Home cooking

Pressure cooker speck three-ways

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

Happy Saturday. I hope you’re well and you’ve enjoyed the past week. I’ve enjoyed a brilliant week apart from the worst week of hay fever so far this year. Praise God for antihistamine drugs 🙂

During the week, a member of the Facebook group “Cooking meals for one,” Merryn suggested I write a post about the speck I’d cooked.

For readers who don’t know, speck is smoked pork belly. I usually describe it as fancy bacon.

The easiest way to cook it is in a pressure cooker. I cut the block of pork into three thick longitudinal strips. If you didn’t use a pressure cooker, I’d recommend stripping away the rind, which can be a little chewy. Because speck is pork belly, it feels fatty and dense in your hand. I use a sharp knife to slice it safely due to the denseness of the pork. For example, I use my Dick butchers knife.

For flavouring and to balance the nutritional value, I usually add some lentils, whole peppercorns, Chinese-five-spice powder, star anise, and master stock.

For a small block of speck, I cook the meat for 30 minutes under pressure.

The three strips make a minimum of three meals for me. This week, I got four meals out of the three strips.

Pressure cooker speck and pork belly with lentils, peppercorns, potato mash, and baby green peas.

Wednesday evening’s meal.

Pressure cooker speck and pork belly with lentils, peppercorns, potato mash, and baby green peas.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns wrapped in puff pastry with a salad.

Thursday evening’s meal.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns in puff pastry with a salad

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns wrapped in puff pastry with smokey barbecue sauce.

Friday’s lunch.

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns in puff pastry with smokey barbecue sauce

Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup.

Tonight’s meal consisted of a pumpkin soup made with roast Kent pumpkin, coconut cream, along with the lentils and peppercorns blended into a soup. I broke up the speck and added it to the soup.

Ingredients

  • Leftover cooked speck, lentils, and peppercorns
  • Kent pumpkin
  • Olive oil
  • Iodised salt
  • Dark brown sugar
  • Coconut cream
  • Vegetable stock

Instructions

  1. Lovingly sharpen your cook’s knife (as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend Proverbs 27:17 NLT).
  2. Remove the seeds and the connective tissue of the core of the pumpkin.
  3. Carefully cut the pumpkin into chunks approximately 8 cm³. Leave the skin.
  4. Gently rub oil over the pumpkin chunks with your hands.
  5. Rub in some salt and then rub in some of the dark brown sugar.
  6. Place the pumpkin pieces onto a baking sheet and place them into a hot oven until the pumpkin is soft enough to pierce with a sharp probe. The aim is to penetrate the pumpkin’s flesh, and on withdrawing the instrument, no pumpkin residue should be on the metal surface. It should go in and out smoothly. Ideally, the caramelisation of the surface of the flesh with the aid of sugar will have occurred.
  7. In a saucepan, add the cooked pumpkin, coconut cream, stock, lentils, and peppercorns. 
  8. Bring the soup to a simmer and cook until the coconut cream begins to thicken.
  9. Puree the soup with a stick blender.
  10. Continue simmering the soup and drop in pieces of your pulled speck gently while stirring.
  11. Serve the soup into a bowl and garnish with whatever herbs you feel desirable.
  12. Give thanks to the Lord for the meal.
  13. Take a large spoon and enjoy the soup.

Takeaways

The soup is good. It is thick and spicy. The peppercorns in the soup are like a party in my mouth. The speck is tender, succulent, and moist. The coconut cream gives the soup an Asian feel. To augment that, I should have added some curry paste, perhaps, a laksa paste.

Final thoughts

  1. How was your week?
  2. Are you a fan of bacon? I went out this morning and enjoyed eggs benedict with bacon. It’s the first bacon I’ve eaten in months.
  3. I reckon if you like bacon, you’ll love speck. Would you please give it a go and let me know what you think?
  4. Do you have plans for Christmas? I’m looking forward to summer.
  • Eggs Benedict with bacon from Stella’s by the lake
  • Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup
  • Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup
  • Pressure cooker speck, lentils, and peppercorns cooked in pumpkin soup

Pork belly red curry

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

Yummy Lummy’s mission is to help singletons cook meals for themselves.

Many of the meals here have enough leftovers, so if you are part of a family or a group house, you could use the recipe for an evening meal.

Tonight I put together some leftover bits and pieces to make a tasty evening meal.

During the week, I’d cooked a few pork belly strips and peppercorns in the pressure cooker. I’d also cooked some rice and had some leftovers.

One of the things I do with capsicum is to buy three of them (red, green, and yellow), slice them at the start of the week, and use the slices as needed.

I am a lazy cook, so I buy whatever looks good at the supermarket rather than make a curry paste from scratch.

