Quickie Pastry and a couple of others

Shortcrust Pastry * 1 2/3 cups (250g) spelt flour * 100g unsalted butter, chopped into squares, chilled. * 1 egg, chilled Mix the flour and butter in a food processor until it is breadcrumb consistency. Whisk the egg then add to the processor mix slowly. Mix until it starts to form together in about golf ball size blobs, then empty on to a lightly floured board. Kneed gently to bring it together and then wrap in glad wrap for a minimum of 2 hours. I used this pastry for a take off of beef wellington using topside instead of a nicer cut. The pastry was delicious, the meat was a bit tough, which was to be expected. Will try again when I have a better cut of meat and write it up. So I remember, 

  Mushroom Duxelles (Pâté) 1 Onion 250g of button mushrooms - 50g butter 1 Tbsp Olive Oil Chop finely or minced in a food processor the onions and mushroom and fry all the above ingredients on a medium heat until all liquid has evaporated. Takes about 10 minutes. Then mix together 1 Tbsp of chopped fresh parsley 1 cup stock (I used chicken) 1 Tbsp flour and add to the mushroom mixture and cook until all liquid has evaporated and you are left with a very strange looking dark mixture.

Red Cabbage with Mustard Seeds 1/2 Red Cabbage - Sliced Finely 1/2 Onion 2 cloves garlic 2 tsp mustard seeds 1 stubby of beer 2 tbsp white wine vinegar Salt and Pepper to taste Sautee the onions for a couple of minutes until translucent, add the mustard seeds and cook for a couple of minutes until popping. Add the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil, then simmer with the lid on for another 10 minutes or so.

Christmas in July?

All year I have been looking forward to having a Christmas in July dinner but this year, things have just got ahead of me and time has run out.

So we decided instead of our customary, fairly standard, roast night we would make it a special roast night. Translate that as, Kat puts just a bit more effort into the cooking and we get beautiful fresh vegies from Sawyers Valley instead of the local IGA.

9 months ago when Emma, Liam and Billy moved into my house I decided that as Liam needs sandwich meat for school, that I would do a roast every Sunday. This has given me the advantage of really being able to work on my roast cooking, but it is only lately that I have really started enjoying the art of slow cooking. Through summer I did many roasts on the BBQ, which were delicious, but in winter, the idea of checking on it every once and a while when it is rainy, is not my cup of tea. Having the oven on for 8 hours though is wonderful when you don't have a heater!

So for tonight, I am starting with 2kg of blade roast. It is 10:30 am and we want to eat about 6, so I am planning to cook it for around 6.5 hours.

Kat's Beef Roast

2 kg Blade
2 Tsp Rosemary
2 Tsp Thyme

2 Tsp Parsley
2 Tsp Rock Salt
2 Tsp Fresh Cracked Pepper
12 Cloves of Garlic (We like lots of garlic!)
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
500 ml stock

Mix the herbs and the olive oil together in a bowl and let sit for a while to infuse the oil while you prepare the beef.

Preheat your oven to 95°C (200°F), normally I would cook meat at around 180°C but as earlier noted, I am experimenting with slower cooking. This lets you cook meat so that it is perfectly medium rare right to the edges, rather than rare in the middle and well done on the outside.

Slit the beef in 6 lines across the top and bottom, about an inch in. So you can slide a clove of garlic in each slit and it is deep enough that the clove will not escape.

Season the top of the beef with salt and pepper. My roast has a fair amount of fat left on the top, this could be trimmed off, but I find that leaving it on and trimming it after it cooks gives it a nicer flavour. Obviously this is less healthy, so adjust as needed!

Rub the herb and oil mix over the roast, I left the top seasoned with salt and pepper and only rubbed it on the sides and bottom.

Now to sear the meat on both sides to seal in the flavours and juices. I did this in the frypan/skillet on the stove top at high heat. If your meat is too fiddly or large to do this, you could do it in the oven at around 200°C (400°F) for 15 minutes but make sure you turn the oven down straight away to let it cool for the slow cooking. Open the top a little to make it cool down quicker.

I have been roasting my meat on a cake cooler lately rested above a roasting dish. Sounds funny but it lets all the dripping into the bottom of the pan which I then drain the fat off. I am sure there is a proper tool for this but you use what you can!

Place the roast into the oven and walk away for 3 hours then pull the meat out, and drain the fat from the bottom of the pan. Pour in the stock and another cup or two of water to the base of the pan. I find this soaks up the juices of the meat for the gravy and at the same time keeps the roast moist.

If you are doing roast vegies, I would put them in with around 1 hour to go. I do them in a seperate dish, and just season and spray lightly with an olive oil spray. You can add herbs like Oregano, Thyme, Parsley or just a mixed herb mix but don't over herb them! Especially when you have kids eating the meal, the intensity of the herbs is sometimes too much. So I usually just lightly sprickle them.

After around 4-5 hours if I had a meat thermometer I would probably check the temperature of the inside of the meat. From what I can tell you need it to be about 45°C in the middle of your meat. I just do it by gut feel but this can get risky. Every time I cook a dry or overcooked roast, I remind myself to buy one but hasn't happened yet.

When your meat is ready for the next step, either by judging for yourself or checking the temp, I turn the oven up to 230°C for 20 minutes to get a nice caramelized crust around the outside of the meat.

Once it is all done, the meat needs to come out of the oven and rest for 30 minutes in a warm place. I usually just put a tea towel over it and do the steamed vegies and gravy.

Yorkshire Puddings

2 cups of flour
2 eggs
1 cup of Milk
1 cup of water
Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together and let sit for 30 minutes.

In a muffin tin 12 with 1 tsp of oil in each cup. I put this in the oven for 10 minutes to heat the oil when I was finishing off the baked vegies at around 230°C. This was just as I took the meat out to rest so had about 35 minutes before the meal was to be served. After preheating the tray, I pulled it out and spread the mixture evenly through each cup. Put it back in the oven for around 25 minutes.

Quote from Liam: I would give you 100/100 but the gravy tastes funny in my neck.

Everything turned out well, aside from the gravy which I put a bit of red wine in and myself and Liam didn't really like it. The other adults however enjoyed it :)