Hungry Planet

There are defining moments in everyone's lives. Sadly you won't remember most of them. Your first steps are confined to the memories of your parents, excited by watching their baby morph into a toddler and terrified at the prospect of their once immobile child being able to move around at free will. Your first day at school, possibly memories or possibly recollections pieced together from photographs of the event. I myself do remember the clown themed briefcase I merrily carried out into the world that day. Your first kiss, okay you should remember this one but if you are anything like me it is lost in the haze of the excess of alcohol consumed on the night and the unrelenting effects of time.

I do however have one very clear memory of one very defining moment, so clear it's as if the adrenaline that pumped through my veins that day dug a deep scar to remind me in the future what terror really is. It is the moment I knew for sure, if it came down to it, if my life was really in danger, where instinct would take me. It's the phenomenon known as fight or flight and I know without a doubt that my instinctive reaction is flight.

There is of course a story that goes with this, there is always a story. Mine, for the last fifteen years has been an amusing anecdote to tell at the pub. I was never in danger but turns out you have no control over what flashes through your mind in the moments where your brain perceives a serious threat to your life and in turn I discovered you have no control over what actions your physical form will take in said situation.

Let's go back there. It was a very recently post 9/11 world. Those first few years after the towers came down and the US closed their airspace, grounding every aircraft from passenger carrying airliners to crop dusters, were tense to say the least. Terrorism was of course not a new concept but this event certainly set a new benchmark and we can safely say the world was a changed place. At the time this story takes place I was 21, on my first overseas trip without the safety net of family or even friends and had just crossed the English Channel accompanied by fifty new acquaintances, I was on the obligatory Contiki tour, 11 countries in 21 days, first stop Paris.

I had already settled into my clique, a social circle sitting well outside of the cool crowd where I was comfortable not having to impress my peers and could just be myself. Even at a young age I was confident in my place in the world having progressed through high school with a group of friends a little left of centre and proud of it. Fun was always the order of the day taking priority over goals such as the perfect hair and makeup.

Paris, as you would expect for a first timer, was magnificent. Having viewed the city from the Eiffel Tower in the dusky light of a spring evening it had done what Paris does, charm. Over the years working as a travel agent people have spouted a lot of shit about Paris to me...the people are rude, the streets smell like dog poop, the people are rude. And on a bad day, in the wrong light there is an iota of truth to it but if you aren't charmed by the meeting of art, architecture and one of the greatest cuisines in the world you should question if you are possibly dead inside.

So back to the story, we had one day in Paris. That is what the Contiki tour schedule allowed, one day. We completed the sprint through the Louvre to photograph the Mona Lisa, the only piece of art worthy of a 21 year olds attention, we took a snap of the Arch De Triumph (no time to scale it) and we glimpsed the Seine from the Pont Alexandre III, my 3/4 khaki cargo pants and practical sandals not quite worthy of it's gilded fames and posed nymphs.

One more stop to make, the flying buttresses and rose windows of the Notre Dame. As an atheist it astounds me as to the quantity of cathedrals I have visited but if anyone can afford tourism-worthy architecture with all the trimmings it's the tax exempt Catholic church. But first there was a physical need to take care of, a bathroom stop. Bathrooms in Europe are hard to find and never free, it's like the penance you have to pay as a noisy, street clogging tourist. At the Notre Dame the bathrooms reside out in the courtyard in front of the church, down a staircase and into a cavernous room built well underground where no natural light can creep in. As we descended the stairs there was a large group of school children queued up waiting their turn. Frustrated, we lined up knowing there was little choice, it was pee here or forever hold your peace.

The children were doing what children do. Little boys darted from the urinals to the girls cubicles in hopes of catching one with their skirts up. They slid under the turnstiles to get away without paying the fee and the squeals echoed off the cavern walls creating a cacophony of noise that was beginning to agitate the heavy-breasted black ladies who were trying to keep order. We neared the front of the queue, only a few stray children in front and a few more forming behind us when the lights went out. In an instant the room was as dark as your deepest nightmare, children howled and before I had time to react there was the loud whining of what could only be described as a world war two air raid siren. It was the type of noise that elicits an immediate response. It isn't one many people will have heard in real life, only in movies. It's an unmistakable warning that attack is imminent, that bombs are going to fall and destruction is on it's way.

