fri27jul2012: bouef à la tisonnais

cook-a-cow, continued 

this week's cut: shoulder

#16: shoulder (aka chuck) Cuts taken from the large muscle system of the shoulder & neck of beef are known as chuck steak. The chuck section yields some of the most flavorsome and economical cuts of meat.  The downside is that these cuts tend to be tough and fatty, and they can have more than their fair share of bone and gristle.  Best results from slow cooking, moist heat as with a pot roast or braising in a liquid.

In a small corner of Brittany, this dish is served through the long dry summer months, cooked outdoors on an open fire. Stopping for a time with Nico & Johnno, an old friend & his business partner, at Johnno's place near St Maden in Brittany, northern France, the chance to recreate some of the local dishes was too good to let pass.

Johnno's is a Grand Design project. Sitting typing on the porch, surrounded by red roses violets & marigolds, I'm finding it hard to find words to capture the beauty of this place. In a courtyard surrounded by crumbling stone & mud walls, looking through an entrance way the date 1771 etched in granite, a medieval landscape stretches out before me. Butterflies dancing in the wind over crops of cauliflower & cabbages & corn, fields of wheat & grass cut for hay, dairy paddocks of grazing jersey cows, all  making up a patchwork framed by orchards of plum trees & great oaks which line the small roads that wind their way through the countryside, a blue sky & a hot sun, shades of grey dispersing in the distant haze of summer...it is French countryside as I have always imagined French countryside to be.

On a recently constructed fire pit in the courtyard, we built our fire using old oak beams discarded from the ruins, collecting coals for the tagine Nico brought back from Morocco & which he has travelled with ever since. Over three years of renovating, Johnno tells me the joys of cooking outodoors in this way more than made up for having no kitchen. What a wonderful thing to do, sitting round the fire as the sun sets, eating good food & drinking wine in the company of friends. This dish reflects that rustic living.

Ingredients: Bouef à la Tisonnais

shoulder of beef, diced -we used roughly a kilo

onions&garlic -3or4 cloves, a cpl of onions

carrots/mushrooms/leeks chopped -a good handful of each

olive oil/cider/cider vinegar/thyme/terre de sel (sea salt)/black pepper - enough to marinate

tomato paste - a small tin should do it

(i've added soy sauce & fresh ginger)

saucisson breton (dried sausage, peppery) cut into good slices

fresh toulouse sausages (pork&nutmeg) also sliced

Method:

*marinate the beef in a little oil/vinegar/crushed garlic/s'n'p (+sliced ginger & splash of soy)

*heat the pan/pot/tagine you want you use for this dish & drain the meat (keeping the marinade) & drop in the cubed beef piece by piece to brown each side, in batches if necessary

*when browned, remove & set aside & repeat the process with the chunks/slices of toulouse & saucisse breton

*add the chopped veg, stirring then putting the lid on to get things happening for 10 minutes or so.

*add the beef & sausage to the veg, then spoon in the tomato paste & stir it all about

* next add a little of the marinade & some more cider - roughly a couple of cups of liquid all up

*put the cover on your dish, bring to simmering point, & walk away

*the dish will be ready when the meat is tender, in this case it took about 4 hours, in the tagine.

*the liquid can be reduced at this point if desired, or not

*we cooked a little couscous, mixed it with parsley & lemon zest, & stirred it through the stew to soak up a little juice.

One of the things to note about cooking meat like this is that unless given the time to soften, ie with liquid over the period of a few hours on a gentle heat, the tough fibres & connective tissue will mean this meat remains tough & stringy & really not that great to eat. For us, cooking with an open fire, the charcoals had to be topped up repeatedly to keep a consistently moderate heat, hot enough to get things bubbling but not too hot, since we didnt want to incinerate the tagine incase it cracked. Tasting the beef along the way, it's amazing how quickly it transforms, once ready, from chewy & tough to soft & tender & really tasty.

