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Breaded meat. Hard to resist unless you're a coeliac. I saw @nickyriemer posted a pic of her cotoletta and felt compelled to make the double breaded Hungarian pork rántott hús with lecso plus some braised beans. The meat is bashed flat in a cross hatch pattern with the blunt edge of a chef's knife. Fresh crumbs were seasoned with just picked Greek basil flowers and my homemade herb and garlic salt. To make that mix I dry marjoram, sage, basil, thyme, tarragon, garlic cloves and grind it with salt in a spice grinder. In a skillet I flavour canola oil with a teaspoon of good, cultured butter and shallow fry the meat to pale gold, ensuring I wash the sides and top with the hot oil continually with a spoon. Next it goes onto a cake rack in the oven at 140°c to finish cooking for about 10 minutes. You must also rest the meat in a warm place before serving. The salad dressing was a teaspoon of dijon mustard, a tablespoon of honey emulsified into a paste with two teaspoons of the cooking oil used for the meat. Then I added kombucha vinegar and minced garlic. Very simple but so delicious. https://www.instagram.com/p/CKygxy2Dcy6/?igshid=1wn65iu8vwno5

White cooked chicken is a dish I grew up with. Mum used to teach it in her Chinese cooking classes and serve it at dinner parties with Chinese ham - like proscuitto - and steamed broccoli. Normally I'd cook the whole bird, but this time I chose to do it with marylands. I liked the result and the bonus is you finish up with a delicious broth to have on the side.. Essentially the technique used it to poach the chicken in stock that has been brought to the boil, taken off the heat and allowed to rest in the poaching liquor before serving it at room temperature, oiled and seasoned. It's juicy, tender and tasty For the poaching liquid you can use a base of chicken stock adding shaoxing wine, rock sugar, knobs of ginger, spring onion, soy sauce, star anise, fennel seeds. To serve, I dusted it with five spice salt and my pork kab glua seasoning. On the side was my gueng choong condiment. That's not just minced ginger and spring onions. Go next level when the ginger is warmed at low heat in lard or peanut oil with soy sauce, ginger rice wine, a tiny amount of sugar and a drop of sesame oil. Then it's cooled and the spring onion and salt added. The result is addictively good. https://www.instagram.com/p/CKvt-beDGdI/?igshid=1mw989k3y6s84

Lemon sorrel scrambled eggs with feta and salmon, a cup of tea enjoyed while listening to bees hovering around my citrus trees and perennial basil. I used two large sorrel leaves from the local community garden that I've been tending with @sth_melb_sustainability_group. To make the scrambles for two I melted butter on low heat with two sage leaves, also from the garden, to infuse their flavour into it. Removing the leaves from the pan I poured in a mixture of 6 eggs and two tablespoons of pouring cream. Keeping the heat low I gently pulled the egg mixture from the sides of the pan to the centre until the eggs were semi firm. Switching off the heat I stirred in feta, smoked salmon and the sorrel, then seasoned with salt and pepper. As feta is salty you need to season to taste. The eggs continue to cook from residual heat so remove them quickly if you prefer them silky. #lyellifflacommunitygarden #eatlocal #growyourownfood #sustainablelife#sustainableliving https://www.instagram.com/p/CKpsIP_DK-8/?igshid=1jho3g7pqfxxg

#lyellifflacommunitygarden #eatlocal #growyourownfood #sustainablelife #sustainableliving

Eton Mess or smashed pav as I think of it. Like you've dropped a pavlova and then scraped it into a bowl. I scraped the following into my bowls: fresh mango, exquisite white peaches from the community garden, berry jam streaked yoghurt and mauve tinted meringue. A light sweet end to the day. This time I didn't make the meringue. I bought it at @flour_patisserie at @southmelbournemarket. Easy as dropping a pav 😉 https://www.instagram.com/p/CKYw4A0Dy9D/?igshid=v878diunn5xh

