Pot luck

November 2, 2004
Baked maple and pecan pudding.

Baked maple and pecan pudding.

What's old is new again as this primitive form of cooking finds favour in the most modern of kitchens. By Clare Kermond.

It could be the fondue set of the new millennium, that quirky cooking gadget everyone has to have, the perfect talking point for any dinner party. Like fondue, claypot cooking was big in the '70s. And now it's back.

Browse through the shelves of most cookware shops and it seems every country's claypot is different.

There are kooky-looking African tagines with a high, pointy top like a wizard's hat, dumpy Chinese pots wrapped with wire, and big, glazed stoneware dishes from Spain and France.

One cooking writer confesses to owning more than 100 claypots in all shapes and sizes.

Writing in American magazine Food & Wine, Paula Wolfert says she keeps most of the pots on display in her kitchen. And each has its own story - the out-of-the-way spot it came from, the recipe she was given with it. She just can't resist them.

While it was a hit in the '70s, and is enjoying a resurgence, cooking in clay is far from new. Meat has been cooked in clay or earth for thousands of years and in many cultures.

US writer Irena Chalmers even suggests the idea may have come from eating pork from a pig that had rolled in mud. The mud-caked meat would have made a more tender meal than the cleaner pigs.

For a cooking style to last through the centuries, there must be something in it.

Melbourne cooking instructor Tony Tan says the Chinese have been using claypots for hundreds of thousands of years.

The success of claypots, he says, comes from their ability to retain heat so well, allowing slow, gentle cooking. "Because clay is such a fabulous medium, it absorbs flavours and reproduces flavours in the nicest possible way.

"It's one of those primitive tools - primitive in the sense that it has been around for thousands of years."

With its unhurried style and simple presentation, claypot cooking is a counterbalance to the pressure for restaurant-quality dinner parties featuring the latest food fashions.

"I tend to think it's more organic," Tan says. "I also think that sometimes we're in a mad rush to modernise and re-invent everything under the sun. There are certain things that have been nurtured through the ages, through generation after generation."

Another attraction of the claypot, he says, is the sociable aspect, with the aroma of the food permeating the house and guests dishing out from one big pot.

Tan, who recently included a claypot dish in his Chinese cooking courses, says people don't need to do a course to start cooking with claypots. "It's one of the easiest things to do.

''The Chinese do wonderful stews with beef or pork; the French, especially during the colder months, come up with lovely, slow-cooked dishes; and the Spanish have these wonderful, earthen brown pots and they cook lots of beans and meat."

In Melbourne, several restaurants have made claypot cooking a feature of their menu, including the Bedouin Kitchen and the Claypot Seafood Bar, both in St Kilda.

Co-owner of the Bedouin Kitchen, Genine Carter, says claypots suit Egyptian-style food and are perfect for sharing. Popular claypot dishes include molokhia duck, using an Egyptian weed that she describes as similar to rocket, and ful medames, with Egyptian fava beans, coriander, garlic and zaatar.

Carter says: "Our claypots serve about four people. They keep all the flavours together and the food stays warm at the table."

At the Claypot Seafood Bar, dishes include a vegetarian cous cous, Moroccan fish with chickpeas and curry laksa with fish, rice and bok choy.

In the city, at the Mask of China, claypot dishes such as fish blubber with shredded port and Chinese mushrooms are a staple of the menu. The Mask's Yvonne Chan says the restaurant buys its claypots from nearby Chinese grocers and if you use them properly, they will last a long time.

"It's a very delicate piece of equipment. We put it on top of the stove like a wok, but you can't turn it up too high or it can crack," she says.

A word of caution to the novice: chefs and cooking writers use the term claypot to describe dozens of different vessels. In her book Clay-pot Cooking, Jennie Shapter describes 10 main types of claypot: cazuelas, glazed earthenware bakeware, tagines, Chinese sand pots, chicken bricks, onion bakers, garlic bakers, bean pots, Romertopfs and tians.

Each type of pot requires different preparation and each is best used for particular dishes. The Le Creuset-style casserole dishes also can be used for some claypot recipes.

