Lamb and Potatoes. And Beans. And Broccoli.

I though we'd have a variation on the sunday roast, so I'm trying an eye fillet of lamb today. And since I'm doing it "differently" I thought we'd have dauphinoise potatoes with it, and some broad beans from the garden (they've just come ripe for a lovely winter crop). Here's how it went:

The lamb fillets were scored lightly and marinaded in: soy, pomegranate syrup, oyster sauce, anchovy paste, grainy mustard and balsamic vinegar for about an hour.

Meanwhile the potatoes were prepared in the usual way; thinly sliced, layered, and covered in hot milk, cream, garlic and bayleaf. I covered them in grated Gruyere, and they were then baked for about an hour at 200 deg. I filled the baking dish right to the brim, and they overflowed, creating a lovely, bubbling, burnt cheesy cover to the base of the oven. Oh joy.

The lamb got a browning in a frying pan, and then a quick roast at 200 deg back in the marinade (10 minutes would have fine; I gave them 15 and lost the lovely pinkness I'd been aiming for).

The broccoli was simply steamed until bright green, and the beans were blanched for a minute in boiling water, then poached for 5 mim in butter, salt & pepper. They were actually the star of this dish, and we could eat them just on their own. Fresh from the garden only minutes before they were cooked, they were superb!

and now... I'm going to clean the oven!

Soup and sandwiches. Again.

It's Sunday, it's evening, and it's our turn for soup and sandwiches with our dear chums, N&S.

The recipe today is a bit of a cultural bastard. The soup has leanings to the Thai, the sandwiches are a little Iberian. 

The soup: A very kind patient of mine brought us some freshly-caught snappers about 2 months ago. I filleted them, and we had a brilliant, fresh, fish and chips, but the bones, head and skin went into a big pan with onion, bayleaf and water and I made a fragrant stock. And here it is, with the addition of lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, Thai basil, and coriander root, as the basis for this soup.

stock.

I then fried some red onion, garlic & ginger, (all finely chopped) until soft but not browned. 

frying things

And I strained the flavoured stock into the softened onions, and then decided it needed some sourness, so I added a few tsps of tamarind paste.

I then let it all cool, and waited for our guests to arrive before re-heating the soup base.

Finally, I added raw prawns and scallops, cooked them for about 3 minutes, and served the soup, garnishing with chopped coriander leaf. And, because I missed it out from the cooking process, so as not to offend the palate of those who don't like it, I served chilli sauce too, as I like the heat!

the soup. Served.

As for the sarnies: White bread and "Chaka":

Chaka is a bit obscure: even wikipedia doesn't list it, but the same Spanish best friend of LW who gave us the recipe for Tortilla also turned us on to this simple delight: Surimi (yes, really, that odd, rubbery faux-crab made of pollock and alginate!) hard boiled eggs, and mayonnaise mixed thoroughly and seasoned. That's Chaka!

and so is this.

It's also great on a baked potato. That's tonight's meal!

frittata, meet tortilla.

Eggs are back in season! The chooks are laying again, not without some hesitancy, but we are accumulating them more quickly than we're using them.

Usually, this heralds the first tortilla espagnol of the season; LW's best friend in Glasgow is a lovely Spanish lady who knows the recipe for the authentic tortilla, passed it on to me via LW and then I corrupted it somewhat. I think it's something to do with a problem with authority. I'll think about it later.

However, I wanted to see how things went if I extended the ingredients...

So Here's what I did:

I pan fried onion & garlic to soften but not brown them, added thinly sliced potato (so far exactly like a tortilla). Then I blanched brussels sprouts, broccoli florets and thin slices of carrot, and added them to the frying pan, added an unseemly amount of butter, and softened everything adding some seasoning in the form of salt, pepper and a little cayenne and cumin (don't tell LW- she doesn't like cumin). I also added a handful of crushed, toasted cashews

In a bowl I cracked 10 eggs, and added some cream and a heap of finely grated parmesan, whisked it all up and poured it into the veggies in the frying pan. Cooked slowly in the pan until the sides had set, I then put the pan in a hot oven to let the mixture bubble and brown.

