Abercrombie & Feast

We had some friends around for dinner on Saturday night, and amongst the group lurked two vegetarians.  I wanted to plan a meal that the vegos could eat and that everyone else would enjoy as well. 

For me, the keys to meatless deliciousness in a dish are lots of flavour and a little inventiveness.  In fact, I really enjoy cooking vegetarian meals because I think it helps me be more creative. I keep a little folder for recipe ideas and I realised recently that about 90% of the recipes in that folder are vegetarian.  I could pretty happily live without meat most of the time (exceptions are a great steak every few months and bacon on Sunday mornings.)

But… alas.  I am married.  Married to a wonderful man who really prefers meals that include meat.  He’s not a fanatic about it and he does let me make a few meat-free meals a week, but overall the presence of meat is important to him. 

So feeding the meat lovin’ husband and the vegetarian guests well enough to avoid having anyone order a pizza after dinner was the challenge.  The solution?  My lentil shepherds pie. 

This dish is hot and hearty.  Covered with a layer of creamy mashed potatoes, the lentil shepherds pie is everything a shepherds pie should be- minus the meat.  This was a great hit for dinner on Saturday night.  I served it with a warm salad of butternut pumpkin and chickpeas from Molly at Orangette, which was gorgeous, and a simple green salad. 

Lentil Shepherds Pie

Serves 8-10

For the lentils:
1 large brown onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large carrot, grated
3 cans brown lentils (or you can use dried lentils that have been soaked overnight.  If you do this, increase the cooking time.)
1/2 litre or 2 cups of vegetable stock
3 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

For the mashed potatoes:
6 large potatoes, cleaned and peeled
1/4 cup milk
5 tablespoons butter
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

Preheat your oven to 200C or 400F.

Put the onion in a large pot over medium heat with the olive oil and butter.  Stir for about 2-3 minutes, then add the garlic and carrot.  Let this cook slowly until the onion is translucent (don’t let the garlic brown.  If it does start to brown, turn the heat down.) 

Add the lentils and stir to coat with the oil and onion mixture.  Pour in the vegetable stock, tomato paste and worcestershire sauce and stir until it is all combined.  Turn the heat down to medium low and allow this mixture to simmer for about 30 mins or until most of the liquid has evaporated and the mixture is thick.  Taste.  Add salt and pepper as needed.  You may need an extra dash of worcestershire sauce.  Add that too if you want.

When the lentils are done, spread them in the bottom of a casserole dish.  The lentils should fill the dish to a little more than half full.

Meanwhile, cut the potatoes into chunks and boil them in well salted water until they are tender.  Drain and place them back in the pot in which they were boiled.  Add the milk and butter and mix with a hand mixer until smooth.  Add salt and pepper to taste (I generally add a lot of pepper, but I am a bit of a pepper monkey). 

Spread the mashed potatoes over the lentil mixture in the casserole dish.  Once the lentils are completely covered by the mashed potatoes, drag a fork across the potatoes to make little lines.  These little raised up bits will become brown and crunchy and irresistible in the oven.  Sprinkle the grated cheese and a little more salt and pepper over the mashed potatoes.

Bake in the oven for about 30 mins, or until the top is lightly browned and the whole thing is heated through.

Enjoy with a medium-bodied red wine and some friends who won’t even notice the missing meat!

Our French teacher was recently complaining about the lack of good, affordable French food in Sydney.  He recommended making beef bourguignon at home to get the real “flavour of France” without the hefty restaurant price tag.  Now, I don’t think that all French food in Sydney is too expensive, but I do agree that making beef bourguignon at home is one of the easiest ways to get your French fix.  It’s also a really good way to get rid of some red wine.

Now, I know there are those of you who will be shocked by that last statement.  “Get rid of wine”, you might shout, “what a barbaric idea!  Wine is to be savoured and pampered and enjoyed out of large, fragile and expensive glasses!” 

