4 Hour Roast Beef with Red Wine Sauce
It’s a fairly straight forward recipe and really takes no time at all to
4 Hour Roast Beef Rump in Red Wine
Sauce
WTF is Oxtail
They are more often than not sold as individual sections of bone with their surrounding meat. If you do happen to get a whole one you can feel along for a the gap between the bone and cut there. As far as cooking it, think of how you’d cook a lamb shank - long and slow and good for the base of a stock or stew. There isn’t usually much meat on these things as the tail of most animals is used to store fat but if you’re served a piece you’ve really got to pick them up and chew off the meat.
For something a little different, you can try making a paté
Oxtail Paté
Oxtail
Paté - Makes 2 cups
1kg of oxtail
1T of olive oil
1 onion, sliced
2 cloves, ground
10 juniper berries, crushed
1 bay leaf
Pre-heat your oven to 160ºC. Toss all of the ingredients together
and roast for 6+ hours until a skewer pierces the meat without
resistence.
Take the roasting tray out and pick over the bones, removing the
large pieces of fat and placing the meat into a food processor.
Discard the bones. Remove the bay leaf and add everything else to
the food processor. Blend until the meat becomes fine, but not a
pureé.
Pack the paté into a dish suitable for serving in and cover in
plastic wrap. It can be keept for up to a week refridgerated.
His Name Was Robert Paulson
Jack (Ed Norton) and Bob (Meat Loaf) at support group in Fight
Club
I was considering calling this post “My Meatloaf has Bitch Tits”
but that doesn’t really portray the damn fine tasty meatloaf that I
made tonight. I know it’s a bit of a tenuous link but Meat Loaf
played the character Robert Paulson, the guy with bitch tits that
Jack meets at his testicular cancer support group... With torn off
pieces of fresh buffalo mozzarella and sun-dried tomato this
meatloaf really is a notch above what you’ve probably ever
considered a meatloaf could be.
The original recipe for this meatloaf comes from Mario
Batali’s father (via Epicurious), which might explain Mario’s
own bitch tits. The entire loaf, if made as directed weighs in at
2-3 kg! I intended to make half of this but I wasn’t paying
attention when I went to buy the ingredients and bought enough to
make the full recipe, luckily meatloaf can be frozen well. Sort of
like Meat Loaf’s assets. I
cheated a little in this recipe, David Jones had some great looking
beef rissoles that had onion, carrot, parsley and a few other bits
already mixed through in what looked about the right proportion so
I bought that instead of just plain minced beef. For a little more
vegetable matter in a meal that will be almost entirely meat I made
some balsamic roast vegetables to go along side - just baby
carrots, red onion, parsnip etc tossed with some olive oil and a
splash of balsamic and roasted along side the meatloaf for the last
half hour.
Beef and Italian Sausage Meatloaf
with Sundried Tomatoes and Mozarella
Beef and Sausage Meatloaf - Serves 8 or
more
1kg of lean beef mince
500g of buffalo mozzarella, torn into pieces
500g of italian sausage, cases removed
2 cups of chopped fresh basil
2 cups of fresh breadcrumbs
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup of sliced sun-dried tomatoes
5 garlic cloves
1½ tablespoons of dried oregano
2 teaspoons of salt
2 × ½ cup of tomato sauce
3 eggs
½ cup of dry red wine
Pre-heat your oven to 190ºC. Thoroughly mix all of the ingredients
together in a bowl except one of the half cups of tomato sauce.
Mould into a loaf shape and place in a loaf tin and even out the
surface. Brush on the remaining tomato sauce. Bake in the oven for
about an hour and fifteen minutes or until a meat thermometer
reaches 70-75ºC at the centre of the loaf.
The Duke was Shot in the Back
Affie, as he was known by his family was so called because he was affable, easy to talk to and that sense really has been instilled at The Duke. Given it’s prime location meters away from the Enmore Theatre everyone comes here for a beer and a meal before a show ( The Presets drew me here Monday night). If you’re planning on eating get here early because the place fills up fast. On freezing cold nights like last night, the roaring open fire helps too!
