plate 52: new zealand

And so I arrive at my final destination. There's been some debate about where the journey should end. But after a bit of deliberation, I'm going to finish with a good old-fashioned food fight. Instead of throwing ingredients around the kitchen in a frenzy (I actually do that most weeks anyway), this brawl centres on pavolva.

As you can see, I've labelled the post New Zealand, so maybe I'm leaning towards the Kiwis being the inventors of this snowy-white, marshmallowy-centred, crisp-crusted, light-as-air beauty that is this infamous dessert. Who would've thought something so sweet could have created so many bitter arguments between us Aussies and our mates across the Tasman?

There's one thing the two countries do agree on though - that the sugary, fruit-topped dessert was named after Anna Pavlova, the Russian ballerina who toured Australia and New Zealand in the '20s. Apparently the dancer's biographer wrote that a chef at a Wellington hotel created the dish in her honour in 1926.

The truth of where it really originated may not ever be revealed, but in the search for the answer I'm going to keep making pavlova. I was so scared about my first attempt, there just seem to be so many rules: absolutely NO yolk in your egg whites (calls for precision egg-separating skills); no moisture in the air; a completely dry bowl for beating the mixture; and leaving a just-cooked meringue in the oven to cool when it finishes baking - if you pull it out straight away it could crack: a pav maker's nightmare.

To help me achieve pavlova perfection, I called upon the pavlova queen - AJ's grandma Trich - to supervise me. Lucky she was available because she helped make almost every step of the way as smooth as my meringue mixture ended up being.

Not a skerrick of yolk in the whites was the first hurdle cleared. Next was beating the egg whites till stiff - easy: a Mr Squiggle Blackboard move of the bowl - "upside-down, upside down" - confirmed it was firm enough to start adding the sugar.

I used a Donna Hay recipe that called for pure icing sugar instead of the traditional caster sugar. Not that I've attempted a pav any other way, but I think perhaps it was easier for that type of sugar to dissolve. (At this stage some people also add vinegar, which is supposed to enhance the marshmallowiness of the centre and the crispness of the outside.)

A good meringue mixture should be very smooth and glossy, and I can proudly say that mine shone, almost blindingly, in my face. Oh the joy!

Next task was to spread the mixture evenly among two rectangles that I'd drawn up on some baking paper - this helps keep things nice and even. Since I was making a layered pav, each rectangle needed to be exactly the same size.

Into the oven at 120C (which I think probably needed to be 140C - nowhere in Donna's book Seasons does she say whether her recipes use conventional or fan-forced ovens). I kept the temperature lower for fear of it overcooking, so it took a little longer than the 25 minutes instructed. But it didn't seem to matter. I just waited until it was fairly dry, then turned the oven off and left it in there for 30 minutes to cool before bringing it out onto the bench, in all its crisp, dry glory to cool it down totally.

The trickiest part came next, when I had to get the meringue off the baking paper. It was stuck! We very gingerly peeled back the paper, and tried using an egg slide at one point, too - don't do that, it causes more cracking. Patience is key here, so if this happens to you just persevere. And don't worry if it cracks a little. A few uneven edges are a hallmark of every, ahem, rustic pavlova.

Finally the meringues released and I got to layering with whipped cream and mixed berries (which are in season and super yum right now). There was a bit of pressure cooking for 12 people and wanting to make it perfect. The pictures of Donna's recipes always look amazing, too, so it's a miracle when yours does actually look just like it. Seems like there was a miracle. Well, I think her name was Supervisor Trich.

While the pav looked great, I just hoped and prayed for that deliciously soft and chewy centre beneath the crispy crust. Success! The pav cut like a dream - I heard the slight crunch as the knife went through, then it slid with ease as I carefully cut the whole thing into 12 pieces for awaiting, salivating mouths.

As for the flavour, deeelicious. It wasn't sickly sweet like some pavs are where you can actually taste the grains of sugar. The silky cream sandwiched between the layers of magical meringue topped and filled with tangy-sweet ruby-red raspberries and little nuggets of blueberries was a blissful end to Destination Degustation. In my book, a good food journey must end with dessert. Even if you think your dessert stomach is closed, you have to find the key and open it!