I made the mistake of using the wood-burning range to keep the whole thing warm; it was warmer than I anticipated and I nearly burnt the damn thing. It looks burnt, but it tasted fine!

This was actually rather tasty, and great with a little chilli sauce. Or cold the next day. Or the day after:

LW the baker

 We do like our daily bread. Sometimes, we're in the mood for a floury white loaf (especially if we're having bacon sarnies) and other times we want something wholemeal, for a great breakfast toast, with marmalade.

If we're having homemade bread, we use a breadmaker often enough, but LW saw a recipe for a "knead-free" dough, and wanted to try it, so she did. The ingredients are as follows:

The dough sat right next to the wood-burning range (which was on all day yesterday as the temperature had dropped to below 10 degrees (cold for these climes!)) and rose spectacularly.

I nipped into Kaikohe and bought a couple of loaf tins, and the whole thing came together, so that, by early evening, we were basking in the warmth from the range and the smell of baking bread.

Here's how it looked:

And here's how it tasted:

Delicious, nutty, sweet and light. My grateful thanks to LW for a lovely recipe (especially as she claims that she can't cook!) xxx

Some assorted musings

This has been a busy week with a variety of interesting food-related things happening, and I've not taken photos of much of them!

We had a lovely supper at Ake Ake Winery and restaurant on saturday night. The restaurant is managed and catered by Chris and Jude, good friends of ours, so I'm bound to be biased, but the meal was excellent! I had a really good seafood chowder; light and very tasty, and then a braised lamb shank with Kumera mash and plenty of gravy, and panna cotta and biscotti to finish. Ake Ake make some good wines and their own 2009 Chambourcin  went down very well indeed! LW had a filo-parcelled camembert as her starter, then baked salmon and polenta, and finished with the panna cotta. There were 15 of us, for a 40th birthday party, and everyone enjoyed themselves, as far as I could tell.

(photo courtesy of the restaurant)

Yesterday afternoon, whilst I was dozing and watching TV, there was a brief lull in the torrential rain we'd been having, and LW spied a bunny in the orchard. Like a cross between Elmer Fudd and Rambo, I slipped out of the house and carefully closed in on the little furry blighter. It ran off, but, as they are wont to do, it stopped to see if I was still there. And I was, and then it wasn't. I won't go into the gory details, (unless requested), but skinning, gutting and butchering a rabbit is a very straightforward procedure. It's now jointed, blanched and in the freezer, waiting to be joined by a couple more before I make a casserole or curry!

(photo courtesy of the rabbit)

We've a glut of limes from one particular tree at the moment, so I thought I should preserve some, Moroccan style. So I did. I didn't think that 25 limes would fit in one big jar. But they did. And I didn't think that the salt used to preserve them would leach out so much juice that it would cover them. But it did. I'm going to do a load more of these with other citrus, as the season progresses. 

citrussy, salty deliciousness.

Japanese Braised Pork (Buta no Kanuki)

One of my favourite foods is belly pork. And one of my favourite ways of eating it is the Japanese dish of braised, slow-cooked pork served on rice with whole grain mustard (that most traditional of Japanese ingredients). If I get it right, the pork will be very tender; soft enough to pull apart with chopsticks, sweet, and spicy with an unctuous gravy that is very moreish. The sake bar and restaurant Kura in Auckland do a good version of it, and I always leave wanting more. Because their portions are so small. (Actually, that's not fair, their portions are fine.)

If I get it wrong, I'm not telling.

