Christ It's Christmas...

Christmas has become a very big kitchen day for me over the last five to seven years. This year I was able to obtain some delectable oysters that were flown in from Tasmaina, ultra fresh. The taste was spectacular, kind of like the essence of ocean, but fresher... My biggest regret was stuffing them down my neglected throat so fast that I didn't have time for a photo... Yum but, damm!

What I did photograph was some chook I cook...

Some random kitchen!

Loin-o-lamb & Mango Salad.

SO...

I haven't blogged.

But I've cooked...> Potato & Bacon Pie.

Pommy Dark Ale.

Osso-Bucco Parcel.

Figg & Rosemarry Stuffed Leg-o-lamb.

Milk Fed Veal. (Rib Eye).

What Other Ways Can I Cook Goat?

Blogevening readers. No meal tonight as I'm still answering the questions left by readers.

A good friend of mine recently bought what they decribed as goat. The meat was used in a curry, and the reported result was excellent!

The question was: What other way can I cook goat?

Before I get to answering anything about cooking goat, I'd just like to crap on abit first.

World wide meat consunption by type:

1: Guinea pig.

2: Chicken.

3: Goat.

4: Mutton.

5: Rat.

6: Pork.

Freaky...

Goat, although very widely consumed throughout the world, is bearly given a look in at Australian diner tables. Domestic goats have run wild in Asutralia for over a hundred years. As a result there is an abundence of high quality free range organic goat just wandering about the country side. Wild goat make for exelent hunting, and being an introduced speices that causes great damage the the environment, I would sugest going out and blowing a few away.

The Grover Response:

I was left a comment on the venison pie posting.

Lots of questions were rased.

I'll try to answer them.

That was like an EMO poem^

Q1: Pie pastery recipe.... Try Stephanie Alexanders cook book. As far as new fangled Australian cooking goes, it's kinda like the bible. The book's a bit pricey, but I promise you'll use it all the time.

Q2: What to do with the "chin" (thanks Dan) bones? To make shin bones totally awsome cook them with the meat for extra flavor. You end up with a subtle, creamy taste and texture.

Or: If you get the butcher to slice them into disks about 25mm thick, you can fry them gently in a little butter. The idea is to brown the marrow. Shin bones done like this become a taste sensation. Just crack a bit of pepper on top, and scoop out the suculent marrow. No bull shit mate, one of the most incredable things I have ever tasted!

Q3: Can Kangeroo be used instead of venison, as mentioned in the pie posting? Yes..! Eastern grey is similar in texture to venison, both being very lean and deep red colour.

Q4: Why use button mushrooms? I chose button mushrooms because I wanted the visual effect of peices of mushroom in the filling. If larger mushrooms were used, they would have to be cut down to size so much that they would no longer look like mushrooms. The Ideal flavor would be something like Portabelo, but there to big. Button mushroom cut into quarters are small enough to match the size and texture of the filling. Even the strongest mushroom flavor is mostly absorbed by the intense taste of the gravy. Eyes are a significant aspect of taste. Haveing the visual que helps to identify the mushroom after taste, thereby adding to the complexity of the filling.

Flakey no bolg blog long time!

OK....... So it's been a hell of a long time... I 'know'... OK.

Good....

I cooked a bloody good flake the other day. I did the whole tempura batter thingy. Light, crunchy, but tender and juicy... Mmmm. Have a look!

Fillet of Fish How To.

Barramundi, tail section. (Northen territory, wild caught).

Salmon, middle section. (Tasmania, wild caught).

Goyoza: Brock Style.

Kinda like a cross between steamed and fryed mini dim sim. (From Japan).

Ingredence:
80 Goyoza or wonton skins.
500g Minced pork.
250g Very finly sliced wonbok.
8 stalks of spring onions. Finley sliced.
2 eggs. Beaten.
3 Table spoons of ket chap mannis.

Dipping sauce:
1/4 cup light soy sauce.
1/4 cup red wine vinager.
1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce.
2 table spoons of fish sauce.

