Maeve O'Meara explores the delicious world of tropical fruits and vegetables with recipes from Asia, the Pacific and South America. She explores Australia’s enduring love for Asian flavours with a visit to the respected master of Thai cuisine, David Thompson (Long Chim) who shares his recipe for the most delicious, all-vegetarian pad see ew, using vegetables and silky rice noodles, cooked in minutes in a smoking wok. Then, it’s the fresh crispness and astringent power of unripe, green fruit as chef O Tama Carey (Lankan Filling Station) demonstrates her Sri Lankan family recipe for Green Mango Curry. Colombian-born chef, Oscar Espinosa showcases the power of the power of the plantain, transforming them into crunchy chips, served with a guacamole. Maeve discovers the process for extracting real coconut cream with Fijian-Australian chef, Louis Tikaram (EP&LP, West Hollywood) before delving into a world of tropical sweets including a pandan custard and a Goan treat of coconut and jaggery, known as patoleos. To finish, Maeve travels to Far North Queensland in search of the cacao bean and meets chocolatier Thibault Fregoni (Daintree Estates) who demonstrates the many intricate processes needed to make the rich ‘food of the gods’ we know as chocolate.
