Almost healthy yeast-free apple doughnuts

I've fought making doughnuts. I'm not really sure why - probably it was the idea of deep-frying. Not the fat - I don't mind a bit of that. No - it was about the fuss, the mess, the chance of slopping oil all over my clothes, or worse, scalding my hands. Or my children's hands.

So I waited until everyone was preoccupied, and I crept out to the kitchen to conquer my fear while nobody was watching. I wanted to do it quickly, so I used self-raising flour instead of a yeast-based dough. I apologise for the complete lack of measurements*. This is a recipe that is best done by feel.

Ingredients

• apple - peeled and loosely diced
• milk (I used almond milk)
• softened butter (I used dairy-free ghee)
• egg
• self raising flour (I used gluten free)
• pinch salt
• oil for frying (I used grapeseed)
• sugar and cinnamon for dusting

Instructions:

1. Put the oil in a deep, preferably non-stick frypan and heat on the stove. Put the apple and enough milk to cover the blades in the blender and puree. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in a bowl and set aside.
2. Whisk up the egg and butter until creamy, then add in the wet mix and sifted flour alternating, whisking until it gets too thick, then using your hands and finishing with the flour. The consistency should be a soft, silky dough, just solid enough to roll.
3. Take pieces of the dough and roll into finger-thickness sausages, then pinch together into circles, and place in the oil, turning once browned on one side, then tossing through the sugar mix once cooked, finally set aside onto a plate.

I did not measure the temperature of the oil, but started with it on full heat, then turned it down as just as it started to smoke. I had to turn it up again a little halfway through. The doughnuts should take about a minute on each side - if they take much more they will be greasy, and much less and they will be raw on the inside. If you would like to make them thicker, I would suggest turning on the oven to 160°C and after frying, letting them cook through for about another 15 minutes or so.

*I used 1 apple, 1 egg, about 100ml of each milk and ghee, about 2 cups of flour, 1/2 a cup of brown sugar and a cup of oil (of which most was left in the pan). Actually no fattier or more sugary than cakes or muffins. This could easily be made without the apples, or replaced with another fruit like banana or blueberries. This mix made about 40 small doughnuts - way too many, so we had some left over the next day. They went hard in the fridge overnight, but softened up nicely with a few seconds in the microwave.

PS - just made these a second time and added salt to the sugar dusting - sooooo much better!

Crunchy chicken and creamed corn crumble

Yep, it's a mouthful. And, it's not very pretty. 

BUT

This is the first proudly gluten-free dairy-free dinner I have presented my children with that has been scoffed like junk food. Possibly they are starved after 4 weeks of seaweed rice crackers and almond milk no-sugar banana smoothies and other things they simply don't want to eat? No, I don't think it's just that. This is actually yummy.

Ingredients:*

• leek, finely chopped
• garlic, crushed
• celery, finely chopped
• carrot, finely chopped 
• pinch salt
• thyme 
• last night's leftover roast chicken (removed from bone and diced roughly)
• dash of water
• tinned corn
• almond cream (or a non-dairy milk if you can't get this)
• corn (maize) flour (or another gluten-free flour for thickening)
• rice (cooked)
• breadcrumbs (gluten free of course)
• margarine (again, dairy free)

Instructions:

1. Throw the first 6 ingredients in a pan over medium heat and soften, stirring occasionally, then add the chicken and a dash of water, turn down, cover and simmer gently for about 15 minutes.
2. Put half the corn, the cream and a smidge of flour in the blender and puree until smooth. Add this and the rest of the corn to the chicken mix and bring gently to the boil. It should thicken nicely and have a creamy appearance
3. make a crumble with breadcrumbs, a dash of salt and margarine, then layer rice on the bottom, chicken above and breadcrumbs on top, then crisp under a medium heat grill

*a note on ingredients. The quantities will depend on what you have left over, and how many you are feeding. This is not a recipe that requires exactitude. The only part where you may run into difficulty is the ration of milk/cream to flour. If you find the mix too thin, whip some more flour into margarine and add over heat until you get a consistancy that is soft, but relatively solid.

I used 1/2 a leek, 1 stalk of celery, 1/2 a carrot, about 2 cups of chicken, a 400g tin of corn, 100ml of cream and a teaspoon of corn flour (note, this is the flour actually made of corn - not the squeaky white stuff that they just call corn flour). I had about 3/4 cup of breadcrumbs made from a heel of yesterday's bread and I rubbed in about a tablespoon of margarine.

