Low Carbohydrate Healthy Fat Eating

Low Carbohydrate Healthy Fat Eating blog posts

Coles Tomahawk Steak and cabbage

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

When I read “tomahawk”, I think of a small axe! This steak was more like a small hatchet.

I saw this in the supermarket yesterday while grocery shopping and my eyes shone like dinner plates.

Two weeks ago, when I went out for the chicken parmigiana dinner with workmates, I saw the Fenway Public House tomahawk steak on the menu. My friend, MG, said her husband loves a tomahawk steak. My reply was that we should all return for a meal and enjoy a steak.

Sous vide tomahawk steak

When I saw this steak in the meat display cabinet, I immediately thought to cook it at a low temperature in the oven. I’d follow this by searing it in a castiron skillet. To prepare for this approach, I dry brined the meat with monosodium glutamate, also known as MSG, and King of Flavour!

Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

The more I thought about the meal; I concluded I would cook it “under vacuum” (sous vide).

Ingredients

  • Steak
  • MSG
  • Cabbage
  • Sesame oil
  • Shallots
  • Red chillies
  • Carrot
  • Parsley
  • Instant gravy

Instructions

  1. Think ahead and give yourself a day to prepare so you can dry brine the meat.
  2. Place the steak on a rack over a baking tray.
  3. Season the steak with MSG.
  4. Place the steak on the rack and then into the refrigerator and leave uncovered overnight.
  5. When you want to cook the steak, place the meat into a vacuum bag and seal it.
  6. Cook the meat in a water bath at 54 °C (129 °F) for two hours. This temperature should produce a medium-rare result.
  7. Remove the meat from the bag and pat it dry with kitchen paper.
  8. Sear the surfaces of the steak in a hot castiron skillet basting it in some butter.
  9. Allow the steak to rest for between 5 and 10 minutes.
  10. Make the instant gravy as per the maker’s instructions.
  11. Make the cabbage side dish with sliced cabbage, julienned carrot, sesame oil, shallots, and parsley.
  12. Put all the vegetables in a microwave cooking container and add some vegetable oil, MSG, and pepper. Heat with microwave radiation until it’s cooked and the cabbage still has some crunch.
  13. Carve the flesh from the rib bone, and with a sharp knife, follow the muscle bundle fascia to prise apart the principal muscle bundles.
  14. Keep the eye fillet aside for meals later in the week.
  15. Slice the fat cap meat.
  16. Place the bone plus the fat cap meat on a dinner plate alongside the cabbage side dish.
  17. Spoon over some gravy.
  18. Give thanks to the Lord.
  19. Eat with a steak knife and fork unless, like me, you live alone and eat with fingers in a primal fashion.
  20. The best part may be gnawing the meat from the rib bone.

Monosodium glutamate

Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ)

You can find the FSANZ technical report on their website. MSG=monosodium glutamate; CRS=Chinese restaurant syndrome. I recognise and acknowledge there are many people who prefer to avoid MSG and I’d never suggest they should try it or that they don’t have a legitimate reason not to use it or consume it.

I’ve had a few people ask me about MSG and my opinion so I thought it best to refer to a published report in which I have no concerns.

A friendly Tweep who has asked about MSG

The report concludes:

“There is no convincing evidence that MSG is a significant factor in causing systemic reactions resulting in severe illness or mortality. The studies conducted to date on CRS have largely failed to demonstrate a causal association with MSG. Symptoms resembling those of CRS may be provoked in a clinical setting in small numbers of individuals by the administration of large doses of MSG without food. However, such affects are neither persistent nor serious and are likely to be attenuated when MSG is consumed with food. In terms of more serious adverse effects such as the triggering of bronchospasm in asthmatic individuals, the evidence does not indicate that MSG is a significant trigger factor.“

Final thoughts

  • Do you like gnawing meat from the bone?
  • Do your eyes shine like dinner plates when you see something you lust after in the supermarket meat display cabinet?
  • What would you do with the leftover fillet meat?
  • What are your thoughts on MSG?
A small Coles tomahawk steak
A small Coles tomahawk steak dry brining with MSG
A small Coles tomahawk steak dry brining with MSG
A small Coles tomahawk steak dry brined with MSG
A small Coles tomahawk steak dry brined with MSG and vacuum sealed.
Sous vide tomahawk steak
Sous vide tomahawk steak
Coles Tomahawk Steak and cabbage
Coles Tomahawk Steak and cabbage
Coles Tomahawk Steak and cabbage
Coles Tomahawk Steak
Coles Tomahawk Steak and cabbage

Sous vide pepper steak and scallops with hollandaise sauce

Posted by Gary

So, it’s another week and another non-recipe post. This post is more like a status update of what I cooked on Saturday night.

