Welcome to Yes, Chef! A monthly newsletter in which food writer Sophie Hansen shines a light on our regional chefs. This week she talks with Tess Podger.
Life has turned full circle for Tess Podger, who grew up on the NSW South Coast and returned to run Sunny's Kiosk in her hometown of Merimbula.
Her parents ran a bush holiday resort, and she and her siblings had the run of the trampoline, mini golf, tennis courts, pool and all the other fun things any kid would dream of. When she wasn't playing hard outside, she was in the kitchen. "I've never liked TV,” she says. “I couldn't just sit still, so if I had to be inside I'd be in the kitchen cooking."
Tess remembers helping with dinner prep, making staff sandwiches, and baking when she couldn't even see over the bench. She's been working in hospitality since she was 13. "That's all I've ever done. I started in the kitchen in the dessert section, and from there I went to waitressing, barista, managerial roles, and finally back to the pans."
Sunny’s is her second cafe. The sale of the first allowed her to do a 12-month lap around Australia. The location of Sunny's – an old boat hire shed on a pier at the edge of Top Lake – had always appealed, and then things fell into place in 2022. "I was living in Fremantle and a friend called to tell me the sale of what now is Sunny's had just fallen through. Without haste and much thought I was on the phone with the owner, putting in an offer, having no clue how I was going to get a deposit together. And hey, here we are!”
Some kitchen shortcuts are really worth taking. Good all-butter pastry is one of them. But the only brand that does it properly in Australia is Carême Pastry. All its pastries are preservative free and made with proper butter, not vegetable or palm oils which you see in lots of pastries in the frozen section of the supermarkets.
If this sounds like an ad, well, it is! Galah approached Carême to come on as an advertising partner because we love its products so much. It is a family-run business based in the Barossa Valley – 100 per cent Australian made and owned – making high-quality, delicious pastry sheets that taste as if you'd made them yourself.
Together with Sophie Hansen, we’ve got some fab recipe ideas for you, starting with this leek, orange and hot honey tart. It uses Carême’s spelt pastry sheets – made only of butter, spelt flour, water, salt and vinegar – and it's delicious.
If you’re wondering where you can buy Carême pastry, just head here to find your closest stockist.
I'm back enjoying the beauty and slower pace of the South Coast, in my hometown, after spending many years doing snow seasons, travelling the world and lapping Australia. My place, Sunny's Kiosk, is a café and seasonal wine bar perched right on Top Lake, which has Merimbula oysters literally just metres away. I love to incorporate ideas and inspirations from my travels into my seasonal menus. Currently sitting at the top of my list of favourite food countries are Sri Lanka and Vietnam. As the weather warms up, I've been craving the fresh coconut sambal that was on the menu last summer. Add it to avo on toast, have it as a side for a curry (I’d suggest Sri Lankan beetroot curry), or top a piece of fish with it. Heck, I'd even try it on a dessert. It's that good.
Mum's meatloaf. It's not a dish you see these days but for some reason the comfort of Mum's meatloaf for me is unbeatable. Whenever I came home from a trip, she'd ask what I would like for dinner, and the answer was always meatloaf. With gravy, of course. And if it was a special occasion, there'd also be an apple pie on the table.
We weren't a huge meat-eating household growing up; Dad has been a vegetarian since he was 17 (he's now 70-something), so meat always felt that extra bit special. Meat was around, and Dad would even cook it for us occasionally, but it wasn't an everyday staple. To this day, I still absolutely love my vegetables. Thanks, Dad.
For me, cooking is joy, sharing food with friends is joy, and being outside is joy. Cooking outside, sharing food and a few bottles of wine with friends is the purest joy one can experience. We spend many summer afternoons at the beach with various cooking instruments, from a simple gas cooker to our Gozney for beachside pizzas to the hibachi for grilling local fish, a thick steak and veg from friends' gardens. With the sun setting over the water, a natural wine in hand and something to eat that hasn't travelled much further than you - pure joy.
