crocus sativus corms in a secret destination. This subsequently involved months of phone calls to Canberra regarding import licenses, even more international phone calls, paperwork to prove the crop wasn’t disease ridden, and extensive liaison with AQIS including the establishment of our property as a “quarantine approved premises.” Whilst AQIS exists, telecommunications shareholders have little to fear.

While I was busy in Sydney sitting in traffic or waiting for a bus, Dad selected a suitable site, removed all weed matter, dug in the ground by hand, collected cow manure from the paddocks and dug this in. A particularly amateurish fence was erected around the perimeter of the plot.

Actually receiving the corms was thrilling and not long after planting, chive-like foliage sprouted through the ground. This was quickly followed by dozens of magnificent, purple flowers supporting huge, floppy, brilliant red stigmas.  We had been told to not necessarily expect flowers in the first year so our excitement levels were high - despite the fact you need about 160,000 flowers to get 1kg of dried saffron. Little wonder Bronze Age frescoes at Akrotiri on Thera (Santorini) depict monkeys gathering crocus flowers. 

Apart from having any crop at all, we were delirious with the quality. Flowers are harvested in the morning and then need to have the stigma removed, which can only be done by hand. The colourant crocin in the stigma is so intense that after only a few flowers, the plucker’s fingers resemble those of a B&H Special Filter addict.  Even when dried, our exquisite saffron threads remained much longer and a more vibrant red than any saffron I had ever bought.  The tiny harvest released the most pungent and sweet aroma when the lid was removed from their jar. I took the photo below yesterday - this is all we have left of this year's crop:

The following year produced a bigger harvest, and I imagined the glorious day I’d be floating Australia’s first saffron empire.  Instead, the crop seems to be getting smaller each year. Several heatwaves in February and March in recent years have given me cause for concern. Rabbits love to eat corms, but there are no rabbits on Kangaroo Island. Bandicoots? Echidnas? Who knows. If it’s wallabies we’ve got a major problem as they are more common than rats - and they no longer stand still in preparation to be bludgeoned as they were in Captain Flinders’ day.

When we have been able to hit elusive “commercial” quantities, the meagre excess has been sold to the luxurious Southern Ocean lodge at the other end of Kangaroo Island. I forecast they will have exclusivity over the crop for at least the short term.

And so the dream rolls on. This year we plan to sift out the best corms, relocate the growing site and start again. In the meantime we’ve got just enough for personal use. Before cooking, the threads must be re-hydrated to release their flavour properties. They will also expand to their original size. Boiling water can be used to infuse saffron, as can white wine, white spirits and citrus juice. The shots below show a large pinch of saffron swelling and releasing colour into a couple of tablespoons of white wine over two hours in preparation for the recipe which follows.

While I wait for something to hopefully crack through the ground next Autumn, I've got just enough of our own Kangaroo Island Saffron to at least make a few decent recipes. With the assistance of my new wizz-bang camera, I'll be posting more in due course.

Saffron Pastini in Brodo

This recipe is adapted from one which appeared in the 2006 Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook.

Serves 2

1 cup of small soup pasta

1 teaspoon of saffron, approx 20-30 filaments

3 tablespoons of white wine

3 peeled whole garlic cloves

2 spring onions, white part finely sliced

4 cups of chicken stock

1 tablespoon torn Italian parsley

1 Soak saffron in the white wine for 1-2 hours in a cup covered with cling film

2 Put pasta, garlic, spring onions, and stock in a saucepan. Then pour in the saffron infusion and swirl to combine. Bring to boil over medium heat and simmer until pasta is cooked al dente. Check seasoning, and add half the parsley.

3 Serve with grated parmesan or pecorino and garnish with remaining parsley.

Cutting Corners

I was but a mere waiter, poking his nose over the pass, hoping to glimpse a genius at work. The toque dipped towards the work top, large hands gripped a pair of scissors, snipped the corner from a white plastic pouch and tossed it into a microwave. Seconds later, yellow rice flowed from the bag onto a plate, next to a freshly cooked curry. I picked up the plate and delivered it to the waiting patron - in the dining room of a five star hotel.

I was inexperienced, and the hotel was in England, and perhaps I was naïve - I was only about 20 so I was undoubtedly stupid – but this concept of serving microwaved rice out of a bag, in an incredibly expensive restaurant, struck me as something close to deceptive and misleading conduct. I vividly remember the taste of that rice. Musty. Having now spent several years in the food industry, I do know I was naïve and stupid - this sort of stuff’s everywhere. For many chefs, the dreary thing about working in a kitchen, is actually having to cook.

