Blog has moved, searching new blog...

Sunday 29 May 2016

Fat of the Land


Months ago, in what seemed like another life, it was the height of another glorious Tasmanian summer. The sun was shining, temperatures soared into the low 20’s and our tiny little garden patch was going nuts, providing far more tomatoes and zucchinis then we knew how to handle.

collage
At the peak, several kg's of zucchini and tomato would be harvested every few days
In particular, the 4.4kg monster (now downgraded from a delicious, sweet zucchini to a somewhat less appetising marrow) would require a burst of creative inspiration to appropriately consume. The easiest to find a use for are tomatoes. Tomatoes and cheese on crackers, tomatoes on toast with cheese and tomatoes in lasagne  with a cheesy sauce are just some of the varied and delicious uses I was able to think up. 

collage1
The green sauce was best!
I even tried deep-fried green tomatoes, which had the added bonus of using surplus eggs. Delicious, but I am guessing, probably not healthy. This left the large marrow to figure out. Luckily, what to do with over-sized marrows is a solved problem. A quick check in an old cookbook for the recipe and a beer or two later I was away!

collage3
How to turn 4.4kgs of marrow into 2kgs of nondescript beige cubes..
Before it could be cooked, the marrow needed to be cored, peeled, diced and salted. Due to its age (I had left it a month or two too long in a futile hope it would grow even bigger!) there was some nasty black stuff that oozed out when it was opened. Even the chooks were not very interested in those scraps…

WP_20160329_005
The chooks were smarter than to try and eat that muck
After this stage, I was getting hungry so made some tempura batter using a home-brew stout and cooked up some cocky salmon Rach had caught a few weeks ago. Delicious!

WP_20160329_008
Dark beer makes an excellent base for tempura batter. In this example I used my own home brew milk stout. To make sure no one drank it by mistake I put it in a XXXX Gold bottle

Hunger sated I could get back to putting the marrow in a large pot. Add in some vinegar and mustard plus a few secret ingredients (basically salt, chillies and onions!) and then simmer for a couple of hours. By this stage I was pretty thirsty, so another beer was required. A few beers later the resulting pickle was scooped into jars which had been sterilised in the oven.

WP_20160329_011
With just months of gardening and hours of cooking you too can have 5 jars of pickle!
Months later, here in very hot and humid Laos, all that’s left are memories of pickles and cheese on crackers and a cool, sensible summer. Somehow I think I will cope though….

WP_20160523_18_50_29_Pro (2)
That's right, In Laos you drink beer with ice