Snow Man

So are like my kids the cutest things you've ever seen or what? Ivy is indicating that she is standing in front of a snow man. I should mention to all the northen hemisphere viewers, It's the middle of summer here at the moment. So when I'm opening presents under my christmas tree and there's two feet of snow out side. Well, thats kinda crazy shit coz, Last time I checked christmas day has been stinkin hot, like 35c (110f), thats what we normaly get. So all my christmas cooking has been like conflicting, because normaly I'll cook things to eat in the heat. But this time round I got a cook like pommy stuff, (Baked ham and all. Just check my last post).

So as a contrast to all the contrasting conditions, I am choseing to list a recipe for a sea food stir fry.

Ingredence:

250g Baby octopus. Cut in 4.

250g Peeled prawns.

1 Carrot. Sliced for stir fry.

4 cloves of garlic. Finley diced.

1/2 Cup spring onions. Choped.

3 Table spoon of oyster sauce.

150g packet of Odon noodles. Cooked as per directions.

Sesame oil.

Method:

In a smokeing hot wok, add a splash of oil. Fry the carrots for about 30 seconds. Now add the prawns and the octopus, fry them for 1 minute. Tip in the noodles, oyster sauce, garlic, and spring onion. Toss it all through. When the spring onion starts to wilt the noodles should be hot enought to serve.

Christmas feast

Christmas has been and gone. So I guess I should show you what was cooked on the big day. Seen here are:

Avocarrdo, Hommus, and Beetroot dip.

Roast chicken with roast potatoes.

Glazed baked ham.

Ingredents:Dips:

Avocardo:

1 Prefectly ripe Avocarrdo.

2 cloves of garlic.

3 table spoons of sour cream.

Zest and juce of 1 lemmon.

Pinch of salt & pepper.

Method:

In a food processor, combine all ingredence.

Hommus:

1 440g tin of organic chick peas. Drained.

4 cloves of garlic.

1&1/2 tea spoons of ground cummin seeds.

Juce of 1 lemmon.

Salt & pepper.

Method:

Combine all ingredence in a food processor.

Beetroot:

300g of roasted peeled beetroots. (You can use tinned if you want.)

1&1/2 tea spoons of ground cummin seeds.

1 tea spoon of salt flakes.

1 tea spoon of cracked pepper.

3 table spoons of sour cream.

Method:

Combine all ingredence in a food processor.

Ingredence: Chicken:

1 free range size 16 (1.6kg) chicken.

1/2 lemmon.

2 spriggs of sage.

Handful of flat leaf parsley.

5 cloves of garlic.

2 stalks of spring onion.

1 fresh red chilli.

Salt & pepper.

Olive oil.

Method:

Stuff the chook with the lemmon, sage, parsley, garlic, spring onion, and chilli. Rub the skin with olive oil. Tie up the cavity and legs. Crack some pepper over the skin along with a sprinkleing of salt flakes. Roast in a kettle BBQ with a water filled drip tray for 2&1/2 hours. Rest for 7 minutes befor carving.

Glazed baked ham:

Ingredence:

1 leg of cured ham.

Cloves

Zest and juice of an orange.

1/2 a cup of white wine.

1/4 of a cup of brown sugar.

Method:

Remove skin from the ham. Score the fat in a diamond pattern, insert a clove into the middle of each diamond. Roast in a slow oven at 130c for 3 hours. Mean while, create a glaze from the oringe, wine, and sugar. Now for the next 1&1/2 hours, open the oven and baste the ham with the glaze every 15 minutes. Rest for 20 minutes before carving.

Prawn and Corn Big Boots Ivy.

Top blogs all. Yes I know it's snowing at Christmas time. Thats not stopping me from me from posting a hot weather stir fry though. So, if you've got some left over roast chicken and a few prawns from chrissy, you can chuck this one together in no time flat. The listed ingredents will feed 4.

Ingredents:

400g Peeled prawn tails.

1/2 Roasted chicken.

350g Sweet baby corn. (Tined is fine).

300g Champigion mushrooms. (Tined is fine).

8 Cherry tomatoes. Halved.

1 Cup of choped spring onions.

1 Carrot sliced for stir fry.

5x3x5cm peice of ginger. Peeled and finley diced.

6 cloves of garlic. Diced.

1 Onion. Sliced for stir fry.

1 Table spoon of oyster sauce.

3 Table spoon of soy sauce.

2 Cups of long grain rice. Cooked.

Method:

In a smokeing hot wok, add a little olive oil. Tip in the onion and carrot. Flash fry for 40 seconds. Now add the prawns along with the ginger and garlic. Cook for another 50 seconds. Add the rest of the ingredents with a little extra oil if it wants to stick. Toss it through for a bit. When the spring onions have begun to wilt, thats an indication that the rice has come up to temp, now it's ready. Do sreve promptly. Remember, "Fresh is best".