Crumplestiltskin Cake

Last week I threw a birthday party for my now-5-year-old son. Goldilocks is a gorgeous thing who is on a strict gluten and casein free diet, so as you can imagine, the food took quite a bit of thought and consideration. No wheat, no cream, no butter, no milk. So, I threw out my other imposed restriction - no processed sugar' and had a free-for all.

The Pièce de résistance was the cake. Goldilocks can eat eggs, and so I wanted to add his all-time favourite and now banned sweet treat, meringue. The name "Crumplestiltskin" was given by my other son, as he helped me attach the crumbled meringue around the cake. I think it's a little more like an iceberg, but Lion insisted to all the guests that the name was definitely one out of a fairytale - almost. I completely cheated and used store-bought meringues and a gluten free self raising flour mix. But, you know how it goes - when you are baking for a party, any shortcut is taken.

for the cake:
Ingredients:

• 5 cups Gluten Free Self Raising Flour Mix
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable ghee
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups rice milk
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp natural red food dye (or a few drops of the synthetic stuff)
• a few drops of strawberry flavouring (optional)
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder (good quality)

Instructions:

1. Beat sugar and ghee until they resemble bread crumbs. Add eggs and vanilla and blend. Add in alternating amounts of dry mixture and rice milk, adding more milk if necessary to create a thick but paste-like mix (different flour and rice milk brands have different densities. If your hand-held beater struggles, add more milk)
2. Separate into three equal portions. Place one in tin one as is (in a paper-lined 22cm tin), add red colouring (and strawberry flavour) to the second until it is pink, and to the third add cocoa, then place in two separate tins.
3. Bake at 180°C (350F) until tops are lightly toasted and knife inserted comes out clean. 

For the topping

Ingredients:

• 500g dairy free margarine
• pinch salt
• 500g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• soy or rice milk to thin (about 1-2 tbsp)
• 12-14 meringues the diameter of a cup

Instructions

1. Using a hand beater, fluff margarine until pale and smooth. Then add vanilla and salt, continuing to beat. Add icing sugar in small portions, alternating with a dribble of milk when the beater begins to stick. The idea is to make a butter-frosting consistency. 
2. Apply thickly all over cake (top and sides and in-between layers)
3. Arrange whole meringues on the top, then crumple the rest into almond-sized pieces, then crazy-pave all the space. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

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For the rest of the party, and if you find yourself in a dillema like mine, some suggestions:
A fruit-juice bar 
I displayed large portions of watermelon (peeled), orange (peeled), apples, carrots, grapes, mango (peeled) and strawberries with a bucket of ice, and allowed the kids to choose their own cocktail. Much of the fruit was also eaten as it was. My elder son was barman.
Gluten free chicken nuggets
Dipped in mayonnaise (ensure it is dairy-free), salt and cumin mix, then coated in gluten-free breadcrumbs. Then placed on a lined tray, sprayed with olive oil and baked at 180°C for about 30 minutes.
Marshmallow and strawberry kebabs arranged in glassware
Cumin poppadums (lentil flour)
popcorn (organic, tossed in olive oil, salt and smoked paprika)
Naturally flavoured corn chips with home-made salsa and tofu cream cheese for dipping.

I had a "painting party", so the take-home gift was a pinwheel and balloon from the garden, and their own canvas. No candy bags, and nobody seemed to notice...

What does Dubai Taste Like?

Last weekend was my second experience with Taste of Dubai.

If the festival was an accurate representation of the taste of Dubai, the stalls would have been a mix of Lebanese grills and dips, puffy khubz direct from the flame, devilishly hot Pakistani curry, rows upon rows of crisping drippy chicken and mutton for shawarma, the occasional dhosa with sweet spicy chutney, and of course, the treats - baklava and cupcakes (what the fascination with cupcakes is here, I really can't understand), and polystyrene cups of steaming hot sweet tea made with evaporated milk. The air would have been ripe with garlic, fat, cardamom, rosewater, coconut, coriander and cumin, all topped off in a fine mist of icing sugar.

The stalls would have been selling portions at 5AED. The queues would have been two deep and fifty wide. The entry price would have been 30AED, but many would just push through the gates and get in for free. An '80s Philipino cover band would have been blaring out inappropriate songs. Stalls would have been haphazard, scattered like freckles on a red-head, more than half of them unlicensed. There would probably be a gas barbecue in a corner somewhere that would inevitably blow up. Then everyone would stand around watching and arguing, nibbling paratha and blaming anybody else, all the while blocking the paramedics. By the time it was finished, there would be a traffic jam in the carpark, and be fifteen thousand people stranded somewhere in the desert, with three taxis to shuttle them back to town.


