Spicy Lamb Leg with Pumpkin & Couscous Salad

Lamb leg has everything I want in a piece of meat. It's tender, juicy, easy to cook, inexpensive and has an appropriate amount of fat. When you roast it, every part of it is delightful to eat. It's not fidgety like other cuts where you have to cook it in several pots and pans and you end up spending more time cleaning than eating. The fat renders off beautifully in the oven and it all melts in your mouth.

I love a roast with an intense spice rub. There's a lot of meat on that bone so you need a lot of flavour. This rub is so delicious and a great example of using spices for their flavour rather than heat. When it mixes in with the lamb juices, it's a marriage made in heaven.

A couscous salad is the perfect way to soak up those beautiful juices, not to mention it's dead simple to make. I also put in some roast pumpkin (tossed in those lovely spices) for colour and sweetness.

Spicy lamb leg

You'll need:

Lamb leg (mine was 1.5kg)
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon ground cumin
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon grated ginger
Birdseye chilis (to taste)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon salt

Combine turmeric, paprika, cumin, garlic, ginger, chili, olive oil and lemon juice in a mixing bowl.

Wash and pat dry lamb leg with paper towels.

Rub the spice mixture onto the lamb.

Marinade in fridge for at least an hour. The lemon juice tenderises the meat so the longer the better.

Preheat oven to 170°C.

Roast lamb on a wire rack for 1 hour 20 minutes for every 1.5kg. (I know my oven is pretty slow so I left it in for an extra 10 minutes.)

Rest for at least half an hour.

It should be beautifully pink medium-rare, so juicy and tender it will hardly hold onto your fork.

Pumpkin & couscous salad

You'll need:

500g pumpkin, diced
1 cup couscous
1 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
Pinch of salt
Juice of one lemon
½ cup red onion, finely diced
½ cup raisins
Handful of mint leaves, roughly chopped

Toss the pumpkin in any left over marinade and roast with lamb for 1 hour on a baking tray in a single layer.

Combine couscous, olive oil, salt and water in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap for 10 minutes.

Separate couscous with a fork and mix in pumpkin, lemon juice, onion, raisins and mint.

Enjoy!

Gnocchi with Creamy Pumpkin & Prosciutto Sauce

I remember when I was a teenager I made gnocchi from a packet and I found it revolting. I could have just accepted that I didn't like gnocchi and let it go, except it really bothered me that everyone raved about gnocchi. How could anyone like this? I thought. Was I missing something or was it the most overrated pasta? So I cooked it again and again hoping that I'd like it. I didn't and I gave up on it for years.

It wasn't until two years ago that I tried fresh gnocchi in a restaurant and it all made sense to me. It's not supposed to be tough, chewy and gluggy! It's meant to be soft and silky. Because there was such a big difference between bad gnocchi and good gnocchi, I figured that the recipe must be really difficult or the chef must have added some secret ingredient - otherwise, why didn't they have good gnocchi in packets? I was wrong again. Turns out, it's ridiculously simple to make but the key to really good gnocchi (other than a good potato-flour ratio) is freshness.

Click here for a simple baked potato gnocchi recipe. Baking the potato removes excess moisture and makes the gnocchi less gummy.

Keep in mind to use as little flour as possible. You only need enough to hold the gnocchi dough together (between 1 and 2 cups). Otherwise it won't be silky.

My batch stayed perfectly soft and silky in the fridge for two days.

For the sauce, you'll need:

300g butternut squash, diced into 1.5cm cubes
3 slices prosciutto (I used Serrano), plus more for garnish
Olive oil
25g unsalted butter
Salt, to taste
2 French shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sage leaves, finely chopped, plus more for garnish
Handful of parsley, finely chopped
1 tablespoon cream
Parmesan cheese

Blanch pumpkin cubes in simmering salted water for 2 minutes. Remove and place into a bowl of iced water.

Fry prosciutto in a bit of olive oil until fragrant and crispy. Remove and leave to rest.

