Book review: Tasmania's Table - recipes that transport you there

By Paul County and Nick Osborne

I wish I had been given this book before I went to Tasmania in December.

I knew the food in the Australian island state would be good because the local ingredients are incredible - we ate wonderful raw oysters from a place that harvests them, called Get Shucked, on Bruny Island, and I had the best cherries I've ever tasted. Sadly, though, the really good food wasn't easy to find - we had our best meals in our hotel (the wonderful Islington, in Hobart) and at Frank, a restaurant at which, despite a cold greeting (we didn't have a booking and they almost turned us away), we had a delicious dinner. Some of our meals in Tasmania, however, were mediocre, but that was probably down to a lack of research.

After reading Tasmania's Table, I want to go back to try all the things I missed out on. Giant crab? A small one, please (they grow up to 18kg). Goat? I'll have some of that, too. It was the wrong time year to try yolla (also called mutton bird), a native animal that's harvested only in the spring.

The book focuses on Tasmanian producers and restaurants, and lists lots of local ingredients. There are recipes for slow-cooked goat neck; Singapore-style giant crab; braised Aurora lamb fettucine; Spring Bay mussels with saffron spaghetti, baby capers and mushroom sauce; pepperberry-crusted wallaby; smoked eel on potato pancakes with bacon, horseradish cream and dill dressing; Tasmanian Atlantic salmon on green pea purée with salsa rossa and crisp prosciutto; and mutton bird a l'orange with witlof salad, foie gras pate and pancetta.