4 cups chicken stock
4 white peaches (yellow will do – or even 8 dried peach halves)
4 red dried chillies
1 red onion, chopped and sautéed in a little oil
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh coriander
Simmer everything except the coriander for 30 minutes. Strain. Add the coriander to the liquid and reheat – clear and sweet.
Duck Stuffed with Dried Peaches and Cou-cous, with Baked Peach Gravy
I can’t kill a duck, though I can kill chooks (who never realise what’s happening) and geese (who battle, so you feel you deserve the fruit of victory when you finally get them to the chopping block). But ducks know what’s happening. I killed one once and never will again. Which is why I make this with goose instead. But ducks are easier to get for those who rely on supermarkets, though I don’t like eating what I’m not prepared to kill.
[NOTE FROM 2010: These days I mostly eat feral animals, including surplus roosters or any food cooked for me with love. A moral omnivore – one who eats with gratitude and compassion.]
Take one duck. Make the stuffing from:
1 cup chopped dried peaches, soaked overnight in hot water, then drained
2 cups couscous, made according to directions on thepacket, very buttery
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon lemon thyme
Mix all the ingredients. Stuff into the duck – into the crop (the skin by the neck) as well as the cavity.
Roast the duck (the time will depend on the size of the duck – look at the back of the bag or wait till the leg wiggles when you push it). Add bottled peaches for the last 30 minutes. They’ll still be firm enough to scoop out and serve with the meat.
The juice makes a wonderful sauce. Don’t thicken it, but if you have any good red wine (cask stuff won’t do) add about the same amount of wine as you have liquid in the pan (pour off the fat first) and bubble for 3 minutes.
July 10
‘And how long have you lived here?’ she asked.
‘Twenty-something years,’ I said, and she looked astonished, as after all I’m not that old – it’s just that I’ve lived here almost all of my adult life.
It’s a sad comment on the 1990s that when you tell people you’ve lived in a place for twenty years, they usually say (in a tone that combines condescension and mild amusement with pity): ‘That’s a long time.’
It isn’t. It’s an incredibly short time – just enough time to begin to speak the language of the land and animals around you.
I’m perpetually horrified at how short term most studies are – whether they’re PhD studies on wombats or observation periods on genetically engineered plants or viruses. It only takes three years to do a PhD – of which perhaps a year may be fieldwork – and most university or industry research projects want money-making results after three years.
Three years isn’t enough to understand anything in a biological system – there are too many variables. Wombat behaviour varies according to the season and the generation of wombats. In fact you could almost say wombats have a sort of rudimentary culture, as do lyrebirds…but that’s another topic altogether.
Just counting hoverfly numbers over the past twenty years I’ve noticed enormous variations – how some plants attract them in dry years; others when the temperature is over about twenty-six degrees Celsius; how they cluster over certain plants, like alyssum, when the bee numbers build up on other preferred foods (bees will oust hoverflies) – in fact the more I look at them the more I realise you can’t just generalise and say ‘such and such attracts hoverflies’. (On the other hand, if you plant masses of white alyssum you won’t go far wrong either.)
Living in a place changes you – as you change it. I don’t know if the land here has changed me more than I’ve changed the land – I reckon we’re probably running neck and neck. But it isn’t a short-term operation – or even something that takes place without a long-term commitment to each other.
Twenty years is nothing when you think of a lifetime spent watching and understanding – or many lifetimes, the heritage passed on from generation to generation.
But it’s been a good twenty years.
July 11
It’s only when you have your hands deep in greasy washing-up that you realise how cold they were. It’s a sort of seeping coldness, whispering into your bones so no matter how much toasting your skin gets by the fire you aren’t really warm.
I’m just grouching because I want the sun again. The last four days have been cloudy – grey sky, grey air, grey creek, grey smoke just sitting above the house because there isn’t enough wind to lift it from the chimney. Even the gum leaves look grey. Bryan has begun to worry about running out of power now the sun is no longer feeding the solar panels and thence the batteries; so we hesitate to put the light on till it’s dark outside.
When I was a child I used to hate the dark. Now I love it – the scents of night, the colours – different colours, purples and rich greens – the softness of the air when the sun has sunk below the ridge. But I still hate it when it’s grey.
I felt my wet hair freeze to my ears when I fed Pudge this morning. Pudge of course is well insulated – fat and fur.
The Perfect Potato Cake
These are Vladimir’s mum’s potato cakes, for very grey days when you need carbohydrate for lunch to cheer you up. (Blast it! If it has to be cloudy, why can’t it rain?)
Vlad grew up in what was at one stage Yugoslavia. He spent his adolescence evading the Germans, taking parties of Jews and other refugees across the river, so he became an incredible swimmer. (When the water from the dam above his house was released in a flood last year and the water rose above the rooftops one night in a sudden terrifying rush, Vlad swam almost half a mile through the cold dark water with the town’s inhabitants shining their car lights to show him the way and cheering as they saw him approach. He survived, though none of his possessions did.)