I came home from tending the community garden with lemon sorrel leaves. So I stirred it through my spaghetti 'marinara-esque' that was topped also with bottega di tonno and homegrown basil. There were homegrown cherry tomatoes and my own passata in there too. Yummy. https://www.instagram.com/p/CKTjCFAjl4q/?igshid=3z74cg762tvt

Chicken Kiev given a Vietnamese spin with a fragrant umami spice blend, a coating of sweet green rice flakes and potato starch . They were monster sized so we shared one, and I served it with a plate loaded with 8 vegies, as we tend to do. https://www.instagram.com/p/CKQyaICDlos/?igshid=nifeox0dke78

No waste won ton. Normally I make these dumplings with raw pork and prawn minced together with a few other ingredients, but as I had leftover cooked prawns and pickled pork, I used them. Into the bowls went Asian greens, fried shallots, carrot, a little chilli, some chicken from roasted chicken frames and the cooked dumplings. The rich broth which had a base of the pickling stock was poured over them, cooking the veg. The water remaining from poaching the dumplings was used to make stock using the chicken frames. When that's done the frames will be ground to paste and added to my worm farm. #NoWasteKitchen #sustainablelife https://www.instagram.com/p/CKOPIKLjRJk/?igshid=m96y00dnyb2q

#nowastekitchen #sustainablelife

Homemade sour cream on an Airfryer jacket potato, plus some Pepe Saya butter, spring onion, homemade herb salt and coriander flowers.. Sitting on top of each batch I make of milk kefir using full cream @schulzorganicdairy milk is a deep solid crust of cultured sour cream. And it is so much tastier than the big brand stuff in supermarkets. So what better way to celebrate it than on a baked potato? We ate it with grilled fresh asparagus, watercress, shiso and my neighbour's delicious fasoulada. #kefir #fermentation #bakedpotato https://www.instagram.com/p/CKLsnHCjLky/?igshid=hq9b4bmhrmdc

#kefir #fermentation #bakedpotato

Worm farming. A few people have quizzed me on worm farming while I'm watering the community garden beds near home. So I thought I'd share some knowledge. I've kept a worm farm for about 20 years and this photo is of their feed after it's come out of the food processor. Worms have minuscule mouths. They have to wait until the food you give them decomposes before they can eat. So making a pulp of your food scraps aids them, plus it usually avoids breeding unfriendly bugs and mould. This way in addition to vegie scraps and trimmings you can also throw in: • baked goods • household vacuum cleaner dirt • lint from the dryer • pet hair that hasn't been flea treated with chemicals • cooked chicken bones • eggshells • fish bones, guts and head, prawn shells • toilet rolls, wet paper • cut flowers • biodegradable teabags Sometimes I add a handful of garden lime to aid decomposition and sweeten or balance the mix of nutrients. If no gritty food is going in - like eggshells or bones - put in a handful of sand occasionally to aid the worms' digestion. I tend to do a batch when I've used the food processor for making something else first. I keep the scraps in an old 2 litre yoghurt tub with a tight lid until I'm ready. This way you can avoid filling your kitchen with those tiny vinegar flies. NEVER put in lemongrass AKA as citronella, it's an insecticide. Avoid aliums - garlic, onion, spring onion - and citrus. Acidic compost will kill them too. Keep worm farms moist and keep them out of the sun. A wet piece of hessian, old carpet, rug or an old blanket is a blessing draped over it on a hot day. Be sure to regularly purge your worm wee, so as not to saturate the castings or drown your worms. And that prized wee is best added diluted to soil as it is super concentrated and can burn plants. Let me know if you have any queries. I'm happy to help. #wormfarm #sustainableliving #garden https://www.instagram.com/p/CKNejPpDdsu/?igshid=1wtd9pdof4nal

#wormfarm #sustainableliving #garden

🙏🏼 A gift of @stompinggroundbeer lambic beers from a colleague. Renowned for their funkiness, sour beers are made with spontaneous fermentation - often using fruit. Some say lambic beers are a the blue cheese, or perhaps the fish sauce of beer. So lambic fermentation, like many of the best things in life, is an acquired taste. #tinnies #brewing #fermentation https://www.instagram.com/p/CKDjxC_DxK5/?igshid=hz8bryngp64u

