Meals for one

Pastry covered pressure cooker beef brisket and roast pumpkin

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

Well, here we are. It’s the middle of January. The days are warm, and the lovely La Niña has kept me moist. Oh, La Niña, how I wish you’d stay forever. That said, I’m sure those experiencing destructive floods do not find La Niña attractive.

Dark clouds over Lake Ginninderra
Lake Ginninderra

Last week I bought myself a couple of large lumps of beef, and I’ve been enjoying leftovers each day. I still have a good-sized chunk of brisket, and I wondered how to finish it off.

Beef Brisket Green peppercorn sauce
Beef Brisket Green peppercorn sauce

I haven’t been out most of today because of work, so I thought I’d put together some random things for dinner. I had store-bought puff pastry in the freezer, so I thought I’d wrap the brisket in the buttery goodness.

I massaged the brisket with mustard and coated it with pepper for extra flavour. I lined the pastry with some chopped onion and parsley. 

Ingredients

  • Leftover beef brisket which has been cooked in a pressure cooker
  • Parsley
  • Onion
  • Mustard
  • Black pepper
  • Puff pastry
  • Kent pumpkin
  • Rice bran oil
  • Marmalade
  • Rocket
  • Walnuts
  • Feta
  • Extra virgin olive oil
  • Instant gravy

Instructions

  1. Get all the refrigerated items out.
  2. Cut the pumpkin into chunks and massage with oil and marmalade.
  3. Put the pumpkin onto a baking sheet and put it into a moderate oven.
  4. Remove the pumpkin when a sharp probe can penetrate it easily and slide in and out of the flesh.
  5. Allow the pumpkin to cool.
  6. Rub the brisket with some mustard. It doesn’t really matter what type of mustard you use. The mustard is being used to bind the pepper to the meat. Mmm…mustard makes me want a pickled gherkin in my mouth.
  7. Grind some black peppercorns and spread them on a plate.
  8. Gently roll the meat in peppercorns and coat all the sides and the ends.
  9. Chop some parsley and onion together.
  10. Prepare the pastry as per the instructions for use.
  11. When the puff pastry is ready, line the surface with the parsley and onion and then wrap the pastry around the meat.
  12. Seal any gaps and brush the surface with melted butter and sprinkle some coarse salt over the buttered surface.
  13. Put the brisket into the oven and cook until the pastry is golden brown. 
  14. Pull the meat out and let it rest.
  15. While the beef is unlikely to be moist like a slow-cooked piece of brisket, it will be tender given it’s already been cooked in a pressure cooker.
  16. Add the pumpkin, crushed walnuts, feta, and rocket to a bowl. Douse with a little EVOO and season with some salt.
  17. Slice a nice thick slice of meat, add it to a plate, and pour gravy over it. Add the salad on the side.
  18. Give thanks to the Lord and inhale the meal.

Thoughts

The supermarket shelves are still a bit random. The last time I looked, there was no chicken, minced meat, and a scarcity of snags. Like last week, there were many good-sized pieces of beef and lamb ready for roasting or slow-cooking.

Leaving the current wave of COVID-19 caused by SARS-COV-2 Omicron Variant aside, life has been good. Work is busier than ever, and non-work life is going very well.

It’s good to be happy and being hopeful.

This meal was pretty good. The meat cut easily and on the tooth, it was tender yet firm enough to keep its body. The marmalade was fantastic on the pumpkin.

Final thoughts

  • How’s life for you?
  • Do you prefer your meat to be soft and moist or a bit firmer, chunkier, and better feeling between your teeth?
  • What’s the coming week hold for you?
  • Puff pastry Pressure cooker Beef brisket
  • Pastry covered pressure cooker beef brisket and roast pumpkin salad
  • Pastry covered pressure cooker beef brisket and roast pumpkin salad

Sous vide ribeye steak with pumpkin and kale salad.

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

I hope you’re doing well tonight. 

This week, there have been warnings that meat, fresh fruit, and vegetables will be in short supply because of supply chain problems. 

I stocked up on some beef to hopefully get me through the next couple of weeks. I saw a piece of steak that caught my eye and decided I’d have it with a pumpkin salad.

As an example of the shortages, I’d generally make a pumpkin salad with rocket (arugula for friends east of the North Pacific Ocean. I couldn’t get any, nor spinach, for my breakfast 😱 so I went with kale!