Apparently people want to know more about their food and where it comes from, but they might be stunned by what’s happening in some commercial kitchens.  Would you be annoyed if your rice in a five star hotel came out of a bag? What is reasonable to “bring in”? Pre-cut veges, frozen veges, minced garlic…..do they have a place in a professional kitchen? Do you expect curry pastes in an Indian or Thai restaurant have been made from scratch, or would you be disappointed if they came from a tub? Are you expecting all your gravies and sauces in a steak house to be built from the bone up? Do you care that almost every chip you ever eat is par-cooked in a distant factory and stored frozen until minutes before reaching your table? Are your expectations lower for an RSL than a pub, and a pub below a restaurant, and so on? Or do you believe that everything is being prepared in-house, from chopping the garlic upwards?

My most regrettable purchase of 2011 thus far, was the above $15 soup I took brief ownership of in the Rocks last week.   It was either straight from a can, or a powder, with pre-cooked, defrosted chicken slices tossed in as an afterthought.  The picture speaks volumes. All I could do was sit and dream of the Ploughman’s, and a half pint of Three Sheets at the Lord Nelson just up the hill and out of reach, but I was burdened by tiara-wearing minors after a charming Princess Day at Fort Denison. Travelling further than George St in clopping shoes was out of the question. No wonder the McDonalds around the corner was full.

Some people gauge the standard of food in this country by how many restaurants we have in the San Pellegrino World’s Top 50 restaurants, instead of looking at the state of things where most of the money’s being spent – surely the true barometer of national food standards. Nor are the majority of overseas visitors going to those top restaurants. Most of them in the Rocks or at Circular Quay would just be happy with a seat and a decent sandwich, something I found unattainable. Tourism Australia chose to ignore my Tweets on this topic.

I thought I’d have a squiz at the range of things restaurants can have delivered to their door. Scanning past the perplexing “Fresh Frozen Fish Fillets” section offered by one food service distributor, my eyes fell on some interesting stuff. One product promoted itself as “natural Blue Eye Trevalla medallions in a frosted crust…..ideal for hotels, bistros, pubs & clubs, restaurants, cafes”. The true beauty of the offering lies in what they generously term “cooking instructions”. Just “deep fry frozen fish for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown.” That’s some mis en place.

Ever wondered why all salt & pepper squid tastes the same and nothing like you make? It could be they’ve all descended from the same bag in the freezer. Apparently the advantages of one salt & pepper squid offering include its “quality upmarket presentation” and the fact you can “cook from frozen”. And the knockout punch: “deep fry for 2-3 minutes”. You can get tempura snapper, soft shell wild baby mud crab – it’s not just crumbed filay-o-fish type gear so it’s probably appearing on your plate more often than you’d like to imagine

And then, there’s the option of buying in fully cooked dishes like the curry in the picture above.  On this, I can speak with some authority, as I worked for a boutique food producer established by Tony Bilson in the late 1990s. Stocks, sauces, soups and curries were all cooked in a central kitchen by chefs and sent to restaurants, pubs and food retailers all over the country. Cooking sous vide, some of the best things were 12 hour-cooked duck confit, pork belly, beef cheeks - things now prepared sous vide in many restaurants. Everything we made was cooked by chefs using great ingredients, but would it surprise customers to learn their dinner had been cooked miles away, and days, or even weeks, earlier? Although, this isn’t quite as extreme as the business in Melbourne which knocks out tens of thousands of fully cooked, shelf-stable lamb shanks each year which are shipped to England and served in hundreds of pubs.

It was refreshing to receive a series of Tweets this week from Alex Herbert of Bird Cow Fish in Surry Hills, direct from Flemington Markets introducing her network of growers – which she posted while I was sleeping.  There are several thousand cafes, restaurants, pubs, clubs and caterers in Sydney – wonder how many had chefs out there with her?

Cow vs Chicken: Fifty Bucks Each Way

 

Parting the debris on our table I pinpoint a menu and learn there are two other Moo Burger outlets. The existence of a growing Moo herd activates an internal red alert telling me these restaurants are probably operated by someone for whom the word “scaleability” features prominently in his business plan. This means that short of actually cooking, I’ll be doing most of the work this evening.

With fixed overheads and an apparent commitment to using ingredients like Pure Angus and Saltbush lamb, there’s really only one way to achieve the presumed desire for empire expansion with margins intact: make the customers sweat for their dinner.