Most unglazed dishes, such as Romertopfs, should be put in a cold oven, which is then heated gradually, and they should be soaked in water before use. Some pots, such as tagines with cast-iron bases, can be put directly on to the flame, while most others are suitable for use in the oven or under the grill.

If that sounds complicated, it's not. Most pots come with simple instructions.

The first step for the claypot beginner is to find your claypot, and that's not hard. Casa Iberica, the long-lived Spanish delicatessen in Johnston Street, Fitzroy, has a good selection of cazuelas and caserolas imported from Spain.

Owner Alice De Sousa says she has sold the sturdy dishes to many of the nearby Spanish bars and restaurants for years. And she says more and more home cooks are buying them for their own use.

Chinese sand pots can be found in many Asian groceries and are usually inexpensive.

If it's a tagine you're after, Zelij Moroccan Interiors in Bridge Road, Richmond, sells five styles, all imported from Morocco.

Owner Driss Regague says the two most popular are the traditional unglazed tagine and a newer style that is glazed on the inside. There is also a barbecue-style tagine, with a pot under the cooking dish that can be filled with coals.

Regague says the tagines have been growing in popularity for some time. His shop sells more than 30 tagines a week.

"The reason the food tastes better is because the tagine is made of natural clay, and because the top is not open, the aroma stays inside."

Casa Moderna, in Fairfield, keeps a stock of different-sized Romertopfs. Staff say the Dutch cooking pots with their decorative, domed lids are especially popular with Europeans and that many customers return to buy them in different sizes.

Finding locally made claypots is less straightforward. Chayle Timbs, of Northcote Pottery, says Australian terracotta has different properties from the European variety and does not respond as well to heat, especially direct heat. "It tends to want to explode."

Timbs says they have experimented with terracotta pots and often get inquiries from customers, but so far they have not made a truly suitable pot.

"We have the technology to make the shapes, but it's very difficult to develop a terracotta that will be suitable for cooking, especially for flame cooking."

However, some of the terracotta dishes made for the garden at Northcote Pottery are bought by adventurous home cooks who use them for baking breads and frittatas.

Breadmaker Gael Stach, of Make'n'Bake bakery and breadmaking classes, says terracotta pots can be a good alternative to baking bread in tin. Bread baked in terracotta rises well and gets a nice crust.

"With tin, you may need to cook it longer, and the longer it cooks the more it dries out. With terracotta, the cooking is minimal and it comes out nice and fresh," Stach says.

But the last word on tagines should go to Driss Regague, who has fond memories of the big tagines sitting outside cafes in the streets of Morocco.

Asked why they are still so popular, he doesn't need to think for long: "It's very simple. Once you try fish in the tagine, you will never eat it a different way."

Baked maple and pecan croissant pudding
From Jennie Shapter's Clay-pot Cooking (published by Southwater)


75g or 1/2 cup sultanas
45ml brandy
4 large croissants
50g butter
40g pecan nuts
3 eggs, lightly beaten
300ml milk
150ml cream
120ml maple syrup
25g demerara sugar
maple syrup and pouring cream, to serve


· Place the sultanas and brandy in a small pan and heat gently until warm. Leave to stand for 1 hour. Soak a small claypot in cold water for 15 minutes, then drain, leave for 2-3 minutes and lightly grease the base and sides.

· Cut the croissants into thick slices, then spread with butter on one side.

· Arrange the croissant slices, butter-side uppermost and slightly overlapping, in the soaked claypot. Sprinkle the brandy-soaked sultanas and the roughly chopped pecans over the croissant slices.

· In a large bowl, beat the eggs and milk together, then gradually beat in the cream and maple syrup.

· Pour the egg custard through a sieve, over the croissants, fruit and nuts in the dish. Leave the uncooked pudding to stand for 30 minutes so that some of the egg custard is absorbed by the croissants.

· Sprinkle the demerara sugar evenly over the top, then cover the dish and place in an unheated oven. Set the oven to 180C and bake for 40 minutes. Remove the lid and continue to cook for about 20 minutes or until the custard is set and the top is golden.

· Leave the pudding to cool for about 15 minutes before serving warm with extra maple syrup and a little pouring cream.

Serves: 4

For more information: claypotcooking.com has recipes and tips for cooking with unglazed claypots such as the Romertopf.