The next day someone would write to 7days about it, and what a cacophonous stuff-up it was, and half the expats in Dubai would tweet in agreement.

But it's not like that at all. "Taste" festivals are franchises that operate all over the world, and so the finished product is an amalgam of the taste of the city concerned, and what the organisors deem it should taste like. In all, it's always quite... ahem... tasteful.

It was, like last year, in a well located area, at the Media City Amphitheatre - a large grassy knoll surrounded by good four-star hotels, taxi ranks and nearby to the metro. As in 2011 the entry was well policed and organised, tickets were remarkably easy to purchase, and nobody got in for free (except me, because I write a blog about food). Inside were plenty of toilets, an ATM, and rows of marquees delivering four dishes from each of Dubai's best restaurants at prices between 15 and 40AED. Again there was the theatre for cooking presentations that actually had enough seats for the crowd, and a cooking school with a not unbearable queue signing up for free classes. In a secluded corner, they tucked away the drunks and the screaming children in the beverage theatre and kids play zone (I'll let you guess who went where).

So, what does "Taste of Dubai" taste like, if it doesn't really taste like Dubai?

Pretty much exactly the same as last year. The same restaurants showed in the main. Many also had the same menus as last year. I suppose this is just as well, considering one could never try all four from each outlet in one festival and get home alive and well. So I could skip the white tomato soup from Rhodes Mezzanine, the dynamite prawns from PF Changs, or the fish and chips with mushy peas from Rivington Grill. Instead I sampled from the newer openings - crab and green papaya (lacking sweetness and tang) from the Siddhartha Lounge, Stracciatella cheese from Armani Peck (a bland mozzerella soup), from ToroToro some tasty dense and crispy yuca fries with "mojo" (whatever that is - it's good) and a heavenly Dulce de Leche cheesecake from Gaucho

Good to see this year were some smaller producers - Spontanious Euphoria cookies, Bloomsbury cakes, Raw coffee and Yummy Tummy. Also a great surprise was the last minute appearance of Table 9, who apparently managed to wrap it all together and fill a stand-in spot with just 48 hours to blast-off. There was a string of celebrity chefs - some from last year, some not. Some with a Dubai presence, and some not so much (why they are included in a "taste of Dubai" festival, I'm not sure, but it's nice to see the likes of Aldo Zilli and Atul Kochhar regardless). As I stumbled from marquee to lounge to other marquee and other lounge, I invariably met other fooderati. One had cooked under the watchful eye of Giorgio Locatelli, another had just interviewed Gary Rhodes, and one had got her Nobu cook book signed by the lovely man himself. The food groupie success stories were rife.

But it wasn't all good. The MMI beverage theatre disappointed this year - it was hidden, too casual, too quiet when the serious stuff was going on, and converted to a rowdy beer garden when the seminars were over. In typical Dubai form, the ATM had a conniption at the pointy end of the day and refused to dispense any more funds, leaving those without financial foresight to go hungry. Another let-down was the VIP lounge, which seemed to have nothing in particular extra than the main arena, and a security guard on the gate who was completely uninterested in checking passes (I walked in twice without a pass). But the greatest disappointment was that there was not really anything significantly new this year as compared to 2011. Not that I could see, anyway.

And that, to be honest, is actually a fairly typical taste of Dubai.

A fellow blogging friend asked me earlier this year if I could give her a glimpse of my crystal ball for Dubai 2012 tastes.  I sent her about a thousand words telling her why that was the wrong question to ask. In a nutshell, I think Dubai is too new, too small, too diverse  and too busy following others to have original trends. And Taste of Dubai is an example of this - the formula is staid and predictable, copied from other markets, almost entirely unoriginal. Half the restaurants featured are not unique to Dubai. I could find no primary producers from the UAE, and no Emirati restaurant represented. A great shame, as I truly believed that this year would see a rise in the awareness of the great local produce and historic cuisine. Shows how effective my crystal ball is. Dubai has, as usual, either forgotten or pushed aside its squishy innards, and instead given us a safe and easy "taste of the-rest-of-the-world".

Mind you, I'm very glad there were no gas explosions.

Trsteno - the bluest sea in the world

Trsteno. The word is missing vowels. The map is missing kilometers. I've finally reached the crest, and it's much further to the beach than indicators appear to have indicated. My heart is beating as fast as the legs of the millions of crickets drumming, hidden in the spiny grasses, and the temperature of my body and the air have neutralized - both hotter than they should be.

Below me is the bluest sea in the world.






