COAST

The way I cook at home on the coast is very much driven by time – or to be more accurate, the lack of it. I know I’m not alone on this front. Running restaurants combined with family life can be challenging, but cooking at home, be it for family or friends, is the anchor. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of sharing a meal with loved ones, especially a home-cooked one – it’s a chance to re-connect and re-fuel, and not just in the physical sense.

Whether it’s a quick weeknight meal, or more leisurely cooking for friends on the weekend, for me it’s mostly about quick, easy and crowd-pleasing, with an emphasis on fresh flavours and a simple approach.

I have a compact vegetable garden at home, so whatever is growing well and abundantly often drives what I’m cooking – we eat a lot of salads at my place! Living on the coast also means easy access to great-quality seafood, so that’s often a focus too. I even have a four-metre tinny that I sometimes take out into the little bay near home and catch squid – not nearly as often as I’d like to, to be honest!

It’s fair to say that I’m a committed carnivore, and if I’m cooking meat, I’ll focus on quality grass-fed meat, using cuts that lend themselves to speedy cooking (for the most part I leave the slow-cooking for when I’m at the farm).

Many of these recipes are my weeknight go-tos, while others are for casual weekend entertaining. You’ll find dishes for breezy summer days and cooler nights, kick-starting breakfasts and sweets to hit the spot. Most of all, you’ll find flavour and freshness, and lots of it. Isn’t this how we love to eat by the Australian coast?