Food Safari

French Food Safari gets the lowdown on how a top-class kitchen works by joining Guillaume Brahimi for a busy night at his restaurant. We witness how hundreds of exquisite meals are created and served.

French Food Safari spends a delightful day in a small French village in the Ardeche with top selling cookbook author Stephane Reynaud. This is a celebration of the butcher and the baker, the closeness to the land and the slow calm of village life, followed by a demonstration of warm French hospitality – from the groaning cheese platter with 16 different choices to the huge pot au feu and local delicacies of pork mince cooked over the open fire.

Maeve and Guillaume travel to the mountainous Ardeche region of France to meet artisan goat cheese maker Jérôme Herphelin and his happy herd of goats. Then it’s back into the cellars below the Parisian streets to see how beautiful cheeses like Jerome’s are carefully tended to be at their delicious best for customers. This is the work of a craftsman called an affineur. Plus, we meet Laurent Dubois, whose work with cheese has been so appreciated he was awarded a medal of honour from the President.

French Food Safari journeys under the ground in Paris to the secret bakery of one of the great Parisian bakers – the rock star of bread Jean-Luc Poujaran, who supplies all the top restaurants in the city. A perfect loaf of his naturally leavened bread takes three days to prove and the results are golden crusted and fragrant.

Italian Food Safari savours the seafood introduced to us by Italians – the squid that was once used as bait and is now a delicacy. Maeve joins Claude Basile whose grandfather was one of the pioneers of the Italian fishing fleets off the western Australian coast and he shares the recipe for his adored black ink pasta using ink sacs. Pioneering Sydney restaurateur Beppi Polese has been responsible for introducing many Australians to new flavours in his East Sydney institution Beppi’s – he shows Maeve how his famous baccala mantecato is made using the salted dried cod called baccala. Melbourne specialist butcher Roger Ongarato from Largo butchery explains what makes pork and fennel sausages such a favourite in Italian households. The rice growing area of Italy’s north is where its said the best risotto comes from and Brescian-born chef Alessandro Pavoni from Ormeggio restaurant in Sydney demonstrates the techniques and tips to make the perfect risotto. Rising star Vanessa Martin from Sydney’s Il Piave shows Maeve how easy and delicious crostoli are to make – they’re the deceptively light fragrant pastries that are fried and dusted with icing sugar.

Italian Food Safari discovers an Italian breed of cattle called Chianina now being reared in Australia by Daniela Mollica, who brought the Slow Food movement to Melbourne. Chianina are large, white and long legged and their meat is prized for the classic dish Bistecca alla Fiorentina, which calls for high quality aged meat cut thick. In a beautiful house in the Adelaide Hills, Adelaide chef Salvatore Pepe, a partner in the Cibo café chain, cooks perfect bistecca served with white beans. Presenter Guy Grossi shares his recipe for fresh pasta and Andrew Cibej from Sydney restaurant Vini makes a wonderful spinach, ricotta and potato-filled ravioli. Maeve is surrounded by almond blossom in South Australia, visiting Munno Parra Downs and grower Phillip Costa. Guy then joins Melbourne sweets queen Marianna Di Bartolo from Dolcetti as she folds fresh almonds into her luscious soft nougat

Italian Food safari visits Mario Mammone and his family who own large citrus orchards in the fruit bowl of Australia outside Mildura – they came to pick oranges and now own the farm, growing some varieties adored by Italians, including blood oranges. Presenter Guy Grossi visits the fennel growing Mason family on the fertile plains outside Melbourne and Amedeo Mason explains just how versatile the winter vegetable can be. Mildura chef Stefano Di Pieri from Stefano’s restaurant, who helped to put the area on the culinary map, then shows Guy how he uses the best blood oranges and fennel in season to make a kingfish carpaccio with shaved fennel, a dish that sings with freshness and flavour. In Adelaide, one of the Central Market’s favourite characters, butcher Tony Marino invites us to join his family to cook up an exceptional Abruzzese banquet including the classic porchetta on a spit and the most unusual way of serving polenta - spread on a laminex table and served with a rich ragu. Young pastry chef Alexandra Rispoli from Buon Ricordo restaurant then shows how to mix and cook fragrant pistachio biscotti.

