Leo Catch

13/08 LEO CATCH

Hear us roar. Or Purr. The Leo’s are out for the kill. In this case a very boujie hunt at an over-priced but fabulous food store. This recipe is old-time fabulous and decadent to the extreme. Exactly how the Pride of Leo’s take on the world. We are fabulous and decadent to the extreme, and in our season there is nothing that will hold us back. 

This recipe is this Leos favorite, raw meat, a slathering of flavours makes it irresistible. This version is vaguely Japanese inspired, half sashimi half steak tartare. The heady mix of Japanese oils and prices plays perfectly with the tang of the Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. Breaking the perfect yolk through the raw meat is one of life’s most satisfying pleasures – causing a squeamish reaction from half of you only heightens the thrill. This is so very delicious, with a dry stiff drink, a perfect way to toast the leo Pride.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

250g Steak (lean)
1 Egg
1/4 tsp Wasabi
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1/2 tsp Black Sesame Seeds
1/2 tsp Japanese Chilli Powder (a sprinkle more to finish)
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp Tabasco
1/2 tsp minced onion
Salt + Pepper

Crisps & Martini to serve


What I did - 

This is an assembly recipe, no heat required. Take the steak and give it a good beating. Once it's tender, but not beaten to death finely dice into small quarter centimetre cubes. In a small mixing bowl mince in the onion. Add the wasabi, sesame oil, seeds, chilli, tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. Stir through thoroughly until all the meat is slicked in the mix. Taste and season with salt & pepper (hold back a bit to add when finishing).

Press the mix into a small bowl and cling film in the fridge for half an hour or so to set and macerate.
In the meantime sedate yourself with a martini.

Take the bowl out of the fridge and leave to warm up for about 5 minutes. scatter some green on a plate and then turn out the tartare. Using a fork, press out and make a small depression in the centre. Separate the egg yolk and gently rest on the meat. Season with the chilli powder, salt and pepper. This takes it from looking like cat-food to something deliciously savage.

Perfect as is. Better with plain crisps on the side. Best with a second Martini. It's the leo season, allow the inner savage out.

JG

Peachy Hot Bed

21/11 HOT BED

We all want to dive under a blanket at the best of times, a hot warm blanket to melt under while the winter sets in. These are the times when energy is at an all time low, and you really want to cover yourself and forget about the rest of the world. 

Indeed this recipe is found hiding under its own crumbly blanket. A soft bed of fleshy, sweet and hot fruit robed in a dusting of glorious crumbs. The only thing this bed needs is a good spoon. And you have two choices - big spoon or little spoon. Also both benefit from cream.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

3 Old Peaches
75g Butter
75g Sugar
75g Flour


What I did - 

Arrange the slightly old soggy peaches around a small baking dish (this is a small recipe for three to four at most). They should all be standing on their backs, the thin gill of the meat upwards.

In another bowl rub the butter into the flour and sugar until you get a thick gloopy crumb. Sprinkle over the peaches as evenly as possible - don't press it down, the lighter it falls the more the preaches melt and the crumb stay loose in the oven.

Bake at 180 degrees for 40 minutes or so - just before the crumbs start to catch. The more heat this is exposed to the more the fruit melts and crumb crisps.

Eat directly out of the dish if there's only two of you, or glooped in cream with friends. The best way to be.

JG

The Anti-Pasta

08/06 THE ANTI-PASTA

"Puttanesca is Italian for very few ingredients" - a one word recipe which i learnt early on while I read and got lost in a series of unfortunate events. From the moment I read that it took a life of its own until now whenever making pasta I hesitate to add anything more than very few ingredients. It is an unfortunate event that pasta is often drowned in red sauce popped from a jar, when pasta is really a stage for ingredients to perform.

In saying that I rarely every make a 'sauce' for pasta, more a dressing. Here it is really a mix of the very few ingredients left in the kitchen - a handful of marinaded mushrooms, the last tomato still clinging to the frail vine and a roaring chilli waiting to fire up. This also brings me to the second meaning of pasta puttanesca transcribed by Nigella as Sluts Spaghetti. Simply meaning that its usually made by us slackers who use leftovers and preserved ingredients to their last breath. 

I have to confess that reading about the Baudelaire orphans improvising a delicious, makeshift meal was the formative inspiration of this orphaned ingredient. I know that this isn't correct pasta alla puttanesca, it is a variation of the two translations the name inspires. Its what I had lying around... and there are nights when you're too lazy to go out looking, look closer to home theres always something in a pantry.

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

200g Pasta (any you have)
1 Tomato
1 Chilli Hot
100g Pickled Mushrooms (antipasto stuff)
1 Handfull Mixed Salad Leaves/Spinach/Roquette
Balsamic Vinegar
Salt + Pepper


What I did - Oven preheated to 180degrees

First salt a small saucepan full of boiling water - don't hold back. Add your pasta of choice and keep a lazy eye on it as it cooks. Slice the tomato into discs and throw under a hot grill, close to the top so that they will blister rapidly. Do the same with the chilli. The oils and juices in the two will release quickly as the surface scorches.

Cut the mushrooms in half (or smaller if they're larger than a button mushroom) and with their marinade add to a large bowl. Once the tomato and chilli are hot, massacre with a knife until they become a red mush then add to the bowl. Douse in a hearty slosh of balsamic.

