Zucchini Soup

At this time of year the sun and rain makes Zucchinis grow at a staggering rate. I once watched one grow about fifteen centimetres in an afternoon. If you don't watch it they can become large marrows overnight. So what do you do with zucchinis that get away from you? Answer: zucchini soup.

Zucchinis prepared by chopping and scraping off tough bits of skin and seed pods are the main ingregient.
Put in a pot with two cloves of garlic, one medium onion and a good pinch of salt.
Simmer in a cup or two of good chicken stock stock (make sure you clarify if home made) until soft and mushy.
Allow to cool, then blend and sieve. Sieve very well - it's meant to be delicate.

Serve chilled with a decent dollop of fresh cream and a dusting of freshly ground white pepper. Those tall passata bottle are excellent for storing chilled vegie soups in the fridge.

It is more filling than you might think, so don't offer guests a second bowl if you have courses to follow - and use small bowls. The spoons need to be extra clean too because the chilled cream sticks readily to them.

A had mine with a nice Colombard/Chardonnay blend.

Xmas Bunny - new recipe

More suitable for Easter, I know, but needs must where the Devil drives. My family, or bits of it - all integral, as such, there were no half relatives - visited for the Holy Day itself. Santa brought me two young conies for the pot. In the boxing day wash up I realised there was more food than could be decently accommodated by one largish lad, so I began the task of cooking casseroles - they keep a bit longer. Here's a new rabbit recipe.

One rabbit quartered into six pieces (yes, yes, I know 4 isn't 6),
2 cloves garlic,
thyme,
spring onions,
rosemary,
salt,
black pepper - even whole (if so don't use chillies)
2 small hot chillies
left over Xmas stone fruit - cherries, peaches, nectarines etc - washed and cut up if necessary,
half a cup of water, beer, white wine or light stock (as the mood strikes you)
a couple of teaspoons sugar

Put all ingredients in a sturdy casserole and bake for 2 hours at 150 degrees C. Stir occasionally. Take the lid off and turn the heat up when almost cooked.

Take out the rabbit pieces and set aside. Strain the juices. Reduce in a pan or pot on the stove top, sweetening and spicing to taste - no flour please. Arrange the rabbit on an ovenproof serving tray with the best looking fruit (bin the rest) and pour over it the thickened sauce. Put into the oven on 220 degrees for fifteen minutes.

Et voila - Lapin de Noel!

Bird flu causes a goose fat shortage for shops

From The London Daily Telegraph

Christmas is coming - and there is no goose fat.

Sales of the luxury product doubled last year after millions followed the advice of television chef Nigella Lawson, who hailed goose fat as the crucial ingredient for making the perfect roast potatoes.
However, bird flu has wiped out a third of the goose population across Europe this year, causing a shortage of the fat, and now shops are struggling to find supplies in time for Christmas.
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They are suggesting cooks turn to duck fat instead for cooking potatoes and basting the turkey. Rob Amar, the marketing manager of Buckinghamshire-based fine food suppliers R H Amar, said: "Finding goose fat this year could be a real problem because of the avian flu that has affected flocks throughout Europe.
"Duck fat is a great alternative and will produce an equally tasty Christmas dinner.
"The French use it for all sorts of cooking, including frying and sautéing, and Nigella has recommended duck fat as an alternative to goose fat."
Asda said it had snapped up thousands of tins of duck fat after learning that there could be a shortage of goose fat.

The supermarket says that, like goose fat, duck fat has a high burn point, which makes it just as suitable to cook roast potatoes in a very hot oven.
As an alternative to goose fat, Asda has produced a saffron glaze that is applied to a turkey in the last 15 minutes of cooking, a technique dating back to the 16th century.

Winning the Meat Tray

On my way home from the City (Sydney - not The Urbs) I stopped in at my club and won a tray of meat. The meat was sweet and almost good enough to eat raw - although I ate it medium-rare. I was more than a little selfish - this weekend's guest list will have to make do with a decent home made Pizza. That's life, I suppose.