I’ve been here a few times, and the place isn’t cheap but the food is good and usually pretty high quality with some very generous servings. I had the mixed grill this time around, sausages, minute steak, bacon and lamb cutlets on chips with sauce of your choice, pepper, mushroom etc, all for the princley sum (get it?) of $17.50. It is just pub food here, steaks, burgers and the good old chicken parma that a friend had, looking equally as delicious and priced.
Mixed Grill @ The Duke, Enmore
Food, 7/10 - Better
than most pubs and everything you’d expect on a classic pub menu
board
Service, 8/10 - For a pub, you can’t complain -
they were happy and friendly
Coffee, 10/10 - Because it was made with hopps and
barley and served by the pint
Value, 7/10 - Tough one, but for the location and
the generous servings it gets a couple extra points
Location, 9/10 - If you’re going to the Enmore
it’s ideal
The Duke of Edinburgh
148 Enmore Road, Enmore NSW 2042
P: 02 9519 1935
F: 02 9557 1381
W:
http://www.duke-hotel.com/
Beef and Broccoli Satay
The book itself is split between things you’ll find in the cupboard, fridge or freezer and is really well cross referenced eg: “Peanuts also used in recipes on pages, 18, 21, 36...”.
The curry, which I renamed a satay wasn’t bad but it could have used a bit of fresh lime juice over the top to give it the salty/sweet/sour flavour combination that thai cooking is famous for.
Beef and Broccoli
Satay
Beef and Broccoli Satay - Serves 2
500g Rump Steak, cut into strips across the grain
2 tablespoons of red curry paste
2 tablespoons of peanut butter
½ peanuts
1 tin of coconut milk (or cream thinned with water)
1 cup of broccoli foretts
1 cup of sliced red capsicum
1 lime cut into wedges
2 cups of cooked jasmine rice to serve
corriander to garnish (optional)
In a very hot wok, fry the beef in batches until it’s brown all
over and set it aside.
Add the red curry paste to the wok and fry for a minute until it
becomes fragrant. Keep stiring it or else it’ll burn. Add the
peanut butter, peanuts and the coconut milk and simmer until the
sauce has reduced by half. Add the broccoli and capsicum and simmer
until tender. Mix the beef back in and simmer for a minute until
the beef is hot again.
Serve over rice and with a wedge of lime on the side to help cut
through the thickness of the sauce and to give it a bit of an extra
tang.
Ironically, you didn't even have to chew the beef cheek
Eventually I get a menu, eventually the waitress comes back to take my order, eventually I get my drinks, eventually I get my food. Saying that though, if I'd gotten the braised beef cheek ($18.50) that I ordered any faster I might have had to send it back. To a chef that has a large menu full of relatively quick dishes, like the asian inspired duck salad that I almost went for, having a couple of slow food items can really throw you. If you slow cook something and hold it in a perpetual state of almost finished like you have to in a restaurant - heating it and getting it on a plate too fast will cease the meat, make it tough ruining hours worth of braising.
Braised Beef Cheek from Grub &
Tucker, Newtown
If you haven't had beef cheek but like lamb shanks, I'd suggest
giving it a try. Like shanks, cheek is a very well used muscle
group so it's hard and tough and needs long slow cooking to make it
tender and even more than a shank, you get that wonderful
gelatinous mouth feel that just means winter for any self
respecting carnivore. This dish was served on a bed of potato
purée, sliced green beans and broccoli, unfortunately the greens
were a little over done and even with the flourish of fresh parsley
over the top it still lacked both the freshness and the body you'd
expect for a dish that's obviously meant to warm you from the
inside. The beef cheek itself was excellent mind, but the jus
lacked body, a handful of black peppercorns in the jus while it was
simmering would have fixed it.