Italian Food Safari presenter Guy Grossi meets passionate gardeners Lina and Antonio Siciliano who have created a huge vegetable and herb garden in Melbourne’s suburbs that provides them with most of their meals and even the wine to drink with it. Maeve visits her friends the Marino family in Adelaide who show how they cure prosciutto on a large scale at San Marino Smallgoods. Legendary chef Armando Percuoco from Buon Ricordo restaurant invites Maeve to his country estate and cooks up the simplest dish of pasta with beans, demonstrating how exceptional ‘cucina povera’ can be. In Melbourne, cheese-maker Giorgio Linguanti takes Guy back to his childhood with the delicious fresh cheeses he makes including luscious burrata, mozzarella and ricotta. Loretta Sartori who once ran her own sweets palace in Melbourne but now spends her time educating troubled youth, cooks a spectacular ricotta cake.

Presenter Guy Grossi visits dedicated Melbourne artisan baker Daniel Chirico and tastes bread straight from the oven drizzled with olive oil and learns why loaves with soul take a little longer to make…and to prove that nothing in the Italian realm goes to waste, Guy then demonstrates a delicious bread-based salad called panzanella. Maeve learns about the Italian passion for veal and joins Western Australian butcher Vince Garreffa on the farm south of Perth where his veal is raised. Celebrated Sydney chef Nino Zoccali from restaurant Pendolino explains the joys of using secondary cuts of meat and shows how easy it is to make a beautiful osso buco, rich and full of flavour. Guy takes us to the beautiful pine forests of Mount Macedon with chef Aron Michielli to forage for pine forest mushrooms and slippery jacks. Aron takes Guy to his Melbourne restaurant Biricchino to whip up magnificent pappardelle pasta with wild mushrooms.

Italian Food Safari goes to Fremantle to join the last sardine fisherman on the Western Australia coast, the charming Jim Mendolia who supplies the fresh fish market. Melbourne cook Rosa Mitchell from the Journal Canteen, better known as Rosa’s Kitchen, shows Guy the secrets of her delicious classic recipe for stuffed sardines. Italian cuisine wouldn’t exist without pasta and Maeve visits the Baldino family at L’Abruzzese Pasta in Adelaide to learn how all the various shapes of extruded pasta are made including the “little ears” or orecchiette which Guy cooks in his restaurant kitchen with cime di rapa, a favourite dish from Puglia, where Guy’s family is from. He then ventures into the Victorian Alpine country to visit Simone’s, a beautiful country restaurant run by Umbrian chef Patrizia Simone who shares her recipe for roast duck stuffed with local chestnuts, the centre-piece of an al fresco feast set out by a mountain stream.

A journey through some of the regional specialties of North America takes us into the delicious family recipes from chefs and home cooks who whip up crab cakes, cornbread, Southern fried chicken served with grits, a great recipe for ribs and barbecue sauce, and a classic pecan pie.

A journey into some of the flavours, dishes and ways of eating across the Horn and West Africa. Recipes include a traditional doro wat (a fabulous slow-cooked chicken dish with spices and chillies which starts with a mighty 5 kilos of onions being cooked in a huge pot with no oil or fat); Somalian corn in coconut milk; the one-pot wonder from Nigeria – joloff rice; some hints on eating with your hands; and the delights of the Ethiopian coffee ceremony.

Elaborate and ancient, delicious and lovingly spiced, we discover how to cook the prized rice dishes of celebration, fragrant with saffron and scattered with nuts and barberries. We also join a crowd for one of the most unusual breakfast dishes on earth, learn how to make slow cooked duck with green herbs, and spend time with one of the top kebab makers.

