redwine – Page 3 – Abstract Gourmet

Lamb Roast

Roast dinners were my staple when I was growing up. Every Sunday without fail, that magical smell would waft out of the kitchen, lamb, parsnip, pumpkin, potato, peas, carrots, mint sauce, and lots of gravy. We looked forward to it every week, perhaps the one meal we never got tired of (God knows tuna mornay and macaroni cheese had their day).

So this meal was a bit of change to Mum’s original method for cooking a roast. I found a nice leg of lamb at the butchers, and feeling industrious, decided to bone it out and butterfly it myself. A relatively simple procedure, although it’s just as easy to ask the butcher to do it for you.

Once I’d got the bone out, and scored the outside and butterflied the inside… It was all systems go with herbs and spices. A good slosh of nice olive oil and a solid covering of maldon sea salt and cracked pepper, then push as much rosemary as will fit into every little gap you can find. I also made up a spice mix in my funky new mortar and pestle, it was coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, and black peppercorns.

So a coating of the spice mixture went over the seasoned lamb, which was then thrown into a roasting dish and plied with libations of a spicy shiraz I happened to have somehow forgotten to finish.

The flavours were already building, and so into the oven it went to cook on a medium low heat (about 150 C) for around 3 hours or so. A covering of aluminium foil (or aluminum of you’re North American, or tin if you’re from NZ), to keep the heat in and stop it from drying out too quickly, and off to get the veges ready.

Dan and Mabes turned up soon enough, with more lovely Shiraz procured the day before from Sandalford in the Swan Valley, and so we cracked the bottle while we waited for the rest of the vegetables to cook.

I had some really nice Kestrel potatoes that are perfect for roasting. I also had some japanese pumpkin and a nice bulb of fennel.
(I’ve just realised I’m using perhaps the worst adjectives in history here. Why do I keep refering to everything as ‘nice’ ? Hrmm, like you need justification that I haven’t been using rancid vegetables or something… anyway)

So sliced it all up into roastable chunks, onto a roasting dish, did the usual mantra of adding olive oil, salt, pepper, spices, and then into the oven for as long as it takes to get them nice and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside (Actually I cheated and preboiled the potatoes a bit).

The rest was simply waiting and watching and smelling. A glass or two of Shiraz all round and an account of how much effort was involved in getting it, and it was time to dish up.

The lamb was amazing. Lamb is perhaps one of the most luscious comestibles I can think of, when prepared just right. Encrusted with herbs and spices, wallowing in a rich red wine marinade… waiting to soak up every precious little bit of flavour…
The meat was done to a perfect medium… soft delicate and moist. I took the lamb out of the pan and sliced it up, then putting the roasting dish back on the stove top, adding a little cornflour and thickened up the red wine and pan juices to make a delicious gravy.

I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking, but in a word… delicious. A lovely relaxing night with close friends, great wine, and great food.

Peppered Porterhouse on Parnsip Puree (picked a peck of pickled peppers)

Now say that title five times really fast…

Actually, I just realised that although i posted these photos and descriptions to my Flickr page, I didn’t end up writing a post about it here… So a belated Valentines day to all the food lovers out there, because that was when I made this meal.

This meal was… Parsnip Puree, Seared Witlof, Peppered Porterhouse Steak, topped with a red wine, cherry tomato confit.

Ingredients

3 or 4 large parsnips (peeled and sliced thinly)
Butter
Double Cream (200 ml or so)
4 Witlof (aka Belgian Endives)
Red wine (lots of)
1 box Cherry Tomatoes
1 bay leaf
Black Peppercorns (or Pink if you’re being fancy)
Beef/Veal stock
Porterhouse Steak (nice thick cuts)

Directions

Parnsip Puree
Slice the parnsips thinly and sautee them slowly in a pan with lots of butter. They should cook gently and not go too brown or burnt… After around 15 minutes or so they should be getting nice and soft, and starting to fall apart. All this point add the double cream into the mixture and bring to the boil. Let it simmer down for a few minutes before removing from the heat and blending the mixture in a blender. Done !

Peppered Porterhouse
Season the steak by crushing some peppercorns in a mortar and pestle and rubbing it into the steak. Do the same with some good quality sea salt, or ground rock salt and cover with extra virgin olive oil. Leave a while to let it soak in.

When you’re ready to cook the steak, put some butter in a pan and get it nice and hot… searing hot. Then drop the steaks into the pan and seal them on both sides, turning only once. A good poke in the middle of the steak will tell you how cooked it is. Soft and juicy equals rare to medium rare, hard and springy equals well done badness.

Once the steak is almost to the level you’re after, take it off the heat and put them into a preheated often to finish cooking.

Make sure you keep all the pan juices because thats what we’re using for the sauce.

Red Wine/Cherry Tomato Jus
So take the pan you’ve just cooked the steaks in, add some red wine to deglaze, and reduce it down to a syrupy consistencty. Now add the cherry tomotoes (halfed), a bay leaf, some beef/veal stock, and perhaps some pepper. Let this all reduce and watch the juices come out of the cherry tomatoes as they slowly break down into a deliciously sweet jus (pronounced Joo in case you ever see it on a menu and don’t want to embarrass yourself like I once did). Once you’ve got the flavour and consistency you’re happy with, you’re done.

