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Items tagged "Winter":

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    Because sometimes there’s an itch you just have to scratch. Spaghetti Bolognese using @greenvalefarm pork & @Warialdabeef, home canned tomatoes and my own passata, homegrown herbs, onion and organic pasta. Simple, uncomplicated, basic magic. (Taken with Instagram)

    Because sometimes there’s an itch you just have to scratch. Spaghetti Bolognese using @greenvalefarm pork & @Warialdabeef, home canned tomatoes and my own passata, homegrown herbs, onion and organic pasta. Simple, uncomplicated, basic magic. (Taken with Instagram)

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    #homecooked#slow food#pasta#Greenvale Farm pork#white plate#Winter#warialda beef

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Sep 3, 2012 (a Monday)
    time:
    1:17:59 (8 months ago)

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    Even butch salami, cheese, olive, onion & Harissa pizzas get the leafy green treatment at my house. The salami is from Warialda Belted Galloway Beef, the passata made in summer from heirloom tomatoes and bottled, the greens and herbs are plucked from my courtyard. I make the dough myself and prove it for 24 hours. Three slices of this and I’m full. (Taken with Instagram)

    Even butch salami, cheese, olive, onion & Harissa pizzas get the leafy green treatment at my house. The salami is from Warialda Belted Galloway Beef, the passata made in summer from heirloom tomatoes and bottled, the greens and herbs are plucked from my courtyard. I make the dough myself and prove it for 24 hours. Three slices of this and I’m full. (Taken with Instagram)

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    #homecooked#slow food#pizza#Winter#Warialda Beef

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Sep 3, 2012 (a Monday)
    time:
    1:16:57 (8 months ago)

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    Not pretty but definitely delicious. Huon smoked salmon, homegrown greens, radish, fennel, daikon, blood orange and Schulz Organic feta. Now THAT’S a salad! LOL (Taken with Instagram)

    Not pretty but definitely delicious. Huon smoked salmon, homegrown greens, radish, fennel, daikon, blood orange and Schulz Organic feta. Now THAT’S a salad! LOL (Taken with Instagram)

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    #homecooked#slow food#winter#seafood#salad

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Sep 3, 2012 (a Monday)
    time:
    1:15:53 (8 months ago)

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    Bao-wow-wow! Sticky chipotle pork in a steamed bun. Smoky, spicy and luscious, served with steamed garlic shoots. More like Granny Noshtalgia than ‘Dude Food’, as the pork came from a hock, and small gelatinous Greenvale Farm maple basted trotters provided the sticky texture. Another adventure into simple, economical and resourceful eating, old school style. (Taken with Instagram)

    Bao-wow-wow! Sticky chipotle pork in a steamed bun. Smoky, spicy and luscious, served with steamed garlic shoots.

    More like Granny Noshtalgia than ‘Dude Food’, as the pork came from a hock, and small gelatinous Greenvale Farm maple basted trotters provided the sticky texture.

    Another adventure into simple, economical and resourceful eating, old school style.

    (Taken with Instagram)

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    #Greenvale Farm pork#homecooked#slow food#sandwich#offal#Winter

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Sep 3, 2012 (a Monday)
    time:
    1:15:30 (8 months ago)

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    Old school Aussie style homemade lemon curd slice with a coconut crust. It’s the kind of thing my Nana used to bake, but I was never allowed to eat as a child. Now I’m exploring these old recipes again. It has a wholemeal base and I filled it with a layer of homemade lemon curd. I think my Grandpa would have loved it with one of his usual strong, sugary cups of black tea, looking out over his vegie patch.

    Old school Aussie style homemade lemon curd slice with a coconut crust. It’s the kind of thing my Nana used to bake, but I was never allowed to eat as a child. Now I’m exploring these old recipes again.

    It has a wholemeal base and I filled it with a layer of homemade lemon curd. I think my Grandpa would have loved it with one of his usual strong, sugary cups of black tea, looking out over his vegie patch.

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    Tags

    #homecooked#slow food#baked#cake#noshtalgia#Winter#lemon#homecooking

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Sep 3, 2012 (a Monday)
    time:
    1:13:43 (8 months ago)

