Skip the bacon, ham and salmon today! This is a truly satisfying, vegetarian breakfast that doesn't lack anything, will make you feel good, and is easier to assemble together than it looks. The recipe is inspired by one of my favourite breakfast places of all time: Friends of Mine in Richmond, Melbourne. The dish is featured on their 2021 menu. Sadly, because of the current travel restrictions, it is close to impossible to get the real thing right now. That's why I came up with my own version of Friends of Mine's "Smashed Avocado Toast W/ Roasted Red Pepper Hummus, Pomegranate, Marinated Feta, Spiced Nuts And Seeds On Five Grain Toast W/ Balsamic Glaze Add Poached Egg". I'll make sure to try theirs, as soon as it is possible again!

Recipe

Feeds two hungry people

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

3 Roasted red capsicum (use jarred ones or make your own, on the barbeque or in the oven - just make sure to char their skins), drain well with paper towels

1 Can of chickpeas, including the aquafaba (the liquid in the tin)

1.5 Tbsp tahini

2 Tbsp lemon juice

2-3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic glove

1/2 Tsp cumin

1/2 Tsp chili powder (I used Aleppo pepper)

Salt and black pepper

To make the roasted red pepper hummus, blend all the ingredients well in a food processor. Set aside until ready to assemble.

Balsamic Reduction

Put 3 Tbsp of high quality balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan over medium heat. Reduce until the balsamic vinegar has reached the texture of honey.

Smashed Avocado

1 Ripe avocado

1.5 Tbsp lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Just mash the avo with lemon juice, salt and pepper. You don't want to get too fancy here, because the final dish already hs a lot of different flavours.

Other Ingredients

1-2 Tbsp of roasted nuts and seeds of your choice, I used a mix of pumpkin seeds, pine nuts and sunflower seeds and toasted them in a pan on medium heat for about 5 minutes

2 slices of sourdough bread, toasted

150g of feta cheese, sliced into small cubes

Pomegranate seeds and a few mint leaves for decoration

Add poached eggs, if you like!

How to assemle your breakfast (or lunch, or dinner):

Place your sourdough toasts on two separate plates. Top them with with feta, pomegranate seeds and mint leaves (if using). Smear a generous amount of red pepper hummus onto each plate. Top with your toasted seeds and drizzle with the blasamic glaze. Dig in and enjoy!

Indonesian cuisine offers a diverse variety of soups. Soto Ayam, a very flavoursome chicken soup and Bakso, a hearty meatball soup are amongst the most popular ones. If you ask me, they all have one thing in common: very good stock as their base.

If you’re planning to make indonesian soup, please take some extra time and prepare your own stock instead of using store-bought or instant versions. The spices and aromatics providing the right flavours for your final dish are very specific. You’ll be using lemongrass, kaffir lime and star anise for instance.

Recipe

Makes about 1.6l of stock

2 tbsp coconut or sunflower oil

6 small shallots or 12 Thai shallots, peeled and halved lengthways

3 carrots, chopped into 4cm chunks

3 celery stalks, chopped into 4cm chunks

2 leeks, chopped into 4cm chunks

1 chicken (preferably free range or organic) or 2kg chicken bones

Spices

1 tbsp black peppercorns

2 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 star anise

1 cinnamon stick

Aromatics

1 handfull of coriander stalks

4 garlic cloves, bruised

6 cm piece of ginger, peeled and sliced (about 30g)

2 lemongrass stalks, bruised

2 bay leaves

2 kaffir lime leaves

Toast the spices in a dry, heavybased pan over medium heat until fragrant. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a large, deep pot over medium-high heat. Sauté the vegetables in batches until golden. Please be careful not to burn them.

Once done, return all the vegetables to the pot, along with the chicken, toasted spices and aromatics. Add enough cold water to cover (about 2l) and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat abd simmer for abot 2 hours.

Once finished, strain the stock through a sieve and reserve it for its further use. If you prefer a strong concentration, return the stock to a (clean) pot, bring to a simmer and reduce for a little while longer until its strong and flavourful.