On the plus side, a walk down King Street on a Saturday night is
really what this neighbourhood is all about. Instead of having to
deal with drunks and drug addicts along Oxford Street, I found
street performers and artists and a happy active crowd of onlookers
enjoying the spectacle. Best of all, I met the group of artists
that put together Oh Really
Magazine, picked up a piece of their artwork (free with a
donation!) and commissioned them to do some work for me. I love
Newotwn.
Oh Really Pig
Veal Tortellini and Meatballs
I really am sorry to say but I couldn't taste much of it at all. The meatballs were strong, the pasta wasn't and the sauce had a nice chili kick that I think has made my nose start running again. I'll have to try those meatballs again when I can smell them.
Veal Tortellini and
Meatballs
Intercontinental, Burswood
I had a room-service dinner with my brother and sister-in-law and all of us were blown away with the quality and value. We had two soups, two fillet steaks with prawns and a sirloin with roast veg, all for around $135 and that really is great value.
My sister-in-law had a tom yum soup ($15) that was perfectly balanced hot-sour, not too much oil and with giant prawns resting as a surprise on the bottom of the bowl while I had the wonton noodle soup ($13) that was amazing; the broth was clear, golden and delicately flavoured and the wontons were the best I’ve ever had. The wonton skins were perfectly white, delicately thin and a perfect mouthful of prawn and I think scallop meat. When I saw it presented I was a little disappointed that there weren’t any egg noodles in the bottom and no seafood free-floating on top but once I tasted it all of that was forgiven. I can tell that I’ll be trying all winter to re-create this soup.
Wonton Noodle Soup, Intercontinental
Burswood
As for the main courses my
sister-in-law and I both chose the fillet steak with prawns and
wedges and my brother had the sirloin with roasted vegetables (all
around $35). All of us, as with the soups were extremely impressed.
The steaks were generous, all over 500g and the sirloin I’d suggest
was pushing 750g and even with the ride up from the kitchen to our
room they were perfectly cooked just how we’d ordered them and all
butter soft.
Sirloin and Roast Vegetables,
Intercontinental Burswood
The only thing I missed from the meal,
not that we’d ordered it, was a bottle of water on the table; for
an order this size it would have been a nice touch but I won’t
fault them for not providing one. The one litre bottle of Evian in
the mini-bar was $8.
The next morning I ordered the “Burswood Breakfast” from room
service as the buffet breakfast wasn’t included in my rate. It was
$35 and again I couldn’t find fault with it. My family had
breakfast at the buffet and the report was they would have been
more than happy with just what I’d received. A choice of eggs with
a mountain of bacon, sausages and tomato, fruit platter, toast,
several spreads a croissant and a Danish with juice and tea or
coffee. Each morning I had it I could only get through half. If
you’re a light eater, you could possibly split this with someone
else if you ordered an extra pastry and juice. Some how, the
poached eggs on my first morning were delivered perfectly cooked
with soft runny yolks and the scrambled eggs on the second day were
tender, rich and creamy while the bacon was a good mix of soft and
crispy.
Burswood Breakfast, Intercontinental,
Burswood
Next tim I head to Perth I’m going to have to stay again, hopefully with a little more forward planning I’ll be able to book a club room and check out their lounge.
Manly Grill - One of the best cheeseburgers in Sydney
The thing that, as always, makes it for me is the
demeanor of the staff, if it's not service with a smile, it's
not service. Sure, may be it had more to do with the beautiful day
or the incredible shirtless scenery walking past every 3 seconds
(which in all honesty is why I went to Manly instead of Newtown)
than it did with me but who cares, it makes a difference. These
people smiled and they genuinely seemed happy to take my order.