At least the rest of the walk is downhill. I walk it in a dream, like a desert nomad clutching at a mirage. As I approach sea level, I round a rocky corner, and a stone bowl of beach is exposed. To the left is an arched bridge, it's reflection waving at me from the water. A car passes over it, and looks entirely out of place. The simple bridge is too old, and I realize not a single vehicle passed me on my way down. To the right is a stone wharf. It’s populated with a motley mix of about twenty souls. Young and old, thin and fat, tanned and bleached. They bake, jump, dip, sleep, watch and fish.

 The scene is framed with limestone, both the irregular jutting of the cliffs and behind the bathers, a tiny fort. Steps have been chocked into the rockface – they are concave with age, slippery, and enclosed only by a few bodies taking a break from the blaring sun. At the base is a circular cave, manmade, yet also ancient. Possibly an old boatshed of the Gucetic family, patriarchs of the 15th century Arboreteum above. Now it is a cubby hole for swimming noodles, lilos and beach bags.

I walk along the edge of the tiny harbour. Minnows and dingheys, matching the blue of the water or the white of the stone bob delicately over perfectly transparent water. I can see straight to the bottom through varying degrees of aquamarine, from pale turquoise to deep peacock, and a rich shade I will forevermore call “Trsteno Blue”. So many colours, but always crystal clear. I’m so hot. It’s the prettiest water I’ve ever seen. I quickly strip down and discard my belongings in a heap to throw myself off the edge of the pier like a child.

The ice of the water hits my heart before I reach the surface. I almost take a gulp of water in shock. How can water so beautiful be so painful? I now understand why people only bathe close to the edge – their bodies don’t let them swim out, but drag them back to shore and onto the haven of hot rocks and a beach towel.

I return to my heap, and make a home on a sunny perch near the fort. Before I lie down, I am met by *Malik, the owner of the apartments we reside in down the coast in Zaton. He’s in his late forties, hanging onto youth quite admirably, and yet also precariously. He talks a million miles an hour, with a few inches of truth. It was he who told me to come here. He also tells me he was engaged to Nicky Hilton, but her family’s posse shot him. Where? In the head. Shortly before he shot himself in the foot. He slugs out of a long bottle of water. “You want?” he asks, thrusting it at me. I do. I just realized there is no café down here. It’s lunchtime, and all there is to eat up is the view.

I stare vacantly off, and Malik finally realizes I want solitude. I’m studying the diminutive fort, wondering why somebody isn’t serving frosty beers between its rusty iron gates. And then I realize, it’s a gatehouse, whose entry is obviously open. This is worth an explore. There are not many folk on the pier – I leave my gear without a care, and teeter up the steps and through the pointed arch, expecting a secret garden to reveal itself. But the way is blocked. It’s abandoned. Ramshackle. A teenage boy is using the pigeonniere as a urinal, and I nearly cry.

Earlier, Malik, a patriotic Croatian, had joked with me – “God gave Croatia everything. The sea, the trees, the mountains, the food. But then he f**ked it all up with the people.” I’d seen his scars from the war, both a source of pride and shame to him. After all this time, he could not understand how a country so breathtaking had taken so long to find its peace. And like on his body, scars of the latest war remain all over this land. This sleepy beach, with it’s most perfect pocket of the Adriatic, a backdrop of a world class renaissance garden, and architecture that has withstood wars, now has to withstand neglect because funding, national pride and tourism are still only in their infancy. Part of me wants to take this abandoned child and nurture it to full potential, but watching what tourism has done in the rest of the world, do I really want Croatia to grow up?

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Trsteno is on the Dalmation coast, about 20km from Dubrovnik, and just far enough up the road from the sprawling Radisson hotel at Orasac (map here).

The walk from the main road is quite a long one - I'd suggest taking a car if you can - there are about 10 parking spots next to the water.

The shore is slabs of limestone and there are occasional sea urchins on the water floor, so reef booties are advised. You will also want to take your lunch, because the nearest amenities are at the caravan park a couple of kilometres away (and up the hill!)

Just above the beach is the Trsteno Arboretum, also well worth a visit - link here.

*Malik is not his real name. I have quoted him word for word, and have witnesses. I believed about 10% of what he told me.

Sustainable dining? Or taking the piss? Greenhouse by Joost

I found myself again, unplanned in Melbourne. Sarah has arrived for 24 hours only. Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, lucky you - quite prophetic to place yourself around the date of my arrival. But The Rickshaw Run is booked out, Two Goats on Gertrude is the other side of town, and I can't get my brother to spend $165 on Seasonal Pleasures. A smorgasbord of the world's better chefs are talking shop under the big tent, but I'm a sensory explorer - I need to eat. The MFWF twitter account told me to try dinner at Greenhouse by Joost. The concept enthrawls me - a sustainable restaurant, they say. Organic, biodynamic, local, recycled, without waste. It's so cool, the new black.