Thanks so much to everyone who made my tastebud trip around the world so memorable. Even when I cried, swore and broke down in utter self-disappointment, you were all there being incredibly supportive, encouraging and helpful - I'm very, very grateful. Now go forth to the comfort of your kitchens and start cooking up some of my favourites, if you haven't already: Maltese; Malaysian; Greek; Argentinian; South African; Spanish. Heck - make them all and make your own judgements. I hope the food brings you as much fun and enjoyment as it did for me. xx

plate 51: jamaica

Summer's in the air and sunshine's in the sky ... well that was until New South Wales decided to have a quick change of heart, turn cold and even snow in Thredbo. It's December - damn you summer! Before the cold snap took hold and warm weather was soothingly embracing us, and with holidays within easy grasp, my mind meandered into island life. Which is where Jamaica comes in, mon.

Perusing recipes on Sunday at 8am, mouth parched by yelling Bon Jovi songs at his concert the night before, many an idea appealed (although I always wake up ravenous). The chosen ones ended up being jerk chicken with a side of rice and peas. Jerk is a fiery-hot rub (wet or dry) for chicken or meat that you massage in prior to cooking.

This recipe called for onions, garlic, ginger, chilli paste, chilli sauce, cinnamon, nutmeg (mouth watering yet?), allspice, orange juice, lime juice and rind, a bit of brown sugar and Jamaica's equivalent to Italy's love of basil - thyme.

Making the paste was fine. Cooking the chicken was not so fine. The recipe I used instructed to roast the chook, but I wanted a more authentic smoky taste from the barbecue. So in the glass baking dish it went and onto the barbie. Five minutes later: "CRACK". Oops - a shattered baking dish. Should've known better, but clearly didn't. After a thorough inspection of the chicken, making sure it hadn't been studded with shards of glass, into the oven it went. Not putting glass on a barbecue: noted.

While the chicken safely cooked, I set to work on the rice and peas, which apparently no Jamaican home goes without on a Sunday evening. You'd think cooking rice in a bit of coconut milk with black-eyed peas (used as a substitute for gungo peas - Jamie Oliver told me to) would be easy. But no. I put it down to the Americans. Sorry, I don't mean to offend anyone, but I want to know why there are three different ingredients called pepper: capsicum, chilli and the spice?? Rather annoying when you're trying to follow a recipe that calls for whole pepper. Carefully I chopped up my capsicum and threw it in with the peas and coconut milk, only to realise a little late in the piece that what they meant was chilli. So I started fishing out bits of green capsicum that bobbed up and down, almost cheekily appearing and disappearing under the milky-white surface, mocking me.

Fed up of scooping out bits of capsicum I decided to leave them in there. So it wouldn't be traditional, but at least it'd taste OK, right?

So with the half-barbecued half-roasted chicken cooked and the rice and peas somewhat salvaged, we sat down to eat. Not bad, not bad at all. The chicken had a delightful kick without being overbearing (and actually did have a slightly charred flavour from its limited time on the barbecue), and the subtle sweetness and creamy texture of the rice made for a pretty nice meal. An idea for the leftover chicken: make a Jamaican-style chicken burger. Spread some bread with mayo or aioli, top it with the chicken and a slice of cheese.

plate 50: spain

I never knew Spanish paella ("puh-eh-ya" in Espanol) and the Aussie barbie had a commonality. Speaking in generalisations here, cooking the barbecue is the man's job in Australia, men compare their barbecues as a way of sizing up each other's manhood, and it seems the same goes for the paella - in Spain it's customary for men to make it.

I let AJ off the hook, though, and continued on my merry way, launching myself into week 50 with a full stomach. Sunday was a day of intense eating. It started with yum cha, followed by a beautiful-tasting feast of mega proportions at Sal's baby shower, and finally the curtain closed with paella about 9.30pm.

Paella is classically cooked over coals in a shallow two-handled pan. Workers would make the paella in the fields from whatever they could find - often snails and rabbit - then all sit around, each with a wooden spoon in hand and eat from the same pan.

Without the hot coals or the paellera or caldero (the pan), I set to work using my trusty deep Scanpan frying pan. Rather than hunks of rabbit and slimy snails, I opted for more palatable ingredients and chose chicken and chorizo as my flavour combo. Even though chorizo is a fantastically smoky Spanish sausage, it's generally not used in Spain for a paella, but I couldn't resist - I love it.

The all-important ingredient in paella is rice. The best recipes don't use too many ingredients because the rice is the hero. Most often it's calasparra rice, and sometimes cebolla rice, a short to medium grain that's ideal for absorbing all the amazing flavours in the paella, such as saffron, paprika, garlic, beans and the sofrito.

