1. Use cheaper cuts of meat.

The world of dead animals does not begin and end with fillet and tenderloin. There is a recipe for practically any cut of meat that can produce results of equal deliciousness to the higher end cuts. Slow cooking breaks down the muscle fibres to produce mouth-watering results, and cheaper, fattier cuts of meat generally suit these applications to a tee.

2. Make your own stock.

I’ve advocated this previously, and I think powdered ‘stock’ is the single biggest heresy created by the conquest of the super market chain over the shopping strip. There just is no equating the quality of powdered chemical bilge with the delectable juices created by roasting the bones of a bird or beast and affording them long, slow cooking with aromatic vegetables. It’s easy. You can do it with leftovers. And you can put it in the freezer until you need it.

3. Respect your ingredients.

We westerners don’t like being reminded of what the messy lump of delicious muscle and blood on our plate used to be. Let alone that it had a life. However, this alienation from field to plate devalues the life of the animal and even suggests a sociopathic relationship between man and animal. Really, if you can’t reconcile that the meat you eat used to be a feeling, breathing animal not unlike yourself, you probably shouldn’t be eating meat at all.

4. Use every part of the animal.

Modern Western Cooking has not only distanced itself from the animal, but it has placed embargoes on many parts of it. What is gross about eating a liver if you are already eating an animal’s muscles? Show the animal some respect and don’t waste half it’s death by throwing away the bones and organs. They are tasty too, and since most people are ridiculously bigoted against offal, they’re often very cheap.

5. Where you can, go free range.

I am certainly guilty here. I buy from mainly vietnamese butchers who source mass produced meat and poultry. Yet, I am a poverty-stricken student, so I have a tiny excuse. If you have money you should not only care about the well being of the animal prior to slaughter, but you should probably shell out a little extra to ensure it. As a reward, you will be able to taste the joy of happy little lambs running around a meadow in every bite.

6. Don’t fear cooking.

Cooking isn’t particularly hard, but most people suck. Ultimately, it comes down to confidence. If you have a basic skill set and some decent ingredients, you will be fine as long as you don’t obsess over everything. If you fear your ingredients misbehaving or burning… they most likely will. Just relax, try to express yourself in your cooking, and enjoy it.

7. Get a global knife.

Here at Kook, we are not yet corporate shills. However, if anyone from Global Knives is reading this, I will gladly roll over and engage in the destruction of my own integrity for some free knives. Nothing makes cooking a chore like a rubbish knife, so shell out a little extra for something special. Balanced, sharp as all hell and resistant to housemate abuse. They really are great.

8. Get a dutch oven.

In addition to selling out to global knives, I will gladly hand over my semi-faux-journalistic probity for a whole lot of beautiful cast iron cookware. I have a medium sized dutch oven and it is amazing. Best thing in the world for soups, slow braises and stews. Put it in the oven, blast it on the stove, you can even bake bread in them.

9. Be adventurous.

Nothing gets boring for a cook (and the eaters) like continually making the same old favourites. Bolognese might be good, but would you really want to cook/eat this every week? There are more amazing dishes out there than you will ever have the time to try, so why settle for lamb chop night?

10. But don’t cook bullshit.

While there are a tonne of recipes deserved of your attention, there are also a lot of hacks trying to fleece you in exchange for their unimaginative wares. There are celebrity chefs that have some credibility such as Jamie Oliver or Anthony Bourdain, but there are also the women’s magazine chefs such as Donna Hay (although, she is good for food photography & sweets) and Masterchef contestants, who often produce trite, boring and uninspired recipes of little consequence. Seek out greatness and emulate that.

Fittingly, as we are just entering winter and the pointy end of university, I have caught a lingering and debilitating cold. As a further insult, my brand new hand-crafted Moretti freehand pipe has arrived and I can’t break it in!

These foul creatures strike as the weather begins to change, when we are at our moment of climate related weakness. It takes a death grip on your white blood cells and doesn’t let go until you run screaming like the little girly man you are, to the pharmacist. You enter, skulking through the aisles with hunted eyes looking to grab some of that stuff they use to make ice. The man in the advert with the comically oversized nose (but not in a terrifying clown way) promises that it will take away the symptoms, but in reality it does little but alleviate your headache and prolong that cold bastards fight to the death with your white blood cells.

Unfortunately, there is no solid medical treatment available to combat the common cold. There is however a bevy of foods that can help take the edge off.