Saffron is a beautiful spice, unless you have white kitchen surfaces 🤣. It turns everything it touches into a radiant golden yellow and is therefore great to cook with. Derived from the flower of a crocus (Crocus sativus) only producing a few threads each and being hand-picked by real people, makes it quite precious. In fact, one of the world's costliest spices by weight. It is believed that saffron originated in Iran, just like this recipe for Persian Saffron & Lemon Chicken by Sabrina Ghayour. The key lies in marinating the chicken in yoghurt and lemon juice overnight, which makes the meat incredibly tender.

Recipe

Serves four people

4 onions, thinly sliced

juice of 5 lemons

4 tbsp olive oil

1tsp ground tumeric

400g greek yoghurt

2 tbsp sea salt flakes

generous pinch of saffron threads (alternatively saffron powder)

3 tbsp boiling water

6 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 5 cm pieces

Grind the saffron threads into a fine powder using a pestle and mortar. Pour over the boiling water and leave to infuse for a couple of minutes. It will turn deep orange.

Place the onions, lemon juice, olive oil tumeric, yoghurt and sea salt flakes into a large bowl and mix well. Add the chicken pieces and your infused saffron water and mix thoroughly. Cover and marinate in the refridgerator overnight. If you're in a hurry, you can marinate for a shorter period of time. But keep in mind that the process of marinating tenderizes your meat - patience really pays off here!

Preheat the oven or barbecue to the highest setting possible. Separate the chicken from the marinade with a slotted spoon or kitchen tongs. If using a barbecue, place them onto a heat proof griddle or pan. Alternatively, place them onto a large baking sheet lined with nonstick baking paper. Bake or grill for 18 to 20 minutes, until the edges are slightly charred, while the meat still remains moist on the inside.  Meanwhile, pan-fry the leftover onion marinade mixture to serve with the grilled chicken.

Serve with flour tortillas or flatbreads, a little side salad and extra yoghurt for dipping.

A very old friend of mine from university is Iranian (or Persian - this can sometimes be a sensitive issue) and aside from the dancing, which I never really got the hang of thanks to an inability to snap my fingers, she introduced me to the very unique world of persian cuisine.

While sharing many elements with neighbours, iranian food mixes much of what you might think of as pakistani/indian cuisine with elements of other middle eastern cuisine. The first dish I ever tried was a wonderful pilaf style rice with dried fruits and nuts (the classic "persian jeweled rice").

Martina isn't all that fond of fruits, but she does love the foundations of many middle eastern cuisines: an abundance of fresh herbs, mint, cilantro, and parsely as a main ingredient, not just a garnish. Persian cuisine takes these and mixes them with other - to our taste - exotic ingredients, such as saffron, tumeric, rosewater, and even dried rose petals. And, of course, pistachios, which she loves.

This lamb dish is a great example, it has a refined yet big flavour; a subtle balance between sweet and sour, the fresh herbs and spices make it a one-bite heaven while the vibrant colours are a feast for the eyes. No grey roast lamb with brownish mint sauce here.

Lamb choppies in general are an Australian staple, a must for every proper barbecue or as Aussies like to call it, a barbie. Any sort of lamb with a bit of burnt crust on it takes me home.

These lamb chops are infused with rose water and also rose petals.  Take some time for this one, as marinating them overnight makes them particularly tender.

We discovered this recipe in Sabrina Ghayour’s book “Persiana”, adapted for the grill here.

Recipe

Feeds 4 people

800g lamb chops

6 tbsp olive oil

5 tbsp dried edible rose petals

1 heaped tsp tumeric

3 tsp ground cumin

3 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp sea salt flakes

3 garlic cloves, sliced thinly

2 tbsp rosewater

Chilli & Herb Drizzle

1 large red chilli, finely chopped

20g cilantro, leaves picked and finely chopped

2 tsp dried mint

Juice of ½ lime

8 tbsp olive oil

sea salt flakes and black pepper

Grind the rose petals with a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder. To make the marinade, mix olive oil, spices, garlic and rosewater together in a large bowl. Add the lamb chops and cover them well with the marinade. Ideally you should marinate them in the fridge overnight. If you can’t, marinade for a minimum of 1 hour in the refrigerator.