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    The @Warialdabeef Girello challenge Part 2. Katsu Kari Don. How to. A few days ago I posted about how Farmer Alan Snaith challenged me to cook his Warialda Belted Galloway Beef Girello without roasting it. On that occasion I made spicy hot Char Kway Teow noodles. With this post I want to show you that buying ethically raised meat can seem more expensive than supermarket meat, but is actually tastier and economical if you know how to get the most from it. In this case I can make three different meals to feed four adults from just one standard piece of rare breed Girello. So this is the second meal - how I used the Girello to make a popular Japanese dish, Katsu (fried cutlet) Bifu (beef) Kari (curry) Don (rice). Consisting of tender, crisp beef schnitzel and a soft, vaguely sweet curry that was originally introduced to Japan by the Portuguese, and was once only served in their Western style restaurants. Now Katsu Kari is an everyday favourite. This is an all in one bowl dish, which can be served with steamed or blanched greens/broccoli to round it out for healthy, balanced vegie content. Or you could add shaved raw daikon or pickled mustard greens. I learned to make it years ago by watching my Japanese former housemate Hitomi cook it. Most cheap and cheerful Japanese restaurants would use pork cutlets instead and some, along with most Japanese home cooks, cheat by using S&B’s Golden curry cubes, available at Asian grocers. Using the prepackaged of course makes it come together faster but I’ll give you an alternative if you can’t get it locally. But back to the meat. Schnitzel is one of the last things that people think of for Girello because it’s perceived as tough meat. But schnitzeling - beating meat thin - relaxes the muscle, tenderizing it. This process is also a great way to literally get more bang for your buck, spreading a little a long way. To begin I cut thin slices from the thick end of the Girello. The colder the meat is, the easier it is to slice thinly. One slice for women and one and a half for a man should be enough, with extra curry and veg for the guys. With European style schnitzel you bash a typical thick cutlet with a tenderizer or blunt edge of a heavy knife until it is very thin. In this instance you have a thin slice that relaxes by coming to room temperature, which can then be stretched thinner by pressing outwards with the back of a fork. You’re not making a pub Parma so you needn’t stretch too far. Next comes dredging. Beat a couple of eggs and dip the schnitzels into it and then into flour. I use potato starch as it seems to give a crisper finish but plain flour will do. Then dip the schnitzels back into the egg and then into a dish or tray of crumbs seasoned with salt and white pepper. You may need to press the meat down firmly to pick up the crumbs. For an authentic result use Japanese panko crumbs. Mostly these are available dried so spray with a little water to rehydrate. To keep costs down, make your own crumbs by putting discarded crusts from the ends of loaves of bread in the blender until ground fine. If you want a thick crisp crust, dredge twice in the crumbs. Then place your schnitzels on a plate in the fridge while you make the curry. It’s important to set your crumbed crust by chilling the meat. For the curry I roughly cut up a couple of potatoes, a medium sized carrot and a third of a daikon into chunks and steamed them. You could also cook them in the curry but their texture will become sloppier. If you’re not using the instant curry sauce it is simply a matter of making a roux - add 2 and a half tablespoons of flour with a couple of teaspoons of your favourite curry powder to 30g of melted butter and combine over low heat. More curry powder can be added to taste later. Then you thin out the paste with stock or water and cook out the flour until you have a thick, opaque sauce. My friend Hitomi added a little apple juice to create the soft background sweetness but a little brown sugar will do the trick. She would then fry up a handful of minced meat and diced onions, which she would add to the curry sauce. Her cheat version was to crumble in a hamburger patty, but while the onion is mandatory, the extra meat is optional. Then fry your schnitzels. The tradition is to quickly deep fry, though shallow frying in a cast iron pan is just as good. The secret to crispness is double frying and the key to tenderness is resting. So when they are a pale gold, take them out of the oil and drain them on a cake rack. This stops them from going soft or steamy. Leave them to rest while you add your steamed veggies to the curry sauce and blanch some greens. Return the schnitzels to the hot oil until golden brown and then drain of oil again on the rack. Serve up steamed rice Into bowls - Japanese rice is short grain Koshihikari which is slightly sticky so it is common to mix a couple of tablespoons of Japanese rice vinegar with a tiny bit of sugar into the cooked grains to separate them. My trick is to press the rice into a small Chinese rice bowl then upturn it into a bigger bowl so it sits up domed. Serve up the curry with the rice and place your greens on top. Then cut your crisp, tender schnitzels into strips before placing on top. It’s up to you whether you mix it all up to eat it. I like to keep the crispy bits from getting soggy, but that’s just me. Mr Sticki licks the bowl clean.

    The @Warialdabeef Girello challenge Part 2. Katsu Kari Don. How to.

    A few days ago I posted about how Farmer Alan Snaith challenged me to cook his Warialda Belted Galloway Beef Girello without roasting it. On that occasion I made spicy hot Char Kway Teow noodles.

    With this post I want to show you that buying ethically raised meat can seem more expensive than supermarket meat, but is actually tastier and economical if you know how to get the most from it. In this case I can make three different meals to feed four adults from just one standard piece of rare breed Girello.

    So this is the second meal - how I used the Girello to make a popular Japanese dish, Katsu (fried cutlet) Bifu (beef) Kari (curry) Don (rice).

    Consisting of tender, crisp beef schnitzel and a soft, vaguely sweet curry that was originally introduced to Japan by the Portuguese, and was once only served in their Western style restaurants. Now Katsu Kari is an everyday favourite.

    This is an all in one bowl dish, which can be served with steamed or blanched greens/broccoli to round it out for healthy, balanced vegie content. Or you could add shaved raw daikon or pickled mustard greens.

    I learned to make it years ago by watching my Japanese former housemate Hitomi cook it. Most cheap and cheerful Japanese restaurants would use pork cutlets instead and some, along with most Japanese home cooks, cheat by using S&B’s Golden curry cubes, available at Asian grocers. Using the prepackaged of course makes it come together faster but I’ll give you an alternative if you can’t get it locally.

    But back to the meat. Schnitzel is one of the last things that people think of for Girello because it’s perceived as tough meat. But schnitzeling - beating meat thin - relaxes the muscle, tenderizing it. This process is also a great way to literally get more bang for your buck, spreading a little a long way.

