Poh’s Kitchen

6:30pm – Wednesday, November 24 on ABC1

Whatever your beliefs or background, it’s hard not to get caught up in the Christmas spirit and that’s exactly what Poh and Chef Emmanuel Mollois are doing in the final episode of Poh’s Kitchen for 2010.

For Poh, Christmas is an opportunity to slow down a bit and spend time with family and friends. To begin the celebrations, Poh takes her nieces and nephews to a Christmas shop to buy some decorations for the tree.

Then it’s back home to catch up with the girls of the family and help with the Christmas preparations. “As a family, we’re a pretty diverse lot. On Christmas day, it’s not unusual to have a Buddhist sitting next to a Christian or a curry next to a ham, so it’s certainly never dull,” she says.

It’s certainly not dull back in her kitchen, where Poh makes a ‘Yuletide Chiffon Cake’. Full of traditional ingredients and served with Cr�me Anglaise and ice-cream, it makes a great alternative to the heavy Christmas plum pudding. For Emmanuel, this time of year is all about chocolate and he whips up a traditional French ‘Christmas Log’, filled with vanilla bavarois, chocolate mousse and nut brittle. it would be hard to refuse either of these two wonderful desserts. No matter, how much turkey you’ve had.

Roast turkey is the traditional Christmas fare across many cultures, but as Emmanuel discovers when he visits Poh’s butchers, Jason and Bill, there are several other alternatives available today. One of these is the ‘Turducken’, a chicken inside a duck, inside a turkey! Roasts of nested birds have been around for centuries, but this variation first appeared in the United States in the mid 1980s and has become increasingly popular at Thanksgiving. It is catching on fast in Australia.

However you celebrate Christmas, all of us at Poh’s Kitchen hope you have a safe and happy one and we look forward to seeing you next year.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, November 25 at 6:00pm

6:30pm – Wednesday, November 17 on ABC1

Wednesday, 17 November 2010 Bill Granger is internationally renowned for his breakfasts. His scrambled eggs have been described by The Times as the ‘best in the world’. This week Bill visits Poh’s Kitchen to share two of his stylish yet simple breakfast dishes, while Poh cooks a breakfast dish from her childhood and another that’s a weekend favourite.

Poh’s not an early morning person – in fact when she’s painting she’s been known to do an all- nighter! But sometimes she forces herself to get to the market before the crowds and when she does, she likes to treat herself to breakfast. Her favourite is porridge with banana, cinnamon and honey.

When Poh heard breakfast guru, Bill Granger was coming to town, she had to invite him to her kitchen. And he arrives with a smoked trout to cook his own simplified version of the famous Anglo-Indian breakfast dish – Kedgeree. It’s gently spiced rice with sweet smoked trout, hard- boiled eggs and freshened up with lime and coriander. Poh cooks another rice dish – chicken congee – a favourite savoury rice porridge breakfast from her childhood and a staple in many Asian countries.

For their second dish, Poh and Bill cook remarkably similar recipes – each with their own twist.

Poh cooks eggs poached in chorizo and bean salsa. It’s a bit Mexican, a bit Spanish and a bit Poh – super easy and super tasty – posh baked beans, eggs and sausage cooked in one pan.

Bill cooks Shakshouka – an Israeli breakfast dish that originated in North Africa and was taken by Tunisian Jews to Israel – poached eggs in a fry-up of capsicums, tomatoes and onions with a dash of paprika and chilli and served with crisp paprika flatbread.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, November 18 at 6:00pm

6:30pm – Wednesday, November 10 on ABC1

Wednesday, 10 November 2010 For many there is nothing as good as a piece of meat that has been slow-cooked: the tender, succulent slices just seem to melt in your mouth.

The Chinese have a great tradition of slow-cooking and tonight Poh cooks Dong Do Pork. If you enjoy a store-bought char siew, this is a far superior homemade version. During the cooking process it develops the most beautiful glossy mahogany colour all over, with tenderness on the inside.

