The Manwich

Manwich

This one is gonna be a quicky because most blokes aren’t overly fussed on details. In short, here is my version of the kind of meal every self respecting Aussie guy should be able to create without looking like a complete pansy.

I made these the other night when some mates came around to play poker, drink whisky, and smoke cigars… Despite the fact that extensive effort actually went into preparing the food, we managed to have just the right balance of meat, alcohol, gambling, and smoke to make sure we stayed out of the “more than likely gay” category normally reserved for guys that can cook (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

The Manwich

  • Steak – the thicker the better
  • Bread – the thicker the better
  • Bacon – the thicker and fattier the better (ok maybe not)
  • Eggs
  • Lebanese Cucumber
  • Cos Lettuce
  • Spiced fruit chutney (I used chilli chutney)
  • Japanese (kewpi) mayonnaise
  • cheeeeese (slices of Jarlsberg are nice, or whatever you got)
  • Onions

Instructions are for wimps of course, but I will humor those of you out there who need a little direction.

Take some nice thick slices of bread. I actually made these twice in a row, the first time around with lebanese bread rolls, and the second time with thick slices from a loaf of soft Italian bread. Whichever kind of bread you use, just made sure you don’t overdo the toasting. I put both into the oven for a little crisping and managed to leave the turkish bread in for too long, meaning the gambling took a back seat to some concentrated chewing to get through the outer shell.

The only other important thing is the steak. The steak must be cooked to perfection. It doesn’t matter so much which cut you use, but it has to be melt in your mouth soft and juicy. I used both a thick rump steak, and a porterhouse steak for my efforts, following my same steak cooking technique for both.

Season the steak well with sea salt (Maldon salt flakes) and cracked pepper, and a generous libation of extra virgin olive oil. Leave it to sit for a little while and then straight into a hot pan. Now is where you need to be careful and not just let it sit there frying itself to a sad dry crisp.

Using your fingers, give the steak a poke and see how much it bounces back to you. I’ve heard two tricks for measuring doneness. First one is to touch your thumb to your forefinger, second finger, and pinky finger, and then touch the palm of your hand next to your thumb. The feeling of your palm as you change fingers from forefinger to pinky, is roughly like the difference between rare and well done.

Gordon Ramsey does a similar test by touching your cheek, chin, and forehead with the tips of your fingers, and equates rare, medium rare, and well done to the softness and bounce of each of those… but if you’ve got a chubby face and/or no chin… you might be in trouble (ala me :|).

So… once your steak is cooked to your level of doneness (which is hopefully between rare and medium rare), take it out and put it on a plate to rest. Resting is absolutely crucial in making sure your steak is as juicy and tender as it can be. The meat needs time to relax and let the juices flow through it. If you cut it up straight away they are all going to drain away and you’ll be left with a dry taudry mess.

When the steak has rested for a good 10 minutes or so, slice it up into lovely pieces, and get the rest of your ingredients ready.

The bacon would best be grilled for crispiness, and the eggs fried however you like them. My trick is to just crack them into a non stick fry pan, add a few tablespoons of water, and put the lid on. Perfect fried eggs in no time at all.

The only other thing to do is caramelise the onions in a fry pan with a couple of tablespoons of raw sugar and a little butter or olive oil.

Cooking done, just assemble all the bits together. My layering went.

Bread (with chilli pickle spread)
Lettuce
Cucumber
Steak
Onions
Bacon
Cheese
Egg
Bread (with japanese mayonnaise)

Now the only challenge left is being manly enough to eat it with your hands without picking bits out… I call that decadence wrapped in bread.

Manwich take 2

Porterhouse Steak with Jerusalem Artichoke Mash

Porterhouse Steak on Jerusalem Artichoke Mash

This one was inspired by another recent trip to Herdsman Fresh, a great place for fresh fruit and veges, and with it’s own built in butchers, baker, and fishmonger, you can always find inspiration for a tasty meal. So after spending a bit of time and a lot more money than I should have… I arrived back home with some deliciously marbled porterhouse steaks (too ugly to put in the window apparently, but perfect for eating), a bag of jerusalem artichokes (which are neither Jewish, nor artichokes, more like yams really)

The rest was simple. A delightful Jerusalem Artichoke mash (I was going to roast them ala Jules, but I was clean out of duck fat… and being a purist, I didn’t want to sully the recipe with my cheap imitation duck fat). Served with a simple salt and pepper seasoned porterhouse steak cooked with a little (lot of) butter. To finish, some super snap peas that have been hanging around my fridge waiting for a stir fry that never eventuated, and my now almost boring because I make it so often red wine jus.

