Antonio Carluccio, the Godfather of Italian cuisine, is incredibly inquisitive, loves vibrant colours, has a ready smile, a great appetite for a good joke and a home spun passion for simple food. Tonight he and Poh crumb lamb cutlets and bake pears using his philosophy of MOF MOF - Maximum Of Flavour, Minimum Of Fuss.
Tasting Australia is one of the largest food festivals in Australia and is held annually in Poh's home state South Australia. This year Poh enjoys the privilege of being part of the festival and takes the opportunity to borrow one of its main attractions, Italian food legend, Antonio Carluccio. In the kitchen Antonio demonstrates quintessential Italian peasant cuisine. His first dish is beautiful lamb cutlets cut and stuffed with cheese, Parma ham and sage and then crumbed and pan fried. They are moist and pink with a beautiful hint of saltiness and of lovely delicate flavours imparted by the cheese and sage. Antonio serves the cutlets with a simple, delicious salad of green beans and zucchini which are cooked until just soft then tossed with mint, lemon, oil, salt and garlic. Again simple flavours perfectly combined for an exquisite result. Poh is well aware of Antonio's love of mushrooms and manages to intrigue and surprise Antonio with a dish called "Buddhist's Delight" which includes many varieties of mushrooms that Antonio is familiar with as well as some ingredients he has never seen before. The main feature of the dish is an ingredient called "mock meat" which is essentially wheat gluten. When the gluten is deep fried and braised with the mushrooms the texture mimics meat and soaks up the flavours of the broth. The broth itself is very delicately flavoured with ginger and a slight saltiness from fermented bean curd and with many different mushroom from enoki to King Oyster and Cloud Ear it is a dish that is very much about texture.
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