Poh’s good friend, Chef Emmanuel Mollois is with her in the kitchen and his slow-cooked recipe is lamb shoulder confit with spices. For Emmanuel this is a dish full of tradition and memories. It’s a combination of French and Moroccan influences that he first tasted as a young man in Morocco. Once the lamb is cooked it is so tender you can spoon it on to the plate. He accompanies the lamb with a Moroccan-styled couscous salad and a traditional French ratatouille.

Poh’s Dong Do Pork is also full of memories. One of the best she has, apart from it being absolutely delicious, was what happened after cooking it for the first time with her Great Aunty Kim. After dishing up, Poh was about to dump the cooking pot into the sink for washing, but her aunt made her put the pot down. She got a bowl of leftover rice from the fridge and tipped the rice into the pot, swished all the grains around with her hand to mop up the beautiful caramelisation, before returning the rice to the bowl. In Cantonese she announced, “lunch tomorrow”, then briskly walked away to tend to some gardening…genius…and so are the slow-cooked recipes from this episode.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, November 11 at 6:00pm

6:30pm – Wednesday, November 3 on ABC1

Wednesday, 3 November 2010 Poh’s Kitchen has received many requests for Filipino recipes and this week Poh has invited executive chef, Denis Leslie into her kitchen. Denis’s love of cooking has its origins in his Filipino heritage.

By usual standards Denis is young to be an executive chef at a five star hotel, but he takes the pressure in his stride. His management style is relaxed and between meetings he’s in the kitchen with his crew and doing what he loves best, cooking. His childhood memories of food are imprinted in his mind and Filipino is the style of food he cooks at home and the food he loves to share.

Filipino food has been influenced by many cultures from Spanish and Chinese to American, but Denis’s first dish is a traditional Filipino soup called Sinegang. There are many variations of this soup and Denis makes a fish Sinegang. The flavours of the soup are clear and clean with tamarind providing a sour note which is balanced with ginger and fish sauce. The soup is ‘chocka block’ full of fresh vegies including eggplant, daikon and kangkung and it makes a refreshing broth. Denis’s second dish is Chicken Adobo and one he says would be cooked in Filipino homes at least once a week. This one pot wonder demonstrates a bit of Chinese influence with its use of sweet and sour and the wonderful mix of cane vinegar, garlic and pepper in which the chicken is simmered.

Poh also goes traditional with a Nonya soup recipe she found in an old recipe book. The soup features a rather unusual ingredient, watermelon rind! Poh marvels at the ingenuity of people who thought to bulk up a soup with watermelon. But it’s more than a filler. The texture of the cooked rind is smooth and soaks up the flavours of a simple shallot and prawn rempah, and an orange prawn stock that’s boosted with chilli, fish sauce and sugar. It’s a delightful-looking dish and deliciously robust.

Malay and Filipino desserts feature many of the same ingredients and Poh and Denis finish up on common ground with two desserts using the same sauces. Poh moulds sago puddings flavoured and coloured with Pandan while Denis steams some sweetened tofu. The two dishes are then topped with boiled, salted coconut milk and melted palm sugar.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, November 04 at 6:00pm

6:30pm – Wednesday, October 27 on ABC1

This week Poh and her good friend French chef Emmanuel Mollois, submerge themselves in the world of salted fish. This method of preserving has been around for millennia and is common across many cultures, providing a cheap and effective alternative to fresh fish without loss of flavour or versatility.

Poh takes us on a shopping trip to her local Asian grocer, a treasure trove of unusual and exotic ingredients and just the place to find a good selection of preserved fish.

Back in her kitchen, Poh makes steamed mackerel with chicken, ginger and coriander. It’s cheap and simple to make, but deliciously complex in flavour and personality. Meanwhile Emmanuel is using salted cod. Using some succulent fillets of the cod, he makes two versions of brandade of salted cod, a wonderfully rich combination of fish, cr�me fraiche, olive oil and garlic, served with semi-dried tomatoes on garlic toast. This is the traditional method and to keep the kids happy, he also makes his Mum’s version using mashed potato.

