Even as I write this, tears well, when did this happen, one minute you are cruising along not thinking at all about the path ahead, living in the moment oblivious that there’s an entire industry devoted to track that leads to the end of the road. To make it worse we head to EPIC in the same car that everyone else seems to be driving. It’s not ours, a temporary replacement for my wife’s car I recently cowed and she is still dealing with the pleasant people who look after the insurance. I imagine these individuals as being the human form of a vulture, they must sit by the phone, on a corpse of a recent claimant, planning how many excuses they can find to delay paying you one cent. So the car we have is a Toyota, Nissen or something like that, the model sounds like a female body part. It’s like you’re driving around in a car that’s a cross between an armchair and a coffin, all this polished wood work and everything is engineered; reversing camera, no key to loose, a GPS plus mirrors that move to where its thinks you should be looking,  there’s possibly even a cigar cutter. Well they are popular, we parked in a row of them and headed to the leisure and pleasure show along streams of other boomers.

As confronting as the car was, it was nothing as to what we found inside. I had no idea that the entire retiring population is going to live in a mobile house and have a spa. These incredibly complex mobile homes, trailers and caravans are everywhere, wow, so this is the future, roaming around the country in some sort of Stephen King-esqu world trying to find the last powered site before night falls and the un-homed zombies come out of the bushes to prey on the tardy.

I guess your interest in this as a lifestyle choice is inversely proportional to the square of how long you have been trapped behind a slow moving retired couple who have their names scrolled across the back of the slow moving van and the rest of their lives to get there. Me, I descended into a deep, dark depression. Inside the pavilions – away from all the vans, tented trailers and these spas…what is it that makes sitting in a bath with thousands of discreetly directioned jets so desirable – we find another version of hell. People selling everything from the surprisingly numerous versions of mop and broom, pain relief, gutter guards, vegetable shredders, container sealers to retirement planning, community villages and prawn peelers.

I need to sit down, but not in a personal massage chair or swing that looks like it’s made for a huge parrot cage, put up my feet, but not with any sort of orthotic help, in the shade of anything other than a fruit salad tree. I don’t won’t this amount of planning for the little time we have left, it’s like everyone is either on the verge of retirement or making something to sell to them.

At my lowest point I ran into an old friend, he did some house remodeling  for us years ago when the family was expanding and is now on the verge of, you guessed it, retirement but I knew the he would be doing something interesting, not traversing the Nullabor in a luxury mobile home, towing a spa. Peter has a love of the unusual and we got down talking about his trip of goats he is trying to unload onto unsuspecting folk, and special breeds of chicken, plus, what I’m trying to find to add to my new chook enclosure, guinea fowl.

It’s a personal thing, the type of chook house you build, some, like a Gen Y type I know of, looks it up on the internet, spends a lot of time planning the chicken version of the Taj Mahal and then subsequently looses interest, other’s look for devices that will make their chook yard complete. Like a solar powered door that comes from England and closes when the sun goes down, leaving the dumb ones out in the wilds of the night in a strange Darwinian chicken world. Me, I just converted the kids unused cubby into a pretty good chook house, they even have chairs to sit on, a desk if they need it. Surrounding this I’ve recreated the Howardian detention centre look, Tony Abbott would be proud, nothing comes in or out, we are all safe.

So Guinea fowl are an unusual bird, sort of look like a small turkey and they roost up trees but when you find them can make a particularly fine meal. The flavour is more like chicken than game, stronger though and they have an affinity with cabbage and pork fat. So, I cheered myself up a bit, maybe I’ll go into game bird rearing or even just set up a my own stall here next year. There’s a certain fungus that only grows on the Tibetan plateau, Ophiocordyceps sinensis or the caterpillar fungus. It colonises the larvae of a certain caterpillar, eventually springing out of its mummified head, like a scene from The Thing. Once harvested, dried, ground and mixed with deer penis, it makes a particularly strong libido increaser amongst other things, I reckon it’ll go like the clappers here.

Guinea fowl with braised cabbage, prune and bacon
1 guinea fowl, split down the back.
salt and pepper
½ small red cabbage, shredded.
8 small red shallots, peeled but left whole
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
2-3 thick slices good quality smoked bacon
500ml homemade chicken stock
Bundle of herbs: thyme, tarragon, parsley
10 prunes, with pits

In a pan large enough to hold all, fry off the bacon to release some fat, remove and in this rendered puddle of goodness gently fry the seasoned guinea fowl, skin side down, remove and cook the shallots, garlic and cabbage until they are tamed somewhat, tuck back into this the two meats along with the prunes and herbs, add enough stock to half cover the brew, not too liquid, cover with foil or lid and cook in a lowish oven, around 150C until the bird is cooked, around 45 minutes. A particularly fine meal served with steamed chats and something in pinot mold.

