Healthy, Fast Food

You know the feeling, you've had a hard day at work, you're tired and you really can't be bothered cooking something sensible. The temptation to eat some fast food, some generally unhealthy fast food, is huge.

We've found a bit of a way around that though. The meal turns out to have several of the food groups, it's fast and it's low in fat. Our current specialty is a chicken burger, simple and healthy. We also do a steak sandwich a similar way and it's equally healthy.

Buy a couple of chicken breast fillets, some tomato and salad and some hamburger buns - wholemeal if you like and if you can find them.

Firstly deal with the chicken fillets. Trim off any fat and lay each fillet out on a cutting board. Take a very sharp knife and cutting parallel to the board make each fillet into 2 or 3 slices depending on size. This means that the pieces will fit into a burger easily and cook quickly. Marinate the chicken with your choice of marinade some hoy sin sauce, or soy sauce - whatever works for you. Light the barbecue and cook the chicken (see note).

While that's cooking split the buns and toast them, spread with some mustard, sauce or mayonnaise if you must, and add the salad and sliced tomato. When the chicken is cooked put it on the salad and put the other half of the bun on top.

This is a tasty and simple meal, total time from unpacking the shopping bag to sitting down to eat is about 15 minutes. Is it haute cuisine? Of course not but it's simple, quick and modestly healthy. You get some carbs, some protein, some reds and some green leaves.

Note: The barbecue that we use is very small and very simple. We only have a small outdoor deck on the roof, so we have very limited space for a barbie. The key to success is that it has a cast iron grill so any fat drains away and it has a closing lid which keeps food moist. Almost all of our meat is cooked on this barbecue, it keeps cooking smells out of the house and it's a great way to cook. Legs of lamb, steak, chicken, sausages, pork roasts all end up on the barbecue. Careful management means that you get food without all the bad charring that is so common with a barbecue but you still get the lovely smoky taste that you associate with a barbie. We particularly love a slow cooked leg of lamb. We use a very low heat, wrap the seasoned leg in foil and cook for a long time. It comes out lovely and moist and falling off the bone. Just brilliant.

Pasta...Again!

You're getting a bit of cooking lately...it must be the colder weather!

Use the pasta recipe from the previous post to make some delicate tagliatelle or pappardelle.

Take two leeks, top and tail them so that you are left with the white, tight part of the leeks. Split them down the middle and then slice each half very finely - transversely. Throw about 25g of unsalted butter in a pan and gently sweat the leeks. You want them to be soft and translucent but not in any way browned.

Take 4 large, brown mushrooms, start at one side and slice them thinly, including the stalk. Add them to the leeks along with a dollop of olive oil and continue to cook on a low heat until very soft and well cooked down. There should be only a little moisture in the pan.

Put on your pasta water.

In another pan heat about 50ml of olive oil and add 2 finely sliced small, hot, red chillis and 4 anchovy fillets. Fry off until the anchovies disintegrate. Add 600g of chicken mince and cook on a moderate heat until cooked but still tender. Add the leek and mushroom mixture, and 3 finely chopped sage leaves, mix and cook on a moderate heat.

Put your pasta on.

Add about 80ml of pouring cream to the chicken and vegetable mixture, adjust the seasoning and mix through.

Drain the pasta. Take the chicken sauce off the heat and sprinkle a quarter of a cup of finely chopped broad leaf parsley onto it.

Serve the pasta and sauce with a bottle of good olive oil for sprinkling and some good grated parmesan.

Magic Pasta

This is a wonderful pasta dish. First make the pasta: put 500g of strong flour and 5 large eggs into a food processor. Pulse process until it comes together in a crumb. Turn it out onto a board and knead until it forms a silky dough. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and set aside at room temperature to rest for an hour.

After the pasta has rested process it through a pasta machine, making sure that it is well laminated. Then progressively work the pasta down to the finest setting on the machine. Once it is thin enough, use the die of your preference to cut into strips - tagliatelle, parpadelle or whatever you prefer.

Meanwhile take 8 or 10 leaves of cavolo nero and strip the leaves from the stems. Roll the leaves and cut into a coarse chiffonade. In a fry pan add a good dollop of olive oil, a couple of crushed cloves of garlic, six anchovy fillets and a finely chopped hot red chilli. Saute until fragrant and then add the cavolo nero. Put a lid on and braise for 20 minutes, you probably won't need to add any water.

Put on the water for the pasta and when it boils salt it and add the pasta.

Meanwhile steam two heads of broccoli until very well cooked. When it is well cooked crumble it and add to the cavolo nero along with 200g of finely sliced smoked salmon. Mix well and warm through.

