Wild Lime Cooking School Menu Options – 2012

Summer Fresh and Chill

Imagine the cool shade after hot summer sun.  Imagine the chill of the creek.  Sip iced salmon soup and savour lime cured ceviche. Light up the bar b que to grill pork skewers with sticky lime wedges.  Chill a salad of roasted eggplant and cool tomato chunks and maintain your cool with watermelon and wild lime granita with ginger wine syrup.

Vital Vietnam

In the bustle and buzz of a Hanoi market we choose fragrant herbs fresh from the fields and dodge a motor scooter while selecting the freshest fish from the tank.  Then in the calm of the Wild Lime kitchen we create fish congee and caramelised pork belly with wild mustard greens, shred green mango or papaya for salad and stir fry ginger chicken.

India – Memories of a Cochin Kitchen

Take a slow bamboo shaded rice boat through the gentle Kerala backwaters to the bustle of a Cochin market framed on the waterfront by ancient arcs of Chinese fishing nets.  Create Pal Appam with Potato Masala, Saag Gosht –  lamb curry with warrigal greens, fish steamed in banana leaf parcels and fragrant curries of garden fresh vegetables.  Try quandongs in chilli syrup with creamy wattleseed ice cream for dessert.

In Italy it is Always Slow Food

In warm Tuscan sunshine the soft green trees are weighted heavily with olives and we gather wild greens for gnocchi malfatti out of their shade.  The cheeses have been set aside and sun -warmed tomatoes are ripening for sauces, soups and salads.  We add wattleseed to pasta to be filled with honey-roasted pumpkin for agnolotti and we consider fragrant wild additions to the creamy risotto.  We’ve chopped the gremolata herbs to top the slow simmering veal and dessert is a chill and sweet surprise.

Morocco – the Time Warp

Take the time warp on a donkey through the Medina of Fes where lined faces in kaftans and djellabahs attend to the same businesses as their forefathers 1000 years ago.  Consider pomegranate, red and jewel- like, oily walnuts crushed with roasted red peppers and the zing of lemon myrtle.  Enjoy tagine and tamarind flavours, bush tomato harissa -seasoned chicken and salt preserved wild lime, roasted vegetables fragrant with cumin and caraway and couscous laced with olives and herbs.

Turkish Tales

Escape from the noisy crowds of the Grand Bazaar to the quiet warmth of an old stone kitchen where we share stories and spices as we chop and simmer.  Aubergines, dripping with oil fresh pressed from our groves are the Imam’s favourite dish.  Chicken in pistachio, sumac and sesame crumbs with macadamia tarator follows zucchini fritters and nutty pilaf. Baklava is a sweet conclusion.

Summer In Provence

The summer sun warms and wears the old stone of crumbling walls, and pretty villages cling to cliffs, precariously out of the reach of invaders.  We savour squid with sun soaked olives and tomatoes, remnants of old Roman food with Poulet Apicius – chicken, flavoured with honey and fish sauce (yes the Romans used a fermented fish sauce called garum), aioli with garden fresh greens, beef daube and tarte tatin.

Spanish Samples 

Inspiration comes for orange spiced lamb skewers while sitting in the shade of a laden Andalucian orange tree.  Ripening figs are  visible in the Roman ruins of stony villages and can be partnered with chicken, cinnamon and sherry vinegar  in a zesty sweet and sour combination.  Fresh caught sardines grilled with garlic, fennel and lemon myrtle begin this culinary excursion and a watermelon granita with lilly pilly garnish and ginger wine syrup completes the experience.

Oz in Asia

Let the fragrant vitality of herbs and spices and the freshest of produce take  you through the bustling markets of Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam to the Wild Lime Kitchen.  Sample the fragile freshness of vegetable tempura and the mouth puckering sourness of tamarind and wild lime in seafood curry and eggplant salad and the wonderfully named Crying  Tiger.  Combine complex Thai flavours with wild food in fragrant broths and follow with a chill dessert.

Bush Picnic

Portable or Party food

Fire up for the festive season or cool off by the creek with a portable banquet including tuna, slow cooked and preserved in oil with lemon myrtle, bush tomatoes and wild lime.  Puree white beans and pack parmesan crisps with Worendo olives and crunchy or succulent skewers of chicken or fish or vegetables.  Finish with easy to make and manage creamy wild lime sorbet in cones.

Winter Warmers in UK and Ireland

The Cliffs of Moher drop away into the wild Atlantic that pounds the Irish coast and surprising snow is falling lightly on the Yorkshire Dales.  Out of the cold, the warm pubs offer mulled wine by the fire, hearty leek, potato and watercress soup with soda bread, roasted beef with limed horseradish cream, salmon simmered Welsh style in red wine and wild fruit warmed with brandy and chilled with spoonfuls of wattleseed ice cream. 

Glorious Greece

Early morning in Delphi and the gods and goddesses whisper wisdom from rocks and crevices.  Spring flowers appear in stony cracks.  Their seeds have lasted longer than the temples of the ancients.  The stadium of Olympia will wait till we have sampled aromatic soup with cheese and olive bread, squid stuffed with rice and nuts and greens, carefully wrapped dolmades, slow cooked meats enlivened with lemon myrtle and wine, spring salads and rice stirred through with leek and wild greens.  Consider sweet pastry for dessert.