The cookbook writer and TV chef shows Stephanie Clifford-Smith what's in her pantry.
Recipes from Annabel Langbein's Simple Pleasures
In Australia, she's known as the New Zealand cook who specialises in turning home-grown ingredients into quick, bulletproof recipes. Less known is Langbein's adventurous nature and bravado. Running away from home as a teenager, living off the land and laying possum traps and lobster pots were just a warm-up for fronting the Frankfurt Book Fair on her own to find a publisher for her first cookbook - it sold like crazy in several countries. She's based in Sydney while publicising The Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures, which airs on LifeStyle Food.
My pantry: Red Earth olive oil for everyday cooking and I'll just buy a little boutique, single-estate olive oil when I see one for drizzling when you're really going to taste the specialness. Vanilla beans, sesame oil, Mutti tomatoes and tomato paste. Dried tarragon - one of the few herbs that works dried - Forum vinegars, Ortiz anchovies and tuna, La Morena chipotle chillies, Miellerie honey, Kikkoman soy sauce, wasabi. Couscous, quinoa, pasta. Pomegranate molasses is my go-to flavour at the moment - it brings everything alive.
My fridge: Lemons, limes, kaffir lime leaves. I'm a complete cheese slut. Gorgonzola, Meredith goat's cheese, Brillat-Savarin triple-cream cheese. Fresh herbs, buffalo yoghurt.
I get it from my garden. I think because I studied horticulture I have a real understanding of plant families, so I know if I'm working with a brassica, for instance, it will respond in similar ways to others in that group. I also really like David Tanis, who writes for The New York Times and has written a few lovely cookbooks, including Heart of the Artichoke.
I was living in Brazil and got the train from Rio to Ouro Preto, a beautiful historic town, without realising how long it'd take, and I arrived at midnight in pouring rain. A policeman I was sitting next to knew all these amazing after-hours places, and we walked into a bar that was full of renegades - it was like being in a Steinbeck novel. He invited everyone to lunch the next day and this motley bunch assembled; one was sent off to get wood, one to get women, one to get grog, one to kill chickens. We ate this amazing chicken stew enriched with chicken blood cooked over the fire served over soft polenta. It was smoky and delicious and we ate it on tin plates by the fire - I can still taste it.
La Signora caffettiera. Kenwood stick blender, Microplane, Japanese knife, wooden spoons - I buy them everywhere I go - Le Creuset pots my mother gave me for my 21st birthday. Rotary egg beater - the new ones don't work nearly as well as the old. I just use a paint brush for pastry. Fish slice. Mason's cup for measuring. It's a standard 250 millilitres and was retired to the kitchen when it got chipped.
Kitchen highlight: The open-plan cooking space, so when you cook you are part of the action. It's a very social, convivial space.
Favourite: A copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cookery. My mum bought it for me when I was 14 because she knew before I did that I'd end up being a cook. Later, when I'd run off to live in the wild with an unsuitable man, I'd come back from hunting, shooting and fishing with a brace of squab or a lobster and cook elaborate Julia Child recipes.
Last dinner at home: Couscous with roasted vegetables including sweet potato and lightly cooked, peeled broccoli with salt, olive oil and lemon zest.
I always start the day with a cup of English breakfast tea, leaf or bag depending on how much time I have. Ginger and kawa leaf tea at night. Chamomile tea, which I make from flowers I grow. I have a couple of coffees a day with hot milk, then a black double espresso in the early afternoon, which is probably a better option than a martini at that time of day. I have a real Central Otago palate, and the pinot noir and dry riesling from Amisfield are hard to go past.
Saturday night tipple: In the winter, I drink whisky, either Glenmorangie or Lagavulin. In the summer, it's gin and tonic, either Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray 10. And I do like a martini.
The best recipes from Australia's leading chefs straight to your inbox.
Sign up