Ingredients

Serves 4

 Snapper Curry

Curry Paste:
1 cup eschalots
1/3 cup garlic
½ cup dried shrimp, soaked
1 cup dried chillies, soaked
¾ cup tamarind

Curry:
250g snapper fillet
2 snake beans
6 x ½ baby corn
1 tomato
Shredded cabbage
4 betel leaves shredded
500ml  fish or chicken stock
50ml fish sauce
50g sugar
50g tamarind
3 tbsp curry paste
6 lime leaves
½ stalk lemongrass, bruised


Seasoned Raw Beef
4 super thin slices of highly marbled beef
8 roots of spring onions with about 1cm of white flesh attached
10 or so celeriac root roots picked and washed
60 ml Magic Chef brand fish sauce
2 white onions thinly sliced
Bran oil
Salsify (optional)
Small tub of yoghurt
40g tomato paste
2 elephant or Russian garlic cloves
200ml milk
50g oak wood chips
Pumpkin seeds (optional)
Sugar syrup ratio 500ml water to 300ml sugar
Seasonal herbs
Wasabi oil/herb oil

Method

Sour Orange Curry of Snapper & Shredded Betel Leaves

For curry paste:
Soak red chillies and shrimp separately in warm water for 20 minutes then drain.
Blend garlic, eschalots and dried shrimp to a smooth paste.
Continue to blend adding the chillies and tamarind until it becomes a smooth consistency.

For curry:
Bring stock to the boil, add paste and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Add lime leaves and half stalk of lemongrass.
Season with fish sauce, sugar and tamarind – it should taste sour, salty and sweet. Keep simmering and then put in the snapper, shredded betel leaves and vegetables. Place lid on the pot and simmer for a further 3 minutes. Take off the lid, taste and re-season if necessary.
Spoon into a serving bowl and serve with rice.


Dry Vegetable and Herb Seasoned Raw Beef

Wasabi oil:
If fresh wasabi is not available you could just mix a little (faux) wasabi from a tube with a little bran oil or rapeseed oil. I recommend fresh wasabi. Grate wasabi and blitz with oil until infused, you can then strain and use oil only or mix a little straight into yoghurt to create split affect.

Thyme oil:
Other herbs would work here like coriander or mint, if you’re trying to keep an Asian influence in the dish.
With the thyme oil over-cook a bunch of Thyme in water and let cool. Once cool discard water keeping all the thyme leaves and squeeze dry with hands. Let dry over night on a tray lined with absorbent paper. Once dry blitz with oil in a blender and strain to create a rich, green oil. Again mix a little into 40 grams of natural yoghurt and stir once or twice to get a split look.

 

Spread tomato paste wafer thin on grease proof paper and dry in oven between 50 and 70°C. Slice red onion super thin and place a single layer on grease proof paper and dry in oven. Slice the garlic super thin and blanch it in milk at least twice to remove the raw flavour. Refresh under cold water and again dry on greased rack or non stick surface in oven.

Place fish sauce also in low oven and allow to dry for at least 6 hours until crumbly and crystallised.

Season yogurt with a little salt if needed and place in fridge until needed. A little herb oil mixed into yoghurt would be nice here or even some wasabi oil. (Optional)

Peel salsify and place in acidulated water until needed.

Mix baby herbs (basil, coriander, wild cress, bull’s blood, kaffir lime etc.). They can be fried or left natural for this dish. While frying herbs dry the salsify, discard lemon water and peel super thin and fry along with herbs.
Place pumpkin seeds in sugar syrup and bring to gentle simmer for at least 15 minutes until tender. Pat these dry and then fry quickly in hot oil around 170-190°C until golden brown. Season with salt and place on absorbent paper until needed.

After tomato paste is dry, crumple up sheet so it would fit in a smoker. The smoker can be an old wok with slightly damp oak chips on bottom covered with alfoil. Turn on high heat until heavy smoke appears. Turn off heat and wait until smoke is a gradual plume and place dry tomato sheet in and cover for 5 minutes or so, until smoke flavour has come through.

When garlic and red onion are dry and tomato has been smoked, crumble all gently on to a sheet tray to roughly the size of little flakes (half the size of a 5 cent piece).

Sprinkle dried fish sauce into this mix, making sure not to use too much. Combine with fried or fresh herbs. Place mix to side.

Light up your bincho tan coal or normal bbq coal or even some hard wood over a gas stove until you have a fiery red glow. Cook roots over coal until crisp. Season with salt.

Take beef and coat generously with dry mix using chop sticks or clean hands, making sure dry mix sticks to beef.

You could serve this on a plate roughly folded with the roasted roots and pumpkin seeds. If you don't opt for the wasabi oil, what would be nice is some freshly grated wasabi or horseradish (a little amount as it is powerful).