Meals i’ve made, possibly with recipes.
I’m not the biggest fan of pork, but occasionally like to dabble with it. This is one of my more successful dabblings.
The only rule i’ve learnt is that honey and pork go well together (i got that mostly from the fact that most pork flavoured snacks also contain some form of honey flavouring). So it must be a match made in heaven… because this was delicious.
Recipe to follow… but for now, note the use of Kipfler potatoes in the salad… tres yummy.
I made this meal tonight. It’s the first heavily savoury risotto i’ve made, and a bloody ripper, even if i do say so myself.
Ingredients:
– Good quality fillet steak (i used rib eye, something nice and juicy preferably)
– Carnaroli rice – higher starch content than arborio rice means creamier risotto.
– Red wine (mine was the 2002 Riverbank Estate Cabernets, my nana bought it for my birthday… what a great nana :) )
– Tomatos (both real and pureed)
– Quality beef stock
– Bok Choy (this is for a change in texture from the rest of the risotto to add some bite)
– Rosemary
– Risotto stuff ( ive made a lot of risotto lately, so i seem to be repeating the same ingredients and steps, basically this means, chopped onion, garlic, and leek, combined in either butter or olive oil, used to coat the rice before adding stock)
So basically you cook it like you’d cook any risotto, except that before you cook the rice, you cut the beef into strips (or chunks should you so desire) and braise it in a combination of red wine, rosemary, garlic and a little beef stock. Then set it aside just as its medium rare.
Continue with the rest of the risotto, creating the base stock out of beef stock, red wine, and rosemary.
When your rice is ready to go, begin adding the stock, stirring when you need to, and towards the end add in the chopped and pureed tomatoes (as many as you like depending on how ‘tomatoey’ you want it). Then when the rice is almost done, add your beef back in, stir it through, and then add the bok choy and let it soften slighty before serving.
What you get is big juicy pieces of steak combined beautifully with succulent and crisp bok choy and tender carnaroli rice.
And yes, my photography skills are not improving… but fortunately my cooking skills are… so whilst it looks kinda ugly, it tasted really good …
Well ok, its not really a salad.
Basically you cut the tomatoes up, crush a few cloves of garlic and roughly chop some fresh basil. Then mix all three together with lashings of olive oil, sea salt, and ground black pepper. Then oven bake or fry until the tomatoes are just soft, and infused with oily/herby goodness.
Then slice some avocado, and try and arrange it all nicely on a place with the tomatoes in the middle.
Voila !
At least it tastes better than it looks…
The salmon was seared for a short time in a hot pan and then transferred into the oven to bake for another 10 minutes.
It was lovely and medium rare all the way through the middle.
mmmmm :)
I bought some venison recently, and decided i’d have a go at cooking it…
The dish consisted of two small venison fillets, braised in a red wine, beef stock, butter, and leek mixture… Cooked until just medium rare.
It was served over a peccorino (sheeps cheese similar in texture to parmesan) and cream mash, and had some rosemary buttered peas and carrots thrown in for some form of nutritional balance.
The peas were fresh organic peas I bought from the cityfarm fruit and vege markets.
I think the venison was still a little tough… but other than that it was all quite tasty.
The wine was a delicious fruity NZ Pinot Noir from Central Otago… Rippon Estate… sublime.
This is another little tip I picked up from the Food & Wine Conversations with Kate Lamont. If anyone reading this is from Perth, I can not highly recommend these events enough. $60 for 6 courses of exquisite food, matched with equally superb wines… then you get a description of each dish as it’s being brought out by Kate herself, and to top it off you get to take home the recipes !
This little trick wasn’t one of the recipes, but did make an appearance as a garnish on the herbed risotto I mentioned earlier.
The concept is simple. You take a large quantity of both extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil.
The more industrious among you may then choose to pulverise your basil in a mortar & pestle, while gradually adding quantities of olive oil.
I however, am a generally lazy cook, and going to the effort of making flavoured olive oil is enough for one day… So i wisely choose to throw a large quantity of fresh basil and olive oil into my blender (kitchen whizz/insert colloquial term here) and completely eviscerate the mixture until its basically turned into sloppy green sludge.
At which point you’re essentially done.
You then take this concoction and put it into a container that can be sealed tightly and store it in the fridge.
The longer you leave the basil leaves in the mixture the more luminous the shade of green of your final product will be, and of course the stronger of the flavour of the basil through the oil.
I left mine in for a day or two, and then poured the mixture out through a strainer to get rid of the pulp, and leave just the oil, at which point it was transferred into an old olive oil bottle i conveniently had lying around.
So there you have it. The whole process of making the oil takes at most a half hour or so. Once its made you can use it as a funky garnish around your plates, or to add a bit of different slant to pasta/potato/salad dishes. The mind boggles at the possibilities.
Enjoy.
This is a simple recipe i came across recently while eating at Lamonts. It was a lot smaller in portion size when i had it there… I seem to have an uncanny knack of making meals a lot bigger than they need to be, but then if it tastes good, i want plenty…
Ingredients:
Risotto
Salmon
Directions
Risotto
Salmon
Enjoy with a nice glass of white wine (perhaps a Semillon).
This is my first recipe post, so please be nice :)
Ingredients:
This isnt really a recipe, more a way of preparing Kangaroo that i think enhances the flavours of the meat. Kangaroo is quite a gamey meat, with strong flavours, and they tie in very nicely with the lime and coriander. The chilli is there just to give it a bit of a kick.
So firstly season your Kangaroo with good extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper… Then chop your coriander roughly, combine it with your chilli and as much lime juice as you… (Say 30ml if you like numbers), and rub the mixture all over the Kangaroo, massaging it into the meat. You can also use this mixture (along with a good dose of olive oil) as a marinade for more intense flavours.
Then once the meat is properly seasoned, drop it onto your hot place and cook to your desired level of completion… ( Which should always be medium rare :) )
While you’re doing all that, you will have cut your potato and sweet potato into thin slices and laid them on a roasting tray.
Cover them with olive oil (and optionally some crushed dried herbs like coriander seeds, fennel seeds) and salt and pepper, and roast them in the oven until nice and crispy.
Once the vegetables are cooked and the kangaroo done (and has been left to rest), serve the mixture up, placing your vegetables in a stack on top of a small bed of baby spinach (or roquette).
Slice the kangaroo fillets into elegant little portions and lay them on top. Pour the delicious limey/chilli pan juices over the meat.
Now sit down and enjoy with a nice glass of full bodied red wine. I’d suggest an Australian Shiraz.
Bon Appétit !