Thai Beef Salad

Salad:
500g eye fillet / rump steak, trimmed of all visible fat
1 tbsp peanut oil
200g of rocket or mixed lettuce leaves, washed and drained
2 Lebanese cucumbers, thinly sliced
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tbsp mint leaves, finely sliced

Dressing:
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small red chili, seeds removed and chopped finely
2 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar
1 tbsp peanut oil
Mint and coriander leaves, to taste

Season the meat with salt and pepper and brown in peanut oil in a nonstick pan over high heat. Rest the meat for 4-5 minutes.

Slice the meat thinly across the grain and place in a large serving bowl. Add rocket or mixed lettuce leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and mint.

To make the dressing, place all ingredients in a food processor until well blended. Toss the beef and salad with the dressing and serve.

Other salad ingredients to suit taste can be added eg, red onion, shallots etc.

Chicken (& Lamb Shanks) with 39 Garlics

We ate this a few nights ago, on a cool rainy evening, in an effort to use the beautiful purple striped garlic from early summer; this Italian hardneck variety doesn't seem to store for long, whereas the Australian white keeps well.

It's an adaption of an Ian Parmenter recipe from the mid 90's. He used red wine rather than oil for the base, and I prefer stock. Unsuprisingly he didn't use lamb shanks, but we had a few on hand and they were delicious; sticky, rich and sweet with garlic. I think it would be fine to substitute beef, lamb or pork for the meat.

~Chicken & Lamb Shanks with 39 Garlics~
1 medium onion, chopped roughly
slurp olive oil
2 lamb shanks
6 chicken legs
500ml chicken stock
39 unskinned cloves garlic
500ml chicken stock
rosemary and thyme sprigs
(6 juniper berries crushed - I left these out)
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
100ml milk
2 tab cornflour

Heat the oil on low and cook the onion until golden and sweet. Remove from the pan and turn up the heat. Brown the lamb shanks and chicken legs all over and remove.

Use some stock to deglaze the pan and pour this into a crockpot or casserole dish. Place all of the ingredients (except the milk and flour) in the crockpot/casserole and cover.

Cook for 6-8 hours in the crockpot, or 1-2 hours at 140 degrees C in the oven (casserole) - or until the meat is tender and falls away from the bone.

Remove the meat and bones, and garlic, to a large serving bowl and keep warm. Strain the liquid and simmer this in a pan until it is reduced to half its volume. Squeeze the pulp from the garlic cloves into the reduced liquid. Mix the cornflour and milk until smooth, then thicken the reduction with this, and simmer for several minutes to cook the flour.

Pour the thickened reduced stock over the meat and serve with jacket potatoes and lots of crunchy steamed veges.

Corned Beef Curry

This was something we had often as children, to use up the leftover corned (or other) beef. It's sweet and salty comfort food. The approximate recipe is something like this :

~Corned Beef Curry~
2 double handfuls of cubed cooked corned beef
slurp olive oil
about 1 tablespoon Keens dry curry powder
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, sliced in rounds
1 stick celery, sliced
leftover veges, eg capsicum
hot water to cover
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 dessert spoon brown sugar
1 large handful sultanas
1 green apple, cored and diced
flour and water to thicken

Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan or frypan and fry off the onion, carrot, celery and any other veges. Add the curry powder and stir through.

Cover with hot water, add salt, sugar, sultanas and apple and allow to simmer for about 20 min. Add the meat and allow to simmer for another 20 minutes or so.

At this stage you can turn off the curry and leave to sit until ready to thicken before serving; the flavours will develop if it sits a while.

Before serving, reheat the curry till simmering; mix a tablespoon of flour to a paste with a little water and stir through; stir whilst simmering for several minutes to cook the flour and thicken the curry.

Serve with rice and lemon juice. This quantity is approx 4 smallish meals.

Sweet Soy Beef with Cabbage

Finally, Em, I have made time to sit down and type up my first recipe!!

This recipe comes from an interesting book called 'Zest', which a dear friend gave me last Christmas. You can buy the book here. With a little person now hanging around my legs, I am often on the lookout for quick recipes that are still tasty and healthy. This one is perfect, and said little person even enjoyed it too. Even if cabbage isn't a part of your normal shopping list you will probably enjoy this...

...Sweet Soy Beef with Cabbage...

1/4 c dry sherry (original - sake)
2 tbspn light soy sauce
1 tbspn sugar
1 tbspn grated ginger
1 tspn sesame oil
500g beef mince (see note)
1 tbspn peanut oil (original - rice bran oil)
1/4 cabbage, shredded (original - chinese cabbage, thickly sliced)
1 tbspn sesame seeds
udon noodles, cooked according to packet

Combine sherry, soy, sugar, ginger and sesame oil.

Heat oil in a wok or large frying pan on high. Stir fry the mince and sherry mixture for 4 - 5 minutes or until meat is browned. Add the cabbage and sesame seeds, stir-fry for 2-3 minutes until the cabbage begines to wilt. Serve straight away with the noodles. Serves 4

Note for variation - beef strips can be used instead. Marinate in sherry mixture for 15 minutes, then drain and stir fry in oil. Add the reserved marinade when the cabbage is added.

Yum! How easy too. I served it with coriander as well. We used left overs as the base for spring roll filling the next night, and they would be yummy in wraps or similar things as well. I think the boys would like this Em, enjoy! Jules xox

Pot Roast with Sweet Onion Jam and Poached Pears

We had this tonight and it was so good I'm jotting down the ingredients. Will try to repeat this, it was delish.


~Pot Roast with Sweet Onion Jam and Poached Pears~
1.5kg topside roast, trimmed of most fat - leave some on for flavour
1 medium onion, sliced
olive oil
about a tab fresh thyme
about 200ml red wine
about 1 tab brown sugar
about 1 cup chicken stock
2 Buerre Bosc pears

Heat a large frypan over med-high heat and drizzle with olive oil. Brown roast on all sides then place in crockpot or casserole dish.

Turn down heat and add onions. Cook till soft, then deglaze pan with stock.

Pour stock, red wine, brown sugar and onions on top of roast, then sprinkle over thyme.

Cover and cook in preheated oven or crockpot until meat is tender. Turn the roast once during cooking to keep it moist and cook evenly. Remove meat to rest and keep covered.

Pour cooking juices back into frypan. Peel and halve pears and place flat side down in the pan juices. Poach pears and reduce liquid until it is thick and syrupy and pears are cooked.

Serve with jacket potatoes and fresh steamed greens.