Thinking back on it now it felt like not a single thought went through my head, my reaction was entirely instinctual like a lion taking down a gazelle on the African Savannah. This was survival. I grabbed the arm of the girl with me (glad to see I thought of someone other than myself) and in the pitch dark I ran towards what I thought was the direction of the entrance. Invisible children tangled under foot, I tripped over something hollow, a metal construction that bounced aside as a ran, possibly a garbage bin. As I saw the light coming down the stairwell vivid flashes of what I might find at ground level started to enter my mind. I imagined carnage, blood, chaos, all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack. People have since pointed out to me if there really was a terrorist attack I would have been better off underground than running into the melee but instinct doesn't work like that. I needed to be out of the darkness, away from that wailing siren making the blood course hard through my veins with fear and adrenaline.

Dragging my companion roughly behind me we emerged into the sunshine like divers pursued by a hungry shark breaching the ocean's surface. My mind took a moment to assess what was happening around me. Tourists lazed in the spring sunshine, kicking their shoes off to enjoy patches of grass, children ate ice cream without a care in the world, there was nothing to indicate the underground horror we had just escaped.

I looked from my shaking hands to my new travelling companion. I couldn't form the words to express my confusion and fear. She looked mildly rattled but was able to let out a giggle, an emotional state I was far from. We walked away from the stairwell, my brain ticking over as to the possible scenarios as to what had happened when my companion informed me that I had missed the key action that explained the situation. One of the women running the facility had become so infuriated by the misbehaving children that she threw a switch behind the desk which plunged the room into darkness and set off the siren. The explanation circled in my head but wouldn't soak in. My heightened state wouldn't allow me to fully process the how and why of it. Over the course of the last fifteen years I have concluded that we were in an old air raid bunker turned bathroom and for some unknown reason the siren had never been disabled. I have also never been able to understand why I was the only one in that bunker that day who reacted in such a way. Everyone else stood in place and rode it out. Maybe others saw the switch being flicked or maybe I have a greater sense of self preservation.

It also came to remind me of the stories told post 9/11. Those in the upper floors of the second tower were told to stay put after the first plane hit and the tower next door was engulfed in flames. A small minority of people chose to ignore the instruction, sensing mortal danger they let instinct override direction from authority and made their way down the fire escape only to find everyone else on their floor died when the second plane hit their tower. I like to think this is the instinct that resides in me.

For years I have retold that story, starting with our fellow Contiki travellers, then to my parents, standing in the lobby of the Moulin Rouge that night telling them how I thought I was going to die that day and on and on to friends and colleagues usually over a few drinks, it always elicits a good laugh and I tell it with dramatic effect and much hand motion, embellishing a little here and there. After each retelling the story loses something, there is no way to convey fear on that level, it has become much more humorous than it started out, as do many of the best travel stories. Those times we are most uncomfortable, when you think things are at their worst, if you happen to survive... and generally most do, what a tale you have to tell.

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Originally posted on Sunday, 7 October 2018 by Tenele

I love the idea of never eating the same dish twice. It was an idea that came from New York Times food writer Amanda Hesser and sometime ago I wrote a blog post on. The idea fascinates me on the level that there are so many food experiences out there you could actually do that and from the level that life is fuelled by new experiences.

But I have found out whilst I am always pushing the boundaries there are just some flavour combinations that dig deep under your skin and refuse to be silent.

Until re-reading that original article just now I had completely forgotten that I mentioned Pho as a dish that I keep coming back to. Pho is well known across the world now, but the first time I tried it at Pho 2000 in Saigon at the same table as Bill and Chelsea Clinton (not with them but there is a photo of them eating at that table under the glass) I had never heard of it. It was love at first taste of course. That unctuous meaty broth offset by the bright herbs and the zing of lime and chilli, the slurping of the rice noodles and the cold crunch of the bean sprouts it's the type of meal that you could never tire of.