Chicken Soup

Chicken soup is classic, filling and easy to make. If you want to get ethical and can afford it, I  heartily recommend buying free range, organically fed chickens from respected farmers. If not go cheap and nasty, and it will still taste great.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

1 decent sized chicken

2 sticks of Celery

1 large Carrot

1 medium onion

3 cloves of garlic

A handful of Mushrooms of your choice

3 bay leaves

A couple of sprigs of rosemary

Olive oil

Butter

Salt and pepper

Method

1. Put a big pot on medium heat and melt a knob of butter. 2. Finely chop up your Carrot, Celery and Onion (referred to as Mirepoix in french cooking) and add to the pot. Season with a pinch of salt and pepper and throw in the bay leaves. Let this soften with the lid on for a good 10 minutes. 3. Either quarter your chicken (convenient later) or throw it in the pot whole. 4. Top up with cold water and bring to the boil. 5. Turn down to a simmer for an hour or so (until chicken is tender and falling off of the bone). 6. At this point I like to take the chicken out and shred it off of the bone with two forks. Either add it back to the pan or reserve for service. 7. Add the rosemary, mushrooms and some finely chopped garlic. Simmer for a further 10 minutes. 8. Put a dash of olive oil in after you serve, just to bring out some of those flavours and add some richness. Serve with crusty bread.

Hot Toddy

Alcohol actually acts as an anti-inflammatory and helps to decrease cold symptoms. But it only counts if it’s whiskey or brandy, cause they’re the good stuff and have that nice burn. I finished off all my whiskey the other day, so it’s brandy this time. The Hot Toddy is a delicious warm cocktail in it’s own right, it gets your drunk on and helps soothe your cold.

Ingredients

A cup of Tea – Earl grey, Ceylon Pekoe or Darjeeling

A generous shot of Whiskey or Brandy (Brandy is cheaper, less complex and I think maybe more suited)

A few lemon wedges

A spoonful or two of honey.

Method

1. Brew your tea relatively strong as the Brandy could overpower the taste. 2. Mix everything else in then squeeze the lemon over the top and drop in a wedge. 3. Drink and repeat.

Congee

Congee is a badass rice porridge soup commonly eaten in Southern and Central Asia either for breakfast or for sick people. You can pretty much chuck any old shit in here and it will taste great, but I like Wolfberries (also marketed as Goji Berries) and Lap Cheong (Chinese dried pork sausage), both of which you can find in asian markets and some supermarkets, albeit, at heavily inflated prices.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

2.5 litres of stock of your choice (home-made is preferable, powdered is acceptable)

1 cup of rice

Small pack of Lap Cheong

A handful of Goji Berries

Bunch of spring onion

Light & Dark soy

Method

1. Get a nice solid cast iron pot, put the rice in and top up with stock. Ratios are not that important, go by feel. 2. Simmer until it reaches a porridge-like consistency. Approximately two hours. This is also up to taste, just make it to the consistency you prefer. 3. Slice the lap cheong finely and add this along with the goji berries in the last 10-30 minutes of cooking. 4. Add finely chopped spring onion and soy to serve.

With photography by Max Denton.

Now, American food is generally maligned and ignored, much like a poor aunt. Mention it to your slack-jawed friends and their mind leaps straight to big greasy hamburgers and twinkies fried in baby blood. A similar connection may be made between Italian food and a gigantic, overbearing Italian mama, leading you inexorably down the path to obesity. One style that blows this ethno-centric, borderline racist assumption out of the water is, the Cajun cuisine of Louisiana. One of the things I really like about Cajun food is the John Candy-big flavours, leaping out at you like a young prince, dressed in head to toe purple velour. If you decide to try out these recipes and put your racism to rest, you’re going to need your Holy Trinity of Capsicum, Celery and Onion. Also important are smoked sausage, cayenne pepper, thyme for seasoning, and some rice. These form the base for the spicy and colourful flavours of Louisiana. Furthermore, as Cajun food forms the poor and rustic counterpart to Creole cuisine,  it can accommodate for tight budgets, masses of people and unavailability of produce. Other than the Holy Trinity almost any ingredient can be substituted for something else. In Gumbo and Dirty Rice the meats used can be substituted for any cut of anything you can think of. Now to be fair, I’m just about to steal liberally from Jaimie Oliver’s America book, so any potential litigators please regard this as acknowledgment. Guaranteed

Cajun Blackened Fish

Cajun Blackened fish is basically all about the spicy, delicious rub that goes a fairly solid black. You can use pretty much any fish, although a white fish such as snapper is great. Barbeques are best, as the high heat can really get that black/burnt colour going in the rub (plus, if done inside it can really stink up the house). Serve this with friends and crisp, dry beers. Just try to ignore how ugly it looks and let taste take the lead.