It's temporary, only here for the festival. The claim is that the entire building is made of reclaimed, recycled or recyclable materials. I'm a little skeptical - it all looks a little too new, linear, matchy-matchy. Ecoply lines the walls, which are stuffed with straw. The outside is a perfect collection of strawberry seedling symetry. Not producing fruit yet, and there are only 12 days left - I doubt a harvest table (later confirmed with the site of six plastic punnets being taken to the kitchen by a chef). The floor is reclaimed conveyor belts, I have read. They look so good I have to google it to double check. The seating is a mix of clunky irrigation pipes and recycled vinyl posters. The toilets are  system which takes recyling to a whole new level. They're reclaiming bodily nitrogen for fertilizer, which will sustain a mustard crop in Daylesford (one of my favourite country weekend spots) that will supply the oil to fuel next year's restaurant. A Shannon Bennett (Vue de Monde) endorsed ewater system accompanies them.

My scepticism waxes as I sit. The tables are too small, the chairs too low. They are set with an interesting choice of shaggy reusable cloth napkins and compostable plantation timber cutlery. Surely it's easier to compost a recycled paper napkin and wash metal cutlery? Then there's the water glasses. Jars. Perfectly matching, unscratched jars, complete with screw top. Recycled, possibly, but definitely not reclaimed. Beer arrives in smoothed sawn-off beer bottles for glasses. Rustic and funky. My non-descript non-local (SA) Riesling arrives in a slightly larger jar than the water. It looks like pee in a doctor's sample jar.

The food is hippy gourmet. Whole-grains, weeds and protein that only health nuts eat predominate. My companion struggles. She sees my excitement at an unusual offering, and so diplomatically "umms" and "ahhs" over the brown paper menu until finally she murmurs "I'm not so hungry actually - perhaps I'll just have a muffin." I kind of want the smoked sardines, or the clams with cider or sea lettuce, but sensing her discomfort, and after being told that dishes are meant to be shared, I order the smokey eggplant dip and the pumpkin and chickpea tagine. Luckily I order up big - the savoury muffin is dense and flavourless, and my pal is thankful for the extras - which are good, but not outstanding.

The venue is designed to be youthful and relaxed. The raw finishes are coupled with lazy stacks of produce in the corner, signs scribbled on framed cardboard and staff in jeans and sloganed Tshirts "Greenhouse takes the piss", "roll my oats" etc. But the chill spills into lax as the staff mingle over a plate at the pass, leaving customers to wait during service while they sample the fare. My waitress has no idea what the "Natural Selection Riesling" is, or who makes it. She does find out where it comes from though - "South Australia" she discovers - well considering the South Aussies make most of our Riesling out there, she could have guessed that.

The chefs are covered in ink, be-capped, and work with rapper swagger. I half expect one to launch into profanity-filled prose and start flipping us the bird. They swoop and duck like there's some kind of music going on in there, and every now and then the waist-deep openings of their singlets fly open to reveal more tats and a hairy nipple. They process sauces, then double-dip with butter knives, tasting, sharing with the wait staff, tasting again. Each time the knife goes back in the pot. I realise it's kind of junky-cool, but I don't want to look at chefs armpits and nipples while I eat and drink, nor do I want a sample of their saliva in my condiment - it's enough to put me off my urine sample and cardboard cupcake.

There are places like this all over Australia in greenie communities like Byron Bay, but up there it's easier to swallow. They're not sustainable because it's cool - they are because they have to be - it's both in the owners' blood and financially demanded. They serve up local beans with coconut wild rice because it's the only food they can stomach to serve you, plus, it's cheap. They support local business because the big players don't know who they are, and don't offer them discounts. Their staff have dreadlocks and clothes from St Vinnies because that's what the local population looks like.

But in Melbourne it all feels a little surreal. It's like we're being fed a line, and it doesn't settle well, at least not at first. Some of it just doesn't make sense - the wooden cutlery - too fragile even to slice one of their dense home-milled muffins, and the drinking jars - surely it would take less energy to recycle glass into a shape without a screw-top...? The polystyrene crates in the corner just look so wrong. Sure, the website says the containers are all re-usable, but isn't this stuff the eco-anti-christ? It's kind of like the "lite" or urban version of eco-warrior lifestyle, something that has been moulded to fit the city-dweller's palate, and boxed up in very eco-acceptable packaging.

