Olive Mar 2006 issue
Ever fancied a whirl at Japanese cooking but didn’t know where to start? Olive’s March issue introduces you to Japanese home-cooking (not a slice of raw fish in sight) with a variety of tempting and easy vegetable and meat dishes.
Keeping with the oriental theme is Gordon Ramsay’s offering – a signature dish seafood soup from Petrus, Vegetable Nage with Shellfish, which he promotes as quick and easy but with a real vibrancy and freshness. Crème fraîche, oysters and scallops being amongst my favourite foods, I’ve no doubt the combination is.
Bouncing to the other side of the world and a cuisine that garners just as many health-conscious fans, Olive asks whether the Mediterranean diet really does make you live longer? Apparently it does, and what’s more (unlike most other diets) you enjoy the experience!
Store-bought cakes tend to be full of nasty additives, preservatives and unspecified ‘flavourings’, but we still can’t resist them. Food writer Annie Rigg provides a whole slew of quick ’n easy cake recipes to help you to cut down on the fat and sugar and treat your family with fresh baked goods. Ranging from simple cupcakes, chocolate brownies, soft-baked cookies and jam tarts to only slightly more complicated sticky gingerbread and fondant fancies, there’s something to tempt everyone.
John Torode’s Beef guide this month covers the perfect steak – where it comes from, how to choose it and what to do with it once you have it. He also discusses the much-maligned but flavourful oxtail.
The other white meat gets the spotlight with an article on farmer Richard Vaughan, breeder of rare Middle White pigs. Richard is a convert to the philosophy of giving his livestock a happy life, with the run of the farm and high quality feed. The breed’s meat is high quality and used in top restaurants such as The Fat Duck, St John, The River Café, Moro, Chez Bruce and the Conran restaurants.
Food Passport (the monthly article on professional chefs’ choices of eating spots) features chef Peter Gordon’s choices this month. I was lucky enough to eat in his NZ restaurant Peter Gordon’s dine in December and it fully deserves its inclusion here, along with other excellent dining spots to try out around the world.
On the less haut cuisine end of eating, Brian Murdoch has been dishing up premier league pies and food to football fans at Aggborough Stadium for 44 years. Olive talks to him about the best food in British football and offers the recipe for his famous Thick Meat & Vegetable Soup.
The Hairy Bikers roam around Ireland in search of the ultimate Irish stew and rave about the hospitality and food they enjoyed whilst doing so. And in the wine section, Max Allen deep-sixes all the old rules and rituals and outlines the new Wine Rules – a much more sensible bunch of drinking guidelines.
March’s Budget and Blowout Guide is to Paris – no easy task, to winnow so many good eating destinations down to three pages! Ripout foodguide is Miami, city of Cuban cuisine, cocktails and key lime pie.
In the Pro vs Punter review, seafood restaurant Bentley’s Oyster Bar and Grill in Piccadilly is praised by the critic, damned with indifference by the punter. And rounding off, Terry Durack details why the humble bean creates such a buzz, in his Coffee Top 10.
