STUFFED LAMB CULETS WITH PUMPKIN SALAD

25m prep 25m cook

Ingredients

• 12 French-trimmed lamb cutlets

• 1 1/2 tbsp breadcrumbs

• 2 tbsp roasted pine nuts

• 1/4 bunch basil

• 3 cups rocket

• 2 cloves garlic

• 125g feta

• 70ml extra virgin olive oil, plus extra, to brush and drizzle

• 2 lemons

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

• 600g peeled butternut pumpkin

• 2 tbsp tomato paste

Method

1. Preheat a barbecue grill and fat plate to medium–high. Using a small, sharp knife, cut a horizontal slit in side of each cutlet (don’t cut all the way through), then open out fat. Place breadcrumbs and pine nuts in a bowl. Pull off 10 basil leaves, roughly chop with

Baked Nasi Goreng

15m prep 1h cook

4 servings 511 calories

4 servings 757 calories

1/4 cup rocket, then add to bowl. Crush in 1 garlic clove and season with pepper. Crumble in feta and combine. Place 1 tablespoon stuffng mixture on one side of each cutlet, fold over to enclose, then brush with oil. Reserve any leftover stuffng.

2. Crush remaining garlic clove into a large bowl. Squeeze over juice from 1 lemon, add mustard and 11/2 tablespoons oil. Season with salt and pepper, then whisk to combine.

3. Cut pumpkin into 1.5cm pieces. Toss with remaining 2 tablespoons oil and tomato paste, then season. Cook pumpkin on fat plate, turning frequently and drizzling with a little extra oil, if necessary, for 12 minutes or until tender. Add pumpkin and remaining rocket to bowl with dressing. Tear in a small handful of basil leaves and toss to combine.

4. Meanwhile, cook cutlets on grill, in 2 batches, for 2 1/2 minutes each side, then rest for 3 minutes. Divide pumpkin salad and cutlets among plates, then scatter with remaining stuffng mixture. Cut remaining lemon into wedges and serve with cutlets.

Ingredients

• 300g (1 1/2 cups) brown rice

• 3 green shallots, white part only, sliced, green part reserved

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 1 tsp sambal oelek

• 2 tsp chicken stock powder

• 625ml (2 1/2 cups) boiling water

• 250g chicken mince

• 80ml (1/3 cup) kecap manis

• 1 ½ tbs soy sauce

• Olive oil spray

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

• 1 carrot, shredded

• 1 Lebanese cucumber, thinly sliced

• 200g grape or cherry tomatoes, halved

• Prawn crackers, to serve (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan forced.

Breakfast Burger

5m prep 5m cook

1 servings 286 calories

Ingredients

• 1 egg

• 2 tsp tomato relish

• 40g wholemeal sandwich thin

• 20g baby spinach

• 1 small roma tomato, sliced

• 1/4 avocado, thinly sliced

Method

1. Lightly spray a small non-stick frying pan with olive oil. Crack egg into pan and cook for 2 minutes or until cooked to your liking.

2. Spread relish over base of sandwich thin. Top wi th spinach, tomato, avocado and egg. Season and top with sandwich thin lid.

Place the rice in a 30 x 20cm baking dish. Add the white part of the shallot, garlic and sambal oelek. Dissolve stock powder in the water, then pour over the rice and stir to combine. Cover dish tightly with foil and bake for 50 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, combine chicken mince in a bowl with 2 tsp each of the kecap manis and soy sauce. Slice reserved green shallot and set aside.

3. Carefully uncover the dish. Add the remaining kecap manis and soy sauce and stir to combine. Drop heaped teaspoons of chicken mixture over the rice mixture, nestling them in slightly. Spray chicken mixture with oil. Push the rice aside on 1 short end of the dish to make a 3cm gap. Pour egg into the gap. Bake, uncovered, for 10 minutes or until the chicken mixture is cooked (the egg will puff up then sink back down).

4. Break up the egg and stir through the rice mixture. Top with the carrot, cucumber, tomato an d reserved sliced green shallot. Serve immediately, with prawn crackers on the side, if desired.

