Quick Cabbage Pickle

Crumbed beef with quick pickle cabbage and smoked cheddar.

A quick pickle for a quick post. I’m not sure where this year has gone, it’s May already and the little lad is almost one! Perhaps it’s because there hasn’t really been a shift in the weather, still sitting close to the 20s most days, but looking out the window now it seems that might change, with the deluge causing havoc on poor Wellingtons drainage.

Anyway, I digress, cabbage is great, pickled cabbage is better, fiery hot funky fermented cabbage is off the hook, slaw is so blah, so what do you do when you have cabbage, don’t have time to really get it off it’s rocker and don’t want to stoop to boring boring slaw? Quick pickle it! You may need to adjust the salt and sugar levels, it will taste salt after you've mixed it, but when finished you'll be loosing most of that salt in liquid anyway, up the chilli if you like it hot.


1 Quarter of a savoy cabbage
1 tbsp Sugar
1 tbsp Kosher salt
1 tsp chilli

• Dump the sugar, salt and chilli into a bowl, mix together.
• Core and slice the cabbage into thin strips, put in the bowl.
• Massage the cabbage into the salt mix, knead and squeeze for a couple of minutes.
• Place a plate on the cabbage and weigh down, leave at room temperature for half an hour or so.
• Squeeze all of the liquid out of the cabbage and transfer to a container. It’s ready to eat now and will keep a few days in the fridge.

Ramen

Alkaline noodles

400g Flour
200ml Water
12 g Baked Soda*

• Dissolve the Baked soda in half the water (warm) then add the other half (cold). 
• Add the flour and knead for 5 minutes, it’s tough work rather like kneading a brick. 
• Wrap in cling-film, leave for 20 minutes at room temp. 
• Knead for another 5 minutes, it’s a little less brick like but still damn hard work. 
• Re-wrap and place in the fridge for at least an hour. 
• Cut into 5 portions and run through a pasta machine getting it down to the 2nd thinnest setting.
• Either slice by hand or run through the fine cutter.

Cook for 2–3 minutes in plenty of salted water and give a quick rinse in cold water once cooked.


*Cook baking soda in a 120ºC oven for an hour.

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Pork Cheek

Pork Cheek
Ginger
Garlic
Chilli flakes
Katsuobushi
Oyster sauce
Cider vinegar
Soy sauce
Water
Tamarind
Rice wine
Fennel
Red onion
Celery
Apple
Parsley
Star anise
Bay

• Heat a heavy based oven proof dish over a medium high heat, brown the cheek all over.
• Add the vegetables, large dice, and all the liquids & spices, add enough water to almost cover everything. Place on a lid and braise for 2.5 hours at 130ºC.
• Cool, remove meat and refrigerate in a tight fitting container with some of the cooking liquid.
• Strain the remaining cooking liquid and refrigerate, when cooled the fat will solidify on the top, use this to crisp up the sliced pork cheek.

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Dashi

• Put 3 Litres of water in a pot, add 4-5 six inch pieces of kombu to the pot, bring to the boil cover and turn off the heat, leave it for an hour. 
• Add a packet of dried shiitake mushrooms, simmer for 30 minutes. 
• Scoop off the mushrooms and put in a container, cover with soy sauce, cool and place in the fridge (soy pickled shiitake). 


• Add a good portion of katsuobushi, about 1 cup heaped, simmer for about 30 minutes. 
• Strain, cool and refrigerate until ready to use.

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Soup base

Add a 50/50 mix of Dashi and pork cheek cooking liquid to a pot and bring to a simmer, adjust seasoning with vinegar, chilli flakes and salt.

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13 minute egg

• Bring a pot of water to 75°C, using a large volume of water will make maintaining a constant temperature easier. 
• Place eggs into the water and cook for 13 minutes, don’t use eggs straight from the fridge. Transfer the eggs to an ice bath to cool. 
• Reheat the eggs at 60°C for 10 minutes (run under the hot tap), or store in the fridge for up to 2 days. 
• Crack around the fat end of the egg, remove the shell and pour the egg out.

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Build the bowl
Add the cooked noodles to the bowl and lay on slices of the pork cheek, either sliced thinly cold or sliced thicker and grill to give it a nice caramelised side and warm through, pickled vegetables (ginger, daikon), soy pickled shiitake, chilli flakes or fresh slices, scallions, nori sheets and 13 minute eggs, up to you really. Gently pour over the soup base.