Our 2009 Shiraz picked up 4 trophies: Best shiraz, best canberra district shiraz, best red wine and wine of show. This follows a god showing at the 2011 Winewise SVA. Last 80 cases on sale now before we move onto the elegance of the 2010 shiraz viognier

RNCAS wine show results

look at the WISS website to fully appreciate the effort of these guys.

Wine industry smallgood smackdown

You feel the slight warmth in the air and look around to see all the winter’s jobs still wanting, a wheel off here, pile of rubbish there. You would have noted all the advertising running up to our day based solely around hardware shops and car accessories. Now I’m as intrigued at car parts and brushcutters as the next bloke and like many I stood in front of the Makita bus parked out front of Magnet mart just before dad’s day in thrilling embrace of both awe and amazement. This super sized, flash bus kitted out like a Republican presidential nominee hopeful was a true sight to behold. All these tools and machinery which for the world looked like a repair centre for the next Transformers movie, if fact the entire bus could well be the promo for the first movie of the second trilogy and in the split of an eye transform in a cybertronian and rage havoc on all the terrified and slightly jealous dad’s hanging around.

High on my list of potential gifts was a sleek looking bandsaw and mini-lathe, wow I haven’t seen any of these (or actually thought of needing them) since high school where we rampaged weekly through the woodwork class on these old machines without one thought of occupational health and safety or HACCP, which hadn’t been invented yet, making our rolling pins and warped magazine racks. If I could get my shed set up with this gear I could , well, cut stuff out, the wife would be in her own awe and amazement at my manliness but in truth, don’t tell anyone, what I really want is a new moulis de legumes to replace my 20 year old beaten up well used food mill.

Late winter, early spring is a rather dull time for fruit and vegetables, betwixt and between you could say, the exotics haven’t arrived yet and all you can really find in abundance is cabbage in all its forms; Kale; spinach; sprouts; cabbage itself; wombok what is that?; cavalo nero, no that’s still kale etc. They really don’t inspire a lot of thought when confronted with a huge display of them but seeing as the weather is on the change but still clinging to winter’s cold evenings an Italian bean soup is of the order.

For me it’s a cross between a stew and a soup, based around dried beans, this year’s olive oil which has just finished settling, maybe some home cured pork, (Actually to be exact Award winning home cured pork, aka Ravensworth country ham: top air dried class 2011 WISS  http://wineindustrysmallgoodssmackdown.blogspot.com/) the trimmings or bone from this winter’s project, the last jar preserved tomato passato from the back of the cupboard, you know there’s one left and then whatever is available, a big mix of leafy late winter vegetables. It ends up being a huge pot but will last the week, getting better and thicker, well up to a point and then it will resemble my next project KimChee. You can set up the outdoor setting with a heater and herald in spring in all its glory.

Tuscan bean soup with kale
Olive oil
500g dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight
200g piece of prosciutto, left whole
2 fresh bay leaves
1 bunch parsley, leaves and stems separated
2 red onions, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
1 tbsp dried hot chilli flakes (more or less)
1 cup white wine
6 cloves garlic, 3 crushed, 3 left whole
1 each bunch silver beet, cavalo nero, any other spinachy looking vegetable, stems separated from leaf
1/3 red cabbage, chopped
1 cup of chopped fresh beans (any will do)
700ml handmade tomato passato or two tins of diced Italian tomato
½ bunch basil, leaves only
Salt

Drain beans and rinse well, cast off any that are discoloured or weird looking, place in large pot with 4 liters of water plus prosciutto, bay, some parsley stems and 3 whole cloves of garlic, add a tbsp of salt. Bring to simmer, skim and cook for 1 – 1 ½ hours (Beans should be just getting soft not falling apart, cooking time will vary on age of beans) Remove the beans, reserve and cool, fishing out any flavourings and spent herbs as best you can.

In a big pan, heat the olive oil, more than a drizzle, like a couple of splashes, lots basically and sauté onion and celery until just starting to soften, add parsley leaf, chilli and chopped garlic, cook for a minute then add the silver beet stems plus any thick stems from the other leafy vegetables, cook until it just starts to gain colour, deglaze with white wine, reduce and add whatever tomato arrangement you chose, add a cup of the cooked beans.

