The Next Element
Andy Allen
New Holland, 2014
Another MasterChef winner has published his first cookbook after sweeping aside the other contestants in the 2012 Australian competition.
Having read his prose and his recipes, I think his infectious personality and humility engage the most, although there are many culinary ideas worth a try.
Allen is an electrician who now is so into food and cooking, he doesn’t want to continue with his trade. He grew up on the north coast of New South Wales where he started cooking supper as a schoolboy as both his parents worked. Seafood became an early favourite as he and his father went fishing regularly. He also enjoyed having friends over for weekend braais, where he started being creative with ingredients.
While an apprentice electrician, he was persuaded to cater for a friend’s wedding – the couple wanted a tapas-style menu for 60. Having developed the menu, then trimmed it to the budget, he invited friends for a trial run. All was proceeding smoothly, in spite of the guest list having climbed to 90 – when MasterChef called as they had scheduled his first interview for the day before the wedding. But, Andy coped successfully with both demands.
The recipes are grouped into three sections – cooking for his family, cooking for friends, and taking a new direction, which includes his MasterChef recipes.
The family fare is simple, consisting of week-night suppers for his parents, sisters and himself, with occasional experiments. Seafood recipes, including oysters and crab, alternate with classics like roast chicken and vegetables, braaied leg of lamb, curries, casseroles and pies.
When cooking for his friends, Allen’s seafood goes oriental, and recipes include finger food like popcorn chicken with lime mayo, salmon crostini and Asian ribs. Mediterranean lamb sliders are sauced with tzatziki and enclosed in sourdough rolls and his passion for Mexican cuisine is celebrated with guacamole, salsas and tostadas.
The final recipe selection is more sophisticated and reflects newfound techniques with starters like confit salmon and red onion tarte tatin. There’s his winning classic beef shin dish with bone marrow, a MasterChef fish pie, which raised money for charity, and tempting desserts, including a rosemary pannacotta with macerated strawberries and ginger biscuit crumble.
This is a fat hardback with plenty of photographs of Allen, his family, his friends and his food.
Whether he is in action, or just chilling with his pals, he comes across as the sort of guy who gets along with nearly everyone, and whose newfound fame has not gone to his head, although it has sealed his gastronomic fate. - Sunday Argus