Pork and Fennel Meatballs

I love meatballs, versatile great little flavour carriers, great on rice, pasta or even in a bread roll, but I’m not talking about those abominations stuffed full of breadcrumbs and egg, no a decent meatball shouldn’t need any binders, get your hands dirty and knead the meat, that's all it should take for the minced protein to bind itself together.

Meatballs
Pork mince (500g)
Fennel bulb, finely diced and frilly fronds added too
Garlic, crushed
Paprika, salt and pepper

Sauce
Passata
Chorizo
Red Onion
Cannellini Beans

Knead the pork, fennel, garlic, paprika and salt together for a couple of minutes and then form meatballs, brown in pan and cook until about 50% done, remove and set aside. In the same pan, saute diced chorizo and red onion until the sausage has given up its fat and the onion has softened, season with some salt pepper and paprika, deglaze with a touch of vinegar and add passata, cook until quite thick and then add the meatballs to the pan, along with any resting juices, as well as a handful of cooked cannellini beans, cover the pan and cook until the meatballs are done. Really nice served on some steamed rice.

Beef Cheeks, new years

We had the horde at our place for new years eve and it was put to me to sort out the non liquid nourishments, I quite frankly had my heart set on revisiting the Dr pepper-miso short ribs that I had dabbled with previously, pretty damn stubbornly I might add too, but with leaving the shopping too late and only one suitable rack of ribs at the store, reluctantly (read: kicking and screaming) I changed my mind and used beef cheeks, so there were a couple of alterations to make, no longer sticky finger licking ribs, it would be unctuous melt in the mouth beef cheeks that had been braised on a bed of peppers, onion, carrot and cilantro roots, served in a tortilla with all the trimmings.

12 Beef Cheeks
1 Can of Dr Pepper (reduced to 125 ml)
2 tsp Miso paste (shiro)
3 Chipotle Chillies
1 tsp Cider vinegar
Coriander Seeds (pulverised)
Splash, dash or glug of oil


Divide the beef cheeks between some zip lock bags. Combine all the other ingredients together in a bowl, check seasoning, then pour into the bags, massage the marinade into the meat, seal and refrigerate overnight.


In a dish large enough to hold the cheeks make a bed of diced red onion, carrots, capsicum and coriander roots (use the leaves as a garnish). Place the cheeks on top of the vegetables and pour over the marinade. Cover with a double layer of tin foil and cook for 5 hours at 130ºC

After 5 hours strain the liquid off and discard the vegetables, add a couple of chipotles to the liquid. Pour the liquid along with the cheeks back into the roasting pan, cover and cook for another 30 minutes.


Remove the cheeks and set aside. Pour the cooking liquid into a pan and reduce until thickened, season. Slice the beef cheeks and set in a serving dish, pour the reduced cooking liquid over. Cover until ready to serve.

We had the cheeks in corn tortillas with a variety of toppings we had assembled around the dish of beefy goodness on the table, made for a fuss free meal, as everyone could pick and mix as they liked.


Also finally managed to crack open my second brew, pleasantly surprised at how good it is, I don’t know how much longer it will last, I’m trying to ration it but I am weak willed. I have another very hoppy bitter IPA on the go and a ginger beer that is very very dry and very very alcoholic (a slight miscalculation).

Fried wings

Wings again! But this time fried not baked, not quite as healthy, but hey you only live once. These are pretty straightforward to make, no faffing about with batters and the like, just marinate the wings in buttermilk, with a few extras, then dredge in a mix of potato starch and flour, and deep fry for a couple of minutes. For an extra spicy twist toss the crunchy cooked wings in some hot chipotle sauce. Devour with a cold beer and crisp cooling coleslaw.

For 500 grams of wings:
250ml Buttermilk
2-3 Chipotles
150g Potato flakes
150g Flour
Salt and Pepper


Blend the chipotles and buttermilk, season well with salt and pepper, stir in the wings, cover and leave in the fridge for a few hours or overnight. Buttermilk is a great tenderiser and will do wonders to the wings.

Blitz the flour and potato flakes in a food processor with some salt and pepper to make a fine powder. Toss the wings in the flour mix, making sure to shake off any excess marinade first, set the coated wings aside ready to cook.


Heat the deep frying oil to 180°C, rice bran is good. Fry the wings in batches until they’re floating on the surface and have an internal temperature of 70°C. The mini ‘drumsticks’ should take 5-10 minutes and the wings 4-7 minutes.

Bread salad with haloumi

Bread salad (Panzanella) is a great way to use a chunk of leftover stale of sourdough bread, it can be as light or a heavy as you want and in this case the simple addition of a couple of slices of fried haloumi elevated the salad to a very tasty meal.

