Ask any restaurateur what’s going off on their menu and the answer will usually be any of the seafood items. We’re always being urged to eat more fish because it is so good for us, but home cooks tend to steer clear.

Perhaps we’re a little afraid of all those scales, fins, eyes and bones and worry about the best way to cook a fish. The other difficulty relates to buying good, fresh fish. Unlike meat or chicken, we know that fish doesn’t tolerate being packaged up and left in the supermarket cold chill cabinet, so have to search out the specialty fish supply shops. Even then the choice can sometimes be a bit limited and distressingly, often filleted beyond recognition, bereft of skin and other interesting bits.
Restaurants have at their disposal a larger fish market, delivered fresh every day or two and to their requirements – whole, skin on or filleted as they prefer.

I always love the seafood and fish dishes at a favourite restaurant – Strathlynn in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley – because the produce they source is so sparklingly fresh. The fish tastes just like the catch that as a family we used to haul out of the seas on a line with a sinker and cook up in the shack kitchen for lunch.

Strathlynn’s crispy skin ocean perch is a great dish and is simple in preparation. The ingredient list is few – the fish, some basic Asian flavourings, a tasty sausage and cabbage. That’s it. Cooking time is minimal – as long as the cabbage takes to sweat down. The most time-consuming but important part is in slicing the cabbage and flavourings as finely as possible. Just get a very sharp knife and go for it.

Serve with a crisp, fruity Tasmanian riesling like 2005 Josef Chromy Riesling.

The Recipe

Crispy skin fish with warm cabbage salad
fillets of ocean perch, skin on
salt and pepper
rice flour for coating
Flathead, trevalla or trevally will all work well. Cut some 5mm deep slashes in the skin of each fillet. Season well with salt and pepper. Coat in rice flour.
Heat a little vegetable oil in a hot pan. Sear the fish, skin side down, for about 2 minutes until golden brown and crispy. Turn over; turn off the pan and leave to cook/rest for about 2-3 minutes.

For the cabbage salad:
knob fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced very finely
1 large clove garlic, peeled and sliced very finely
1 chorizo sausage cut into thin slices
5 whole star anise
1 large red chilli, seeded and cut into fine strips
½ large white cabbage, shredded very finely
light soy sauce
fish sauce
baby salad greens, watercress for preference
Heat a large pan with some vegetable oil. Stir fry the ginger, garlic, sausage, star anise and chilli for about a minute. Add the cabbage and continue to stir fry for a minute. Pop on a lid, lower the heat slightly and let the cabbage sweat until it has collapsed and softened.
Remove the lid, add about a tablespoon of soy sauce and a splash of fish sauce to taste.
Pile the cabbage salad on a plate, scatter over baby salad leaves and top with the crispy fish.

At the festive time of the year it is all about being clever with what you have on hand and can supplement with a quick trip to the deli. Here’s a tasty twist on the Italian classic insalata caprese using up any left-over ratatouille that you’ve cleverly produced in a large quantity.

Usually this Italian salad features alternating slices of tomato and mozzarella dressed with vinaigrette, chopped onion, capers and basil leaves. For this presentation I made little groups of a roll of prosciutto, spoonful of ratatouille, slice of mozzarella, basil leaf and, given that there was plenty of flavour in the ratatouille, finished the dish with just a drizzle of very good olive oil. Not only did it look appealingly festive but the mix of flavours and ingredients was both delicious and nourishing.
If you don’t have time to make the ratatouille, substitute thick slices of very ripe, well-seasoned tomatoes and you’ll still present a beautiful platter. Choose a supple, elegant pinot like Dog Point and you’ll have the perfect combination.

The Recipe

Prosciutto, mozzarella and ratatouille platter (for about 10 people)
20 fine slices prosciutto
6-7 bocconcini (baby mozzarella), sliced thickly
spoonfuls of ratatouille (see below)
20 fresh basil leaves
extra virgin olive oil
For the ratatouille:
Peel and slice two large red onions. Take 1 large red pepper (or 2 small), remove the pith and seeds and cut the flesh into strips. Chop 1 large unpeeled eggplant into cubes. Peel 4 tomatoes by first plunging into boiling water for 3 minutes. Chop roughly. Sauté the onion slices in 5 tbsp oil over moderate heat. When they have softened add first the peppers and then the eggplant. Cook gently for 10 minutes, lid on. Add the tomatoes, season well and cook gently, covered, for a further 30 minutes. Take off the lid and cook for 10 minutes more or until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
To assemble: Softly roll the prosciutto slices. Pop one of these on a platter. Spoon a little ratatouille partly covering the prosciutto roll. Place a slice of mozzarella in front of this. Continue making the groups, stacking them against one another as you go. When all are completed tuck a basil leaf between each mozzarella slice and the piece of prosciutto in front of it. Drizzle the whole thing with olive oil and serve with plenty of bread.

Oooh, ‘tis the time of year for gooey, gorgeous sticky meats so pull down those big cast iron casserole dishes and get braising. Wet dishes are definitely the order of the day. Meat from around the bony parts is best for long, slow braising.