Method:

Vennison pie.

Good blogevening. On tonights menu we have Vennison Fungi pie.

It works a little like this:

Ingredence:

500g Vennison fillet. Diced into 2x2cm cubes.

500g very small button mushrooms. Quartered.

75ml Veal Jus. (Highly consentrated veal stock).

1 large brown onion. Finley diced.

4 Segments of beef chin bone cut into 3cm peices. (Like the bone from Osso Bucco).

1 cup of red wine. (Robust cab sav or the like).

750g Short crust pastery.

Fresh cracked peper.

Olive oil.

Method:

Three Meat De-Lux! Comment Answered.

Some posts ago I was left a comment regarding the best way to cook a large rib eye steak.
The following are a few thoughts I feel might help:

This is what I know:First of all you need to choose a good peice of meat. A good butcher should be happy to cut a steak directly off the beast for you. Ask for Black Angus, other breeds are inferior in quality, as such they should only be sold to New Zealand. Quality beef should be hung to allow the flavor and texture to improve, five weeks is about right. Look for flesh that has some fat interlaced within the muscle, this is called marbleing and should not be confused with sinue or tendon within the flesh. If unsure ask your butcher. Don't buy beef that to to bright in colour as this will be to fresh. Look for deep dark red, this is a sign of propperly aged beef.Now the cut... Some cuts are far more suited to grilling on the BBQ than others. Osso Bucco for instance is delicious, but needs to be cooked long and slow in liquid, otherwise it will be like eating a pair of work boots. T-bone on the other hand needs to be cooked quickly over high heat, if not the result will be dry and stringy.

Preperation and cooking.... Good cuts of beef to cook on the grill like Rump, Rib eye, or T-bone are almost allways cut to thin by butchers. This is because the customer thinks they are getting a better deal because they have more steaks for the same price. At a minimum Rump, Rib eye, or T-bone for the grill should be 5cm (2 in) thick. (This is why you have to ask the butcher to cut steaks for you).First allow the meat to come up to room temperature, so take it out of the fridge about half an hour or so before you are read to cook it. Now it's time to start preheating your grill, you need to get the barby as hot as it will go, so give it a good eight minutes on high. While this is happening prep your steak. Place your peice of meat on a non porous surface. (Not a wooden chopping board). If you have to use a wooden choping bord place a peice of foil over the top. The reason for this is because wood will take up the juices within the meat makeing is dry and horrible. Season well with salt and pepper. (Fresh cracked pepper, and quality salt flakes like Muldern salt, Murry river pink salt, Celtic sea salt). Work the seasoning into the meat with your hands. Finnish off by drizzleing a small amount of olive oil over boath sides of the steak. Now you are ready to cook.By now your grill should be smokeing hot and ready to receve your steak. ( I am assumeing you have a peice of 5 cm thick peice of well aged Black Angus Rib eye). Useing tongs, place the meat onto the grill. Expect to see alot of smoke. Leave for 3 minutes. Carefuly turn the steak over. Reduce the heat to low and place the cover over the grill, if you don't have one use a foil tent. leave for a further 3 minutes. Remove the cover and test for doneness. To do this press the middle of the steak with your tongs. ( Don't ever cut the meat. Ever...) As a guide if you touch your thumb and index finger together, and press the fleshy part of the ball of your hand. This will have the same feel (spring back) as a rare cooked steak. For medium cooked, touch your thumb and middle finger. For well done, touch your thumb and ring finger. After cooking, remove the steak from the grill and place on a plate and cover the whole thing with foil. Allow the meat to rest for about six minutes. This will allow the muscle fibers to relax and take up the juices, thus greatly improveing the texture and taste. If someone asks you to cook there steak as well to very well done, tell them to piss off to someone elses BBQ. Would you skull a bottle of fine wine? No. It would be a waste of good wine. Same with good steak, don't over cook it. Treat it kindly. The worlds best chefs will all say. "Good beef should be eatin rare so as not to detract from the delicate and subtle flavors". If your guests wont eat rare steak, don't serve it to them. Give them a supermarket sausage instead.