Pork belly red curry

Ingredients

  • Cooked pork belly strip
  • Cooked peppercorns
  • Cooked rice
  • Capsicum slices
  • Chopped parsley
  • Sliced red cabbage
  • Red curry paste
  • Coconut cream

Instructions

  1. Lovingly sharpen your cook’s knife (as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend (Proverbs 27:17 NLT).
  2. Slice the red cabbage
  3. Dice the pork belly strip
  4. Chop the parsley
  5. Heat a skillet and add some cooking oil.
  6. Heat the pork and peppercorns.
  7. Add a tablespoon of red curry paste as the pork softens, and gently stir everything with a wooden spoon until the pork and peppercorns have a curry paste coating.
  8. Add in the rice and mix everything and cook until the rice is hot. Remember that when you reheat rice or any food for that matter, you want to get the food in the cooking vessel hot enough to kill vegetative bacteria. Please don’t make the mistake of calling this a sterilising process. It isn’t. Sterilisation requires the death of spores, and the only reliable way to sterilise food in a domestic kitchen is to use a pressure cooker. At best, all we’re doing with a skillet is pasteurising the food.
  9. Pour in the coconut cream and stir everything. Bring the food to a simmer and keep cooking to reduce the coconut cream.
  10. Thicken the coconut cream to the consistency you want and turn the heat off.
  11. Mix through the capsicum, cabbage, and parsley and serve in a bowl.
  12. Give thanks to the Lord for the wages we earn to buy food and the skills we’ve learnt to prepare and cook food. 

Final thoughts

  1. How has your week been?
  2. Have you ever experienced food poisoning from poorly heated food?
  3. Do you like making meals from scraps of food you’ve cooked during the week?
  • Red cabbage Parsley Capsicum
  • Pressure cooker Pork belly Peppercorns
  • Rice Peppercorns
  • Pork belly red curry
  • Pork belly red curry

Pressure cooker ribeye roast

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

How are you? It’s been a good week; I even spent half a day in the office!

Thankfully the weather here in Canberra is getting warmer. Spring has sprung, and with it, the pollen count has exploded. Hay fever is the only downside of spring.

One of the many highlights of this week was receiving a gift from my daughters. They bought me a hand mixer for my birthday (yes, I know my birthday is in May and it’s October). I’m looking forward to using it tomorrow to make pancakes.

  • KitchenAid Hand Mixer
  • KitchenAid Hand mixer

Ingredients

  • Ribeye roast
  • Iodised sea salt
  • Master stock
  • Peppercorns
  • Potato
  • Red cabbage
  • Carrot
  • Red onion
  • Wasabi mayonnaise
  • Instant gravy

Instructions

Pressure cooker ribeye roast

  1. Remove the ribeye roast from the refrigerator about an hour or so before you plan to start cooking.
  2. Unwrap it from the plastic packaging.
  3. Dry the surfaces of the roast with some absorbent paper towel.
  4. Season the meat with salt. Be generous with the seasoning.
  5. Allow the beef to rest at room temperature.
  6. Sear the surfaces of the roast to get it brown.
  7. Place the ribeye into the pressure cooker and add master stock plus peppercorns and a potato.
  8. Cook the ribeye for one hour.
  9. Allow the pressure cooker to equalise and keep the meat enclosed for another 15 minutes. The resting helps keep your meat moist.
  10. Remove the roast from the pressure cooker and, with a boning knife, dissect away the fat cap for the meal. Place the rest of the meat into a container and put it into the refrigerator.

Slaw

  1. Lovingly sharpen your cook’s knife (as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend Proverbs 27:17 NLT).
  2. Slice the cabbage, carrot, and red onion.
  3. Mix with the mayonnaise.

Finishing up

  1. Make the instant gravy according to the instructions for use.
  2. Add the cooked peppercorns from the cooking liquor to the instant gravy and mix it through.
  3. Plate up the meat and slaw and slather with instant gravy.
  4. Give thanks to the Lord for His grace and mercy.

Cooking notes

Why did I use a boning knife to remove the fat cap? It feels more comfortable using a knife with a short distance between the spine and edge for dissecting between muscle planes.

Why did I reserve the fat cap for dinner? The fat cap is the best part of a ribeye because it is the deckle or spinalis dorsi muscle. It is tender and has a high amount of fat. We all know that fat means flavour.

Blog post questions

  1. Do you have hay fever? How do you manage it?
  2. What did you receive for your birthday this year?
  3. Do you like your meat fatty or lean?

Simul Justus et Peccator

I know many people think of October as Halloween month. All Hallow’s Eve has never really featured highly in my mind. I’m always amused to see all these big North American pumpkins in Coles.

When I think of October, I think of Martin Luther and his posting of his 95 theses on 31 October 1517. Reformation Day represents the onset of the protestant reformation.

