The Cook and the Chef

6:30pm – Wednesday, September 16 on ABC1

After four fabulous years of The Cook And The Chef, Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant are saying goodbye and they’re going out with a bang! It’s a party and Maggie and Simon are doing the cooking.

First up on tonight’s party menu, Simon cooks one of his all time favourites, spring rolls, while Maggie makes a deliciously simple baked ricotta, with raisins, olives and capers accompanied by spicy cinnamon chicken.

The charcoal barbecue is then fired up to complete the party menu with Maggie cooking succulent pork ribs with a delicious cabernet sauce. Simon barbeques his irresistible pineapple skewers with palm sugar syrup.

For two days every month over the last four years, the ABC TV crew has arrived and taken over Maggie’s kitchen in the Barossa Valley. And for the very last episode of The Cook And The Chef, Maggie and Simon are sharing the experience of what goes on behind-the-scenes, giving the audience a rare insight into just what it takes to put the show together.

But now it’s time to party as Maggie and Simon say farewell in their own special way.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, September 17 at 5:00pm http://abc.net.au/iview/

After 154 programs and four years on air, The Cook and The Chef’s Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant are hanging up their TV kitchen tools.

Maggie says “The demands of filming on my family and business have led me to the difficult decision to leave the show. It’s been a privilege for me to have been able to share my passion for food with Simon and our audience. It always gives me joy when I feel I have inspired people to explore the wonderful produce that Australia has to offer.”

Simon says “When I started the show I had no idea that my journey with Maggie about the love of food would teach me so much, and I’ll miss the camaraderie of our days in the kitchen together.”

Simon confesses he was unprepared for how big the show would become. “I have to laugh when people call me a celebrity chef, I don’t think people realize that I have a whole other life, coordinating 800 or so meals a day as an Executive Chef at a 5 Star hotel. I am looking forward to spending a bit more time back in my kitchens…and getting a little more sleep will be a bonus!”

Executive Producer of The Cook and The Chef, Margot Phillipson expressed admiration and a great respect for the pair. “Maggie and Simon’s friendship, passion, and unprecedented generosity in sharing their food knowledge have become the trademarks of the program.

Maggie and Simon’s final show will air on ABC1 on Wednesday September 16, and will be a special behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Cook and The Chef, culminating in a farewell party at Maggie’s home.

6:30pm – Wednesday, June 10 on ABC1

This week on The Cook And The Chef, Simon Bryant and Maggie Beer celebrate Stephanie Alexander’s contribution to food in Australia.

When it came to food Stephanie had a charmed childhood. Her mother used cooking to express her creativity, and the nightly presentations of meals for her family were a gift of love.

Stephanie’s associations with food were so wonderfully positive that as a cook she has found herself on a mission to take anxiety out of and bring joy to cooking and eating. From the mid 70s she took her French-inspired cooking to an incredibly receptive restaurant audience.

These days Stephanie has enlisted young foot soldiers for her food revolution.

The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program seeks funding to provide schools across Australia with the means to set up a learning garden linked with a kitchen. The pilot program was established in 2001 and now 92 schools across Australia are involved in the project. Maggie is the ambassador for the Kitchen Garden Project in South Australia and her love of empowering children through gardening and cooking is shared by Simon who is the patron of the Kids’ Cooking Club at his local farmers market.

In the kitchen, Simon and Maggie inspired by Stephanie, delve into their pantry and fridge to see what they can create. Maggie finds potato left over from a pizza, and pumpkin from a cous cous dish. She brings these left-overs to life with various ingredients to create a frittata. Simon’s pantry staples include lentils and rice and he uses a combination of both to make a warming risotto which features some great winter veggies like leek and fennel. Maggie also makes one of Stephanie’s Kitchen Garden recipes, a wonderful warm polenta and rosemary bread with corn. Like Maggie, Simon wouldn’t make anything with kids that he wouldn’t enjoy eating himself and his cheesy potatoes are no exception.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, June 11 at 5:00pm

This week on The Cook And The Chef, Simon Bryant and Maggie Beer entice us outdoors into the late autumn sun to enjoy a Greek-inspired barbeque.

To many Australians the name Chantal Contouri would conjure up memories of Number 96, the risqué soapie from the mid seventies which featured her as the ‘panty hose strangler’. These days she is more likely to be found preparing a Greek barbeque in her parents’ restaurant than behind a camera. Her commitment to getting her coals just right has Maggie and Simon inspired.