Cook this down for about 15 minutes, until its nice and soft. Pass through a mouli back into the strained reserved bean cooking stock and bring back to the simmer, skim again if necessary, adding the rest of the cooked beans. Add red cabbage and chopped fresh beans along with the leafy bits you have left. Cook this for 10 minutes or until all the vegetables are nice and wilted and cooked through, season with more salt if needed.

To serve, toasted and garlic rubbed sour dough, more fresh olive oil, chopped basil leaves and a bottle of sangiovese, which is made for this sort of food. Want a good one, look for Greenstone sangiovese from Heathcote, a partnership between one of Italy’s greatest producers, Antinori, a UK importer and Mark Walpole, a Victorian viticultural hero. Shows how good this savoury variety can be when grown in the right location and with some serious dough behind it.

Australian Wine vintages “The Little gold book” Top 100 2012 BUY THIS WINE NOW!

I’m not normally this taken by morning temperatures. In fact, I live half the year in fear of frosts with acres of grapes, but today in early winter there’s nothing more important to the day’s activities than a season of deep, penetrating frosts. We’re off a-truffling down Braidwood way.

People that get into these subterranean orbs of joy don’t really know exactly why they produce this fruiting body. It’s linked to soil pH, friability, drainage and structure, and of course to the host plant whose root system these fungus cling to. But what is generally agreed upon is that you need a good series of deep frosts for the truffle to bloom and ripen at the right time to produce big, stinky black fruit.

This year, we’ve had a good amount of frosty mornings, and thus I am happy that today it’s a frosty brass-monkey morning that will evolve to a brilliant winter’s day for our hunt at the farm of Peter and ­­­­­Kate Marshall.

The trip out of Braidwood is a roundabout affair. This could be something to do with our hosts’ other business interests, which involve a couple of field cannons and factory full of military clothing. Being an avid reader of mystery novels, my senses are on high alert. Is there something else going on here? Will I finally get to have my Jason Bourne moment that I still believe my life is leading to?

Alas, no. Besides having to scratch our heads at why a group of tree fellers manages to get its truck so bogged in an area where a truck has no business being, the day unfolds without the need for me to revert to my alter ego and save the fair maiden from a devilish plot.

After a nice lunch and briefing, we head to the truffiere, a mixture of hazelnuts and oaks, all quite young, but already having proven themselves with a couple of neat orbs last year. The dog, Sal, doesn’t waste too much time and unearths a monster 365g black truffle in minutes. Being pretty well dumfounded that it was so easy, I reflect on my choice of dogs for my own much awaited truffle experiment. Will Pooka, a wide-eyed, can’t-focus bundle of hair, be able to so willingly and precisely find one of these in future years?

All Sal needs is a pat on the head and some attention, and in an hour she finds a crop with a potential street value of $2000! As opposed to the money sink our spoodle has become, requiring a weekly visit to the vet to remove half a cup of grass seeds from the ears and falling victim to the local animal coppers’ ongoing revenue raising round of Murrumbateman.

So at the end of a very nice day, a huge hunk of this first truffle sits before me back at home. What to do? The aroma has been tormenting me all the way back – even though it’s wrapped in a bag, the sweet, earthy, sulphidey aroma permeates the cruiser. The kids, when I pick them up, wonder what I’ve been up to.

While I’m thinking, I lightly toast some Silo bread, add lashings of butter and 30g of shaved truffle. This gives me a clue – keep it simple. This is really good toast and I wonder whether you can overdose on tuber melanosporum.

A while back, I was out at the refurbished Fyshwick markets. While I was snapping up a nice bit of cheese for the night at the Mart Deli, the owner, a Frenchman, gave me a nice bit of advice. The wooden box of Fromager des Clarines, a slightly ripe mountain cheese from Haute-Savoie, is perfect for heating up. So that night I warmed it on the barbecue with half a glass of white wine poured over it. The cheese expanded slightly as it warmed, and served with good bread it was a beautiful fondue of sorts with a slight mushroomy character already. At that point, I thought, if a truffle comes my way this year, and it has, I would re-create this fondue with thin shards of fresh truffle wedged into the cheese before heating.

So tonight, having no idea how much truffle to use, I aim at about 50g. On to the barbecue with a splash of marsanne, which I think is the perfect savoury cheese wine.

