food & Drink
Image Left: John Torode at a food market with Khun Pip who runs the Thai House cookery school in Bangkok
still has an unmistakable Aussie twang - an entire barbecue chapter and brunches that would be perfectly at home in cafes along Sydney Harbour. Tis Australian-Asian mix might seem surprising, but, says Torode: “Australia, and its cuisine was brought about by immigration, with Greeks and Italians arriving in the Fiſties, Vietnamese in the Eighties. Tere’s huge Portuguese influence in Asia; and limes aren’t from South America, they’re from Iran. We talk about fusion of different cultures, but it’s a world of people moving about and talking bits and pieces with them.” Te book also taps into just how much home-cooking has changed in recent years. “Now, we’re seeing a world where you can get the ingredients,” says Torode. “If I’d put Tai fish cakes in a recipe book 10 years ago, people wouldn’t necessarily cook it - but now it seems everyone has a bottle of chilli sauce in their cupboard, and coriander is in everybody’s fridge, instead of just parsley. Sainsbury’s stock gochujang, fish sauce is on every shelf. “When I first arrived in the UK, nobody ate squid, nobody ate pork belly. I remember putting it on the menu at Smiths [his first restaurant] in 2000, and someone said, ‘No one will eat pork belly’,” he adds. (And indeed, there’s a recipe for bossam, a Chinese glazed pork belly and
“WE PUT ENORNMOUS AMOUNTS OF
PRESSURE ON OURSELVES, THINKING EVERYTHING WE MAKE HAS TO BE PERFECT.”
sticky sauce dish in the book.) Other dishes might be more surprising, even now. Te Korean army stew, a strange-sounding combination of American hot dogs, spam and processed cheese, with instant noodles, kimchi and gochujang, Torode calls “bonkers” but “fantastic”. It’s fusion at its most fascinating - but again born out of necessity. “In the war, when there was nothing leſt in Korea, they used to buy food from the American camps - they had hot dogs and and bologna. But kimchi is eaten with every single meal [in Korea], and there’s noodles because that’s their carbohydrate,” Torode explains. Te result was a big pot of hearty stew to feed the family. Tese stories are woven into the fabric of the book, and form the backbone to Torode’s dishes. “For me, all the stories are really important, they make me remember the recipe,” he says. One thing Wallace might not be too
impressed by though, is that there are no deserts in sight. “Tere’s no reason for them,” says Torode, spoken like a true savoury man. “Te fact is, the way a lot of food is eaten is that the flavours are sweet and savoury anyway.” You may have seen the TV duo chiding budding professional chefs for spiceless curries or overcooked fish on MasterChef, but when it comes to home cooks, Torode wants us to worry less about perfection and just experiment more. “We put enornmous amounts of pressure on ourselves, thinking everything we make has to be perfect. Tere are variables - the coriander is going to taste different depending on where it’s come from, the amount of juice that comes out of a lime... Just in enjoy it. If it doesn’t work the first time, your friends don’t mind, [they] love you - that’s why they bring the white wine and have a nice time.” >>
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