As a final note, while we had enough to feed four hungry blokes, there were left overs. Keep these, especially the sauce. The meat - well, whatever: munchies material for midnight fridge raids, bubble & squeak for brekky, in a sammy for lunch the next day...it's all good. The sauce, however, rich & spicy, meaty & thick, is a keeper. I kept what was left & used it as the foundation for the next night's dish... coming soon to the fridaynightdinnerbox...

fri15jun2012: sausage montignoso & friends

The food available in Italy is truly outstanding. Perhaps I'm simply thinking with my belly, but while there are those who flock to the leaning towers & such like for their sense of wonder, a meander about the local markets is doing it for me. I'm in La Spezia, medieval capital of northern Italy's Ligurian coast, & here, on worn cobblestones, surrounded by avenues of elegantly aging buildings with great wooden doors at street level & wrought iron balconies above, flower pots everywhere, green shutters & peeling paint, are the markets where I've been going for supplies; that's the place I've found for my daily fix. Just the other day, I bought a couple of ropes of small freshly made sausage Montignoso from an open air deli there.

An audience had gathered by the time my purchase was made. Apparently, it's unusual to stand at the counter gawping at all the long/short/fat/skinny mouldy skinned sausages, cheeses in wheels & bubbles; wax paper & twine wrapped treasures. So enraptured was I at the display before me that the old lady overseeing the operation ended up climbing down off of the stool upon which she was perched to come & join the man serving me. She gathered slices of cheese & cuts of cured meat on the way over & pretty much fed me by hand, one piece after the other &, with my eyes closing at the delight of each mouthful, chuckling & speaking Italian as she fed me the next piece. Had I died & gone to heaven?? My belly thought so...

Sausage Montignoso, speciality of the region of its name, is essentially a cured pork sausage. I ate one raw, torn open for me to inspect & to taste. I mean, me: 'what's that?' deli dude: 'here, eat!' just like that - the way to shop, I reckon. So I shopped, I ate, I bought sausage Montignoso. It's a sweet mix, a little spicy, a hint of fennel I thought, & it's small in size. In fact, it is made simply of 'the best, noble parts of the pig, the leg, the shoulder & the neck', salt & pepper, garlic & lard, & water; curing giving the final taste a delicate, slightly sour note. Mt first thought married it up with the tomatoes I'd tasted a few moments before...& what else? Onions, garlic...& perhaps in some way use up the ridiculous quantities of fresh sage & basil I was now carrying by the armful, in branches.

& so, something alike to a peasant stew began to form in the cooking pot of my mind...

ingredients: salsiccia montignoso & friends

onions garlic fennel bulb -2 of each

red & yellow peppers - 1 or 2 of each

salt & white peppercorns - pinches

butter & olive oil -again, be generous

fresh herbs, in abundance, roughly chopped -basil/parsley/sage/thyme

fresh ripe beautifully ugly tomatoes - delicious like from heaven's lab -lots&lots

sausage Montignoso - whole, still tied together if that's how they come

wine-am using a local dry white, grown on the Cinque Terra & simply called 'Cinque Terra'

method:

* preheat oven to about 200, olive oil into 2 or 3 roasting dishes

* in one dish, peel&quarter onions & fennel, cut garlic bulbs in half cut side down, peppercorns&salt

*roast the peppers, whole, then remove when skin begins to burn, cool, peel & deseed

*if using tomatoes (this time I didn't, tho next time I will) cut in half, scoop out seeds, season, drizzle a little olive oil on top, a knob of butter, sprigs of thyme in there, about a glass of wine, oven for about 15-20 minutes

*oven roast the sausage - I like to use the same dish that held the fennel, getting transference of flavour. make sure to toss them from time to time, so they colour evenly. the meat stays quite pink inside, & is succulent. Once done, I pull the string & it cuts thru the now delicate skins, all the little sausies dropping one by one into the dish.

*to bring the dish together, combine all in a large bowl. Make sure you use a spatula to get all the tasty bits from the roasting trays! Separate the fennel & onion loosely, squeeze out the garlic from its skin, slice the capsicums, either slice the Montignoso or leave them whole, throw in the handfuls of fresh herbs...toss once, twice, serve.