Simply served with a salad of super-fresh celery, crispy green apple and chopped hazelnuts, this is an early winter meal I can happily call brilliant. The aroma of truffle is intensified enough so as not to be intoxicating, the salad refreshes the palate, and all is well with the world.

Truffled Clarines fondue with apple and celery salad
1 box of fresh fromager  des Clarines
50g shaved black truffle
2 stalks celery
half a granny smith apple
handful toasted hazelnuts
white wine

‘I’m a human, God damn it! My life has value!’ So I want you to get up now go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!!’

It’s Monday 22^nd August and if the threat has been realised there should be and stream of angry people charging down the nearby Barton highway, I want to say in the ‘caravan of courage’ but that something entirely different, the procession of discontent..no-confidence that’s it, the convoy of no confidence.

But first, continuing my probable misquote from Network “I’ve gotta get mean, I gotta dig deep” but now I’ve gotta take the dog for a walk. And here I find it hard to keep some sort of anger brewing. My dog, one of those poodle-cross things that the pet shops are full of, has this amazing coat of hair, can’t see his feet, eyes or mouth, just a mop of tangled ginger hair, so I took him off to Yass for his usual clipping. Well when I picked him up I was sure they gave me a different dog, because this, now female looking arrangement with fluffy tail and ears, eyebrows much like Sam the sheepdog, surely isn’t Pooka. In a word ridiculous so strolling down the lane it’s hard to keep the fires of uncontrolled rage that I’m meant to be feeling today burning, with this silly looking dog bounding around after rabbits.

I’m thinking that there’s more to this than people not wanting a tax on carbon, windmills and a national broadband network. Maybe, just maybe, the anger is to do with diet and, sit down, a detox might be cathartic, might heal the soul. I’m feeling that way myself, I was all set to charge into Canberra and rage against the machine when I thought hang on, I actually don’t feel strongly either way. Being not one iota a political animal having being blessed with parents who felt strongly about cancelling each other’s vote out, I have never once voted for the political party who gets in. I mean Mark Latham seemed reasonable?

So here’s my plan, cleanse the body and hopefully the mind but which detox diet will works it magic on my countenance? Googling away its easy to find heaps to choose from: Green smoothies diet, na sounds like wheatgrass and that bird has flown; fruit flush diet, seems reasonable until you see that you have to buy expensive protein drinks off an old weightlifter; the lemonade diet, well seems to work for the kids; the you are what you eat diet…don’t get it, that would make me a deer/duck/ham.

All looks like too much work so I’ll just make it up myself. Blood oranges are in season at the moment and it doesn’t take too much time to see that these are natures perfect fruit, not only super high in vitamin C and A, but loads of folic acid, calcium and packed with anthocyanins, natures own anti-oxidant. So here’s what I’m going to do, get a heap of them and see if it helps the demeanour, if so I’ll patent the idea and make a squillion like the buff weightlifters, if not excuse my behaviour at the next rage against the government.

Here are five things to do with blood oranges

1. Simply add them to the morning juice, mixed with normal oranges, carrots and a spike of ginger, you get the day going it the most positive way, love the colour here.

2. At the other end of the day that make a fantastic addition to a range of cocktails (Yes, it is an hypocrisy to detox with alcohol, but there you have it) It is the perfect companion to Campari; mix two part of good gin with 1 of Campari, a splash of vermouth (Kina Lillet if possible) over ice and rub the rim with the skin of the orange and top with 3 parts blood orange juice.

3. A simple salad, cut segments of blood orange and mix with baked baby beetroots, raw rhubarb, red onion and parsley, dress with good olive oil and serve with a dollop of crème fraiche on the side, see you probably feel better just thinking about that.

4. Another salad, a bit more work. Sicilian blood orange salad, this is where the oranges apparently come from, the slopes of Mt Edna, the volcanic air giving rise to the colour, use the very dark and bloody, sanguiniccio.

Sicilian blood orange salad
3-4 blood oranges, segments, use juice too
1 small red onion, finely sliced, soak in chilled water to tame
A pile of rocket as a bed
½ cup of Kalamata olives, pitted plus half a dozen sliced for garnish
Full flavoured olive oil
Handful of goats or sheeps milk feta, crumbled
6 dried figs, chopped
½ cup of day old bread, broken into rough shapes, cooked in olive oil until crispy

In a warm oven drizzle olives with oil, bake until dark, soft but not burned, puree with extra olive oil to a pouring look. Drizzle the puree onto a plate with an artistic flare, toss everything else together and pile up on top, more oil to dress, add crouton last.