Which brings us to the menu. Manly grill prides it self on the two
things that any restaurant in this sort of location should, it's
seafood and it's beef. While it was the perfect day for seafood
such as their enormous $120 seafood platter which is well worth the
money from what I could see around me. It would serve 2 Americans,
or 4 normal people. I opted for a plain and simple cheeseburger,
served with shoestring fries and homemade coleslaw.
What I got though was far from a standard cheeseburger, it was
simple, just the basics, but that's what you want from a
cheeseburger. The beef on this thing was fantastic. 200 day grain
fed Black Angus from the
Southern
Highlands. No wonder it tasted good. There was a little surpise
with the buns too, they were char grilled like the burger, the
underside had thick and dark scorched lines which gave a much
appreciated smokey flavour that, I'm guessing, came from a charcoal
grill given the unique taste. As for the sides, the fries were
expertly cooked, pale yet hot and crispy. No sign of McCain, and
the coleslaw was very high quality if a little limp from being
under a heat lamp a fraction too long (or the 30°C sunshine).
This is a good quality restaurant, in a top location, so do expect
to pay for what you get, unlike some other restaurants on this
strip. For my burger, two pepsi max and a bottle of perrier, the
bill came to a fraction over $35.00
Food, 8/10 - I'd have liked a small salad in place
of the large quantity of fries, otherwise, it was
extraordinary
Service, 8.5/10 - Always a smile, always attentive
and efficient
Value, 8/10 - Perhaps a touch over priced for a
cheeseburger
Location, 8.5/10 - Hard to beat in Manly
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Coffee, Steak, Garden Salad and Beer some how work well in one meal
The general gist of the recipes went along the lines of grinding coffee with any combination of chili, coriander seeds, mustard seeds. fennel, salt, pepper, oregano and anything else you've got in your spice draw.
I used a broken up Illy
coffee pod, maldon sea salt, cinnamon, black pepper, mustard
seeds, coriander seeds and dried oregano. After I ground the spices
I drizzled the steak in olive oil and coated it with the spices and
grilled until medium rare. I tossed together a quick garden salad
with an olive oil and whole grain mustard.
On the side I had a Monteith's
Summer Ale, from New Zealand, which is a quite nice summer ale
that's got a lovely ginger kick to it which in turn leaves a nice
warmth on the palate. The bottle suggests a wedge of lime that
gives it a little bit heavier than a Corona mouthfeel and taste, but it also
suggests an orange segment. Damn I wish I had an orange to try this
with. All round, a great beer that's something different from the
rest and well worth a try.
Thyme² & the Cuvee Bar @ the Sofitel Brisbane
Let’s start with the Cuvee Bar. Every bar everywhere has an unwritten etiquette to follow and it’s always different but not unreasonable and usually boils down to how the manager of the establishment likes his or her staff to act, and that’s it – it’s a guide for the staff, not the patrons. May be it was me, I made the place look untidy or something, but if a customer wants to order a drink from the bar here, they’re promptly dismissed and told to take a seat before an order will be taken. Even if I try making an order I’m still told to take a seat for the waiter to come and take my order. It’s down right rude and even worse; the wait-staff aren’t very knowledgeable with their drinks unlike the bartender I had questions for who told me to go and sit down. Is your apple martini sour or sweet? Could I get a twist of lime instead of lemon? Would you mind not straining the ice from my cocktail? Every question the wait-staff gets that look puppies do when you poke your tongue out at them. Once they scamper off to ask the bartender, they come back and you have a follow-up question. The routine continues until you give up and say “I’ll just have a gin and tonic then” or your presented with a drink you didn’t want and it takes you a few sips to realise that the inept wait-staff have bought you the another table’s drinks; and their bill!
When you finally get your order, the way you want it, it’ll be easier to pay cash than try and charge the drinks to your room. I know it wasn’t this guys first time charging drinks to a room, he’d served me before, but from my seat you could tell he was struggling.