The popularity of the dish has spawned a million bad reproductions. I quite often order Pho if it is on the menu and it ranges from a sad, watery soup with tired herbs and no pizzaz to decent bowls where an attempt has been made to actually cook it from bones. Probably the best version I have had in Australia is at Saigon Sally in Melbourne.

In saying that nothing has compared to the real thing, a part of that is the fact you can never replicate the first time you consume a dish in its home country. There is magical quality about the smells and sounds and the excitement that comes with travel. But then I started making Pho myself and it all changed. My homemade Pho from scratch is done the traditional way with kilos of bones and marrow all cooked down for many hours until you have a broth that is thick with gelatin and when cold, sets into a jelly. I think that is the true test of a good Pho and I would say 90% of those I have had in restaurants would still be the same watery mess after a night in the fridge.

I have made Saigon style Pho maybe 4-5 times. It is what I am familiar with from travelling, a sweet broth with a wide range of dressings and finishings. I decided it was time to branch out and make the northern Vietnamese version, a Hanoi style Pho.

If you have ever read my blog you will know that I always turn to an expert when I first get started with a recipe and my favourite recipe for the Saigon style Pho is by Andrea Nguyen from her cookbook The Pho Cookbook.

The method for the Hanoi version is the same, it isn't a totally different dish, it is just the flavour profiles that differ. The Hanoi version has more spices, this recipes uses star anise, fennel, black cardamom and cinnamon. There is also dried shrimp or scallops in this recipe which boosts the umami of the dish. The final dressings are also more paired back. The final Hanoi dish is seasoned with fish sauce which is a must and topped with mint, coriander, shallots (scallions), chilli and finished with garlic vinegar. The Saigon has rock sugar in the broth which makes it sweet and is finished with bean sprouts, coriander, basil, onion, lime and a range of sauces like hoisin and chilli sauce.

The garlic vinegar intrigued me. This wasn't something I has seen before and I love tart tastes. It is very simple to make, it is just rice vinegar with some thai chillis and garlic soaked in it. I tried the soup before adding it and it was so good I was hesitant but Andrea had explained it is something that the northerners grow up with so I had to try it and wow, it really lifts the dish. It does for it what the lime does for the Saigon version, adding a brightness to something that is very deep and rich.

You can also differ what you have in the soup. The Saigon version I have a preference for beef balls and Andrea provides a great recipe for these and the Hanoi version I went with the cooked brisket which is done in the broth and taken out half way through the cooking process, cooled and thinly sliced. In both versions I also go with the rare beef and I use eye fillet which is a little extravagant but it is just so tender when lightly cooked by the broth.

If time permits I also add extra water at the beginning and cook for longer. At the point I want it to stop reducing I add the lid and let it simmer away, slowly enhancing and enriching the flavours. Andrea recommend 3 hours but I will do for 6-8 hours. The more I can extract from those bones the tastier the broth is. I have done one overnight before but I think at 8 hours you are close to peak awesomeness but it can't hurt if you have the time.

From the two styles I don't think I could pick a favourite. As long as you have chosen a good recipe for each then you will have a meal that will melt your brain. I do love the additional layers of spices in the Hanoi version but on the other hand a sweet broth with those springy beef balls has it's place too.

I can't encourage you enough to try making Pho at home. Unless you live in Vietnam you will struggle to get the type of quality you can make yourself.

It's also a great dish to go have a chat to your local butcher about. There is nothing better than to have a butcher rummage around out the back and find you marrow bones, oxtail and pigs trotters. They can cut it all to size for you for your stock pot and can tailor your cuts of meat and bones to your preference. Andrea has a great section in the book all about sourcing and selecting the right bones. It does make a difference as you do want marrow and collagen to thicken the soup and create that jelly effect. It's what really sets apart a good Pho and one made from a powdered packet mix which really should be outlawed.

Serve the soup with the accompaniments on the side so eaters can tailor the flavours to their preference.