Oxtail and proper veal osso buco can be hard to find but more readily available is plain beef shin, cut into thick slices with the central bone removed.

The mission of the day was actually to create a dish to accompany a young, intense and firmly structured pinot noir from New Zealand’s Central Otago like Quartz Reef, hence the choice of a meat with a melting texture and rich flavour to plump out the tannins in the wine. When one thinks pinot, mushrooms and other lovely fungi always come to mind so to accompany the braise and to provide a funky foil to the beautiful perfume of the wine a porcini risotto was born.

With or without gremolata is always the burning questions when northern Italians discuss the perfect osso buco. Gremolata is a mix of equal quantities of grated lemon rind and finely chopped parsley plus a little minced garlic if liked. Some don’t care for it but I like the way that a tiny sprinkle lifts the richness of a dish.

The Recipe

Braised beef shin with red wine
6 pieces thickly cut beef shin without the bone (about 1.2kg) – keep them whole
knob butter and 1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium carrot, chopped into small (not tiny) pieces
1 large onion, chopped
1 leek (white part only), chopped
250ml good red wine
200ml beef or chicken stock
2 tbsp tomato passata or finely chopped tinned tomatoes and juice
2 sprigs thyme, finely chopped
salt and ground pepper
2 tbsp plain flour mixed to thin paste with water
Preheat oven to 150C. Heat the butter and oil in a large ovenproof casserole dish and brown the shin on both sides. Remove. Saute the chopped vegetables in the same pan until softened. Place the meat on top and add the thyme, wine, stock, tomato and salt and pepper. Cover with a sheet of buttered baking paper and pop on the casserole lid. Bake in a very slow oven for about two and a half hours or until the meat is meltingly tender. Top up the liquid from time to time with water if necessary. Carefully remove the meat and slightly thicken the simmering sauce with just enough flour and water paste. Return the meat to the pan to mix around gently in the sauce. Check for seasoning.
For the risotto:
Make a porcini risotto by soaking half cup porcini in hot water for 15 minutes. Strain and reserve the liquid. Chop the porcini. Bring four cups stock plus the porcini liquid to a simmer in a separate saucepan. Finely chop half an onion and sauté with the porcini in butter and oil till translucent. Add one and a half cups risotto rice and stir well until some of the rice is opaque. Add a ladleful of stock and stir. Let bubble away gently and add more stock when nearly dry. Keep adding the stock in this way until the rice is just cooked. Stir an extra knob of butter and some Parmesan cheese through at the end.

To serve: Place some risotto on each plate and top with pieces of the shin and some sauce. Sprinkle with a little gremolata. Serve with a green salad or dish of green beans.

A spicy roast chicken and extra tasty mashed potato is a great salve for plummeting temperatures. The influence is basically Mediterranean and I’m indebted to two of my favourite cookery authors for the inspiration.

Madhur Jaffrey’s Cooking for Family and Friends is a delightful volume of recipes that brings cross-cultural flavours together in a most delicious and interesting way. Here is Jaffrey’s idea for roast chicken but without her spicy, tart apple stuffing, although it will be worth a try sometime.

Good mashed potatoes rarely need improvement or so I thought until I tried Claudia Roden’s mashed potatoes with pine nuts, adapted here.
Even if chilli is not your thing do try a little as it gives the dish a warm-inner-glow type lift. Grinding your own spices does make a difference so invest in a spice grinder and mini nutmeg grater. Performing this task will take an extra minute or two but the results are really worth it. Whole spices keep very well so you won’t be throwing out half full packets of stale, pre-ground spices. I ground up three tiny dried chillies with a couple of shards of cinnamon stick and the flavour was terrific.

The Recipe

Paprika roast chicken & spicy mashed potatoes
1 large free-range chicken
1 lemon, cut in half lengthwise
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp salt flakes
several grindings of pepper
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves chopped very fine
Preheat oven to 180C. Dry the chicken well and stuff the lemon inside. Tie the legs together. Brush a baking dish or cast iron skillet (just big enough to hold the chicken) with oil. Place the chicken in the dish. Mix the paprika with the oil and brush the chicken over all exposed skin. Mix together the salt, pepper and finely chopped thyme. Sprinkle this generously all over the chicken. Pour half a centimetre of water into the bottom of the baking vessel. Roast the chicken for 60 – 80 minutes, depending on the size of your bird – juices between the thigh and carcass should be clear. Baste the bird with the cooking juices from time to time and top up the water as needed so that you have some spicy, sticky, lemon-scented pan juices to serve.

Mashed potatoes with fried onion and pine nuts
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a saucepan. Add one onion, sliced into half rings, and cook until richly golden. Add 3 tbsp pine nuts and keep cooking until the pine nuts are golden brown and the onion rich brown.
Meanwhile boil 1 kilo peeled potatoes until soft. Mash well and beat with 60g butter, 90ml hot milk (or mix of crème fraiche and hot chicken stock), pepper and salt to taste, 1 tsp freshly ground cinnamon, scant tsp freshly ground chilli and half tsp freshly grated nutmeg. Pile into a serving dish and top with the onion and pine nut mix.

Serve with a green vegetable like steamed broccolini or green beans.