In this episode we learn how to make true dukkah (the aromatic mix of spices, nuts and seeds) from two experts, discover how easy it is to make a feast from okra and lamb, and see the ancient and treasured national dish called molokhia come together. A belly dancing expert teaches us to make ful medames and we learn to make the Aussie version of Nile perch cooked in clay – barramundi cooked in a tagine (Egypt’s version of the Moroccan tajine). Look out for the easy recipe for the wicked sweet called basbousa.

Korean food is some of the healthiest on earth, with an emphasis on vegetables, meats cooked simply and without much oil and a near obsession with the fermented vegetable kimchi. Much of the food that exists today and the customs surrounding it have come from royal cuisine and the complex customs of the ancient court. The food is a study in balance with consideration given to temperature, spiciness, colour and texture along with careful presentation.

Sri Lanka, the beautiful spice island once known as Ceylon, is a rich melting pot of cuisines. It seems every nationality that has visited and traded over the years has left a mark on the cuisine - the Dutch, Portuguese, English, Arabs, Malays, Moors and Indians. With a tropical climate, fresh fruit, vegetables and spices are in abundance and used in many ways. Freshness is the key to the food with households regularly shopping more than once a day for produce.

Not only has Singapore transformed itself in the last 150 years from a fishing village to one of Asia's most dynamic cities, it's also a centre for some of the best food in South East Asia. Settlers and traders from China, India and Malaysia have helped make the cuisine the unique mix it is today along with a strong determination from Singaporeans to eat very well. Food is the national obsession, a constant topic of conversation and for many, eating out is standard practice

Pakistani cuisine is the lesser known food of the sub-continent and is rich in tradition, full of marvelous and diverse dishes. Pakistan was created in 1947 when India was partitioned and has a predominantly Muslim population. Although Pakistan is relatively new, the cuisine has developed many more years and incorporates elements from its neighbours - India, Afghanistan and Iran. The varied regions also means there are a whole range of different foods - from the fertile valleys and the sea of Sindh province; to pastoral Baluchistan, from neighbouring Iran; to the Punjab with its five rivers and the rugged North West Frontier, home of the chappli kebab.

Indonesian food is one of the most vibrant and colourful cuisines in the world, full of intense flavour and varied textures. With 6,000 islands, there is a huge range of regional specialties, but wherever you are in Indonesia, most meals, including breakfast, are based around rice. There is also an abundant use of sambals, an accompaniment based on chilli and garlic which can be raw or cooked. It's said that because of the hot and humid climate chilli and sambal help maintain your appetite. Indonesians need a 'kick start'; to their palate from chilli and from pickles, a burst of sour crunch. So each meal is generally rice, sambal, pickles with small amounts of meats, seafood or vegetables, often in curry form. People eat either with their right hand or with a spoon and fork

The French have elevated food into an art form... nowhere else on earth is so much attention paid to what people are going to eat and how they eat it. The reason is steeped in history - the fostering of the royal court, the subsequent revolution, the discipline of the apprentice system, the quality of ingredients and creativity of the chefs, and simply, the love of good food. The focus on food has elevated French chefs to almost godlike status and one of the symbols is the coveted Michelin star system that rates chefs and restaurants. Published since 1900, it awards stars to a very small number of European restaurants of outstanding quality

What a wonderful mixture of cooking styles exists within Turkish cuisine. Due to its geographical location nestled between Asia and Europe, Turkish food is a unique and exotic fusion with influences from many countries. Since the days of the powerful Ottoman empire, Turkey has also been at the centre of trade, especially in spice, and the Ottoman chefs borrowed, adapted and perfected dishes from many other cuisines. The results of this distillation spread far beyond its borders with Turkish style pastries using filo and nuts being used in many neighbouring countries plus the use of spices in many dishes and the popular method of grilling food , particularly meat, over charcoal. In Australia we are gradually learning that true Turkish food extends far beyond colourful vegetable dips, delicious pide bread and kebabs – however it’s a great way to start! In the past 10 years we’ve seen Turkish bread become a staple in many homes and loved in sandwich shops and cafes across the country. Becoming popular is the Turkish answer to sliced ham or pastrami – bastourma – air dried beef coated and cured in a mixture of dried ground spices. And how could we go past a locally made authentic Turkish delight with traditional coffee to finish a meal.