Emmanuel travels to South Australia’s beautiful Coorong, where he meets Glen and Tracy Hill who fish and smoke a local icon, the Coorong Mullet. This once pristine environment is suffering through lack of good flows down the river Murray, but as Emmanuel discovers, the Hills still manage to produce a great product.

Stir-fried salted mackerel with pork is Poh’s next dish and for this she needs rice noodles which are an essential ingredient in Asian cuisine and one Poh couldn’t live without. The dried varieties are quite common, but you have to look a little harder for the fresh ones. To find out how these delicate white ribbons of rice are produced Poh visits a noodle factory.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, October 28 at 6.00pm.

6:30pm – Wednesday, October 20 on ABC1

Wednesday, 20 October 2010 Andre Ursini is obsessed with polenta…not the rubbery instant polenta, but polenta that bubbles away on the stove for hours until it’s creamy and soft. So when Poh invites Andre to her kitchen to cook his Northern Italian food, he decides to cook a traditional polenta recipe. Before his visit, he invites Poh to his kitchen to learn about this humble ingredient and to top off the visit Andre cooks her polenta with mushrooms, adding great dollops of creamy gorgonzola then surprises her with polenta ice-cream for dessert.

To complement Andre’s polenta, Poh is cooking dumplings and to get a bit of dumpling inspiration, Poh visits dumpling maker Qin Qin and her mentor Mr Wong, a master dumpling maker from China. They show Poh how to fold various dumpling shapes including the intricate Shanghai Dumplings and how they’re steamed, boiled or pan-fried.

Andre needs a good parmesan cheese for his polenta dish, so he and Poh visit a cheese wholesaler with the biggest cheese maturing room in Australia. Passionate ‘cheese woman’ Valerie Henbest, shows them three different hard cheeses – an Australian parmesan, an Italian Grana Padano and the beautiful handmade, Italian Parmigiano Reggiano – a cheese that’s been made in Italy for 900 years and that’s so regulated that only the finest quality cheese is branded with the Reggiano label.

Back in Poh’s Kitchen, Poh prepares Pork and Cabbage Dumplings and cooks them in two different ways – boiled and pan-fried while Andre makes Polenta with Ragu Alla Bolognese, where the Bolognese is cooked with milk and white wine and only a little tomato.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on Thursday, October 21 at 6:00pm.

6:30pm – Wednesday, October 13 on ABC1

Wednesday, 13 October 2010 This week in the kitchen, Poh and her good friend French chef Emmanuel Mollois examine the art of sauces and stir-fries.

In his earlier life as a pastry chef Emmanuel worked in Paris as a saucier. And according to Emmanuel, making sauces is a ‘noble art’: ruin the sauce and you ruin the dish.

With Poh working alongside him, Emmanuel shows us the secrets of a b�chamel sauce, how to flavour a hollandaise sauce with orange, and explains the magic that a b�arnaise sauce brings to steak.

Trading tips and know-how, Poh shows Emmanuel the intricacies of the stir-fry and cooks him a squid stir-fry. Much to Poh’s delight, Emmanuel returns the favour and cooks a delicious stir- fry of prawns and garlic shoots.

This is a program where two experts trade their skills and secrets. Plus they give us lots of tips, including how to cut your vegies for a stir-fry and to prepare a sauce that will make your kids (of any age) eat their vegetables.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, October 14 at 6.00pm

6:30pm – Wednesday, October 6 on ABC1

Wednesday, 6 October 2010 Poh is back in Darwin soaking up the sun and enjoying delicious fresh seafood, all in the company of great friends.

For Poh there is no better way to get a feel for a place than through the eyes of locals, and in Darwin she is lucky enough to have the company of a co-worker from the ABC, Elton, who grew up in the territory. Not only is Elton able to show Poh the lie of the land, but he also introduces her to highly-regarded local cook, Geoffrey Angeles, better known as Jacko.