HOWEVER....

After retiring, thinking and researching, I find that my lack of confidence in the offering is possibly a little undeserved. The behind the scenes work really does sound quite incredible. Bio-fueled, kitchen gardened, local, and yes, I do love the plumbing system, even though the rolling fields of beautiful Daylesford are soon to be covered in human excrement. Their young chef, Matt Stone, is Gourmet Traveller's 2011 best new talent, and we did play safe on the menu - not the way to test a chef's prowess, for sure. It's also more than possible that my excitement over such an adventurous exercise led me to overly nit-pick. (Damn tall poppy syndrome)

Another thing I have learned this week, through the whole Kony 2012 rigmarole, is that sometimes a message needs to be given in a particular fashion to be accepted by the populace. We are fairly dim, after all - otherwise we would have effectively put a stop to African warlords, and put a start to many more effective sustainable restaurants long ago. We need our issues dressed up in pop culture and spoon fed to us, or we forget to jump on the cause.

So, Greenhouse and Joost, I'm sorry I didn't love your endevour. I should have, and the more I read, the more I find to like. Well done, and keep up the good work (just make it even better).

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You can catch Greenhouse by Joost until March 21 by the yarra on the Southbank side of Queensbury St Melbourne, in front of Left Bank. It's open all day, with breakfast, lunch and dinner service, and drinks and small snacks available in between and after. No bookings except for structured events. There is a great rooftop garden bar to hit on a sunny afternoon. Melbourne Food and Wine Festival link here. Map here.

If you miss it, plans are to continue - Visit Greenhouse by Joost to find out more. Alternatively you can visit the permanent Perth venue.

Porky Belly

It's Pork Belly, not porky belly, but that's what you end up with if you eat too much of this. This is the complete opposite of the lovely zingy oil-free salad I last posted up. To be honest, it's a little deviation from my usual diet too, and something I have never cooked before. It was made in honour of my brother, who was threatening not to come to lunch, but after watching him order it every time he saw it on a menu, I knew that as soon as he got the SMS saying "making porky belly n tiramisu - coming or not?" he'd be a cert.

Pork Belly is a super fatty cut of meat - it's cheap to buy ($20 for my 1.8kg cut, which fed seven), and easy to cook. It's the same cut that makes streaky bacon, pancetta, and side bacon. The fat keeps it moist, so it's almost impossible to muck it up - the only tricky part is the crackling, and... well, that's not really tricky at all (it's just about heat and salt).

Ingredients:

• pork belly (200-300g per person, depending on appetite and meatiness of cut)
• salt (more than you would think sensible) and pepper
• dried herbs (I used rosemary)
• vegetables for roasting (I used sweet potato, purple carrots, Spanish onions and pink lady apples studded with a couple of cloves)
• flour, water, fresh thyme and a splash of wine for the gravy.

Instructions:

1. Put your oven on full, then score the rind and fat through almost to the meat with a sharp knife, then salt heavily, rubbing into the cracks, and then underneath on the meaty side. Season meaty side with dried herbs and pepper too, then place in a roasting pan skin-side up.
2. Put in the oven and roast on full for about half an hour, or until you can see the fat bubbling and crisping up a bit, then turn down to 180°C (350°F) and roast for a further hour and a half to two hours, depending on the size (2 hours for anything over about 1.6kg). 
3. Add vegetables at various stages, depending on cooking requirements, laying on the same pan under the pork so they can roast in the drippings (I added the sweet potato and onions one hour in, and the apples and carrots half an hour after that)

Tips:
When scoring, if it is difficult to get through the rind in places, try folding the meat so you can get at it more easily on the curved edge. A finely serrated knife may also help. Think about how you will cut it once it's cooked - it will be so crispy when it comes out that you will want to follow the lines of the scoring, otherwise the crackling will splinter all over the place.
When you think you have put enough salt on, put some more on just in case. For more tips on crackling, read this post. 
Let the meat rest for ten minutes before serving (covered). This is just enough time to make the gravy and get everything to the table.
DO NOT eat this more than once a month. It is seriously bad for you.... But total avoidance of all those bad things that taste so good is also not recommended for your spirit! Tell yourself it's gluten free....