I've done my domestic penance for the week and now I’m ready for a rest.  On a Saturday night, en route to a going-away party in Newtown for yet another family escaping Sydney, we jagged the only vacant spot at the heaving King St Moo.  With the rubble cleared from the table, I spotted something disturbing. I now know how the nearby residents of Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Number 3 felt when they heard that first emergency alarm. Our section of the restaurant was under the stewardship of someone labelled “TRAINEE”.

It also turned out that English was not her first language - and possibly not even her fourth or fifth. This shouldn’t prove insurmountable. I worked in an English five star hotel staffed almost entirely by French and Italian waiters fleeing national service. Most had barely an hors d’oeuvre of English but instead relied on common sense, which, unlike our badge-wearing friend, told them all four customers at a table don’t want to swig from one large bottle of sparkling water. Behind the bar at Moo there are many glasses, but they must be reserved for a special occasion. The trainee was out of earshot by the time we’d tried to formulate our request, so I made my inaugural journey to the bar on her behalf.

Glassware remained a challenge throughout the evening. My brother-in-law had generously brought a bottle of 2007 Zema Cabernet Sauvignon, which although not the best vintage from the region, still probably deserves to be drunk from a glass. The other customers were generally youngish and funkyish, of the type dressed in track tops and sneakers. Evidently they were regulars who knew they’d be covering some territory, and getting the message I headed back to the counter in search of wine glasses. Here I learned BYO came in the form of “glass hire” at $2 per glass. I don’t mind paying corkage, but $8 is a gouge, and having to locate and fetch glasses is really twisting the knife and lifting it up into the rib cage.

We drained the fizzy water, then spied the distant self-service water table which no one had thought to mention. Once more I set off for liquids. After we’d finished setting our own table, the onion rings were a welcome arrival as I feared the onset of scurvy. My Wagyu burger filled me up but was nowhere near the class of its namesake at glamour venue Rockpool Bar & Grill, which is just a few dollars more. The bun, sourdough apparently, errs on the airy and flaky side, rather than the shiny brioche style of Rockpool (a bun feature increasingly popular among burger lovers worldwide). The burger meat was quite thin and bland, the brie not adding anything to the flavour dimension, the mayonnaise almost tasteless, the sweet caramelized onions and $16 price its dominant characteristics. Bacon is a premium $2.50 offering I didn't take up. It is part of the package at Rockpool.

Chips were excellent and pleasingly presented in a paper-lined, cone shaped wire basket. The event cost almost $50 for two burgers, a share of the chips, a share of the onion rings, a dodgy Coke spider and the sparkling water. Nobody tipped me for the service I provided.

And yet the night before, a busy Friday, I dined at the original Petersham chapter of Frango Charcoal Chicken - of which there are also three -  and I didn’t lift a finger. You sniff the smoky allure long before stepping onto the horror of New Canterbury Road. The lineup of people on the footpath concludes at the takeaway counter of Frango (Portugese for chicken). Inside, the aroma evolves into a faint haze from the continuous skewering and barbequing of small birds.

Being 6.00pm the venue is mostly full. But this waiter deploys commonsense, sees I’m with two children, and detects I’m a good chance to be done and dusted by the time his 7.15 booking arrives. Or perhaps it was the pyjamas and dressing gown I was wearing. He offers me the last table downstairs while I send my wife-to-be off to the ATM for cash. I’ve lost my card, again.

There are only five things I need to order: Sagres Portuguese beer, one chicken, fries, a salad and fizzy water. Stick to this formula and everything will go smoothly. By the time my wife-to-be joins the party, I’ve made good headway with the beer and the food lobs shortly after. It looks and tastes like all the other times – a haystack of fries; heavily seasoned, juicy, charcoal flavoured chicken; a very basic salad (never with more than three olives) and the best beer and food match I know. Plus, the thick, creamy chilli sauce which just can’t be good for you. I almost drank it. The waiter must think we haven’t got enough fat on the table and suggest mayonnaise for the children. Who could reject such an offer of triglycerides?

By 7.10pm we are full and finished. The bill of $56 for four, including two beers, arrives. Even better, I haven’t been called to aid the management at all. I’ve been sitting the entire time at a clean, set table - with glasses - and I’ve been looked after. This pleases me. The girls are given a lollipop. I leave a tip.

