Tonight, I have pulled beef short rib and Speck for lux congee.
Lux beef short rib finger and Speck congee made with Italian arborio rice and tri-colour quinoa. Served with cucumber and soy sauce.
Ingredients
Beef short rib fingers (3)
Diced Speck (100 g)
Dried anchovies (1 handful)
Italian arborio rice (1 cup)
Tri-colour quinoa (1 cup)
Beef stock (6 cups)
Soy sauce
Fried shallots
Instructions
Wash the rice and quinoa with cold water until the water is clear and not cloudy.
Put the rice and quinoa into the vessel of a slow cooker.
Add in the stock.
Add in the beef short rib fingers and Speck.
Cook on low heat for 8 hours.
Remove the cooking vessel and pull out the rib fingers. Pick the meat from the ribs, pull the muscle fibres apart, and add the beef back to the cooking vessel. Unless you leave the beef short rib fingers out for a few minutes, you’ll find the process of removing the meat unpleasant as the tips of your fingers burn from the retained heat. I recommend waiting or trying to ameliorate the problem by wearing a couple of latex gloves on each hand to dampen the transfer of heat from the meat to your nerve ending enriched fingertips.
With a wooden spoon (or a metal spoon if you don’t care about scratching your cookware), mix the beef through the congee (also known as jook).
Remove the congee from the cooking vessel and aliquot into containers.
Serve a bowl of congee with some soy sauce and fried shallots.
Given thanks to the Lord and eat with a spoon.
Final thoughts
How would you make congee more luxurious?
Do you like adding dried anchovies to give your meals a little more umami?
What’s been the highlight of your week?
What’s happened this week?
This past week has been great. Work has been busy and exciting. I am so very grateful for the fantastic people with who I work.
Apart from work, I’ve enjoyed reading Don Carson’s book, “Praying with Paul”. I’ve also been bingeing on YouTube videos featuring Alistair Begg. I love his mixture of humour and seriousness with a gloriously compelling Scottish accent.
William Booth. “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.
Notes
Lux is short for luxury.
Coles Australian Beef Short rib fingers
Coles Australian Beef Short rib fingers and Primo Speck portion
Fried shallot and Dried anchovy fillet
Lux beef short rib finger and Speck congee made with Italian arborio rice and tri-colour quinoa. Served with cucumber and soy sauce.
Lux beef short rib finger and Speck congee made with Italian arborio rice and tri-colour quinoa. Served with cucumber and soy sauce.
Lux beef short rib finger and Speck congee made with Italian arborio rice and tri-colour quinoa. Served with cucumber and soy sauce.
I need to clean out my freezer and refrigerator of bits and pieces.
I had some speck, some baby green peas, some onions, mushrooms, and a handful of cherry tomatoes on the cusp of blooming some mould.
Speck with caramelised onions and mushrooms with mushy peas and cherry tomatoes
Speck is smokey bacon and sold as a block rather than rashers. I had an open packet after I’d used some speck a few weeks ago for some other dish.
I also have some frozen baby green peas in the freezer because frozen peas are so versatile. When I make mushy peas, I use sour cream, and I had a little left after having it with avocado during the week.
Because I ate a sweet lunch on Friday rather than my usual caramelised onion and mushrooms on Italian bread I had some brown mushrooms getting a little dry in a paper bag in the refrigerator.
Speck with caramelised onions and mushrooms with mushy peas and cherry tomatoes
Ingredients
Speck
Onion
Cloves
Chicken stock
Baby green peas
Sour cream
Butter
Cherry tomatoes
Onions
Mushrooms
Claire’s whiskey Seville marmalade
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Golden syrup
Speck with caramelised onions and mushrooms with mushy peas and cherry tomatoes
Instructions
Speck and caramelised onions
Cut the speck into thick slices. When I write thick, I’m thinking, at least 1 cm thick. You want to be able to bite into the smoked bacon and experience the smokiness as your teeth cut through and the fatty meat juices burst from the moist, tender flesh over your tongue.
Quarter a brown onion with a sharp knife. I use a Chinese-style meat cleaver which I like to hone with a cook’s steel each time I use it. I love the sound of iron on iron.