I hope wherever you live; the situation isn’t drastic. The spread of COVID-19 caused by the SARS-COV-2 Omicron Variant has rapidly swept through some areas. There are personnel shortages in critical areas with public health measures requiring isolation and quarantine for the infected and contacts.

I now know people, friends in fact, who have COVID-19. To keep my mind off this, I’ve been grateful for the fellowship of those close to me. I’ll always be thankful to those who I love for keeping me in good spirits.

Sous vide ribeye fillet steak with roast pumpkin salad and mushroom and green pepeprcorn sauce.

Ingredients

  • Ribeye steak
  • Mushrooms
  • Green peppercorns
  • Iodised salt
  • Black peppercorns
  • Kent pumpkin
  • Marmalade (homemade by my friend Claire)
  • Rice bran oil
  • Kale
  • Walnuts
  • Red onion
  • Butter
  • Plain flour
  • Beef stock
  • Sherry

Instructions

  1. Carefully handle your meat. I’ve never liked seeing people on cooking shows slapping their meat around. Meat is delicate and precious. Handle it with care.
  2. Unwrap the steak and dry the surface with kitchen paper (noting it too seems to be the new toilet paper concerning scarcity in shops).
  3. Season your meat with some iodised salt and freshly ground black peppercorns.
  4. Place the steak on a rack and refrigerate overnight. This process is called dry brining.
  5. Before cooking, slice some mushrooms and place the steak, mushrooms, and green peppercorns into a vacuum bag.
  6. Seal the bag and put it into a water bath set at 54 °C for 2 hours and 10 minutes.
  7. At the end of the cooking time, remove the bag and open it. Remove the steak, mushrooms, and peppercorns. Dry the surface of the steak and in a bowl, add the mushrooms, peppercorns, and meat juices. Those juices are precious. Savour them like any juices formed with loving-kindness. 
  8. Heat a cast-iron skillet and sear steak until it forms a crust knowing this will taste amazing and add texture to the mouthfeel.
  9. Allow your meat to rest after so much fun and excitement. It will taste better for it.
  10. Make a roux with the flour and butter by gently melting the butter in a saucier pan and adding the flour. Whisk the flour and butter for three minutes to remove the taste of the flour.
  11. Slowly add the beef stock and some sherry to form a sauce.
  12. Add your meat’s juices, cooked mushrooms, and green peppercorns and finish the sauce with a bit of butter.
  13. Cut some kent pumpkin into bite-sized pieces, and with your hands, massage in some oil and then some marmalade.
  14. Gently cook in an oven set to low to moderate heat.
  15. Properly cooked pumpkin is when you can penetrate it with a smooth probe. You can move it in and out, and when you withdraw, the shaft is clean. 
  16. Remove the pumpkin and allow it cool.
  17. It’s worth cleaning the kale. I think we should all clean our veggies. While fomite transmission is not efficient for COVID-19, you never know when a wad of snot full of SARS-COV-2 might have landed on your otherwise healthy kale.
  18. Crush your nuts with something heavy. I use a stainless steel coffee tamper.
  19. I make the salad with pumpkin, kale, walnuts, sliced red onion, salt, and oil.
  20. With your fingers, pick up the steak and find the muscle plane between the deskle meat and the lean fillet. The steak will be tender enough so you can use the tip of your index finger and gently prise apart the muscle bundles and separate them. The meat is warm and moist and slippery and the bundles separate easily with a little gentle pressure.
  21. Keep the deckle meat for dinner and put the lean fillet into a container and refrigerate it.
  22. Take a sharp knife and slice the deckle meat with long slow strokes when your meat has rested. I like to draw my knife towards me, so my blade glides through my meat.
  23. Put the salad in a shallow bowl, stack some steak slices on the side, and then spoon some of the sauce on the sliced meat.
  24. This meat was moist, tender, and pungent in the aroma. I just wanted to dive in and get my lips and tongue into it and savour it slowly.