And you would be right about most of those things (we can’t use expensive wine glasses in our house- Andy has a habit of knocking them over onto the floor) but, the fact remains that we have some wine we need to “get rid of.”  You know the wine I’m talking about.  Bottles that lurk on your wine rack for months after purchase, always being overlooked when the time to drink is upon you.  Perhaps you bought them on a wine-tasting trip, at the end of the day when your palate was *ahem* not it’s best?  Perhaps they were brought to your house during a party by friends who aren’t into wine and don’t know any better?  Or perhaps they were on sale at the bottle shop and you just can’t resist a bargain??  No matter the origin, there is a difference between wine to be savoured and pampered, and wine you’re happy to pour into a pot and add salt and pepper to.

(A small aside here- I’ve heard varying opinions about wine that’s best to cook with.  Some people say only cook with a wine you’d drink.  Others say it doesn’t matter if the wine you cook with isn’t very good.  Does anyone know which is correct?)

 So I made a big pot of beef bourguignon according to the vague directions given to us by our French teacher (which included the instruction, “Buy some beef- but not too much”), the recipe from one of my French cookbooks, and the ideas in my head of what I wanted the dish to taste like.  Overall, I’d say the results were excellent.  That’s one bottle down, 10 more to go.

Beef Bourguignon

Serves 4-6

1 kilo or 2 pounds of beef (I bought round steak, but gravy beef or stew beef would also work for this) cut into bite sized pieces
2 tablespoons plain flour
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 rasher or 2 slices of bacon, finely chopped
1 bottle of dry red wine (I used an Aussie shiraz)
1 cup beef stock
2 carrots, chopped
8-10 button mushrooms, chopped

Toss the pieces of beef with the flour, salt and pepper to taste.  Heat the butter and olive oil in a large pot with a lid over medium heat.  Put the meat in the pot and stir around until beginning to brown on all sides.  Remove the meat and keep in a bowl (to conserve all the lovely juices).

Add the onion, garlic and bacon to the pan and stir.  Allow the bacon to cook and the onions to become transparent (about 5-7 minutes). 

Put the meat and any juices in the bowl back into the pot.  Stir.  Add about 3/4 of the bottle of wine.  Fill the rest of the pot up with the beef stock.  Add salt and pepper and stir.  Turn the heat down, put the lid on the pot and simmer for 1-2 hours.  Check after an hour to see if the beef is tender.  You can cook this for a while and it just keeps getting better. 

About an hour before you’re ready to serve, add the carrots and mushrooms to the pot. 

Serve with mashed potatoes and good red wine (you could even finish the bottle you cooked with!)  The leftovers are even better the next day.  Waste not want not! 

Bonjour!  Andy and I have been taking French language lessons for 9 weeks now.  We are contemplating a move to France at some point in the future, and we’d like to be prepared if and when that day comes.  Andy has a natural knack for languages that I seem to have been born without.  So, whilst he is making lots of progress with his vocabulary, I have focused more on the “cultural” side of our education.  Specifically, reading books about food in France and cooking things from my French cookbooks. 

Last Wednesday we were in French class- and it was hard.  Not just the typical “learning a new language in your late-20′s hard”, but “we’ve worked a long day already and this is mentally exhausting” hard.  About an hour into the class I wrote Andy a little note on the top of my study guide- “Do you want to leave at the break and go have dinner at Bistro de Paris??”  He nodded, looking relieved, and we snuck out. 

Bistro de Paris is a small French restaurant just up the road from us in Bondi Junction.  I figured we could practice our French with the waitress (la serveuse) and get a good dinner while we were there.  And I was right on both counts!  Here’s me carefully considering my next French phrase:

The restaurant was crowded with groups who seemed to be having a swell time, all seated at comfy tables and booths in the dim room enjoying glasses of wine.  Were it not for the very loud man with the very Aussie accent at the table next to us we might have thought we were in Paris. 

We started with a platter of mixed charcuterie served with lovely bread.  My favourite part of this dish was the bundle of fresh herbs placed on the serving platter.  I’m not sure if this is traditional, but adding a fresh basil leaf to a bite of spicy salami on top of a piece of crunchy baguette was genius.  It brightened up the whole plate.

For mains we each ordered the specials.  I had perch in a white wine and herb sauce and Andy had Toulouse sausages on pasta with blue cheese. 

The fish was great, but the best part about this dish was the large slice of braised eggplant that the fish was resting on.  It was sweet and smoky and creamy and wow!  I could have had a whole serving of just the eggplant and the sauce.  These pics aren’t great- but it’s hard to photograph food in a dim restaurant.  We did our best!