Venison. (Oh Deer).

OK I know. It's true. I've been a bad cook. I haven't made a posting in a long time. Sorry!

Sooooo.

Let me make it up to you. Tonight it's Red Deer Venison.

First of all I want to start by saying a few thing about deer. In past postings I harp on about how to shoot various animals in order to eat them. If you bothered to read it you'll know I like to recomend the right tool for the job. In Australia Red Deer have adapted to the environment very well and thus have become quiet gigantic in size. So it goes with out saying that gigantic stoping power is called for. Simple, right. Sorry, not so easy. Deer are smart. If you want to eat one you'll really have to work at it. On average you'll be hikeing through the bush for a good half day before you get a shot off at 3/4 of a mile away. Then you'll have to butcher the bugger on site, because it's too big to drag back to the 4WD at around 400KG!

The trade off is: After all the effort you'll end up with a shit load of ultra lean, ultra fresh, very high quality meat. Not to mention the exceptional pelts, (Skins), and the versitile stag horn.

So to sum up what I am trying to say is: Go for muzzle velocity over bore size, and get a range finder. Do the whole winddige thing, and get a heart shot first shot......

If you can't be assed with all that, just pop down to the butchers and grab a few choice cuts. Saves heaps of time and effort that way..... Remember, Venison is not the easyest meat in the world to cook. Treat it like you would fillet beef. Cook it quickly on a very hot grill. Use the finger meathod to test for doneness, and err on the rare side as Vennison will dry out in a flash.

Pumkin Soup

Twice As Nice Saffron Rice!

Cicken & Ricotta Quiche

Quiche: Short crust pastery with an egg bound filling.

Aubergine Lasagne

I got the most awesome eggplants from my parents garden. Plucked fresh and cooked soonafter, eggplant takes on a whole new dimention. Super fresh eggplant has a texture kind of like granny smith apples; Crisp and firm, with a hint of flour as an after thought.

So I used the eggplant in a lasagne, it was bloody beautiful mate, check out the pix, good looking grub hey? Oh and I put in a pic of two thirds of my kids.

The following recipe will feed eight hungry people:

Ingredence:

6 egg plants. (600g).

1kg minced beef.

1kg tomatoes skinned and diced.

2 brown onions diced.

1 bulb, (not clove) of garlic diced finely.

8 large feild mushrooms sliced.

1 large green capsicum sliced.

250g of chedder cheese grated.

300g of reccota cheese.

250g of fetta (Australian) cheese.

Enough fresh rolled pasta to do about 6 or 7 layers.

Salt flakes and fresh cracked pepper.

Olive oil.

Method:

In a large heavy based pot, fry the onion slowly untill well softened. Max the heat and add the mince and garlic, cook untill done. Add the tomatoes with a pinch of salt and pepper. Lower the heat, simmer and reduce untill well thickened.

Roll out your pasta and set aside. Dust with extra flour beforhand to prevent the pasta sticking.

Ladle a small amount of sauce into a rectangle pyrex oven dish, this will form a layer to stop the pasta sticking. Now lay down pasta, sauce, mushrooms, pasta, sauce, chedder cheese, pasta sauce, capsicum, and repeat untill the dish is almost full.

In a mixing bowl combine the reccota and fetta cheeses with a little milk. This will be the sauce to go on top. As you pour over the sauce be careful not to disturb the other ingredence on the lower levels, it will blemmish the white look of the sauce. Crack a bit of pepper over the top, also try a sprinkle of ground Sumac, when it cooks with the cheese sauce it will release it's purple pigments. I recon that it looks abit like the colour of egg plant skin, so you get a bit of a visual aspect to the egg plant flavors.

Bake the big bugger in the oven at 190c for about 1 hour. As an extra touch turn on the overhead oven grill for a minute or so to brown up the top abit if not all ready that way.

Serve by cutting into squares and carefully lifting out onto a plate...... Yum.