Meanwhile, make the chilli and herb drizzle. Just combine all the ingredients for the drizzle in a small bowl. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper

Heat your barbeque to a very high heat. Grill the lamb chops for 4-5 minutes on each side to get them a little bit charred but not burned.

Alternatively, preheat your oven to the highest temperature possible. Place the lamb chops on a large baking sheet lined with nin-stick baking paper. Roast the lamb in the oven for 20-22 minutes, depending on how well done you like them.

Remove the lamb from your barbeque or oven and generously spread the drizzle onto them. Serve hot with a green salad and some steamed basmati rice or flatbread.

Yay, it's that time of the year again: wild garlic season! In early spring, just before everything nature comes back to lush, green life, wild garlic starts to grow on the edges of the forest. Sam doesn't let me harvest my own straight from the forest. He's too scared that I will poison us, confusing it with the very similar looking lilly of the valley (yes, that, but mainly the fox tapeworm and the general cleanliness thing - Sam). But I managed to pick some up at the market and decided that it's the perfect ingedient to give classic, South American chimichurri an interesting twist.

I spent some time in South America, doing an internship in Santiago de Chile as a  student. While I found Chile to be very different from the stereotypical image one might have of Latin America (warm-temperatures all year round, some of the best pronounced Spanish you've ever heard), it is a great place worth visiting for it's culture, people, food and nature. As a little bonus, it's also very safe and accessible.

On a weekend trip to Argentina with my friend Lara, we had lunch at an Asador, an  Argentinean Steakhouse. Amongst huge amounts of grilled meats, they also served homemade chimichurri, an uncooked sauce made with lots of chopped parsely, minced garlic, olive oil, oregano and vinegar. I usually substitute half of the vinegar with lemon juice to add tang. This time, I replaced garlic cloves with wild garlic.

Recipe

Serves 4

1 cup of parsley, leaves picked

1 bunch of wild garlic

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 red chilli, finely chopped

3/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1 level tsp coarse salt, black pepper to taste

Pound the parsely and wild garlic with a mortar and pestle until there is no visible structure remaining from the leaves. Note that a blender doesn't really work here, as it quicky processes everything into a puree. You don't want puree, what you're after is a silky, loose texture with bite. Add the olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice, stirring with your pestle, followed by the chopped chilli, oregano and salt. Season with pepper to taste.

Serve with your favourite grilled cut of meat. We had US Entrecote and a side salad with it.

If I had to limit myself to one single breakfast place for the rest of my life, it would probably be Friends of Mine in Richmond. Its a lovely café, treating you with all day breakfast, amazingly good lattes and a laid-back atmosphere. I can't count the times I went there any more, but not a single visit could be one too many.

My all time favourite breakfast at Friends of Mine is the Hung Over Breakfast. I enjoy it every time, even completely sober. It's poached eggs, bacon & avocado on a cheesy herb toast and it goes extremely well with their homemade eggplant kasundi. Kasundi is what they call pickles in India. Think of a fragrant masala with lots of spices combined with ginger, chili and garlic. Nowadays, we make our own eggplant kasundi at home. Chef Matt Moran shared a recipe in which he combines it with poached egg and asparagus topped with shaved parmesan cheese. This recipe makes quite a large amount of kasundi, but it keeps well in the fridge for up to three weeks.

Recipe

Kasundi

1 large eggplant, cut into small cubes

125ml extra virgin olive oil

10 curry leaves

1/2 tsp each yellow mustard and fenugreek seeds

10cm piece ginger, finely grated

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 long red chillies, thinly sliced

1 tsp ground turmeric

1/4 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp garam masala

400g tin of chopped tomatoes

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (If you can't get apple cider vinegar, replace with 1/4 cup apple vinegar)

1 tbsp brown sugar

salt

Place the eggplant cubes into a colander. Add 1 tbsp of salt, mix and let sit for about 15 minutes. Rinse, drain and pat dry with paper towels.

Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based saucepan over high heat. Add the curry leaves, fenugreek and mustard seeds and stir, until the mustard seeds start to pop. Lower the heat to medium. Add chili, garlic and ginger to the pan and cook for about 2-3 minutes. Be careful not to burn the garlic, or it will taste bitter. Add the spices and the eggplant and cook for a little longer, stirring constantly, until the eggplant starts to brown slightly. Add the apple cider vingear, tomatoes and sugar, mix well, and let the kasundi simmer on a low heat. Matt suggests simmering the kasundi for 18-20 minutes until its done. But I like the eggplant to be very soft and the texture of the kasundi to be quite dry, which takes about 45 minutes. Your choice!

Poached eggs and asparagus on toast

Feeds two people

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed

olive oil

4 eggs

100ml white vinegar

2 grilled or toasted sourdough slices,

chopped chives and shaved parmesan

salt and pepper

Toss the asparagus with a splash of olive oil, salt and pepper. Heat a chargrill pan or barbecue to medium high heat. Grill the asparagus for about five minutes, turning occasionally. Transfer to a plate and keep warm.

Now comes the tricky bit: poaching the eggs. There are two possible ways to do this: The traditional way, which involves creating a whirlpool in your pot of boiling water to drop your eggs into. Or the slightly more pragmatic way, using tools such as silicone egg poachers, which will do the job just as well. We use OXO good grip egg poachers, available on amazon. There are egg poachers that require you to cover the eggs in oiled cling film or ones that just sit at the surface of your pot. Don't buy tools that won't let your eggs touch the water. The result will NOT be poached eggs.

If you're feeling traditional, bring a large pot of water to boil. Add salt and the white vinegar. Turn the temperature down until you can just see bubbles forming on the bottom of the pot (not on the surface!). Use a large spoon to create a whirlpool in the water. Drop two eggs into the whirlpool at a time and poach for 3 and 1/2 minutes or until done to your liking. Take them out with a slotted spoon and dry with kitchen towels.

Alternatively, bring a large pot of water, salt and vinegar and your egg poaching devices to a light boil. Drop the eggs into your poachers and cook for 3 and 1/2 minutes or until done to your liking. Remove and dry with kitchen towels.

To assemble your breakfast, spoon some eggplant kasundi onto each sourdough toast and top with the asparagus and two poachies. Sprinkle over chives and shaved parmesan to serve.

Sam and I met while studying for our MBAs at Melbourne Business School. For our intake, the programme was changed from 2-year course to a 12 month full-time programme, without altering the syllabus. I had never worked so hard in my life. Most of the time, I wasn't even aware what day of the week it was, going to school 7 days a week, morning until evening, public holidays included.

For a rare but more-than-deserved break, we would sometimes spend a weekend together with our friends and classmates in Sam's familys' beachhouse in Sorrento, down the Mornington Peninsula. I still have very fond memories of these times. Even though we're now all spread across different parts of the world, we still keep in touch and try to catch up whenever possible. Funnily enough, two other couples from our joint weekend escapes are married now.  This makes three in total, accounting for Sam and me, just in our close circle of friends. Being under large amounts of pressure together seems to build some very serious bonds amongst people.

Our friend Andrew, who was born and raised in the US, made beautiful and fluffy American-style pancakes for us one morning. After several attempts to recreate them, I finally found a recipe that came close. I'm sharing it with you below.

Recipe

Makes 16 small pancakes for 3 people

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

2 cups buttermilk

2 large eggs lightly beaten (if you're after some extra fluffiness, beat the egg whites separately until stiff and gently fold them in at the end)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all the the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Whisk in the buttermilk, eggs and vanilla extract just until combined. Don't overmix, some small lumps are okay. Let the pancake batter rest for about 10 minutes. This gives your soda and baking powder the chance to do their magic.

Meanwhile, heat a large pan or tepanjaki. Ad butter and ladle in equally sized portions of pancake batter. I use silicone pancake forms to get a perfect shape. But this won't affect flavour. As soon as small bubbles appear on the surface, flip the pancakes and continue cooking on the other side until nice and golden 🥞.

We like our pancakes with melted butter, maple sirup and bacon. Fresh berries and yoghurt make a nice and healthier alternative 😇.

