Steak!

Pretty simple meal tonight, rump steak and brandy mustard cream sauce, with fennel salad and sautéed potatoes.


Rump steak just out of the vacuum bag, it got sealed with olive oil fennel tops, sliced garlic, and thyme. Room-temperature and ready for the pan.


Two items this time saw the vacuum machine. Thinly sliced fennel and onion got vacuumed with grapefruit juice and supremes. It was left for about 20 minutes, by then the fennel and onion had softened.


All gone, very tasty, and glad I have some fennel salad left over.

Shin & Stout

Another meal for one, tonight beef cooked in stout, rich and tasty. The ingredients used are thyme, mustard, stout, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, shallots, onions, beef shin, worcestershire sauce; and mashed potatoes made from sour cream, butter and potatoes(obviously).

Dice up the onion, garlic, and one of the carrots.


Brown the shin on both sides. Remove from the pot. Add the diced carrot and onion and cook until soft and beginning to colour.


Test that the beer is of a suitable quality.


Pour the quality tested beer in to the pot along with a spoon of mustard, the thyme and bay leaves. Reduce. Once it has reduced by half put the beef back in and cook on high pressure for about 20 minutes (or I guess a slow simmer for about 60? if conventional).

While it's cooking, chop the remaining carrot in to bite size pieces, and peel the shallots. Cook the potatoes.

After 20 minutes, and 10 minutes on natural pressure release (or about 5-10 min before the 60 is up) remove the beef and strain the liquid discarding the vegetables. Reduce the liquid (if needed). Add the carrots, shallots and beef back to the pot with the liquid and cook for 4 minutes under pressure.

While it's cooking, mash the potatoes with butter and sour cream, season well.


Serve.


My favorite bit of the shin is the marrow.

What the beans made

The beans I made got pulled out last night and served with some sautéed potatoes and pork sausages.


Tonight I took the last portion of the beans and mixed some corn through it, and heated. I served it in a baked potato with sour cream and jalapeño relish.

Polenta and caramelised onion

A perfect lunch for an overcast, windy, cold day with showers of hail.


Slice the onions thinly. I like to use a mixture of onion and shallot.


Put a little oil in the pan, and put on a medium-low heat.

A couple of tips when it comes to caramelising onions

1. Don't constantly stir them, let them sit, movement will slow the process down.
2. Don't salt your onions, salt inhibits the Maillard reaction (browning).
   
3. Low and slow. It takes longer but is the only way to caramelise onions.

Cook for about 15 minutes on a low heat stirring occasionally. When it looks like they're 3-4 minutes away from being done chuck a teaspoon or so of fennel seed.


Deglaze the pan with some vinegar, and a dash of dijon mustard, and season.


Take your favourite polenta, and cook to their instructions.


I used 125 grams of polenta with 625mls of water. Cook until done, stir through some pesto and butter.


Serve warm with a drizzle of olive oil.

Baked beans

Prepared these last night for tonight's dinner, Beans, pork sausage and sautéed potatoes


Cook and drain your beans (canned is fine). I used pinto beans, and thanks to the pressure cooker they only take 25 minutes. They were cooked with a chili, garlic and bay leaf. Do not add any salt when cooking the beans, as this toughens the skin and inhibits their cooking.


For the sauce, I used 1 onion finely diced, grated garlic clove, 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 3 tbsp molasses, 2 tbsp tomato sauce, bay leaves, sugar (I used palm sugar as i had no brown sugar), cayenne pepper, mustard powder, salt, pepper, and 1 tin of tomatoes.


Pass the tin of tomatoes through a sieve.


Using the pressure cooker again set on sauté (but you could easily do this on the stove), I cooked the onion and garlic till soft but not browned. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook for a minute so the flavours meld.


Add the beans and simmer for a about 5 minutes, till the sauce is reduced to the desired consistency. I put mine back on high pressure for 3 minutes.

Baked egg

Another meal for one, and making the best of what I have handy at home, rather than hitting up the supermarket.


I used some left over ham, spinach from the garden, a good can of tomatoes drained, jalapeños, chipotle (just 1, they can be very hot), shallot, salt and pepper.


Slice spinach and dice the ham, chipotle, jalapeño and shallot. Mix through the drained tomatoes and season.


Place in to a ramekin, and make a well in the centre for the egg.


Crumble some cheese around the top, I used farmhouse cheese, but feta would be good.
Bake at about 220°C for about 20 minutes (depends on the size of the dish).


All gone!

