Despite my affinity (and, thanks to a childhood well spent, some proficiency) for crepes, our modern pancake day is about fat pancakes. We make them with yoghurt in the mix, quite often. Or whisked eggwhite. Fat pancakes can work exceptionally well with our bacon, far better than gossamer-thin crepes. Despite my love of the late British cook and kitchen Nazi, Fanny Cradock, and her standards for pancakes—that if they’re thick enough to toss, there’s only one place to toss them . . . in the bin—our fat pancakes go really well with stewed or poached fruit from any season. And they’re simply divine with strawberry sauce.
Pancake Sunday, however, suffered a blow not that long after we initiated it. A regular farmers’ market started on Sunday, and Ross and I were keen to ramp up Rare Food to try to make it pay its way. So Sundays often became yet another early morning start, with breakfast usually eaten on the hop.
Pancake Sunday became Pancake Wednesday. Or Pancake Friday, depending on what we had on at the time. The sauce was replaced by quince syrup or pear-poaching liquid or nectarine jam. And gradually, as Sadie and I committed more time to our projects both on and off the farm, pancake days themselves went into decline. It is my hope that one day soon they’ll return. Especially because I have just found one forgotten jar of strawberry sauce in the pantry, long after the rest of it has gone.
Sadie’s pancakes
Makes enough for 3–4 people
Most cooks would be happy to have an audience who loves their food. I’m even luckier, because Sadie not only loves cooking but is also great at it. What’s even better is that sometimes I can give her a recipe for a cake or biscuits or pancakes and she will hone it over weeks and months until it becomes her own. This is her version of my pancakes. It actually is worth whisking the egg whites.
2 eggs, separated
1 tablespoon sugar
300 ml (10½ fl oz/just under 1¼ cups) milk
about 135 g (4¾ oz/just under 1 cup) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon salt
lots of bacon fat, for frying
Beat the egg yolks with the sugar and milk in a bowl, then add enough flour to create a thick but pourable batter. The amount of flour will vary a bit, depending on your climate, the milk, the flour and the season. The good news is you’ll get the feel for it if you do it week by week. (Or your partner does it week after week, which is even better.)
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with the salt until soft peaks form, then fold gently into the batter.
Heat a couple of frying pans, ideally, over a medium heat with a good ½ teaspoon of bacon fat in each one and ladle the pancake mix into the middle. If it’s too thick, you can water it down a little with more milk. Folding in more flour is less successful. Cook gently, keeping an eye on the heat so the pancakes don’t burn, and turn once browned well on the bottom and set on top. Cook on the other side until nicely browned and keep them warm in a low oven (120°C/235°F/Gas ½) under a sheet of foil while you cook them all (or serve them immediately).
Serve with maple syrup, poached fruit, jam, yoghurt, cream, or even better, strawberry sauce, if you have any.
Turkey
They say that not all animals are created equal. That some are more intelligent, according to our way of thinking, than others. Well, I say turkeys are among the dumbest of the dumb.
Yes, they do have a brain, and a central nervous system— unlike an oyster, say. Or a clam. But that brain doesn’t operate in the way most other animal brains work. Maybe we’ve just bred them to be annoyingly, frustratingly, decidedly stupid. Or maybe nature made them that way. Though I can’t help thinking, from the turkeys I’ve owned, that evolution would’ve quickly put paid to any animal as thick-headed as those that inhabited my farmyard for a while.
Here’s an example: if I put a tray of feed in front of my turkeys, they would look at it inquisitively. Then look at me. If I kicked the tray with my foot, so the grain rattled against the side, they’d peck at it like mad—furiously gobbling it up as if they had never been fed before, and as though they would never see food again.
Give it two minutes, though, and the turkeys would all be standing around, in a huddle, 2 metres from the feed tray, looking lost and hungry. Tap the tray with my foot, and they’d race over, shocked and surprised to find—Wow, who would’ve thought—a tray full of grain on the ground. They’d start pecking. As if they’d never been fed before. Then two minutes later, they’d lose it again and would be standing, looking as self-conscious as a dag at a rave, wondering if they’d ever eat again. I began to wonder whether they’d somehow starve to death if I didn’t make regular visits to kick their food tray.
