Steak Tartare

A simple, nutrient dense meal!

Ingredients

• best quality grass fed beef fillet (allow 125 to 150 grams per person)
• egg yolk (1 per person), use only the freshest, best quality eggs, preferably pastured

seasonings

• spanish onions (finally chopped)
• salted capers (rinsed and chopped)
• gherkins (I used my own lacto fermented cucumbers)
• flat leaf parsley (finely chopped)
• chives (finally chopped)
• garlic infused EV olive oil
• Coconut aminos
• piment d’espelette
• salt & black pepper

Method

1. Trim the meat and chop it finely.
2. Add the seasonings (onions, capers, gherkins, parsley, chives, piment d’espelette, olive oil, coconut aminos, salt & pepper) according to your liking.
3. Form into a patty.
4. Place an egg yolk on top.
5. Serve with a side salad and thin slices of toasted sourdough bread.

To make steak tartare you need to use the best quality beef.  Fortunately,  we  have access to good quality, chemical free, grass fed beef directly from the farmer.  Our beef comes from Hawthorne Partnership (a father and son team) whose farm is located in Tannymorel  near the border town of Killarney, Queensland (see flyer below):  

Related posts:

1. Beef, Mushroom & Guinness Stew
2. Salsa Verde
3. Sardines with Kamut Pasta

Country Style Pork Terrine

(adapted from:  Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes)

Method

1. Place the ground pork and liver in a large mixing bowl and keep refrigerated until ready to use.
2. Heat lard in a small frying pan over medium-low heat. When hot, add the shallots and sugar. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots/onion begin to caramelise.
3. Add the garlic and remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the brandy and de-glaze the pan, scraping up the browned bits on the bottom with a wooden spoon. Set the mixture aside to cool.
4. Whisk the eggs with the cream. Add the parsley, thyme, salt, black pepper and paprika and whisk again to mix.
5. Remove pork mixture from the fridge and add the cooled shallot mixture to it.
6. Add the egg mixture and  mix until well combined.
7. Refrigerate the pork mixture.
8. Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.
9. Line a terrine dish or loaf pan with the the bacon, leaving enough overhanging to cover the top of the terrine.
10. Spoon the chilled pork mixture into the lined terrine. Place the bay leaves on top and fold over the bacon.
11. Place the terrine in a deep roasting pan. Fill the pan with enough hot water to come halfway up the side of the terrine and bake, uncovered, until cooked, about 1 1/2 hours. The top will be golden and the terrine will have shrunk from the edges of the dish.  (The center of the meat should register about 70 deg C).
12. Remove the terrine dish from the roasting pan.  When terrine is cool, refrigerate for 2 days before eating.  You can leave the fat in the terrine to help the terrine keep,
13. To serve, dip the terrine dish in hot water for about 30 seconds (to melt the fat) and loosen the edges with a small, hot palette knife. Turn the terrine out onto a board and scrape off any excess fat.  Discard any juices in the bottom of the terrine dish. Bring the terrine to room temperature before cutting it into slices.

Note:  In terrine pictured above, I added some blueberry sauce (left over from my pan fried duck breast with blueberry sauce) to the pork mixture.

Livers are nutritious and an excellent source of protein.  Pate or terrine like the one above is a delicious way to add them to your diet. To learn why livers are considered the most important sacred food read this article.

Related posts:

1. Home-Cured Bacon
2. Rillettes – Simple, Rustic and Fattilicious!
3. Venison Meatballs

I use the leftover venison mixture for the meatball to make this eggplant stack, our version of a “hamburger”.

Ingredients

Venison mixture, make into 4 patties

1 large eggplant, cut into 6 round slices

4 slices of mozzarella cheese

lacto-fermented ginger carrots, beets or sauerkraut

Method

1. Preheat the oven grill to medium-high.
2. On the stove-top, heat a grill pan over medium heat, brush eggplants with oil until tender (about 4 minutes on each side)
3. Place patties in a lined baking tray and baked until cook through.  Place a slice of cheese on each pattie and cook until cheese has melted.
4. Assemble the stack by topping an eggplant with a pattie, and a slice of cheese, a spoonful of lacto-fermented vegetables, repeat another layer and finish off with a slice of eggplant on top.

Related posts:

1. Venison Meatballs
2. French Onion Soup (without the tears)
3. Country Style Pork Terrine

I have always eaten venison or deer meat in restaurants but have never cooked it myself.  When I spotted venison for sale at the local market recently, I bought some mince.  I made 2 recipes with it – venison meatballs and an eggplant stack.  As it is quite a lean meat, it will be ideal for jerky or pemmican.  Maybe that’s what I will make the next time I get hold of some venison.

Recipe for Venison Meatballs

Ingredients

• 500gm ground venison
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 small onion, chopped finely
• 1 egg
• 2 tbs flat-leaf parsley, chopped finely
• 1/4 cup bacon rasher, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup almond flour

Method

1. Place all ingredients in a bowl and gently mix everything together, then make into small balls.
2. Heat some fat in a pan and saute them until cooked.  Alternatively you can place them in a tray and bake them in the oven at 180C for about 45 minutes

I serve the meatballs with some salad and a roasted eggplant puree.