Chipotle related clip

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Monte Cristo

Another quick and easy dinner. I seem to lack a little motivation when I'm only cooking for myself. Ironically I seem to be posting more though.


Everything out and ready to get cooking. So nice champagne ham, good quality bread, the most awesome Dijon mustard I have ever had (If you shop at Thorndon New World, It's on the shelf above the frozen goods, about half way along, and the 2nd best thing is the price, $2.70! It beats out any other I have tried), egg and some brie.

Heat up the oven. And assemble the sandwich, good layer of mustard, ham and brie. I also added some sliced shallot.


In bowl or dish mix up the egg with a little milk, water or wine, I added some paprika, salt and pepper to the mix. Place the sandwich in the egg mix and let each side soak it up.


In a medium (med-low) pan melt a little butter (or a lot), and fry on each side until golden. If the cheese isn't gooey and melting, put it in the oven for a couple of minutes.


Finally, enjoy.

Corn Fritter but not what your mum used to make.

Still cooking for one, and decided to skip the visit to the supermarket on the way home, and instead rely on what was in the pantry. After having a poke around, slightly regretting not stopping for supplies, I managed to find a bag of corn the freezer, and so it was decided, corn fritters it was going to be.


Ingredients out and ready, Chard from the garden, corn, parsley, smoked paprika, shallot, wheat flour and chickpea flour (Gram flour).

Dice up the shallot, and parsley.


In a bowl, mix 1/2 cup each of the flours (1 cup total), salt, pepper, paprika. Then add 1 cup of water and mix well, you want the consistency to be that of double cream.


Mix the diced shallot, parsley and corn to the mix.


In a hot pan (I use a small heavy Cuisinart pan that i got free with my pressure cooker), pour in about a tablespoon of oil, and let it get very hot. Once the oil is ready, ladle in the batter mix, and cook for about 3 minutes each side, and then 30 seconds more on the first side.


I served it up with a ball of the chard cooked with some garlic and butter, diced avocado, and a poached egg (which didn't make it to the photo).

Salt vs Bitterness

I bought up the issue of salt vs bitter in my Salt, Salmon and grapefruit! post. I wasn't sure what was happening to the bitter flavor when you add salt to food. I had a bit of a hunt around and couldn't find a reason why . So I emailed a question to cookingissues, and Dave Arnold answered the question on his show.

Basically the salt alters the way your taste receptors interrupt bitterness (maybe). Go here to listen to the radio show or subscribe to the radio show via podcast.

Chicken and Red Wine

Alone at home for 2 weeks, and I hate preparing meals for one. I over do it for two.

I found a corn-fed free range chicken at the supermarket on the way home, well after spending about 15 minutes staring at the fish and meat and having no idea what i was going to do for myself. Finally I decided on chicken, I figured a quick and easy roast was the best option, plus I'd have left overs for the next night.


I pulled out the cider vinegar and olive oil, when half a bottle of merlot caught my eye. This changed everything. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, I just knew it involved slicing a chicken in half and lots of wine.

Along with the wine I used thyme, paprika (hot and smoked), smoked salt (yes I am obsessed), bacon, onion, salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon, black olives (I really think those tinned 'Pelion' olives are best when roasting), sunchoke, 1/2 a bottle of wine, garlic and lemon zest.

Slice the onions, peel the sunchoke and put in acidulated water (to stop it discolouring), dice bacon, zest lemon, grate the garlic, slice lemon and get a few olives out(10ish). Oh and slice your chicken in half.


Place a pan on a medium heat and pour in a small amount of olive oil and place in the bacon (while pan is still cold, this helps to render out the fat). Wait until you hear a few pops and sizzles and then turn the heat up, wait until the fat has rendered out then add the onions and cook until softened.


Once the onions have softened add the herbs & spices, cook till aromatic.


Add the wine and reduce to about 1/3.


Spread out in a roasting pan and add the lemon slices.


Place the chicken halves on top, and rub in the garlic and lemon zest. Scatter the sunchoke and olives around the chicken. Finally cover with foil and cook at 180°C for about 30-40minutes depending on the size of your bird.


Once the cooking time is up uncover the dish making sure nothing sticks to the foil, place back in the oven for 10-20minutes depending on the size of the bird.


Once the skin is crisp and the bird is cooked, portion, serve, eat.

This is now my go to chicken dish with out a doubt, no longer is it a quick and easy roast with vege. It's falling off the bone tender, juicy, crispy skin, and a sauce that is awesomely rich.

A note on this would be to make sure your lemon is not too acidic or too big, the lemon can kill it, if in doubt use half a lemon.