    To begin I cut thin slices from the thick end of the Girello. The colder the meat is, the easier it is to slice thinly. One slice for women and one and a half for a man should be enough, with extra curry and veg for the guys.

    With European style schnitzel you bash a typical thick cutlet with a tenderizer or blunt edge of a heavy knife until it is very thin. In this instance you have a thin slice that relaxes by coming to room temperature, which can then be stretched thinner by pressing outwards with the back of a fork. You’re not making a pub Parma so you needn’t stretch too far.

    Next comes dredging. Beat a couple of eggs and dip the schnitzels into it and then into flour. I use potato starch as it seems to give a crisper finish but plain flour will do.

    Then dip the schnitzels back into the egg and then into a dish or tray of crumbs seasoned with salt and white pepper. You may need to press the meat down firmly to pick up the crumbs.

    For an authentic result use Japanese panko crumbs. Mostly these are available dried so spray with a little water to rehydrate. To keep costs down, make your own crumbs by putting discarded crusts from the ends of loaves of bread in the blender until ground fine.

    If you want a thick crisp crust, dredge twice in the crumbs. Then place your schnitzels on a plate in the fridge while you make the curry. It’s important to set your crumbed crust by chilling the meat.

    For the curry I roughly cut up a couple of potatoes, a medium sized carrot and a third of a daikon into chunks and steamed them. You could also cook them in the curry but their texture will become sloppier.

    If you’re not using the instant curry sauce it is simply a matter of making a roux - add 2 and a half tablespoons of flour with a couple of teaspoons of your favourite curry powder to 30g of melted butter and combine over low heat. More curry powder can be added to taste later. Then you thin out the paste with stock or water and cook out the flour until you have a thick, opaque sauce.

    My friend Hitomi added a little apple juice to create the soft background sweetness but a little brown sugar will do the trick. She would then fry up a handful of minced meat and diced onions, which she would add to the curry sauce. Her cheat version was to crumble in a hamburger patty, but while the onion is mandatory, the extra meat is optional.

    Then fry your schnitzels. The tradition is to quickly deep fry, though shallow frying in a cast iron pan is just as good. The secret to crispness is double frying and the key to tenderness is resting. So when they are a pale gold, take them out of the oil and drain them on a cake rack. This stops them from going soft or steamy. Leave them to rest while you add your steamed veggies to the curry sauce and blanch some greens.

    Return the schnitzels to the hot oil until golden brown and then drain of oil again on the rack.

    Serve up steamed rice Into bowls - Japanese rice is short grain Koshihikari which is slightly sticky so it is common to mix a couple of tablespoons of Japanese rice vinegar with a tiny bit of sugar into the cooked grains to separate them. My trick is to press the rice into a small Chinese rice bowl then upturn it into a bigger bowl so it sits up domed.

    Serve up the curry with the rice and place your greens on top. Then cut your crisp, tender schnitzels into strips before placing on top. It’s up to you whether you mix it all up to eat it. I like to keep the crispy bits from getting soggy, but that’s just me. Mr Sticki licks the bowl clean.

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    Tags

    #homecooked#slow food#Asian food#Japanese food#Winter#recipe#Warialda Beef Girello Challenge#Warialda Beef

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Aug 27, 2012 (a Monday)
    time:
    2:55:02 (8 months ago)

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    Another Chinese homecooked meal. Wor Ba - crisp sizzling puffed rice cakes with a hot and sour sauce. I opted not to deep fry the rice cakes as per the tradition, in order to keep the dish lean. But instead puffed the rice in the oven. When they’re hot and the sauce is poured on they sizzle and crackle. It captured my imagination as a child and now eat it with a deep sense of noshtalgia. In the spicy tomato based sauce is smoky pork stock, Chinese red vinegar, Cha Sui, prawns, shitake, tofu, preserved vegetables, garlic shoots, chilli and seasonings. On the side, blanched choi sum.

    Another Chinese homecooked meal. Wor Ba - crisp sizzling puffed rice cakes with a hot and sour sauce.

    I opted not to deep fry the rice cakes as per the tradition, in order to keep the dish lean. But instead puffed the rice in the oven. When they’re hot and the sauce is poured on they sizzle and crackle. It captured my imagination as a child and now eat it with a deep sense of noshtalgia.

    In the spicy tomato based sauce is smoky pork stock, Chinese red vinegar, Cha Sui, prawns, shitake, tofu, preserved vegetables, garlic shoots, chilli and seasonings. On the side, blanched choi sum.

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    Tags

    #homecooked#slow food#Asian food#Chinese food#Winter#white plate

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Aug 26, 2012 (a Sunday)
    time:
    5:11:04 (8 months ago)

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    Seasonal eating: homegrown salad leaves, farmer direct egg, fennel, Greenvale Farm jowl bacon & citrus. Smoky, sharp, rich, sweet, sour and slightly bitter. The freshly picked leaves included sorrel, baby chard, red mustard, red mizuna, watercress, oak leaf, rocket, beetroot, nasturtium, parsley, oregano and Greek basil flowers. All are grown in my courtyard garden in pots as well as discarded styrene fish boxes. They are fertilized with worm castings produced from my kitchen scraps, no pesticides are used. As heirloom plants, not made infertile by Monsanto, I can save seeds and let some self sow again. It’s the perfect biodynamic cycle. (Taken with Instagram)

    Seasonal eating: homegrown salad leaves, farmer direct egg, fennel, Greenvale Farm jowl bacon & citrus. Smoky, sharp, rich, sweet, sour and slightly bitter.