Related posts:

1. Sourdough Rice Crackers
2. Eggplant Venison Stack
3. Country Style Pork Terrine

Cleaning out my freezer the other day I found 1 ox-tongue, 2 lamb tongues, a pig ear, 2 lamb hearts and other odd bits.  After brining them for a few days, they were slow cooked in an aromatic broth for a few hours until tender.  With the tongues I simply pressed them in a dish and the hearts, ears together with some pork cheeks were diced and pressed into another dish. We had them for lunch today  with home made lacto fermented mustard, sauerkraut, lacto-fermented beans and some store-bought cornichons and it was an offally good.

For the Pressed Tongue

Peel the skin of the tongues and pressed into a dish.  Place a weight on top and refrigerate.

For the Lamb Heart &Pig Ear Terrine

Dice the hearts into small cubes & slice the pig ear thinly.  To that I added some diced pig cheeks (which I cooked the previous day).  Press into a dish and add a little gelatinous broth.  Place a weight on top and refrigerate.

Related posts:

1. Country Style Pork Terrine
2. Slow Roasted Lamb with Pomegranate Glaze
3. Eggplant Venison Stack

I have always wanted to make my own bacon and I finally did.  The process of curing bacon is really simple and the end result is well worth the effort.  I will be having more fun in the kitchen experimenting with different flavourings, so watch out for more posts on this subject.  .

Home Cured Bacon (Source: Saveur magazine)

Ingredients

1 kg of pork belly (organic/pastured and  if you can, get pork from heritage breed like Berkshire,  Wessex Saddleback..)

For the salt mixture (place all the ingredients except the garlic in a spice grinder and coarsely grind.  Place in a bowl and combine with the garlic)

2 1/2 tbsp salt
1 1/2 tbsp palm sugar
1 tbs black peppercorns
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp caraway seed
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
2 bay leaves
1 garlic clove, finely chopped

Method

1. Rinse the pork and pat it dry.
2. Rub the salt mixture all over pork.
3. Transfer pork and any excess spices to a large ziplock bag and seal, shaking the bag to distribute the seasonings.
4. Refrigerate for 7 days on a sheet tray, flipping the bag every other day. (Some brine will accumulate in the bag as the salt draws water from the pork.)
5. After 7 days, the bacon should feel firm to the touch. Remove bacon from the bag and thoroughly wash off the spices under cold running water. Pat bacon dry with paper towels.
6. Heat oven to 95°C. Transfer bacon to a baking pan and roast until meat is lightly browned and an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center reads 65°C, about 2 hours or more.
7. Once the meat is out,  I remove the rind.  (You can choose the leave the rind on).

Related posts:

1. Country Style Pork Terrine
2. Rillettes – Simple, Rustic and Fattilicious!
3. Chicken Rice – Singapore Style

This sauce is easy and quick to make.  The 2 basic ingredients you need are avocado and lemon juice.  Put into a blender, season with some salt and pepper and there you have it.  A delicious  sauce to liven up your salad, chicken, seafood, etc….  You can make it creamier  by adding  cream, creme fraiche, buttermilk, butter, homemade mayonnaise or yogurt.  Add your favourite herbs – chopped basil, cilantro or parsley ….  Like it spicy – add a  chopped green chilli, chilli flakes or prepared wasabi or horseradish.

Ingredients

1 avocado, skinned and pitted
1/4 cup creme fraiche (sour cream)
1 lemon, juiced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 tsp wasabi powder

Method

Put all ingredient in a blender and blend till smooth.
Season with salt and pepper.

Here I used it as dressing for my chicken and asparagus salad (pictured above).

Related posts:

1. Roast Tomato Sauce & Soup
2. Chicken in Mushroom, Mustard & Tarragon Sauce
3. Sardines with Kamut Pasta

Related posts:

1. Happy New Year 2011
2. Beautiful Sunday Morning
3. Beef, Mushroom & Guinness Stew

Wishing each and everyone a Very Happy and Blessed New Year!

Having been away for nearly 4 months, regular postings has not happened as I hope.  The whole month of January will take me away from home again, so I will most likely be posting from February onwards.

I would like share with you a photo of a Scarlet Honeyeater which I took on a beautiful rainy morning a few days ago.  It was happily enjoying the nectar from the Kumquat blossoms.  Such a beauty and it gave me great joy when I saw it!

Love & Peace

Elsie

xxx

Here’s to a bright New Year

and a fond farewell to the old

Here’s to the things that are yet to come

and to the memories that we hold!

–author unknown

Related posts:

1. Video: Weston A Price Press Conference 14/2/2011
2. Happy New Year 2010
3. A fascinating talk by Carolyn Steel – “How Food Shapes Our Cities”

Beef, Mushroom & Guinness Stew

(inspired by a recipe for Beef, Mushroom & Guinness Pie in Gourmet Traveller)

Serves 2

1. Melt half the butter in a large saucepan, add the onion and garlic, cook for 5 minutes
2. Add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 minutes. Remove from pan  and set aside.
3. Toss the steak in seasoned flour.
4. Melt the rest of the butter in the saucepan and sauté the steak for about 5-7 minutes or until browned.
5. Return the onions and mushrooms to the pan with the meat. Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
6. Add beef stock, Guinness and mushroom ketchup (or Worcestershire sauce), tomato puree, bay leaf and bring to the boil.
7. Cover and then simmer gently, stirring occasionally,  2 hours or until the meat is tender.
8. Serve with boiled potatoes tossed with chopped parsley and butter.

Related posts:

1. Duck & Mushroom Dumplings
2. Roast Tomato Sauce & Soup
3. Chicken in Mushroom, Mustard & Tarragon Sauce