Put the speck, onions and some cloves into a saucepan and pour over enough chicken stock to cover the meat.
Bring the chicken stock to a simmering boil and cook for about 40 minutes.
The idea is to get the speck soft and floppy.
After 40 minutes, take the saucepan off the hob and allow it to rest off the heat.
With a mandolin, slice a couple of white onions and remove the stalks from the mushrooms.
Begin to caramelise the onions in some olive oil over low, slow heat. Add in the mushroom caps and stalks and put a lid on the frying pan.
When the onions and mushrooms soften and begin to take some colour, add in a little balsamic vinegar and continue to cook slowly. For some extra kick add a dessert spoon of Claire’s whiskey Seville marmalade. Watch the onions and mushrooms because you want them caramelised and not burnt.
Towards the end, add in some golden syrup for a little extra sweetness. Adding the golden syrup is an optional step.
When the onions and mushrooms are ready, take the frying pan off the heat and transfer the caramelised onion and mushrooms to a bowl.
Remove the pieces of speck from the saucepan. Dry the surfaces of the meat and fat with a towel.
In the frying pan used for the onions and mushrooms, fry off the speck along with the cherry tomatoes. Fry the meat until it takes on some colour and a little crispiness.
Speck with caramelised onions and mushrooms with mushy peas and cherry tomatoes
Mushy peas
Put the frozen baby green peas into a silicon mixing jug with a little water and cook using microwave radiation. Cook the peas until they just become soft.
Drain out the excess water and add in a nudge of butter and a dessert spoon of sour cream.
Blend with a stick blender.
The sour cream keeps the peas bright and green.
Speck with caramelised onions and mushrooms with mushy peas and cherry tomatoes
Serve the food
Put everything on a dinner plate.
Shoot a photograph.
Sit down and eat with a knife and fork.
Speck with caramelised onions and mushrooms with mushy peas and cherry tomatoes
What have I done this week?
I’ve been out twice. I know, right? What a gadabout. I like the description of gadabout in the British Engish Thesaurus (see below).
On Monday evening I went out with some pathologists (specialist microbiologists, as a colony) to XO in Narabundah and we enjoyed the Christmas menu.
On Wednesday evening, I went out with some work friends to Tipsy Bull in Braddon and enjoyed a collection of vegetarian tasting plates.
What have I watched this week?
I watched the food show Ugly Delicious produced and starring US-based celebrity chef, David Chang. David is of Korean heritage, and this is important to know when watching the program.
David spent the series highlighting the differences between the sophisticated Italian and French cuisines against the messy and ugly south-east Asian and Indian cuisines. The premise being there is inherent racism because Asian food is quick and looks sloppy, and the service is often curt. In contrast, Italian and French food is refined and sophisticated with the food elements and plating being elegant, and the service is polite and courteous.
I could see his perspective, but I don’t see it as racism. Eating at a fine dining restaurant with attractive looking food and courteous service is enjoyable with the right company. Likewise going for cheap eats in an Asian restaurant with cheap tables and chairs, newspaper for table covering, and disposable chopsticks can be just as enjoyable with the same company.
Final thoughts
Have a good week. Let me know what you think in the comments section.
Lentils à la Dijonnaise (mustard and speck lentils)
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Lentils à la Dijonnaise (mustard and speck lentils)
I have a feeling this is the first time I’ve cooked lentils.
My friend GC regularly shares with me her photos of salmon, broccolini and lentils meals and I’m always a bit jelly because in my mind lentils require a lot of effort and I’m a somewhat lazy cook. GC’s lentils always look very attractive on her plate with her salmon and broccolini.
Lentils à la Dijonnaise
Anyway, GC has a friend who shares healthy eating tips, and lentils are a feature of her healthful eating plan. So I figured, why not give lentils a try.
I searched YouTube, and one of the channels I subscribe to has a lentils recipe which I thought would taste good, mainly because it has bacon (speck) in it. 😉
This bloke’s name is Stephane, and he’s French, but he lives in Australia, and he runs an on-line French Cooking Academy.