The Salad Components:
Stale Sourdough Bread, large dice
Radish, sliced
Cherry Tomatoes, halved
Cucumber, cored and sliced
Mint, chiffonade
Parsley, finely chopped
Red Chilli, sliced
Black Olives, stoned
Capers (in salt, soaked)

Vinaigrette:
Cider vinegar (1 part)
Dijon mustard
Olive Oil (2–3 parts, depends on how acidic your vinegar is)
Salt (not too much as capers and olives are salty)

Mix all the salad ingredients in a bowl (keeping aside a little mint and chilli to dress), add enough vinaigrette to hydrate the stale bread, and allow it to sit for at least half an hour, you don’t want dry bread.

I like to fry the block of haloumi whole with a little oil over a medium heat on both sides until golden brown and warm all the way through and then slice, but if you prefer slice it first and then fry.

Wine Cocktails

Hot summer days are always a good and easy excuse to get boozy, especially if it is ice cold and does a particularly good job at hiding how potent it is. One such drink that seems to crop up again and again in our household on particularly scorching days is the good old wine cocktail. The quantities below will comfortably fill a two litre jug and keep a small group happy and boozy.

1 Bottle still white wine
1 Bottle sparkling white wine (drier the better IMO)
250 ml Brandy
1 Orange sliced and frozen
1 Peach sliced and frozen
Pomegranate seeds and Strawberries to garnish

It's not rocket science, mix the whole lot together in a jug and then place a couple of sliced strawberries and generous amount of pomegranate seeds in each glass, pour, and oh yeah drink responsibly (no left overs).

Summer Pudding

This recipe was originally created for Urban Harvest, do go check out their website for some great produce and other recipe ideas.

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Summer pudding is a great way to celebrate the abundance of fresh berries we have at this time of year, maybe even a good replacement for the traditional Christmas pud. You can use any mix of berries you want, I’m sure there are purists out there who insist on the traditional bunch of raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and red currants, but I say use what you like, however I think strawberries and raspberries should make a showing. The choice of bread used to line the bowl is important, avoid things like sourdough or supermarket pre-sliced white, use a quality white bread that won't turn to mush, for this recipe I use brioche which is a little more delicate to work with but adds a great richness to the pudding.

2 punnets Raspberries (240g)
1 punnet Blueberries (130g)
1 punnet Strawberries (240g)
200g Boysenberries
1 Brioche loaf (recipe) or good quality white bread
75g Sugar
50ml Water (about 3 tablespoons)
Juice of 1 Lemon

The Berries: Gently rinse and pat dry the berries. Hull the strawberries and slice the larger ones in half or quarters. Heat up the sugar and water in a pan over a medium heat, once dissolved and simmering add all the berries apart from the strawberries, simmer for a couple of minutes, they should remain relatively intact, if in doubt take it off the heat we’re not trying to make jam. Strain the berry mix into a bowl, sample the juice and adjust with lemon juice to taste.

Brioche: Remove the crust from the loaf and slice into 5mm slices, reserve 2 squares one for the base and the other for the top, cut the remaining slices down the middle on a slight angle. You should now have a couple of whole slices and a pile of angled rectangular slices.

Putting it all together: Line a bowl with cling-film, I find using a scrunched up tea towel handy to smooth the cling-film down without the fear of tearing it. Dip the whole slice of brioche in the berry juice and lay on the bottom of the bowl, dip the rectangular slices in the juice and build up vertically around the sides of the bowl, overlapping slightly as you go. Spoon in the strained berries, scattering in the strawberries as you go. Dip the other square slice in juice and place it on top, you may need a couple of offcuts to fill any gaps. Bring up the cling-film over the top and place a plate on top with a can or two to weigh it down, refrigerate overnight. Save any leftover berry juice.

Serve: Remove the plate and unwrap the cling-film, place a serving plate on top and flip over, the pudding should slide out relatively easily, if not just give it a gentle tap. Use the leftover juice to drizzle over the top of the pudding. It’s great on its own, but a good dollop of whipped cream would not go amiss.

Dr Pepper-Miso Marinated Short Ribs

I wish I had got a better photo of these ribs, they were sweet, salty, savoury awesomeness, and devoured too quickly for the pause of a good photo, but hey what are looks, it’s all about the taste right?

Dr Pepper is a guilty pleasure, it’s a excellent cure for a night of overindulgence, which I probably do more than is better for me, but I hadn’t thought to use it as an ingredient in my cooking until the seemingly odd combination of miso and the soda popped into my head. Salty umami laden miso combined with fruity sweet soda paired with some slow cooked rich red meat, it seemed kind of wrong but I couldn’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t work.

1 Rack of short ribs
1 Can of Dr Pepper (reduced to 125 ml)
2 tsp Miso paste (shiro)
½ tsp Chilli flakes
1 tsp Cider vinegar
Splash, dash or glug of oil

Slice the rack part way down the meat between the ribs (or whatever serving size you choose) to allow the marinade to work in a bit deeper.

Combine all the ingredients and check the seasoning, adjusting either with more miso or a dash of salt. Marinade the beef for up to 24 hours.


Slice a red onion, and dice a couple of carrots and place in an oven-proof dish, lay the marinaded beef on top and pour over the remaining marinade. Cover with tinfoil and cook at 140–150°C for 3 hours.

