Project Type: To do ahead

Clancy’s Caribbean-style rub

This is a quick and easy spice mix to knock together ahead of time and can easily be stored in an airtight container in a cool dark place.

The rub itself is infused with the flavours of the Caribbean and when combined it works well with pretty much any protein especially chicken, pork and fish.

Clancy’s tip….. place the rub in a ziplock bag and store it in the freezer to bring out when needed. No defrosting required.

What you need:

  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon dried thyme
  • 1 tablespoon ground allspice
  • 2 tablespoons black pepper (ground)
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

What you do with it…

Combine all the ingredients together in a bowl, mixing well.

Place the rub mix into an airtight container or a ziplock bag and store until required. If stored correctly, it should keep well for a month.

 

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Vietnamese Dressing

This is a super versatile dressing and perfect for Vietnamese style salads – noodle or otherwise – and as a dipping sauce for rice paper or spring rolls. Make it up in the morning, pop it in a jar and shake it about a bit when you’re ready to use it.

What you need

  • 1/4 cup caster sugar
  • 1/4 cup fish sauce
  • 1/4 cup water
  • juice of one lime
  • 2 tbsp white vinegar
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 long red chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped*

What you do with it

  • Put the water, fish sauce, sugar and vinegar into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn it down and let it simmer for a couple of minutes to dissolve the sugar.
  • Stir through the lime juice, garlic and chilli.

*A note on the chilli – we like things spicy so tend to leave some seeds in or include all or half of a small Thai style chilli as well. Your call.

Curry Paste

This versatile curry paste is a breeze to make before you leave home – although feel free to pack a mortar and pestle (or is it pestle and mortar?) and make it by hand when you’re out there.

You can store it in a jar in the fridge – don’t leave any longer than a couple of weeks – or pop it into an ice cube tray and once frozen, store the cubes in a zip lock bag in the freezer.

Too easy. Try it with our Duck Curry.

What you need

  • 12 – 15 dried red chillies
  • 4cm piece of galangal (use ginger if you do not have galangal, or include both for even more flavour)
  • 1 whole bunch of coriander – roots and all.
  • 2 stalks lemongrass ( white section only). Smash the stalk with the back of a heavy knife and slice
  • 10 kaffir lime leaves with stems removed
  • 12 cloves of garlic
  • 4 brown shallots
  • 1 teaspoon shrimp paste. This is often sold as belacan and is available in little individually wrapped squares.
  • Dash of salt
  • 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

What you do with it

  • Flatten out shrimp paste in between 2 pieces of aluminium foil and roast over medium heat in a frypan for 2 minutes on each side. If you’re making this in your kitchen at home, open all windows and put the fan on as this will smell!
  • Place chillies in a bowl of hot water for 10-15 mins, then drain
  • Throw all the ingredients into a mortar and pestle and pound into a paste – or blitz them in a mini food processor.  If you’re blitzing your paste ingredients, chop each roughly. If you’re going with the pounding method, make life easier on yourself and slice and dice more finely.
  • Pop the lot into a jar and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. It should make a cup. This paste also freezes well – pop it into an ice cube tray to freeze and then store in zip lock bags in the freezer.

Chilli Jam

Ok, this isn’t something that you’d be making in the great outdoors – well, you could, but unless you were planning on eating an awful lot of it, there’s the pesky problem of making sure your jars are all sanitised…food hygiene and all that. It is, however, something that you might want in the box of stores that you do take along though.

What can you do with it? For a start, it’s great in jaffles and on burgers or sandwiches, but it’s also great with Thai fishcakes, corn and coriander fritters, and on grilled or cold meats.

You can also drop some into a jar with lime juice and olive oil and shake it up for a spicy dressing, add a little to some decent mayo for a variation on marie sauce to have with prawns or mix some with cream cheese as a quick and easy dip.

When it comes to the quantities of things like sugar, tamarind, fish sauce, let your taste guide you – how much you need will be dependent on how spicy your chillis are. And yes, this recipe does call for heads of garlic rather than cloves – it isn’t a typo. Having said that, I tend to use 3 heads of garlic – especially at this time of the year when Australian garlic is in season and tastes great.

I also tend to use a lot less palm sugar – say, about 175g vs 250g – and an extra tablespoon of tamarind water…but that’s just our taste. Speaking of which, you can make tamarind water by mixing a couple of teaspoons of the paste with 100ml water; or (as I do) by soaking a hunk of block tamarind in a cup of boiling water for 10minutes or so.

Ok, to the recipe…

What you need

  • 10 red birds-eye chillies
  • 8 red long chillies
  • 2 red capsicums (I de-seed the capsicums, but not the chillis)
  • 6 red onions
  • 1 stalk lemongrass (pale part only)
  • 1 knob ginger
  • 5 heads garlic, peeled
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 250 g palm sugar
  • 3 tbsp tamarind water
  • 1/2 cup fish sauce

What you do with it…

  • Blend chillies, capsicum, onion, lemongrass, ginger and garlic to a fine paste.
  • Heat oil in a wok or heavy-based pan, add paste and fry until fragrant.
  • Add palm sugar and caramelise. Add tamarind water and fish sauce gradually, tasting as you go (you may not need the whole measure to get it to your own tastes). I tend to simmer it all for at least a half hour just to allow the flavours to blend together and soften.