(FUNKY MUSIC)
My name is Shannon Martinez.
I am a chef that specialises in vegan cooking.
I have Smith & Daughters and Smith & Deli in Melbourne
and I absolutely love gardening.
A vegan chef is basically someone who only cooks with plants,
so we're talking no honey, no diary, no eggs,
purely what you can grow in the ground.
Homegrown garlic is like garlic on steroids.
It's hot, it's spicy, super pungent,
definitely the sort of thing that you don't want to eat on that first date,
that's for sure, but there's nothing like it.
For vegan cooking,
garlic, to me, is an essential ingredient,
because a lot of the things that you're removing from cooking,
you kind of need to build those flavours back up.
So something as strong and punchy as garlic
can really help lift a dish that could otherwise lack a little bit.
I'm a Melbourne girl through and through.
I was born and raised around Fitzroy.
I've travelled all around the world,
I've lived in the States on and off for quite a long time,
and I always come back to Melbourne.
It's just such an easy city to live in,
a great sense of community here.
You know, for such a large city, it does feel quite small.
That's one of the things I really love about it here.
My father is from Spain -
he came to Australia in his early teens -
and my mum is from Thornbury.
So a good mixture, Aussie and Spanish,
and of course, you know,
that meant that I was raised with some pretty amazing food,
which definitely inspired me, I would say,
to become a chef and just become obsessed with food.
I think my favourite thing about growing chillies
is that they're just... they're easy, you know?
You put them in the ground,
you make sure you treat the soil right,
and they'll look after you, you know?
This plant's been in there now for two years
and it just keeps fruiting,
so they're not a lot of work,
they give you constant pleasure,
and when it comes to the end of the season,
I like to trim them all down, hang them up, dry them out,
and then I've got chillies all through the winter.
Some things that I love to do
is make sure you have some sweet, some super spicy
and then some in the middle range,
so then, no matter what you're cooking,
you've got something that suits every dish.
Cooking vegan food is such an exciting way to cook.
It's not only super seasonal, but very creative.
When you start taking away things like animal proteins, dairy,
you really have to start thinking outside the box
on how you can develop these incredible dishes
using purely plants.
It's also, for me,
an amazing way to help the environment
by cutting down on emissions and things like that
and just, you know, cooking with pure plants.
Tomatoes are definitely in my top three favourite things to eat
of all time.
I eat them like apples, you know?
One big bite, pinch of salt, like, they are that perfect
that you really don't need to mess around with them.
But they're also one of the most versatile things
to use in cooking, you know?
Obviously from salads to sauces, you can pickle them when they're green,
so, you know, if you're finding
that some of your tomatoes aren't going red,
thinly sliced and pickled is beautiful.
Even frying them as well is really great.
So, like, the things you can do with them are limitless.
So, mid 2020
is when I discovered that I had triple-negative breast cancer,
which definitely was a big spanner in the works
when we were, you know, just starting to get our heads around
what we were going to do about this pandemic
and businesses closing and things like that,
so it was a pretty rough time.
Once I was diagnosed,
the doctors offered to put me on a trial,
which was immunotherapy,
so they combined immunotherapy with chemotherapy.
And I had 24 rounds of that
and then 20 rounds of radiation.
So that was just to make sure that everything was gone,
and then there was also surgery in between there as well.
Once I started treatment,
I actually wasn't really allowed to leave my home
just because I was immuno-compromised, you know,
during chemo.
So I focused all my energies on gardening,
and this amazing thing happened where I just,
for one of the first times ever, felt this total sense of calm.
Being in the garden, without any music on,
just listening to the breeze, listening to the birds,
putting my hands in the dirt,
there was something about that that finally slowed me down
and allowed me time just to relax.
Getting cancer has definitely reminded me
that I'm not invincible and that none of us are invincible,
and I don't know, I'm just... I'm very grateful
for being able to make it through to the other side.
Alright,
I'm finally gonna harvest the garlic.
Fingers crossed there's something under the dirt.
Oh, we've got garlic! (LAUGHS)
Beautiful.
And then I'm gonna use this fresh,
but you can definitely store this,
hanging in a dry area and let this age,
and then it will last you ages.
Now it's time to bring the spice in for the dish,
so we're gonna pick some chillies.
Now, I'm gonna go and pick one of all of them,
just so I can get the different flavour profiles
from each of the chillies.
So we've got spice and heat,
we've got some fruitiness here as well.
And then these ones are really nice and, like, zesty.
So I'm just gonna grab some parsley.
I might even just grab a couple of spring onions too.
So we're making
vegan garlic prawns.
Now, this is a very traditional Spanish dish
made not so traditionally with the use of vegan prawns.
What these little guys are made of
is actually a plant, and the plant is called konjac,
and it's a tuber that grows underground.
And once it's dried and turned into a flour,
it can be turned into so many things,
but what it has an amazing texture for
is things that have a shellfish-like texture.
So that's what we're using today
to replace your real prawns.
So to make garlic prawns is a really simple dish.
It's something you can get together in about five minutes.
Now, in pure Spanish tradition,
we are going to use an obscene amount of olive oil.
It's a little trick, I guess, as a chef,
on how to make things taste delicious,
always add more olive oil and salt
that you probably deem appropriate.
Now, while our oil is heating up,
we're gonna get our gorgeous garlic together.
It smells so good.
You can finely dice this if you like,
but I actually like garlic in nice, fine slivers.
Now I'm going to add some chillies.
Because I've chosen the three different varieties,
I'm just gonna go half on each one.
Now, last up, the spring onions,
and I'm just gonna leave them quite chunky.
Now it's time for our prawns.
Now, because these aren't real prawns,
they are already cooked through.
So what we're doing is getting a bit of colour on there
and heating them through.
Now it's time to add all our beautiful ingredients
from the garden,
our garlic and our chilli.
I'm gonna add some smoked paprika in here.
Now, you don't want to add this too early,
because paprika when it's burnt is extremely bitter.
So some beautiful smoked paprika is going in.
And just a little rough chop with the parsley.
There's better things to do in life than spend hours chopping parsley.
So in that goes too.
Now I'm gonna finish it off, just to lift the whole dish,
with a big squeeze of lemon juice right at the end.
And then just pour that onto a beautiful plate...
..with all that gorgeous oil
and some beautiful crusty bread,
and there you have it,
your simple vegan garlic prawns.
There are so many reasons why people should garden.
There really is nothing more rewarding than,
before you start your hectic day,
to make that tea or coffee and just stroll around your yard.
Give yourself 10 minutes to just breathe, water the plants,
smell the air and just look at your achievements.