This staple of every great breakfast-café can easily be created at home. You will just need to schedule in a run on the same day to keep it balanced 😉

Recipe

This feeds two very hungry people

½ loaf of brioche (we use our own sourdough brioche)

6 large eggs

100g sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence (you can also use the seeds of 1 vanilla bean)

Pinch of salt

480g whole milk

Butter for frying

Slice your brioche into thick slices (each about 2.5 cm thick). Whisk eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt and milk together well. Place the brioche slices into a deep dish or container suitable for soaking the bread with your egg custard. Ideally, the slices should fit into it well, not leaving too much space on the sides. Otherwise, some of your precious custard will be wasted. Pour over the custard mixture and let the brioche soak in the fridge for 1-2 hours. If the container of your choice seals properly, you can turn the whole thing around once to make sure all slices soak evenly.

After your brioche has finished soaking, heat a heavy-based pan to medium-low heat. Add the butter, wait until it becomes frothy and fry the brioche slices individually until nice and browned, about 5 minutes per side. Be careful not to burn the french toasts, but patient enough to make sure the custard is cooked right through the middle of each slice.

Once done, top with lots of maple sirup and fresh or frozen berries if you want.

We use it as a base for extra-delicious breakfast recipes, such as french toast, a must-have breakfast item on the menu of a good brunch café. Or take it even further and spoil yourself with scrambled eggs and hot smoked salmon on brioche, as found at Hardware Societé in Melbourne among others.

Story

Even though Brioche is a very traditional french yeasted bread, it doesn’t mean it should be left to french bakers only. Melissa Weller, an American baker who used to work as a chemical engineer in her former career, shared an excellent recipe for a sourdough brioche loaf in her book “A Good Bake”, which we have made several times with great success. Melissas science background translates directly into her baking. She is very precise with measurements and temperatures in her recipes. This might sound daunting at first, but it really helps to guide the amateur home baker.

This recipe uses sourdough for extra flavour. I’ll share a guide on how to create and maintain your own sourdough shortly. You could also just ask a friend to share a bit of theirs with you or order some online. As the dough is retarded in the fridge overnight, you’ll need to start this recipe one day before you intend to bake.

Recipe

Makes one loaf

480g all-purpose flour

76g sugar

6g instant yeast

12g fine sea salt

5 large eggs

80g whole milk (room temperature)

170g sourdough starter (at its peak)

283g unsalted butter (cubed and softened)

1 egg and a pinch of salt (for egg-washing)

You’ll need a loaf tin to make this. Mine measures 30 x 12cm.

Mix flour, sugar, yeast and salt in a bowl. Put eggs, milk and sourdough starter into a a large, separate bowl. Put your mixed, dry ingredients on top. If you’re the proud owner of a stand mixer, fit it with the dough hook and mix everything on low speed (2-3 minutes) to combine your ingredients. This will also work with a hand-held mixer. Make sure you’re using the dough hooks and combine everything well.

Next, incorporate your butter very thoroughly. This will take about 5 to 10 minutes. If your dough climbs up the hook(s), wipe them with a wet hand once or twice and continue mixing. Once done, cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and let the dough rest in a warm place.

The brioche dough will be rested for a total of two hours. In this two-hour window, you’ll need to fold your dough twice. Your first set of folds is performed after the first hour. The second set of folds is performed right at the end of the two-hour resting period. To fold the dough, wet your hands so the dough doesn’t stick to your fingers. Then, gently push your hand under the side of the dough furthest away from you. Grab a hold and stretch the dough upwards (without breaking it) and fold it down towards yourself. Turn the bowl 180 degrees (a half turn) and repeat with another fold. Turn the bowl 90 degrees (a quarter turn) and repeat. Turn the bowl 180 degrees again (half turn) and do your last fold. This will look like a wobbly letter.

Cover the dough and put it in the fridge overnight to retard.

The next morning, lightly dust your work surface. Place your dough on the work surface using a dough scraper. Gently pat it into a rectangle, which should have about the same width as the tin youre baking it in. Grab the top of the dough and fold it towards the middle. Grab the bottom of the dough and place it on top. Put the dough into your greased baking tin, with the seam facing the bottom. Even it out with your hands. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and rest in a warm place for two hours.