The pasta should be ready, before straining the water add a handful of green leaves to wilt instantly (basil, spinach, roquette, salad leaves... anything). Sieve the pasta and greens well. Tumble into the bowl with the mushrooms and tie the whole lot together. The rough and frustrating tangle of pasta will sedate any stresses, and untangle a jumbled head. A tangle of unfortunate ingredients with a good heart.

JG

The Fruit-Fairy

22/04 THE FRUIT-FAIRY

If ever there was a culinary equivalent of writers block it would seem to be fairy bread - however there is a regressive spell in food. Sometimes called nostalgia, but this is more magical than that. Going back to basics, early memories and the 90s has steamed a relentless train of thought moving too quickly. Growing up with my idols as fantastical guides is something that I've always taken for granted. With all the stars that are out tonight, I can't help thinking that we're all blackstars allowed a time to glow before returning to the quiet darkness. 

One small ember lighting the path for a moment is fairy bread with fruit bread - a camp combination born from a loafs bottom (hmmm...) - but actually a great deviation from tradition. Admittedly this was created out of necessity but there is a magic in gluing a rainbow to some sticky fruit. When the rest of the world is moving at a pace far too rapid to handle this will raise a spirit. Sending you back to the Neverland of childhood. I'm just a lost boy, ready to be found - I don't want to grow up.

 

*The 'art' on the plate was drawn in 1993 - even then I knew I was lost

 

 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1 Slice Raisin Bread
Butter
Rainbow Sprinkles

What I did -

I cant even believe that Its required for this to be put in words, but liberally butter the bread making sure that the entire surface is sticky. Pour a small handful of the 90s rainbow and scatter across the bread until you're holding a small square of technicolor magic.

Eat and step back in time - there's no return from Neverland.

JG

 

Killed Bill

17/02 KILLED BILL

We are all students of life, and it may be hard to comprehend but no one will ever call themselves master over their existence. All we can hope is to learn the five point palm exploding heart technique, or how to flick a silken moustache in contempt at the world - two skills only passed down from Pai Mei.

This vaguely Asian bowl was created in a similar state of worldly frustration, with half munched scraps from the fridge. However channeling end of the day exhaustion so masterfully turned out something to lift my grump, a bowl of wannabe Asian - yet intrinsically western - chicken and rice. I roared. I rampaged. And I got bloody satisfaction.
 

Ingredients (all approximate) - 

1/2 Chicken Breast (cooked)
1 Celery Stick
1/4 Capsicum
1 tbls Hot Chilli Sauce
1 tbls Plum Sauce
200g Jasmine Rice
1 tsp Nigella Seeds
400ml boiled water
Mint

What I did - 

Firstly slice the bit of leftover roast chicken in the fridge (otherwise any fish or meat you have lying around half eaten) into thin strips so that it will tangle and go farther. Then cut the capsicum and celery in the same manner to that they end up as white, red and green slivers. Pour the sticky sauces over and stir together until it has an unhealthy gloss. Leave to marinade and get the heat on.

Heat just being rice. Rice is one of those things which tends to either be great or awful. If theres a rice cooker available tip the rice and nigella seeds in and set to cook. Otherwise, and just as simply. Put the rice into a pot and slick with a drizzle of oil so that the grains don't gloop together when boiling. Fleck with the jet black seeds and then use the boiled water to boil for about 5 minutes, or until they look cooked.

Strain the rice and tip into a bowl. Then rudely interrupt the steaming white with the marinated leftovers. The residual heat is enough to make the ex-fridge scatterings nicely warm and let the marinade soak through the rise. Samurai some fresh mint for aromatic decoration.

JG

Swimming Upstream

02/02 SWIMMING UPSTREAM

Returning home, to an old way of life can often be as isolating as being in a completely alien city. It takes time for your mind to adjust, for your body to settle and your sleep to synchronise to a new moon. With time away the old and familiar become foreign whereas constantly experiencing the new is common - if not always easy. There may always be a Starman waiting in the sky and if food is the one thing that can bring us back, this is the man who fell to earth.

All the elements here are from different meals since returning home, thrown together to help battle the intense seasonal change from minus five to over thirty degrees. The ingredients here are collectively light and hydrating, tied together with a sharp spritz of lemon. The only thing needed to help your body cope with the heat is a frozen glass of wine. We are all salmon fighting the current, but sometimes its best to let it take you home.

Ingredients (all approximate) - Cold from the Fridge

1 Salmon Fillet (steamed)
2 Heads Broccoli (steamed)
1 Wedge Lettuce
1 Egg (hard boiled)
Lemon
Salt + Pepper

What I did - 

Most times in summer the desire to cook is completely absent, so the simplest way to prepare this is to use all the old leftovers. The ingredients don't have to be exactly the same as here, but the combination of fish, an egg, a lettuce and steamed vegetable is perfect - all served cold from the fridge.

Peel the last few green leaves off the decaying iceberg lettuce, or nice fresh one if lucky. Folded them in half and sliced them into long thin strands, this helps keep them sharp as you pile on the other softer ingredients. Arrange the strands into a welcoming nest.

Dice up the head of broccoli so that its a fine green scattering which can be used to fill the lettuce nest. The salmon had previously been steamed for about 15 minutes and then the leftovers steeped in lemon juice overnight. This makes the pale pink flesh easy to flake apart and add to the green nest.

If there isn't a hard boiled egg in the fridge, quickly boil one for four minutes and then crack the shell off. Crown the fleshy salmon with the yolk before dusting in crystalline salt flakes and pepper.

These ingredients are all orphaned, but together help bring you back home. There's no place like it.

JG