Sous vide pepper eye fillet steak with scallops and roe with broccolini and hollandaise sauce

My weight loss motivation has got a bit stagnant, so trying new things has also suffered a little.

I wanted a moderate dinner, but still something special for a Saturday night. I went with eye fillet steak again because it cooks without a lot of fuss, and if you treat it well, it will be tender and moist.

I wanted something with a little kick too so I tied up the meat and pressed in some freshly ground black whole peppercorns, iodised salt, and garlic powder. As always, I pulverise my spices and salt together in a heavy mortar with a nicely weighted pestle. 

Salt and Pepper Eye fillet steak

Because the temperature of the water bath would never exceed 55 °C, there was no chance of the pepper burning, so I was happy to coat the steak in pepper before cooking.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever burnt pepper, but it has an unpleasant, acrid odour and you never want to sear a pepper-coated steak for too long.

Salt and Pepper Eye fillet steak

While I was shopping, I saw there was scallop meat in the delicatessen display. The scallop meat with roe and the alimentary tract was $29 per kilogram while the scallop meat sans roe and the alimentary tract was $34 per kilogram. The roe adds a lovely coral colour to the dish, so I went with the cheaper option. For those readers who don’t know me, I never remove the alimentary canal from an invertebrate, and I wasn’t going to start. Life’s too short for that palaver.

I’ve described how to make hollandaise sauce elsewhere. It’s hard to go past a hollandaise sauce with steak and scallops. Rather than pour or spoon the sauce over the steak and scallops, I decided to serve it in a small bowl and use it as a dipping sauce. The dipping sauce approach was fantastic. As I loaded my fork with a little sweet broccolini, scallop, and steak, I dipped that meaty lollipop into the hollandaise sauce and got a good coating over everything the tines of my fork had penetrated.

Vacuum packed Salt and Pepper Eye fillet steak

The scallops were just seared in the skillet as I was caramelising the surface of the steak after it had finished cooking in the water bath (55 °C for 2 hours). The heat barely licked the scallops.

The broccolini was dead easy. After washing the broccolini in a large mixing bowl, I let the broccolini drain and then doused the green vegetables with some olive oil. I then added a squirt of golden syrup and ground over some iodised salt. With my hands, I massaged the sweet, salty, oiliness into the heads of the broccolini being gentle with the broccolini heads so as not to be too rough with the delicate end.

Precision cooker and water bath

I then arranged the broccolini on a lined baking sheet and put them into a hot oven for 15 minutes. 

Plating up was dead easy, after allowing the steak to rest I cut off the bindings and then with a sharp knife (I used a cooking knife my middle daughter gave me as a father’s day gift last year) I sliced into the soft tender moist flesh to reveal blushing joy. There’s nothing like a nicely cooked piece of muscle meat, red, moist but not running with its juices.

Sous vide pepper steak

Sous vide pepper eye fillet steak with scallops and roe with broccolini and hollandaise sauce

I put the steak onto a dinner plate which I had warmed on top of the water bath and then arranged the scallops. I poured the freshly made hollandaise sauce into a small bowl and put it onto the plate. The last thing to be added was the oven-cooked broccolini. The heads looked limp rather than the tumescence they once had, but I knew those flowery heads would taste sweet and salty, and when coated with the creaminess of the hollandaise, the taste would be unique and so delicious. 

Sous vide pepper eye fillet steak with scallops and roe with broccolini and hollandaise sauce
Sous vide pepper eye fillet steak with scallops and roe with broccolini and hollandaise sauce

New profile pic

Me in my Spam Hawaii shirt holding a tin of Bacon Spam
Me in my Spam Hawaii shirt holding a tin of Bacon Spam with Acacia pycnantha (Wattle) in the background.

Sous vide salmon, spicy hollandaise sauce, and kale sprouts

Posted by Gary

Look, two posts in one week.

Sous vide salmon with spicy homemade hollandaise sauce and crispy kale sprouts

The last couple of weeks I’ve been buying two pieces of salmon with the skin on from Coles. I’ve been eating salmon on Sunday and Monday evenings and I’ve been cooking them under vacuum (sous vide).