    The freshly picked leaves included sorrel, baby chard, red mustard, red mizuna, watercress, oak leaf, rocket, beetroot, nasturtium, parsley, oregano and Greek basil flowers.

    All are grown in my courtyard garden in pots as well as discarded styrene fish boxes. They are fertilized with worm castings produced from my kitchen scraps, no pesticides are used. As heirloom plants, not made infertile by Monsanto, I can save seeds and let some self sow again. It’s the perfect biodynamic cycle.

    (Taken with Instagram)

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    Tags

    #homecooked#slow food#salad#Winter#homegrown#Greenvale Farm pork

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Aug 18, 2012 (a Saturday)
    time:
    8:20:52 (9 months ago)

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    Spaghetti carbonara made with farmer direct produce is the tastiest meal you’ll make with just five core ingredients. But this one was exceptional because I used Greenvale Farm’s jowl bacon which has a smoky umami quality and a dense grain making only a fraction of the usual amount of bacon necessary to fill the dish with a heady flavour and smell. They say Carbonara is a Roman dish named for a political group the Carbonieri. Traditionally guanciale - cheek and jowl bacon is used. So for two of us I chopped up three pieces of the bacon and added a few tiny cubes of smoked trotter meat and cooked them in a cast iron skillet over low heat. It is important to use the bacon fat as it is where much of the flavour is. I find it is also fundamental to the chemistry and doesn’t make the dish at all oily if the technique is done correctly. When the bacon was browned and the pan oily, half an onion, finely diced, was added. This takes up some of the fat. When the onion was softened I deglazed the pan with the starchy water used to cook the spaghetti. I added the cooked spaghetti to the skillet and stirred in a couple of tablespoons of densely silky Schulz Organic cream and two more spoons of starchy water to coat the strands. Once incorporated and still on low heat I poured in three fresh, heavy farmers market eggs that had been beaten in a small jug before adding. I raised the heat slightly and kept moving the pasta until it was coated with cooked egg. Then it was seasoned with white pepper. Salt wasn’t necessary as there was sufficient in the bacon cure. This gorgeous pasta dish didn’t need parmesan - that would have been overkill to a perfectly balanced dish. Garnished with parsley and dill, second helpings beckoned and were irresistible. Mr Sticki had four helpings.

    Spaghetti carbonara made with farmer direct produce is the tastiest meal you’ll make with just five core ingredients.

    But this one was exceptional because I used Greenvale Farm’s jowl bacon which has a smoky umami quality and a dense grain making only a fraction of the usual amount of bacon necessary to fill the dish with a heady flavour and smell.

    They say Carbonara is a Roman dish named for a political group the Carbonieri. Traditionally guanciale - cheek and jowl bacon is used.

    So for two of us I chopped up three pieces of the bacon and added a few tiny cubes of smoked trotter meat and cooked them in a cast iron skillet over low heat. It is important to use the bacon fat as it is where much of the flavour is. I find it is also fundamental to the chemistry and doesn’t make the dish at all oily if the technique is done correctly.

    When the bacon was browned and the pan oily, half an onion, finely diced, was added. This takes up some of the fat. When the onion was softened I deglazed the pan with the starchy water used to cook the spaghetti.

    I added the cooked spaghetti to the skillet and stirred in a couple of tablespoons of densely silky Schulz Organic cream and two more spoons of starchy water to coat the strands.

    Once incorporated and still on low heat I poured in three fresh, heavy farmers market eggs that had been beaten in a small jug before adding. I raised the heat slightly and kept moving the pasta until it was coated with cooked egg. Then it was seasoned with white pepper. Salt wasn’t necessary as there was sufficient in the bacon cure.

    This gorgeous pasta dish didn’t need parmesan - that would have been overkill to a perfectly balanced dish. Garnished with parsley and dill, second helpings beckoned and were irresistible. Mr Sticki had four helpings.

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    Tags

    #Greenvale Farm pork#Schulz Organic Dairy#homecooked#slow food#Winter#noodles#pasta#eggs

    Info

    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Aug 10, 2012 (a Friday)
    time:
    2:48:28 (9 months ago)

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    A sausage roll but possibly unlike any you’ve eaten. Venison in butter puff. My Dad used to make old school sausage rolls - the William Angliss school recipe using commercial bakers margarine as the base to the pastry. They’re the type you find in Aussie bakeries, containing some mince but heaps of fine grade fatty industrial sausage meat. His tasted fantastic but are pure junk food that sometimes left an oily film around your mouth, making ketchup necessary to melt the fat and ease the bloating. But this one is different. My sausage roll uses Patersons Pastry butter puff pastry and my filling includes lean Hartdale Park venison, Gypsy Pig bacon, purple heirloom carrots, homegrown herbs, seasonings, a handful of sourdough crumbs and some onion. All natural, quality ingredients, locally sourced. On the top are flavour bombs of rock salt, sesame seeds and rosemary leaves. Served with my own homemade heirloom tomato relish it was neither greasy nor bloating. The meat wasn’t dense or heavy but was quite filling, wrapped in it’s pastry coat. The final verdict? Delicious, as it should be. *The Hartdale Park Venison and Paterson’s Pastry were purchased at Veg Out Farmers Market, held on the first Saturday of the month at The Peanut Farm oval, St.Kilda. The purple carrots and Gypsy Pig bacon came from Gasworks Arts Park Farmers Market in Albert Park, held on the third Saturday of the month. The crumbs came from my own sourdough bread using locally sourced wholewheat flours from Rita’s at South Melbourne Market.