Making the gravy:

• Remove roast meat and veggies from oven, and place on serving dishes, and retain the pan including all the oil, crusty bits and juices. 
• Set the pan on the stove top on a medium-high heat with other gravy ingredients at hand. 
• First throw in the fresh thyme and fry for a moment, then deglaze pan with a small splash of wine (I used Pinot Noir), allowing it to bubble and steam off furiously for about half a minute. (you can skip the wine if you like)
• Sprinkle flour (about a tablespoon for one jug of gravy), and use the back of a fork to scrape it all over the bottom of the pan for about minute, squishing lumps and getting it into all the juices.
• Add water (about 1/2 cup to start), and furiously mix with the fork, again, flattening lumps and adding more water as it thickens until it has appeared to stabilize and is at a good consistency.
• season if necessary. If you've been a bit slack with the fork you might have to whiz it with a hand blender.

Teriyaki Carrot Salad

This is a no-measure salad, but for the benefit of those who like a little guidance, I've put approximates in. It's oil free, gluten free, dairy free. It serves as a great base, and can be added to easily. It is now eaten at least one day per week in one form or another.

Ingredients

• 6 carrots, grated (I used 2 purple, 4 orange)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander
• 1/4 tsp grated ginger
• 1/4 tsp grated garlic
• 1tbsp sesame seeds
• 1tsp teriyaki sauce
• 1/2 tsp mirin

Instructions:

1. toast sesame seeds in a dry pan over medium heat, flipping often so they don't burn.
2. Put all ingredients in a bowl and toss.

Was that hard enough? If it's not, then try my favourite incarnation of this recipe - include finely sliced snow peas (mangetout) and purple cabbage, finely chopped chilli, a scattering of cashews and crispy fried shallots and noodles for extra crunch. Add more mirin for sweetness, and soy or more teriyaki for salt. I served this with some chicken fillets baked with a sesame and macadamia crust. Guaranteed empty bowl at a BBQ.

Armchair food travel

Different people travel for different reasons. Some like adventure - they seek adrenaline injections at mountain pinnacles, ocean depths, at the end of a rope or the start of a fall. Some need nature. They desire trappings that cannot be found in their common abodes, and instead search for mossy hollows, sweeping savannah, craggy rockscapes and isolated islands. There are the culture vultures - they go feral in yoga camps, spend a month in Tuscany making olive oil, shift to a Tahitian village to paint, or go walkabout in the search for relics of the dreamtime with the Australian Aborigines. Some only need simple pleasures, to take a break. They find a sunny place with absolutely nothing to do except lie down and read a book. And then there are the bucket listers - they tick off attractions like girl guide badges. Eiffel tower? Check. Taj Mahal? Done. Sistine Chapel? Couldn't see it behind the crowds, but yes, got there too.

I travel for food. Every holiday I take has a kitchen at its heart - sometimes it's in a rented holiday home, and other times it's found in various restaurants. I research national dishes, seasonal produce, markets, Michelin stars and Lonely Planet secret eateries like others would plot their tourist trail around architecture, art and activity.

Some may say this is pointless. Food is everywhere, not least in our own homes. It is simply nourishment. But for me, each bite holds the adventure, terroir, culture, simple pleasure, and even that tick on the bucket list that others can only find in grander things. Dhosa with coconut chutney and firy chilli for breakfast off a plastic plate beachfront in Kovolam, accidently taking the offal from a whole goat Ouzi in an Iftar tent in Oman, chewy dried wild boar hacked off a leg strung from the ceiling in Montepulciano, Pinot Noir grapes stolen off a ripe vine in October in Vosne Romanee, my dinner being dragged out of a pit, wrapped in banana leaves and smelling of heaven in Western Samoa. Each of these and many other food related activities are my treasured memories from holidays. And I haven't even started to talk about wine...

Last week, I was invited along to a tasting at Galeries Lafayette Dubai. The focus was on Lafayette Gourmet's catering division, and I'm sure that's what they'd like me to talk about. Maybe I will a little later, but what got to me was the little holiday I took in their shelves after I’d stuffed my belly with complimentary tasty morsels (oh the hard life of a food blogger*).

I’ve previously complained about mediocre imports of famous restaurants, of which there are several, not only in Dubai, but all over the world. Soulless places that promise a taste of elsewhere but instead deliver a sour shadow. And, if you compare Galeries Lafayette to its Parisian parent, then yes, it’s definitely a poor relation (drinking Veuve Cliquot Rose under the dome of Galeries Lafayette Paris is an experience I bag with the others above). So why would I slam the restaurants and sing the praises of the retailer? Simple - because I can take the product home and control the setting it is presented in. I don’t have to sit in a restaurant with poor service, the waiter pouring me corked wine, the food arriving 45 minutes after it’s supposed to, too salty or dried out, while I look over venetian linen and cutlery at a view of a shamal at the DIFC gate, or listen to a Philipino speaking English trying to pronounce French words that are already misspelled on the menu.