As much as I like a quick cook on a cast-iron skillet and getting a really crispy skin, the texture of sous vide salmon is sublime. The flesh just flakes with the slightest pressure. The cooking time is relatively short and the temperature is very gentle. I usually set my precision cooker for 50 °C for 40 minutes.

Brining salmon. Salmon and iodised salt.

A feature of sous vide salmon is wet brining the salmon. This is an optional step but if you don’t brine, it will mean you will have a film of coagulated albumin over the surface of the salmon when it’s cooked.

Wet brining the salmon is dead easy. A few hours before cooking, put the pieces of salmon into a container. Add a handful of iodised salt and then add the iced water. Put the lid on the container and then refrigerate it for a few hours.

Brining salmon. Salmon and iodised salt with ice water.

After removing the salmon from the refrigerator and removing the lid you’ll see a wispy slimy film over the salmon. This needs to be washed off using tap water. Once the albumin has been removed, dry the salmon gently with a towel or kitchen paper.

Put the salmon into a vacuum bag or a ziplock bag. If you have a vacuum extractor use the vacuum bag. If you prefer the water displacement method, use the ziplock bag.

Salmon post-brining

Your salmon is now ready for cooking in the water bath. I always set up my water bath fresh for each cook so I fill it with cold tap water and attach the precision cooker. If you don’t know what a precision cooker is, it’s a water heater and circulator. It keeps the water at a set temperature and I know some people who will keep it running for many hours and in some situations, days depending on what they’re trying to cook.

Salmon is delicate, so as I wrote in a preceding paragraph, I set the precision cooker for 50 °C for 40 minutes.

Salmon vacuum packed

Once the salmon is cooked, I will put one piece in the refrigerator for tomorrow night and I’ll keep the other piece warm sitting on the water bath while I go about finishing off the other elements of the meal.

At this point, I remove the salmon from the vacuum bag and carefully dry the skin. I then peel the skin off and put it on a lined baking tray. I cover the salmon flesh with aluminium foil and put the plate on top of the water bath to keep it warm. The aluminium foil is to keep the flesh moist and preventing it from drying out. No one likes dry fish flesh.

Sous vide salmon with spicy homemade hollandaise sauce and crispy kale sprouts

At about this time I toss some kale sprouts into a large mixing bowl and squirt in some Queensland nut oil plus some freshly ground iodised salt and black whole peppercorns (I do this in a mortar with a pestle). With my hands, I toss the kale sprouts in the bowl and try to get good coverage of the leaves with the oil, salt, and pepper.

I then spread the seasoned and oiled kale sprouts onto a lined baking sheet (next to the salmon skin) and put the tray into a hot oven which has been set to about 180 °C for about 15 minutes. The aim is to get the leaves of the kale sprouts crispy like chips without burning.

While the kale sprouts are in the oven I get out of the refrigerator three eggs, some butter, and some dijon mustard and hot sauce. I also get a lime and some hot sauce plus a red onion and a fennel bulb.

With a mandolin, I shred into fine pieces the red onion and fennel. These raw aromatic vegetables will give the hollandaise some added bite and kick.

Safety glove
Safety glove for mandolin use

I melt the butter, about 125 grams will do, using microwave radiation. I then separate the yolks of three eggs and out them into the bottom of a tall plastic cup. After squeezing the juice from the lime I mix it with a teaspoon of the dijon mustard plus a teaspoon of hot sauce.

It’s now a matter of getting everything together because making hollandaise sauce requires some focus and dexterity. I use a stick blender because I have spindly arms and thin wrists with poor muscle power for a whisk. Begin blending the egg yolks and then add the mixture of dijon mustard, lime juice, and hot sauce. While still blending, slowly pour in the melted heavenly goodness which is melted butter. As you pour in the butter which has been enhanced with microwave radiation, marvel at how it forms a thick unctuous sauce.

Once the hollandaise sauce is made, add in the bits of red onion and fennel. At this stage, you could wonder why you didn’t crispy up some streaky bacon bits and add them too. Stir through the red onion and fennel knowing the flavours and mouthfeel will be amazing with the salmon.

By now the kale sprouts and salmon skin should be done and it’s time to make a plate of food.

Uncover the moist and tender salmon flesh and gently transfer it to a dinner plate. You need to be careful because it will easily flake and fall apart. If it does, then one option would be to create rough flakes with a fork and mix the flakes into the hollandaise sauce you’ve made.

If you can keep the salmon altogether, put it on the dinner plate and then spoon over the hollandaise sauce with the bitey red onion and fennel in it.

