Wrapped fish fillet bake

I have decided that Wednesday night is seafood night. Quick to cook, and I buy fresh from Paddy’s Markets, along with the veggies, and eat with the boys that night. Here is episode one.

The sauce

• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons chopped shallots
• 1 tablespoon each rice wine, rice vinegar, lemon juice, grated ginger, crushed dried lemon myrtle leaves, peanut oil
• 1 teaspoon chopped coriander root
• 1 teaspoon palm sugar
• 1 pinch white pepper

The fish

• 1 kg ling fillets cut into large pieces
• .5 lemon, thickly sliced
• 4 tablespoons peanut oil
• About a handful of halved cherry tomatoes
• Greaseproof paper

Garnish

• Handful of coriander leaves
• .5 lemon thinly sliced

Method

Preheat oven to 200ºC

As always, take any refrigerated ingredients out into your kitchen to let them reach room temperature. Combine sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Tear off pieces of grease proof paper big enough to easily wrap each piece of fish.

Heat the remaining peanut oil to a high heat. Brown the ling pieces in each side, one at a time - about a minute each side. You just want some brown and crispy patches.

Remove the fillets to a sheet of paper.

Brown the lemon slices on each side.

Add the lemon slices to the fish.

Add the sauce and fold the paper over, collecting the ends in a bunch almost like a bonbon.

Place on a baking try and put into the oven for 10 minutes.

Serve with rice and steamed vegetables.

Embrace the bitterness - it's a very bachelor thing to do

Well, it’s more sour than bitter - but you get the picture.

My kaffir lime plant, now fIve years old, has produced good fruit this season. But what to do with it… The limes look great - like little green brains from something little, green and brainy.

There are lots of seeds inside, and a tough and conspicuous core - but the juice is strong and tasty, likewise the rind.

So I found some oranges that needed to be used, rounded up all the sugar in the pantry, and set to work.

I wish I had done this with my recent pickles - for bachelor proportions, turn to the microwave!

Kaffir and orange marmalade

Ingredients

• 3 medium oranges, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 3 kaffir limes, cored, seeded and finely sliced
• 5 cloves
• Sugar (in this instance I used up all the sugar I had - caster sugar, about 200g, raw sugar, about 200g, and brown sugar, also 200g.
• Water

Method

• Prepare fruit, and weigh, then add to about 2 litre mixing bowl. I have found the best way to handle the kaffir limes is to quarter them down the core. That way the core peels away easily in four strips, and the seeds (and there are quite a few of them) are more easily scooped out.
• Add same weight of sugar, plus a bit more because the kaffir lime is more sour than your average fruit, to mixing bowl
• Pour in enough water to cover - hold the fruit down with your flat hand, and once the water reacher your knuckles, that is about enough
• Put in microwave on high for 10 minutes
• Taste - things you can add if it’s not quite right include more sugar, maybe orange juice, lemon juice
• Add cloves, stir, and return to microwave on medium for another 10 minutes
• The mixture should have a fairly homogeneous colour by now, and be close to gel point. You can tell it is at gel point by taking a teaspoon and pouring onto an cold saucer. If it thickens as it cools, it is ready. What you are after is not to be solidly set, but to just holds the spoon and drips out rather than pours freely. If it is still runny, pop the mixture back in the microwave at medium and repeat until gel point is reached.
• Once you have established gel point, let the mixture cool a little so that it is safe to handle, but not set.
• Stir, and transfer to sterilised jars, seal, and refrigerate immediately

Yields: 1 kg marmalade for breakfast toast and arvo cheese platter

The juice is the dressing

Simple pickles and how to use them

Last weekend I took the boys to visit their grandma. As we were sorting out the lunch spread, my mum handed me a jar from the fridge and said - polish this off for me.

It was the last of a simple vegetable pickle - mostly pickle juice at this stage. And I thought - what a salad dressing this would make!

So we talked about how the little pickle can be done, and how I could use some spare veggies in my pantry - carrots and white radish. The carrots came from Paddy’s Market, Sydney; the white radish from Throg: the farm from beyond, Wootton.