I’ve been listening to Tim Keller this month preach on Galatians. On Thursday morning, I listened to a sermon he titled “Justified Sinner”. The text was Galatians 2:17–21. Tim explained how one of Luther’s most well-described formulae is Simul Justus et Peccator, Latin for a justified sinner. If you’re interested, the podcast is fantastic. Tim explains the heart of the gospel in this sermon.

  • Ribeye roast
  • Ribeye roast
  • Ribeye roast and iodised salt
  • Pressure cooker ribeye roast with slaw and instant gravy with extra peppercorns.
  • Pressure cooker ribeye roast with slaw and instant gravy with extra peppercorns.
  • Pressure cooker ribeye roast with slaw and instant gravy with extra peppercorns.
  • Pressure cooker ribeye roast with slaw and instant gravy with extra peppercorns.

Pressure cooker rolled lamb shoulder

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

I’m on a roll with my pressure cooker. I’m trying all sorts of cuts of meat. I think the only thing I’d probably baulk at would be fish, but then again, who knows? I may find a recipe I want to try using fish. The cooking time would be brief.

So today has been pretty glorious. I’ve enjoyed the sunshine and clean, fresh Canberra air. Zoom church was good. I also got to chat with a friend who lives in Houston.

Lake Ginninderra
Lake Ginninderra

Ingredients

  • Rolled shoulder of lamb with the bones removed
  • Master stock
  • Brown onion
  • Potatoes
  • Gravy
  • Iodised salt
  • Radish
  • Fennel
  • Red onion
  • Capsicum
  • Parsley
  • Lemon zest
  • Lemon juice
  • Olive oil

Instructions

  1. Unwrap the meat from the plastic. I would use biodegradable wrapping.
  2. Dry the surface of the roast.
  3. Rub the lamb with iodised salt.
  4. Sear the surface to caramelise the outer meat.
  5. Add in the master stock, onion, and potatoes.
  6. You could also add some garlic, rosemary, and thyme for some extra flavour if you have it.
  7. Cook the lamb for one hour.
  8. Prepare the salad vegetables with a mandolin. I recommend using a safety glove to avoid losing significant portions of skin and blood.
  9. Mix the lemon juice and olive oil. Use this mixture as a dressing for the salad.
  10. At the end of the high-pressure hour, allow the internal pressure to drop to the ambient pressure.
  11. Keep the lid on for about half an hour to ensure the meat is tender and doesn’t dry out while it rests in the meat juices.
  12. Remove the meat and place it on a carving board.
  13. Lovingly sharpen your butcher’s knife (as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend Proverbs 27:17 NLT).
  14. Slice the meat with long slow, deliberate strokes of the knife and discover the lamb is so tender it falls apart along the muscle bundle planes. Set aside a couple of “slices” for dinner. Place the rest of the cooked meat into a container for refrigeration.
  15. Make the instant gravy according to the instructions for use.
  16. Prepare a dinner plate with slices of lamb and salad. Spoon gravy over the meat to keep it moist.
  17. Give thanks to the Lord for His grace and mercy.
  18. Eat the meal while listening to some fantastic music (I’ve embedded a couple of YouTube videos at the end).
Pressure cooker Lamb shoulder Gravy Radish Fennel Red onion Pars
Sunday dinner. Pressure cooker lamb shoulder, instant gravy, and a fennel salad.

Notes

I think the perfect cut of lamb for cooking and eating is the shoulder. If I didn’t live alone, I would buy a shoulder with the bones in. I like a whole shoulder because I like the knife work necessary to dissect and remove the bones and roast them alongside the meat.

When I refer to master stock, I mean the liquor from previous meals. Whenever I use the pressure cooker, I sieve the liquid and keep it refrigerated. Before using the refrigerated liquor, I remove the fat which has solidified. My master stock has juices from many species, including beef, chicken, lamb, and pork.

When I cook with a pressure cooker, I’ll use the cheapest potatoes I can find. I may not even eat them with that meal. I’ve discovered potatoes cooked this way roast well after refrigeration. 

Final thoughts

  1. Do you like mint sauce with lamb?
  2. What’s your favourite condiment with cold lamb sandwiches?
  3. Do you keep a master stock of old cooking liquor?

Feel free to leave answers in the comments 👍🙂

YouTube videos I love

Celtic Worship is a Scottish group of musicians who sing hymns and other songs.

Oh Holy Night

The Celtic Blessing

Naomi and Steph have marvellous singing voices. 

  • Australian lamb rolled shoulder roast
    Australian lamb rolled shoulder roast in plastic wrap
  • Master stock in a red plastic cup
    Master stock. Do you like the wobbly jelly-like consistency? It looked so cool as it wiggled and jiggled.
  • Australian lamb rolled shoulder roast
    Australian lamb rolled shoulder roast nude, sans plastic wrap.
  • Dick knife Dick butcher's knife
    Butcher’s knife
  • Pressure cooker lamb shoulder roll
    Pressure cooker lamb shoulder roll
  • Pressure cooker Lamb shoulder Gravy Radish Fennel Red onion Pars
    Sunday dinner. Pressure cooker lamb shoulder, instant gravy, and a fennel salad.