Maltese Bunnies

The rabbit is an engaging creature. Popularised by Beatrix Potter and Mrs Beeton, it has charmed the hearts and the stomachs of many generations. Recently I came into posession of two Maltese rabbits. They were big meaty beasts full of nutrition and fertility - just the thing for a cold winter's night.



I found a good home for them in Bathurst in my sister's back yard. My brother-in-law repaid my kind deed by presenting me with one of their progeny, suitably dressed and ready for the pot. Dorothy her name was - though there were no little red boots to take her and Toto home to Kansas. She went into my big red French iron pot (a gift from JS) and came back in several incarnations. First as a larded roast, then as a nicoise and finally as a pot of stock with which I am preparing, even as I write, a rabbit risotto. (Sorry no photos, my e-camera is hors de combat.)



I commend the rabbit to you. The easiest way is a long, slow cassrole in a good quality tomato sauce - indeed even a home made one. You can throw in black olives or whatever pickled trinkets you feel you need. A good sized rabbit like Dorothy can feed about six - provided they (I mean the eaters, not the eatees) are not all members of my family in which case you may need an extra bunny. The flavour is decently gamey and combines well with the tomato. Roasting is more of an art form. Lots of lard or bacon or olive oil, I'm afraid. The meat is very lean and requires attention - turning, slow roasting, basting and such like indelicacies.



Rabbit stock is fabulous, so keep your bones for the stock pot - the most important thing in the kitchen, if you ask me. A rabbit reduction sauce is sweet and heady, with subtle subterranean undertones - like my love, as Jeff Buckley sings.



I was dining with my friend Shaun last night at Leo's in Granville - still a great Italian noshery. I asked the waitress about the names of the quail I was eating and she looked confused. Shaun told me you couldn't make such a joke in Ireland - they have an internet program that traces your animal from Farm to Fork. If you asked an Irish butcher about your steak, he avers, he could, and likely would, tell you its name!

Flour and the secret of baking

The secret to baking bread or making pizza dough is having the right flour and a nice warm corner in the kitchen to let the dough proof properly. I found a line of "strong" flour in my local supermarket. It makes all the difference. The dough is elastic and easy to work. It rises properly and when baked forms a beautiful crust on the outside and is fluffy on the inside.

Those Naughty Dutch Again

Well, you'd think they'd get over it, wouldn't you. Atheism is a perfectly respectable opinion. So too is Theism in many of its classical forms. Deism, as well, has nourished many a disenchanted Christian. What you can' t be and claim still to be a Catholic, let alone a Dominican, is a fuzzy minded Unitarian with no theology of revelation or redemption. Thus the Dutch Province of the Dominican Order signs its death warrant.

Put simply, the notion that I believe in Revelation, as contained in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, but reserve the right to say what Jesus really meant, especially when it's clean contrary to what the Church has always taught, is intellectually contemptible.

Sorry, lads, it just won't wash. If you can't take the heat then get out of the kitchen. You might even discover some publicly unfunded personal authenticity - something that might even survive beyond a theological semester.

The response of the Dominican Curia was an even worse affront to reason. You'd be forgiven for thinking that they agreed with the Goldmember province but weren't game to say so because they were just down the road from You Know Who.

Back in the days of Catholic Civilisation there would have been a short, sharp inquisition and a few ceremonial burnings in Amsterdam presided over by His Paternity, the Magister Ordinis Praedicatorum. I make no comment on the morality of other times, especially as I would have stood a good chance of ending up in flames myself - for non-theological reasons. Plus ca change.

What I find difficult is the lapse into bureau-speak. They didn't follow process - as if that ever worried a Dominican superior. Why wasn't I told? As Dorothy Evans of Number 96 was accustomed to say. We are shocked and surprised...... Where the hell have you been since 1955?

All this represents a failure of nerve and principle on the part of my favourite Deist organisation (apart from the Buffalo Lodge). It is perhaps premature to be singing a Dies Irae but perhaps St Dominic's death-bed curse is bearing its fruit.