At the Market

cooking melbourne

Discovering Melbourne's Artisan Foods and Produce

Celtic Christmas

With Christmas approaching some people will be retrieving traditional family baking recipes and getting the Christmas cake, pudding or biscuits underway. Celtic Christmas traditions often include shortbread. These are wonderful to give as gifts or stash in the cupboard for unexpected guests in addition to appearing at some point during the Christmas festivities. While shortbread…

Vibrant Green Broad Beans

It’s spring and it’s time for broad beans. Buy up big because after shelling you will have quite a pile for the compost heap and a more modest bowl of podded beans. To enjoy the real beauty of this vegetable don’t stop at this point, plunge the beans in boiling water for one minute, drain…

crumbed eggplant with Parmasan cheese and tomato salsa

Eggplant Angst

Eggplant is the vegetable people seem to love to hate and yet it is so versatile and delicious. I suspect the hate aspect is often not knowing how best to cook it coupled with a fear of having to use too much oil. Olive oil is the good oil, so relax; you’ll probably consume more…

Portarlington Mussels

There has been a recent retail seafood trend to sell shellfish, such as mussels and clams, already cooked and packaged in plastic bags. I’m sure the extra shelf life of this packaged seafood is hugely convenient for retailers and exporters but for customers who enjoy cooking their own shellfish it is a real disappointment. I…

Black Sapote

Yes, chocolate pudding does apparently grow on trees in the form of a weird fruit called black sapote. The black sapote is a relative of the persimmon and like its cousin is ready to eat when completely soft and pudding-like. The colour is intensely dark chocolate but the flavour is much more subtle with only…