Having spent much time in Italy, Nigella Lawson has a passion for Italian cooking and is back on our TV screens with a range of quick and easy, no-fuss Italian dishes. Nigellissima screens at 8:30pm Thursdays from 3 January, 2013.
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Entertaining at Christmas can seem like a daunting taste, but with coaching from Lyndey Milan and the Lifestyle FOOD Channel, you'll quickly master a traditional Christmas or Modern Christmas feast.
'I want people who don't entertain all the time not to get stressed at Christmas when it's their turn to cook lunch or dinner for family and friends. There are so many great dishes in the series which suit both a traditional or a contemporary meal,' Lyndey says. 'I want to give you some options that will highly impress your guests and keep your stress level low.' On the traditional menu is smoked trout mousse, clove-studded glazed baked ham with accompanying mustard fruits, craisin and apple relish, a traditional stuffed and roasted turkey with vegetables. There's also white Turkish delight rocky road. All the dishes look superb and Lyndey makes it seem so simple. For a contemporary take on Christmas, Lyndey prepares smoked crisp-skinned duck breast with spiced pickled cherries, white almond gazpacho with seared scallops, a seafood platter with chimichurri sauce, chipotle mayonnaise, salt-crusted standing rib roast of beef, roasted baby beets, baked parsnip with garlic and thyme, Bernaise sauce, baked Atlantic salmon with salsa verde, minted tomato salad, potato salad, raspberry ripple nougat parfait, and berries with sparkling shiraz syrup and white chocolate mousse. Seriously good food and seriously simple under Lyndey's knowledgable instruction. Lyndey’s Cracking Christmas episode 1 Traditional Christmas premieres on the Lifestyle FOOD Channel on Monday, 10 December; and episode 2 titled Modern Christmas screens on Monday, 17 December, both at 8.30pm. My mouth was watering as I watched Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall collect fist sized walnuts fresh from a nut orchard in Devon and then bake them into a walnut and honey tart, accompanied by creamy celeriac ice cream! (Watch this space, I'm going to try that recipe!).
Drop net prawn fishing is next, the most sustainable way of catching prawns. The prawns are cooked on the wharf to capture that exquisite 'sea fresh sweetness' and then, back in the kitchen, tossed into fiercely hot oil, with a pinch of garlic and chilli, a dash of cider brandy and a knob of butter. Served in martini glasses, this makes for a delicious prawn cocktail no matter what the season or what part of the world you're in, methinks. Also on the menu, there's an array of bite sized canapés, including chestnut and sage soup, and tender free range wild boar with roasted Brussels sprouts, parsnip puree and boar stock gravy. And then those walnuts again. What a cracker of a Christmas get together! The River Cottage Christmas Special will screen on ABC1 on Saturday, 22 December at 6.00pm. If I had the opportunity to be reincarnated, I think I might like to come back as Maggie Beer. I've had the pleasure of meeting Maggie and bringing to her to Canberra some years ago. Her smile, her down to earth generosity and genuine warmth is so endearing. Not to mention she always looks so elegant, is modest... and one heck of a good cook! To celebrate the festive season Maggie invites some special guests to the ultimate Australian Christmas Feast in the beautiful surroundings of her own property in the Barossa Valley. 'I’m simply a country cook who lives in the Barossa where I’m surrounded by fantastic product. This gave me the idea for a feast where I would think of my special local food producers and link their products to my favourite dishes, and then have the producers come to the table underneath my gum trees to celebrate.' Maggie’s menu is inspired by her own family Christmas celebrations. There are two absolute traditions on the Beer family table. Yabbies from the dam, served outside and eaten using fingers, and a goose in the centre of the table. Maggie adds a perfectly glazed ham, slow-roasted lamb, pork, char-grilled beef, some fish and oysters, all accompanied by a variety of salads. Maggie's husband, Colin, also steps up to the plate! Top this off with a special surprise recital while three stunning desserts and a variety of local cheeses are served in the ‘top shed’ and this is a feast not to be missed. Maggie Beer's Christmas Feast will screen on ABC1 on Tuesday, 18 December at 8.00pm. To set the scene, here's a preview. Season's eatings! In Luke Nguyen’s Greater Mekong series two, the acclaimed chef ventures even deeper into the Mekong region visiting previously communities and food cultures in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The journey begins in Vientiane, Laos before crossing the Mekong into Cambodia. Book your seats on the sofa. The program commences on Thursday, 25 October at 8.00pm on SBS One.
If you happened to watch ABC's breathtaking series, Great Southern Land recently, you will have learned that Australia eats the most beetroot in the world, and exports 70,000 tonnes of rice per year. On a continent with just 6% of precious arable land, we support almost 23 million people, and 120,000 farms produce almost everything we eat!