Add half of the butter into the pan. Fry a few sage leaves in the butter until crispy. Remove and leave to rest.

Fry pumpkin in the same pan on as many sides you can be bothered until brown. Season with salt. Remove and leave to rest.

Add the rest of the butter and saute shallots, garlic and sage until the shallots are translucent.

Add pumpkin, prosciutto, parsley and cream. Remove from heat when combined.

Cook the gnocchi in rapidly boiling salted water. It's ready when it floats to the top of the water.

Place gnocchi and a little bit of pasta water into the sauce and stir together.

Garnish with a slice of prosciutto, more parsley, fried sage leaves and parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

The Curry Tiger

Every Tuesday, I have the pleasure of volunteering at a legal centre in Woolloomooloo, located fortuitously opposite the original Harry's Cafe de Wheels. All I have to do is sigh, "Pie," on a Tuesday and Dan will know what I'm talking about: chunky beef, spicy curry, pastry with a perfect balance of flaky and soggy, mash, peas and gravy. Thus is the Curry Tiger for $5.80. Genius.

I decided to make it at home with some personal touches: shredded slow-cooked beef, creamy curry, homemade pastry (the best!) and lots of creamy, buttery mash.

Pastry

250g plain flour
200g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
½-¾ cups iced water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar

Dice the butter and chill in the freezer for a few minutes.

Combine flour, salt, sugar and butter in a large bowl.

Cut the butter into the flour until you have pea-sized pieces of butter (these will melt in the oven and make the pastry light and flaky). You can use a food processor or a pastry cutter for this step. I have neither so I used a mezzaluna and it worked a treat.

Add the water little by little and mix in with a plastic pastry scraper. Stop when the dough just comes together.

Turn out onto a floured surface and split the mixture into two (one for the base, one for the lid). Mould each dough with your hands and knead two or three times so it all sticks together. Wrap with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for at least half an hour.

You can keep the dough for up to two days in the fridge, which is great because you can make the dough and the filling the night before.

Curry filling

500g osso bucco, washed, dried and salted generously
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 onion
5 cloves garlic, peeled
5cm parsley or coriander stalks, roughly chopped
Chilis, halved (add as many as you'd like)
1 litre water
400ml coconut milk
Curry powder (add to taste)
2 tablespoons plain flour

Heat oil in a deep pot over a medium-high heat.

Sear the meat and remove from pot.

Reduce heat to medium and saute the vegetables.

Add water, coconut milk and curry powder (the instructions on mine recommended 4 tablespoons to a litre of water). Bring to a boil.

Place meat into liquid and simmer gently for at least three hours.

Remove meat and shred with two forks.

Add flour to the liquid and stir in. Strain so you get a smooth sauce.

Place the meat and 500ml of the sauce in a container and chill in the fridge. If you're making the pie on the same day, wait until the filling is completely cool. Otherwise, you can fridge it for about three days.

Note: You'll have a lot of curry sauce leftover. It's infused with delicious marrow and beef fat which you can enjoy with rice or bread.

Making the pie

Preheat the oven to 220°C.

Technically you don't need to line the pan because there's so much butter in the pastry, but I like to be safe. I lined a 20cm springform pan with butter then baking paper.

Roll out the first piece of dough on a floured surface until it's about half a centimetre thick. Gently line the pan with the pastry.

Fill the base with the curry filling.

Roll out the second piece of dough and cut out a circle about 3cm bigger than the pan.

Place the lid on the pie and trim the edges.

Fold down the edges and cut a few holes in the lid to let the steam escape.

Bake until golden brown (my incredibly slow oven took about 40 minutes).

Rest for at least 20 minutes before taking it out of the pan to avoid the pie collapsing.

Serve with mash, peas and gravy.

Enjoy!