When he got back home as a youth, he said, his mum gave him potato cakes to warm him up. He first made them for me about twelve years ago and I’ve been making them ever since; though mine haven’t quite the rubberiness, the lovely garlicky meatiness, of Vlad’s.
4 medium grated potatoes
1 small grated onion
4 tablespoons plain flour
2 eggs
chopped parsley chopped chives or garlic chives
lots of black pepper
salt (optional)
olive oil for frying
OPTIONAL
grated carrots (up to 60 per cent)
chopped ham or bacon
chopped salmon or tuna
chunks of yabby or lobster
lots of garlic – finely chopped, not crushed
Combine all the ingredients (except the oil). Fry small spoonfuls in olive oil till brown on both sides. Serve hot.
Note: Each potato cake should be small and thin, or else the raw potato and onion won’t cook properly.
July 13
Wind last night, moaning up the ridge at first (wind really does moan; or maybe the earth moans as the wind passes across it), then whispering down into the valley then suddenly shouting right against the house, so the roof shook and the doors chattered. We don’t get much wind down here – it usually blows across the ridges – but when we do get a gust, it’s a beauty.
But the wind has chased away the cloud. The sky seems to shiver, it’s so clear, so the wind is probably still raging high above. The ground of course is even drier – cement dry – and the leaves are dropping as though to hide themselves from the wind.
Bad Bart was back this afternoon; I thought there’d been a lot of snarling in the night. I ignored him, so he tried to bite my ugh boot upon which I shrieked and ran inside and he looked hurt and startled as though to say: ‘I was just saying hello.’
I thought he’d wandered off but he was back nineteen seconds after I’d poured out Three-and-a-half�
��s afternoon snack (she arrives a few hours earlier than Chocolate).
Pudge now comes about 10 p.m. or just as we’ve gone to bed, so I have to traipse downstairs to get her tucker, otherwise she bashes up the garbage bin all night, which is not conducive to restful repose. She doesn’t say thank you either, just pushes her face oatwards, so that half of the oats fall on her snout and she looks ridiculous – a snow-covered wombat.
I don’t know what to do about Bad Bart. I doubt we can re-educate him. You don’t educate wombats. Wombats are the most solipsistic creatures in the universe (apologies to all aliens who may be reading this). You can never teach a wombat to feel ashamed, or that it’s done something wrong. Though of course you can make a wombat scared of you.
I don’t want to frighten Bad Bart. I just want him to leave my knees alone. Neither works terribly well as it is…
‘Don’t feed him,’ says Bryan.
To which I say: ‘I don’t – he eats the other wombats’ food.’
‘Don’t feed any of them then till he gets the message and goes away.’
But I can’t do that – the wombats have me programmed. When they yip or huff or bash the garbage bin, I grab the oats and carrots and obey.
Lemon, Lime, Grapefruit or Mandarin Butter
All these fruits are ripe now. I wonder why I planted quite so many lime trees – not that the cafe minds, because they can make lime tart – and eight grapefruit trees, when we really only need about a sixth of a grapefruit tree for our needs and our friends’. No one likes grapefruit much. I’ve suggested recipes to the cafe, but they weren’t inspired. Even the bowerbirds eat the other citrus before they get stuck into them.
This recipe is more tart than most lemon butters – I like a tangy one.
125 grams butter or margarine
juice of 6 lemons or 10 limes or 5 grapefruit or 3 lemons and 3 mandarins
finely grated rind of however many citrus fruits you can be bothered to grate
200 grams caster sugar
4 beaten eggs or 2 beaten eggs and 2 teaspoons cornflour in a little of the juice
Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook as slowly as you can, stirring all the time till the mixture starts to thicken and coats the spoon. Place in small clean jars, seal and keep in a cool place till needed. Keeps for two months or more in the fridge but loses its best flavour quickly. If you keep it in the fridge, let it warm to room temperature before you eat it.
Serve in tarts, on toast, scones, pikelets or cakes – or just eat it with a spoon.
July 15
Finally a real frost, the sort where the grass snaps when you tread on it. The top of the car was pimpled with ice this morning, and the windscreen was frozen so I had to flap upstairs in my ugh boots and get a saucepan of water (by which time E had discovered that the hose wasn’t frozen, as I’d assumed, and had washed the ice off himself).
The long black stretches of soil where Noel intends to plant new trees are white topped and the brown grass is frozen solid. I don’t know how the blossom is faring; last season’s late frosts destroyed all the lower fruit on several of the orchards. You always get more frosts in dry years; and this winter is certainly dry.
There’ve been about three glorious hours each day the last week – from about noon, when the sun has finally managed to warm the air, to three o’clock, when the sun is so low that the trees on the horizon suck out its warmth. That’s when the wombats come out to sunbake, and lie in the dust in the farm tracks or in special wombat sits they’ve rolled bare themselves, fluffy stomachs exposed to the sky.
The chooks are laying again – in the lavender bushes, not in their boxes. I don’t know why they’re so fond of lavender. Maybe they think it hides that odour de chook from marauding foxes; maybe the lavender dust and detritus repel pests. On the other hand I like lavender too, and don’t give any excuse for it.