Italian cuisine, for me, is the most soothing thing, apart from a good hug from someone near and dear. Tell me something that a tray of lasagne, meatballs or a bowl of good pasta can't fix. But it's not just the comfort of the dishes that gets me; it's the way Italians live and cook with the seasons. They cook for love, to nourish, to share and celebrate.
Stone fruit. I love stone fruit. Especially peaches. I'm (im)patiently waiting around for these to arrive in the next few months. After a long, hot day in the kitchen, I just want a simple, fresh peach salad. Add good quality goat's cheese, olive oil, mint, pickled onion, roasted almonds and sherry vinegar, and I'd eat it every night of the week. And it's not often I say that about something.
Fred again, to pump me up for a busy day, or to get me through the clean-up. When everyone has left, I enjoy the blissful silence on the deck overlooking the water and hearing the sound of the birds. There's no better wind-down. Or is it a wine-down, if there's a glass in hand?
Coffee, always coffee!
That's tough because I really, really like cake. I'd probably have to go with tiramisu. Is that even a cake? Although you really can't go wrong with a moist carrot cake with a thick cream-cheese icing.
Negroni, or a natural wine. Usually both.
Coffee and something fresh and salad-y: fruit salad, tomato salad with stracciatella, anchovies, and flatbread. Hopefully I'll have a peach salad soon!
Makes about 1 1/2 cups
250 g desiccated coconut
1 long red chilli
30 ml garlic oil (I always have confit garlic in my fridge and use the confit oil for grilling and roasting veg, cooking meats and lots of other recipes)
5 cloves confit garlic
5 large kaffir lime leaves
¼ red onion, finely diced
Zest of 1 lime
½ teaspoon chilli flakes
200 ml coconut milk
200 ml coconut water
2 teaspoons castor sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon or a few turns of the pepper grinder
Blend the kaffir lime leaves until fine (I use a bullet blender). Add chilli, garlic oil, confit garlic and blitz until it’s a paste.
In a bowl, combine coconut, your paste (that is, the lime leaves, chilli and garlic paste), onion, lime zest, coconut milk and water, chilli flakes, sugar, salt and pepper (that is, all the other bits) and give it a good mix. Adjust seasoning to your taste. This will keep for up to 4 days.
Serves 6
2 kg beetroot, peeled and chopped into chunky chips (disposable gloves are a good idea if you don’t want pink hands)
2 onions, sliced in half moons
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 long red chilli, sliced
About 28 or 2-3 g curry leaves
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon chilli powder
2 teaspoons curry powder
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ cup water
1 tin coconut cream
1 tablespoon salt, maybe more if, like me, salt is your favourite food
Preheat oven to 180°C or 170°C fan forced.
Fry off the onions in vegetable oil on medium heat. When soft, add chilli and garlic. Cook for another few minutes, then add curry leaves and dry spices. You want to fry the spices a bit so another splash of oil might be necessary.
Fry off the spices for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Add the beetroot, coconut cream, water and salt. Mix well until everything is coated and looking happy together. Transfer to a heavy-based baking dish, cover with foil and bake for at least an hour, maybe two (it depends how chunky your beetroot was). It’s hard to overcook it, so don’t worry. It’s ready when your beetroot is soft. It’s not a very saucy curry, so again, don’t worry.
This curry is best served with rice, coconut sambal, a herbed yoghurt and some type of flatbread. Or if you really want to show off to your guests, add a dahl in there, too. Who doesn’t love a flavourful, colourful dinner party spread?
If you're looking for a versatile tart, packed with flavour, this leek, orange and hot honey tart is a crowd pleaser with its caramelised leeks, tangy filling and flakey, buttery pastry. I love this with a green salad for lunch but it’s also great cut into smaller cubes and passed around at parties. Sophie x
See you all next month for the next installment of Yes, Chef! Over and out,
Sophie