*bulghur wheat/risotto, pasta/couscous make great accompaniments, tho I must say I prefer a nice thin  spaghetti. A glass of something light & white, well it goes without saying...
buon appetito

(ok, so a little trip to Pisa can't hurt, since it's in the neighbourhood)

fri18may: last supper, jambalaya, prawn & chorizo, saffron cream, coriander salsa

The wish to publish a new dish each friday, avoiding repetition, has not been without opposition. One fridaynightdinnerbox dish in particular, if requests for repeats are anything to go by, stands out from the rest. A late posting then, the last fridaynightdinnerbox for a while, fridaynightdinnerbox favourite, jambalaya with prawns & spicy sausage, saffron cream, coriander salsa.


In this week's jambalaya, prawns are marinated in a coriander ginger & garlic salsa verde, the sausage will be a spicy khulen or pepperoni, or both, & instead of rice, bulghur wheat - though as I scan the pantry I notice Israeli couscous, which I've not had for a while...might use that instead...

Your part is simple: get in touch by early Friday morning, cos that's when i'll go shopping, & tell me how many dinnerboxes you'd like.

Drop-offs: Friday from 4pm onwards, to the office/site/home just let me know what suits.

To order, contact me by txt or email

txt: 021 2414 020

or

email: pabloskitchen@yahoo.com (subject heading: “fridaynightdinnerbox”)

& I’ll confirm your order when received.
talk to you soon…

cheers - Pablo

prawn farms in prachuap khiri khan. thailand

kitchen talk: arrivederci Aotearoa! ciao Italia!

My phone beeped two weeks ago, Ana's txt read:
need a hand in june & poss a little july. you'll need to sort out a rtn flight 2 pisa italy. interested?


So...fridaynightdinnerboxes will be taking a short break for a while, I'll be out of town... 


For the month of June then, hanging out with Ana aboard a yacht, based in Italy, where she has been working as a chef. An exciting adventure, to say the least, & something new. 


Postings here will continue, a catalogue new dishes & recipes to use once I return home to Auckland, both from Tuscany & elsewhere in southern Europe, but also for fridaynightdinnerboxers to cook & enjoy at home. So, while the dinnerboxes won't be arriving at your door for the time being, I look forward to hearing your comments about these dishes, your photos too. 


The global kitchen idea, of like minded food lovers cooking & eating the same dishes around the world, is a fundamental part of this project. What more to say then? Buon appetito!

recipe: shin of beef, cider soy & ginger sauce

What started out as a curious little braise has transformed throughout the day into a sweet sensational number. Well, not little as it goes, the steaks I picked up from the Westmere Butcher this morning were a good meaty size, organically reared beef & a good 500g per piece, thickly cut & on the bone, & cheap at $9.50 a kilo. It was with barely restrained glee that I walked out of the butcher's, anticipating the day's cooking to follow.

I love shin on the bone, & it was my mother's favourite cut also. She would make soup which would sit simmering on the stove, barely trembling, with garlic & carrots, bay & a sprig of thyme, a clear consomme which was delicious to sip... This week, following HFW's recipe, there was a degree of uncertainty over the ingredients listed: garlic & ginger, ok, but cider? soy sauce? crabapple jelly? together?? Process is important so, as mentioned in the last post, have a little faith; the merits of following a recipe reveal themselves as the dish develops in the pot. This recipe has proved to be no exception.

Ingredients: braised shin on the bone

pieces of shin, 1 per person

olive oil, salt, pepper -enough to rub over the meat nicely

ginger -2 sticks the size of yr thumb, peeled

garlic -a whole head

soy sauce -about 1/2 a cup

cider -I used a 1125ml bottle of harvest

a good dollop of crabapple jelly

a red chilli

 

Method:

*get the pot nice & hot, a good heavy dish, cast iron is good

*a little oil, throw in the sliced garlic & ginger, a little salt

*seal shin steaks in the pan, getting a good colour on each side, a cpl of minutes each will do

*remove the meat, set aside, & deglaze the pan with the soy sauce, using a wooden spoon to free all the crunchy tasty bits. It doesn't look too pretty, but at this stage flavour happens.