Serving:

Fryed rice is best served in a bowl, (not on a plate) the shape of the bowl will help to preserve the heat. This is importaint because cold fryed rice tastes like crap! Also if you got the rice right, I insist on useing chop sticks. I know some people are yet to learn how to use them. Now is the time to give it a crack. Once you give it a go, you'll realize it's really not that hard. If you're still unsure, learners cop stick are avalable. Otherwise I would strongly recomend asking some one who allready knows how to use chop sticks.

Merry Christmas Blogs

Dearest readers.

What a yummy food year it has been. From spicy stir frys, to hearty stews, and rich pastas, with so many others inbetween. It's been a real treat cooking for all of you who read my blog. I would like to pass on a special thank you to Seb & Steff who are regular readers, and have given me valuble feed back by trying my recipes out for themselves. Thanks for all the inspiration. Also a big thankyou to my wife Justine, and my three beautiful kids, Finn, Archer, And Ivy for putting up with all of my exprements in the kitchen. Thanks to everyone else for being a part of my blog. I've had a great time cooking for all of you, and I am looking forwards to cooking up a storm in the new year..... Mary christmas, and a happy 2007.

Brock.

High steaks (Tuna)

Last blog I had a comment asking for a way to cook tuna steaks. (Hi Steff). Southern ocean tuna Has been found to be mercury free. As such, I feel I can talk up the benifits of oily fish. Holey shit this stuff is good. If you want to avoid heart, kidney, liver, blader, what ever desease, eat mercury free tuna. The sheer number of disorders prevented or treated by the consumtion of 'Omaga-3 fatty acids' is bloody huge. No need to list them here, just Google "Omega-3" and see for yourself....
Ok. Now you know how good tuna is. Lets get to the really good bits: I'll start by saying this. People liveing in Japan live longer and with better health than so called western people. Why? More fish! But more importantly, more fatty fish. In the west, people see fat as being unhealthy. True, when it comes from pork, beef, or lamb, it is. Eat the fatty tuna though, you'll live to be 100 and never need glasses. In Japan the highest quality tuna is regarded as being the fattyest cuts. All the left overs, or the fat free cuts, are shiped over to us. The highest concentration of Omaga fatty acids in tuna are located within the fatty tissue.
But what I realy wanted to get at was: What are the best cuts of tuna? I will cut straight to the point here. (Get it. Cut...Ha, Ha) No, really. The best cut of tuna is off the cheek. Yes the face cheek. So many people discard the head as waste. But this is where the best meat is found. Also, the fattyest fat, (Remember Omega-3) is found around the, wait for it, yes,.... The 'Eye'.... I know that the average westen person will find the thought of eating a fish eye disgusting. But don't knock it untill you've tryed it. May I suggest grilled over hot coles with salt and peper....
But thats not what I'm here for tonight. The question was about tuna steak. The following is a healthy, but tasty meathod. I should add that the following is my perfered meathod for serving oily fish steak.
Ingredence:
250g wild caught tuna steak. Tail section.
Plain flour, salt falkes, and cracked peper,. to dust.
Olive oil to fry. Has to be high quality.
Wedge of lemmon. As garnish.
Method:
This is very easy. Dust lightly with flour. Cook on a lightly oiled non stick pan. Don't over cook tuna, if you do it will be dry and horrible. If you've got the pan tempreture just right, you should end up with a very thin golden crust formed by the flour. Crack a bit of salt and peper over the top. Give it a twist of lemon, and your done. ....B

Green Been and Chilli Ginger Pork.

Hot blogs all. Tonight I got a spicey pork stir fry for you. This one totally woks!
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will know that I love to stir fry. In blogs gone by, I have given many hints and tips on how to get the best from your wok. I have even included a section. ' Rules of the wok '. After all of that and a fair bit of practice you should be like: "My wokx so hot right now".
So if your wok skills rock. Get that 40,000 BTU propane burner fired up. Pull on the fire proof gloves. Break out the fire extinguisher. And lets wok this joint.
Ingredents:
500g Free range pork ribs. Cut into strips. Bones removed.
1 Small carrot. Sliced.
250g Green beans. Cut into thirds.
Big knob of ginger. Finley diced.
4 cloves of garlic. Finley diced.
125g of dryed green tea noodles. (Soba or Odon will also work fine.)
4 Table spoons of oyster sause.
1/2 Cup choped spring onions.
2 table spoons of Tabasco sauce.
2 table spoons of sweet rice wine. (Sweet sherry will be fine also).
1 table spoon soy sauce.
Fresh crached pepper.
1 fresh diced chilli. (Optional. With all the Tabasco, this could be considerd over kill).
Method:
Marinate the pork in the oyster, soy and tobasco sauce, along with the rice wine, garlic and extra chilli. Allow 20 minutes max for the marination time. While the pork is marinating, Cook the noodles according to the directions. Rince, drain, and set the noodles aside. Heat up your wok, and fry off the pork in a little sesame oil reserveing the marinade, and set aside. Cook the carrots and beans. When the beans and carrots are almost done, add the spring onions. Stir them through. Now return the rest of the ingredents including the marinade and noodles. Toss through and serve.
Serving:
I love to drink a dark ale, honey gold is best with this one.
This is a simple one bowl dish. No need for garnish or finery. Just use chopsticks.