It’s a nuisance trying to find the eggs but very fragrant.
Friends to dinner last night; the sort of night when you need to have a hot drink waiting for them by the time they’ve stumbled up the stairs in the dark (we never remember to tell guests to bring torches), tripped over frozen wombat droppings and been attacked by Bad Bart. (‘Isn’t he sweet?’ said one; so I didn’t mention they were lucky to escape with their kneecaps.)
A Classic Bishop
Never boil your bishop. It spoils the taste. A bishop is a hot port drink – you’ll find it in Dickens – very good, and not as potent as one might think. No, I’m not denigrating the power of the Church – I only mean that most of the alcohol evaporates with heating.
1 bottle of reasonable port
1 orange with two cloves stuck in it
sugar to taste (but you may not need any)
Heat the cloved orange in the microwave for a few seconds or in the oven till it’s hot. (A hundred years ago you would have toasted it by the fire.)
Add the orange to the port, heat as slowly as possible to just below simmering – use the lowest possible heat, as the longer it takes to heat the better the flavour. Add sugar to taste.
Serve hot.
Lamb’s Wool
4 cups milk
a large glop of brandy or whisky – better, but not traditional (see note)
4 cups stewed apple, whipped to a fluffy pulp and well sweetened with brown sugar
4 cups whipped cream
nutmeg to taste
Put the milk, brandy and apple in a pan. Heat very slowly till warm, whipping with a whisk (if possible) or a wooden spoon all the time. Stir in whipped cream. Take off heat.
Serve hot, each cup dusted with nutmeg.
Note: If you want to make a non-alcoholic lamb’s wool, omit the brandy and add a vanilla bean instead (remove it before serving). You can of course add a dash of vanilla instead of a bean, but vanilla essence has alcohol added and it doesn’t work as well anyway.
Hot Punch
As served to heroes in Restoration Romances.
1 cup rum
1 cup brandy
3 cups sugar
3 sliced lemons
3 sliced oranges
a good grate of nutmeg
boiling water (see note)
Place all the ingredients in a saucepan over very low heat or by a strong fire. Stir well till the sugar is dissolved. Serve hot and beware of hangovers.
Note: The traditional recipe uses 1 pint (600 millilitres) of boiling water – which makes a very strong drink. I add much more – but then I don’t have my mind on seduction.
July 17
Dug roots this morning and this afternoon, till the shadows rose as the sun dropped and I dashed indoors to warm my hands. It was hard work – the soil is baked dust, drier than concrete.
Winter is a great time for roots. We eat a lot of roots in winter – proper cultivated roots like spuds and beetroot and carrots and some wilder harvests like dandelions and dock and burdock and kangaroo berry and kurrajong and bracken (the latter are eaten just for fun). There are hundreds of wild edibles around here – but it’s a hell of a lot easier to harvest the garden.
All roots are best in winter. The cold softens them and makes them sweeter. Beetroot always tastes insipid in summer. You need winter for real beetroot richness.
Beetroot Salad
I love winter salads of beetroot. I know it sounds disgusting. But even Bryan – who’s definitely a spuds, gravy and vegies man with an absolute minimum of raw or rabbit food – eats it. And it’s quick to make and always in the garden.
beetroots, peeled and finely grated (see note)
equal amount of grated carrot
equal amount of finely chopped parsley
a good, very mustardy garlic dressing
OPTIONAL
walnuts or toasted pine nuts or a few sesame seeds
hunks of steamed new potatoes dressed with a little sesame oil and a few sesame seeds
Mix together the beetroot, carrot and parsley and toss with the dressing. Add walnuts or potatoe
s if you wish.
Note: Peel the vegetables because beetroot peel can be bitter (so can carrot skin). There’s no need to cook them, though you can if you like.
Wild Roots
Wild roots can be good. Not very good – if they were very good they’d have been domesticated. But not bad either and fun for kids. Kids love wild harvests. I used to set E and his mates to pulling up bracken roots to roast every time we had a barbecue. They’re too sophisticated now…
The bracken roots didn’t actually taste of much and were incredibly fibrous – but we did get rid of a lot of bracken.
Dock roots taste like they’re good for you, just like dandelion roots. Dock and burdock roots are diuretic and laxative and are supposed to clear the body of toxins – and a good deal else I suspect.
Dandelion root is used as a liver stimulant and prescribed for gout and eczema and pimples and gallstones and sometimes rheumatism. They’re also laxative and diuretic. Don’t eat them before you go to bed unless you have an ensuite or a bucket, but a meal or two of them won’t give you diarrhoea.
Dock, burdock and dandelion roots taste best baked in cider with a dab of butter till tender – which is a waste of good cider and butter.
Celery Root
I love celery root. It used to be used as a laxative (don’t worry – not very), diuretic, digestive remedy and so on, but unlike the others it really tastes good – a sort of super celery taste. After digging it, clean it well (grit does not add to its healthful or culinary properties).
Year in the Valley Page 23