Two bay leaves (or two leaves of Bay if you’re fancy pants)
One clove of garlic (or more if you have no feelings for people around you)
150 grams of smoked speck (I didn’t weight how much speck I used, I just went with the vibe)
Two tablespoons Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to season (please use iodised salt)
One nudge of butter
Green lentils, Dijon mustard, Onion, Cloves, Thyme, Garlic, Speck, Bay leaves, and CarrotWater, lentils, carrot, onion with a clove stuck in, bay leaves, thyme, and crushed garlic
Instructions
Rinse the lentils in cold water and then put the lentils into the saucepan.
Then add the water (three times the volume of lentils, e.g. 900 mL of water to 300 grams of lentils).
Bring the water and lentils to the boil.
Remove the scum floating on the water with a spoon. I have no idea what difference this does, but apparently, French cooks do this. Not that I care about what French cooks do or think.
Slice the carrot with a sharp knife or a mandolin and be careful not to slice your fingers open.
Half the onion with a sharp knife and again be careful. Blood in the lentils may add a little saltiness but is not usually required.
Insert a clove into the top of the dome of half of the onion.
Add the carrot, onion with the clove in situ, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme.
Add the speck,
Mix everything so that the water covers everything.
Do not salt early, salt after 20 minutes because the lentils will not cook properly (or so they say).
Cook for 30 minutes with the lid on with low heat.
After 30 minutes, remove the aromatic vegetables but not the carrot.
Remove the speck and pan fry it for the finished dish.
Take some of the hot fluid and mix with the dijon mustard to dilute the dijon mustard.
Then pour the creamy thin dijon mustard back into the saucepan and gently mix everything.
Serve the lentils in a bowl.
Add a nudge of butter. What is a nudge of butter? I have no idea. I used 50 grams of butter because that seemed like a good amount.
Add the speck to the bowl.
Garnish with something green to make it pretty because all TV and YouTube cooks will tell you, “we eat with our eyes”. Now, what a stupid thing to say. I mean, sure you can pour small quantities of a liquid over your eyes to permit the collection of nutrients in your conjunctivæ. The nutrients will travel via capillary action down through the nasolacrimal ducts into your nasal passages where if you swallow hard, you can ‘consume’ the liquid. This approach is hardly an efficient way to eat a bowl of lentils.
Suppose you want to do as Stephane does add some wholegrain mustard for a contrasting taste and mouthfeel. I didn’t do this.
Add some pepper.
Cooked lentils and speck with a nudge of butter and discarded vegetables
The nice thing about buying a prism of speck is you can cut slices as thickly as you like.
As you can see, I like to slice my speck to about 1 cm thick.
SpeckLentils à la Dijonnaise
What are lentils?
Lentils are a legume. Legumes are essential in agriculture for the nitrogen-fixing bacteria which live symbiotically with the plant.
Lentils are an annual plant with a lens-shaped seed.
I didn’t know that Canada and India are where most of the world’s lentils are grown.
Lentils à la Dijonnaise
Are you worried about liver and bile system disease?
I’m prone to metabolic syndrome. I have a strong family history of diabetes mellitus and having been grossly obese in the past, I’m conscious that I need to keep an eye on not getting too much belly fat. My waist circumference and body mass index are features to monitor.
Chinese people have a long history of Hepatitis B virus infection associated-chronic liver disease. Fortunately, I don’t have HBV infection. However, I am unable to demonstrate immunity to HBV despite being immunised many times.
Final thoughts
Do you like lentils?
What’s your favourite lentils recipe?
Do lentils give you a lot of flatus? Should I avoid lighting any matches tonight? 💥
If you live in New South Wales, Canberra, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia, set your clocks forward tonight for daylight saving time which starts tomorrow.
Prawn scallop and speck fried cauliflower rice after a relaxing Saturday at home
Prawn scallop and speck fried cauliflower rice
Today was the first day since the long weekend that I’ve been able to work from home and not go into the office. I did dial into a teleconference but I got stuff done. The grocery shopping was relaxing. A walk to the shops for a coffee was relaxing. Watching some TV was relaxing.
Dedicated to a friend who gave me moments of light hearted joy during the week.
Frying cauliflower rice, mushroom, prawns, scallops, speck, and spring onions.Continue reading →
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