    A sausage roll but possibly unlike any you’ve eaten. Venison in butter puff.

    My Dad used to make old school sausage rolls - the William Angliss school recipe using commercial bakers margarine as the base to the pastry. They’re the type you find in Aussie bakeries, containing some mince but heaps of fine grade fatty industrial sausage meat. His tasted fantastic but are pure junk food that sometimes left an oily film around your mouth, making ketchup necessary to melt the fat and ease the bloating.

    But this one is different. My sausage roll uses Patersons Pastry butter puff pastry and my filling includes lean Hartdale Park venison, Gypsy Pig bacon, purple heirloom carrots, homegrown herbs, seasonings, a handful of sourdough crumbs and some onion. All natural, quality ingredients, locally sourced.

    On the top are flavour bombs of rock salt, sesame seeds and rosemary leaves. Served with my own homemade heirloom tomato relish it was neither greasy nor bloating. The meat wasn’t dense or heavy but was quite filling, wrapped in it’s pastry coat. The final verdict? Delicious, as it should be.

    *The Hartdale Park Venison and Paterson’s Pastry were purchased at Veg Out Farmers Market, held on the first Saturday of the month at The Peanut Farm oval, St.Kilda. The purple carrots and Gypsy Pig bacon came from Gasworks Arts Park Farmers Market in Albert Park, held on the third Saturday of the month. The crumbs came from my own sourdough bread using locally sourced wholewheat flours from Rita’s at South Melbourne Market.

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    Tags

    #Patersons Pastry#Hartdale Park Venison#homecooked#slow food#Winter#baked

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Aug 6, 2012 (a Monday)
    time:
    2:59:46 (9 months ago)

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    Hardcore Cantonese cooking. Pork and prawn Won Ton soup also known as Short Soup or 雲吞 ‘swallowing clouds’. Hardly anyone does this from scratch any more but it’s actually not hard to do as long as you get in the habit of making master stock. If you use powdered Asian broth, it will be loaded with MSG. This version is what you’d expect in the best restaurants. The soup is my freshly made pork broth using bones from Greenvale Farm, Seasoned with smashed ginger, spring onions, a brief dunking of a muslin bag of Sichuan peppercorns, rock sugar and fish sauce to taste. One ladleful of my master stock was added per person to create the magic. The dumplings use premade wonton wrappers filled with a mixture of finely minced pork, prawns, egg white, white pepper and spring onion, seasoned with light soy sauce. They’re boiled until silky in the soup, hence the reference to clouds in the name. I garnished mine with finely sliced baby leeks. It was a head rush of flavour. To have added chilli would have been a crime.

    Hardcore Cantonese cooking. Pork and prawn Won Ton soup also known as Short Soup or 雲吞 ‘swallowing clouds’.

    Hardly anyone does this from scratch any more but it’s actually not hard to do as long as you get in the habit of making master stock. If you use powdered Asian broth, it will be loaded with MSG. This version is what you’d expect in the best restaurants.

    The soup is my freshly made pork broth using bones from Greenvale Farm, Seasoned with smashed ginger, spring onions, a brief dunking of a muslin bag of Sichuan peppercorns, rock sugar and fish sauce to taste. One ladleful of my master stock was added per person to create the magic.

    The dumplings use premade wonton wrappers filled with a mixture of finely minced pork, prawns, egg white, white pepper and spring onion, seasoned with light soy sauce.

    They’re boiled until silky in the soup, hence the reference to clouds in the name. I garnished mine with finely sliced baby leeks.

    It was a head rush of flavour. To have added chilli would have been a crime.

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    Tags

    #Greenvale Farm pork#soup#homecooked#slow food#winter#Asian food#Cantonese food

    Info

    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Aug 5, 2012 (a Sunday)
    time:
    9:48:15 (9 months ago)