Final thoughts

  1. How has your week been?
  2. Are there supply problems for you at the moment?
  3. Are you worried about being infected with SARS-COV-2 Omicron Variant.
  • Ribeye Fillet Steak Raw meat
  • Ribeye Fillet Steak seasoned
  • Green peppercorns, Mushrooms, Ribeye fillet steak Vacuum packed for the water bath
  • I like how the marmalade has formed glistening globs on the pumpkin. The marmalade and salt give the pumpkin a lovely salty-sweet contrasting flavour. It will be delicious.
  • Coffee tamper to crush walnuts
  • Sous vide ribeye fillet steak. Seared in a cast-iron skillet.
  • Sous vide ribeye fillet steak with roast pumpkin salad and mushroom and green pepeprcorn sauce.
  • Sous vide ribeye fillet steak with roast pumpkin salad and mushroom and green pepeprcorn sauce.
  • Sous vide ribeye fillet steak with roast pumpkin salad and mushroom and green pepeprcorn sauce.
  • Sous vide ribeye fillet steak with roast pumpkin salad and mushroom and green pepeprcorn sauce.
  • Sous vide ribeye fillet steak with roast pumpkin salad and mushroom and green pepeprcorn sauce.
  • Sous vide ribeye fillet steak with roast pumpkin salad and mushroom and green pepeprcorn sauce.

How about some non-food photos!

I went for a walk this afternoon.

  • The Belconnen Owl Statue taken from behind is some of Canberra’s finest public art. There are some who call this pubic art 😉
  • Lake Ginninderra blue skies and cloud porn

Pressure cooker duck breast and crispy skin

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year for 2022.

Pressure cooker duck breast with crispy skin served with peppercorn instant gravy and a red onion, red cabbage, fennel, and cucumber salad.

This post is a quickie. While in Brisbane, I gave my eldest daughter and her partner a fast, slow cooker. We got talking, and I wondered out loud how autoclave cooked duck breast might taste.

I chose two nice plump breasts and skinned them with a boning blade because it is sharp, and the distance between the knife back and the edge is short.

I made a mistake not flattening the skin between two heavy pieces of metal while cooking in the oven. Oh well, I’ll know next time. I think the way it turned out was okay. What do you think? Do the curly skin bits look okay?

Rather than a regular recipe post, I’ll share how this came together.

I cooked the breasts sans skin and fat in a pressure cooker for 20 minutes, along with some master stock and black peppercorns.

I put the duck skin on a baking sheet, rubbed it dry with some kitchen paper, and seasoned it with coarse iodised sea salt flakes. I cooked the skin for about 30 minutes on low heat to dehydrate it and get it crispy. The skin curled, but they didn’t turn out too badly, as you can see in the photos.

I made some instant gravy stirred through the cooked peppercorns.

I made a salad with red cabbage, red onion, and fennel. I dressed the salad with lime juice and olive oil.

Check out the photos and let me know what you think.

Happy new year, and may 2022 be better than any you’ve experienced thus far.

  • Duck breasts
  • Dick Boning kinife
  • Dick Boning kinife
  • Duck breasts sans skin
  • Duck breast skin
  • Pressure cooker duck breast with crispy skin served with peppercorn instant gravy and a red onion, red cabbage, fennel, and cucumber salad.
  • Pressure cooker duck breast with crispy skin served with peppercorn instant gravy and a red onion, red cabbage, fennel, and cucumber salad.

Steak, prawns and salad

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve cooked steak for dinner. The last six months have seen me working out my pressure cooker “muscles”.

I was sharing text messages with a dear friend last night about simple pleasures. You know, looking out on a pleasantly warm evening, snacking and chatting, and then enjoying a steak and salad dinner.

It got me thinking; I want to get my lips around a nice juicy steak.

How have you been feeling lately with the news of the Omicron Variant? The case number predictions have kept me on the edge of my seat. At present, we’re seeing doubling rates of 2 days and intracellular viral replication rates an order of magnitude higher than other lineages. 

It’s a great time to be alive if you’re a microbiologist. I wish, however, this was just a laboratory experiment and not real life. Please stay safe. Stay home if you feel unwell. Keep yourself distant from others by at least 1.5 metres. Wash your hands with soap and water as often as you need to. If soap and water are not available, carry and use an alcohol-based hand rub. Observe respiratory hygiene and if you feel comfortable, wear a face covering, preferably a surgical mask. Get immunised. It looks like everyone will need a booster for any real protection against severe disease caused by infection with SARS-COV-2 Omicron Variant.

Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and green peppercorn gravy
Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and green peppercorn gravy

Ingredients

  • Eye fillet steak
  • Raw prawn meat
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Baby cucumbers
  • Capsicum
  • Iodised salt
  • Black pepper (coarsely ground)
  • Green peppercorns
  • Horseradish cream
  • Beef stock
  • Butter
  • Plain flour

Instructions

Steak

  1. Buy some steak from the supermarket or the butcher.
  2. Unwrap the steak and dry the surface with kitchen paper.
  3. Place the steak on a wire rack over a tray.
  4. Season the steak with generous amounts of salt.
  5. Truss the eye fillet with cooking twine, so your meat keeps its shape and doesn’t fall apart.
  6. Place the steak into the refrigerator overnight to dry brine.
  7. When you’re ready to cook the steak, put them into a vacuum bag and vacuum seal the bag.
  8. Set up a water bath and raise the temperature to 54 °C.
  9. Cook the steak at this temperature for 2 hours and 10 minutes.
  10. Remove the steak from the bag and dry the surface of the steak with kitchen paper.
  11. Coat the surface of the steak with horseradish cream.
  12. Pound some whole black peppercorns with your pestle in a mortar and clad the exterior of your creamed meat with the pepper.
  13. To avoid burning the pepper and creating an acrid mess, heat a generous amount of butter into a cast-iron skillet and sear the surface of the pepper-crusted steak quickly.
  14. Allow the eye fillet to rest. You may wonder, why does steak cooked in a water bath (sous vide) need to rest? It doesn’t; however, it does give the person cooking dinner sufficient time to attend to other things. I mean, if I drank wine, I’d probably have a sip or two. The same would apply if I drank beer 😉
  15. Toss in the prawn meat and cook quickly. Avoid overcooking.

Gravy

  1. When you open the vacuum bag, retain the juices from your meat in a small jug.
  2. To your juices, add some beef stock.
  3. Make a roux with some butter and flour.
  4. Once the roux is ready, add the meat-juice augmented stock.
  5. If you want a little more kick, add some green peppercorns.
  6. Make the gravy to the consistency you desire.
  7. Transfer the sauce to a jug or, if you’re fancy, a gravy boat.

Salad

  1. Do I need to explain how to make a salad?
  2. I cut some vegetables and put them in a bowl.
  3. I drizzled over some extra virgin olive oil and seasoned it with freshly ground iodised salt.

Plating up

  1. If I had guests (note no one has ever visited where I live), I would heat the dinner plate.
  2. Place the steak on the dinner plate, add a pat of butter on the steak, and then top the eye fillet with the prawns.
  3. Add some salad next to the steak.
  4. Spoon some gravy over the prawns and steak.
  5. Give thanks to God for, amongst other things, great friends, wages to buy food, and the skills to prepare and cook food. Plead with Him to use the food to nourish your body and mind and seek His assistance to be a better person.
  6. While the steak is tender enough to cut with a blunt spoon, use a steak knife to cut your meat. 

Last post for the year

I think this will be the last post for the year. Next weekend is Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I plan to be elsewhere.

If you’re a regular reader, I want to thank you for taking the time most weeks to read my food musings. I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made in the blogging world, especially those who regularly comment on my posts.

Not a regular reader? Thanks for reading this post. Please feel free to leave a comment. 

If I know you in real life, thanks for reading and getting to know me better, I’m grateful for your time.

Final thoughts

  1. When was the last time you cooked a steak?
  2. Do you prefer a salad, hot chips, or potato mash with your steak?
  3. How do you like your steak cooked in terms of doneness?
  • Dry brined eye fillet in bondage
    Dry brined eye fillet in bondage
  • Dry brined eye fillet in bondage
    Dry brined eye fillet in bondage
  • Pepper Steak ready to be seared
    Pepper Steak ready to be seared
  • Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy
    Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy
  • Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy
    Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy
  • Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy
    Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy
  • Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy
    Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy
  • Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and green peppercorn gravy
    Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and green peppercorn gravy

Pulled pork and leek pie with four cheeses sauce

Posted by Gary

Dear Reader,

I was chatting with a friend last night and mentioned I was thinking of making a pulled pork sausage roll tonight. As the idea developed, the cylinder of joy grew into a pie to accommodate all the extra ingredients I wanted to add.

I’m using the pork leftover from a slab of belly pork I cooked last weekend. I’m also using the adjective “pulled” euphemistically. The pork is so soft and friable, all I need to do to separate the muscle bundles is gently heat the pork in a skillet and, with a wooden spoon, poke and jab at my meat to break it up.

