On today's show I was lucky enough to be joined by  Shu Shu Zheng to have a discussion about celebrity chefs who have restaurants in our fair city.
 
A few of the ones mentioned were George Calombaris's the Press Club, Gary Mehigan's Fenix, French cafe run by Shannon Bennett, Vue de Monde (ps they're hiring!) and Jamie's Kitchen Australia restaurant Fifteen run by Tobie Puttock.
 
We had a general discussion about "what makes a chef" - do you have to have a restaurant or a tv show or a book deal or write for a magazine?
 
I also  shared my experiences cooking with leeks - as you'll recall from last week I somewhat surprisngly had never cooked with leeks until earlier this week. I adapted a Maggie Beer pie recipe to suit my family needs. Follow the recipe, but position the chicken breasts atop of some sliced leeks when you roast them. Makes for extra tasty pies.
 
Also I mentioned a pear, leek and brie pie that I had to make for my little sister and despite being ready only at 10pm on Sunday, we all gladly guzzled it down. I guestimated the measurements for that pie, but basically do it to suit how many people you need to feed. I sauteed 1 leek in some butter, seasoned it, let it cool, roughly chopped half a wheel of brie, peeled and sliced rather finely 1.5 pears and then layered them into my pie dish, cooked for about half an hour at 180 degrees.
 
On next week's show I will be cooking with soba noodles! We are turning Japanese...

Audio: 

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Wed 11 Aug 2010.mp3