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Originally posted on Sunday, 19 August 2018 by Tenele

It has been too long since I have dedicated a whole week to cooking one cuisine so I set my mind to the task and I scanned my cookbooks, so much choice, so many good books, so many exciting cuisines and then my eye settled on my Korean cookbook collection. Three books in total wholly dedicated to one cuisine and I hadn't made a single thing from any of them. What a crime.

There was a reason I hadn't actually cooked from any of them and it was total intimidation. We had eaten at Korean restaurants but stuck to the tamer side of the menu, Korean Fried Chicken mainly! But the Korean penchant for fermentation and the long lists of hard to find ingredients had kept me away from cooking it myself.

Facing your fears is a good philosophy to have so with that in mind I sat down with my Korean cookbook collection to peruse the options.



The tamest of the beasts was Little Korea by Billy Law. Working from books written for an Australian audience always simplifies things. The ingredients are based around those available here (be it in regular supermarkets or Asian groceries). Chillis for example, in an American cookbooks they are often based around the readily available Mexican varieties whereas Australian books focus on the south east asian chillis available in a regular supermarket. It also turned out to be one of those books where I was more excited than intimidated by many of the recipes, they are presented in a straightforward fashion all achievable by the home cook.

I knew I had to select some banchan as they seem to be the cornerstone of Korean cooking and if you have ever been to a Korean restaurant are the strange little dishes placed on the table before the meal, essentially tiny side dishes. We had these with beef bulgogi (from Maangchi's book, see below) and grilled pork belly which we cooked on the grill on a burner at the table. I just love cooking your own food at the table. The bulgogi was served with lettuce leaves to wrap it in and a spicy dipping sauce called ssamjang and the pork was accompanied by a salt and pepper dipping sauce called Gireumjang which primarily consisted of sesame oil (like much Korean cooking I was to find out).


We also cooked Billy's Korean fried chicken with sweet and spicy sauce (Yangnyeam in Korean) and really you can't go wrong with deep fried chicken, equal parts sweet and spicy it was succulent and delicious. We served this with a very odd ingredient that I have never heard of before, pan fried spicy rice cakes. They were a little tricky to find but so glad we hunted them down. Their chewy texture works great with the spicy char this recipe calls for when cooking.

One of my favourite recipes from Billy's book was the stir-fried spicy pork, a pretty tame place to start for a novice to Korean food and very easy to whip up for a weeknight dinner. I was surprised to see pork shoulder recommend as the cut of meat, I have never used pork shoulder in any other form other than slow cooking and thinly sliced as called for in this recipe and stir fried it was so good. A little more chew than say tenderloin but with more flavour which stood up well against the main seasoning, gochujang which is a chilli paste you will come to know well if cooking Korean food.

I also ended up making Spicy Garlic Fried Chicken (Kkanpunggi). It wasn't in the original plan but when I was done with all the recipes I had planned out I had enough left over ingredients to make this Korean spin on Kung Pao Chicken which is one of my all time favourite Chinese dishes. This was another absolute cracker of a dish. Easy weeknight cooking that packed a real bang of flavour.

The next go to book was Korean Food Made Simple by Judy Joo and whilst I liked the look of a lot of the recipes here there wasn't quite as many that really excited me. I decided to go for a stew as I had been wanting to try a Korean stew at a restaurant but had not yet had the chance. Turns out the pork and kimchi stew was the highlight of the week. I was expecting something with much more fermented funk due to the kimchi but it turned out so sweet with the perfect level of spice. I rarely eat tofu and it's silky texture was perfect with the chewy pork belly and crunchy cabbage.I think I actually preferred the tofu to the pork. It was lucky I did enjoy it, much like the stir fried pork, there was so much in the way of leftovers I ended up eating it for lunch for days.