When cooked carefully remove the ribs and set aside, get a heavy baking sheet in the oven and crank up the heat to 220°C, when up to temp place the ribs on the heated pan and cook for 10–15 minutes to give a nice crust, but be careful not to dry out the meat.

While the beef cooks pass the cooked vegetables and any juices through mouli adjust the seasoning and use it as a sauce for the ribs.

Beetroot Tartare

I can’t believe I haven’t posted about these great beets before, I came across the method on Ideas in Food back in January, they took beetroot cooked it until tender and then dehydrated it, not so dehydrated it’s a crisp dry husk but soft, chewy, and sweet. Recently I had been thinking about these beets and what to do with them, I wanted to make a simple dish that really let the flavour of the beetroot shine, but add a couple of complementing flavours, what I ended up with is a ‘tartare’ of beetroot with ewe’s milk feta and rather food geekily olive oil powder*.

Firstly the beetroot needs to be cooked until tender, you can either steam them or as I usually do put them in a casserole dish with a few aromatics and a splash of wine, cover and put in a medium oven until fork tender, 40–60 minutes.

Remove the beetroot from the dish and allow to cool until you can handle them, then peel.


Set the oven to 65°C, or use a dehydrator if you have one. Place beets on a tray in the oven for about 12 hours. Then allow to cool and place in a bag in the fridge to allow the juices to equalise throughout the vegetable and the outer layer to rehydrate.


Finely dice the beetroot and serve a round with some olive oil powder* and ewe’s feta ‘grated’ through a sieve, and maybe a little thyme.

* Olive oil powder is made by blending together Tapioca Maltodextrin (N-Zorbit) with olive oil, then passing through a sieve. Use 1 part N-Zorbit to 3 parts Fat by weight. N-Zorbit is crazy light, 1 litre = 100 grams.

Oeuf en gelée

I had been meaning to try my hand at Oeuf en gelée for a while, usually a poached egg set in a consommé gelée, maybe with a few other ingredients set in there too. A terribly old fashioned idea, foodstuffs set in aspic, a foreign texture, a little odd to begin with, wobbly cold savoury aspic and egg, maybe not to everyone's taste, but worth a try. I do have to admit this initial try was not a total success, I didn’t make my own stock, I clarified it though (egg white raft, but gelatin filtration is good too), and the ratio of gelée to soft boiled egg was a little on the high side, but it’s a good starting point.

Future plans are to find a better container to set the aspic in, make my own stock and rely on it’s own gelatin to set the the dish, although I’m not sure how much would survive the clarification process, I’d imagine none if I chose to do gelatin filtration, and I’m thinking a good ham or bacon hock with a few trotters in there should do the trick, maybe a riff on bacon and eggs? So I’m sure there will be a more indepth post sometime in the future on this dish, hopefully more successful entry.

Distracted Chicken Stew

I’ve been a little slack getting a new post up on here, perhaps it’s because I’m a little preoccupied with all things brewing at the moment. I’ve got a third brew on, and bought a second fermenter, and have finally got to taste the fruits of my labour, brew one got a little taste, not too bad for a first go and kit beer, brew 2 got a taste when I measured its gravity, coming along very nicely and am looking forward to adding even more hops to it in a secondary fermenter. The third brew is a kit cider for the other half, and I’m doing far too much reading on kit I can buy/make and what brew four and five should be, as I’ll end up with two empty fermenters very soon, contemplating the scary thought of an all mash brew.

So with distractions in mind here is one of my main go to meals, something easy to throw together, usually have most of the ingredients in the larder, and is adaptable enough to not suffer if I’m missing a few.

6 Chicken drumsticks, or a whole chicken broken down to 6 or 8 pieces.
Water, stock if you have it.
Tomatoes, a good quality can, or 4 or 5 diced fresh.
Onion, finely diced.
3 Garlic cloves, minced.
1 Lemon, juice and zest.
1 tbsp Cumin, toasted and ground.
1 Red chilli, diced, dried is good in a pinch.
Black Olives, remove stone (I always have a can Pelion Greek black olives on hand).
Capers, in salt please, rinsed.
Thyme.
Salt and pepper.
Pine nuts, if you have them, toasted

Generously brown the chicken over a high heat with a dash of olive oil in a pan big enough to hold all the chicken, I mean seriously get the bird crispy brown. Set the chicken aside and turn the heat down, sautée the onions until translucent, add the garlic, chili and cumin, cook until fragrant. Arrange the chicken in the pan, tuck in thyme sprigs, scatter over the tomatoes, olives, capers and lemon zest, drizzle over the lemon juice, add about a cup of water (or stock), season with pepper (hold off the salt till the end as olive and capers are salty). Cover and cook over a medium low heat until the chicken is almost done, uncover the pot and cook over a medium high heat until the chicken is cooked and the cooking liquid have reduced to a nice thick sauce, adjust the seasoning and serve.