Marieke’s Diary: From the Garden and From the Sea

From the Garden.
March 2010:

Returning from the States in October saw us making another investment in trailer loads of local chicken manure and mushroom compost to build further depth and sturdiness to otherwise free draining sandy, limey soil.  

A wonderful man at Boneo market had raised all manner of heritage tomatoes in handy jiffy pots and some 20 plants were placed in two sunny spots and dutifully staked. Rouge de Marmande, Beefsteaks, Tigerellas, Black Russians, Oxhearts, Black Krims, Brandy Wines, Romas, Principe Borghese, and Grosse Lisse to name most of this year’s selection. Rows were under planted with sweet basil, several varieties of thyme and proper French tarragon.
When I left for India early February it seemed we might not get a fantastic ripening season, but to the contrary, it has been a bumper year with warm and hot days interspersed with summer rains.
Elsewhere, we planted several heirloom varieties of eggplant (that have been rather slow), several varieties of beans, amaranth, different coloured beets, cucumbers for pickling and eating, zucchini of course (that needs daily inspection or else can run away from you and turn quickly into giant marrow), a wide selection of lettuces.

Efforts to raise seedlings of Pimientos de Padrón available from The Italian Gardener in Canberra were left too late in the season to succeed.  We shall renew efforts around this superb Galician pepper that is typically served at Spanish markets, when in season, fried in fine olive until they blister and dusted with sea salt. Eating these sweet, herbaceous, occasionally hot little peppers is a little like Russian roulette as you never can tell which might be the hot one and immediately transports you back to early mornings at La Boqueria in Barcelona where they are served from the little bars.  The pimientos were so well received at our Christmas cooking class at the end of 2009, most students decided to order them for their own Christmas day celebrations. For gourmands who want easy access to them the pimientos can be mail ordered from inspired musician/farmer Richard Mohan who grows exotic produce in the Noosa hinterlands and whose growing season ends late May early June. To order them Go To>
It may also be worth investigating if Andrew Wood, formerly originator, publisher and Editor of the much missed Divine magazine and now organic farmer on a rich granite strip near Heathcote , Glenora Heritage Produce, succeeded in growing them this Summer.

The cavolo nero cannot be killed. I have never encountered a plant that continues to reward through the seasons and for over 12 months. The new leaves became the most appreciated treat for the three chooks inherited from a friend’s over-crowded run. Sybille, Eunice and Polly have brought a lively vitality to the garden, and have been spoiled with hand feeding of the said kale, as well as copious snails, caterpillars and slugs picked off the vegetables, oyster and clam shells and the like. Such spoiling has rewarded the kitchen with almost daily eggs of the most intense saffron coloured yolks. And their eggs have spoiled the cook from, well, really being able to ever buy eggs again.

The other delightful edible discovery was Malabar Spinach (basella alba) my friend Connie raised from seed from Diggers Club. With some of the characteristics in terms of taste of Kankung, the aquatic sub tropical plant Ipomoea aquatica, or Water Convolvulus widely grown and beloved in SE Asia, this extremely pretty and fetching vine is fast-growing, soft-stemmed, reaching as high as 10 m. Its thick, semi-succulent, heart-shaped leaves have a mild flavour and mucilaginous texture that can be used much as English Spinach, or mixed with other greens.

As we go to press, and venture off to the outback for a serendipitous camping expedition, we have pulled most of the summer garden that is now on its last legs. The abundance has fed us and friends continuously for nigh on five months. To the garden’s bounty we have also been adding treasures from the sea: fresh abalone, pippies, calamari, crabs. 

FROM THE SEA: 

Just after returning from India in early March was a weekend that included 2 of the permitted 60 days that the holder of an amateur fishing licence is allowed to bag a few and strictly limited blacklip Abalone (Haliotis rubra).  These beautiful creatures are gastropod (stomach-footed) molluscs. Their soft bodies consist of a large muscular foot (the edible part) and internal organs that are protected by one flat ear-shaped shell. The colour of the foot generally gives the species its name. The outside of the shell is coloured to blend in with their habitat of browns, reds and green. The inside of the shell is silvery in colour much like mother-of-pearl and the meat is specially prized by Asians as an exceptional delicacy.

The weather was magical, almost sublime with very low high tides, inky calm translucent waters, sparkling days, cloudless blue skies and near perfect sea temperatures for swimming.  This was my first ever experience of handling absolutely fresh abalone straight from the sea. In Kauai last year we had the chance to work with frozen shells the size of small footballs, but this was entirely a different kettle of fish, and very exciting.
Extensive web research revealed basically 2 schools of thinking for shucking and cleaning the shells’ meat, the Japanese-style one seeming to be all together more culinarily intelligent and respectful of such exotic, live, raw produce, as well as being efficient and the least messy. In short, it is possible to cleverly extract the delicate white meat and leave behind all the guts attached to the shell.
Once cleaned, the common school of slicing the ab is to cut horizontally, parallel to the bottom of the shell, then use a mallet to tenderize. We sliced half this way, but so thinly that beating the fillets seemed redundant. The other half were sliced in wafer thin vertical slices with a sushi knife.
To round off the experiment we also cooked the abalone in two different ways. The first half were briefly seared in beurre noisette and simply finished with some tamari. The remainder were lightly dusted in besan (chickpea) flour with spices and sea salt and shallow fried in olive oil to crisp the exterior.
Both were quite outstanding in flavour and the texture in the two different cooking techniques imperceptible. Very rich, a rare treat, but one to look forward to again at a future date.

Another of this season’s joyful discoveries has been the humble Pipi (Donax deltoids), closely related to cockles, clams and vongole, valued by our local Mediterranean communities and able to hand-harvested from the intertidal grassy shallows of the Bay. A marine bivalve mollusc with a smooth wedge-shaped, cream to pale brown shell (sometimes slightly yellow or green and with pinky-purple bands) containing dark (often bluey-purple) meat, they should be cooked after a 24 hour cleansing and exude a most fabulous juice.
Spaghetti Vongole was my first welcome home meal and we have repeated it several times since.

To Prepare:
Take the collected pippies and after rinsing, place in a bucket of fresh sea water in a cool shady place or overnight. An hour or two before they are needed, place in a bucket of fresh water with a cup of polenta. All this effort is an attempt to rid them of their sand. Some of our fellow fishermen on the local jetties have advised that they place them on large racks sitting above a shallow quantity of sea water, so they freely spit out the sand from their shells.

To Cook:
One kilo of fresh pippies will make a fine meal for up to 4 persons
Boil until al dente, a fine hand rolled spaghetti such as Martelli or Rustichelli in a large pot of salted boiling water, drain and toss with a little extra virgin olive oil. Set aside until needed.
In a large deep fry pan, melt half butter and half olive oil. Sauté gently a cup or more of finely diced red onion or eschallots and several cloves of fresh crushed garlic and 1-2 dried chillis. When meltingly tender, add 1/2 cup of semi-sweet vermouth and half a bottle of white wine. Simmer until the juices are somewhat reduced. May be prepared ahead to this stage.
To Finish:
Bring the onion base back to the boil. Add drained pippies and a few handfuls of cherry tomatoes sliced in half. Cover the pot. Check at 3 minutes and toss. Cook another 2-3 minutes until pippies are open. They will have thrown off a considerable quantity of their own sweet juice. Add the cooked spaghetti and toss to heat through. At the end, add a handful of sliced flat leaf parsley and a large nugget of fine butter to add sheen and richness.
For a more Asian-style version see Rodney Dunn’s recipe.