5. Sashimi of king fish with blood orange and ginger vinaigrette
A lovely recipe from Tetsuya, one of the best ways of serving this fish fresh.
120g Kingfish, sliced thin, skin off
1 blood orange, segmented, pith free
A mixture of chopped chives, parsley, coriander, some mixed baby lettuce and finely sliced spring onion

Ginger vinaigrette (mix together just before serving)
1 drop of orange oil
1 drop of Banyuls vinegar, a light red wine vinegar will work
¼ tspn each of grated ginger and garlic
1 tspn salty soy
Salt and pepper

Arrange the fish and segments, dress and sprinkle with herb mixture. Done.

Steamed blue-eye with pickled vegetable noodles and ponzu
2 250g plump fillets of blue-eye, skin on (or use another big fish)
200g brine (35% salt)
Oils on hand: grapeseed and sesame
Vegetables: a mixture of cucumber, daikon, carrot and wombok (Asian cabbage)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt flakes
Steamed sushi rice

Garnish, toasted sesame seeds, chopped spring onions

Ponzu dressing
60ml light soy sauce
40ml citrus juice (see above)
5ml rice wine vinegar
10ml mirin
60ml dashi

Pinch of minced ginger

Mix together

First prepare the vegetables, cut them all into a long julienne, you can get little hand shredders that do this, use about the same quantities of each vegetable. In a bowl season with sugar and salt and leave for 20 minutes, drain off any collected brine. Steam the fish for 8-10 minutes over barely simmering water, once almost ready heat a pan with a splash of both oils until it just starts to smoke. On a plate, have the fish skin side up, scatter spring onions and pour over the sizzling oil, this sears in the flavour a slightly crispens the skin, serve on a bed of vegetables, rice and dressing on the side, sprinkle all with sesame seed and extra spring onion.

So when the word got out that we should get together for a reunion, relive the week, the amazing highlights, the silly comments and discuss that empty feeling you now get knowing that the 2011 applications are due and no matter what you’d do to get another seat at the tasting table, that we probably won’t ever have such a range again, well at least without having to pay for it.

A date and venue were selected, a private room at Circa in Melbourne’s St Kilda where they know all about fine wine being part of the Prince wine group. The challenge, attempt to put together a flight of wines worthy of such a celebration, the menu was planned a 5 course degustation.

You might remember the sequel to the remake of Ocean’s Eleven a few years ago? One of the opening scenes is the gathering of the just shy of a dozen criminals who pulled off the heist of a century, they all amber into the room – resplendent, elegant, mysterious – to plan the next seemingly impossible challenge. Well that was exactly how it felt walking into the restaurant the other night. Exactly, seeing as my sub-conscious vision of myself is always George Clooney anyway.

Well it was a terrific night, great wines going back 5 decades from the likes of: DRC, La Chapelle, Haut Brion, Bonneau du Martray, Muller-Catoir. The menu well tuned to the paired wine: warm miso glazed eel with an Arbois white and flinty Chenin; spanner crab cannelloni with three dry Riesling; Dory, mussel and clam risotto, urchin butter with white Burgundy; suckling pig (ssso good) with red Burgundy; veal loin with a neat handmade macaroni with an esoteric flight of Hermitage, Bordeaux and Peidmont.

Even ending up in a dark underground room filled with red smoke, highly repetitive dance music, bad dancers, contemplating celery flavour vodka whilst trying to hear a spoken work, could not dampen my mood.

One of the other scholars, Mike Bennie, or as I like to call him Brad Pitt on account of them being so alike, is one of the founders of WISS. What is WISS I hear you say, well, this acronym stands for Wine Industry Smallgoods Smackdown!

Most people who make wine also having a decent interest in food and it turns out that many have a crack at smallgoods when they can. A few reasons: one, well it goes with wine; two, a lot of winemakers are of European extraction and three, we get fairly quiet in winter.

As you possibly know, we do get into the curing mood each year, many a slaughtered pig and bucket of salt go into the annual salami making process and this year I’ve had an 8kg pork leg hanging on the back verandah, drying in the cool breeze. So when I heard about the competition that is judged in early September I just had to be involved with it. But what to cure? The prosciutto/ham/Jamon won’t be ready needing a full year to dry, sausage are but there are full-on profession salami makers in this industry so I settled on something that will be ready in the 12 week window we had and is a bit different.