Ingredients

1 Good size fillet of fish per person

2 Teaspoons dried Thyme

2 Teaspoons hungarians style Paprika

1 Minced clove of Garlic

Pinch of Pepper

Pinch of Salt

Pinch of Cayenne Pepper

2 Tablespoons of Olive oil

Method

1. Mix up the rub in a large bowl, chuck all the herbs, spices and garlic in along with the olive oil and mix it up. 2. Take your fillets of fish and coat them in the rub. I like to leave it for a few hours after this. 3. Get a grill or a pan going on medium-high with a fair splash of olive oil in the pan. 4. Place the fish in the pan, but don’t crowd it. Cook it until it’s black and then flip to the other side.

Dirty Rice

Dirty Rice is some tasty fried rice business. The ‘Dirty’ in the title refers not to the trace soil brushed off of your hands after you dealt with that last hooker corpse, but simply to the addition of a topping to rice that changes the colour. This is an awesome dish if you’re having people round as you can just leave it in the pan and put it on the table, let those leeches serve themselves.

Ingredients

1-2 tins of your preferred bean

4 Rashers of BaconSmoked sausage (i.e. Chorizo, ideally Andouille)

Optional: 200g Chicken Livers

150g Duck Giblets

1 Onion roughly chopped

4 Sticks of celery roughly chopped

1-2 Capsicums/bell peppers roughly chopped

3-6 Cloves of garlic

Paprika, Salt & Pepper, Thyme, Olive Oil, Spring Onion to serve

Method

1. Get a large pan like a wok on medium heat with some decent olive oil sizzling and add your diced up smoked meats and duck giblets. Get them nice and brown and peel the skin off of the giblets. 2. Chop up your Holy Trinity of Capsicum, Onions and Celery, and throw them in the pan. 3. Get some rice going in another pot. (I’ll assume you know how to cook rice.) 4. Once the veggies have got a nice colour going, season them with a couple of teaspoons paprika,a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Then add your minced garlic and a few sprigs of thyme or a couple of teaspoons of dried thyme. 5. Give that a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, wash your chicken livers in a little milk and finely chop up both the livers and the giblets. Throw them in with everything else. 6. Add drained kidney beans or pre-soaked kidney beans. 7. Fry it up until the meats are cooked through, then add rice and mix it all up. 8. Sprinkle the spring onion all over the top, and put the pan on the table.

Gumbo

If you take anything from this column, take Gumbo. Gumbo is a kind of Hybrid soup/stew thickened with either okra or file powder. Gumbo is pretty much always tasty, but there is really a great depth of subtlety and complexity in the harmony of the flavours. A lot of this complexity is created through the development of the roux, so take time to experiment with different levels and whatever you do, don’t burn it.

Ingredients

4 Chicken drumsticks or thighs (1 p/person)

Smoked Sausage (i.e. Chorizo, Ideally Andouille)

Optional: A couple of rashers of Bacon, Smoked Pork (Ideally Tasso)

3 sticks of Celery roughly chopped

1 Onion roughly chopped

A couple of bell peppers/capsicums roughly chopped

440g tin of Tomatoes

Good handful of roughly chopped Sweet Potato and/or Okra

A mess load of Garlic (3-6 cloves)

Paprika, Cayenne Pepper, Thyme, Olive Oil, Flour, Chicken Stock, Salt & Pepper

Method

1. Get a big (preferably cast-iron) pot going on high heat with a good splash of olive oil sizzling. 2. Season the Chicken and smoked meats with liberal sprinkles of paprika, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper. Add them to the pot and really render that fat out. It will form the basis for your roux. 3. Once they have gotten real brown and delicious looking, sneak in a bit of sausage and remove from the pan, leaving the fat. 4. Add the Holy Trinity and lower the heat. Cook until they get a good colour going. 5. Add your chopped garlic, thyme, okra, sweet potato, tomatoes and chicken stock. 6. Bring to the boil, and then bring down to simmer for around 40 minutes. 7. At this point you should be able to strip the meat off of the drumsticks. Do this and discard the bones. Return the meat to the pot. 8. Serve with rice.

Photography by Max Denton.