“Sahteyn” is a word you will often hear in a Lebanese home – loosely translated it means “twice your health” – a form of welcome to join a family and share delicious food. And this is some of the most exquisite food in the world. Lebanese cuisine is generous and abundant. The reason is the age-old tradition of hospitality which exists – your host will never believe you don’t have just a bit more room for something utterly delicious that’s been prepared with love. In a Lebanese household, food is life and sharing it is one of the great joys of being alive. And even for simple dinners at home, there are a variety of dishes on the table, the meal starting with small portions known as mezza which centres around dips and salads. As well as having great variety, Lebanese food is one of the freshest and most delicious on the planet. Lamb is the meat of choice and appears in many dishes including kafta in which minced lamb is rolled into sausage shapes and cooked on the barbecue or in the oven. Sweets are pure artwork, as a visit to one of the palaces of Lebanese sweets will attest – there are many variations of filo pastry combined with nuts and syrup; there are creamy sweets filled with a clotted cream called ashta plus melting shortbread sometimes filled with a date paste or nuts and much more. Sweets are generally served separately to a meal with black coffee or tea. So, Sahteyn – welcome to a great cuisine.

Ever since Italians migrated to Australia and introduced us to spaghetti bolognese and pizza, Australians have embraced this wonderful, satisfying cuisine. Spaghetti Bolognese is now so popular that it could almost be classed as an adopted national dish. Italians were among the first to show us how to appreciate good coffee, use olive oil and understand the joy of fresh pasta. Antipasto is another Italian introduction. The literal translation is 'before the meal'. Small morsels are offered to guests as they arrive and these might include zucchini fritters, carciofi (artichokes), olives, stuffed peppers, tuna carpaccio. Remember not too much so that your guests don't get full before the main meal.

In Greek culture, food is so much more than sustenance – it’s everything – culture, comfort, family, life. “If you grow up Greek, you grow up with your mother chasing you around the house with a spoon”, jokes Greek Australian chef Peter Conistis. From one of the ancient civilisations on earth comes simply prepared food that uses the best of what’s in season & adds just a little magic to help it sing off the plate. From some of the best lamb dishes on earth to fresh seafood, vegetables, beans & pulses & of course good olive oil, Greek food is simple, colourful & incredibly good for you.When Greeks taste something delicious, they have a lovely phrase “Yia Sta Heria Stas” which translates as “I kiss your hands”, celebrating the skill of the cook.

Vietnamese dishes are fresh, have a depth of flavour & seem to have amazing health properties at the same time. Have you ever eaten a bowl of pho with all the accompaniments when you’re feeling less than 100 %? One chef friend calls pho the Vietnamese equivalent of Jewish chicken soup – it's good for the body & the soul. Or have you had a few mouthfuls of green papaya salad when your palate is feeling jaded? Instant zing! More than any other cuisine, Vietnamese food centres on herbs & uses an amazing array along with salad greens in many dishes. These are eaten for their healing properties as well as for their taste.

Malaysian food is heavily influenced by the food of other countries including Chinese, & Indian as well as the native Malay or Peranakan style of cooking. These influences extend from the use of the wok as the main cooking pan, to a combination of a number of spices in many of the dishes. Malaysian food uses an amazing blend of flavours aimed at making your 'tastebuds jump up & down' & the thing that raises it to an art form is the combination of textures, tastes & colour. & nothing is more colourful than the cleverly layered riceflour & coconut sweets called Kueh.