Sticky Spicy Prawns

When you don't have a lot of time, you need to find creative ways to cut corners. For me, I slash my television time in half by recording shows and watching them in bulk with the handy technology of the fast forward button. For example, with Jamie Oliver's "30 Minute Meals", if I skip the ads and the last 2 minutes of his family eating, and watch the rest on x2, I can watch a whole episode in 5 minutes. Sometimes I slow it down to listen to his voice, but the thing that instantly makes me press play is when he's cooking prawns.

There's something beautiful in the way Jamie Oliver takes a few prawns, rubs herbs and spices on them and throws them under the grill. Not only does it save time, which is what I'm all about these days, it makes for the most tantalising snack or entree. The best part is, no peeling of the prawn! You can eat every part of the prawn - the head's the best part because you get the gooey brain liquids (mmmm).

I tweaked his recipe based on what I had at home, and even though in my head it tastes better with paprika, this is one tasty little crunchy-shelled delight: sticky and sweet with a kick of chili.

You'll need:
8 king green prawns, raw
Zest of one lemon
Juice of half a lemon
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
½ tablespoon olive oil
½ tablespoon honey
½ tablespoon chili flakes
Handful of parsley, roughly chopped
1 spring onion, finely chopped

Preheat grill to 200°C.

Combine all of the ingredients in a baking pan. Whack it under the grill until the shells are orange and there's some browning happening on the heads and tails.

Garnish with fresh parsley.

Enjoy!

Osso Bucco Ragu

There’s much to love about osso bucco. For starters, it’s really fun to say. Secondly, it’s a cut of meat that’s high in collagen, which, when broken down by slow-cooking, becomes rich and gelatinous between the meat fibres so that the meat melts in your mouth. You can buy two pieces of osso bucco from a good quality butcher for less than $10 and this recipe makes 6 servings (that leaves you more money to spend at, say, Country Road). What you end up with is a rich tomato sauce that’s been infused with delicate and meaty veal and bone marrow.

For this recipe, I used a pre-made pasta sauce by Latina, which cuts down the prep time to about 10 minutes. The sauce isn’t the greatest on its own, but when it’s cooked down with meat and veges, it’s brilliant.

You’ll need:
2 portions of osso bucco
3 tablespoons canola oil (or any oil with a high burning point)
2 Spanish onions
6 carrots
¼ green cabbage
5 cloves garlic
500ml beef stock
1L pre-made pasta sauce
Thyme leaves from 2 sprigs
Basil to garnish
Pasta

Roughly chop onions, carrots, cabbage and garlic.

Wash meat and pat dry with paper towels. Season both sides with salt and pepper.

Heat a large pot on high heat. Add oil.

When hot, brown the meat (approx. 1 minute each side). Remove from heat and set aside.

Cook the veges in the same pot for about 10 minutes to release all the lovely juices.

Deglaze the pot with beef stock.

Add pasta sauce and thyme and bring to the boil.

Place the meat back in and turn the heat down to low. (I have a fidgety electric stove so I used a thermometer to keep track of the temperature. According to Heston, shin cuts are best cooked at at least 70°C in liquid, so I kept it at 75°C).

Leave for 4 hours.

Cook pasta according to packet instructions. Drain but keep some pasta water.

Remove meat and shred with a fork while hot.

Scoop out veges from the sauce. To thicken the sauce, stir in pasta water or flour.

Add the shredded meat back and basil leaves to the sauce.

Serve with hot pasta.

Enjoy!

Perfect Pan-Fried Steak & Potato Mash

The other night, I was in a Nigella mood: I wanted my food fast without the tediousness of cooking things the “proper way”. Only, I took short cuts that would offend chefs and quite frankly, I appalled myself.

You see, instead of thawing frozen meat, I just put it in a bowl and poured boiling water over it. To make it worse, it was steak. By the time it had defrosted through, the outside had started to cook. I was really irked out but I continued cooking it like normal. I wanted to cry, thinking that I’d ruined a perfectly good piece of meat.

That is, until I tasted it.

