Here is a recipe that we used in a Christmas class back in 2004. It is a great way of using up left over ham and delicious served with a dill pickle relish (photo in the Gallery Page)

Ham Confit – Makes 1 cup

200g good quality ham, minced in a food processor (buy a thick slice or chunks)
2 eschallots, finely diced
50g butter
2 tblspns white wine
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh sage leaves
Freshly ground pepper
50g extra butter, melted and cooled slightly

Melt 50g of butter in a small saucepan on low heat and add onion. Cook gently for a few minutes until clear yet lightly golden around the edges, stirring regularly. Add wine, turn up heat and cook until the wine is reduced by half. Add the ham, parsley and sage, season with lots of pepper and stir until it is all hot. Then cook gently on the lowest heat, stirring, for 10 minutes.

Spoon the mixture into a ramekin or bowl and press down until dense and level. Pour melted butter over the top, ensuring that the entire surface is sealed. This will help it keep in the fridge up to a week.

Before serving, remove the butter layer and serve the confit slightly warm to bring back texture and flavour.

• This mixture can be converted to a sausage roll filling by replacing the butter with a beaten egg. e.g. Place minced ham in a bowl, add gently fried onion, one egg, parsley and pepper and prepare the rolls as per the standard puff pastry sausage rolls.
• For extra festivity, either serve with star shaped toasts or fill cooked pastry cases with the warm ham confit and top with a little relish.

Dill Pickle Relish – Makes 2/3rd cup

This is a quick version of a relish:

¼ cup water
¼ cup white wine vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 bay leaf
1 clove
1 tblspn finely diced red capsicum (omit the soft centre bits)
¼ cup finely diced dill pickle cucumbers (approx 2 dill pickles)
1 tblspn finely diced pickled onion
Freshly ground pepper and a pinch of sea salt
1 generous teaspoon cornflour
2 teaspoons cold water

Boil together the water, vinegar, sugar, bay leaf and clove, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Add the capsicum, bring back to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes.

Add the gherkins, onion, pepper and salt. Bring back to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes.

Mix together the cornflour and water and add to the relish. Again, bring back to the boil and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring regularly. Remove the bay leaf and clove and allow to cool in a bowl. Don’t worry if it seems too thin as it will continue to thicken in the fridge.

Keeps up to a week in the fridge or 1-2 months in a sterilized jar.

• This relish is delicious with pork, silverside or cheddar cheese and is a jazzy lift to left-over roasts and barbecues.
• A great sandwich relish.




Bread Rounds

Cut your favourite shapes out of sliced bread, brush them with melted butter and bake in a 180deg oven for approx 10 minutes, or until golden, turning halfway. When cool, keep in an airtight container for a day or two. Alternatively, freeze them and reheat lightly in the oven to crisp up again.

• I love these bread rounds with pate and other spreads too. They are a great base for hors d’oevres for entertaining.

Yes, there are two types of fennel. The male bulb is slightly elongated and the female bulb is rounder and slightly sweeter thus making it better for raw salads. Roasting both male and female fennels, you will not notice the difference as fennel becomes milder when cooked. In summer, you will find that fennel is much smaller than the winter version.

Verjuice is the juice of pressed unripe grapes. White balsamic vinegar is made from the 'must' of ripe white Trebbiano grapes in the same fashion as the standard dark balsamic vinegar except that it is not cooked/boiled as long and therefore is ready early while still pale. It will not age as long as the dark balsamic vinegars.

Ginger is the rhizome (not the root) of the Zingiber plant and originated in Asia. It is now grown throughout Southeast Asia, India, West Africa and the Carribbean. Australian ginger is generally grown in the Sunshine Coast, Queensland and harvested in summer. When buying fresh ginger, it should be aromatic and plump with smooth skin. I find the best way to store it is in a slightly damp paper towel in the fridge. This will avoid it from drying out, however if not used within 1-2 weeks, it will develop mould. To keep it longer, peel it when fresh and store in a jar of sherry.