I was worried when making my sofrito - the deliciously flavoursome sauce base of tomato, capsicum, onion and garlic cooked slowly (sofrito means "softly fry") in lots of olive oil. AJ (calling out from the other room): "Wow - you must be using a whole lot of spices I've never smelt before." Me: "No babe, I think it's burnt!" It looked a bit black, but didn't taste burnt, so maybe that was how it was supposed to be?

According to the experts, there are a few rules when making paella. Once you add the rice, you must stop stirring. Apparently if you stir, the starch in the rice is released which can make the paella gluey. Then, when you've finished cooking, you need to let the paella rest for about 10 minutes so the rice can relax and the flavours settle.

The paella is a sharing-is-caring dish. The idea is that you bring it to the table in the pan and serve everyone from there. Our "everyone" was just the two of us, and luckily we didn't have to share (although I did share the leftovers). It arrested us at first bite - YUM. The flavour was rich and fabulous, nicely spiced and well seasoned. AJ puts it in Dest. Deg.'s top five.

I served it with a sharp-tasting side of cooked carrots tossed in toasted fennel seeds, lemon juice, mint, oregano and a dressing of red wine vinegar and olive oil that had suitcases (a step up from bags) of flavour. Try it for a different way to serve your vegies. Ideal hot or cold, as a side or a starter. It's Frank Camorra's (of Melbourne restaurant Movida - you may remember him as the one who Marion beat in the challenge on MasterChef) recipe and he says it can be served as an "unassuming appetiser that gets the digestive juices flowing". Buen provecho! x

plate 49: turkey

I don't know if it had something to do with the fez he wore on his wedding day, but I've believed for years that my maternal great-grandfather was born in Turkey. But then someone someday found out it wasn't so. The likely scenario was that he was there during WWI - we're pretty sure he was born in Pisa. A little disappointing, because when I started this blog I thought I had Turkish in me, which would have been cool, but alas I don't.

That certainly won't stop me from eating the country's cuisine though. I absolutely adore Turkish food. I thought my love of it had something to do with being one-gazillionth Turkish, but now we know this isn't the case. Aaaaanyway, one of my all-time favourite dishes is - surprise, surprise - a dessert.

Baklava is my Turkish dessert of choice. Pronounced by my family in the Arabic way: "buk-louwa". (That's because I do have Middle Eastern in me - my grandparents were born in Egypt, which I think I've mentioned before.) There's something magical about baklava's golden layers of paper-thin pastry, the nuttiness of the filling and the main deliciousness - that lusciously sticky and intensely sweet sugar and rosewater syrup that's poured over the top once the baklava's pulled out of the oven. The thought of it instantly makes my mouth water.

I was so pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to make, too. These days Turkish home cooks will use bought filo pastry rather than making it themselves, so I happily followed their example. I had always had trouble with filo, buying the frozen packs that would dry out and crack in a second. Then I discovered fridge filo. Whenever you work with filo, please buy it from the chilled section. It doesn't dry out on you and is so much easier to work with. The other trick to using filo is to cover all your sheets in a little tea towel blanket. First a dry tea towel, then a damp one so they don't dry up.

So pulled the filo out of the fridge I did and layer upon layer upon layer upon layer upon layer I went, placing each sheet of filo in my cake tin brushing each one with melted butter in the process. After five layers I sprinkled over some chopped pistachios, then added five more layers, more pistachio, then another five filo sheets.

Instead of pistachios you can use walnuts or almonds, or get adventurous like Turkey's "Baklava King" Nadir Gullu who's the biggest baklava producer in the world, making about 55 varieties. 55! And to work for him you have to complete a seven-year apprenticeship to become a master filo roller. What a hot job title! "What do you do?" "Oh, you know, I'm just a master filo roller."

An article about Nadir revealed his instruction to tasting baklava: it has to use all the senses. Dig your fork in and you must hear a rewarding crunch as you cut - check. Smell it and you should get a whiff of baked pastry perfumed with rosewater - check. And lastly it should have a terrific texture in your mouth, a mixture of crispiness from the pastry and nuts, and a moist stickiness from the syrup - check. To eat it, use your hands (forget the fork), devour in a few bites, then lick your fingers to enjoy every last skerrick of syrup. Ah, pure baklava bliss.

