Anyone notice Adam Liaw's column in this week's SMH Sunday Life? He extolled the virtues of simple cooking, explaining that there's no correlation between how difficult food is to cook and how it tastes, dispelling the myth that you need to add more ingredients or cook for a long time to make something that tastes good.

He then went on to give a recipe for "mince on toast" that has 22 ingredients and takes 2 hours to cook.

Mate - I do a hell of a lot of cooking, both simple and complex. I love it to tell the truth. I love experimenting with flavour and techniques, it relaxes me.
In saying that, my top five favourite foods would probably be as follows:
1. Natural Oyster, little lemon and pepper. (1 second)
2. Boiled Blue Manna Crab, little vinegar and salt. (10 mins)
3. Seared Rare Steak, topped with olive oil, salt and pepper. (10 Mins)
4. Smoked Beef Ribs, with just a salt and pepper rub. (4 hours)
5. Chinese BBQ noodle soup, pork or chicken. (5 mins)

The simpler the better but sometimes it's just good fun to while away a Sunday afternoon slowly preparing and cooking great food with friends and family....love food.

A famous French chef believed that too many ingredients begin to interfere with each other, hence it become impossible to differentiate what and which ingredient you are tasting/feeling.

The famous Italian chef Antonio Carluccio is not big on complicated recipes either. I like the way he clobber up a meal with the simplest ingredients, no fancy pant decorations, no silly garnishes. "Just eat the damn thing", he reckoned.

My good friend and work mate at a hotel we used to work together took me to his mom's home cooked Italian meals. Meatballs and pasta. That was one of the best. I doubt she put too many ingredients into them. But like all good Italian mamas, she made/forced me to finish the whole lot !

Interesting that a French chef said that, given that the French have a penchant for extremely complicated and ingredient-rich process-based cuisine.

Besides, French haute cuisine is mostly a development of Italian food brought to the royal court of France by the Medici family - but don't bring that up with the French!

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Adriano said..
The simpler the better but sometimes it's just good fun to while away a Sunday afternoon slowly preparing and cooking great food with friends and family....love food.

You mean a Sunday on Seabreeze/youtube eating baked beans.

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Adriano said..
The simpler the better but sometimes it's just good fun to while away a Sunday afternoon slowly preparing and cooking great food with friends and family....love food.

That's my idea of happy food

My idea of simple cooking Oh and to be strictly honest, the Potato things were heated for the son by wife and just left over

That was post surf and pre NRL grand final..

^ unhealthy

healthy ->

potato+pickled herring

The current Australian cuisine (the one you see in restaurants and TV shows) tend to over complicate things. Open any restaurant menu and you will see a minimum of 10+ or more ingredients to each dish, spices or condiments.

There is a lot of indian influence around (who mixes a 15+ list of spices) , also from other Asian cuisines who include several different ingredients.

When I have guests for lunch or dinner I go to extend to explain I cook with the minimum possible.

In southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal and regions of France) less is more. The standard to achieve for me.

The only addition to any red meat I cook (beef, pork, lamb) is salt. Nothing else. It's the method (and the right amount of salt) that makes it shine.
Australia beef is one of the best in the world, but cooked poorly 80% of the times.
Chicken you are allowed to put more spices (otherwise is tasteless) but don't go overboard. Fish and seafood also needs something but for me Olive oil, Salt and Lime juice is usually enough.

Please don't drink red wine with heavily spiced food or beans ! Cold whites might be ok but beans is incredible in how it easily overtones any grape juice.

Time for dinner!

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Adriano said..
Interesting that a French chef said that, given that the French have a penchant for extremely complicated and ingredient-rich process-based cuisine.

Besides, French haute cuisine is mostly a development of Italian food brought to the royal court of France by the Medici family - but don't bring that up with the French!

The reality is most french love simple foods and are very seasonal eaters, i lived in france in different regions, the massive central and the department du var, amazing food, i only ate at little local restaurants, usually choosing le plat d jour, meal of the day, no choice, no menu,
hand on heart i only had amazing meals at crazy cheap rates, we would eat out for 13 euros per head, my fave time of year was hunting season, daube sanglier, vin rouge, fromage for desert, then summer, salads with blanc or rose wines,also never have i relived the quality breads that the french bake 3 times per day

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cauncy said..
also never have i relived the quality breads that the french bake 3 times per day

Agreed, they can make their breads as complicated as they want - just delicious,yum,gob smacking, and deserving of a pat(ae)e, cheese, tomato, & vin-du-payee at lunch most any time..
AP

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Simple, yes, but that isn't food. That's yellow and brown stuff drizzled with tomato sugar and charred in parts to a carcinogenic crisp.

