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You are here: Home / Archives for Condiments

Sardines on Toast

May 24, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

Sure, it’s more fancy than sardines on toast. The dish is based on a recipe from The Sydney Broadsheet cookbook published by the Broadsheet City Guide.  I have both the Sydney and Melbourne cookbooks which are. full of excellent cafe and restaurant meals – tasty, complex, and capable for home cooks.

I love sardines. Healthy and sustainable seafood. And on this occasion, available at the old price of $7 per kilo. And by now I know how to prep sardines. Really.

The original recipe had the butterflied sardines stuffed with a coriander and almond meal pesto. I made a basil and pine nut pesto (garlic, no cheese).

The base is puff pastry topped with a beetroot relish, and I’ve made a similar recipe before. Here’s the cookbook version.

Beetroot Relish
60ml olive oil (recipe says 80ml but it was too oily at the end)
1/2 brown onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves< finely diced
1 long green chilli, chopped (not sure how this is different from “finely diced”)
2 beetroots, peeled and grated (I used baked beetroot, and realised later that it probably meant raw beetroot)
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tbsp coriander seeds, lightly toasted.
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper… 

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Filed Under: Condiments, Seafood

Habanero Mango Curry Sauce

May 10, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

Is this the final hot sauce? Not sure yet! This one will blow your head off. It’s adapted from a recipe in Big Flavours of the Hot Sun  by Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby. This is one of my all-time favourite cookbooks for spice. I bought it on sale at Barnes and Noble in Dallas in 1996. It’s a killer. Also, The Thrill of the Grill. These guys are the best.

In the book, this recipe is called Home-Style Inner Beauty Hot Sauce and comes with several warnings!

Here’s my adaptation:… 

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Filed Under: Condiments

Mango Mustard Chilli Sauce

May 10, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

Here’s chill sauce #5. It’s from the Guardian website and the link is here (recipe at the bottom of the page).

I’ve only made one and a half bottles. I was searching on jerk sauces and ended up here, maybe because of the reference to Jamaica. (I must add that I’m going to try the cauliflower recipe tomorrow night.)

Anyway, because I bought several cans of mangoes, I wanted to used them up. Plus fruit, chilli and mustard! What can go wrong?

Well, I hope this improves because it tasted a bit ordinary. With most of these sauces I want to punch up the brown sugar and vinegar.

Filed Under: Condiments

Lacto-fermented Chilli Sauce

May 8, 2021 by admin Leave a Comment

Hot sauce #4 is going to be a lacto-fermented sauce using this recipe from the Great British Chefs’ website.

I’ve used up the rest of the bonnet peppers which are quite variable in heat. I’ll post some more photos as the fermentation develops.

I’m really enjoying learning about pickling and fermenting. We possibly have more pickles than we will ever eat.

So, a week and a bit later, we ended up with one and a half bottles. It has a mildly funky taste and is excellent.

It’s worth saying here that the recipe called for 800g chillies and I had only 320g. However I used the full amount of the other ingredients for flavour.

But when I got to the blitzing stage I removed some of the garlic and spice so they wouldn’t be overpowering, and they were in fact a bit too strong.

Nevertheless, this stuff is easy to make and really gives an interesting edge to a chilli sauce.

I’ll follow up with a post about my two fermenting tools.

Filed Under: Condiments

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THE COOK

I now cook on Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia, having moved recently from the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. The region is similar to the Mediterranean, with temperate climate, fertile hills, nearby ocean, wonderful local vegetables, fruit, wine and meat produced locally. Meanwhile our Adelaide Hills garden has cherry, peach, almond, citrus, olive, pomegranate and fig trees which are suffering neglect! Cooking has been a growing passion for me, about connecting culture, creativity, community and spirit.

Photos taken on iPhone 4 and 5 using Hipstamatic and a Canon 5D Mk III.

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