The Cornersmith Guide To A More Sustainable Kitchen

Alex Elliott-Howery and Jaimee Edwards have joined forces to bring you Use It All: The Cornersmith Guide to a More Sustainable Kitchen. For years, the duo experimented with food — in their home kitchens as well as at their Sydney café, Cornersmith. Now it’s time for a cookbook sharing their love of fermenting, offcuts and waste hacks. Sharing over 230 recipes, the authors keep meals affordable, delicious and free from a hefty carbon footprint. Use It All offers alternative flavour combinations so you can stay versatile in your ingredient selection, cater for dietary requirements and avoid boredom in the kitchen. With beautiful imagery by photographer Cath Muscat, Elliot-Howery and Edwards’ cookbook will help you rethink your spending without reducing the amount of food that you consume. The book not only delivers scrumptious recipes, it also teaches you how to decrease your food waste and navigate your weekly seasonal shop. A must-have for anyone looking to make more with what they’ve got in the pantry or fridge.

This is an edited extract from Use It All by Alex Elliott-Howery and Jaimee Edwards. Photography by Cath Muscat. Published by Murdoch Books, RRP AU$39.99.

Fishcakes

Wholefood cook Jude Blereau’s cookbooks taught us how to make fritters and fishcakes when our kids were little, and they’ve been a family favourite ever since. This is our version using leftover fish and whatever vegetables and herbs are hanging around in the fridge. If you’ve got leftover mash, it all comes together in a matter of minutes.

Makes: 8

400g cooked potatoes or sweet potatoes Splash full-cream whole milk Sea salt

¾ cup thinly sliced crunchy vegetables: spring onions, corn kernels, celery, fennel

Small handful finely chopped herbs: dill, parsley, fennel fronds, celery leaves

2 cloves garlic, minced

Zest 1 lemon or lime Freshly cracked black pepper

300g leftover flaked baked fish

1 egg

1 cup stale breadcrumbs

100mL good-quality vegetable oil such as sunflower or rice-bran oil

In a large bowl, mash the potatoes with the milk and a pinch of salt.

Add the thinly sliced vegetables, along with the herbs, garlic and lemon or lime zest. Season with salt and pepper and combine well with a fork, then stir through the flaked fish, being careful not to break it up too much, which can make the mixture gluey.

Divide the mixture into eight fishcakes.

Whisk the egg in a shallow bowl and tip the breadcrumbs into another shallow bowl. Dip each fishcake in the egg and then coat in the breadcrumbs.