If the salmon skin hasn’t burnt to a crisp, place it atop the salmon in some artistic fashion.

Place the kale sprouts next to the salmon and then with a teaspoon you might like to dribble a little hollandaise sauce on the kale sprouts.

Alternatively, put the remaining hollandaise sauce in a ramekin and use it as a dipping sauce for the crispy kale sprouts.

This meal is indulgent and decadent. You will have consumed more butter than you should. You’ll be impressed with the texture and mouthfeel of the sous vide salmon. You’ll love the crispy kale sprouts. Most of all, the tangy spicy hollandaise sauce will draw everything together.

I hope you enjoyed this. If you decide to make this for yourself, I’d love to hear from you and hear how it went.

Sous vide salmon with spicy homemade hollandaise sauce and crispy kale sprouts

Have a good week and stay safe from COVID-19. If you’re one of those conspiracy people who don’t believe SARS-COV-2 exists, then out of respect for others, please keep your views to yourself and don’t go out in public and please don’t share your nonsense on-line. That’s just as annoying as the way I’ve prattled on about this recipe.

Aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa

Posted by Gary

Tonight I cooked a relatively low carb aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa replacing the usual noodles with thin strips of eggplant.

Last week I bought a packet of five chicken thigh pieces and cooked some of them under vacuum (sous vide). I had two pieces leftover and thought I’d add them to a soup of some kind.

Sous vide chicken laksa

Aubergine chicken laksa soup
Aubergine chicken laksa soup

The perfect soup on the last weekend of winter is a laksa. Comforting and spicy and full of flavour. Now, I know what you’re thinking, the thing I cooked looks nothing like a laksa but I used laksa paste so in my mind it’s a laksa soup.

Yummy Lummy is not sponsored by anyone.

Recipe

It’s important to read the recipe before cooking because the timing of processes needs to be understood.

Safety glove
Safety glove

Aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa. Soup for the last weekend of winter.

Aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa. A low carb and comforting soup for the last weekend of winter.

  • Aubergine (Eggplant)
  • Leftover sous vide chicken thigh
  • Coconut cream
  • Laksa paste
  • Red onion (finely diced)
  • Fennel (finely diced)
  • Red cabbage (finely shredded)
  • Coriander leaves (stems and roots (chopped))
  • Fried shallots
  • Lime juice
  • Black whole peppercorns (ground in a mortar with a pestle)
  1. Combine the laksa paste, coconut cream, and the fluid from the vacuum bag into a large saucepan and bring to the boil and simmer.
  2. Cut the aubergine into thin strips and add into the simmering coconut cream.
  3. Add slices of chicken thigh and stir through until the chicken has warmed through.
  4. Add in juice from one lime and stir through.
  5. Turn off the heat and then add in the red onion, fennel, red cabbage, coriander, and pepper.

  6. Transfer everything to a bowl and then garnish with fried shallots.

Disclaimer I have no culinary training nor qualifications. This post is not intended to convey any health or medical advice. If you have any health concerns about anything you read, please contact your registered medical practitioner. The quantities are indicative. Feel free to vary the quantities to suit your taste. I deliberately do not calculate the energy for dishes. I deliberately default to 500 Calories or 500,000 calories because I do not make these calculations.

Aubergine sous vide chicken laksa soup
Aubergine chicken laksa soup

Questions and answers

How was the aubergine and sous vide chicken laksa?

It was pretty good. It had a good amount of spice and it’s made me feel very content.

Would it have been better with traditional ingredients like tofu and sprouts?

I’m not a fan of tofu, too much œstrogen for my liking. Sprouts also run a risk of bacterial contamination and gastroenteritis. I don’t think it would have added anything to the chicken laksa.

What else would have work apart from the chicken?

I reckon sous vide salmon would be fabulous.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like laksa flavourings?
  • Would you ever replace noodles with aubergine?
  • What’s your favourite curry soup?
  • Would you try sous vide chicken laksa?

Beef rump roast

Posted by Gary

Beef rump roast may not sound terribly exciting and that’s because it isn’t. I’ve sort of lost motivation and enthusiasm for blogging lately. Not because I’m feeling low or down, it’s mainly because I’ve been focussed on other pursuits.

Dedicated to all the cattle who die so that I may enjoy their muscle and fat.

Beef rump roast ready to be sliced with a Dick butchers knife
Beef rump roast ready to be sliced with a Dick butchers knife
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