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    Pork ribs are cheap & easy. Here’s how to make my dry rubbed maple ribs. Recently USA style barbecue has been heralded as an emerging dining out trend, hot on the heels of our 35 new Mexican themed venues in Melbourne. But USA style BBQ isn’t commonly cooked at home here. Unlike Aussie style barbecues, it’s not about throwing steak and snags on the barbie, it’s typically slow roasted secondary cuts of meat. So, being house bound and eating BBQ vicariously via social media, I figured I’d have a go myself. Consulting my Charcuterie bible, I decided to do a dry rub. Traditionally this technique was used to preserve meat often for long periods in barrels, packed also with salt. The spices would counter the sometimes fetid smell of dry aged meat and potentially eliminate more harmful bacteria. Original American southern soul food and barbecue utilized this on secondary cuts of meat - cuts affordable to those who once had no means of chilling or refrigerating. While pork and beef shoulder are popular cuts for this, pork ribs are also ideal as they are the cheap, discarded bones leftover from the now über fancied and now expensive pork belly cut of meat. Cayenne pepper appears to be a common spice in these mixes, so I ground a couple of hot, dried Sichuan chillies in lieu. I wanted it to have a barbecue sauce type flavour, so I also ground the spices I use in my pulled pork hock dish. You could just use Golden Ras el Hanout which contains the same spices. Then salt, sugar, ground fennel seeds and smoked paprika joined my mix. I coated the meat in the salty spice mix and left it for a few hours. Easy - basically you’re curing the meat and it can be left like this for days in an air tight container if you need it to. Like most secondary cuts, I cooked it low and slow in the oven. This doesn’t take four hours to cook like fleshy cuts, as it is mostly bone. My Charcuterie bible says if using a wood burning barbecue or a smoker, cook it at 90°c. I did mine slightly warmer in the oven. When I began to smell the spice mix come to life in the oven, I knew the juices and fat were rendering, and when I saw a good amount of fat released into the tray, I basted the racks with my tomato and onion passata that I had made and bottled from tomato seconds, over summer. The interaction of that sauce with the dry spices created the familiar barbecue sauce flavour and formed a juicy crust on the ribs when taken from the oven and grilled briefly. I rested the meat for ten minutes and then brushed it with lemon juice and maple syrup for a sticky finish that took some of the chilli heat from the spice mix. Often this kind of dish would be basted or served with a sweet-sour vinegar based dressing, which would counter the spice and fat in a similar manner. The result was a sticky hand held meaty delight. And done with only a small amount of effort. Thanks to Greenvale Farm for raising such wonderful cruelty free, free range, rare breed pork for us to enjoy - delicious!

    Pork ribs are cheap & easy. Here’s how to make my dry rubbed maple ribs.

    Recently USA style barbecue has been heralded as an emerging dining out trend, hot on the heels of our 35 new Mexican themed venues in Melbourne. But USA style BBQ isn’t commonly cooked at home here.

    Unlike Aussie style barbecues, it’s not about throwing steak and snags on the barbie, it’s typically slow roasted secondary cuts of meat. So, being house bound and eating BBQ vicariously via social media, I figured I’d have a go myself.

    Consulting my Charcuterie bible, I decided to do a dry rub. Traditionally this technique was used to preserve meat often for long periods in barrels, packed also with salt. The spices would counter the sometimes fetid smell of dry aged meat and potentially eliminate more harmful bacteria.

    Original American southern soul food and barbecue utilized this on secondary cuts of meat - cuts affordable to those who once had no means of chilling or refrigerating. While pork and beef shoulder are popular cuts for this, pork ribs are also ideal as they are the cheap, discarded bones leftover from the now über fancied and now expensive pork belly cut of meat.

    Cayenne pepper appears to be a common spice in these mixes, so I ground a couple of hot, dried Sichuan chillies in lieu. I wanted it to have a barbecue sauce type flavour, so I also ground the spices I use in my pulled pork hock dish. You could just use Golden Ras el Hanout which contains the same spices. Then salt, sugar, ground fennel seeds and smoked paprika joined my mix.

    I coated the meat in the salty spice mix and left it for a few hours. Easy - basically you’re curing the meat and it can be left like this for days in an air tight container if you need it to.

    Like most secondary cuts, I cooked it low and slow in the oven. This doesn’t take four hours to cook like fleshy cuts, as it is mostly bone. My Charcuterie bible says if using a wood burning barbecue or a smoker, cook it at 90°c. I did mine slightly warmer in the oven.

    When I began to smell the spice mix come to life in the oven, I knew the juices and fat were rendering, and when I saw a good amount of fat released into the tray, I basted the racks with my tomato and onion passata that I had made and bottled from tomato seconds, over summer. The interaction of that sauce with the dry spices created the familiar barbecue sauce flavour and formed a juicy crust on the ribs when taken from the oven and grilled briefly.

    I rested the meat for ten minutes and then brushed it with lemon juice and maple syrup for a sticky finish that took some of the chilli heat from the spice mix. Often this kind of dish would be basted or served with a sweet-sour vinegar based dressing, which would counter the spice and fat in a similar manner.

    The result was a sticky hand held meaty delight. And done with only a small amount of effort. Thanks to Greenvale Farm for raising such wonderful cruelty free, free range, rare breed pork for us to enjoy - delicious!

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    Tags

    #Greenvale Farm pork#slow food#homecooked#BBQ#Winter

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Jul 29, 2012 (a Sunday)
    time:
    5:52:19 (9 months ago)