Thyme² is mainly setup for a buffet or as the Sofitelians like to call it, an ‘interactive experience'. I’ve mentioned before that the breakfasts there are great, for $30, serving you everything you’d want in a breakfast. The dinners seem to be the same. Miles and I didn’t have the buffet dinner when we were there, we did see it though. Couples with children, like seagulls taking turns ferrying overflowing plates of oysters, prawns and everything else they could scavenge back to their offspring. For $80 a head (wine not included) if you’ve got the mentality to eat your monies worth its probably good value but we felt like something smaller, so we went for the ala carte menu.
You can tell head chef Marshall Orton has planned for 90% of his clientelé to take the buffet option; it sure looked like they did. I only saw two other tables out of the full restaurant ordering off the menu and a queue for the seafood. The menu is short and has fairly simple dishes from and nothing you wouldn’t expect to see at a pub with the obligatory pad thai, t-bone with chips, fish (roast snapper) and a tandori chicken. It all seemed fairly pedestrian with only Miles’s meal served with any restaurant flare and by that I mean everything was stacked on top of each other. The current menu can be found on the website.
One nice touch was the appetizer that was served to us, a small ball of duck confit and orange marmalade served on a bed of lettuce. It tasted quite bland an uninteresting, but as it turns out they forgot the orange marmalade on ours. This wasn’t the only thing that was missing from the dishes we were served either. I ended up ordering the t-bone with “a roast tomato ragu and a creamy pepper sauce served with shoestring french fries”. The roast tomato ragu at least had tomato in it but it was just roughly diced fresh tomato in a warmed up pasta sauce – there was no way these tomatoes could have ever seen the inside of an oven; there wasn’t even the slightest hint of caramlisation any good roasted tomato has. The fries seemed to be of the McCain variety, either deep fried at too low a temperature or were left to defrost and get laden with water leaving them soggy. The pepper jus that was served was honestly very nice, rich thick and concentrated with steak, balsamic vinegar and rosemary flavours and would have gone very well with the roasted tomato ragu, if it had had roast tomato in it. Note that I said it was a pepper jus and not a creamy pepper sauce? Guess what was missing. I find it difficult to believe that a restaurant of this size and supposed calibre can deliver very basic dishes so far removed from the menu.
Miles also had the beef. A 120 day grain fed Darling Downs beef filet served with Parisian style butter on green beans and a potato cake. It was well presented, stacked a good six inches high with the same jus that accompanied my steak, minus the pepper, drizzled around the side. The report on it was generally positive, although the potato was a little under done.
To counter balance the average food were some excellent wines, chosen by the Sommelier, Toby Graham, to fill out the wine list. For the main I chose an ‘04 Wantirna Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot (List Price $112, Store Price $60-$70). The wine itself is quite nice and is more complex than you’d expect from just a Cab Sav Merlot, and that’s probably because there’s actually some Cab Franc and Petit Verdot in the bottle too. Overall, the wine has a nice blackcurrant to mulberry flavour with the classic merlot dusty finish. If you’re looking for it in a store, Wantirna Estate is the one with the Michael Leunig cartoons on the labels.
When it came to dessert, I wanted a bottle of something else to go with our Lenôtre Frambrosier’s so I asked Toby for a recommendation. There was the obligatory Noble One, but I thought that the overpowering honey in it would kill the delicate raspberries and cream in the dessert, Toby agreed and recommended the 2005 Grande Maison Semillon Sauvignon Blanc Muscadelle from Monbazillac in France (List Price, $51/375mL, Store price $30/375mL). I found that it had soft hay-like flavour, not grassy at all, it was drier and warm but with a definite floral sweetness that worked well with the dessert.