My turkeys roosted in the trees. They spent their days in the farmyard. Unless they didn’t. Usually there’d be one, just one, that would fly out of the farmyard. But not into the paddocks, where endless good foraging awaited. No, not down towards the creek, in the reeds or long grass. Not where bugs lived and plants thrived, not on the safe part of the farm. No, one knuckleheaded turkey would fly the other way. Out onto the road, where nothing much was worth eating. She would then spend the next eight hours pushing her head through holes in the gate and the fence to where her flock mates were, with no clue as to how to get back in. She’d flown there of her own volition, but couldn’t, of course, fly back.
Turkeys, we found, are also a little fragile. At least the ones we got. Within a few weeks of arriving, one of them was sick. Listless and off her food (even if I nudged the tray of grain in front of her), so we moved her away from the flock. Sadie tried to give her sustenance—using an eye-dropper to dribble in sugared water as the life drained from her body.
The turkeys taught us something about birds. They are such frail creatures that when they start to become unwell, you have little choice. They will, most of the time, either get better or die, regardless of any intervention. If they don’t start to improve within two days, we now have a deadline in place and they get the chop. We’d previously watched two turkeys die a miserable, slow death while we did our best to keep them alive. Our attempts to alleviate illness ended up in an extended, probably painful death. So if you’ve got feathers and you’re feeling a pit peaky at our place, you’d better pretend you’re feeling better within 48 hours or the result won’t be pretty.
One day, after the remaining turkeys finally learnt to fly out of the farmyard (not a single one went into the paddock) and spent way too much time on the road, when I got sick of hearing the sound of cars braking because my turkeys had decided to wander into the traffic . . . when I got sick of bringing back the buggers after they took up residence at my neighbour’s place (and probably stood around, looking dejected, wondering how on earth to find food) . . . one day when they were as big as I wanted them to get and Sadie was due to give birth any day soon and the last thing we needed was errant livestock when we had to leave home to go to the hospital, I decided enough was enough. That night, in the pitch black in the middle of winter, I got out the cleaver and fixed the problem of escapee turkeys once and for all.
The good news (not for the turkeys, though) is that free-range, homegrown turkey meat is sensational. It’s so much better than the stuff you can buy that I don’t think I could stomach bought turkey again. It was moist. It tasted sweet, yet complex. It had a distinct turkey flavour, without the sawdusty texture and damp dishcloth taste you’ll find in intensively reared turkey breast. Home-reared turkey was about as good as any meat we’ve had from animals fattened on the farm.
So the joy of owning turkeys wasn’t completely wasted on me. I did feel a fondness for the tom, who’d fluff up his snood and change its colour from red to blue and back again. I remember them affectionately, and occasionally toy with the idea of getting another small flock to fatten on the farm because I really do want to eat turkey that’s as good again.
I just don’t know if I have the necessary patience or understanding to put up with them while they’re alive.
Venison
I’ve never had much to d
o with guns. A short, scary moment firing an air rifle in my early teens. A handgun pointed at me from a slow-moving car in Paris late one summer’s night. A shot fired over my head when I was mucking around at an abandoned mine site near a rough-looking farmhouse at Captains Flat, outside Canberra.
So it was quite odd to be brandishing a weapon out in the scrub in the middle of Tasmania with Ross and Nick. We were on the trail of deer, fallow deer. Hunting is a strange, primeval way to gather food. It’s controversial. There are many meat-eaters out there who think hunting is a strange blood sport, a horrific, mean-spirited way to get food. And others who see it as part of their family history, part of their cultural upbringing. Then there are others, a weird few, who take glee in just shooting stuff.