It was the juiciest, most tender and meatiest-tasting steak I’d ever cooked on the pan! I can’t explain it – all my culinary knowledge about meat points against boiling steak – but it was almost perfect. I do know that kosher meat is boiled to draw out blood and impurities and supposedly this leaves a more refined meat taste. Also, I guess gently cooking the outside of the steak means that it won’t seize up on contact with a hot pan. Either way, this is a fool-proof method for making an excellent steak at home (without a grill or woodfire oven).

So juicy...

Inspired by Heston Blumenthal’s way of cooking, I fiddled around a bit to find the best way to parboil steak before pan-frying. Took a while to fine-tune but I’m very happy with this recipe.

1 steak (make sure it’s a cut that’s suitable for grilling or pan-frying)
2 cloves garlic
Fresh rosemary
Fresh thyme
Olive oil

Put steak in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Slowly bring to 55°C and simmer at the same temperature for 15 minutes. (This is the temperature commonly used for a sous-vide and the idea is to make it hot enough to draw out the blood but not hot enough for the meat to tense up.)

Remove and rest until cool.

Dry well with paper towels, pressing on the steak to soak up excess blood.

Rub olive oil, 1 clove crushed garlic, salt and pepper on both sides.

Heat pan to a very high heat and cook steak for 3 minutes on each side.

Remove and place on a plate or chopping board and immediately dress with olive oil, crushed garlic and chopped rosemary and thyme.

Rest for at least 5 minutes before serving.

Of course, you must have steak with mash. I never really felt the urge to blog about mash until I saw Heston Blumenthal make the ultimate potato mash on “In Search of Perfection”. The recipe was so ingenious and well thought out that I must share.

1 kg potatoes
300g unsalted butter, cubed
Salt
Cream

Wash, peel and slice potatoes into even pieces (about 1 inch). Cover with cold water in a pot. Slowly bring to 70°C and simmer at the same temperature for 30 minutes. (This locks in the glutens so that the mash isn’t gluey.)

Drain and place potato slices in iced water.

Wash the pot, refill with water, add salt and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and add potatoes (and 3 cloves of garlic if you like garlic in your mash). Simmer until potatoes are tender.

Drain and place potatoes and garlic back in the pot. Shake the pot gently over a low heat to completely dry.

Push potatoes and garlic through a potato ricer into a bowl with butter.

Push through a drum sieve for a finer consistency (optional).

Put back into pot, adding salt and cream to taste. Whisk well over a low heat until light and fluffy.

Enjoy!

Thyme Pancakes

I believe that after this life, there is a pancake cloud where people eat Canadian style pancakes every morning and then sleep on pillowy pancake pockets every night. In this life, starting the day off with pancakes and bacon is a blessing. I've also been blessed with a few lazy days lately, which is when food ideas come to me.

I like my pancakes light and fluffy. I like a thick batter (lumps don't bother me, Gary and George!) and lots of butter. Fresh garlic and thyme, crispy bacon, garlic mayo and a bit of maple syrup makes this the ultimate savoury pancake breakfast.

1 cup plain flour
2 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
1 egg
¾-1 cup milk (depending on how much the flour absorbs)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
Fresh sprigs of thyme
Garlic cloves, halved
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
Maple syrup

Place dry ingredients in a bowl and make a well in the centre.

Add egg and whisk flour in from the sides.

Gradually add milk, then butter, while whisking.

Heat pan over medium heat. You want the butter to sizzle (so the pancake doesn't just soak up the butter) but not burn, so lower the heat after the first pancake.

Melt a tiny knob of butter in the centre and lay down a sprig or two of thyme.

Spoon pancake batter over the butter and thyme and spread out with the back of the spoon. Turn over when bubbles form on top or when the edges are brown.

Remove from heat and gently rub the cut side of a garlic clove on the pancake.

Repeat! (This recipe will make 5 pancakes.)

If you love your garlic like I do, crush half a clove of garlic and mix with the mayo. If you don't like the strong hit of garlic, fry it gently in the butter before mixing with the mayo.