Max Crus

Language is a moving beast, or a moving feast and yet another mondegreen evoked by someone with clout or a voice, like a journalist without a subeditor clever or alert enough to know the difference which is how many of our modern words and phrases have evolved from something that makes sense to something that is, frankly, a little bit silly.

Take the expression ‘bated breath’. The original expression, ‘abated breath’

Pocketwatch by Robert Oatley Sauvignon Blanc

2022, $16. There’s another word - Pocketwatch is now Mobile Phone. While no-one uses pocketwatches these days, everyone has a phone in their pocket, and you can pay for your wine with it too. Simple but smart fare. 9.1/10.

Pocketwatch by Robert Oatley Chardonnay

Max Crus is a Clarence Valley-based wine writer and Grape Expectations is now in its 26th year of publication. Find out more about Max or sign up for his weekly reviews and musings by visiting maxcrus.com.au

Grape Expectations by Max Crus

Watch your language…evolve.

makes sense, but nobody uses it and the word bated has come into existence with only one possible use. Luckily for bated, people do it a lot.

Okay, Shakespeare used it in The Merchant of Venice, but that was written 500 years ago and possibly he simply forgot an apostrophe, or indeed meant something else altogether which we no longer understand because we’ve moved on, unlike the Good Old Boys of

2022, $16. Like it’s SB sister this is uncomplicated and undemanding chardonnay. Just what you want on a Friday night after a hard week of wine tasting, or whatever it is you do. 9.0/10.

Jilyara Wilyabrup

Margaret River Honeycomb Corner Sauvignon Blanc 2023,

Newington Boys College, who are so steeped in tradition they think women shouldn’t be educated.

The change from substantial to substantive was more subtle. About ten years ago a politician used the latter because it sounded more important and now it’s the go-to word for big, and to be fair, as well as meaningful but it’s a safe bet most pollies don’t know the difference.

There’s millions of trucks getting around now

$25. Refreshingly, old-school sav blancs are coming out of the woodwork, or in this case, the hive. The sweet but savoury acidity and scents of cut grass and passionfruit are a delight to a palate wearied by a sea of bitter and dull pinot gris. 9.3/10.

Jilyara Wilyabrup Margaret River full of logisitics. When did ‘logisitics’ take over from freight? Of course it sounds very clever and important, like substantive, but has anyone heard of a truck spilling its logistics all over the highway.

‘Staff’ was once the collective name for people in an organisation, eventually evolving into ‘Personnel’, which was fne, it still had a personal feel, until it became ‘Human Resources’ which sounded like you could buy bits of it by the kilo, and pretty much how Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk view it.

Honeycomb Corner Cabernet Sauvignon 2023, $25. You’re tempted to fnd some honey favours in this but alas not so much. However a current of deliciously fragrant blackcurrants is not a bad alternative. You can almost taste Margaret River in this, indeed that’s exactly what you taste, I guess. 9.4/10.

While logically the next step was Homo Sapiens, Human Resources instead lost out to the very much on trend ‘People and Culture’. Ohhh, that sounds so warm and fuzzily friendly and inclusive, itself another word that has evolved from sharing.

Kids don’t share anymore, they are inclusive. Absolutely… umm, which has taken over plain old ‘Yes’?

Grampians Estate Pyrenees Fields Crossing Grenache 2021, $28. The colour is light and playful, belying its 14.5 per cent as does its ease of drinking. Characterful grenache with which some ice on a hot night wouldn’t go amis. 9.3/10.

Grampians Estate Pyrenees Sheepyard Tawny 2021, $25.

There’s one recent change actually makes sense - Relief Centres have become Resilience Centres as successive governments realise that we’re headed for so many disasters now, we’ll never get relief so we bloody well better be resilient.

Absolutely. I think I need a substantive glass of wine, so much more responsible than a substantial one.

Yewww, or should that be ‘Ewe’? Defnitely the former if you read the back label…made from dags, toenail clippings and sheepdog pee apparently, but among other things is said to ward off Collingwood supporters. You’d try it for that alone wouldn’t you? Almost disappointingly normal tawny. 9.1/10.