Chicken and leek pot pie

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

Hi there 😊 How are you? 

Canberra emerged out of lockdown on Friday (2021-10-15), well, technically, it was Thursday evening, but the functional changes took effect on Friday.

Not much has changed for me. Given I have no one to visit and no one comes to my place, no change there. I’m not that interested at this stage in eating out; as much as I’d like to see small business people keep earning an income, my contribution will effectively be nil. Not because I don’t want to, but because my interest is not contributing to any crowding anywhere. Crowding increases the risk of infectious disease transmission, and it’s not limited to COVID-19. 

I know some immunologically vulnerable people, and the thought of contributing to spreading infection is enough to stay at home as much as possible.

Capsicum, Celery, Cucumber, Fennel, Lemon zest, Parsley, Radish, Red onion

Ingredients

  • Chicken thigh meat
  • Leek
  • Mushrooms
  • Thyme
  • White wine or cooking sherry
  • Cream
  • Cheese
  • Puff pastry
  • Egg
  • Radish
  • Fennel
  • Red onion
  • Parsley
  • Celery
  • Lemon zest
  • Lemon juice
  • Olive oil

Instructions

  1. Lovingly sharpen your cook’s knife (as iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend Proverbs 27:17 NLT).
  2. Slice all the vegetables
  3. The choice of chicken can be a supermarket purchases roast chook or chicken meat you’ve previously cooked, or you can cook some chicken meat specifically for this meal. I had cooked some chicken thighs in a pressure cooker last week, and I used that meat for this dish. 
  4. Heat a skillet with some neutral oil. I use Queensland nut oil.
  5. Sauté the leeks and mushrooms and then add in the chicken meat and heat it through. Add in the thyme leaves too.
  6. Depending on how much chicken, leek, and mushrooms you used, you may find you have too much for your pie dish. Please remove what you won’t need and aliquot it to a container for refrigeration and use at another time.
  7. Turn off the heat and allow the filling to cool a little. 
  8. Place the filling into your pie dish. If you’re a wise cook, you’ll lubricate the inside surfaces of your pie dish with some butter or oil. While I make no claims to any wisdom, I used butter because I’ll use any excuse to use some butter.
  9. Add a little cream and some grated cheese and mix it through the filling.
  10. As an optional step, add a layer of basil leaves for a pleasant surprise when you cut through the pie.
  11. If you’re a keen and competent cook, you can make your puff pastry. Given that Yummy Lummy (i.e., me) is all about convenience cooking for singletons, I buy puff pastry from a supermarket brand.
  12. Thaw a sheet of puff pastry while that is happening, turn on the oven to about 180 °C. 
  13. Cover the pie dish with the pastry and crimp the edges.
  14. Beat the egg and, with a brush, ‘paint’ the pastry.
  15. Place the pie dish into the oven and cook until the pastry is a golden brown colour.
  16. While the pie is cooking, prepare the salad and dress with lemon juice and olive oil.
  17. Remove the pie from the oven and admire your handiwork.
  18. Take a portion of the pie and place it on a plate and add some of the salad.
  19. Praise God for the day and thank Him for the food.
  20. Eat and enjoy.

A word about love

It’s been a pretty good week. Work has been great. While it is busy, I have fantastic workmates who make everything we do enjoyable.

I’ve been enjoying listening to some audiobooks by Sam Allberry and sermons by Tim Keller on podcasts. I was also excited by last Sunday’s zoom church service. We’ve started a series on Peter’s letters. Coincidentally, the sermon series I’m listening to by Tim Keller is on Galatians and has a bit to say about Peter.

In one of the books this week, Sam mentioned a well-known passage of scripture commonly quoted at weddings.

‘If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ‘

1 Corinthians 13:1–7.

He suggested comparing if we measure up to God’s standard, we should replace the word “love” with our name. I tried it, and let’s say it wasn’t good. 😳

The thing I did which did make sense was to replace “love” with “Jesus”. 

Final thoughts

  1. How do you feel about the combination of chicken and leeks in a pie?
  2. Do you make puff pastry from scratch?
  3. Would you immediately get out and about after lockdown ends?

Feel free to leave a comment 😊

  • Leek Mushroom
  • Leek Mushroom Chicken
  • Chicken Leek Mushroom Pot pie
  • Chicken Leek Mushroom Pot pie
  • Capsicum, Celery, Cucumber, Fennel, Lemon zest, Parsley, Radish, Red onion
  • Chicken Leek Mushroom Pot pie
  • Saturday dinner. Chicken Pot pie with Capsicum, Celery, Cucumber, Fennel, Lemon zest, Parsley, Radish, and Red onion salad.