Drain the pasta when al dente. Serve with the cavolo nero sauce, freshly chopped flat leaf parsley, grated parmesan, ground black pepper and a good olive oil to sprinkle on top.

Buon appetito.

Note: The word "laminate" may be alien to you when used with respect to pasta. In my view it's the key to getting good home made pasta. Maybe the real experts get to the same place another way, but if they do I'm not aware of it. Lamination is a simple process. Set the pasta maker on the thickest setting. Take pieces of dough and run them through. As they become wider fold the two sides together and put them through again. As they become longer fold the two ends together and put them through again. You need to put the dough through about 10-12 times. At the end the dough will have changed. It will now be durable and flexible, not like a biscuit dough as it may have been at the start. The dough should be about 1/3 to 1/2 the width of the pasta machine rollers and ready to be rolled thin. This is in my experience the way to get pasta that is delicate yet robust at the end of the process, when it's cooked.

Grog and Sugar

Making my coffee this morning I got to thinking about an afternoon ritual that we used to have many years ago. We worked in the Philippines and we used to come home after work and sit in the shade and drink tuba. It's known by a range of names throughout Asia and the sub-continent - palm toddy, palm wine...In a world where everything appears to be packaged, refrigerated and preserved to deliver a long shelf life, tuba is very ephemeral. Tuba is made from the sap of a palm tree often the coconut, palmyra or nipa palm though the date and other palms are used in various parts of the world. Almost immediately on collection the very sweet sap begins to ferment from natural yeasts living on the plant and probably in the collection containers. This is what makes it so ephemeral. The containers are placed in the morning, as the fermentation proceeds you first get a sweet, low alcohol, slightly frizzante drink which is known as "ladies' tuba". Then, as the day progresses, the alcohol content rises and by the late afternoon you have a sharp tasting, high alcohol drink with a pungent hydrogen sulphide smell from the autolysis of the yeast. This is "mens' tuba" and it's a completely different beast from the pleasant drink of earlier in the day. If it is left alone tuba rapidly becomes vinegar. It is very ephemeral - drink it now or it's gone. So drink it you do!

Our tuba used to be bought at the market each day and drunk that evening. It is refreshing and also an inexpensive way to get loaded if you drink mens' tuba. Much better than the local gin, though San Miguel is a good beer if you want something to slake your thirst after a hot day.

The other interesting product of the palm is palm sugar (pictured at the top). Much of the palm sugar available in Australia comes in hard blocks that are a light honey brown colour. I suspect that much of this "palm sugar" is in fact mixed with cane sugar. These blocks tend to be very hard and shatter when hit with a hammer or crushed with a pestle and mortar.

True palm sugar is dark yellowish brown and has a soft fudgy texture. It often comes in tubular shapes and has a complex caramel flavour. It's easy to cut or grate because it's so soft. Palm sugar is made by boiling down the sap of the palm tree before it begins to ferment. It reportedly has a very low glycaemic index and is rich in nutrients. Palm sugar is also remarkably cheap if you know where to find it.

And that's why I thought about tuba, because I was spooning grated palm sugar into my coffee. It adds a indefinable richness to a cup of strong, black coffee. Pure luxury.

Slow Travel

For once everything had gone to plan. Melbourne - Hong Kong a brief stopover and then Hong Kong - Rome overnight. This is my favourite flight - arriving at either 0650 or 0710 depending on the season. Uncharacteristically I'd managed a good night's sleep on the flight and arrived feeling rested. I'd also begun to perfect the skill of travelling slow and I arrived feeling not only fresh but relaxed.
The crisp January morning was something of a shock - stepping out of heat stricken Melbourne into single digit Rome was challenging. I drifted through the airport with barely a nod from immigration and disinterest from anyone else. A short wait and onto the Leonardo Express. It always reminds me of the North Coast Mail - the train that used to rumble down the North Coast of NSW collecting blokes with beer, sheilas with dogs and various others with bongs and dope. The Leonardo Express lacks the colour and the carriages are better but it still rattles and shakes and the engine sounds just like the Mail.

