Sue Dodd’s weekly produce report

Published May 29, 2025, 5:55 PM

Phil O’Neil has a weekly chat with Sue Dodd from the Sydney Markets about what bargains are on offer at the markets this week.

Now on overnights it's after the Markets with Sue DoD.

Yes, here she is our very own sweet per Simmons. Although I still feel like I'm saying that wrong.

I think personn but I quite light the way you say.

Well, there you go. It's a dedication to you, and we will get to.

Those sweet potato potato, can.

You call me tomato. Let's get to those in a second. Let's start off with fruit. How are you? What have you got well?

This week? I think we should really take a fresh look at pears. I mean pairs re memory knows apples, but I think pears sometimes are the second cousin, and there's some beautiful pairs around the moment. They're great for eating just out of hand or doing some poaching, some roastings. The weather trans cold an excuse to turn on the oven or the air fro and do something nice with those. But on pairs this week, the burbosk and the pack on pairs going to come in somewhere about four to five dollars a killer.

And you know me, anything I can whack into the fryer, I'll do that. Let's have a look at some Kiwi fruit.

Kni fruit coming from Australia and New Zealand at the moment, so you'll see, just check the stickers, know what you're buying. But you know the quality of both is excellent. Kiwi fruit green flesh will be about six to twelve dollars a kilo, depending on the size, so you get a lot more for smaller fruit in the kilo than you do the large. And also the gold kiwi fruit, which is sweeter than the green. It's become very very popular ten to sixteen dollars a kilo.

What I'm not calling them the sweet percimons because you know, as we all know, I'm sort of hitting this with that. I can call it the foou fruit. Can't I have Foo your fruit?

Yes, it's well free you tends to be what it gets called. But Foo is a variety of sweet person and with this particular variety of person, you can eat it crunchy like an apple. So it's really delicious when you just take some really lovely thin slices and maybe add it to a cheese, water, add slices to a salad. It gives you a lovely sweetness, a lovely texture. But if you want to, you can leave it to go lovely and soft like apricot jam, and then all you need to do is just take a spoon to it. Sat this week, depending on the size of the fruit, you're looking at somewhere between about ten and twenty dollars a quilo.

All right, let's go from Foo you to Fiji and also Pink Lady apples.

Yes, there's plenty of apples to choose from. We're really in the peak about apple season now and the quality is excellent. Spen good year for apples. But you know, again I loved cooking with apples at this time in the year. Granny Smiths gold and delicious can i you know, basically pantry staples. But if you also want to think about other apples that you can cook with, the Fuji because of its high sugar content, and they're Pink Lady because of its compact texture, will be also really good for cooking with. So well, it's a baked apple, use it for a crumble, whatever you decide to do. But this week, depending on your choice. Now, but you're looking about three to eight dollars aequilo.

Okay, so you know I'm quite lazy, and that even comes to peeling my fruit However, if you want to peel anything that's easy to go by, that would be your imperial mandarin.

Absolutely now fruit is now. It starts in Queensland, but we've also now moved through this fruit coming from Victoria and the southern Australian orchards. So I think the fruit gets better as the season progresses. They say a really nice cold night brings out the sweetness and the fruit, so we're starting to see some of that. Amandarin's this week will be about three to six dollars a ki.

Do you say hats or hass Avocados as a half, I'll go with that then, because I take you.

As the expert plenty around at the moment. They're really good buying. You can pick up a nice size so small but nice size has for about a dollar each, but the larger ones will go two to three dollars. And of course you know how some really good avocados we're throwing really healthy fats, a good source of vitamin E and you'll find that you'll find a great way to use those during winter quinces.

They get a hard reputation because of their name, but they're pretty firm in texture.

Do you know just having a couple in the fruit bowl. They emit the most beautiful floral musky flavor or for aroma, and then when you cook them, they go from being a bushy yellow color to their flesh can be anywhere from a soft pink through a deep claret. I think they're a beautiful classic winter fruit. They're only around for a short period of time, so now the time to enjoy quints. They're five to ten seven dollars a kilo.

I like to do a little navel gazing, especially if it's a naval orange.

Absolutely and the stand the naval season has started, we're seeing some small fruit at the moment. It's super super juicy. You know, there's nothing wrong with small fruit. You know, particularly with kids, that you don't waste anything greate for juicing. You'll find them. Buy the kilo for about two to seven dollars a kilo depends on the size of the fruit. But the great way to buy them is buy a three kilo bag and then you can subeduice them, eat them and they're going to come in somewhere in about four to seven dollars, so you get good value when you buy the three kilos.

All right, let's get to the vegetable. It's not many people realize that if you're looking for an anise to roama, you can actually find that with a fennel.

