6.30pm Wednesday, 30 April 2008

In tonight's episode of The Cook and The Chef, Maggie Beer and Simon Bryant demonstrate why salt and pepper feature as giants in culinary history.

While Maggie pot roasts a pheasant to succulent perfection with apple brandy, Simon makes a pepper sauce that turns a steak into so much more than a pub meal. He uses five different types of pepper to show us how a real pepper sauce should be made. A simple steak dished up with a roasted mushroom cap and this pepper sauce will make you think again about the importance of pepper as a really wonderful and complex spice.
To look at salt in more detail, Simon finds himself in a lunar-like landscape - the salt ponds north of Adelaide. As a chef, he couldn't cook without salt and as he explains, it's worth having an appreciation of different salt flavours and textures to make the right cooking choices. Simon blends up a salt cod with milk, potatoes, bay leaves and oil to make a really hearty dip-like dish, which in France is called brandade.
Maggie uses the curing properties of salt with some rosemary to marinate a farm rabbit. After cooking the rabbit in oil, she combines the meat with ingredients like fried ciabatta, pancetta, pine nuts and lemon to produce a warm salad that is a delightful blend of sweet, sour, salt and crunch.
The Cook and The Chef will be repeated on ABC2 – Thursday, May 1 at 4:30pm