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Christine Manfield, the boldly innovative Australian chef whose creations over the past two decades have drawn the attention and acclaim of her counterparts around the world, brings her pioneering international cuisine for the first time to North American readers with the Ici La Press release in Fall 2003 of her new cookbook, Stir.
Stir provides an exhilarating introduction to Manfield’s culinary world, where spices play a fundamental role in dishes that range from the hot and pungent to the mellow and fragrant. Throughout her career, she has explored an endless diversity of regional influences, pioneering the incorporation of Asian influences in classic European cuisine and redefining the boundaries of cross-cultural possibilities in sometimes surprising, and always delightful ways.
In his foreword to Stir—Manfield’s fourth cookbook, but her first to receive North American distribution in this Ici La Press printing—Chicago chef and restaurateur Charlie Trotter notes that the author’s highly personalized and original fare has been making a stir in the culinary world since the mid-1980s, when the launch of her ground-breaking Paramount Restaurant in Sydney established her reputation with foodies and gourmands worldwide. The Paramount consistently won national and international awards as one of Australia’s best restaurants until it closed at the end of 2000. Manfield has moved on to broaden her pursuits in arranging specialized culinary tours, collaborating with other chefs at home and abroad, demonstrating techniques at classes and culinary events, and pursuing an active writing career as cookbook author and newspaper columnist dedicated to the personal philosophy that “life is too short to eat bad food.”
Manfield embarked on another major culinary challenge with the opening on October 22 of her new restaurant, east@west, at 13-15 West Street in the heart of London’s Soho and theater districts. “It is an opportunity that will enable me to fulfill a long-held desire of finding my place on the world stage, and to succumb yet again to the challenge and frenetic energy that signifies restaurant life,” she says. The new restaurant features “a unique kaleidoscope of Asian flavors and refined textures that has become my benchmark and signature,” Manfield explains.
Stir sets the foundations for its more than 100 recipes upon the staples of 14 basic spice pastes and similar preparations, inspired in particular by the assertive cuisines of south and southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Among Trotter’s favorites is Chickpea and harissa soup, a preparation that “explodes with a mixture of elegant flavors—garlic, cumin, mint and tomato—and then is gorgeously touched with the profound, clean heat of harissa.” Other recommendations include Spiced eggplant pickle and yogurt salad, “incredibly simple to prepare, but the resulting flavors are overwhelmingly complex”; and Coconut scallops with pomelo salad, a dish for those who “just want to go straight to the brink.”
“Stir inspires for a number of reasons,” Trotter writes, “but chief among them is that these are recipes that are meant for both the home cook and the professional—a rare find in today’s cookery books. As Chris Manfield continues to push the envelope and explore the possibilities of influence from around the world, we are all the beneficiaries. With this inspiring collection of recipes and images, Chris has given us a true gift—in return, we can only offer a resounding, ‘Three cheers!’”
Joanne Weir, the San Francisco-based chef, author and TV show host, affirms that Manfield throughout her career “has never strayed from her firm and unassailable convictions that cooking should be pure, creative, and full of assertive flavors. Her straightforward and no-nonsense approach, combined with wit and intelligence, make her one of the leading authorities on food not only in Australia, but now also in America.”
In the introduction to Stir, Manfield observes that the recipes in the book are designed to “showcase the versatility of each product, with the intention of using minimum effort for maximum effect and taste. Rather than complex, restaurant-style cooking that necessitates several preparations and steps to reach the final outcome, these recipes are designed for simple cooking at home. I hope they will inspire you to get busy in your kitchen.”
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table of contents
Foreword by Charlie Trotter (Read)
Introduction by Chris Manfield
Recipes by spice base
Chili jam
Harissa
Sambal bajak
Spiced eggplant pickle
Laksa paste
Black pepper & lemongrass stir-fry paste
Satay spice paste
Spiced tomato chili pickle
Preserved lemons
Green masala paste
Cilantro peanut pesto
Massaman curry paste
Green curry paste
Red curry paste
Basics
ISBN: 1-931605-14-9
Price: $Out of print
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