These fermented spiced beans are inspired by both Suān jiāngdòu , the Chinese lacto fermented bean dish and Fansi Nu Shaak, the Gujarati green bean curry. The name comes from using google translate to find an English version of Fansi Nu Shaak. Are beans really referred to as a ‘Plant of Gallows’ in Gujarati ?…
Author: southstarbrew
Food : Grandma Win’s Bread and Butter Pickles
My maternal grandmother Win was a great cook. My paternal grandmother Joan probably was too but by the time I came along dementia had rendered her an absence in my existence so I never got to experience that. Win made amazing roasts , fantastic picnics and the baking tin was never empty. One of my…
Life : Haven
I sit in my garden , my feet are bare, the dog luxuriates in autumn beams, my shoulder is burnt, my spirit is sagging, both will heal with time The house forms a wall , a deep rampart A division from the outer world , my phone is a port hole, a temptation to ignore…
Food : Scrumper’s Apple Cake
To scrump is to liberate apples that are otherwise going to waste, or from some points of view to steal them. However let us not get weighed down in the vagaries of the law. I make it my business to know where the apple trees are in the village and collect the windfalls for cider…
Food : Savoury Summer Pudding
Dishes like this are seriously out of favour . There are whole social media accounts dedicated to mocking savoury dishes set in gelatine. Naturally they are right up my ally , in fact “If it’s worth eating it’s worth setting in aspic” has become a bit of a motto for me.So with a glut of…
Life : State Highway One
I live on the edge of a transit , a great migration of steel, and of dairy and of grain. Of richly scented stock and indecipherable machinery , of loaves of bread and of trunks of pine. Sometimes it rumbles and sometimes it roars, occasionally it slumbers or hides in the wind. The nation’s artery…
Life : All the Gods & None of Them
I believe in all the gods and none of them ,I say to the holy man between sips of beer. He smiles back , part amused , part adversarial , part happy inebriated. If there are gods they are here , in this pub in a moment of happiness. I believe in all the gods…
Life : Air
Where I come from air smells of salt and seaweed, Of coconut tinged gorse and of harbour rich ozone Here the air smells of river and of leaf mold Of oily pine trees and of tangy stock trucks. Where I come from the air surges and rages Its pauses for dramatic effect, grandiose and self…
Life : Early Shift
Amongst the early chilled air and brisk southerly she pulls sleep from her bed and walks towards a cage of neon . Vacant sterile serene. Detergent and steriliser give way to exasperated wary faces and trinkets of gold …gold . The saviour , the sin, the holy . Endure , endure one more hour ,…
Food : The Supremacy of the Sear
We live in a caramelised age. Increasingly everything in western cooking must be fried hard. Maillard reaction is prized over succulency. I have been mulling this over in my mind for a while but it was brought to focus last night when I went to a Wellington Malaysian restaurant and ordered Hainanese chicken on rice….