I am, however, deviating from the conventional, and purists, devoted to the art of Buta will be appalled. However, because of my European ancestry, I can't go past a piece of belly pork without insisting on some crackling, so here's what I'm doing:

Marinating the cubed, boned belly (still with skin on) in soy, dry sherry, ginger, crushed star anise and cracked pepper. For a day at least.

only 2 days to go...

after a day in the marinade, the meat has gone quite dark.

Dry the pork cubes, reserve the marinade, and then fry the pork in a big pan until browned on all sides. 

mmm...

Meanwhile, dissolve about 2 tablespoons of sugar in a cup of water and add to the marinade, and return the pork to it once browned. Return this to the fridge, and once cooled, skim off any fat, and place the cubes of pork in a roasting dish, skin side up. 

mmmm...

Add the marinade, and top up with water until the pork is covered except for the skin. 

mmmmm...

Slow cook in the oven at 140deg C for several hours; the liquid will need topping up with water from time to time, and the pork should become sticky and soft enough to carve with a chopstick. When it's cooked,turn on the grill in the oven and crisp up the skin. (I hope!)

mmmmmm!

UPDATE: the skin was so full of moisture from the marinade that it just didn't want to go crispy! Instead, it had become soft and silky and not a bit chewy, so I didn't risk any more cooking (after 3.5 hours), and here's how it looked:

Blimey!

Decant the gravy, separate the stock from the fat, and reduce the stock in a pan until it's glossy and thick enough to coat the back of the moon.

Serve with steamed shredded cabbage silverbeet, grainy mustard, and steamed rice. With the gravy. Don't forget the gravy. Apparently hard-boiled eggs are a traditional accompaniment but this is just lunch!

ready...

steady...

go!

3 days to prepare, 30 min to eat!

But it was really worth it; absolutely sensational! I will be doing this again.

Not another chilli sauce, surely?

Yes. Indeed. My love of chillis knows no bounds, and I just picked the last peppers of the season. (In case anyone was wondering, a "peck" is a quarter of a bushel; considerably more than the quantity I picked. Oh. A bushel is 8 Gallons.)
Last night I was round at our friends, N&S, watching the All Blacks beat Wales, and snacking all the while on antipasti. It was delicious. One of the little dishes was a homemade chilli pickle, made with some Scotch Bonnet peppers that S had grown. These peppers, traditionally, are very hot, but these provided more of a "Russian roulette" approach to the proceedings, with the occasional one being a sudden blast of fire, the others being tasty, but no hotter than, say, a glass of water.

So I was inspired. I took our remaining chillis (about 300 birds-eye Thai chillis, and another 40 slightly under-ripe Habaneros)

not quite a peck of peppers, shortly to be pickled.

 and am currently stewing them whole in wine, cider vinegar, fish sauce, soy sauce and lime juice. I've put a handful of garlic cloves in there too, and some lime zest, and I'll simmer them all until the garlic and chilli is soft. The smell is acrid and pungent, somewhere between a delicious pickle and an industrial accident.

do not inhale directly. If swallowed, seek medical attention.

Once they are stewed, I'll have to decide what's next; do I strain them through the mouli to make a smooth paste, or do I bottle them crushed but whole, seeds and all, for a mouth-burning pickle? If I leave the seeds in, I'm sure the heat will persist all the way down the digestive tract; I suspect I'll sieve them out.

Normally, I'd try to keep the cooking time to a minimum; the longer the cooking the milder the sauce becomes. But this time, I think I can go for a long cook, as the heat and pungency are at an all time high with this combination. And I already have some really hot sauce.

Decision time (the next day...)
I took out some of the softened whole Thai chillis, de-seeded them, chopped them up and returned them to the strained sauce to add a little texture. The result? This is probably the most pungent, and fieriest sauce I've made so far. I gave LW an old pole I rescued from a nearby barge, and she refused to touch the jars with it. So it is hot. I think it might make an excellent ingredient; it's been cooked so much that I could add it to a mild curry to make a hot one at the table. That sort of thing.

2 jars. With chilli sauce inside. Or is it jam...?