Serve with crispy bacon and maple syrup.

The mayo is really rich so the maple syrup provides the perfect balance to each bite (I really, really enjoy sweet and savoury in the same dish). I'm also obsessed with fresh thyme right now - so aromatic and so pretty in the pancakes. This is the kind of meal that warms up my winter days.

Oprego Burger Deconstructed and Deep-Fried Cheese

It was my boyfriend Dan's birthday yesterday and I'd say his two big loves (after me!) are fast food and gaming. And so on the eve of his birthday I made him a fun little dinner combining the two. I present to you the Oporto Oprego burger deconstructed... and invading space!

This little baby has chicken drumsticks, bread wrapped with lettuce, chili and coriander sauce and Oporto's "legendary Prego sauce". It doesn't have tomato and mayo like the genuine Oprego burger but it's finger-lickin' goood! The idea is, you grab a bread and lettuce cube, dip it in the Prego sauce and eat it with a bite of chicken. And unlike a regular burger where the juices soak into the paper wrapper, you can lick every drop of flavour from the plate!

Bread, cut into cubes
Lettuce leaves
6 chicken drumsticks
1 bottle Oporto's Prego sauce
1 large red chili
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons coriander leaves
Lemon juice
Olive oil

Wash and dry drumsticks. Season with salt and cook in butter (in the oven at 180°C for roughly 45 minutes or in a pan on medium-low heat with the lid on until cooked through).

Wrap strips of lettuce around the bread cubes and secure with a toothpick.

Finely chop up chili, garlic and coriander until almost a paste. Place in a bowl and add enough olive oil to cover. Add equal amount of lemon juice. Drizzle over chicken.

Serve with Prego sauce.

I know you're wondering, "Where's the cheese, yo?" Don't worry, I would never ever skimp on cheese. That's why I also made these bad boys!

Deep-fried camembert with fresh tzatziki

I tried these at Mizuya during a food blogger meetup in Sydney and I remember thinking that my boyfriend would love them. This recipe pretty much replicates the ones I had that night and the batter is perfect.

1 wheel of camembert
1 egg
¼ cup plain flour
Bread crumbs (fresh is better)
Vegetable oil for frying
200g Greek yoghurt
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Juice of half a lemon
1 tablespoon chives

Using a wet knife, cut camembert into 8 triangular slices. Carefully cut the white casing off. Insert a toothpick into the wide end.

Whisk egg and flour together in a shallow bowl.

Holding the toothpick, dip the cheese into the egg batter. Be careful to coat it all, including part of the toothpick, so the cheese doesn't ooze out in the pan. Allow the excess to drip off.

Coat in breadcrumbs and place on a plate. edit: Coating this batter in breadcrumbs is essential as it inhibits the batter from rising and forming the texture of really bad bread.

Freeze for 2 hours.

Deep-fry until brown.

Combine yoghurt, garlic, lemon juice and chives in a bowl for a dipping sauce.

Serve immediately!

Dan would probably like it if I mentioned that he doesn't actually play Space Invaders. He plays cool games like Modern Warfare 2, that also happen to ruin girlfriends' lives.

I'm kidding. I love you baby! :) Happy 22nd!

Garlic and Butter Pork with Creamy White Wine Sauce

Garlic and butter pork loin chop, served with spinach and mushroom in a creamy white wine sauce. I love days like this in the kitchen!

75g butter
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ onion, finely diced
1 teaspoon olive oil
400g pork loin chops
100g button mushrooms, stalks removed and sliced
200g baby spinach leaves
White wine
3 tablespoons cream
Salt and pepper

Serves 2

Cook pork chops, half the butter, olive oil, onion and garlic in a pan over medium, careful not to burn the butter. The pork will take 3-5 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the chops.

Remove pork, onion and garlic from the pan, leaving the oil and juices.

On low heat, add a bit more butter and sautée mushrooms for a few minutes.