I used to think hunting was awful, that all hunters must have some strange bloodlust that I didn’t share. Until I met some quite sane hunters, and looked into the way domesticated animals are reared. If you’re interested in animals leading a happy life, an instinctual life, and you’re concerned about animal welfare but don’t mind that we eat animals, hunting isn’t necessarily the evil some portray it to be. Keeping chickens and pigs confined their whole lives, forcing cattle to stand in their own poo at feedlots . . . these are more questionable pursuits.
My mate Ross is a strange contradiction when it comes to guns. He wants to hunt his own meat, but after he takes down a buck fawn (young male deer), he’s shaken and remorseful. I’ve been there when Ross has killed ducks and geese for our Rare Food lunch, when he’s tried to shoot rabbits, and he’s very respectful of the animals he kills. He doesn’t want them to suffer, and only takes what he needs, using as much of the animal as he can.
These arguments won’t convince those adamantly against hunting, but a good clean kill on a hunting trip is probably a better end to a better life than any commercially farmed animal usually gets. I watched as Ross’s single shot to the neck killed the deer, its life’s end less stressful than a domesticated beast being trucked to an abattoir. I felt strange about the kill but realised that seeing it was another part of finding out just where our food comes from. Before humans turned to farming, hunting was the way we used to get some of our most energy-dense, prized food.
Ross, Nick and I had gone hunting on a private farm in midwinter. My parents had given me some warm gear to help survive the season. A deerstalker was among the wardrobe they’d handed over. Fake fur, with the trademark fluffy ear covers—it was, to my travelling companions, quite hilarious to look at. All I knew was that it kept me warm.
The deer Ross shot, and I was complicit in, came back to Puggle Farm, where I hung it on the south side of the hill, under a lichen-covered tree out of the sun. Without a gamble, the coathanger-like piece of iron that is used for hanging meat, I had to dodgy one up using a small hoe between the deer’s legs and baling twine to keep it in place. I clunked myself about the head a bit with the blade of the hoe, trying to lift the deer high enough off the ground to keep it safe from quolls or passing dogs. I managed to hoist it up into the tree and tie it off, hoping the baling twine was as strong as it felt.
It’s good, I’d been told, to leave the deer hanging for three weeks in this cold climate to tenderise, while also allowing the flavour to become more interesting, fuller, as it ages. In fact, the best deer I’ve eaten was at a mate’s place in Bothwell, a historic town on the fringes of Tasmania’s Central Highlands, when Sadie and I were still courting. John Bignell had shot the deer on the property and hung it for a good month in the shade. The outer meat, apparently, makes good curry (or so the shearers’ cooks say). John saved the loin for the barbecue plate.
I could easily blame John’s venison for having wooed Sadie and enticed her to Tasmania. It was on the way back from Bothwell, after eating that sublime and wonderful piece of meat, that Sadie told me she’d be happy to move to Tassie. I’m not sure what made up her mind to risk living the rural life with me at Puggle Farm. Though I’m very glad she did.
Indian-style venison, brown onion and cardamom curry
Serves 4–5
The trick with a good curry often lies with the flavourings— especially fresh ‘herbs’ such as onion, ginger and garlic. In this curry they have to be gently browned by slow cooking. Faster cooking can also brown the onion, giving an okay but less persistent flavour, so the longer and slower you can cook it, the better. As usual with curry, it’s best the next day.
1–2 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee
1 kg (2 lb 4 oz) venison shanks, cut ossobuco style, or use goat or beef
2 large onions, finely sliced
salt and freshly milled black pepper
fat thumb of fresh ginger, finely grated
3 garlic cloves, crushed or grated
1 cinnamon stick
1–2 small dried red chillies
5 brown cardamom pods (or 20 smaller green ones)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
1 large tomato, chopped, or 200 g (7 oz) tinned diced Italian tomatoes
steamed basmati rice, pappadums and cucumber raita, to serve
Heat some oil or ghee in a large heavy-based saucepan over a medium heat and fry the meat until it goes a good tan colour. You may need to do this in two batches. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep to one side.