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Harrow said..
Anyone notice Adam Liaw's column in this week's SMH Sunday Life? He extolled the virtues of simple cooking, explaining that there's no correlation between how difficult food is to cook and how it tastes, dispelling the myth that you need to add more ingredients or cook for a long time to make something that tastes good.

He then went on to give a recipe for "mince on toast" that has 22 ingredients and takes 2 hours to cook.

^^ Haha, doesn't get more simple than 2 hour 22 ingredient mince on toast. Bloke wears a man bun with an extended goatee, maybe that explains it?

I'm currently making sour dough bread, it still amazes me how good bread can be with just flour, water, salt and a bit of bacteria (plus maybe some optional seeds).
Sure there is some timing needed for the process but it is very satisfying)...

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Skid said..
I'm currently making sour dough bread, it still amazes me how good bread can be with just flour, water, salt and a bit of bacteria (plus maybe some optional seeds).
Sure there is some timing needed for the process but it is very satisfying)...

Love that sour bacteria excrement flavour....

How good is great sourdough, butter and left over pan roast gravy.

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Adriano said..

Love that sour bacteria excrement flavour....

More a mushroom than a bacteria but I see your point !

Harrow G8 point - my experience is that the it is a very easy path for the inept kitchen hack to follow - (too many ingredients and overlapping techniques - too much vaguely understood temptations in the fridge/cupboard - in the form of spices and close to well past the use-by-date but bin-it or use-it now mashables - and that fragile and often miss-understood key to culinary success in a recipe - the author's inability to use a realistic timer - ... -prep time 21 minutes HA, cook time 14 minutes - double HA and on it goes.. I blame that Jamie Oliver bloke should have thrown his books out by now - time is up b4 I have chopped the plucking ingredients up.. He is a really charming gimmick.

G8 pik Skid - -- Sour dough - My favourite burger bun - I make the burgers, but DIY buns - its just there is no getting off the cycle - have to keep that starter going - just don't want to eat that much bread or time into making it regularly - so thankfully have a relatively close bakery.

Point in case should be simple - I make it in a jiff most every morning - my breakfast porridge ( - gone back to just oats) on a diet day has 4 ingredients but the rest of the time 8 ingredients & up without blinking (no goatee required) - then the occasional pre-soaking overnight ritual (wine-vinegar a few times)

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Adriano said..

Love that sour bacteria excrement flavour....

Bring-it on
AP

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AquaPlow said..
Harrow G8 point - my experience is that the it is a very easy path for the inept kitchen hack to follow - (too many ingredients and overlapping techniques - too much vaguely understood temptations in the fridge/cupboard - in the form of spices and close to well past the use-by-date but bin-it or use-it now mashables - and that fragile and often miss-understood key to culinary success in a recipe - the author's inability to use a realistic timer - ... -prep time 21 minutes HA, cook time 14 minutes - double HA and on it goes.. I blame that Jamie Oliver bloke should have thrown his books out by now - time is up b4 I have chopped the plucking ingredients up.. He is a really charming gimmick.

A G8 is an openable part of a fence you can walk thru, a GR8 G8 is an awesome well built G8 that also looks good, but you can't eat it.

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seanhogan said..More a mushroom than a bacteria but I see your point !

Adriano said..

Love that sour bacteria excrement flavour....

Oh I thought it was lactic acid excrement from lactobacillis? Fermentation basically.....Yeast is the fungus isn't it?

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Skid said..
I'm currently making sour dough bread, it still amazes me how good bread can be with just flour, water, salt and a bit of bacteria (plus maybe some optional seeds).
Sure there is some timing needed for the process but it is very satisfying)...

omg!! really look tasty!! im new here and i love looking pics like this.. is it ok if you provide a recipe .. thank you!

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Uminabeach said..

Skid said..
I'm currently making sour dough bread, it still amazes me how good bread can be with just flour, water, salt and a bit of bacteria (plus maybe some optional seeds).
Sure there is some timing needed for the process but it is very satisfying)...

omg!! really look tasty!! im new here and i love looking pics like this.. is it ok if you provide a recipe .. thank you!

Hey Uminabeach, the ingredients are very simple...
1kg flour
700ml water
200gm leaven (basically flour/water/bacteria)
20g salt
Optional seeds (in this case seasame and pumpkin)
The above was used for the loaves in the photo.
The method is too long for me to type on my phone but if you send me a PM with your email address I'll send you a pdf file that explains the method.
There are heaps of sour dough instructions on you tube too...

Lamb 3 green sitr fry .
Never any left overs .

Home grown tomatoes & basil, one clove of garlic, dash of olive oil, & red wine vinegar, sprinkle of caster sugar - loaf of Ciabatta ($3) from bakery - easy peasy!!!

i think it needs some mozzarella