by Crikey intern Tristan Price
Many claim that they could tingle the tastebuds of George, Gary and Matt in front of millions of Australian viewers . But secretly, we know the pressure of getting culinary for the Big Three (not a comment on their physical size) just might baste our turkey. So what would our signature dishes be if we were auditioning for MasterChef?
Sophie Black, editor – Roast. Any kind, really. Depends on my mood. It’s all in the potatoes. My mum taught me. Par boil, drain, shake around. Get em fluffy so they crisp up. Save your potato water for the gravy. That and the fat. Lottts of fat. And rub salt into the pork for good crackle. And lamb skin. Mmmm lamb skin. If you cook roast chicken, stick butter, sage and thyme under its skin. And shove a lemon up its bum.
So that’s my speciality really: taters, shit hot gravy, and crackle. It’s all about the fat.
Ruth Brown, website editor – I make a pretty mean tofu stir fry, but I’ll have to say my raw chocolate brownies. It’s just nuts, raw cocoa and fresh dates blended together into soft and chewy balls — not exactly a croquembouche — but it’s a consistent crowd pleaser, takes about five minutes, is completely idiot-proof and is actually pretty healthy.
Leigh Josey, production manager – Macaroni cheese. Or vegemite on toast.
Amber Jamieson, journalist – I would probably cook my sweet potato and mushroom salad. It doesn’t plate well, but it’s a perfect summer dish and nice and healthy, which is good for foodie fatties Matt and George.
It involves lots of lovely organic vegies (a la whatever is left in the fridge). The only ‘cooking’ bit is roasted sweet potato with dukkah and some swiss brown mushrooms, with lots of olive oil and salt. Then a mixture of baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, avocado, flat leaf parsley, maybe some carrot, red capscium, sometimes a can of lentils or chickpeas or even a can of Sirena tuna (yep, it’s definitely a ‘whatever you have lying around’ type dish). Finish it off with lots of tasty Meredith Dairy marinated goats cheese and a sprinkling of Real Good Foods seeds mix. Mix the whole shebang together and voila! Dinner with hardly any cooking or washing up in about half an hour. Which surely makes for a MasterChef.
Mick the Sub – Without question Matt Preston so there’d be plenty to go around.
Andrew Crook, journalist – I’d cook Trotski and Ash’s tuna pasta and the three of us could share in the spoils.
First Dog on the Moon -
Tristan Price, lowly intern – I would probably take a leaf out of Ian Parmenter’s book and whip up whatever needs you to open a bottle of plonk. Maybe a scotch fillet with red wine jus. And some roast potatoes (the key to getting them crispy is five gallons of oil).
18 Comments
Good grief!!! I reckon the entire Crikey crew should be forced to eat vegetarian McMuffins for a month. You’re obviously all food fetishists.
Except for Mick the sub. (Who clearly has far more serious dietary issues.)
Tofu is not food
PS vegies (sweet pots beetroot parsnip onions garlic) can be made crisp by cutting into small bits finely covering with a patina of olive oil pepper and salt rosemary and baked in fierce oven throw a bit of balsamic over it all about an half and hour away from the end….Roast chick with lemon up its bum can be painted with olive oil and pepper before cooking and then as a garnish use S & W mayo with crushed garlic and a little olive oil added…..
PPPS tofu is not food
Paddy: Oh, we’re all completely and unashamedly obsessed with food. Even Mick.
Durutticolumn: Tofu is the king of foods. I eat about 2kg of the stuff a week.
Ruth, I have no comment to make except I think this blog has the faint whiff of wet felt and damp Birkenstocks
PPS tofu is a joke played upon us by our dear friends in Asia. Like the joke we play on the world with vegemite
I also eat Vegemite straight from the jar. No joke.
I eat it with peanut butter and tomato sauce but, please note, NOT Tofu
Aren’t you on deadline?
I am the web editor — I am always/never on deadline, depending on which way you look at it.
I favour the Vegemite-avocado combination at the moment.
Ruth – could we please have QUANTITIES for your no-bake chocolate ball thingies? Much as I like mucking about in the kitchen, my time for experimenting is pretty limited most days, but I’d love to wow my colleagues with a little chocolatey goodness!
PS Of course I’ll credit you when the “oohing” and “ahhing” starts…
I don’t understand avocados or advocados as they call them up Macksville way (always remind me of green lawyers) . U a sick woman vegemite avocado AND tofu Yr pets must be running on empty, no scraps nothing to nick off the table when you not looking
Curry – a dish you can grow with. Whisper sweet nothings in the tender ear of a 60 year old Sri Lankan granny so she finally relents and gives you her prize family recipe. Grow your own herbs, grind your own spices, amaze your friends. And your house will smell like that street in Earls Court..
Alison:
Basic recipe is:
1 cup fresh medjool dates (yeah, they must be fresh, not the packaged kind — the softer the better), depitted
1 cup nuts (any works — I like a mix of cashews and walnuts, but hazelnuts, blanched almonds and macadamias are good too)
1/4-1/3 cup raw/cooking cocoa powder
Chuck the nuts in a food processor and blend till they’re chopped, then chuck the cocoa and dates in, and blend it all until it’s all mixed (or just chuck it all in at once, if you’re really impatient; it’ll still work ok). It will be a crumbly consistency. Then either roll it into a bunch of small balls, or press it all firmly down into a pan, and stick it into the freezer for a few hours (or just eat it straight away — the freezer just firms it up a bit).
Variations:
- roll the balls in shredded coconut;
- replace half or 1/3 of the dates with raisins (you can also just use raisins instead of the dates; dates are sweeter, but raisins are cheaper);
- replace 1/4 of the dates with dried apricots
- a little pinch of nutmeg/other spices;
- throw in a bit of almond meal;
- a bit of vanilla essence/extract;
This discussion has reminded me of my uncle’s description of avocado when I was an impressionable teenager; that it had the consistency of a used pressure cooker seal. It was the seventies, and my parents cooked with a pressure cooker a lot. I didn’t start eating avocado until the nineties. Now, chopped finely (but not squishy like guacamole) with diced tomatoes, a splash of olive oil and lemon, and magic ingredient chilli powder – yummo!
There are still people who, amazingly enough, cook without ever using achovies.
We buy ours in big jars at a Norton Str. Sydney Deli. It takes a 350 km journey there and back, but so what, combined with a movie, it’s worth it.
Here my pasta recipe for anchovie novices:
Fry a few chopped up anchovies with garlic and diced bacon in a very hot cast iron sauce-pan with half a cup of good olive oil. Add a chopped onion with vine grown diced tomatoes into the fried mixture.
Now boil a good quality of fresh pasta, preferably hand made and bought from a good delicatessen. After the pasta has cooked add the achovie, garlic, bacon etc sauce and eat and eat.
This one reason why our grandkids make regular visits to our farm. It’s nothing but anchovie love!
http://oosterman.wordpress.com/
Spag / Fettuccine Carbonara, easy, tasty and cheap (just like me). And here’s a recipe.