If you are looking for a real reference book to get you started cooking Korean then Maangchi's Real Korean Cooking covers lots more than just recipes. As a well known writer of a Korean cooking blog and Korean native Maangchi really knows her stuff. You will find a large reference section on Korean ingredients and where to find them which I referred to quite a bit when planning my menu and you will also find the largest selection of recipes of the three books, including some on the more intimidating side. I chose to cook the Bulgogi to go with the Korean BBQ I mentioned above. I have had a lot of experience with Bulgogi of the Costco variety. I love to keep it in my freezer as a go to on nights I want something quick. I knew deep down this is low quality Bulgogi. It is light on in seasoning and the meat is poor quality. This seemed like the perfect chance to try the real thing.  With a nice hunk of high end sirloin I marinated overnight to impart deep flavour I was thrilled with the result. A good cut of meat makes all the difference and this was so tender and with the mix of pear, soy, garlic, sesame, honey, pepper and scallions it packed a lot more flavour than the ready made variety. Cooked fresh at the table, wrapped up in the cos lettuce and smeared with the spicy dipping sauce it was a fantastic meal.

On to Charmain Solomans book The Complete Asian Cookbook. You might find a copy of this lurking around your mothers house, it's a classic and in it's day quite the work of art I would imagine. The Korean section is brief and a tad confusing. The recipes are very brief and lacking in the hallmarks of Korean cooking such as Kimchi. I always wonder with older books, if the disconnect is due to the fact the author had never been to the country or because they have adjusted the recipes to suit the availability of the ingredients at that point in time in the country the book was written for. I made the Beef Stew (Yukkae Jang Kuk) which involved slow cooking some beef and then stirring through a huge quantity of spring onions and some rice vermicilli. The end result was edible but the flavour combinations and the texture of the shredded beef and the rice vermicilli was a little strange. I haven't spotted anything like it in my modern Korean cookbooks and online the dish exists but not in the form presented in Charmain's book. So that one will forever remain a mystery to me but the whole purpose of cooking one cuisine for a week is to experience a range of perspectives on the food of a nation and Charmains perspective from a book written in 1976 is still relevant and worth exploring even if it is just a contrast to what is now available 42 years later and how much the world has opened up.

Things that surprised me from cooking Korean food:

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Originally posted on Sunday, 22 July 2018 by Tenele

If you read my blog you will know that I love to pick a cuisine a immerse myself in cooking the flavours of that one country for a whole week. Without the structure of cooking to a theme I find myself flitting between a new set of flavours every day of the week and never getting to know much of any of them. In itself that isn't a bad thing. New experiences fuel the mind and keep your taste buds guessing but from time to time I like to hunker down a cook a range of different styles of dishes all from one nation to get a wider scope of the food of that particular country.

Recently I was browsing the cookbooks looking for a new theme and my husband decided he would like to pick the theme. Okay, why not I thought, I could try something new. I waited eagerly for the theme, what would it be Peru, Sweden maybe West Africa? "Sour Cream" he said. I looked at him blankly, that was not a cuisine. "Sour Cream" he insisted and I shut him down, you can't cook with sour cream for a whole week, it's barely an ingredient, more of a side sauce. "Sour Cream", he seemed pretty certain of this so we started to look into what recipes from what nations we could cook that incorporated or featured sour cream as an ingredient.

This is one of my favourite parts of the process, We log into our cookbook indexing system, Eat Your Books (if you have a large cookbook collection I can't recommend this highly enough) and we enter the ingredient sour cream from my indexed books I have 263 recipes that contain sour cream to choose from.

Seemed like we had to set some criteria here. We decided that the recipes all had to come from different countries. They also had to contain considerable amounts of sour cream, not just a teaspoon or a tablespoon and as usual they had to be recipes new to us, nothing we had cooked before and all from different cookbooks to gain the widest spread of experiences.



