Spice Road Spices
Spice Merchants
The Art of Flavour Sunday e-magazine
For many people the taste of raw radishes can often be overpowering. However, there is a method of transforming the sharpness into a wonderful accompaniment to favourite recipes.
And beautifully easy. Simply heat your oven to 180c, trim the green bits and ends from the Radishes, coat in a little Sesame Oil, a touch of salt and bake for around 20 - 30 minutes, depending on size of the Radishes, until soft.
You really do have to wonder. There is a large group of otherwise very nice, caring, food wise people who happily look forward to a pizza, layered with over salted anchovies.
Now mention a classic Italian Anchovy recipe and they assume a studied yuk look and a polite, no thank you. We seem to be getting into a bit of a pattern with all this. Our previous Epicurean Post highlighted the plight of Raisins in your cupboard (important), the quest to save the Side Dish (equally important) and now we are again defending Anchovies. Scary but someone has to do this so please stay with us
Make no mistake, the members of the Wine and Food Societies across Australia are, in culinary terms, very knowledgeable and very good at understanding food and the compatibility of wine with food.
Sure they may take a little longer examining their red wine than the rest of us but behind it all they really do understand and better, they understand that in the end it is all just food and wine. For them it is the simple enjoyment and understanding of these gifts and the people they share it with that is paramount.
It all happened about the same time. First we noticed that our cousins from bon appétit in America mentioned that Raisins were clearly the world's worst possible snack food, then marvelled that the very same, sticky little dried grapes, stuck in the corner of a packet, could rehydrate into a flavour essential !
And at much the same time, the talented Mary G. Frenchs Forest NSW, commented favourably on our Spice Roads Ottoman Spice Blend in her recipe - and then mentioned that she added Sultanas for a touch of sweetness to the Chicken Thighs in the braise.
Make no mistake, Sage is not one of those team player Spices (or Herb in this case), happy to be part of a harmonious flavour blend.
Sage needs to be the lead but once settled into a recipe it will provide a wonderful sweet and sour Umami with warm notes of eucalyptus and lemon.
Walnut Oil - Salad perfection. It follows that having reviewed and in fact learnt a good deal about the quality of Australian Walnuts from Otway Walnuts - refer recent BLOG posting - we should follow with a review of another Otway product. Otway Walnut Oil.
And another revelation ! Walnut Oil has long been accepted as an essential part of many salad dressings, especially those based around apples - read Waldorf Salad. And just like our impression of many supermarket Walnuts, we just assumed the sometimes tannic flavour notes were part of the deal.
Even the name sounds old fashioned and rightly so. Lard is an ancient part of our cooking with a history going back thousands of years.
Until quite recently Lard fell out of favour with concerns of the high animal fat content. Now with greater understanding of how our diet can benefit from clarified animal fats, it is nice to see Lard once again starting to appearing in our kitchens.