P.S. Wanna see what a real burger looks like? Check out this brilliant dissection and dissertation from a burger-centric evening in London last week:

http://burger-me.blogspot.com/2011/06/burgermat-show-burgermonday-with-burger.html

Moo Burger

232 King St

Newtown NSW

9565 4001

Frango Petersham Charcoal Chicken

98 New Canterbury Rd

Petersham NSW

9560 2369

Kangaroo Island Yabbies in Butter, Garlic & Thyme

I’ve never seen live crustaceans travelling on public transport, but recently a radio caller recounted a train journey from the Blue Mountains to Sydney with dozens of yabbies swarming around his feet. A fellow passenger had experienced a rare haul this hot day and was keeping the catch in peak condition - in the wash basin of the toilet. Each lurch of the train liberated a portion of the yabbies, freeing them to roam around the carriage.

My most recent yabby spoils on Kangaroo Island were spared the ignominy of public transport on their final voyage, and the result suggests there's value in treating your lunch with dignity prior to its termination.

My vast overseas readership is possibly wondering what a yabby might be. Even Harold McGee devotes three pages to the yak and not a word on yabbies, so this is understandable. Stephanie Alexander tells us this native Australian freshwater crayfish is similar to the now rare French écrevisse, and the Louisiana Crawfish. Although unlike many American people and cars, she says crawfish are only about one third the size of our yabbies.

Yabbies can live in almost any body of fresh water, but particularly enjoy something muddy which allows them to burrow and hide, so it’s important to purge wild yabbies before eating them. I changed the rainwater twice over a day in the picture above. An ability to change colour, plus their resilience and willingness to eat any detritus makes yabbies a popular aquarium pet. And easy to snare.

My parents’ house on Kangaroo Island is perched atop a rock face staring directly at the Australian mainland. The house is high above the water, under battling Wedge-tailed and White-bellied Sea Eagles, with the yabby-filled dam about halfway up the twisting Sheoak lined driveway.

Although there’s not much sport in capturing yabbies, it is good fun and holds some sort of ye olde worldy appeal as something decent Aussie kids did during the Depression because they didn’t have iPhones. In the interests of supporting this legacy/fallacy I thought I’d expose the girls to a touch of pre-war glamour minus the beatings and malnutrition.

Stomping through lush green grass - generously fertilized by the neighbour’s uninvited cattle - I suffered some whingeing about the looseness of what was underfoot but solved this by furiously instructing everyone to have fun. I tied a stringy bit of beef in one yabby net and a still smoky frozen old ham bone in another. The yabbies can get in to get the bait, but are bamboozled by the complexities of exiting and remain trapped.

Returning later that day under clearer skies to check the spoils , it was clear the ham bone had proved most popular and the magnificent haul was moved securely from the dam to the house in the back of the ute; clawing ominously at the lidded aluminium pot.

For some time I'd wanted to dig a pit, build up some coals and bury a beast of some sort. I didn’t have a carcass to hand, so the yabbies were a trial run. I instructed my Dad to find a suitable spot and get to work.  Aesthetically speaking I wasn’t thrilled with his selected position next to some building debris, but on reflection, realised the benefits of the windbreak provided by the garden wall. There’s a good reason a wind farm is just a few kilometres across the sea.

It’s important to be upfront about the yabby. It’s not quite as racy as its crustacean cousins of the sea who can be so tasty just by being boiled and served with bread and mayonnaise. Sweet and delicate could be one description of the yabby, or bland if you’re inclined to be abusive. We’ve cooked a few things like ravioli with sauces which have swamped their subtle flavour so it’s best to keep it simple.

Bruschetta delivers a good mouthful of yabbies and means no fiddly shelling for the eater. I noticed my pregnant older sister  appeared idle and therefore the best candidate to shell the purged yabbies, which she did after a brief and humane plunging to make the job easier. We took the shelled article to the fire with this amazing butter:

125g softened unsalted butter

3 tablespoons thyme – plucked from the walled vegetable garden (above)

5 tablespoons of olive oil

4 finely minced garlic cloves

salt

Mash all ingredients together with a fork.

As soon as the infused butter hit the pan, the aroma of garlic, butter and thyme was lifted into the air and mingled with the smoke. As the yabbies had already effectively been cooked, and the pan was peaking at volcanic temperatures, they joined the butter for less than a minute and after a squeeze of lemon juice, were ready to pile onto oiled local bread I’d just managed to toast over the searing coals without losing all the skin on my hand. An old rainwater tank-stand provided a perfect serving table.

An Eden Valley Riesling, the setting, the fire, a handful of fresh ingredients and plenty of butter, turned something simple into something superb. As are most things which don't involve public transport.