If you run your hands down the back of a pig’s neck, don’t worry they sort of like it, but shouldn’t, you can feel two thick sections of meat just behind the where the skull ends, they are about 20cm long before they descent into the shoulder sections. That’s the cut I am talking about, capocollo or coppa both translate – Head-neck and nape – to this section. They make a nice little roast too being so well marbled.

The reason why I like this cut is that it has all the qualities of good prosciutto, soft, fatty, sort of dissolves in the mouth and you can cure it quickly, ours took about 6/7 weeks to cure and dry. So I’ll include a process of how it was made, say you wanted too to be a smallgoods producer but you can obviously just buy some readymade for this simple and fulfilling pasta dish but do go to an Italian butcher that makes it themselves like Eco-meats at Belconnen, tell them Bryan sent you.

Home-made coppa
1 x pig neck section (about 700-800g)
40g Murray river salt crystals
1 tbsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp coriander seeds, ground
½ tspn fennel seeds, ground
Pinch of mace
dried chilli to taste
Some rope
a 5kg weight
One salami net

Mix the salt and spices together and rub into the meat all over, place in a sealed container and cure for 14 days, turning every second day. Brush off any excess spice mixture, squeeze the salted meat into netting, it should be really tight. Tie both ends and then go outside, somewhere cold and hang the meat via a section of rope high enough so dogs won’t get interested. Now tie the weight to the bottom of the sausage so that this arrangement will stretch the meat as it dries. Cover with some muslin. Dry like this for 4 weeks, then take off the weight, the coppa is ready when it feel firm yet yielding.

Macaroni with coppa, sautéed kale and tuna
Good quality macaroni or penne
100g finely sliced coppa
2 bunches Tuscan black kale, chopped
1 tin Italian tomato, chopped
1 clove garlic
Olive oil
1 small tin of good tuna, with chilli if possible
Italian parsley, roughly chopped
salt and pepper

Cook the pasta as required. Ina small pot, heat some oil to sizzle, cook garlic until crisp, remove and discard, dump into the now garlicky oil, the tomatoes, cook down a little, set aside. In a non-stick pan, sauté coppa until just starting to crispen, remove and save, add kale and sauté until yielding, add back the coppa and tomato sauce, cook to combine, season and add cooked pasta and off the heat stir in tuna and parsley.
 

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X��X��ze:11.0pt;font-family:”Arial”,”sans-serif”‘>Steamed blue-eye with pickled vegetable noodles and ponzu
2 250g plump fillets of blue-eye, skin on (or use another big fish)
200g brine (35% salt)
Oils on hand: grapeseed and sesame
Vegetables: a mixture of cucumber, daikon, carrot and wombok (Asian cabbage)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt flakes
Steamed sushi rice

Garnish, toasted sesame seeds, chopped spring onions

Ponzu dressing
60ml light soy sauce
40ml citrus juice (see above)
5ml rice wine vinegar
10ml mirin
60ml dashi

Pinch of minced ginger

Mix together

First prepare the vegetables, cut them all into a long julienne, you can get little hand shredders that do this, use about the same quantities of each vegetable. In a bowl season with sugar and salt and leave for 20 minutes, drain off any collected brine. Steam the fish for 8-10 minutes over barely simmering water, once almost ready heat a pan with a splash of both oils until it just starts to smoke. On a plate, have the fish skin side up, scatter spring onions and pour over the sizzling oil, this sears in the flavour a slightly crispens the skin, serve on a bed of vegetables, rice and dressing on the side, sprinkle all with sesame seed and extra spring onion.

The show tends to be just a tad repetitive, each week they cross to the experts up and down the coast, who are no doubt catching ‘flatties’ in the bay or ‘kingies’ off the point, maybe, and I’m now making this up for effect, get into a school of ‘coddies’ off the shelf.

I love the show, the brusqueness of the fisherman “yeh, na….no worries….” they, who are surprisingly mostly males, have a laid back, cheerful, uncomplicated feel about them, not a care in the world even if the trouties aren’t biting. Surely this is an activity we are meant to be doing, not necessarily reefing half dead fish out of the sea, more doing an activity that is calming, serine, a way of quietly reflecting on life. I imagine that these type of people don’t need therapy, intervention or membership to a men’s shed.

