everyday experiments with food
Here’s a pretty tasty dish that I concocted the other night.
Roast rack of pork.
Carrot mash cooked in orange juice with ginger slices (ginger removed before mashing)
Red capsicum essence
Sliced fresh Jerusalem artichokes
Salsa of fried fresh pineapple, diced chilli with a little lime juice
Kecap manis drizzled on top
Fresh coriander leaves
Yesterday I made up a new sausage recipe. After tasting them I’m going to tweak the recipe for next time, so here is my ‘next time’ recipe.
2kg pork shoulder and 4 duck breasts with skin, minced.
6 tbsp duck fat
1 head garlic confit, chopped (slow cooked in oil at 100-120C for about an hour)
1 tbsp fennel seeds, lightly toasted and ground
6-8 star anise, ground finely
Zest of 2 oranges
Juice of 1 orange
4 tbsp beetroot powder or 1 large beetroot, roasted and blitzed in a food processor.
4 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp cracked black pepper
1 cup pistachios, chopped finely (optional)
I found beetroot powder at Gaganis food warehouse in Adelaide and it is amazing stuff.
You could certainly increase the proportion of duck but that also puts up the cost considerably. The prototype had only two duck breasts.
Tonight I’m serving them up with a sweet potato-carrot-honey mash, sauted leeks, and parsnip slivers baked with cherry tomatoes and some yoghurt on the side.
A online cooking group was having a BBQ challenge this weekend, so I’ve made this kangaroo recipe for the second time, with a slight variation.
The original recipe comes from the Kangaroo Industry Association’s website. They have a recipe page which includes a downloadable recipe book with remarkable recipes from Australia’s top chefs. This is from one of the easier recipes by Mark Bayliss from Unilever Food Solutions.
The kangaroo fillets are marinated in a mixture of equal quantities of salt and brown sugar for 2-3 hours. This dries out the outside but the inside remains moist.
Meanwhile, marinate hickory chips in red wine.
The relish originally featured figs, but we had fresh nectarines so I simply replaced the fruit, and made 2/3 of the recipe quantity, as below.
300g nectarines, stoned and chopped
1 tbsp lime juice
100g caster sugar
60ml white wine vinegar
1/2 red onion, diced finely
1 tbsp ground coriander
3 star anise
Bring all of the above to the boil in a saucepan and simmer for 1/2 hour.
Smoke kangaroo on your BBQ. The method will depend on your kind of BBQ. I put coals on one side of our Weber with the smoking box on top of the coals, and the roo on the other side away from the fire. I covered the Weber and left the roo for about 40 minutes, then finished it off directly over the coals for about 3 minutes each side.
The kangaroo should be a bit crispy on the outside and tender in the middle.
Salad
Diced tomato
Orange segments
Red onion, thinly sliced
Pomegranate seeds
Toasted cumin seeds
Snow pea tendrils
I love this way of cooking kangaroo. It looks and tastes wonderful.
This is the first time that I’ve cooked something form Neil Perry’s “Spice Temple“, although admittedly I changed the recipe somewhat. I got the book just before Christmas. The recipes look fantastic, the photography is stunning, and I can’t wait to dip into it. I highly recommend that you check it out.
The duck came from the book and I made up the salad to go with it. The duck is marinated overnight so plan ahead.
Bring the following to the boil.
1 litre water
1/3 cup sea salt
1 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns, roasted
10cm knob of ginger, bruised
4 cloves garlic, bruised
Place the duck breasts in (I cooked 2), then put it in the fridge to steep. Neil says 18 hours but I went for 12. Take out the breasts and dry them off with a paper towel.
I smoked the duck in a wok lined with a few layers of foil with a wire rack inside. The smoking mixture is 100g jasmine green tea, 100g brown sugar, 100g jasmine rice. Mix together well and place in the wok.
Fire up the gas (do this on an outside gas cooker) and place the wok with lid on top. When it starts to smoke, add the duck breasts, put the lid back on and cook for 15 mins, then turn it off and leave for another 3 mins. My duck seemed a little undercooked. I put it back on the heat for another 5 mins but we all felt later that the smokiness was a bit strong. So if it seems underdone, put it in the oven for a few minutes.
The salad was made from zucchini ribbons, tomato, red onion, snow peas, cucumber, mango, diced chilli, coriander.
I used Neil’s dressing mixture which was 1 tbsp dijon mustard, 3 tsp soy sauce and 3 tsp white vinegar.
As I said, the smoke flavour was a bit strong but I can fine tune that next time. Otherwise a pretty good balance. I only used a little cucumber.
There you have it.