Ingredients

• 2 cups shredded carrots and white radish
• 2 cm cub ginger, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 6 or 8 pepper corns
• .5 teaspoon cummin seeds
• .75 cup vinegar (e.g. combo white and cider)
• .25 cup water
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

Combine vinegar, water, sugar and salt, and bring to boil Add the remaining ingredients Bring back to boil and continue until the carrots are softened, but still slightly crunchy Transfer to a sterilised jar with enough juice to cover Refrigerate straight away
Yields: about a jam jar’s worth: approx 360gm

And putting to use…

The boys were back with their mum, so I rebranded the cooked lamb chops into cubes - to make them sort of like little meaty croutons, frying in butter, quickly just to get that crunch. A simple baby spinach leaf and tomato salad, with crispy lamb and pickles. Thank you and goodnight!

Gosht saagwala - lamb and spinach

Ingredients

• .5 kg boneless, cubed lamb
• 2 medium bunches English spinach, chopped - NOT silverbeet
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 2 cups water
• .25 cup yogurt
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil

Marinade

• .5 cup yogurt
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 3 coves chopped garlic
• 3 chopped coriander roots
• .5 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

Whole spices

• 2 bay leaves
• 3 cardamom pods
• 3 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick or bark
• .5 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
• 6–8 black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds

Side

• Chopped coriander leaves
• Chopped tomato
• Slivered almonds
• Chopped fresh green and red chilli (optional)
• Lime slice

Method

Combine marinade and coat lamb pieces and set aside for 30 minutes at least, but several hours or overnight if you can.

Blanch spinach with water and let rest also.

In a casserole dish, dry-fry whole spices until they are fragrant (do not burn).

Add peanut oil, then chopped onion.

Sauté until soft and translucent.

Turn heat to high and add lamb and all the marinade. Use a wooden spoon to stop the mixture from burning at the bottom of the pan.

Once the colour starts to turn a rich, darker colour, add the water from the blanched spinach (I use this water to rinse the marinade bowl), bring to boil, add spinach and yogurt, and simmer, partially covered for 1 hour, or until the liquid reduces and green colour of the spinach intensifies.

Serve with side, using some of this to garnish main.

Stout beef casserole and cottage pie rebrand

Having enjoyed the beef, mushroom, Guinness pies a few weeks ago, I thought I’d push the same idea into a lovely, warm serve of winter heartiness.

This is basically beef bourguignon, but with stout instead of red wine. Serve with creamy mashed potato, and roast broccoli and cauliflower - adding almond slivers is also good, but last night I forgot!

Unlike the pie version, I err on the side of big with the meat pieces. It’s almost like they are little steaks which you’re encouraged to slice and smear with the sauce and mash, rather than just spoon in.

Roast veggie tip: why par boil, when you can par zap? Many roast vegetables benefit from par boiling to soften the centre, so that the outside can be crisped. A couple of minutes in the microwave means less water, less flavour down the drain - and less time wasted. Just saying…

Don't forget the French onions!

For a regular casserole, you pop it covered into the oven for 3 hours. But I use the slow cooker for 8.

As a bachelor dad, I get the recipe to the first stage a night ahead. Then pop it in the fridge.

Next morning, into the slow cooker, and away I go to work. That way, after school when my kids come home, they open the door to that rich and homey smell. They might not be here as often as I’d like, but it’s their home, and their dad loves them. Food can say that.
Serves 4

Ingredients

1kg chuck steak 75g pancetta, roughly chopped 1 cup stout 1 cup beef stock 1 tbsp salt 3 tbsp olive oil 3 tbsp butter 1 brown onion, roughly chopped 2 carrots, roughly chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 2 tbsp plain flour 3 bay leaves 8 eschalots, peeled 150g button mushrooms, sliced 2 sprigs thyme

Serve with buttery mashed potato and roast broccoli and cauliflower (with slivered almonds - if you remember... )

Method

1. Cut beef into 4–5 cm pieces.
2. Place the stout in a saucepan and reduce by a third over a medium-high heat, then add beef stock and bring to a boil.
3. In frying pan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter over a high heat. Season the beef with salt and fry in batches until caramelises as the edges and corners. Set the fried beef aside and add another 1 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp butter to the dish. When the butter is foaming, add the onion and carrot and reduce heat to medium-low . Cook for about 8 minutes, then add the garlic. Cook for a further 4 minutes, then add flour , mix through and gently cook for about 3 minutes.
4. Gradually pour the hot stout and stock mixture over the onion and carrots, stirring to ensure no lumps form. Bring to a gentle boil. Return the beef to the pan with any resting juices and bay leaves. (Stage 1 complete) Cover and cook in oven for 2 ½ hours in oven, or 8 in slow cooker.
5. In a frying pan, heat the remaining oil and butter on a medium-high heat, add pancetta and cook until lightly coloured, about 4 minutes, then remove from the pan. Add the eschalots and cook until they deepen in colour (about 3–4 minutes), then remove. Finally, add the mushrooms and lightly sauté (about 4–5 minutes).
6. Add the pancetta, eschalots, mushrooms and thyme leaves to the braised beef. Cook for a further 15 minutes. Serve with buttery mashed potato, extra thyme and freshly ground pepper, and roast veggies.