About 30 minutes before baking, preheat your oven to 180°C (conventional). Mix the remaining egg with a pinch of salt and brush the top of your brioche dough with the egg-wash.

Place it in the oven and bake for about 40-45 minutes until the top is beautifully browned. Remove from the oven and let cool completely. To remove the brioche loaf from the tin, just flip it over carefully. Greasing your tin well before baking is essential here 😅

Every bite of this is like a flavour explosion in your mouth. Imagine a sweet, sour, salty and spicy taste, all at once and combined with crunchy and smooth textures. But be warned: You shouldn't eat too much of it in one go or you will regret it. It is just so rich.

Making this dish requires soaking the barramundi in fish sauce and then letting it dry again it in the fridge overnight to get the texture right. And cooking pork belly in your own master stock.

You will need to visit an Asian grocer to get a hand on many of the ingredients used. It’ll totally be worth it though.

Story

Queuing for a restaurant table is a very uncommon thing here in Germany. People either make a booking in advance or just walk in. At CHINCHIN, a Melbourne Institution, no bookings are accepted. I assume that otherwise the restaurant would just be booked out for several months, leaving zero chances for spontaneous visitors. Instead, you just show up and wait until a table is available for you. Which can take several hours on a busy day. Does this stop people from eating out there? Nope! The food is just too amazing to miss. Luckily, the waiters will note down your number and give you a call once its your turn. Leaving plenty of time for an aperitiv or two in the meantime.

The crispy barramundi & green apple salad with caramelised pork is a classic that we order each and every time we’re at CHINCHIN. It’s pure indulgence. The restaurants’ executive chef Benjamin Cooper published a cookbook with popular recipes from it’s menu. This salad is amongst them.

Recipe

Serves 4 as a light salad or 2 as a main meal

Pressed pork belly

1½ kg pork belly

You won’t need the whole pork belly for making this recipe. Pre-portion and freeze what you don’t need straight away for the next time. It’ll come in handy!

Master stock:

½ cup Mekong Whisky

½ cup shao hsing

1/3 cup dark soy sauce

80g yellow rock sugar (or palm sugar)

2 cloves of garlic

2 large knobs of ginger

1/3^rd bunch of spring onions, roughly chopped

1 tsp cardamom pods

3 star anise

1 piece of cassia bark (alternatively, a cinammon stick)

You can strain and freeze the master-stock for future use after the pork belly is cooked!

Put all of the master-stock ingredients into a pot with 2 litres of water. Bring to a boil and wait until the sugar has dissolved. Add the pork belly, which should be completely covered with stock and lower the temperature to a gentle simmer. Braise the belly for about 3 hours.

Carefully lift the pork belly out, use straight away or keep in the fridge overnight. Ideally, you’re pressing the belly into a neat shape, using two cling-film covered baking trays and by putting something heavy on top. But don’t worry if you can’t be bothered to do so or you're suffering from fridge-squeeze syndrome - it still tastes great.

Nahm Jim:

4 green banana chillies

2 cloves garlic

¼ bunch coriander root

1 tbsp caster sugar

½ cup fresh lemon or lime juice

2 tbsp fish sauce

You can either use a mortar and pestle or a food processor to make the nahm jim. Pound our blitz chillies, garlic and coriander roots into a fine paste. Combine with the other ingredients, making sure that the sugar dissolves. Season with salt.

Barramundi and apple salad with caramelized pork

200g barramundi fillets (if you can’t get barramundi, use another white fish. Cod works for example)

Fish sauce (for soaking)

500g palm sugar

1/3 cup oyster sauce

2-3 tbsp soy sauce

500g pork belly, cut into bite-sized pieces

Vegetable oil (for frying)

2 tbsp roasted peanuts

2 tbsp crispy shallots

1 green apple, cut into matchsticks

½ bunch of mint leaves

½ bunch of coriander leaves

4-5 kaffir lime leaves, julienned

1 stem lemongrass, white part only, thinly sliced

½ cup of nahm jim

1 dried red chili, crushed (optional for extra spice)

Place the barramundi filet into a shallow dish and cover with fish sauce. Let sit for about 30-40 minutes. Take the fish out and place it on a rack in the fridge to dry out overnight. An oven or microwave rack will work, for example.