*add the jelly, crabapple is what I used, but berry something-whatever...I'm sure will be fine

*return shin pieces to pan, pour over cider to nearly cover, at least 1/2 way, drop in the chilli

*put the lid on, bring to the boil, reduce heat to barely a simmer

*walk away

*keep an eye on it, adding cider if required, turning meat if necessary, as it cooks

*I reckon about 4 or 5 hours does the trick. it's not an exact time measure, but you'll know when the meat is good: it'll fall from the bone when you pick it up to try it to see if it melts in your mouth, which it will do.

 

To serve, remove the meat & strain the juices. Overnight, the fat will rise to the surface & can be skimmed away (or saved to fry your breakfast sausages & mushrooms...). The juices can be reduced to thicken a little then used to spoon over the meat. Full of complexity, it's sweet, meaty, really really good.

On the side, I served spaghetti noodles tossed with marlborough salt, olive oil, parsley. I also blanched some winter green vegetables, silverbeet, beans, brussel sprouts, a knob of butter, a sprinkle of chilli pepper

English ciders, the first two of my tasting session. 

fri11may: shin of beef, ginger & soy - HFW

cook-a-cow, continued 

this week's cut: shin, on the bone

#'6 &17: shin (aka the shank) used mostly for soups, braising & stewing. Leaving the bone in gives you the extra flavour & with all the tougher cuts, long slow cookery brings out their best.

I'm going to try out a couple of recipes from a book Toni's just given me, Hugh Fearney-Wittingstall's River Cottage everyday. I love watching this guy's shows, he obviously loves his food & he cooks good honest food which is real food; grown & harvested, bred reared & butchered, brewed & bottled, hunted & collected. My kind of food. The cookbook process I use is, basically, I'll choose my recipe &, for the first time only, when I cook the dish I'll try to follow the recipe as accurately as possible. Resisting the urge to deviate can be difficult, but just for the first time, let it be. The next time, & from then on afterwards, changes are made according to preference. You begin to get a feel for the dish once it's been cooked a couple of times, revisiting each aspect until it looks & tastes just right.

This week's fridaynightdinnerbox is a slow beef braise, shin on the bone, with ginger & soy. On the side, following the cookbook closely, steamed winter greens, spaghetti noodles. To accompany, crisp leafy salad, lemon olive oil.

Your part is simple: get in touch by thursday afternoon, cos that's when i go shopping, & tell me how many dinnerboxes you'd like.

Drop-offs: Friday from 4pm onwards, to the office/site/home just let me know what suits.

To order, contact me by txt or email

txt: 021 2414 020

or

email: pabloskitchen@yahoo.com (subject heading: “fridaynightdinnerbox”)

& I’ll confirm your order when received.
talk to you soon…

cheers - Pablo

recipe: bulgogi, steamed veg, white rice

The best thing I can think of to say about this dish is, it's a keeper. I'll be eating Bulgogi again, soon; cooking it often from now on, too. In my quest  to cook-a-cow, joint by joint, this bulgogi was made using beef sirloin; pork & chicken versions are out there, by all accounts very popular. The process is simple enough; marinate the meat, grill it & use the marinade to make a sauce, serve it with rice & some tasty vegetables...an easy dish for a wok.