Ordinarily, to “pull” your meat, you’d use your fingers to prise apart the muscle bundles gently. While it’s fun to finger pull your pork, it can get tedious.

Pork belly
Female pork belly naked and ready for heat

Ingredients

  • Cooked pork belly (“pulled”) and cooked black peppercorns
  • Udder delight blue cheese (crumbled)
  • Gruyèye cheese (grated)
  • Gouda cheese (grated)
  • Swiss cheese (grated)
  • Plain flour
  • Butter
  • Full cream milk
  • Leek (sliced)
  • Fennel (diced)
  • Red onion (finely sliced)
  • Celery (thick-cut slices)
  • Puff pastry (bought and not homemade because I’m too lazy)

Instructions

  1. Remove the pork belly and peppercorns from the refrigerator. You may remember this was cooked in a pressure cooker for an hour with master stock. The peppercorns will give every mouthful a bit of a kick.
  2. Place the pork into a skillet and gently heat the meat on low heat. Wait until the pork softens to the consistency of an overripe banana.
  3. With a wooden spoon, gently poke and prod the pork to break up the muscle bundles and, with a twisting motion, flatten out the meat in the skillet.
  4. Set aside the “pulled” pork and keep it warm.
  5. Make a roux with equal parts (by weight) of flour and butter. The easiest way is to gently melt the butter, stir in the flour, and cook for three minutes. Add in the milk slowly until you have a smooth slurry consistency.
  6. While the white sauce is on a gentle heat, begin to add in the cheeses and stir until you have a thick gooey sauce.
  7. Turn off the heat and mix in the meat, celery, leeks, red onion, and fennel. I like adding the raw vegetables at this stage, so in the finished pie, I can feel the texture of the vegetables rather than the vegetables being cooked mush.
  8. Take some butter and wipe it over the inside surface of an oven-proof dish. I like to use the tips of my fingers for this because it’s nice feeling the slipperiness of the butter on my fingers, and then I can lick the butter off. 
  9. Layer a sheet of the thawed puff pastry into the pie dish and then gently spoon in the pie mixture. Add some spinach leaves for some extra vegetation and iron.
  10. With another sheet of puff pastry, make a lid to the pie.
  11. Melt a little butter with microwave radiation and brush over the surface of the pie.
  12. Cook the pie in a moderately hot oven until the pie crust is golden and flaky.
  13. Remove the pie from the oven and allow it to cool a little to avoid palatial blistering. The last thing I want is my buccal mucosa being scalded and lifting off the basement membrane.
  14. Slice through the pastry with a large metal spoon, penetrate the pie, scoop out a large portion, and put it in a shallow bowl.
  15. Next to the pie, add a large spoonful of steamed baby green peas and corn.
  16. Drown the peas and corn with some instant gravy.
  17. There is no need for a knife when eating this meal. I think the best utensil might be a splade. 
  18. Give thanks to God for His blessings, and then tuck in.

This week in review

It’s been a fabulous week. Work has been crazy busy, and we achieved some extraordinary things. Apart from work, though, I feel thrilled with life. 

This morning my friends from bible study had a brunch. I brought some vanilla slices from Dobinsons, and when I left, look what I received? A gift of some lovely Three Mills Bakery mince pies, luscious strawberries, and fresh cherries. 

  • Dobinsons Vanilla Slice
  • Dobinsons Vanilla Slice
  • Strawberries and cCherries, and a Three Mills Bakery mince pie

Final thoughts

  1. How do you usually pull your meat?
  2. How many cheeses are too many for a pie?
  3. Is mouthfeel necessary for your oral enjoyment?
  4. Do you lick your fingers?
  • Pork belly
    Female pork belly naked and ready for heat
  • Celery, leek, fennel, and red onion
  • Gruyère, Gouda, Swiss, and Udder Delight Blue cheeses
  • Pulled pork pie filling
  • Pulled pork pie filling and puff pastry
  • Pulled pork pie with cheese sauce out of the oven
  • Pulled pork and cheese sauce pie with peas and corn drowned in gravy
  • Pulled pork and cheese sauce pie with peas and corn drowned in gravy
  • Strawberries and cCherries, and a Three Mills Bakery mince pie
  • Dobinsons Vanilla Slice
  • Dobinsons Vanilla Slice