How to make a pie floater? A cook’s hack! I recently made a version of Greg’s creamy caper sauce from Greg’s Kitchen. Today I made another of Greg’s creations, viz., a pie floater.
Fair enough I didn’t make the mashed potato with mine. I couldn’t be bothered cooking spuds and mashing them.
I also didn’t cook my pie in the microwave oven. I much prefer conventional oven cooked pies.
Cooking Greg’s creamy caper sauce wasn’t really anything new or special. Making a cream sauce is pretty routine but watching this video last week gave me an idea for how I was going to enjoy my leftover rib eye beef and leftover lamb shoulder. I find Greg’s videos pretty funny. His YouTube channel has a pretty good reach and it demonstrates how with persistence and dedication you can make a success from meagre resources.
Saturday started as Saturdays do with grocery shopping and then a walk around Lake Ginninderra. I shot some photographs while I was out and about.
For dinner I had thawed the beef and lamb in the Foodsaver bags. Normally I would eat the meat after I’d heated the bags in a saucepan of hot water for about 30 minutes but this time I seared each side of meat in a hot frying pan with browning butter.
Here is my Australia Day roast lamb dinner. You may recall on Sunday I cooked a standing rib roast and in that post embedded a YouTube video outlining the marketing campaign for Australia Day roast lamb.
Before we get to dinner though let’s look at how I spent some of my Australia Day.
For breakfast I enjoyed a green and gold omelet with Coon cheese, a good Australian cheese.
I then went for a walk around Lake Ginninderra.
So I spent a good portion of today cleaning the apartment for a rental inspection tomorrow and also binge watching World War II in colour on Netflix. Nothing like learning a little modern history while my Australia Day roast lamb was cooking. I’m so grateful to the warfighters and civilians who fought and died for our freedom and our way of life.
So this Australia Day roast lamb was all about a low slow oven cook. I used the leftover beef stock and quinoa with green peppercorns from my roast beef to enrich the flavour of my roast lamb.
Prepare a baking tray with the beef stock, quinoa, green peppercorns, carrots, onion, apple and rosemary.
Lay the lamb on top
Cover with aluminium foil
Cook at 120 °C for 3 hours
After 2 hours add a cob of sweet corn wrapped in aluminium foil
At 3 hours remove everything from the oven and allow everything to rest for 20 minutes
Ladle out some quinoa, green peppercorns and rosemary and with a little fatty stock add it to the kale coleslaw and then add some crushed mixed nuts and Coon cheese
Slice the lamb and plate up
Vacuum pack the remaining lamb
Shoot a photograph
Eat the meal and consider what Australia Day means to me
Wash the dishes
Write the recipe
Blog (verb)
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The rest of the meat has been divided in half and vacuum packed for future meals.
One of my favourite appliances is my Sunbeam FoodSaver. How did I use it for vacuum packed leftover roast lamb? I’ll get to that later.
I’ve had my FoodSaver for many years, even back to the days in Darwin. I don’t just use it for food saving either. I use it to pack clothes for winter or summer. I have keepsakes vacuum packed. I have my Member of the Order of Australia medals vacuum packed. Why? This thing helps you save space. It also means when you put things in storage, you don’t have to worry about metals discolouring. Woolen clothes compress and when you open the packet they immediately return to their original state.
Anyway, back to the lamb. It didn’t take long to get back into my routine on returning from my Hong Kong holiday. I hit Coles on Saturday morning and did my usual grocery shopping. On top of salmon and chicken I thought I may also get some lamb in the form of a small boneless lamb shoulder roll. I picked a piece that was about 500 grams (about 1 pound).
On Saturday afternoon at about 3 pm I put the lamb roll in a baking tray and added about 1 cm (½ inch) of water along with about 100 grams of tricolour quinoa. I quartered a lemon and added a quarter to the four corners of the baking tray. I also covered the lamb with a small tin of green peppercorns. I then sealed the baking tray with aluminium (yep, American friends it’s aluminium) foil and put the tray into an oven at 120 °C (about 250 °F) for three hours.
I cut off about half the meat for dinner and put the rest into a Sunbeam FoodSaver bag and vacuum sealed it. That then went into the refrigerator.
On Sunday evening I removed the vacuum packed lamb from the refrigerator and placed it in a saucepan of boiling water. Using a thermometer to measure the water temperature, I reduced the temperature so the water was about 80 °C. I warmed up the meat for about 30 minutes and removed the meat and allowed it to rest for about five minutes. Once I could safely handle the plastic wrap with my fingers I cut it open and sliced the meat on a cutting board. I knew immediately the meat would be amazing to taste and would be so tender. It was, it was bloody amazing. I’m going to try this with beef soon and see how it goes. I’ll let you know.
Monday Canberra Food Blogger link love
So today in the Canberra Food Blogger Facebook group the links that were shared include:
Never fail roast lamb is easy as putting a lump of meat into an oven and drooling for a few hours. Trust me. Cooking lamb low and slow is the key.
It’s been a few months since I’ve roasted a joint of lamb. Tonight I wanted a lamb dinner with enough meat left over for lunches.
I bought my rolled boneless shoulder of lamb from Coles this morning along with half a butternut pumpkin (squash for my north American friends), some Aussie spears (asparagus), tricolour quinoa and sweet corn.
I also wanted to use some spike seasoning to help me remember Barb by.
Prepare the spice rub and then gently rub it into the oiled up meat
Put the meat onto a rack in a baking tray which has the quinoa and water added
Cover tightly with some aluminium (note the spelling and pronunciation my north American friends) foil
Put the baking tray into a preheated oven at 150 °C for 3 hours
With 1 hour left start preparing the butternut pumpkin (squash) by removing the seeds and oiling up the surface and then placing oiled surface down on some baking paper on a baking tray
Wet the corn cob under running water and wrap in some aluminium foil and add to the tray with the pumpkin
Place the pumpkin and corn into the oven with 60 minutes cooking to go
At three hours remove everything from the oven
Place the meat onto a plate and cover with aluminium foil and rest for 20 minutes
Spoon out the cooked quinoa and drain
Cut the the pumpkin into slices
Unwrap the sweet corn
Carve the lamb into thick slices
Put the spare meat and pumpkin and quinoa into containers and refrigerate
Plate up and shoot a photograph
Eat the meal
Wash the dishes
Write the recipe
Blog (verb)
3.5.3208
Click on a thumbnail to open the gallery and then scrolled through the images
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