Andy’s pasta was great, but his favourite part was the sausages.  I tried his meal and I will admit, whilst overall it was a bit too rich for me, the sausages were stellar.  Just simple pork sausages with minimum seasoning, they tasted exactly like you want your pork sausages to taste like- pork! 

Overall, Bistro de Paris is a cozy neighbourhood place and we’re lucky to have it nearby!

And don’t worry- we did practice our French.  Andy ordered our drinks in French (Deux verres du pinot noir, sil vous plait), I asked for the bill in French (L’addition, sil vous plait) and I even complimented the food in French (L’abergine est tres bonne)!  So if all we ever do in Paris is go to restaurants (and I do think that is possible) we should be all set! 

Last Sunday, after walking through the cold, drizzly afternoon to get to the cinema and indulging in the Sex and the City movie- light, fluffy, slightly cheesy at best- I was ready for a warm, hearty, meaty dinner.

(I was also inspired to immediately go buy two new pairs of shoes, but that is a totally different story!)

We have a bit of a Sunday ritual around here.  Sunday afternoons provide us with the opportunity to make more complicated or elaborate dinners, or even to just start something yummy and leave it to simmer all afternoon while we read or watch a movie.  Add to that a bottle of really nice red, Grey’s Anatomy and lots of cuddling.  Sunday is honestly my favourite day of the week.  It’s also a great way to ease back into the week.

So, for this lazy Sunday evening- lamb shanks it was!

We didn’t eat a lot of lamb until we moved to Australia, but now I absolutely love it.  Lamb is tasty, easy to cook and available in most shops around us.

These shanks were started around 5.30pm on a rainy Sunday afternoon and by 8.30pm we had a delicious dinner that honestly required minimum fuss.  A few minutes of work at the beginning followed by a long, slow simmer and dinner is ready.  As Carrie Bradshaw would say, “I couldn’t help but wonder… should it really be this easy?”

Lamb shanks for a Sunday evening

Serves 2
Leave these on to simmer for a while- 2 hours at least- and you’ll have a truly fine dinner for the cooler months.  We served them with cubed roasted potatoes and pumpkin.  Although, as Andy pointed out, the shanks would have been better with mashed potatoes.  There was a ton of gorgeous juice left over from the shanks and a pile of mashed potatoes would have really done that justice.  Oh well, next time!

2 lamb shanks- ask your butcher to “French” them.  This just means removing most of the meat and fat from the top of the bone
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup beef stock
salt and pepper to taste

Place a large pan with a lid over medium heat.  Add 1/2 the oil.  Season the lamb shanks with course salt (I used Maldon, but use whatever you have) and cracked pepper.  When the oil is hot add the shanks to the pan and brown them on all sides.  Remove the shanks from the pan and allow to rest on a plate.

Add the rest of the oil.  Add the onion and cook for about 2 minutes.  Then add the garlic and cook for a further 4-5 minutes.  Pour in the wine and stir until the wine has reduced by about 1/2.  Add the tomato paste and stir for another minute.

Return the lamb shanks to the pan.  Pour in the beef stock.  Top up the pan with enough water to mostly submerge the lamb shanks (it’s ok if a few little bits are sticking out.)

Turn the heat down to low, put the top on the pan and allow to simmer for at least 2 hours.  Taste the broth occasionally to determine if you’d like more salt or pepper (I added more of both about half way through the cooking time.)

Lamb shanks are ready when the meat is falling off the bone and smells so good you can’t wait any longer to eat!

It has taken me a while to get used to cold weather in June.  Growing up, June meant summer holidays, swimming pools and corn on the cob.  Moving to Australia meant adjusting my expectations of June.  Instead we’ve had grey skies, fleece blankets and hot chocolate for the last few weeks.

However, winter in Australia isn’t really winter.  I’ve lived in Syracuse, NY.  THAT is winter.  And days like today make Australia’s version of winter seem tame, even a bit lame.  Observe, our mid-winter lunch today:

That’s a dozen oysters and some really good fries.  Andy had a beer.  I had some sparkling wine.