I can instead buy a slab of wagyu filet, a sliver of foie gras, a roll of french pastry (yes, I’m a cheat) and a jar of cepes. I can go home, kick the kids and husband out, and spend a quiet hour preparing beef en croute with the blaring beauty of Mozart’s Magic Flute in the background and a sneaky glass of Burgundy at the elbow (for cooking of course). I can take a painted tin of piquante sardines, fleur de sel and a baguette and eat them peasant style with no cutlery and the oil dripping down my fingers with my family on the beachfront at sunset. I can try a little jar of lavender pastilles the size of petit pois, get them home and bake vanilla angel cupcakes and scatter them over, knowing that from this day forward my children will appreciate the use of lavender in cooking. Now that’s what I call a taste of France.

The experience of shopping at Lafayette Gourmet reminds me of a couple of other experiences. The Mediterranean Wholesalers in Brunswick (Melbourne), where you fight Italian Nonnas for trolleys after you realize that the basket over your arm is so full it’s cutting circulation off. A haven of jars filled with pretty things, panettone, oils and sauces, pastas fresh and dried in hundreds of forms. A shop that requires a macchiato break in the middle before you tackle the second half. Or Victoria Street in Abbotsford – where tiny stores with all manner of Vietnamese magic and a spread of other south east Asian goodies tempt with their beauty, scent and bizarreness. It’s also a little like wondering into a French Hypermarket for the first time. No less an experience than walking into an Indian hypermarket in Dubai like Lulu's, where there is a man to grind your coconuts, vegetables that look like they’ve come from the Jurassic era, pots and pans on thousands of shapes and sizes, 55 different grades of chilli and a sari shop upstairs where you can get 6 metres of synthetic silk for 27 dirhams, the very picture of the East to lay on your table.

I suppose that makes me lucky, being a food traveller. My demands between holidays can be easily met, particularly in a place as multicultural as Dubai. In my mouth I can go to the shores of the cote d’azur, the folds of Tuscany, the throb of Mexico City, the back alleys of Cairo or a beach shack in Hikkaduwa, maybe all in the same day. Who ever thought a supermarket could be so much fun?

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Galeries Lafayette can be found in the Dubai Mall, with Lafayette Gourmet on the top floor. It’s more than just a store – there are a bevy of chefs working behind the scene, and it’s possible to dine there (and very good). The catering arm has given me a few ideas. They now deliver single portions through rsd.ae (room service Dubai), but you can also get them to cater for a very decent price, for groups as small as ten people. Photos here are of some of their delicious canapés, which you can arrange for as little as 115AED/head (3 hot and 3 cold). They also do sushi for about the same price as Carrefour do (68AED for 12 pieces, 98 for 21), and a hot breakfast complete with extras like croissants, juices and coffee, delivered and cooked for 80AED per head. Hmm, I feel a home-brunch coming on.

There is now a covert pork section behind a secret door with very large print above it “For Non-Muslims Only” selling Dubai’s best collection of saucisson, jamón ibérico, and some lovely chorizo which must have been mispriced at 15AED a six-pack. Cured meats only – no fresh pork – hopefully that will change, as I’d love to see some free range Otway pork somewhere in the UAE (sorry non-pork eaters).

The shelves contain an array of both fresh and preserved items, ranging from fresh meat and vegetables (both local and imported), bakery and patisserie, seafood (including sushi), a formidable cheese room, and some other lovely dairy items such as crème fraiche and french yoghurt in pretty ceramic containers. Highlights of the shelves include honeys and preserves, the pasta selection, sugar (I never knew it came in so many guises), salt and pepper (complete in grinders in a multitude of colours), oil and vinegar, tinned and smoked fish, tea and sweeties. There is enough to stock a pantry (barely), possibly a little more expensive than the standard grocery. They also deliver groceries – simply dial your private chef, and for 50AED delivery and handling you can get a gourmet bundle straight to your door.

Contact:
email: lafayettegourmet.chef@medsdubai.com
Phone: +971 4 382 733, ext 2383
location: Dubai Mall, downtown (Grand Parking)


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*Re the "Life of a food blogger", I occasionally get freebies, but this makes up for the fact that I never get paid for my work. I make a point to let readers know when this happens. If anyone wants to give me free food, I will take it. I may, or may not write about it - if I don't like, I don't write.


By the way, I could really do with some travel sponsorship. Tahiti looks nice...