Pickled onions

Pickled onions are really easy to make, they just take a little time and patience.

Start off by putting a pot of water on to boil, trim the top and base of some pickling onions (or shallots) making sure not to cut off too much, and finally sterilising your jars.


Pour the boiling water over then onions and let them stand for a minute or two. Drain and peel the skin off. Don't let the onions sit for too long in the water.


Pack the onions in a jar and sprinkle over a spoon of sugar, top with cold water, seal and store for 24 hours in the fridge.


The next day thoroughly rinse the onions.


Assemble your spices. The mix you use is entirely up to you, some of the classics are bay leaf, cinnamon, chilli flakes, cloves, all spice, star anise, mustard seeds, ginger and cumin. Or just use a pack of pickling spices (which are great to use when cooking corned beef).

I went for a mix of coriander, bay, mustard seeds, a dried chilli, cloves, and all spice.


Evenly distribute the spices amongst the onions, fill the jar three quarters with malt vinegar, top off with cold water. Seal the jar and store in a cool dark place for at least a month before eating.

Quick red pickle

As I mentioned in the bone marrow post, I served it with some pickled red onions and promised the recipe. Well here it is finally.


Slice up enough red onions to fill the jar you're going to use.


Sterilise your jar and then stuff the onion in to it.

I use the ratio of 3 cups of vinegar (I prefer cider) to 1 cup of sugar for the pickling liquid. So in a pot put enough vinegar to fill the rest of the jar up (and appropriate amount of sugar) with some spices. Bring to the boil and let it simmer for a couple of minutes.

The spices are really up to you, but I like to use some classics like Bay leaf, cinnamon, chilli flakes, cloves, all spice, star anise, mustard seeds, ginger and cumin.


For this batch I chose chilli flakes, cloves, mustard seeds, coriander and bay leaf .


Fill the Jar up with the liquid, tip it over and tap the top to release any air bubbles.


Let it cool down to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least 12 hours before eating. It will store for about a month.

Congee

Congee with pickled ginger, chilli, carrot, garlic, onion; crispy black pudding, smoked mackerel and scallions, finished with a few drops of sesame oil.

I made the congee in the pressure cooker, as it was quite late and I didn't have the time to simmer rice for hours on end. I used 1 cup of rice and 6 cups of water with a bit of seasoning and cooked on high pressure for 22 minutes. Most recipes I've seen use a higher ratio of water, but I figured as the pressure cooker is a closed system I wouldn't loose any liquid to evaporation so should use less liquid.


Very thin slices of ginger, carrot, garlic and onion, pickling in cider vinegar with a sprinkle of sugar.


Crispy salty chunks of fried black pudding.

Nachos

Instead of chucking a whole lot of stuff in with the beef when making chilli for nachos, I prefer to have lots of accompaniments so you can choose with each bite what you want. Pictured above are corn chips with chilli beef, avocado (dressed with lemon and fresh coriander), confit of capsicum, pickled red and green jalapeno pepper and pickled carrot, oh and a bit of a sprinkle of cheese straight on the chilli beef.


Confit of capsicum
Blister and char a capsicum, you can do this either under a grill or over an open flame.


Place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, leave for about 5 minutes and scrape of the charred skin.


Slice in to strips, arrange in a baking dish with some garlic, crushed coriander seeds and a bay leaf, pour in enough oil to cover and cook at 130ºC for about 40 minutes.


Quick pickled carrot
Either by hand or with a handy mandoline julienne a carrot.


I find a zip lock bag is best for a quick pickled as you can massage the ingredients together. Combine the carrot, thin slices of onion, grated garlic, vinegar, sugar and salt. Massage together and set aside.


Chili beef
I'm sure everyone has their own version of chilli so I wont bore you with a long recipe.

Very finely dice an onion and soften in a pan, add coriander, cumin, chilli, garlic, salt and pepper. Cook until fragrant, try not to colour the onion too much. Deglaze the pan with a little vinegar. Add minced beef and cook until brown, tip off any excess fat if you wish. Squirt in a bit of tomato paste and cook down. Pour in enough passata (or tomato purée) to cover and simmer until thick. Stir in some chopped coriander and parsley. Adjust seasoning.


Keep an eye out for La Morena products at your local shop, they're very good.