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Palestinian journalist Plestia Alaqad 'living in two different worlds' since fleeing Gaza
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The Guardian
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Alice Zaslavsky's crisp-topped tuna niçoise mornay (tuna pasta bake)
How often do you stray from tradition when it comes to recipes? Would you say you're a rule follower or a riffer? Cooking is all about clocking up time in the kitchen. Just as a pilot will chart well-mapped courses as they're learning to spread their wings, following tried and true recipes to the letter is a safe and effective way to build up confidence before you spread yours. But if you're a long-time follower who's ready to take to the sky, the best place to start is somewhere familiar, then whack on a twist, because even the recipes you thought were canonical often started with a riff. Take tuna mornay, for example. If you grew up in Australia, you'll probably be surprised to learn that tuna mornay is only a 'thing' for us – and only for the last 80-odd years. For the French, sauce mornay – bechamel with grated cheese – is usually reserved for slathering over seafood such as lobster. In Italy, birthplace of pasta, seafood and cheese are an unholy union. It's the anglophones who seem to be cool with pairing creamy sauce and canned fish. Tuna pasta bakes and casseroles, which are tuna mornay by a less fancy-schmancy name, are common in North America and the UK. One advantage of being down under is we're far enough away from the European culinary cannon to play a little faster and looser with the classics. Of both Cucina Australiana – or elsewhere. So why not riff on a riff? Bring the best bits of a mornay – creamy, comforting, fuss-free – then eliminate the margin of gluggy error by replacing the bechamel with a crème fraiche, add zip and zest with my very versatile PGAL (a paste of parsley, garlic, anchovy and lemon that you're going to want to spread and stir through everything) and freshen it further by incorporating the accoutrement from another traditional tuna dish: the niçoise. Usually a niçoise is bulked out with spuds; instead the crunchy top here is none other than crushed-up potato crisps! I got the inspiration for this from a reader called Sue, who emailed to ask if I'd tried it. Dear reader, once you've tried this, it's pretty hard to go back to plain old panko. Serves 4-6 1 can (425g) tuna in olive oil, drained, reserving the oil50g black olives, pitted and roughly chopped 1 tbsp capers, rinsed and drained (I used lilliput in salt, but any will do)80g gruyere, grated 200ml crème fraiche 500g dried short pasta (shells always work well here)200g green beans, topped and chopped to pea size For the PGAL (parsley, garlic, anchovy and lemon) paste1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, washed and stems trimmed3 cloves garlic, peeled3-4 good-quality anchovies, including the oil1 lemon, zest and juiceReserved tuna oil ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper For the chippie crumb 100g packet potato chips/crisps of your choice 50g butter, room temp 50g gruyere, grated Bring a large pot of well-salted water to the boil and preheat the oven to 160C fan (180C conventional). To make the PGAL paste, pop all of the ingredients into a food processor and blitz to a smooth paste. Leave in the food processor until needed. In a medium-sized bowl, combine the tuna, olives, capers, grated cheese, crème fraiche and mix to combine, breaking up the tuna into chunks. Check for seasoning and adjust if needed. To make the crumb topping, pop chippies (crisps), butter and cheese into another bowl and squish together with your fingers to break up the chips, rubbing in the butter and cheese to form a crumb texture. Once the pasta water is at the boil, add the pasta to the pot, stir about for the first minute or so to keep it from clumping, then cook for one minute less than the packet's instructions. Before draining the pasta, pop your green beans in the bottom of a colander. Drain the pasta over the beans (this will give them a swift blanch to take the squeaky edge off) and toss both pasta and beans back in the pot, along with all of the tuna ingredients and PGAL paste. Stir everything together well and check for seasoning. Pour into a baking dish and top with the chippie crumb. Place in the oven for 10 minutes until golden and bubbly. The dish will be super-hot, so take care when getting it out of the oven. Serve immediately with a simple salad on the side.
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- The Guardian
Sam was an engineer in Baghdad but couldn't land a callback for similar roles in Australia. Many face the same issue
When Sam Matti came to Australia, he had a bachelor degree in automation engineering and five years of experience working as an engineer at an electric power plant in Baghdad. After fleeing religious persecution in Iraq, where Islamic State was targeting minority Christians, Matti arrived in Australia in 2015. Here, Matti, who speaks five languages, applied for every suitable engineering job – but couldn't even land a callback. 'I applied for every possible and available position on Seek,' says Matti, now 37. 'The usual response was, 'Sorry, we found a more experienced person with the right skills' or no response at all.' So Matti worked a variety of jobs – cleaning, catering and working in aged care – whatever he could get to help pay the bills. His experience is not unique. Many refugees who have worked as managers and professionals before arriving in Australia struggle to have their skills and qualifications recognised, and are still experiencing an 'occupational downgrade' 10 years after arrival, according to a new report by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS). About 2,400 humanitarian migrants were surveyed over a 10-year period. The report found 30% of employed women and 19% of employed men had been working in managerial or professional roles before arriving in Australia. That dropped to 17% and 10% respectively after 10 years of residency. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Half of men who had worked in fields such as business, human resources, marketing and ICT in their home country were working as technicians, tradespersons or machinery operators after a decade living in Australia. For female refugees, the occupational downgrade was even more pronounced. Among those who had been managers or professionals in their home countries, more than two-thirds (67%) were not in paid work after 10 years in Australia. The remainder were mostly working as carers, cleaners, education aides or sales assistants. The likelihood of women who were in families with children under five being employed was 84% lower than men in the same situation. Dr John van Kooy, the report's lead author, said 60% of women and about 37% of men in the study were not employed in the 10th year of the research and were not actively looking for work. 'So not in the labor force at all, which is large,' he says. 'But what's interesting about that group is that many of them indicated that they do, in fact, want a job. 'We know from our analysis that they're likely facing these sort of multiple challenges related to having their skills and qualifications recognised, building up their English language capability, or dealing with some of the effects of forced migration.' Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion A 2024 report by national not-for-profit service provider Settlement Services International (SSI) found there was a potential for a 'billion-dollar benefit' in the employment of refugees and other migrants thought to have 'chronically under utilised skills'. SSI's head of strategic relations, Dane Moores, says almost half of permanent migrants in Australia work below their skill level, with humanitarian entrants even more likely to have their skills under utilised. 'Many refugees arrive in Australia with years of professional experience and valuable skills, but they face a system that devalues their expertise and puts up unnecessary roadblocks to formally recognising their qualifications,' Moores says. 'The process to have overseas qualifications recognised is complex, costly and inconsistent, and many refugees find it difficult to meet the rigid documentation requirements.' After two years Matti landed an internship at a leading construction company – and now works as an operations manager at Australia Post. 'Giving an opportunity to a person can be a life-changing event,' he says. 'I was given an opportunity, and I was able to squeeze every single thing out of it to be able to achieve, you know, better results for myself and my family and society in general.'