The only thing that I’m really going to be bothered going into is the jerusalem artichoke mash… to cook the artichokes, I simply sliced them really thinly and threw them into a saute pan with a little olive oil and some butter, and cooked away on a medium heat until they were nice and soft. Then into a bowl with a few dollops of double cream, and some salt and pepper, and mash away to your hearts content. If you want really smooth mash, feel free to pass it through a seive a couple of times, or else learn to live with a bit of chunk.

The steaks were cooked to a lovely medium rare, and the jus made by adding red wine, a sliced shallot, a clove of garlic, and some beef stock to the pan juices, before reducing down to a savoury concoction that just coated the back of a spoon.

The sugar snap peas were blanched quickly to keep the lovely texture and crunch, and then it was all arrange rather sloppily onto a plate. Served with a 2004 West Cape Howe Shiraz.

Beautiful.

Hippo Creek African Grill

Lions Kill @ Hippo Creek

This is a semi review, mostly rambling, dramatic re-enactment of a visit I took to Hippo Creek Restaurant in Scarborough quite a while ago. It was previously on another blog that has since ceased to exist, and so it now gets rebirthed into a hopefully more appropriate environment.

Hippo Creek is an African themed restaurant on West Coast Hwy in Scarborough, that is run by some South African people. They have some really interesting meat on the menu, like Ostrich, Buffalo, Crocodile and a whole range of other african inspired dishes, and apparently some of the best steak in town. So being a self confessed meat lover and part time carnivore, I had to check it out.

So Dtm, Mabes, Sharon and I headed down there to see what we could see…

Once we got there I happened to find out that there was a 1Kg T-Bone steak on the menu, and that if I finished it all I would get my photo taken and put on the wall. This is the first restaurant I’d been to where they do that kind of thing (which I thought was normally reserved for Texan Steakhouses with an over supply of beef and no space in the freezer). My competitive instincts kick in, as never one to pass up the chance to show how manly I am by eating large quantities of flesh, I thought… why the hell not…

While ordering the 1kg T-bone, you are strongly advised to order it medium rare, or rare… If you want to be eating it that night. I have no idea how long it would take to cook something that size to well done, but it would be just wrong anyway. I chose medium rare.

In the meantime, Dtm and Sharon ordered this crazy dish called the Hunters Assaghai. Which was basically a huge metal stake with five (count em) fist sized chunks of meat stuck to it suspended over a plate of chips with garlic sauce dripping down it. This was definitely shaping up to be my kind of restaurant.

So the steak arrived and took up basically the entire plate, and was about 2-3 inches thick… It was served with chips that were tasty but uninspired, and salad that didn’t exactly rock my world either. Basically this restaurant is all about the meat. If you don’t like meat, then don’t bother going, because you’re really not going to get your moneys worth. My steak was huge… and I tore into it with all the fervency of a malnourished grisly bear who got left behind at hibernation. Unfortunately however… it wasn’t really a challenge worthy of my ability, and i flew through it… and managed to get through a bit of Sharon’s as well… I also made sure I ate all of my chips and the salad, because I didn’t want to miss out on getting my photo taken on a technicality.

The steak was good. On the outside it was perfectly medium rare, although when i got right into the middle it was very much on the rare side. People who order their steak well done might also be best to avoid this place, it’s not exactly designed for people who get squeemish at the first sign of pinkness.

All in all it was a good night, and although feeling massively bloated, we left feeling very satisfied… I left a “There’s nothing finer than being in your diner…” Seinfeld reference on my photo, which hopefully stay there for a while to come :)

I’ve been back a couple of times since, and it has always been a great night. Definitely one to check out. Take a bottle of big red wine (like a Cab Sav, or a spicy Shiraz), and you’ll be set for a carnivorous experience few restaurants in Perth can rival.

Hippo Creek
251 West Coast Highway
Scarborough, 6019
Tel: (08) 9245 8004

[geo_mashup_map]

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.

Valentines day dinner

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.

What you talkin' bout Witlof ??

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

Valentines day dinner