With Maggie’s dam as a beautiful backdrop, Simon and Maggie prepare their respective barbies. Maggie uses a kettle BBQ to slow cook kid while Simon opts for his home-made coal and wok combination to grill souvlaki and baby octopus.

For their desserts Simon and Maggie draw their inspiration from another two Greek women, Zeffie Kathreptis and Kryssoula Heisler. Both women are self-taught cooks who never cooked until they were married. However their commitment to the Greek style of cooking was such that Zeffie opened a very popular Greek restaurant, while Kryssie opened Adelaide’s first Greek take-away. These days most of their cooking is done for family and if a friend drops by there’s always a beautiful biscuit or fresh cake to be served.

In the spirit of Greek hospitality, Simon braves cake making and surprises himself with a sumptuous walnut syrup cake. It is absolutely delicious and you won’t believe how simple it is. Maggie’s Greek spoon sweets are also simple and yet impressive. The spoon sweet is traditionally served to visitors on a spoon with a Greek coffee but Maggie chooses to use hers as a topping for vanilla ice cream.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, May 14 at 5:05pm

Wednesday, 01 April 2009 6:30PM

This Week on The Cook And The Chef, Simon Bryant and Maggie Beer celebrate the meteoric rise of the Australian restaurant culture.

Fifty years ago Australia was gastronomically a very bleak part of the world. In the early 1950s dining out was usually steak and chips, followed by ice-cream and passionfruit syrup at the local café or milk bar.

But something was about to happen which would liberalise the drinking laws, throw open restaurant doors and introduce us to a whole new culinary world. The post-war immigration boom arrived and brought with it not only great diversity of cuisine, but an extraordinary variety of home grown produce.

Maggie played her part in this transformation and takes a nostalgic look back at her restaurant days in the 1980s. She cooks her legendary pheasant pie, while Simon shares his take on ‘Greek meatballs’, a staple from the 1970s restaurants that he and his family used to visit.

We also meet Sydney chef Tetsuya Wakuda who arrived in Australia in 1982 with no formal training and nothing more than a small suitcase. From humble beginnings, Tetsuya is now recognised as one of the world’s best chefs and his restaurant has won numerous awards.

As a tribute, Maggie cooks her version of Tetsuya’s famous ‘Confit of Ocean Trout’, and Simon reels in some whiting and makes sashimi, with pickled daikon, ginger and a unique dipping sauce, both dishes celebrating the diversity and vibrancy of today’s restaurant scene.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, April 02 at 5:05pm

Wednesday, 25 February 6:30pm

This Week on The Cook and The Chef, Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant, with Australia’s ‘Father of Fusion’ – Cheong Liew, celebrate the cross-cultural cuisine of Australia.

Simon’s first contact with cross-cultural cuisine was the Balti curry. Originating in Northern Pakistan the Balti curry made its way to England with Pakistani migrants who, from the 1950s to the 1970s, set up little cafes called Balti Houses. The Balti quickly became the curry you had after a night out and today, the British claim it as their own and often serve it with chips. In the kitchen Simon makes a delicious corn Balti while Maggie grills kangaroo and serves it with tongue.

Born in Malaysia, Cheong Liew is Chinese. He has cooked in many styles and draws on many influences to create often eclectic dishes with amazing textures and flavours. Today he is recognised as one of Australia’s true ‘master chefs’. Maggie successfully attempts one of Cheong’s more challenging dishes, salt-water duck. Simon worked with Cheong for a couple of years and he explains how Cheong taught him to cook pork. Simon’s white pork with garlic sauce is a great example and again the method of blanching and cooking the pork belly is all about retaining moisture and the result ‘melts-in-the-mouth’.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, February 26 at 5:05pm

Wednesday, 11 February 2009 6:30pm

The Cook And The Chef is back in 2009 and this year Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant turn their attention to exploring Australian cuisine. It’s fair to say Australia’s food culture has come a long way in 200 years, and to chart this evolution Maggie and Simon look back through history and talk to some of Australia’s top chefs. What we eat says so much about who we are, and to explore Australian food, Maggie and Simon share their versions of iconic Australian dishes.

The 2009 series kicks off with Simon and Maggie reflecting on the state of the Australian food scene in 2008 and preparing what they consider to be truly Australian meals. For Maggie this is a meat pie followed by pavlova, while Simon is more interested in what he thinks we should be eating, and prepares a ‘roo salad followed by digestive aids, an aloe jelly and an Australian herbal tea.

