Goat Curry, Pulled Pork, ganache and….

I haven’t ever cooked goat before, so when we were at the Dandenong Market last week I could not pass up buying some ‘goat curry’ cuts when I saw it. I knew I wanted to try it either as an Indian curry or as a middle eastern tasting dish so onto the internet. The first recipe I found when I googled was Rick Stein’s Goat Curry so that was that settled. I love Rick Stein, haven’t made many of his dishes but he just seems like a delightful man.

We weren’t disappointed at all. I thought the flavour might be a little light on because there is minimal spicing in the recipe but no, it was delightful. Served with rice, greek yoghurt and some of the leftover flour tortillas from Fridays Lunch.

Friday’s Lunch

Let’s just say one of my better lunches! Pulled shoulder of pork made with a rub of salt, cumin and Garam masala, . Before I went to bed Thursday I chucked it into the slow cooker on low with a cup of stock, some onions, garlic and star anise. Removed from slow cooker about an hour before serving. I served this with a simple tomato salsa made of tomatoes, capsicum, black pepper and spring onions and an asian flavoured slaw salad that was really nice. Some Annabel Langbein flour Tortillas that were used as wraps, some plum sauce and tomato pickles on the side as well. Was really lovely, tasty and light.

Dessert was not so light! Brandy snap ‘shells’ with chocolate ganache, quince that had been slow roasted for about 7 hours with sugar, cinnamon and star anise. A plop of double cream on top, yummo.

I resisted having another serve of this for breakfast so I compromised,

Sourdough toast spread with ganache and mashed banana. That is better for me isn’t it?

Sausage making at Tarraleah. In someone else’s kitchen!

This months “In My Kitchen” is not from in my non-existent kitchen! We have just spent 2 weeks touring the beautiful island of Tasmania which is in Bass Strait south of the mainland of Australia. The only planned event we had was to participate in a sausage making class at the amazing village of Tarraleah which is in the high country of Tasmania, located approximately midway between Launceston and the Capital Hobart. The rest of our time was spent touring and returning to our comfy campsite based in Richmond. When we decided to do the trip to Tassie, I thought going to a class of some sort of foodie thing would be good to do. Googled, and the sausage making class at Tarraleah came up. Sometimes you just know things are going to be good purely based on the initial communication and service standards that you get. I can only say our experience was delightful. We had booked  a camp site, but due to the minus 4 temps we asked if there was any indoor accommodation available. Some quick compromises were done and we were checked into Scholar House which is the old school of the township. An extension lead out the front door of our room for our camping fridge into the car and we were sorted. The room was extremely comfortable and happened to be in the same building our sausage making class was being conducted. After a lovely dinner at the pub and a great sleep in the extremely comfortable king size bed we woke and headed off (20 metres) to the kitchen not too sure of what to expect. No worries on that front! Small class of 6 lovely people (including us), chef Michael took us through the steps of making Cumberland, Bratwurst, Polish Smoked, Duck with cherry and apple cider vinegar and lamb & wattle seed sausages. We learned how to portion a duck, mince the meat, stuff the sausage casings, make a beautiful reduction for the duck sausages, use a smoker and had a few good laughs to boot. We then had the opportunity to sit down and share the feast while imbibing some great local wine.  I really did enjoy the day, the class offered great basic information and we came away with some great new skills. I am going to return for some other classes they do at Tarraleah as they are very good value. Here are some photos of our very successful day.

Cutting up the lamb into mincer size pieces.

\ An assortment of our meats used in the sausages. No skin was used, just lots of fat!

Making a stock from the duck carcass.

View out the window at the cold, wet miserable cow.

Lamb & wattle seed snags.

Ready to cook, by this time we’d lost track of which were which!

And more, and more.

Chef Michael stuffing things up!

We ate, and drank and continued to eat sausages for a week after the class.

Snags, wine and laughter. Thanks Tarraleah for such a great day! Think next time I’ll suggest a salad to share too though. A little different IMK this month thanks to Celia from fig jam and lime cordial for hosting. But hey, it’s a kitchen! I usually close my IMK post with a photo of how the oak tree outside my kitchen is looking. Amazing how it can be bare one month and fully dressed the next!

Wet, wintery weekend.

BEEF CURRY VIETNAMESE STYLE

Saturday was not terribly conducive to working out in the garden so I thought a dish of tasty Vietnamese nosh was in order. I referred to the cook book we got from the Gioan Family Cooking Class while in Hoi An Vietnam and promptly did some basic translating!

I had picked some lemongrass and even though it was a bit woody it served the purpose of adding traditional flavour to the dish. I mixed up the marinade using the tomato, lemon grass, spices, chilli sauce as I didn’t have any paste,  for ‘2 tomato Blender’ I used 2 tablespoons of tomato paste thinned with some chicken stock (I will reduce to 1 next time). Didn’t worry about the condensed milk.

I separately stir fried some onion, snow peas, carrot and red capsicum in a dash of sesame oil and some chicken stock. This was then added to the beef stir fry when nearly cooked.

I added approx 2/3 cup water with some potato starch mixed in and also threw in some tip shoots off the broad bean plants. Because there was a fairly strong tomato overtone I also added a generous tablespoon of fish sauce. Served with some rice steamed with turmeric (1 tspn to 1 cup). All in all not too shabby!