Salt bush lamb. (Simple is best).

The guys down at Kitchen & Butcher, Hi, got me on to what I would say is the best lamb that I've ever tasted.

It went like this: Brock walks into Kitchen & Butcher. "Hi guys, how it going, blah, blah, blah. So, whats good today?"

Behind the counter bloke says: "Give us a sec and I'll go and get the chef. He'll know whats what."

Chef walks in. Says: "Hello, nice day...... Blah. Look at this lamb. Salt bush lamb. It's been grazing on salt bush and wild herbs. You've got to try it. You wont beleve how good it is. I cooked it for lunch. Heaven, perfict, the best.

Me and the chef had a bit of a chat about how he cooked, and how I plan to cook the lamb. After a bit of advice here's how I did it:

Ingredence:

2kg hind leg of organic salt bush fed lamb. No shank.

Few sprigs of rosemary.

Salt flakes, fresh cracked peper.

Olive oil.

Method:

Prepare a kettle (Webber) BBQ with about 20 heat beads. In the mean time; Lightly score the lamb. Denude the rosemary sprigs, (pull the leaves off), chop roughly and massage into the lamb along with a fair pinch of salt and a generous cracking of pepper. Drizzle the lot with oil. Place on the grill in the BBQ. Give it full vents for about 40 minutes, then turn to half vent and cook for about 4 hours. Low and slow is the aim here. Proper salt bush lamb doesn't loose much moisture, so it ok to cook it slowly, just make sure you seal it on high heat at first so as to seal in the liquid goodness.

Rest the joint for about ten minutes before carving. When carved salt bush lamb has an extra fine grain, so it's possible to slice extra thin.

Coz this lamb is soooo good, don't bother jazzing it up to much. Keep it simple, just appreciate the excelent flavor of the lamb. Don't stuff it up with sauces or the like. Just taste the lamb for what it is...... Bloody beautiful mate!

Three Meat De-Lux!

Veal rib eye, Scotch fillet, and Sir loin.

Like I always say. "Top quality beef doesn't need any jazzing up. Just a crack of salt and pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, and a bloody hot grill."

A quality butcher should be happy to cut beef as you ask for it. If your butcher gets abit shirty when asked to cut a steak for you, just politely ask them to recomend a butcher that will.

While your at it. Take time to inquire about the lenght of time the beast has been hung for. Any less than three weeks is to fresh. It wont be tender and will lose moisture on cooking, as the conective tissue won't have had a chance to break down.

Lastly; Don't kill your beef by over cooking it. I know I've said it a thousand times before, but it's better to er on the side of caution and under cook your steak. After all high quality beef can and is eaten raw, kind of like sushimi.

Keep it beefy bloggers!

White Wine & Rabbit.

Organic free range rabbit is not as strong in flavor as the wild variety. Although wild rabit is often dry, farmed rabit is allmost allways tender and suculent.



Cooking, cooking, cooking...

At the table.....

Ingredence:

4 buck hind quarters of rabit.

4 midim sized carrots.

6 sticks of cellary.

1/2 bulb of garlic. Finley choped.

1 Lage brown onion. Finley choped.

4 bay leaves.

1/2 a letire of chicken sdtock.

750m bottle of chardoney.

Olive oil & pepper.

1 potato to soak up the salt.

Method:

In a large heavy based pot fry the rabbit untill lighly golden, set aside. Add onion and thickly sliced carrot, cellery, garlic, and potato. After about 5 minutes add a light sprinkle of plain flour to make a thickened sauce when the wine is added. Bung in the bay leaves and stock add the wine and a real good cracking of peper. Brig it back to the boil toss in the rabbit, Place lid on top, stuff into a pre heated oven at 180C for 2 hours. After the oven stint the sauce may need to be thickened up some. Do this by simmering on the stove for as long as it takes to come good. Be careful not to break up the meat.

Serve on a bed of mash. Pictured is Duchcream potato 8 cloves of garlic and a beetroot added for colour and flavor.