Jacko shows Poh and Elton how to catch and cook one of his favourite fish, the local sand whiting. The fish is lightly fried in peanut oil to crispy perfection with the tail left on as the ultimate crisp treat. To accompany the fish Poh makes a fresh, tangy Thai style salsa with a hit of citrus provided by the beautiful local torch ginger.

For the next seafood sensation on the menu, Poh and Elton fly east with Jacko to the pristine waters of the Coburg peninsula to source one of the sea’s great delicacies, pearl meat. This by- product from pearl farming is delicate and sweet and Jacko demonstrates how to keep the meat the hero of the dish by marinating it lightly in an Asian-style sauce, giving the meat no more than a quick sear and using a delicate pink grapefruit for accompaniment. The flavours are subtle, the texture firm but delicate and the pearl meat definitely has its say on the plate.

The final dish Jacko introduces Poh to, is a Darwin family favourite, Numus. Numus is a raw fish dish where the fish is pickled using vinegar and lemon and enhanced with palm sugar, chilli, soy and garlic. Versions of the dish can be found right throughout the top end of Australia but the common factor is the use of a firm white fish flesh. Jacko’s preferred fish is the queen fish but he uses one that is more available – the trevally. The pickled fish is silky, tangy and unbelievably ‘moreish’.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, October 07 at 6.00pm

6:30pm – Wednesday, September 29 on ABC1

What’s black and knobbly, grows underground, has a complex earthy aroma and almost indescribable taste, and costs up to $3000 dollars per kilo? Truffles of course! This week Poh’s Kitchen is all about the seriously decadent Australian-grown, black French Perigord truffle. Poh and Emmanuel Mollois are off to the Mundaring Truffle Festival in the hills 40 minutes east of Perth.

Pollution and development have decimated the harvests of the black Perigord truffle in France. But it is now being grown successfully in many areas around Australia including Manjimup in WA where the largest mainland trufferie harvested over 1500 kilograms this year. On her visit to the trufferie, Poh was even lucky enough to get a personal truffle hunt with truffle dogs Sunny and Isy, and buy a fresh truffle to bring back to her kitchen.

Back in her kitchen, Poh cooks chicken mousse with truffle soup dumplings. Poh says her recipe is ‘Frinese’ – a fusion of French and Chinese methods using a French chicken mousse combined with truffles and a liquid chicken soup inside a traditional Chinese dumpling.

Emmanuel, true to his French pastry chef training, combines truffles in pastry with a truffle and cr�me anglaise and apple filling in his ‘tarte coquelin’ with truffles and combines it with a decadent creamy truffle ice-cream.

Poh learnt that you can never put too much truffle in a recipe…it just depends on how much you can afford, and bought by the gram fresh, or in truffle-flavoured oil, salt, mustard, vinaigrette or honey, even a little can take a simple meal to special occasion level.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, September 30 at 6.00pm.

6:30pm – Wednesday, September 22 on ABC1

Wednesday, 22 September 2010 This week, Poh is taking us on one last trip to Malaysia to share some more of the unique and colourful experiences from her recent visit.

She meets up again with two of Malaysia’s most experienced and entertaining chefs, Florence Tan and the irrepressible Ismail Ahmad, who take her to Penang’s tropical fruit farm, where the produce is about as exotic as you can get and perfect for Florence’s ‘Fruity Nutty Chicken’.

As Poh finds out, this classic sweet and sour dish is quick and easy to prepare and is guaranteed to tempt the kids too.

Keeping it in the family, Florence introduces Poh to one of her culinary cousins, Amy Koh who is based in Melaka. A former dental nurse, Amy now produces some of Melaka’s finest Nonya cuisine and after a trip to her favourite Belachan (shrimp paste) seller, Amy cooks Poh ‘Garam Assam’, a deliciously spicy fish dish and another Nonya classic.

Before she returns home, Poh takes one last trip down Melaka’s famous Jonker Street, a heaven for food buffs and a perfect place to end her Malaysian culinary journey.

Poh’s Kitchen will be repeated on Thursday, September 22 at 6.00pm.