The first recipe selection was Schnitzel of Pork from "The Art of Living According to Joe Beef". If you have ever seen Frederic Morin and David McMillan on Anthony Bourdain's no reservations you will know these guys like to live life large, hence the title of the book. I loved the idea of this recipe as it goes to show, done the right way Schnitzel doesn't have to be confined to the realms of dodgy pub food. If the restaurant Joe Beef can serve schnitzel twice a year alongside ingredients such as morels and chanterelles then there must be a way to elevate this dish from pub grub to restaurant fare. You might be wondering where the sour cream is.  Surprisingly this recipe has a whole cup of sour cream. It is mixed with eggs and nutmeg to form the wet base that the panko crumb adheres to. It is certainly a subtle addition to the flavour but under that super crunchy friend panko crumb the sour cream is there adding a little funk and a little moist texture. We paired the schnitzel with another Joe Beef recipe, Baked Mushrooms where you roast mushrooms in a mixture of butter, thyme and smoky paprika (the good Spanish stuff works best) and we also added some roasted dutch carrots and whoa this meal was rockin. The schnitzel was so good a sauce would have ruined it so we ate it with a sprinkle of lemon juice and it is all it needed.



The next recipe selection pretty much changed my life, meatballs can have that effect. The recipe, Arline Ryan's Swedish Meatballs with Sour Cream from the cookbook Heirloom Cooking with the Brass Sisters by Marilyn and Sheila Brass. This book is an exploration of a century of North American cooking traditions by researching vintage recipes found in handwritten cookbooks and recipe boxes. What a great concept for a cookbook, so many recipes are lost to time, this way they can be immortalised and if the image of these two little ladies on the cover doesn't melt your heart you are made of stone my friend. According to the sisters this recipe came from a handwritten index card found in Indiana and is an heirloom. We can only guess that it has Swedish heritage. Veal and pork mince are processed with onion, cream, crackers, nutmeg and salt and pepper and formed into little balls and then cooked in a sauce of their own cooking juices, wine, chicken stock and my hero ingredient sour cream. Paired with a wide pasta to soak up all that lucious sauce this dish will make you lament your next serve of Ikea Swedish meatballs, they are that good. The sour cream gives the sauce a creamy tang and with the white wine which adds a zing it is so moreish.


We seemed to be on a European bender here so we thought, why not one more to round it out to a trio and who does sour cream more justice than the Eastern Europeans. We went with that old nugget, Hungarian Goulash. It's not a sexy dish, most Eastern European tradition cooking has that down home comfort vibe that is totally my thing. According to Eat Your Books I had eight Goulash recipes to choose from and we went with Bruce Aidells version in his complete book of pork. Bruce is a man of my heart, in his introduction we says he is a restless cook and an adventurous eater, always exploring new culinary horizons and talk about cooking to a theme, a whole book about pork! The pairing of the bacon and pork butt with the onions, sauerkraut and all that paprika just wouldn't be complete without large lashings of sour cream to temper the richness of all those strong flavours. The sour cream is a mighty thing here, is carries all those flavours and well as adding that subtle fermented funk of its own.


Moving a little further south we headed to Jerusalem with Yotam Ottolenghi. There is no excuse needed to cook a Yotam dish, they are always culinary perfection and this one was no different. This time we chose a dish where the sour cream is an accompaniment, appearing here as a soured cream with sumac sauce alongside turkey and courgette burgers. This was not a cop out though, it is an example of the fact that some dishes would be incomplete without the perfect sauce and in this case it is absolutely true. Whilst the burgers themselves were delicious with flavours of mint, coriander and cumin it really needed the moistness of the sour cream sauce which is used as a vessel to carry the tartness of the sumac which adds a much needed kick to the dish. We paired the burgers with Yotam's Basmati & wild rice with chickpeas, currants and herbs which I must say is my absolute favourite rice dish ever and I an a rice addict.


To round out the week we thought it best to head away from the continent and over to the US to shake things up with Buffalo chicken wings from The American Cookbook. Again this is a side dish of sour cream made into a blue cheese dressing and maybe it was a cop out to go for a second dish where the sour cream is a part of the accompaniment and not the main but after you have tried this dipping sauce paired with the crispy, spicy and sweet chicken wings you won't care. It will rock your world as it did mine. The deep weirdness of blue cheese and the fermented dairy flavours of sour cream together, it is a resounding YES from me!

It was a week of discovery, it was a week of fermented flavours and a week of excess kilos. Only question left is...what theme will be next?

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Originally posted on Sunday, 4 February 2018 by Tenele