In my classes, I often tell people to rub their hands on their dry stainless sink to remove odours. This works for garlic, fish and onions as these products contain sulphur which is attracted to and binds with one of the components of stainless steel. Why buy a fancy cookware 'stainless steel soap' when you have a stainless steel sink? You could even use the blades of your stainless steel knives (that was a cutting remark!)

An intriguing question by a student in one of my classes. Intriguing because it was quite a task to find the answer! After a lengthy search on the internet and reading all of my food reference books, I contacted Sue Dodd at the Sydney Markets to find out why these mild and delicious onions which are either red or yellow, are called 'Spanish'.

She contacted a specialist from a seed company to ask him about Spanish onions who was actually in Spain at the time. He advised that the term Spanish was most likely introduced by the supermarkets in about the 1980's.

When we first started growing red onions in Australia, the varieties (seed) were sourced from the USA. Many of these had Spanish sounding names and in fact are a Mediterranean type of onion that likes hot humid conditions.

Spanish onions as a variety do not grow well in colder climates. In the US a Spanish onion can be red, white or yellow .

Sue found the following on an American seed company's website. You can see how they came to have the name change.

Allium cepa 'Red Burgermaster F1'
Onion, Sweet Spanish 'Red Burgermaster F1'

Sydney Markets name these 'Spanish' onions as 'red onions'. Thank you, Sue!

To answer queries on pine nuts which we are using in the Catalan Pyrenees, pine nuts are seeds of the pine tree and not actually nuts.

Here is an excerpt from Janet Fletcher, a food writer from the Napa Valley, USA:

Remember those pine cones you used to gather for grade-school crafts projects? Nestled inside their bark-like brackets are the shell-covered seeds, capable of generating another pine tree under the right circumstances.

Every pine tree makes seeds, of course, but only certain varieties produce seeds that are large and tasty enough to eat. In New Mexico, Pinus edulis is the official state tree, producing piñon nuts that are a local delicacy. In Nevada, Arizona, Utah and parts of California, enthusiasts harvest the cones from Pinus monophylla (Nevada's state tree) and claim that its soft-shelled seeds are even tastier than New Mexico piñons.

The Mediterranean pine nut crop, so prized in Greek and Italian cooking, comes primarily from Pinus pinea (in Spain, Portugal and Italy). Pakistan harvests Pinus gerardiana, and in China and Korea, Pinus koraiensis yields edible seeds.

But none of these trees gives up its seeds easily. Harvesters must first gather the cones in the late autumn or early winter in some countries, from wild trees. Europe has pine plantations, but in China, at least, the pines aren't cultivated in orchards like walnuts or hazelnuts. Harvesters pick up fallen cones, clamber up ladders to cut them off, or break them loose with a long-handled hook. Then, typically, the cones are sun-dried or heated to encourage the brackets to open and make their cache more accessible. Depending on the processor, the seeds are then coaxed out by hand or machine, then dried further before processing to remove their hard outer shell. Traders say much of this process is done manually in some countries, which partly explains the nuts' high price.

Veal is a nutritious and nutrient-rich meat that is produced from the male offspring of dairy cows. Dairy cows give birth once a year in order to continue producing milk. While female offspring serve as dairy replacement animals, male calves have little value to the dairy farmer prior to the establishment of milk-fed veal farming.

After sampling delicious 'Jeremiah One' Pinot Grigio in one of the classes, there was debate about whether Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris were the same grape or whether they were slightly different strains of the same grape. I have made a few enquiries and all information seems to stem to the fact that it is the same grape - named Pinot Grigio in Italy (and Australia) and Pinot Gris in France. It is a strain of the Pinot Noir grape and each country has their different style of winemaking. Here is a link from 'The Age' newspaper: http://www.theage.com.au/news/Epicure/Rising-star/2005/01/03/1104601299456.html

One of my customers who attended a 'Tastes of New Orleans' class brought up the topic of Louisianans eating mud. It is quite fascinating to know that in various parts of the world, it is considered a delicacy to gather mud, to strain it through muslin cloth to remove twigs and stones and to eat the velvety mud. Apparently it absorbs toxins and is popular with pregnant women. This link will give more information on nutritional values! http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=health&id=3497523