Being picky, I would have liked the baklava to be higher. I guess I could have kept stacking the filo as high as I wanted, but as I always do, I followed the recipe to the letter. The taste was A-1 though. Incredible. So sweet and scrumptious. Forget Atkins or Lite 'n Easy, I'm starting the baklava diet. It makes you extremely happy - who's in?

plate 48: colombia

To Colombia I go. (Not Columbia with a "u" - spelt this way and it's the capital city of South Carolina in the US.) I know I should've consulted my dear Anna - who is half-Colombian - about this, but time, as it so sneakily does, got away from me. My first thought was dessert, unsurprising really, and I considered making rice pudding because Anna's mum - the lovely Lucy - makes a mean one. But then I came across papas rellenas - translated as "stuffed potato" - on a site called My Colombian Recipes. The chica responsible for the blog is called Erica and apparently it's her Colombian grandmother's recipe. Thanks!

I chose the recipe because, um, well, it's no ordinary stuffed potato. It's mashed potato, rolled into balls, stuffed, then deep-fried. That's right, deep-fried mashed potato. Never have I thought of deep-frying mash before. It seemed ingenious, naughty and delicious. A must-make. I've read that potato and corn jostle for the title of most important foodstuff in South America. While I've been loving the juicy, intensely sweet corn we've been eating of late, I do prefer spuds to kernel clusters - it gets so annoying when those little stringy bits of corn get stuck in your teeth.

Erica explains these balls of mashed potato stuffed with a meat and vegie filling are a popular breakfast in Colombia. Breakfast? Perhaps it's not all that weird actually. I know Sal's Gus loves mashed potato on toast for brekkie.

I was a wee bit nervous about how I was going to form balls of mash to stuff with mince, thinking the mash would be wet and a little sloppy. But leaving it to sit for a while as I cooked the meat filling made it firm up and go a bit sticky, which made rolling and shaping much easier.

After making basic mash, you just roll it into a ball then flatten on your palm to form a patty of sorts. Spoon on a little minced meat filling - cooked with tomato, shallots, garlic and cumin - then shape the mash around the filling to encase and coat in a simple batter before immersing in sizzling oil.

The papas didn't hold their shape as well as I would have hoped. Could have been because the half bottle of vegetable oil still wasn't quite the quantity required to make a deep enough frying pool, but they still crisped up and turned a lustrous light gold.

As for the taste - fabulous! With a soft crunch on the outside and a fluffy centre, papas rellenas are like cottage pie in swimmers - a winter dish given summer style, mainly because of the deliciously fresh aji sauce dribbled over the top of them. Studded with chillies, fresh coriander, tomato and shallots, and tinged with tangy lime juice and sugar, this vinegar-based sauce was the perfect accompaniment. I can definitely see myself spreading any leftover papas over toast. A fair effort Colombia, a fair effort indeed.

plate 47: germany

And back to cake. You know I love cake, but lately I've also been blown away by the Charm City Cakes crew on Ace of Cakes on Lifestyle Food. Have you seen these geniuses in action?! Most recently I saw them create a scrabble cake, complete with score card, dictionary and the bag with tiles spilling out. Incredible. Inspiring. Impossible (for this humble home cook).

For German week, I wanted to make a Black Forest cake, known in German as a schwarzwalderkirschtorte (dare you to say that five times without getting tongue tied), which was made famous by a German confectioner in 1915. Josef Keller developed this packed-with-all-the-good-stuff dessert: a multi-layered chocolate sponge filled with whipped cream kissed with kirsch (cherry brandy), cherries and chocolate shavings. Um, yum.

 I wish.

Apparently inspiration for Josef's cake came from the clothes worn by women in the Black Forest region in Germany: a black dress, represented by the chocolate; a white shirt, the cream; and a hat with red pompoms, the cherries.

What I cooked, however, was a crazy twist on the traditional. This black forest dessert from Lemonpi is not made in a cake tin, it's made in a frying pan. Yep, a frying pan. It's called the Black Forest Skillet Cookie. It didn't feature cream, kirsch or a multitude of layers, but it did possess massive amounts of intensely rich and satisfying flavour. It was simple to put together - just fold flour, a bit of baking powder, and a teensy showering of sea salt through a mixture of beaten sugar, eggs and melted chocolate with butter. Then, just when you thought there was enough chocolate, stir in some milk chocolate and dark chocolate chips for good measure, and some dried cherries. Spoon into a skillet and bake as you would a cake.

It didn't take that long to cook - about 40 minutes was all it needed. I had to look out for a top that was set and an edge that was darkened. As I've mentioned many times on this journey, my oven is a little temperamental, so I wasn't completely sure it was done, but I pulled it out anyway after about 45 minutes a) for fear of burning it and b) to make the dinner date we had at Kenso Peking.