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    The Gold Coin Slider. Awesome, if I say so myself. Anthony Kumnick of Greenvale Farm knows I love an offal challenge. Australia is so prime cut focussed that I have devoted myself to showing how secondary cuts of meat should not go to waste, but can be a delicious and economical part of our diet. So Anthony gave me some pig snouts to play with. After a bit of head scratching I resurrected an old Chinese barbecue recipe called gold coin chicken, which actually uses pork offal. The name is derived from old Chinese coins that characteristically had a square hole in the centre. Creating the coins, a skewer goes through alternate rounds of marinated lean pork meat, pigs liver and slices of fat. In my case I used pork liver from my usual Viet/Shanghai butcher, Anthony’s snouts, pig cheeks and back fat. The cheeks and snouts were first pressure cooked in my master stock before marinating. Pigs liver is rich and strong tasting, so I started by soaking them in salt water with mandarin peel, then slicing to add to the marinade. The marinade is Cha Sui style. I used Dad’s recipe, learned when he trained to be a Chinese Roast meat specialist. The back fat was steamed then sliced and alternated with the other items on a long skewer. I grilled them first on medium heat then finished on high to crisp the edges, basting frequently with marinade. When this was done cooking I basted it all with honey, though Dad’s recipe uses maltose instead. As always with meat, I then rested it off the skewer and tossed it in its juices before serving. To complete the dish I steamed mantou buns and garlic shoots. Mantou are easy to make and freeze but are also available frozen in Asian Grocers. This ‘burger’ style is a new addition to the many available, I’m presuming David Chang may have created a demand for them commercially. The meat was tender and tasty. The rendered pieces of pork fat giving an extra richness against the pâté textured liver and gelatinous snout that crisped around the edges. The garlic shoots acted as a relief and textural foil. In season, cucumber would also be an ideal accompaniment. Essentially this bears a similarity to a Cha Sui Bao, but lifts it to the sophisticated level you might expect from a restaurant like Golden Fields or Momofuku Seiōbo. But it’s cheap and easy enough to cook for yourself. Try it - you can cheat by using a jar of Lee Kum Kee Cha Sui marinade and a slug of gin in the mix instead of Chinese rose liquor. Use slices of any lean, secondary cut of pork and why not save the smoky fat from bacon to use in between? Offalicious!

    The Gold Coin Slider. Awesome, if I say so myself.

    Anthony Kumnick of Greenvale Farm knows I love an offal challenge. Australia is so prime cut focussed that I have devoted myself to showing how secondary cuts of meat should not go to waste, but can be a delicious and economical part of our diet.

    So Anthony gave me some pig snouts to play with. After a bit of head scratching I resurrected an old Chinese barbecue recipe called gold coin chicken, which actually uses pork offal.

    The name is derived from old Chinese coins that characteristically had a square hole in the centre. Creating the coins, a skewer goes through alternate rounds of marinated lean pork meat, pigs liver and slices of fat.

    In my case I used pork liver from my usual Viet/Shanghai butcher, Anthony’s snouts, pig cheeks and back fat. The cheeks and snouts were first pressure cooked in my master stock before marinating.

    Pigs liver is rich and strong tasting, so I started by soaking them in salt water with mandarin peel, then slicing to add to the marinade. The marinade is Cha Sui style. I used Dad’s recipe, learned when he trained to be a Chinese Roast meat specialist.

    The back fat was steamed then sliced and alternated with the other items on a long skewer. I grilled them first on medium heat then finished on high to crisp the edges, basting frequently with marinade.

    When this was done cooking I basted it all with honey, though Dad’s recipe uses maltose instead. As always with meat, I then rested it off the skewer and tossed it in its juices before serving.

    To complete the dish I steamed mantou buns and garlic shoots. Mantou are easy to make and freeze but are also available frozen in Asian Grocers. This ‘burger’ style is a new addition to the many available, I’m presuming David Chang may have created a demand for them commercially.

    The meat was tender and tasty. The rendered pieces of pork fat giving an extra richness against the pâté textured liver and gelatinous snout that crisped around the edges. The garlic shoots acted as a relief and textural foil. In season, cucumber would also be an ideal accompaniment.

    Essentially this bears a similarity to a Cha Sui Bao, but lifts it to the sophisticated level you might expect from a restaurant like Golden Fields or Momofuku Seiōbo. But it’s cheap and easy enough to cook for yourself.

    Try it - you can cheat by using a jar of Lee Kum Kee Cha Sui marinade and a slug of gin in the mix instead of Chinese rose liquor. Use slices of any lean, secondary cut of pork and why not save the smoky fat from bacon to use in between? Offalicious!

    Bookmark and Share

    Tags

    #Asian food#Chinese food#Cantonese#homecooked#offal#slow food#white plate#Winter#Greenvale Farm pork

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Jul 27, 2012 (a Friday)
    time:
    4:45:12 (9 months ago)

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    Offalicious Chargrilled ‘tongue bacon’ with spicy SE Asian caramel sauce on Chinese rice crackers. AKA nose to tail leftovers reinvented. I thinly sliced some of the pickled tongue from Warialda Beef, chargrilled it briefly so it warmed and curled seductively around its maillard stripes. To go with it, I made a tangy Vietnamese caramel reduction, enhanced with tamarind, fermented chilli tofu, beef stock, sugar and a small chip of Balanchan for umami. Placed on a crisp, light Chinese rice cracker, it was served with steamed cauliflower and last night’s leftover Chinese white sesame slaw. The over all effect - sweet, sour, spicy, crisp, yielding, delicious happiness. (Taken with Instagram)

    Offalicious Chargrilled ‘tongue bacon’ with spicy SE Asian caramel sauce on Chinese rice crackers. AKA nose to tail leftovers reinvented.

    I thinly sliced some of the pickled tongue from Warialda Beef, chargrilled it briefly so it warmed and curled seductively around its maillard stripes.