We were at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, in Rushcutters Bay (which also happens to be where Andy proposed- in the park, not in the club.)  The sun was out, there was literally not a cloud in the sky and it was warm enough to wear short sleeves.  It was beautiful.  I love this country.

One of the things that we’ve enjoyed about Australia is the chance to learn about all the different sports played here.  For example, Aussie Rules Football is like watching cross-country ping pong and cricket is like watching paint dry.  Perhaps our favourite Aussie sport to watch is Rugby Union.  So when our local team (the NSW Waratahs) made it to the semi-finals we grabbed some friends and some layers (it’s winter here!) and went along to the game.

For those of you unfamiliar with Rugby Union, I’d like to offer a few, totally unprofessional, insights:

1.  Rugby players are huge.  Their thighs are as big as my waist.  These guys are like really toned and fit sumo wrestlers, but with shorts instead of those sumo diapers.
2.  Crowds at Aussie sporting events are really quiet.  There isn’t a ton of talking or shouting during play (unless someone scores.)  And, there is very little music played over the loudspeakers (how am I supposed to know I’m at a sporting event without hearing “We Will Rock You” seven times??)
3.  Rugby matches are short.  Two 40 minute halves = easy.

But, those 80 minutes do leave plenty of time for dinner.  When in the USA my favourite ballgame dinner is a hotdog.  However, the hotdogs in Australia are vile.  So, my game-day dinner of choice is a proper Aussie meat pie.

Here’s Andy holding my dinner:

And here’s my dinner half way through:

That’s a flakey pastry crust filled with shredded beef and gravy.

The idea of a savoury pie is fairly foreign to most Americans.  In America, pies are filled with apples or cherries or other fruit.  However, savoury pies are common in the rest of the world and are practically a national symbol of Australia.  I’ve come to really enjoy savoury pies whilst living here.  In fact, I’ve even attempted to make a few at home!  No big successes yet, but when I get it right, I’ll post the recipe here.  In the meantime, enjoy the pics of the pie and GO THE WARATAHS!

When I was a kid my father told us horror stories starring his mother’s pork chops.  Shoe leather was the most common flavour invoked when discussing those pork pucks of old.  These stories have haunted me and I have always been a bit wary of cooking pork of any kind.

A few nights ago Andy and I had a few friends around to our new apartment for dinner.  It was a bit of a housewarming and a bit of a way to say thanks to some mates who helped us move into our new place.

We started the evening with cannellini bean bruschetta.  This is a super easy and simple starter that can usually be made with things already hanging around in our kitchen.  The bruschetta was great- spicy, crunchy and hearty.  In fact, it may have been the best part of the meal!

For a main course I bought a big pork loin.  We have a wonderful butcher near our new place, so I got him to prepare the pork loin for me and to score the fat for making crackling.  I was so excited!  I’ve never even attempted crackling before.  I rubbed olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic on the pork loin, poured some cider into the roasting pan and put the whole thing in the oven.

The pork crackling came out brilliantly.  The potatoes were soft and soaked up some of the cider.  The braised red cabbage was savoury and colourful and still a bit crunchy.

But… the pork.  Dry.  Not terrible, but not moist and juicy either.  I was excited by the rest of the meal, but the pork really let me down.  And then I thought, “Maybe it’s not my fault!”  Maybe I can’t control my inability to cook pork any more than I can control my height or my eye colour.  Could it be a legacy from my grandmother?  A dry pork gene??  That must be it.

Cannellini Bean Bruschetta

Serves 6 as a starter
As I’ve said, this may have been the big hit of the evening.  Although, the crackling went over very well also (as pork fat tends to do.)  This recipe doesn’t contain any pork fat, but it’s pretty great anyway.

Two 400g cans of cannellini beans
2 red chillis
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
1 baguette
1 garlic clove

Drain the beans and rinse under cool water.  Finely chop the chillis (remove the seeds for less heat.)  Mix the chillis and the basil through the beans.  Add the lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.  Mix well and let them rest for a few minutes to let the flavours mingle.

Meanwhile, slice the baguette into 1/2 inch thick pieces.  Toast until warm and beginning to brown.  Once toasted, rub each slice lightly with the garlic clove.

Top each slice with a spoonful of the bean mixture and a drizzle of olive oil.