Oh, fenn is a favorite winter sort of spring vegetable. Again, it tends really beautifully if you shave it really thinly and then toss it to a salad with some beautiful naval orange segments. It just they complent each other so lovely. You've got beautiful lamb. You can serve it with. It goes really well with chicken. It's great from roasting as well. You can add it to a casserole sort of in the same way you would celery, but it just gives a different sort of flavor. So you think about fennel. You're looking this week with about two to two dollars fifty.

You mentioned celery. Let's go straight to that thing that is packed with vitamin K.

There's some good value around in celery, and you're right, does have vitamin K and lots of antioxidants. It's sort of really what I call the holy trinity today of celery, carrots. I'm in for flavor in winter where there is a casse rollers super risotto. But you'll find salary this week somewhere between about two and four dollars a bunch, depending on the size of the bunch.

And what about moving to the Lebanese cucumbers, Well.

You know, interesting enough, feel like this time last year Lebanese cucumbers were super expensive. They were very short supplied. This year we're seeing lots of cheap cucumbers, you know, quite late in this season, so you can pick up some really good buyers there for about three to five dollars a kilo. But they're now on the flip side. Tomatoes, which were cheap last year, we are seeing record high prices on tomato and that's because of the Cyclone Alfred that we experienced in February. The delays in planting has just created a little void in terms of volume.

Let's talk about the broccoli, which has identity crisis because it thinks to itself. But I look like a mushroom, but you're not.

Lovely little green trees are super popular broccoli. It's packed with antioxidant. It's a really good one to include in your diet. And this week coming in about five to seven, so it's a little bit higher than it was last week.

Brussel sprouts, plenty.

Of those around, cheap and cheerful. You're looking about four to eight dollars a kilo for brassel sprouts.

Nut's a goodbye and speaking of you know, identity crisis. Am I an egg? Am I a plant?

Or am I both egg plants? Straight out of Queensland. At the moment, I think four to eight dollars is not a bad price for egg plant. You get quite a lot in the quilo. They're good with fire, but are great providing b of course, they're just so versatile. They're like big sponges. It doesn't matter when you use Asian flavors, Mediterranean flavors. Love a good egg plant.

And you can't go past winter without a chestnut's.

Not so just a brilliant thing. You know, we talked about air frys earlier. These, you know, you used have to turn the other and on do them over an open fire. You can actually sort of boiled chestnuts, but I think the air frow is definitely the way to go. It's so fast. You put a cross or a chip or a cut into the chestnut so the steam can release on cooking and cook them at about one eighty for around about twenty to thirty minutes, and chestnuts will be so sweet and nutty and delicious, sort of like sweet potato, they're not sort of like a nut. Try them on their own, then try adding them to pumpkin soup and just see how your pumpkin soup goes to a new level.

That's it. Mashed potatoes, Oh, absolute classic.

We all love mashed potato. You're looking at three to four dollars for a kilo of lovely brush potatoes, which will make great mash. Again, go for the five kilo bag you look gets five to eight dollars, so it's much cheaper per Killer.

And cabbages and colieflowers, yes.

Again winter favorites. Looking at prices somewhere between about four and seven dollars, depending on it's cabbage or coulieflour at the moment. But they'll cold. The weather slows down the growth to these veggies, and so the quality we will be there. It'll be really nice and firm and compact, but they're just taking a little bit longer to grow.

The Jerusalem artichokes, now.

Jerusalemo chokes, if you've never tried them, have the most sort of sweet, nutty flavor they make the most beautiful soup, really really good for you as well, rich in flavor, rich in fiber. Jerusalem chokes will come in around about three to five dollars for a punnet or a bag of about one hundred and fifty to two underground.

And what about kale, Let's wrap it up with that.

I think kales are thrifty five dollar fifty to three dollars, So grab a couple of bunches of that. That's a really good way to go, packed with nutrients, and you know, you can just put in the juices, attitude, salads, you can make kale chips whatever you like.

And what am I going to take home to my wife to stay in the good books this weekend?

Well, if you want to go to something that's quite seasonal and very sweet and you haven't got to buy a really big bunch, there's John Calls around. If you want to go for something really fragrant, there's some stunning freezers. They come in just a range of really lovely colors. And then you've got things like lavender poppies have started and they're so cheerful. So if you want to cheer somebody up, you can't go past giving them a lovely bunch of poppies.

You're cheerful and you waiste cheer us up, so DoD And there are recipes as well on the market's website, aren't there.

There are hundreds of recipes there. So if you look at into something that's world tested, lot lovely and fresh, I'm a little bit different. Head over to Sydney Markets dot com dot au, hit the recipe tablets, start exploring.

Have a great weekend, Sue Dodd, Thank.

You so much. Phil