Roma Termini is a favourite of mine, despite its fascist style and the pay to pee loos; it has something about it. The early morning winter light, the steaming breathes of the passengers and the bustle. I bought a ticket on the all stops to Naples then grabbed a coffee and slice for breakfast. Life was looking up and soon enough we were on the track again. The trip to Priverno-Fossanova was only 50 minutes and then I was met with warm greetings by an old friend.
It was 2 years since we had seen each other so there was plenty to talk about. First stop was the factory to check on progress but soon enough the familiar question: Mangiamo? Why not? For some reason we never discuss where we're going for lunch. Giovanni decides and off we go. I know where we're going when we get there.
After 30 or so minutes we arrive at a little restaurant. It's beside a drainage canal and set amongst open fields. In the '30s this area was drained, on Mussolini's orders, and turned from swamp to productive farmlands. Wherever you travel on this little coastal strip the drainage canals are a reminder of this.
We parked the car and strolled in the bright winter sunshine for 100 metres to the grass airstrip. Two people were lying in the sun near a little airplane waiting for us. Giovanni introduced them: "This is Giovanna and Mauro." I shook hands and then realised that I had seen this aircraft before. In December 2 years ago I had seen this aircraft in the factory with "Giovanna e Mauro" scrawled on the firewall in marker pen. "He delivered it to us on 24 December" they said, nodding towards Giovanni.
We strolled arm in arm to the restaurant and ate a leisurely lunch. Giovanna and Mauro had travelled in Australia. We talked about the world, business, flying, life, Italy, food and the difficulty of being married to American women. Finally the lowering sun made it necessary to make a move.
We strolled back to the airstrip. This leg back to Roma was Giovanna's turn in the left seat. They strapped in, taxied out and ran up for departure.

Then out of nowhere a Hughes 500D arrived to disturb the peace, make several approaches, hold up departure and then leave.

Finally they departed climbing away in the broad sweeping turn into the soft light of the winter afternoon and we walked off to the car. This set the tone for the next 2 weeks, work, food, friends and flying. Only in Italy.

La Cucina Tipica

Visit an Australian town of 15,000 people or so - you pick the town. What does it offer in the food stakes? Certainly hamburgers and fish and chips, probably a pizza joint, a Chinese restaurant certainly, Indian if you are lucky and maybe, just maybe some Thai food. The pubs might do "Aussie" meals - whatever they are.
Compare that to the place I visit in Italy. About 90 km south of Rome, near the coast, 15,000 people. The first thing that you notice is that there isn't a hamburger joint, they don't know what fish and chips are, there is no Chinese, no Indian, no Thai - it's simply Italian food or nothing. Boring? Not at all because there's an interesting little twist or two.
Firstly the evening meal is not the main meal of my day in Italy, that comes in the middle of the day. The picture above is the place I stay at, simple, clean, friendly and modestly priced - 45 euro a day for a double room and breakfast. The coffee at breakfast is quickly and expertly made with a decent coffee machine and the quality is superb. Try finding that in Australia.
The main town centre is a 5 minute walk and on my way there I pass three good, cheap, friendly restaurants where I can have half a litre of wine and a simple, healthy meal for 8 or 9 Euro. The first place - 45 seconds walk - an anti pasto bar with a wide variety of vegetable, bean, meat and sea food. You could make this your meal and I have, the bread is fresh and chewy. The "gourmet" pizzas are simple and filling. The pasta, meat and fish dishes are simple and quick. So three or four food groups a good glass of red and off I go into the darkness replete and with my wallet still full.
Further on in town I have choice - up-market dining in a place disconcertingly called "Happy Days" - not what you would expect from the name. Maybe the little place near the church where you get whatever is on the owner's agenda that night. Last time I was there I had a glorious house red and a beautiful braise with potatoes and broccoletti followed by dessert for 18 euro. Further still and I come to a tiny place that offers pizza by the slice - choose your slice, choose your wine and go and sit. Then as often as not the owner will pop out of the kitchen with a bowl and say "I just made this you might like some". Maybe it's a bean dish, maybe some pasta or maybe a risotto with seafood. You get no choice except to churlishly refuse and it's always good - I've never paid more than 9 Euro for dinner here and often as little as 6.
But the main course is really lunch. For this we drive, never more than 30 minutes, never in town, always in the countryside. That's the first thing you notice, in amongst the livestock and the market gardens will be a modest house with a sign suggesting food is on offer. Each little restaurant has it's own menu which is typical of that restaurant. One is known for its meats - dried and cured, porchetta - whatever. They form a mandatory first course along with some buffalina maybe and perhaps a simple braise of beans. Another has a wood fired grill in the restaurant and they cook fish and game meats, sausages and steak to absolute perfection as you watch. I remember one happy lunch at this place where I ate spaghetti with scampi followed by home made sausages with potato and glorious broccoletti braised with olive oil. We finished with dessert and a glass of grappa with our coffee. The food, the red wine, the grappa and the coffee? 20 euro each for a group of 12 of us - and it wasn't a set menu.
Each restaurant is individual and "does its own thing" yet each is quintessentially Italian. You couldn't be anywhere else. Why is it that Italy has such a culture when in Australia you have the alternative of starvation or death by hamburger in many towns of this size? Why is there such an absence of restaurants in the country in Australia? I can only think of George Biron's Sunnybrae restaurant in Victoria. Viva Italia.