When the mushrooms are soft and silky, turn up to medium heat and add just enough white wine to cover the base of the pan. Wait till the alcohol is cooked out.

Add remaining butter, cream, spinach and the onion from earlier and stir until the spinach has wilted.

Season with salt and pepper.

Enjoy!

Quick Seafood Salad

A quick seafood salad after a late night at work. Calamari, Atlantic salmon and prawns marinated in olive oil, parsley, garlic and cracked pepper. Pan-fried on medium-high heat for 4 minutes. Served with green coral lettuce, watercress, bean sprouts, red onion (soaked in lime juice, à la Nigella) and pomegranate seeds, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Balsamic Glazed Chicken and Bacon with Roasted Beetroot

As promised, here is the recipe for my balsamic glazed chicken and bacon, roasted beetroot and warm garlic and leek dressing. It's a simple and dynamite combo - not to mention a vibrant celebration of what's in season.

You'll need:

2-3 medium beetroot bulbs
6 cloves garlic
150g thick rindless bacon
2 chicken thighs
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons sugar
1 leek stalk
Juice of a quarter of a lime
2 tablespoons cream
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Serves 2

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Lay down 2 layers of aluminium foil. Place beetroot and garlic cloves (skin on, crushed) in the centre and wrap up foil, sealing tightly.

Roast in oven for 1 hour.

Sauteé leek slices in olive oil over low heat. Remove from heat when the leek is translucent. Place in a measuring cup or deep bowl.

Cut chicken into 1 inch cubes and bacon into strips. Wrap bacon around chicken in an S-shape, put on metal skewer.

In the same pan used for the leek, heat olive oil on a medium heat. Place skewers in. Brown on all sides. 15 minutes will give the chicken enough time to cook all the way through (metal skewers will cook the chicken from the inside too).

Remove skewers from pan and deglaze pan with balsamic vinegar and sugar. Put skewers back on, coating them with the glaze. Remove from heat and set aside.

To the leek, add the roasted garlic, lime juice, leftover oils and juices from the pan, more olive oil if desired, cream and salt and pepper. Blitz to a pureé.

Peel beetroots. The skin should come off easily by lightly pressing it. Cut into eighths.

If you want the dish to look gourmet, remove the meat from the skewers. Arrange the meat in the middle of the plate and place beetroot slices around. Dollop dressing on top.

Enjoy!

How To Lose a Day in the Kitchen

It's been one of those days where I've spent the whole morning and afternoon thinking about and making food. I can spend hours in a fresh food market and be fascinated by the wonderful colours and shapes. My favourite part is ripping apart herb leaves and smelling and tasting them (while no one's looking, of course).

These holidays I've been putting more thought into what I cook. Time and patience make cooking a cathartic experience. From the creativity of putting flavours and textures together (it's amazing how we can imagine the visuals and tactility of food) to the humdrum of chopping vegetables (when we get to really know our food), cooking is an all-consuming experience. It gives me peace of mind, time to think. I plate things up and I'm a better person.

Today I decided to try out an oldie of mine (chicken and bacon on skewers, glazed with balsamic vinegar and sugar) with something I'd never tried before (roasted beetroot in a salad of beetroot leaves, cos lettuce and raw leek). To that I added a dressing of pureed roasted garlic and sauteed leeks, olive oil, lime juice, cream, salt and pepper. The skewers of meat were smoky and sweet, which went together beautifully with the creamy, garlicky and slightly acidic dressing. And the mellowed beetroot was surprisingly delightful (I'm not one who enjoys beetroot in burgers, but this I loved).

The best part of today? I've come up with a new dish to add to my repertoire, I've learnt how to improve it (for one, the raw leek has to go) and I've had a long, enjoyable day in the kitchen.

I'll be putting up a vlog for this recipe soon, very soon, so keep your eyes peeled. In the meantime, keeping cooking and expanding your comfort zone, and please feel free to comment with suggestions!