In the same pan, possibly adding more oil, fry the onion very slowly until it starts to colour. I like to add a bit of salt while it fries to draw out moisture. Add the ginger and garlic and keep frying, stirring often, until it all goes a glorious light brown colour. It may stick a bit, which is fine; just scrape the base of the pan with a wooden spatula if it looks like it may burn.
Add the cinnamon, chillies and cardamom pods to the pan, stir and fry until fragrant—about another 2 minutes. Stir in the cumin and coriander and fry for another 30 seconds. Throw in the tomato, return the meat to the pan, and add enough water to barely cover. Stir to rub off any stuck bits from the bottom. Season with salt and pepper, put a lid on and cook for about 1½ hours, or until the meat falls from the bone. You can do this in the oven at 150°C (300°F/Gas 2) if you like, but if you do it on the stovetop, stir occasionally to avoid it scorching on the bottom.
Serve with steamed basmati rice, pappadums and cucumber raita.
Rice
Hedley was born in August 2009. Right in the middle of a bleak, rainy winter when, through sheer bad management, we got all our firewood wet. Sadie moved in about a month before, having taken several months longer than she had planned to extricate herself from a business she owned in Sydney. I had to physically restrain her, at eight months pregnant, from splitting the wood. At the time I thought I was onto something—a mighty strong woman who had a good backswing with the splitter. Now I think back and she was probably just cold.
I was used to heating the house with wood. I cooked on wood. I used wood to heat water. And between these things, I kind of forgot about electricity. So when the firewood was so wet that it didn’t produce much heat, I’d bring in more firewood to stack close to the heater or on top of the cooker to dry out before it went in—a curious feedback loop that nearly caused me to burn the house down when some wood on top of the heater caught alight. Even when it didn’t smoulder on the top, the wet wood sucked the heat from the air, and was never truly dry when it did make it into the firebox.
We had pigs in mud. A cow in mud. Our feet in mud. You couldn’t walk in the paddocks without damaging them because they were so wet. The ten-year drought had broken in spectacular fashion, though at the time I thought drenching winter rains were normal. And in the middle of the downpours and the cold, at the tail end of a long, wonderful if sometimes exasperating winter, our baby was due. And we had to head away from our village to the nearest hospital to have him.
Staying in Hobart town to have Hedley was fraught. Not least because of hospital food. While Sadie was waiting to be induced, I went out to our favourite little Chinese joint and brought back dumplings, stir-fried beans wit
h minced pork and plenty of rice. With extra chilli, of course. We tried to induce the birth naturally.
The chilli, however, didn’t do its job, and the doctors intervened. There were worries about the size of our boy in utero—they reckoned his head was unusually large, a sign that he was cannibalising his body for nutrients, the result of a weakened placenta perhaps and reason enough to get him out a couple of weeks early. Or so they reckoned from the ultrasound.
Well, I was kind of expecting ET to be delivered into the world but, no. A perfectly normal, perfectly gorgeous (to his dad, anyway) little boy popped out and changed my life forever. And for the better.
A long way from home, but with room in the bed for me in the hospital’s birthing suite, we came to rely on our friends. And what friends they were—bringing homegrown and home-cooked food. The nurses said how unusual it was, to get fresh fruit mixed in with posies of flowers foraged from around our friends’ houses and neighbourhoods. To us, it was just normal. What do other people do when ensconced in hospital? Eat processed cheese and what tastes like packet mash while looking at gerberas held in place with wire?
After Hedley was born in Royal Hobart Hospital, for all the world looking more like a skinned rabbit than an extra-terrestrial, and we’d been away for a few days, the house was like ice. The hot water wasn’t hot, and there wasn’t a scrap of dry wood to be found. We battled on, though it wasn’t that much later that we finally realised the hot water tank had an electric backup. It just needed connecting. And that if the house was cold in the morning, you could always pop on an electric heater while the fire was rekindled. Electricity is really, really convenient. Who knew?
We slept downstairs for the first few days after we brought our boy home, the three of us camping for most of the day in the sitting room with the fire going. I’d venture outside to look after the livestock and the garden. What the possums had left of the garden by that stage.
The Dirty Chef Page 12