Ingredients: the bulgogi, incl marinade

onions, garlic, nashi pears
garlic chives, parsley stalks, spring onions
honey, saki, soy sauce, salt

method:
*peel & finely slice the veg/fruit then puree them
*slice chives stalks & sprouts on the slant, fold in to the pureed pulp
*add seasonings to taste
the marinade is ready to use now, so place yr meat & cover it well, mixing it all together with yr hands, letting it sit at least 2hrs, but preferably overnight, in the fridge

Ingredients: the vege garnish

leeks, carrots, capsicum, courgette,
 celery, daikon radish, bok choy

method:
*slice vege into small bite size, julienne looks good
*blanch in boiling water or steam 2mins, refresh in iced cold h2o, strain dry
*to reheat, plunge back into boiling h2o or nuke for 1or2mins in the microwave
I whipped up a quick dressing from finely chopped ginger/fresh coriander&mint/honey/s'n'p/sesame oil 

 Ingredients: the meat
marinating beef sirloin, finely sliced onion
toasted seeds, spring onions, parsley
sesame oil, olive oil

method:
over a fire on the embers would be a nice way to cook the meat for this dish, but in absence of a bbq, a good heavy pan would do, or a wok on a gas hob would be otherwise perfect
*get the pan super hot, strain the meat, fry in oil quickly, in batches, put aside in a bowl
*let the sauce develop between each batch, reducing whats left in the pan & adding to the meat
*fry a little sliced onion to add to the meat
*fold in chopped spring onion&parsley, toasted seeds

To serve this dish, cook some white rice, medium grain, I added a little wakame as they do in Japan, but this isn't necessary. I also used watercress, leaves only, tossing them with the rice at the last minute.   In a bowl, the bulgogi sits on the rice, your vege salad on top, the reduced bulgogi sauce should provide a good moistness to the dish, but if need be the marinade can be strained & reduced for this purpose.

As an extra little something on the side, when I was playing round with ideas this week, I threw together a wanton garnish: a whole segment of roasted elephant garlic rolled in chopped coriander&sesame, stuffed with a whole honey toasted cashew, a splodge of plum sauce for good measure. Deep fried they sit nicely in the bowl...& it's good to have an excuse to fry something tasty.

fri04may: bulgogi, beef chargrilled, toasted sesame seeds, steamed vegetables, rice

cook-a-cow, continued 

this week's cut: sirloin

The sirloin is one of the better cuts of beef, tender & versatile, along the loin, before the round. Sirloin cooks nicely with roasting or cooked grilled, as over embers, bbq'd. In basic terms, in terms of quality, & cost for that matter, the sirloin sits nicely between fillet & rump. A favourite cut for me.

This week's dish is inspired by the chef at Austins, Cobus Klopper, who tried this dish while on holiday in Korea, adapted the recipe somewhat & has introduced it to the Austins catering menus. I enjoy cooking with the Austin's brigade, prepping & cooking Cobus' menus, good flavours & always something interesting happening. However, I'm not familiar with Korean cuisine at all, so this dish has been a great little discovery for me. 

A little research revealed my ignorance: CNN rates it 23rd most delicious food in the world (so it must be true, right??) & according to Wikipedia, lucky Koreans have been munching the dish since as early as 67BC!! Crazy to think that Jesus, on his fabled journey to Japan during the unaccounted for years leading up to His ministry, might have landed upon a Korean shore, a transit stop perhaps, possibly maybe even have partaken in bulgogi delights for a last supper, Asian style! 

Bulgogi is Korean street food, there are bulgogi fast food shops even. Bulgogi is a culinary institution on the menus of the land. Now, putting forward what could be considered a convincing claim for a higher ranking in the top 50, this dish has found favour & recognition in fridaynightdinnerbox fashion: true greatness & the pinnacle of success. It would seem, after so long, the time has come for Bulgogi to take that giant leap to fame.

The beef is cut thinly & marinated overnight, nashi pears, soy, onions... Cooked quickly, it will be served over rice, the marinade reduced, toasted sesame, steamed vegetables honey & sour.

Your part is simple: get in touch by thursday afternoon, cos that's when i go shopping, & tell me how many you'd like.

Drop-offs from 4pm onwards, to the office/site/home just let me know what suits.