Add palm sugar, oyster sauce, soy sauce and ½ cup water to a heavy-based pan. Heat gently to melt the palm sugar. Bring to a boil and add the bite-sized pieces of pork belly. Simmer gently for about 15-20 minutes, remove from the heat, stir to get everything nicely coveren in caramel and let the pork sit in the caramel for about 15 minutes to cool.

Deep-fry the barramundi until crisp. Cut into bite-sized pieces. Mix the pork and some of the caramel with the peanuts and crispy shallots in a small bowl.

To assemble the salad, place apple, mint, coriander, lime leaves, lemon grass, fried barramundi, nahm jim and dried chilli (optional) into a bowl and toss.

Place your salad on serving plates. Build the pork belly up next to it.

Once you’re digging in, make sure you get a bit of everything in the same mouthful, to make sure you’ll experience the flavour explosion that I was talking about.

Feel like a comforting meal for a cold, rainy or sad day? We’ve got you covered: heartwarming, homemade gnocchi with a very simple, yet flavoursome sugo.

As with almost every dish, the quality of the ingredients are crucial here. Make sure you get good, extra virgin olive oil (commonly referred to as "EVOO" in Melbourne), parmesan cheese and buffalo mozzarella.

As this dish is finished off by baking it in the oven, it is a suitable option if you’re feeding a larger group of people.

Story

While Sam and I studied for our Masters Degrees, a new Italian Restaurant called Kaprica opened around the corner of Melbourne Business School. It was a tiny place with a very down-to-earth interior. As the restaurant had no separate kitchen, you could watch owner and chef Pietro Barbagallo prepare the dishes right next to you from the hand-witten, single-page menu.

This is where the two of us had our first dinner together, after a long day of lectures and studying. We still head to Kaprica when visiting Melbourne. Pietro is very proud to serve customers from the early days at his venue, which he has since upgraded.

There used to be just a single pasta dish on the menu: Gnocchi Sorrentina. Pietro has shared his recipe in the Broadsheet Melbourne Cookbook, which is the source for the following.

Recipe

Serves 4-5 People

80 ml extra-virgin olive oil

1 Tsp of chopped garlic

1 handfull of basil leaves

1kg canned diced tomatoes

200g parmesan, grated

450g buffalo mozzarella, chopped

Gnocchi

800g desiree potatoes, skin on

Salt flakes

1 egg yolk

200g typo 00 flour

To make the gnocchi, cook the potatoes in boiling and salted water until soft. This shouldn’t take longer than 30-35 minutes. Then drain.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the sugo. Heat oil in a saucepan over medium to low heat. Add garlic and basil to infuse the oil, being careful to not burn the garlic. Add the diced tomatoes and season with salt and black pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Fill a large pot with salted water and bring to boil. You’ll need this to be ready for the gnocchi. Also, preheat your oven to 180°C fan-forced.

Peel the potatoes while they’re still hot - be very careful not to burn your hands. Mash the potatoes using a potato ricer (alternatively use a fork - never use a food processor as this destroys the texture of the starches). Add pinch of salt, the egg yolk and ¾ of the flour and bring everything together into a dough. If the dough is too sticky to handle, add some more flour. Shape the dough into logs about 2cm thick on a slightly floured surface. Cut each log into 3-4 cm pieces and brush or shake off any excess flour.

Boil the gnocchi in batches in the boiling water. Once risen to the surface, they’re done. Take them out with a slotted slotted spoon and put them into a baking dish, together with your sugo. Proceed the same way with your remaining gnocchi.

Mix the gnocchi through the sugo, sprinkle over the parmesan and scatter over your buffalo mozzarella. Bake the whole thing for about 12-15 minutes until then mozzarella has melted.

Serve with some extra basil if you like. We don't just like, we love it.