Seared Witlof
The witlof was really simple. It’s a bitter kind of lettuce like vegetable, but adds a really nice edge to a heavy meal, so I simply sliced them in half down the middle, seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little lemon juices, and then seared them under a grill.

Then arrange it all on a plate, drizzle over the sauce, pour some wine, light some candles, and let love work its magic…

Eggplant Pizza with Buffalo Mozzarella

A quiet night in called for a low key dinner solution. I’m very much into dough at the moment. I’m not sure why, I just seem to be going through a dough phase. I get a very calming sensation from just kneading dough until its nice and soft, and the yeast makes it seem alive (which technically, it is).

So this was another home made pizza base consisting of:

500 grams flour
2 or so cups of warm water
1 tablespoon of fresh yeast
1 pinch of salt
2 drizzles of olive oil
1 dollop of honey

Combine dry ingredients, and then gradually add the wet ones and mix it all around until its a big ball of doughy goodness.

Leave it to rise in a covered bowl and then punch the air out it a couple of times, til its really malleable.

Then roll it flat, and you’re good to go.

The topping for this pizza was tomato paste, a nice fat slice of eggplant, some sliced “vine ripened” tomatoes, basil, and buffalo mozzarella.

The mozzarella is great… I’d been looking it for a while since having a Mozzarella di Bufala pizza at Pronto’s a while back, but for ages I couldn’t find it, and was told by the nice ladies in Restore that there was a shortage of it… Fortunately for me the buffalo must have been lactating more recently, and I happened to find some at Herdsman Fresh on my last trip.

Apart from being made from buffalo milk, I’m not sure how its different to boccocini… but I like it nonetheless.

The pizza was paired with a wine from my current favourite winemakers. It’s a 2002 Sangiovese/Merlot from Innocent Bystander. Spicey but delicate, with a fruity aftertaste… something different to try.

All in all a great meal to pass the time on a night where all you’re really doing is waiting to go to bed :)

Batch Scratching Bonanza

My new mate and all round nice guy extraordinairre, Beau, of Basic Juice has graciously linked up my first meagre attempt at a wine review.

Beau is by all accounts a very well versed wine lover, and I’m continually impressed as I dig through his site and find reviews for wines I’d never have imagined anyone else outside of Australia would have heard of. He mixes just the right amount of “actual knowledge” with plenty of raw enthusiasm for the drink that brings so much pleasure to so many.

As Molly Meldrum would say… “Do yourself a favour”, and check him out… Anyone who quotes Dr Seuss poems has got to be onto something :)

I think perhaps I’m getting closer to finding the impetus to do the wine appreciation course I’ve been planning on doing for a while now. But then I’ve been planning on getting my scuba diving licence for a while now too…

Maybe i’ll just keep drinking it for now :)

Red Knot – 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon (A wine post)

Well after being graciously linked up by Beau on his great wine blog, I thought it was about time I put some effort into writing about some of the wine I drink.

So here is the first effort… A lovely looking bottle of South Australian Cabernet Sauvignon that jumped off the shelf at me while on a mission to retrieve cumin seeds, buffalo mozzarella, and limonata from “Re-store” in Leederville.

It’s from a region of South Australia called Fleurieu, which i’d never heard of, and i really liked the label. Plus I’ve been drinking mainly Shiraz/Grenache/Mouverdre blends recently, so I thought it was time to get back to some of the more robust/in your face/full bodied wines that Australia has become famous for.

According to the wine maker, it should be something like this:

Vintage Note:
Dry conditions throughout the year lowered crop yields and produced concentrated and small berry fruit. Perfect ripening conditions from verasion to harvest resulted in wines of incredible flavor and color.

Tasting Note:
Deep Red. Cassis aromas complex with hints of mint and truffle and enhanced with roasted coffee bean and vanilla American and French oak. A full bodied wine with ripe blackberry fruit and a firm tannin structure. Toasty oak enhances the sweet fruit and lingers enticingly.

Source:
Davey Family Vineyard, McLaren Vale
Hindmarsh Valley, Southern Fleurieu

Blend:
100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Bottling:
pH: 3.49
TA: 6.60
ALC: 13.80%

My take on the wine would be definitely a full fruit flavour. Lots of cherry/blackberry flavours hit you in face as soon as you take that first sip, and linger until you’re ready for the next. It’s definitely full bodied. Not the kind of wine that you can drink nonchalantly… It’s big flavoured and makes you sit up and take notice. The subtle nuances and flavours of the wine are lost on me I must admit, and being an avid coffee drinker/roaster, I didn’t pick up on the roasted coffee flavour as desribed in the wine makers notes. I would agree that the sweetness of the wine lingers though… theres not the oaky aftertaste that much of the heavily wooded wines seems to carry with them.

All in all I’d say it’s a great wine, not too complex, but a very enjoyable drink.

I’m also loving my new Reidel ‘O’ series, stemless glassware. I’ve broken many a wine glass stem in my time (I think my record is three in one night), and so these are a breath of fresh air. They also look great, and feel great in the hand, and are just the right shape for swirling and bringing out all those luscious red wine aromas… Now if my uncultured nose could only work out what some of them are, i’d be laughing :)

Red Wine Risotto with Beef & Bok Choy

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 …

Red Wine Braised Venison

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.