Rebrand

Next day, pull out the leftovers from the fridge and cut the beef and veggies into small pieces. Scoop up all the sauce, and place everything into a pie pot.

Take the mash leftover and combine with 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs and 1 tablespoon of grated pecorino cheese.

For best results, as ever, let the whole lot come to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 160º

Top the casserole pie filling with the mash mix, fluffing it up with a fork. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes. If necessary, pump up the heat at the end to get the browny edges happening.

Rendang danging

(Indonesian beef and coconut curry)

One of the things I like about this dish is that it’s like a western casserole in reverse - in western casseroles, you fry first then simmer; in rendang danging you simmer first, then fry.

At the end, you have a rich, dark, semi-dry curry that goes very well with rice, and even better with flat breads such as roti canai or chapatis.

Ingredients

• 1.5kg diced chuck steak
• 1 400ml can coconut cream
• 4 cloves garlic
• 2cm cube fresh ginger, sliced
• 1cm cube fresh galangal, sliced
• 2 coriander root
• 8 birdseye chilli
• 2 onions
• 2 stalks lemongrass, sliced
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp ground coriander seed
• 4 curry leaves
• .5 cup tamarind liquid
• 2 tbsp peanut oil
• palm sugar to taste
• garnish - torn coriander leaves, dry-fried desiccated coconut

Method

This one goes fast slow fast. It works well to do the assembling around lunch time, pop it in the slow cooker for the rest of the day, then back into the frying pan for about half an hour to reduce and finish. So…

Roughly chop one onion, thinly slice the other.

In blender, blitz the chopped onion, garlic, chillies, ginger, galangal, lemongrass, coriander root with just enough enough coconut milk for it to form a paste.

Once done, fry in peanut oil until the oil starts to separate from the liquid. Stir in beef cubes until they are coated, then add remaining coconut cream. Raise temperature to bring to a boil. Add remaining ingredients except the tamarind, sugar and garnish.

Once it has reached a strong boil, drop the temp and simmer, covered for about 2 hours - or, which is how I like to do it, transfer to a slow cooker and cook for 6 hours - in which case you give the frying pan a clean, because you’ll use it again!

After 6 hours in the slow cooker, transfer the mixture to the frying pan, bring the heat up and cook off the liquid until it just clings to the meat. Stir in sugar and tamarind.

Garnish to serve.

Pepper beef pie

Pastry

3 sheets short crust pastry
2 sheets puff pastry
1 lightly beaten egg

Filling

4 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, diced
1 kg chuck steak, cut into 1cm cubes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cups beef stock
1 portobello mushrooms, chopped - about 2 cups
1 30g can green peppercorns, including brine
1 cup Guinness
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
3 tablespoons cornflour
¼ cup water
salt and pepper to taste
Yields - six pies

Method

As with just about all cooking, the key thing is to start well by having everything (including the Guinness - and especially the meat) at room temperature.

In a heavy-based saucepan, fry meat in the oil a handful at a time to brown. You want a little caramelisation to happen. Set cooked meat aside.

Reduce heat and sauté onion and garlic, and then mushrooms, until soft.

Raise heat and add Guinness, bringing it to a strong boil to cook off the alcohol.

Add stock, peppercorns, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, then return meat to pan and simmer uncovered for an hour and a half.

Mix the cornflour in the water, and stir through the pie filling until it thickens. Remove from heat.
Preheat oven to 180º C.

Smere the pie trays with butter, and sprinkle with flour. Line with the shortcrust pastry. Place in the oven for 5–10 minutes. You want them to firm up a little, and just begin to go gold.

Remove, and loosen from the tray using a spoon, or the back of a bread knife. Spoon in mixture. Cut the 2 sheets of puff pastry into four squares each, then place over the top of the pies. Beat the egg, and glaze the puff pastry. Slice up the remaining puff pastry and do something that tries to be creative but isn’t. Glaze that too - you might as well.

Pop them into the oven for 30 minutes, repositioning every 10 minutes so that your pies are evenly golden brown.