Category: Cooking/Food/Wine Publisher: New Holland
ISBN-10: 1741108349
Type: Non-Fiction
Pages: 192
ISBN-13: 9781741108347
A guide to all the amazing and unusual ingredients found in the greater regions of the globe.
Influenced with interesting and unusual ingredients, this book will show you how to cook all of those strange and exciting ingredients that you always wondered about while adding some modern versions of old and new favourites.
Containing almost 200 pages, the recipes range from mouth-watering desserts to creative canapes and from stunning entrees to refreshing beverages with everything in between including sauces and marinades and even an inclusion of an innovative bbq section. You will even find an abundance of information to describe all of those intrieging ingredients that you have always questioned.
This book is a must for anyone that has that little itch to try something new and exciting. It is the perfect book to bring something different to the dinner table or even to those social occasions with family and friends.
Professional Reviews
Visit Vinyards
If you’d like to get a taste for Australia's wild side, then The Produce Chef is worth perusing for some inspiration. Wild ingredients, now more widely available than ever, are at the heart of this book and but there’s also some more traditional Australian fare included which gives it an even broader appeal.
Author and chef Matt Clark tells us that 'The only limit is your imagination' and he certainly leads by example: from Crocodile Pizza with Lemon Myrtle and Warrigal Greens, Gourmet Snails, Orange and Macadamia Nut Crusted Barramundi to Red Bull Granita Oysters and Vegemite Soup, there are clear signs that Matt’s own imagination knows few bounds.
Matt grew up in Tasmania and was inspired by the abundant natural produce. After spending his initial culinary years in this state, he decided to move on and after some creative time in Perth, Western Australia where this book was created, he's now based in Brisbane. His latter travels are certainly reflected in the recipes - after all, Tasmania's renowned for its fresh, local produce but you’re not likely to find Kakadu or Illawarra plums, macadamia nuts or even crocodile readily available!
The Produce Chef starts with a section on the common wild ingredients used in the book with a bit of background, food matches and some rules about how to use them. It would have been a bonus if a photo of each ingredient was also included but as it’s hardly likely I’ll need to identify them in their natural environment, it's not really an issue.
Some of the ingredients covered are riberries, Warrigal greens, pepperberries, quandong and saltbush. Whilst I know of green rosellas (they appear in our bird bath on a daily basis), not being a Queenslander I’d never before heard of rosella the plant.
Next is an section on wild meat which includes ostrich, crocodlie and kangaroo, various fish and blue swimmer crab, including location and flavour details. Included elsewhere in the book are recipes for camel, snails and witchetty grubs with background covered off in varying detail in these sections.
From the ingredients it’s into the logical order of starters, something light, mains and, of course, The Great Aussie Barbecue. This latter section includes some great, simple marinades and tips for beer infused onion rings as well as recipes for various meats all in the great Aussie outdoor tradition.
The chapter on sauces and dressings has already been ear-marked for reference in coming days – the recipes look easy enough to follow and should spark the taste-buds of friends with their more unusual ingredients.
Some recipes may at first glance may strike you as overly simple, but it’s always handy to be reminded that some of the best flavour combinations can often be the simplest. It can also be that they have a different slant than usual – eg roasted beetroot sounds simple but this has a sugar and balsamic glaze.
The Produce Chef is certainly very Australian – both in content and style, from the recipes for witchetty grubs and barramundi right down to the traditional meat pie (which apparently should always be eaten from the left hand – very sensibly to keep the right hand free for one’s beer), lamington and pavlova.
Matt says that “Australia holds a backyard of amazing flavours that are unlike anything you will find anywhere else and most of us are still missing out.” Hopefully The Produce Chef will help to introduce a few more of us to our own backyard surprises. Not sure about the availability of crocodile in Tasmania or the concept of Vegemite soup though, perhaps I’ll start with the kangaroo pizza with mountain pepper and bush tomato, or maybe the Bundy and pineapple glazed ham with seeded mustard potatoes…
Chef Garry Recommends... Top 5 Cooking Books
The Produce Chef by Matt Clark – Last but not least Matt Clark’s beautifully photographed and well presented cookbook using Native Australian ingredients. Before I had even picked this one up I had already tried many of the combinations myself including the Lavender Crème Brûlée which has been in my repertoire for years. If I was to create a cookbook I think it would look similar to Matt Clark’s. It includes the quirky like Vegemite Soup, the interesting like Camel Scotch Fillet with Truffle-infused Field Mushrooms and interpretations of modern classics like Lemon Aspen Cheesecake and Apple and Riberry Crumble. As well as information on all the native ingredients used.
My book is a collection of dialogues with award-winning chefs from various backgrounds and cultures, sharing their personal experiences of where and why food culture is where it is today.
Bake beautiful and delicious French macarons in your own kitchen. This collection of tried-and-tested recipes allows bakers to create these tasty and colorful confections.
My book is a collection of dialogues with award-winning chefs from various backgrounds and cultures, sharing their personal experiences of where and why food culture is where it is today.
