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Before we entered the current age of celebrity Chef madness, wherein winning a television contest or writing a cook book instantly makes you a ?chef?, people had to earn the title. Most of us still do, in fact. Many cooks train for years, decades, before they are given the opportunity to run a kitchen. For the first few years working in the industry you are often only called ?chef? when you've failed to act like one (?Way to burn the onions, Chef?). In some kitchens only the head chef and possibly the sous are called by the title, everyone else is a cook. Personally, I'm not precious about the whole thing; I'm just as happy to be called ?Hey you? (and often worse) as I am to be called Chef. Actually it doesn't bother me that the people with no training who happen to land a cooking show are called by the same title. Really. It does make me wonder about the value of the term, however, and about how to differentiate between the two; maybe it's become ?Chef? and ?Professional Chef.? Somehow the later seems a tautology. At any rate, respect in the kitchen, and in the industry, are still, and will always be, earned.

Earning the respect of your peers is a simple matter of doing the time and picking up a few tricks along the way. It's that easy. You want a job in my kitchen? Forget the resume. You'll be asked to come work a day, for free, to show what you've got. Haven't done the time? I'll know. It's how the industry works. Spent a year working for so-and-so? I know him, he doesn't employ idiots, when can you start?

Often it happens that a real chef becomes something of a celebrity and, as a direct result, loses credibility with his professional peers. The general feeling, I suppose, is that no one who is really cooking for a living has time to be on TV. Perhaps an unfair assumption, but a common one nonetheless. No doubt it's related to the industry's lack of respect for the requirements of cooking stardom. Still, there are chefs who manage to attain fame and maintain respect. This is achieved, mostly, by working one's ass off for decades, becoming a bloody fine chef and then, by chance, inventing or perfecting a novel meal that the public comes to know as yours. Or, rather, create a signature dish.



Thomas Keller has ?Oysters and Pearls,? Blumenthal has ?Snail Porridge? and ?Bacon and Egg Ice Cream.? Here in Sydney are Damien Pignolet with his French Onion Soufflé, Peter Conistis with his Scallop Moussaka, and Tetsuya Wakuda with his Ocean Trout Confit. All of them are delicious and each is singular to the point that an educated eater could name the associated chef when presented with the dish. That's the point, actually. It's fame earned through hard work, and no matter how little esteem chefs might have for the celebrity craze, it's impossible for us not to respect someone who's run the gauntlet and come out the other side with a great idea.



While I can't say I've exactly finished running the gauntlet, I've picked up a few ideas along the way. So here, with as much modesty as I can muster, is a flavor combination all of my own making; my candidate for signature dish:

Jerk-Rubbed Spatchcock with Vanilla Parsnip Puree and Roast Chicken Jus.

Here the sweet spices and vanilla, coupled with sticky jus, roasted meat, and spicy crust make for a pallet-

Spatchcock is the Australian word for a baby chicken. While the term generally refers to the foul preparation method of flattening a bird by removing the its backbone, Down Under it simply means small chicken. Sometimes called a poussin, these little guys are typically less than a month old and 500g each. For the record, ?spatchcock? probably comes not from a contraction of ?dispatch the cock? as I have been told, but from a confusion of another contraction ?spitchcock? which is the preparation of eels for grilling by splitting them. Even further back ?spitchcock? is referred to as ?pitchcock? and my gut instinct, though I can't back this up, is that pitchcock refers to the method of flattening anything to grill over a pit of coals (pit + cook = pitcooked, or pitchcooked (maybe over pine [pitch] coals) or simply spitchcocked), and that the other words are derived from this. To add a bit of weight to my theory, Mary Randolph, in The Virginia Housewife (1863) gives a recipe for ?Pitchcock Eels? wherein the cooking method is to skewer and broil (grill) pieces of eel.

Etymology and speculation aside, I only mention removing the backbone below, the minimum requirement for ?spatchcock? as a preparation method, but in reality I often remove all of the bones in the breast and the thigh bone as well when serving this dish. Leaving only the lower leg bone and the wing bones ensures a very fast cooking time and ease of eating. If you'd rather not the extra work of removing the bones, don't worry, leave them in and the result will still be fantastic.



2 baby chickens (500g each)
70g sea salt
35g sugar
1L water

Bring the sugar, salt, and water to a boil. Cool and then refrigerate until cold. Submerge the two birds in the cold brine, weighing them down with a plate to keep them under the surface. Brine for 8-12 hours. Drain and discard the brine.

Lay each bird, breast down, on a chopping board. Using kitchen shears, cut the backbone out the chickens, and flatten them with your palm. Pat dry. Allow to come to room temperature before cooking.

Heat a large pan on medium heat and your oven to 200ºC. Dredge the skin-side of each bird in the jerk spice mix (see below). Using the smallest touch of oil cook the birds on the skin side until the spices blacken and become quite aromatic. Flip the birds, adding oil if necessary to prevent sticking, and transfer to the oven. Roast for 8-10 minuets, or until thigh juices run clear when pierced. Rest for 5 minutes in a warm place, cut in half between the two breasts, and serve on vanilla parsnip puree (below) with a few spears of steamed asparagus and roast chicken jus (below).

Jerk Rub

Look. We could argue all day about what makes an authentic jerk rub and what does not. I've included tons of allspice, and I hope we can all agree on that one. The rest? Well, I recommend dumping half of your spice rack into your mortar and pestal and tasting what comes out the other end.

½ tbsp black peppercorns
½ tbsp white peppercorns
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp whole allspice
1 tsp chili flakes
½ cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
3 sprigs thyme, leaves only
1 clove
1 tsp sea salt

Combine everything in your mortar and pestal (or spice grinder) and pound (or blitz) the bejesus out of the lot.

Vanilla Parsnip Puree

500g parsnips, peeled
50g cold butter, cut into small cubes
½ vanilla bean

Cut the parsnip into ½ cm thick coins (parsnips have long fibers running their length; cutting into thin coins chops all these fibers up, resulting in a smoother puree). Put the cut parsnip into a small pot, just cover with lightly salted water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the parsnip is just soft through. Drain, retaining the liquid.

Transfer the parsnip to a blender and pulse until smooth, adding a splash of the reserved cooking liquid if needed to get things moving. Running the blender, add the butter a bit at a time until it is all incorporated.

Split the ½ vanilla bean open and scrape out the seeds. Blend these into the puree. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Roast Chicken Jus

2k chicken bones
1 carrot
1 onion
1 stick celery
2 clove garlic
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme

Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Spread the chicken bones out on trays in a single layer and roast, turning occasionally until brown and dry, 2 hours or more. Transfer the bones to a large pot and deglaze the pans with a splash of water or wine, tipping any scrapings into the pot with the bones. Add the remaining ingredients and cover the lot with cold water. Bring to a simmer over high heat. Reduce to low, skim any fat and scum that comes to the surface, and simmer for 4 hours or more. Cool and strain, discarding the solids.

Reduce the stock at a low simmer, skimming when needed until sticky and rich. It will probably come down to less than 1/5 of its original volume. Strain and cool. Refrigerate until needed.