Alice Zaslavsky

Alice Zaslavsky · Salad For Days

I love roasting grapes: the flavour becomes magically meaty and broody, which makes them a perfect candidate for a trans-seasonal salad. You can serve this up in autumn with the grapes cooled, or keep them warm for winter. The gorgonzola pops against the acidity of the sticky sherry vinegar, which is reminiscent of a sticky wine you’d drink with a cheese board. If you’re in the market for sherry vinegar, I like Jerez, or if you can find a PX (Pedro Ximénez) vinegar, charge at it like a bull at a red rag! Roasting the radicchio, and including a creamy, funky cheese plus acidic dressing, helps to mitigate its bitterness.

Alice Zaslavsky · The Joy of Better Cooking

My babushka Raya and I didn’t always see eye to eye. She’d say, ‘Your room should be like a candy’, when it more resembled a wasteland of discarded wrappers, but one thing we both loved was thrifting. In my teens, I’d walk with her to the op-shops down the road, where they’d know her by name, but in my twenties, I’d treat her to a drive down the highway to the biggest op-shop within a 100 km radius: Savers Frankston. Two storeys of second-hand shmatters that we would both enthusiastically trawl for mohair cardigans and plaid skirts. We’d cap off the trip by visiting the teeny Turkish cafe next door, for the jewel in the weekly crown: a tub of mujadara. Sweet with caramelised onion, with chewy lentils and fluffy rice, this was another thing we could both agree on. She’s no longer with us, but those cardigans and skirts still hang in her room, which remains tidy like a candy. My housekeeping skills never improved, by the way…but I make a mean mujadara.

Alice Zaslavsky · In Praise Of Veg

If you’ve ever had a tarte tatin starring apples or pears, you might find yourself wondering what onions, leeks and shallots are doing in a dessert. And it’s certainly true that this dish, which originated at the Hotel Tatin in France over 120 years ago, was likely never intended as a savoury. But if you think of it as an open-faced pasty or upside-down vegetable tart, it starts to make a lot more sense. I love the way the puff pastry shatters into buttery flakes on your lips, while the onions, caramelised to an indecent level, are silky and slippery.