    To go with it, I made a tangy Vietnamese caramel reduction, enhanced with tamarind, fermented chilli tofu, beef stock, sugar and a small chip of Balanchan for umami.

    Placed on a crisp, light Chinese rice cracker, it was served with steamed cauliflower and last night’s leftover Chinese white sesame slaw. The over all effect - sweet, sour, spicy, crisp, yielding, delicious happiness.

    (Taken with Instagram)

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    Tags

    #Slow Food#homecooked#offal#nose to tail#Asian Food#Winter#warialda beef

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Jul 15, 2012 (a Sunday)
    time:
    1:15:37 (10 months ago)

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    Whenever I have buttermilk I think of fried chicken, because it is the best base for a moist centered crisp coated chicken. You brine the chicken in it, then after rub the brining solution into the dredging flour to add chunks of crunch. My buttermilk came from the lovely Naomi of Myrtleford Butter Factory. I love spicy fried chicken so my brine contains not just herbs and pepper, but also dried Sichuan chilli’s. As a brine there is naturally some salt but I also add honey. This adds a subtle extra dimension if left overnight or longer. Some chefs might also add sugar. I put it all in a snap lock bag in the fridge, pegged dangling from a rack, for up to two days. When it comes to dredging I don’t use egg. The brined moist chicken pieces have the flour pressed onto the flesh. And because I Iove having lots of random crunchy bits, some of the brining solution is rubbed into my flour to form small tasty lumps that will crisp up as flavour bombs on the surface. In the flour dredging mix is plain flour, potato starch, paprika, dried homegrown thyme and parsley, more dried chilli, pepper and salt - but no glutamates like onion or garlic powder as some would do. I use Milawa Free Range thigh fillets that are super tasty, so I don’t want to lose the integrity of the flavour by over complicating the crust. My priorities are a crisp spicy outer that reveals silky, tender, tasty, meat. The Milawa fillets are skinless and lean but due to the brining retain lots of moisture during cooking. No stringy, tough old bird here. True to tradition I don’t deep fry my chicken. Instead I use schmaltz to shallow fry it in a heavy skillet until golden. Then it drains on paper towel before going into the oven on a rack at 180°c for ten minutes. As with all meat I rest it, for about seven minutes in this case. This chicken was great served with a thick, umami gravy made with a reduction of homemade chicken stock and the rest of the buttermilk brine, thickened by combining a little of the schmaltz mixed with flour. But you could go also for a sweet, spicy, Korean style sauce. With this batch I made sweet potato chips in my Air Fryer and a crisp Chinese style white sesame slaw using cabbage, white carrot, celeriac and toasted sesame in a vinegar and sesame oil based dressing. Each item offset the other for texture and flavour balance. The meal was neither oily or heavy but certainly had the requisite crunch, spice and necessary comfort food factor.

    Whenever I have buttermilk I think of fried chicken, because it is the best base for a moist centered crisp coated chicken. You brine the chicken in it, then after rub the brining solution into the dredging flour to add chunks of crunch. My buttermilk came from the lovely Naomi of Myrtleford Butter Factory.

    I love spicy fried chicken so my brine contains not just herbs and pepper, but also dried Sichuan chilli’s. As a brine there is naturally some salt but I also add honey. This adds a subtle extra dimension if left overnight or longer. Some chefs might also add sugar. I put it all in a snap lock bag in the fridge, pegged dangling from a rack, for up to two days.

    When it comes to dredging I don’t use egg. The brined moist chicken pieces have the flour pressed onto the flesh. And because I Iove having lots of random crunchy bits, some of the brining solution is rubbed into my flour to form small tasty lumps that will crisp up as flavour bombs on the surface. In the flour dredging mix is plain flour, potato starch, paprika, dried homegrown thyme and parsley, more dried chilli, pepper and salt - but no glutamates like onion or garlic powder as some would do.

    I use Milawa Free Range thigh fillets that are super tasty, so I don’t want to lose the integrity of the flavour by over complicating the crust. My priorities are a crisp spicy outer that reveals silky, tender, tasty, meat. The Milawa fillets are skinless and lean but due to the brining retain lots of moisture during cooking. No stringy, tough old bird here.

    True to tradition I don’t deep fry my chicken. Instead I use schmaltz to shallow fry it in a heavy skillet until golden. Then it drains on paper towel before going into the oven on a rack at 180°c for ten minutes. As with all meat I rest it, for about seven minutes in this case.

    This chicken was great served with a thick, umami gravy made with a reduction of homemade chicken stock and the rest of the buttermilk brine, thickened by combining a little of the schmaltz mixed with flour. But you could go also for a sweet, spicy, Korean style sauce.

    With this batch I made sweet potato chips in my Air Fryer and a crisp Chinese style white sesame slaw using cabbage, white carrot, celeriac and toasted sesame in a vinegar and sesame oil based dressing.

    Each item offset the other for texture and flavour balance. The meal was neither oily or heavy but certainly had the requisite crunch, spice and necessary comfort food factor.

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    Tags

    #Milawa Free Range Poultry#Slow Food#Myrtleford Butter Factory#Winter#Soul Food

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    posted by:
    stickifingers
    date:
    Jul 14, 2012 (a Saturday)
    time:
    5:54:06 (10 months ago)

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