Come and join Maggie and Simon on their Australian food adventure.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, February 12 at 5:05pm

Wednesday, 12 November 2008
6.30pm

Wednesday, 12 November 2008
The East Coast of Tasmania has to be one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline anywhere in the world. It is also home to wonderful seafood.
Simon Bryant is on a visit to find out why the seafood from this area is so great. He heads out with a couple of divers who are searching for a rare culinary ingredient – wakame.
Wakame is a type of edible seaweed from Japan which has found its way to Tasmanian waters, probably in the ballast tanks of visiting ships. A local company is harvesting the seaweed to extract fucoidans, which many people believe is beneficial to our health. Simon is thrilled to hear that they are also preparing to market the wakame leaf for culinary purposes. Back in the kitchen, Simon is undertaking one of his famous cooking extravaganzas. He uses the wakame leaf with shitake mushrooms and another seaweed – kombu, to prepare a Japanese-style dashi broth. Maggie Beer has never cooked wakame before but is keen to give it a try. She gets Simon’s advice on how best to fry it to provide a crispy garnish for her kingfish escabeche. For the second half of his soup preparation, Simon has also brought back some scallops from Tasmania, dredged from the sandy beds off Maria Island. These scallops form the core of some truly tasty dumplings which Simon adds to his broth. Maggie is impressed by the sweetness of Simon’s scallops but for her dish of scallop crudo she uses some larger frozen ones which are easy to slice thinly. Adding belly bacon and broad beans to her dish, it’s another Maggie original.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, November 13 at 5:00pm

Wednesday, 15 October 2008
6.30pm

This week on The Cook and The Chef Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant are thinking about wine. When it comes to cooking with wine, they both agree on the golden rule – ‘if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t put it in your food!’

Simon uses a great red as the basis of a French classic, Coq au Vin, while Maggie uses a delightful sparkling white to give excitement to her chicken pie. As they both whip up their delicious wine-based dishes, Simon also takes us behind the scenes of a busy hotel kitchen and talks to the hotel’s maître d’ Atef Yousseff. Simon and Atef are looking at some changes in the menu and deciding on a corresponding change in the recommended wine match. As Simon tells us, wine recommendations can make or break a dining experience, so it’s crucial that a wine either balances the flavours of a dish or contrasts with them in a playful way. As any home cook knows, it can be stressful trying to co-ordinate all the elements of a meal to be ready, hot and on the table at the right time – so imagine how Simon feels trying to co-ordinate all the elements of a busy hotel kitchen!

This week on the show he takes us behind the scenes and reveals that his hotel employs a military-style brigade system to ensure everything goes according to plan. Back in the kitchen Maggie shares her secret to getting a dinner party organised without stress – prepare a big pot which you can put in the middle of the table. This week it’s rabbit and Maggie tackles a classic recipe using mustard and prunes – but of course with a signature Maggie twist. Simon prepares an unusual wine-based dessert, sangria with burnt meringue.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, October 16 at 5:00pm

Wednesday, 03 September 2008
6.30pm

The little village of Nimbin, in the Byron Bay hinterland has embraced its reputation as Australia’s hippy capital. On the edge of town, Maggie Beer discovers the beautiful Djanbung Permaculture Gardens. The gardens’ owner, Robyn Francis, explains the permaculture philosophy. Maggie delights in the gardens’ winter offerings and is particularly taken with Robyn’s native lemon myrtle.

Back in the kitchen, Maggie re-visits one of her favourite desserts, the ‘crumble’. Inspired by her trip north and always up for a challenge, she decides to use one of the most delicious and exotic of all tropical fruits, the custard apple and combine it with some lemon myrtle. Served with lemon myrtle crème anglaise, the result is a mouth-watering marriage of two unique flavours, casting a whole new light on this traditional dish.

Simon Bryant combines lemon myrtle into a glorious beetroot and citrus salad. Using three types of citrus, walnuts and beetroot he creates a superb treat for all the senses, proving once again the versatility of Australian bush tucker.

Odd brick domes have been popping up in backyards all around Australia recently, the result of a renewed interest in cooking with brick ovens. To find out more Simon visits brick oven guru, Russell Jeavons. Russell explains that built and operated correctly, these ovens can go far beyond cooking pizzas and bread. The stored heat can be used productively for many hours after the fire has gone out, to bake a wide variety of dishes.

Using some of Russell’s strudel dough Simon cooks a delicious mushroom and fontina calzone. In Italian, calzone literally means ‘trouser leg’ and is a semicircular turnover made from dough with a savoury filling.

Maggie’s also on a roll, pushing another culinary tradition beyond its usual boundaries as she shows us how to fry, rather than bake a pizza.

The Cook And The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, September 04 at 5:00pm