Cooking With Danny Eucalyptus From The Toot Toot Toots

Shellfish And Chorizo Paella And Squid Ink Rice

Cookbook

Written by Sarah Guppy on 17 February 2013

Melbourne’s spaghetti-western rockers The Toot Toot Toots will be performing their rowdy, flamboyant, mock-cabaret Outlaws for the 2013 Club Spiegel Season. Set in the fictional gold rush town of Gomorrah Fields, the performance tells the story of émigré Eli Rayne and the vengeance and bloodshed that shadows his arrival. Based upon their debut concept album of the same name, Outlaws is complete with narrations, gyrations, brass sections, projections and animated facial expressions. Catch The Toots Friday the 22nd and Saturday the 23rd of February for these very special shows at the Spiegeltent in Melbourne.

What were your food influences when you were growing up and what kind of food did you eat at home or with your family?

I’ve always been a big fan of the curry, even when I was very young I would beg my mum to cook her Thai green curry. My family was never very conscious of healthy eating. The fridge was always stocked with a slab of cola and the pantry with chips and biscuits. It was kid heaven, and luckily I had a fast metabolism.

What dish or cuisine do you most like to eat on tour and why?

Every time we go on tour we claim that ‘we’re going to eat healthy this time’, thirty minutes down the Hume and we’re always chowing down on McDonalds… the boys like Vietnamese, but you never find Pho at truck stops.

Our trumpet player Greg is an eating machine, we kept a diary of what he ate on the first day of our last tour; Spanish omlette bagel, sausage mc muffin, two hash browns, cheese and pepper steak pie, sausage roll, bbq chips (large), crayfish mornay with chips and salad, bbq, chilli and original fried chicken and a few liters of beer…eww.

What type of food do you hate, and what is the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?

When I was a kid I loved nachos, and decided to experiment with the formula. I tried using twisties, cheezels, cheetos and salt and vinegar chips instead of corn chips. Disgusting.

If the Toot Toot Toots were throwing a dinner party and could invite any musicians, living or dead, who would they be and why?

I know they’re not musicians but I’d like to invite Richard Dawkins and the Westboro Baptist Church to dinner. The Toots would kick back and eat popcorn.

Or I’d invite the original members of the Dead Kennedy’s over, of course each member wouldn’t know that their old band mates were coming. The Toots would kick back and eat popcorn.

Imagine for a second you can request anything on your rider at your upcoming Spiegeltent shows. What food do you put on it?

Probably an insane seafood spread, and some white bread for our drummer who’s allergic.

What has been your biggest cooking disaster to date?

When I was in high school I borrowed my aunts deep fryer and made my own buffalo wings. I made them so spicy that I destroyed my insides and had to take several days off school…. true story.

When you tour overseas, what food from home do you miss the most?

We haven’t managed to get the Toots overseas yet. But I did go to India with Steve (bass) and Bez (guitar) for a few months a while back. I don’t think I’ve eaten better in my entire life, but I did miss being able to eat without the threat of insane food poisoning hanging over my head. At one stage I was so ill I went partially blind.

If the Toot Toot Toots could invent a loliie or candy bar what would it be?

I’m struggling to think of one for the Toots, some kind of concept lollie? We’ve been playing with Cherrywood a bit recently and I can think of a good one for them. Those boys are obsessed with ‘playing dice’, so a lollie in the form of a dice which the winner can eat. Or perhaps the loser can eat it, since it’d be all smashed up and dirty.

This is your last day on earth, what is your final meal?

Every other human on Earth.

…or squid ink paella with crab, chorizo, prawns, swordfish and mussels.

Ingredients

4 plum tomatoes, sliced in half lengthwise
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 cup olive oil, divided
4 lobsters (1 1/2 pounds each)
1/2 pound chorizo, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
4 baby squid, cleaned
Saffron rice, recipe follows
Squid Ink Rice, recipe follows
2 cups chicken stock or clam stock
1 cup fresh peas
24 mussels, debearded and scrubbed
24 littleneck clams, scrubbed
Chopped flat-leaf parsley

Squid Ink Rice:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium Spanish onion, diced
2 cups long grain rice
2 tablespoons squid ink
4 cups chicken stock
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Shellfish And Chorizo Paella And Squid Ink Rice

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Place tomatoes in a small baking dish and drizzle with the honey and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper and roast until soft. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add the lobsters and cover the pot. Bring the water back to the boil, reduce the heat, and continue cooking for 12 to 15 minutes or until cooked through. Let cool and remove meat. Leave claws whole, cut body meat into large dice.

Cook the chorizo in a medium saute pan over medium-high heat until browned. Remove the chorizo to a plate lined with paper towels.

Squid Ink Rice:
Heat the olive oil and butter in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook until soft. Add the rice and stir to coat. Add the squid ink to the simmering stock and let cook for 1 minute. Add the hot stock to the rice and let come to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover the pan and let cook for 15 to 18 minutes, remove cover and fluff with fork

Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large saute pan or paella pan until almost smoking. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper and saute for 1 minute. Season the squid with salt and pepper, to taste and add to the pan. Continue cooking an additional 2 to 3 minutes until just cooked through. Add rice, stock, peas, tomatoes, lobsters, and chorizo and stir to combine. Place the mussels and clams in a pot with a cup of water; cover the pot and cook until the clams and mussels open. Add the clams and mussels to the rice. Fold in the parsley and lemon season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Serve immediately.

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