A few hours later, no amount of noodles, peking duck pancakes, drunken chicken and fried fish with ginger and shallots could stop me from devouring this Black Forest in a Frying Pan. Best described as a smiling assassin, seducing me with its brownie-like looks and attempting to kill me with its sinful amount of sweetness.

As I inserted the knife to make the necessary incisions, it glided through with ease. Uh oh - undercooked? No even slices emerged. While I was disappointed at serving a sloppy, muddy mound onto my pretty floral plates, the taste was actually pretty good. Everyone agreed. (Family support is unwavering and extremely generous.) Very gooey, but upon reflection I don't think it was supposed to come out cake like anyway. It just wasn't the most attractive-looking dessert.

The triple chocolatiness was magically decadent. The cherry popped up every now and then to say a juicy hello, and the flaky, cakey top danced cheek-to-cheek with the slightly sticky centre in what was quite pleasing really. Overnight in the fridge, then a few hours out if it and you'll get a nice firmer texture that I think tastes a little better.

I'd love to make a classic Black Forest cake though, so if anyone has a good recipe for it, please let me know.

plate 46: japan

Whenever I go out for Japanese, gyoza are one of my three starter staples (along with edamame and agadashi tofu), so they were an obvious choice for this week's culinary adventure. Not dissimilar from the Chinese wontons I made in week 6, gyoza are actually traditionally Chinese, so that would explain it! But these little parcels were adopted many moons ago by the Japanese. The lovely Al Pal, who has recently returned from Japan, said they were all over the country, even more so than sushi.

I upped the challenge by making the dough from scratch, rather than buying pre-made gyoza wrappers. It all went fine apart from a sticky start and being showered in flour (I know, I know, I need to embrace mess if I'm going to become a better cook), which I needed a lot of it to keep things soft and smooth...as an ear lobe as my recipe instructed. The other problem was that I didn't really leave myself enough time. I'd planned a whole gyoza-making Sunday afternoon, but shoe shopping beckoned so that plan was foiled. (Success on the shoe front though.)

Given the lack of time, I was slightly impatient and rushing to get the gyoza done so we wouldn't be eating at midnight. Being squiriferously* mannered, AJ did some wrapping and rolling too to speed things up a little. Thanks babe.

Making the mixture was of course super easy. Just mush up some minced pork, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, shallot and cabbage in a bowl and spoon a teeny bit into the middle of a little circle (or in our case, hearts, maps of Australia and other unidentifiable shapes) of dough, then fold over. Given our "creativity", the gyoza weren't the neatest looking little things, so I wasn't feeling overly optimistic about the flavour.

But how wrong I was! To cook them, fry them off in some oil (you need quite a bit otherwise they'll stick and split a little, as I learned) then add cold water to the pan to come halfway up the side of the gyoza to let them cook for a few minutes. Easy peasy.

Hot off the pan and dipped into a mixture of soy sauce and vinegar, they were dinner deliciousness. Very moreish and tasted all the better for having handmade the dough.

Next course came a few nights later. I cooked a soba noodle recipe from a cute little blog I stumbled across called Sumo Kitchen by a Japanese girl living in Sydney. She lavished so much praise on soba, including its A-mazing health benefits, that I couldn't ignore it.

This dish had a few elements. You make a broth first with mirin, soy sauce, shiitake mushrooms and dried fish flakes (that you need to, ahem, fish out with a slotted spoon - a bit of a laborious task, just use fish stock), which once simmered is poured over chicken cooked with diced shallot and carrot so all the flavours jumble together. Quickly cook the noodles, then artfully present on a platter and top with strips of seaweed. Pop the chicken mixture in a separate bowl, then to serve, dish up some soba into a small bowl and top with a bit of chicken mixture. Silky-soft soba, slippery slimy shiitake and salty soy made sweet, sweet music in my mouth.

Speaking of music, coincidentally I heard an interview on Triple J the other morning with Japanese sound artist Mamoru Okuno. He makes music from noises created by foodstuffs - noodle slurping, plastic wrap unfurling and other such quirky tunes. And I quote him when I say making noise while eating in Japan is a sign of respect and enjoyment. Happy slurping everyone! x

*Don't worry, I didn't know what squiriferous meant until yesterday either. It's an adjective, meaning having the characteristics or qualities of a gentleman. I found it out through a cool campaign The Oxford Dictionary is running about sponsoring words to save them. Sponsor your very own here, and promise to love it and nurture it.