The Cook and the Chef

In this episode Maggie and Simon pay homage to the regional food culture of the Barossa Valley.

Tonight Maggie and Simon tip their hats to the magical Mediterranean flavours of Lebanese cuisine. Pomegranate, lemon juice, pine nuts, olives and walnuts are just some of the fresh ingredients employed to embrace the food and the shared style of dining typical of Lebanese culture.

Australia has a long and proud history of celebrity cooks and chefs, entertaining food enthusiasts who’ve shared their secrets and helped raise our culinary standards.

This week on the Cook and the Chef Maggie and Simon show us some home cooked alternatives to the mass produced 'convenience' foods that dominate our supermarket shelves today.

This program has a real Australian flavour. Lemon Aspen, Anise Myrtle, Davidson Plum and yabbies are just some of the fantastic Australian native foods Maggie and Simon experiment with this week. In fact, they reckon that if we all planted native bushfoods in our gardens and used them in our cooking, a unique Australian cuisine would evolve that’s jam packed with bold flavours and nutrition and perfectly suited to our climate.

Tonight Simon revels in his favourite Thai food, and encourages heat- avoiding Maggie to “dip a toe” into this chilli laden cuisine. The resulting savoury and sweet dishes are delicate, exquisitely complex and beautifully balanced in flavour, and surprisingly Maggie friendly!

Do you remember heading to the local Chinese takeaway for a bit of dodgy sweet 'n' sour pork and beef with black bean? Ever since the Gold Rush Chinese food has been a part of the Australian food scene, but for a long time Australians had a very limited view of what Chinese food was all about. China's a huge country, but most of the early Chinese settlers who arrived here were from the Southern region of Guangdong, home of Cantonese cuisine, so Cantonese-style dishes dominated here.

The 1970's & 80's heralded a renaissance in Australian restaurant culture, heavily influenced by French 'Haute or Grand cuisine' which was as much about the atmosphere and service, as it was food and wine.

Margaret Fulton has been called the Isabella Beeton of Australian cookery and with over 4 million cookery book sales she has influenced the way Australians have entertained and eaten for over fifty years.

In any who’s who of Australian cuisine Stephanie Alexander features as a cook who has influenced not only the way we dine but the way we think about food.

Maggie and Simon both love cookbooks so this week Maggie shows off her collection and admits that acquiring cookbooks is a bit of an addiction! Simon still loves and uses one of the first cookbooks he ever bought: Charmaine Solomon’s famous guide to Asian cooking, a book which helped to change forever the way Australians shopped, cooked and ate.

In this episode our Cook & Chef pay homage to the one of the young chefs making a name for himself in Australia today. With his restaurant named as one of the top fifty in the world, Melbourne based chef Shannon Bennett is pushing the boundaries of modern French Cuisine and fine dining. Inspired by Shannon’s unique style and technique Maggie & Simon cook four irresistible dishes, Steak Tartare and Slow Cooked Lamb, followed by Chocolate Mousse and Quince and Prune Croustillant.

In this episode Maggie and Simon travel back around 150 years to a time in Australia’s history when rations were doled out to workers and meat became not just a symbol of Australia’s prosperity, but a major part of the Australian diet. With the challenge of using meat, flour, sugar, tea and salt Maggie starts simply, but can’t resist going upmarket while Simon cooks some real bush favourites, making sure to use a good measure of rum! To top it off, we visit a hard-working shearer’s cook to see if mutton still plays a big part in the shearing crew’s diet.

Tonight Maggie and Simon entice us outdoors into the late autumn sun to enjoy Greek inspired barbequed goat, souvlaki and baby octopus. Greek desserts are also on the menu so be prepared for some syrupy, sweet lusciousness.

This week the 1980s are making a comeback, as Simon and Maggie celebrate the time when Aussie food came of age and the work of three very special cooks: Gay Bilson, Tony Bilson and Janni Kyritsis. In the 1980s Maggie was busy running her famous restaurant The Pheasant Farm. Simon fondly remembers eating there as a teenager but he did think it all looked like organised chaos! Maggie realises that she wasn’t the only one working hard in the '80s though: it was an age of growing wealth but as disposable incomes expanded our spare time dwindled. To save precious time more people were going out to eat, so it was a great age for Australian restaurants as emerging chefs carved out a distinctive Aussie style.

This week the Cook & the Chef take a close look at the art of food presentation.

Just the mention of Australian classics like butterfly cakes, sponges, jelly cakes and sausage rolls conjures up memories of childhood and a time when home baking was a big part of daily life.

Maggie ventures bravely into Simon’s world of South East Asian cuisine. The Vietnamese dishes Maggie and Simon produce, from soups to crispy fried quail, are clean and fresh and defined by a delicate balance of sweet, salt, acid and sour flavours.

Dust off your flares and fondue set and get set to revive some classic dishes from the 70s, as Maggie and Simon celebrate the dawning of Modern Australian food.

This week on The Cook & the Chef Maggie and Simon celebrate the meteoric rise of Australian restaurant culture.

In this episode Maggie and Simon cook with Australian Native Foods – ‘old’ or wild foods that have not been altered by breeding so they retain high levels of vitamins and antioxidants. These foods provided indigenous Australians with a varied and rich diet for over 40,000 years before European settlement. Maggie and Simon demonstrate how native foods can add unique flavours to everyday recipes, we visit the Spirit Festival for some traditional bush tucker and see how students at Renmark High School are cultivating a commercial crop of Kutjera or Desert Raisins.

If you fancy some fine French fare then join Maggie and Simon tonight as they reveal the significant contribution the French have made to the kitchen while tempting us with classics such as Bouillabaisse and Duck Liver Parfait.

Don’t be late for a very important date this week: Simon and Maggie are holding a tea party to celebrate the days when afternoon teas (complete with cakes and cucumber sandwiches of course!) were quite the done thing.

This Week Simon and Maggie go vegetarian, proving a meat free diet is far from bland and boring. While vegetarianism has always being part of Indian and Asian culture, it didn’t really kick off in the west until the mid nineteenth century, when a meat free diet became more accessible.

This Week Simon and Maggie marvel at the British success in putting their own stamp on a Pakistani curry and then celebrate the cross-cultural cuisine of Australia’s own "Father Of Fusion" Cheong Liew.

In this episode Maggie and Simon explore the huge influence of Italian migration on Australian cuisine. Maggie explains how her early childhood led to Italy and a cooking school in Tuscany. Simon recreates some classic Italian dishes and adds a twist and we visit Armando and Maria Matteucci, an Italian couple whose abundant garden and kitchen give us a taste of the Italian food culture that has helped to shape the way we eat today.

The 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.