In episode one, titled Great Australian Bite, Professor Steve Simpson, explored how we satisfy an appetite for two of life’s vital ingredients: food and power - as seen from above. Simpson set off on a journey to unravel the network of food production by tracing the ingredients of a humble Australian burger, travelling from Roma in Queensland to Adelaide; from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula and to Queensland’s Glass House Mountains. Viewers were taken from the stunning Snowy Mountains, to Tasmania, south west Victoria, Lake Macquarie in NSW, Burdekin in Queensland and the outback of Western Australia. Seen from above how a vast nation is fed and powered is an eye-opening adventure... this is Australia as you’ve never seen her before! The four-episode series of Great Southern Land is available on Blu-ray and DVD from 21 November and I have TWO copies of the DVD valued at $29.95 each to give away! ENTER THE COMPETITION HERE! To be in the running to win a copy of the Great Southern Land DVD, simply tell me about your favourite Farmers Market in the comment box below. What do you love about it? What makes you want to return again and again. If you tweet about this competition to me @bizzylizzycooks, you will have a greater chance of winning. The Great South Land DVD competition is open to residents across Australia. It closes at midnight on 12 December 2012. Winners will be notified by email and announced here. So make sure you enter and watch this space. In the event you don't win, perhaps you can ask the family to pop a copy in your Christmas stocking! Would you look differently at your roast lamb if you had to kill the lamb yourself? This is an interesting and thought provoking question, particularly in the light of the publicity given to recent incidents of animal cruelty in Australia and abroad.
Documentarian and meat-eater, Madeleine Parry, says she was taught how to kill, gut and cook a chicken by her grandmother. Now she wants to explore whether you can really eat meat and still care about the animals on the menu. So she enlists to become a meat-worker at a small abattoir, and works her way up the production line to the ‘killbox’. After a week of shovelling manure and hosing blood, plus all the other dirty work in between, Madeleine learns how to stun and then kill a sheep. The following day, a cow. And later, a pig, on which she says pigs don't let you forget that you are killing them. This is raw, totally down to earth reality TV that is likely to make viewers think long and hard about ethical eating. And that's a really good thing! Meatwork screens on ABC2 on Sunday, 11 November 2012 at 9.30pm and is part of an ABC TV and Screen Australia initiative called Opening Shot, where five young filmmakers were given the chance to make a documentary to be broadcast on ABC2. 'This program is so beautiful, it's making me cry,' one enthusiast tweeted during the first episode of Two Greedy Italians - Still Hungry.
Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo return to Italy together to remember their own pasts and discover how the culinary capital of the world is changing the way it cooks and eats. The pair take a sentimental journey through the Italian countryside. The program screens on SBS One on Thursday evenings from 4 October. For more information about, see the SBS Food web site. If the Twitter feed during the first episode of Poh Ling Yiew's new series on the ABC is anything to go on, Poh's Kitchen Lends a Hand has very quickly captured the hearts of the viewing audience. 'Watch it now, it will nourish your soul', and 'What an inspiration!' were among the many positive tweets. I loved it too! Former MasterChef Australia contestant and television cooking show presenter, Poh, has taken the opportunity to lend a hand to people who are using cooking to help heal and inspire. The thing I like the most is that Poh has such a warm, effervescent and genuine way about her. Her compassion for the champions she meets throughout the series is truly touching. Watch as Poh creates food for the homeless in her hometown, works with STREAT, a Melbourne community program getting troubled youths off the street and into the hospitality industry; helps a team of cooks with disability face up to their biggest ever test; visits a Victorian town where food is helping to heal after devastating bushfires; and takes on the role as camp cook for troubled teens on an outback adventure. The series concludes with a dramatic and life changing trip to the slums of Cambodia. Poh's Kitchen Lends a Hand screens on ABC1 at 8.00pm on Tuesday for six weeks from 11 September. Click through these postcards from the series:Images appear kind courtesy of the ABC.
Regular followers of this blog and my Twitter feed will be familiar with my passion for the farmers and food producers of Australia; and my tweets about them being the 'Salt of the Earth'. This may explain why I have been so looking forward to Destination Flavour, a new ten-part series coming to SBS One.
Featuring MasterChef winner, Adam Liaw, Renee Lim from Food Investigators, and Lily Serna of Letters and Numbers, Destination Flavour profiles Australia’s renowned chefs, leading providores and food producers, top city restaurants and much loved suburban eateries. It also showcases Australia’s culinary regions that provide the best ‘paddock to plate’ food. Having watched the first episode, I feel this program is fresh in every sense of the word. From the hosts (particularly Adam Liaw, who I think is a very natural presenter) to the vibrant scenery, and delicious dishes and food regions shown. Incidentally, Liaw is currently the Featured Foodie on the SBS Food web site and re his food philosophy says that 'the way we cook and eat is the ultimate connection between human beings and the world'. Destination Flavour commences on SBS One on Thursday, 16 August at 8.00pm. |
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