#tinnies #brewing #fermentation

Sometimes food is next level. Something you have to stop yourself before you've eaten too much. And usually it's when I cook without thinking, just sensing the way. 2 dishes: • Hot and spicy Milawa Freerange chicken ribs, dusted with my own spice blend, potato and rice starch and shallow fried. • Local mussels, snowpeas and Asian greens. The mussel broth, consisted of the juices, curry leaves, garlic, onion, red peppers, passata, ginger and ginger rice wine. I finished it with parsley and spring onion. It was mopped up with chunks of baguette. 👌🏼👌🏼💋 https://www.instagram.com/p/CJ8UHnmjOa-/?igshid=1fs3nqo9l02p0

Crisp fried yu xiang beef. It has a slight sting to the palate from szechuan pepper and chilli oil. I shredded gravy beef, coated it with rice flour, bicarb soda and an egg white and left it to sit for 10 minutes while I julienned celtuce stem, red pepper and spring onions. You fry the beef in hot oil and then set aside. Next in goes ginger, spring onion and garlic. When it begins to give off its fragrant aroma, in go the shredded vegies. As they start to soften add the sauce. The sauce was ginger rice wine, shao xing wine, soy sauce, stock, red millet vinegar, ground szechuan pepper, a little sugar and chilli oil with a small amount of cornstarch. This thickens once it hits the heat. Lastly add the beef back in with some Chinese pickled mustard stems. Serve with some vegies- I chose gai lan and bean shoots. It's one of those dishes that you find yourself shoveling down before you even acknowledge how delicious it is. 😋 Great with a beer. #chinesefood #homecooking https://www.instagram.com/p/CJvZfDtjxb_/?igshid=1gsk6e3x23nbg

#chinesefood #homecooking

🙏🏼 So blessed that our neighbour finds their Zen fly fishing and shares the catch. Tonight I put the trout on a coconut based South Asian curry featuring fresh curry leaves, pumpkin, snake beans, sweet potato, eggplant and purple carrots. I finished it with trout crackling, blanched homegrown amaranth leaves, homegrown coriander and fried onion. We scraped up the sauce with roti paratha. A little different to your usual fresheater trout dish, but so yummy. https://www.instagram.com/p/CJsxY5uDL-k/?igshid=17310dtpng5i0

My best tarte citron yet was served on Christmas Day. Pulp and juice of homegrown lemons blended smooth, strained and added to beaten eggs mixed with zest pieces, pinch of salt and sugar. Heated gently over the stove until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Zest removed, the curd was cooled to lukewarm and then - as per Pierre Hermé's technique - chilled unsalted butter cubes were integrated with a stick mixer. To set it, I chilled it over night in a pre-made shell of Damien Pignolet's 'Food Processor Pâté Sablée. Perfect textures, the sablée - tasting subtly of vanilla and good butter - held crisp though crumbled softly for easy cutting. The filling silky smooth, not rubbery, intensely lemony without sourness. Served with double cream. I opted not to serve it with berries, keeping lemon the hero flavour. The 44 year old German dessert wine went very well with it - a Schloßböckelheim eiswein-beerenauslese, adding a complimentary rich layer to the palate. My parents kept the other half of the tarte, so I shall bake another soon. Must write down the recipe while I remember. https://www.instagram.com/p/CJPbrvaDSdE/?igshid=lp3hg4hdn4kv

4 yeara on Alatonero in McCrae is still kicking goals across from my favourite Melbourne beach, McCrae, where the sand is soft and white, the water is clear Aegean blue. (at Alatonero) https://www.instagram.com/p/CIuTX_yjvkX/?igshid=9omgteep56dx

4 yeara on Alatonero in McCrae is still kicking goals across from my favourite Melbourne beach, McCrae, where the sand is soft and white, the water is clear Aegean blue. (at Alatonero) more photos on insta https://www.instagram.com/p/CIuTX_yjvkX/?igshid=9omgteep56dx

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