The Good Food stable is full of Australia's best cooks, from, Kylie Kwong to Neil Perry, from Jill Dupleix to Adam McConnell. In this second collection from the Good Food team, national editor Ardyn Bernoth has pulled together the most requested and best-loved recipes, classics given an extra delicious twist.
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"We need this cookbook to inspire us to take some of our best-loved dishes, shake them, reshape them and make them new again," says Bernoth.
Created for home cooks, these are inspirational, easy weeknight dinners, along with plenty of delicious dishes to impress your guests.
- Good Food New Classics, edited by Ardyn Bernoth, Simon & Schuster Australia, $39.99.
Ocean trout with green mash, peas and a fried egg
Jill Dupleix
Keep things fresh and simple with ocean trout or salmon, seared in a pan then gently broken up and served with creamy mashed potato that's green with peas. Top with a fried egg and, suddenly, it's brunch time.
Ingredients
1kg all-purpose potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
4 x 180g ocean trout fillets or sustainable salmon
400g green peas
150ml light sour cream or buttermilk
2 tbsp dill, roughly chopped, plus extra to serve
2 tbsp parsley, roughly chopped
1 tbsp butter
4 eggs, fried
Method
1. Cook the potatoes in a saucepan of simmering salted water for 20 minutes or until tender. Drain well, set aside and keep warm.
2. Heat the oil in a frypan over medium heat. Season the fish and cook, skin-side down, for four minutes or until the skin is crisp but the centre is still pink. Turn and cook briefly on the other side, then remove from pan and keep warm.
3. Cook the peas in a saucepan of simmering salted water for 1 minute, then drain. Place 2/3 of the peas in a food processor with the sour cream, dill, parsley, salt and pepper and process until smooth.
4. Return the potatoes to the hot pan. Add the butter, sea salt and pepper and mash well. Add the pea puree, beating well with a wooden spoon until smooth. Keep warm over gentle heat.
5. Gently break the fish into pieces, and divide between warm plates with the green pea mash, fried eggs, remaining peas and extra dill.
Serves 4.
Steamed snapper fillets with ginger and spring onion
Kylie Kwong
It's not unusual for me to eat seafood five times a week, so I make the most of the fresh fish we have available in this country. The wonderful smoky-nuttiness of the hot peanut oil brings this classic Cantonese recipe together, infusing the aromatic ginger, soy and sugar.
Ingredients
4 x 100g snapper fillets
80ml water
2 tbsp shao hsing
2 tbsp julienned ginger
1 Chinese cabbage
1/2 tsp white sugar
2 tbsp light soy sauce (gluten-free, if necessary)
1/4 tsp sesame oil
1/2 cup spring onion, julienned
1 1/2 tbsp peanut oil
1/4 cup coriander leaves
Method
1. Place fish in a shallow, heatproof bowl that will fit inside a steamer basket. Pour water and shao hsing over fish, then sprinkle with half the ginger. Place the bowl inside the steamer and position over a deep saucepan or wok of boiling water. Steam, covered, for five to six minutes.
2. Cut Chinese cabbage into squares and slip inside steamer. Cover and steam for a further two to three minutes or until cabbage has warmed through and fish is just cooked. The flesh should be white; if it is still translucent, cook for another minute or so.
3. Remove cabbage from steamer and arrange on a serving plate. Using a spatula, carefully remove fish fillets from steamer, and place on top of the cabbage.
4. Pour any liquid left in the bowl over fish, sprinkle with sugar and drizzle with combined soy sauce and sesame oil, then sprinkle with remaining ginger and half the spring onion.
5. Heat the peanut oil in a small frypan until moderately hot, then carefully pour over fish. Sprinkle fish with remaining spring onion and coriander, and serve immediately.
Tips:
Other fish suitable for this recipe include: blue-eye, bar cod, bream, King George whiting, ling, barramundi, mahi mahi and Murray cod.
This classic ginger and spring onion dressing is also delicious with steamed silken tofu (excellent vegetarian option), steamed king prawns, white-cooked chicken or steamed oysters.
If allergic to nuts, you can substitute the peanut oil with vegetable oil, and you can omit the sesame oil.
You can use bok choy instead of Chinese cabbage.
You can replace the coriander with fresh mint or dill.
Serves 4.
Stir-fried crab omelette
Neil Perry
I've been making this omelette since it came on the menu at Sydney's Rockpool in 1989. Served with rice, it's a cracking meal. You can add whatever you like to the middle of it: seafood, barbecue pork or roast chicken. The key is that the oil must be super-hot, so the egg puffs up and forms a crust. If you make this once, I promise you, it'll become a regular.
Ingredients
5 eggs (approx 55g each)
1 tbsp palm sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
200g spanner crab meat
100g beansprouts
50g snow pea sprouts
15 Chinese yellow chives, washed and halved
500ml peanut or vegetable oil
4 tbsp oyster sauce
Broth:
150ml fresh chicken stock
3 tbsp palm sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
Method
1. To make the broth, combine all the ingredients except the sesame oil in a pot. Bring to the boil, pour in the oil and keep warm.
2. To make the omelette, beat the eggs in a medium-sized bowl. Dissolve the palm sugar in the fish sauce in a small container. Add to the eggs and whisk well.
3. Place the crab meat in a separate bowl, removing any cartilage and shell. Add the beansprouts, snow pea sprouts and chives, and mix well.
4. Place the peanut oil in a wok and heat until it's smoking hot. Pour in the egg mixture (it should puff up). Cook for three minutes, then place the crab mixture in the middle. Cook for a further three minutes and remove from heat.
5. Pour off the excess oil. Fold the omelette, and place it back on the heat for one minute. Turn off the heat and rest it near a heat source for a further two minutes.
6. Remove the omelette from the wok with a fish lifter (or an egg spatula) and place on a board. Trim off the ends and place in a large bowl. Pour over the hot broth and top with oyster sauce to serve.
Serves 4.
Vegan vanilla sponge cake with cream "cheese" icing, maple and pomegranate
Recipe by Katrina Meynink
It might seem like a baking oxymoron to include meringue and baking powder for lightness and lift, then oil for richness, but it works marvellously well. The aquafaba (chickpea liquid) and baking powder ensures a great crumb-like texture.
Ingredients
330g flour
320g castor sugar
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
190ml almond milk
120ml aquafaba (the liquid from a tin of chickpeas)
arils of 1 pomegranate
dried lavender and petals (optional), to scatter
1 tbsp maple syrup
Icing:
230g vegan cream cheese*, softened
80g icing sugar, sifted
*Vegan cream cheese is available from most supermarkets and specialty grocers.
Method
1. Preheat oven to 170C. Grease and line two 20cm cake tins.
2. Combine the flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, briefly whisk together the vegetable oil, vanilla bean paste and almond milk then slowly pour into the flour mixture and whisk until just combined.
4. Place the aquafaba in the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment and beat for 10 minutes or until firm peaks form. Add the batter and whizz ever so briefly (about three seconds) to just combine - enough to incorporate the ingredients, but not so much that the aeration of the aquafaba mixture is lost.
5. Divide the cake batter between the prepared tins and bake for 35 minutes or until the sponges are light-golden and springy to the touch.
6. For the icing, place the cream cheese and icing sugar in a bowl and whisk to combine. Spread one cake with half the icing, then gently sandwich with the remaining cake. Spread the remaining icing over the cake. Top with the pomegranate and dried lavender and petals and drizzle over the maple syrup to serve.
Serves 12.