To order, contact me by txt or email

txt: 021 2414 020

or

email: pabloskitchen@yahoo.com (subject heading: “fridaynightdinnerbox”)

& I’ll confirm your order when received.
talk to you soon…

cheers - Pablo

recipe: ravioli spinach&feta alla puttanesca

27/04/12

Ravioli Puttanesca 

mise en place:

       •       filling formed into small parcels, freeze down

       •       make pasta dough, rest 1 hr

       •       portion out & season tomato ½’s, slow roast in oven

       •       roast capsicums

       •       oven dry olives –garlic & pickled green chilli

       •       toast pumpkin/sunflower/sesame seeds

       •       count, label noodle boxes, bags, serviettes, biz cards

       •       roll out pasta dough, flour/h2o brush, shape raviolis

       •       portion x10per??

       •       blanch raviolis, refresh, oil

       •       wash & dry lettuce

       •       remove skins from peppers&tomatoes

       •      bring sauce together

       •       make salad, zest & ¼ lemons

       •       portion out dinnerboxes, pack’n’stack

       •       1600hr hit the road

So the day starts with a mise en place list. A friend asked me to write about how I go about organising my day when there's cooking to be done, easier I thought to simply post a typed version of my prep list, since it's pretty self explanatory: long jobs first; easy jobs last. & anything that can be done the day before, like labeling the noodle boxes or oven drying the olives, well yea, that all helps on the day too, one less thing to worry about & all that.

Anyway, a little about the dish, um..well, for starters it's pretty yum! A name of dubious origins perhaps, puttanesca means lady of the night, so spaghetti puttanesca is, translated, literally, whore's spaghetti: it's cheap & it's easy...it's also nice to eat...which I add without intending to be vulgar. As will be noted in the recipe below, my sauce making has changed somewhat from the traditional method; I prepare each ingredient separately these days, not cooked slowly in a single pan, like neapolitana, nor combined & stewed at the end like caponata, just bringing them together at the end & reducing any runny juices left in the pan & that's it. Each component to the sauce stands up for itself &, to me, the end result is far superior. The addition of some good sausage satisfies the carnivores among us, & I don't think the puttanesca minded one bit.

ingredients: the sauce - roast peppers

capsicums, red/yellow/orange, olive oil

method:

*on an oven tray, rub oil over the capsicums,

*into a hot oven, when the skins get a little blackened

*transfer peppers to a bowl & cover with gladwrap, make it airtight, & let it sit for a while. the skins will separate from the flesh & can be peeled easily.

*slice & set aside

ingredients: the sauce - olives

kalamata olives, olive oil, a head of garlic or two, 

pickled green chili, orange zest, capers

method:

*an oven dish, olives, chop garlic in half, season, splash of oil, 

*180C in the oven til wrinkled, shaking the pan occasionally, about a 1/2 hour or so

*add the pickled green chilli, as much as you dare, 10 mins before taking out of the oven

*add the capers & orange zest, toss together, set aside

ingredients: the sauce - tomatoes

fresh tomatoes, a head of garlic,  an orange

peppercorns, cinnamon quill, olive oil, brown sugar

method:

*use the same oven dish the peppers were roasted in,  cut fresh tomatoes cut in half, garlic too

orange zested&squeezed, splash of oil

 cinnamon, sugar, salt crystals

*cover with foil & into the oven - they can share the oven with the olives, timing about the same

*a purist would peel & seed the tomatoes, but the skins can be pinched off easily enough when they're done. They don't break down, but can be finely sliced & added to the sauce, which is what i do, or discarded.

*there'll be a lot of liquid in the pan, so remove the tomatoes & set aside, 86 the orange & cinnamon quill, reduce the liquid by half in a pan on the heat & add to the sauce.

The sauce itself is simply a matter of bringing it all together. Turn it once, twice, & that's enough.

As sauces go, this will go deliciously with the pasta of your choice. Spaghetti is the norm, though this week I made raviolis (which I'll feature another week)...really, a conflict emerges with two heroes competing. Better to let the sauce speak for itself. A plain risotto, pearl barley or bulghur wheat, couscous...there are loads of options with putanesca.

buon appetito!