Fetta Bust Out The Watermelon

Where's the fruit? Today it was pointed out to me that out of 100 blogs only one recipe contained fruit. Not fruity enough. So lets get the fruit on. For dinner that is.

In rising to the 'fruit for dinner challange'. It occured to me that apart from tomatoes, fruit is very rarley used in the main meal at dinner time. As such, I was hard pressed to come up with the goods.

But, I think you'll find this one a real cracker. With a salad like this it's all about the sweetness of the watermelon, balanced with the saltiness of fetta. Chuck in a bit off mint for contrast. Voila, a fruity salad that goes well with red meat, or other robust savory flavors like that. This ones for you Steff. Hope you like it...?

Ingredents:

1kg diced watermelon. Seeds removed.

200g Australian fetta.

1/2 Cup of fresh mint. Roughly choped.

Method:

Combine all ingredents.

Notes:

As this is the first time I have ever cooked watermelon salad. I will atempt to refine both the ingredents and the method. I would like to develop a dressing. Possibly just a squeeze of lemon, and a crack of pepper. I will post the results of future experiments....

I know you don't eat lamb (You know who you are). But I feel lamb works wonderfully with this salad. It's all in the mint. I would love it if you gave it a try. Later.......B

100 Blogs!

Holey shit. I got to 100 blog enteries. For some reason, in the 'Blogerverse' . It is considered good form to list a few things about oneself. 100 things actually. One for each blog entry. Not being the type to back away from traditional traditions, I will attempt my one hundered list. No doubt, shit a house interpretation. Yes I did mean to shit a house.

1. I've posted 100 blogs.

2. I love my wife and kid very much.

3. I love food 100% of the time.

4. My boss is a wanker.

5. I am in love with my knives.

6. I think about my knives when I'm not useing them.

7. I meditate when I sharpen my knifes.

8. I own 3 different steels, a 2 sided stone, and a razor strop. (Keeps my knifes sharp).

9. I don't like it when other people look at, or handle my knifes.

10. I think organic, and free range, always taste better than. Pesticide, and cage

bread animals.

11. If you can make it from scratch. It will allways taste better than pre- processed shite.

12. I like to grow my own herbs. You can't get fresher than picked 10 seconds ago. Plus there free...
13. Is the day in December that my sister has her birthday.

14. I still remenber the day my butcher retired, and took with him the best 4kg rump steaks the world has ever seen.

15. I love to make my wife great cups of tea ;-)

16. My wife loves to let me sleep in on weekends.

17. 15 is only to because I love my wife and because she loves me. 16 never happens.

18.

Bun-cho-piks

Ta.......

Santa Chook

Yo. Word on the street is that Santa is on his way into town. In my half of the word, the bottom/ or better half, it's really starting to heat up about this time of year. But many of us anglo homies, are still tryin to keep it real. We're still holding on to our northern heratage. Rather than cooking up a curry or sum such that would suite a hot climb like ours. We still want to do. 'Baked ham, roast pork, or chicken, or something totally inappropirate like that.

Roast chicken, with sage, mint, parsley, mint, lemmon and cous cous stuffing.

Sided by baked potaoes with sage and mint marinade. Alongside slow roasted roma tomatoes with a balsamic and peper reduction.....

Ingredients:

1 size 18 free range chicken.

8 long sprigs of sage.

12 long sprigs of mint.

1/2 cup of parsley.

4 cloves of garlic.

1 cup of cous cous.

1 table spoon of butter.

Pepper.

Olive oil.

Salt flakes.

Ingredience, Sides:

4 ripe Roma tomatoes. Halfed.

12 small Duch cream potatoes. In half.

1/4 cup balsamic vinager.

Peper. Fresh cracked.

Olive oil.

Salt flakes.

Method:

Sorry. You'll have to wait untill next time, coz I'm totally knacked. See you soon. B-Rock