I’m not trying to make a mockery of this new genre of things men need to do to get through the week, meet in a non threatening environment and build a park bench. I am lucky enough to have a job that is working, living the dream, in a huge shed each week making wine so maybe I can’t see the need, mind you I could use a hand tidying my own shed, is that the same thing?

Back to angling and my need for slab of fish for tea. Looking around at a few fish shops it’s hard to make the connection from a fine, line caught kingfish – that spent its last moments gracefully leaping out of the ocean in an age old contest between man and beast, granted the man is armed with a highly engineered rod and reel and the fish just has it wits – with what’s on offer. Looking at the trays and trays of uniform fillets that have no doubt come from farms and have recently thawed out, my morning yearning fads somewhat.

Not until I get to the Belconnen markets that I see fish that look like they should, ie whole. Not that farmed or frozen fish is solely a product of mall based fish mongers, I just know here that I will have more chance of finding something different or at least cut off the bone in front of me.

The fish that I crave the most, one that we used to have on our daily menu down in Tasmania is the so called blue-eyed cod. A more correct term would be blue-eye trevalla, I could be wrong here, I know, crazy talk, I’m never wrong, but this isn’t a cod at all, just a big, deep sea fish that can be mistaken for a cod. So let’s call this just blue-eye, great fish, probably farmed now, so they’ll never be as good as one that’s been pulled out of the cold sea where they grow so slowly but it’s probably more sustainable.

You’ve got to get there early enough before they cut them up, it’s seems common here to cut the upper part of the fish into cutlets, what you want is a nice plump pair of fillets from the thickest section of the fish, not the tail, tell them to leave the skin on too.

Once home you need to do two things, firstly pull out any bones and then give the fish a quick salting. It makes sense that they spend their lives in salt water so this would be an environment that has the flesh in a state of balance. On average sea water has 3.5g salt per 100ml, so make up a brine that reflects this with sea salt flakes and give the fish an hour or so. Have a bamboo steamer over simmering water ready and hot before you put the fish in to steam.

A word on the sauce here, ponzu is a Japanese citrus dipping sauce, if you can find yuzu, a citrus fruit that comes from China, Japan and Korea, much like lemon, grapefruit or even madarine, it’s quite tart and very high in vitamin C. Funnily enough at the winery we have this old citrus that grows beside the shed, looks like lime, only yellow skinned, I reckon this is yuzu and is probably the rootstock growing rather than the planned lime. It works anyway, use any of the mentioned citrus or a blend of all.

The other main ingredient in ponzu is dashi, this is a Japanese seasoning stock based on kelp (Kombu) and dried bonito (katsu bushi, also available as a ground preparation), both are available from Japanese grocers. Easy to make, for a cup, just soak a piece of kombu (5cm square) in a cup of water, bring to the point of simmering, turn off and add 2 tbsp bonito flakes or powder steep for 10 minutes. Strain and keep in the fridge.

This is a quick and fairly easy preparation, just some subtle Asian flavorings to help, I’d be looking at a bottle of Riesling seriously to go with all these flavours and tastes, maybe something with a bit of age, soft and gentle, which will balance the yang of the sauce’s umami seasoning.

Now, men, we are meeting at my Murrumbateman men’s shed next Thursday and first we are attacking the tool shed, a decent bench should set the scene, give me a holla once your done.

 Steamed blue-eye with pickled vegetable noodles and ponzu

2 250g plump fillets of blue-eye, skin on (or use another big fish)
200g brine (35% salt)
Oils on hand: grapeseed and sesame

Vegetables: a mixture of cucumber, daikon, carrot and wombok (Asian cabbage)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt flakes
Steamed sushi rice

Garnish, toasted sesame seeds, chopped spring onions

Ponzu dressing
60ml light soy sauce
40ml citrus juice (see above)
5ml rice wine vinegar
10ml mirin
60ml dashi
Pinch of minced ginger

Mix together

First prepare the vegetables, cut them all into a long julienne, you can get little hand shredders that do this, use about the same quantities of each vegetable. In a bowl season with sugar and salt and leave for 20 minutes, drain off any collected brine. Steam the fish for 8-10 minutes over barely simmering water, once almost ready heat a pan with a splash of both oils until it just starts to smoke. On a plate, have the fish skin side up, scatter spring onions and pour over the sizzling oil, this sears in the flavour a slightly crispens the skin, serve on a bed of vegetables, rice and dressing on the side, sprinkle all with sesame seed and extra spring onion.