The Sofitel, being owned by the French Accor group have enlisted, under license, Lenôtre to provide desserts and cakes for its hotels, they look stunning, particularly the signature Frambrosier, which looks like a giant pink lamington topped with fresh raspberries and a raspberry sugar swirl. Within the gayest dessert of all time are layers of sponge cake with a raspberry centre, covered in cream and then a pink coconut (I think it’s pink coconut anyway). Given that it’s a sponge cake with cream and a raspberry centre I was expecting something more like a molleaux which is an individual cake that has a liquid sauce centre that spills out across the plate when you cut into it. The frambrosier certainly had the potential for it. I’m still not sure if what we got was meant to be a molleaux because they were half frozen. The bottom and centre were practically solid with the top had just started to soften. I don’t know if you’ve ever frozen cream but it doesn’t work – large ice crystals form and when you cut into it, it splinters apart. At the very least, these desserts should be served only slightly chilled to show their true potential, and meet their hype.
The highlight of Thyme² has got to be Toby Graham’s wine list and the quite knowledgeable service he provides. Toby has been studying and working with wines for over 15 years and answered all of our questions quickly and with confidence, not only suggesting wines but explaining why he’d suggested them which for mark-ups like these is great because he can help narrow down the choices for you – sure all sommeliers should do this, it’s their job, but Toby does it well.
Up Stairs, Down Stairs
Saying that though it still beats being downstairs with the commoners fighting for a bottle of Mount Franklin and the last Whopper. At least here they form an orderly queue to fight for the last re-heated deep fried, umm... I guess it's meant to be a pork dumpling? It's too big for a wonton and it's the wrong shape for a dim sim. Who knows, it was full of reclaimed pork what ever it was.
My flight out, QF548, after boarding at least (the attendant that
was relegated to Y Class was quite rude)
was splendid under the Cabin Manager I flew with, Julianne. This is
the second or third time I've had the privilege of flying with her
and I hope I'll be able to again. Service in the business cabin was
smooth, efficient and personable, as I'd mentioned before - the
simple things of being called by name are the things that really
make the difference between service and quality that despite it's
industry reputation, factions of Qantas flight crew are actually
striving to achieve.
As for the meal, my seat buddy Corey and I we were served a
reasonable beef in oyster sauce with jasmine rice and a 'salad'. I
say 'salad' because it only just qualified as one. In my opinion a
salad needs two ingredients and this only had two different types
of lettuce. The spicy asian vinaigrette from Neil Perry that went with it was
wonderful, I even put some on the beef because the sauce that had
was quite plain. I was actually surprised with the bread roll, it
was incredibly soft. I guess Qantas realised they shouldn't arm
200+ passengers with their previous hard as a brick projectiles.
The wine was quite nice too - a 2004 Penfolds Shiraz with a deep cherry
note.
Sorry Rick, I'm not impressed with Steak Tartar
I used $36 worth of the best quality beef I could find, the freshest eggs, the most expensive cornishons and salted capers and I tell ya what, the best part was the fries. Alright, it wasn't bad, but at the same time my taste buds weren't leaping off my tongue to lick the plate clean. If I ever get the chance to eat steak tartar prepared by Rick Stein I'd give it a go again but I won't be tracking him down.
Nothing against Rick by any means, I've made a number of his dishes previously and they are quite nice but I guess, would you trust a hairdresser having a bad hair day, or a seafood chef not even cooking steak? If anyone can tell me what I did wrong, please let me know...
Steak Tartar - Serves 2
300g beef sirloin, chilled
1 tablespoons of capers, rinsed and drained
2 shallots, finely chopped
2 tablespoons of flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 tablespoons of olive oil
3 cornishons, diced
3 dashes of tabasco sauce
½ teaspoon of sea salt
1 teaspoon of ground black pepper
2 egg yolks
Pommes frites (french fries) on the side
Trim the meat of all fat and sinew and chop finely, don't use a
processor. Put all of the ingredients except the eggs into a bowl
and mix together. Shape the meat on the plate and make an indent in
the middle for the egg yolk
Hilton Sydney Room Service - Part 2
The cheese platter was washed down by another gin and tonic or three, and since I'd anticipated luxurious room service all day I skipped lunch and my stomach was rumbling. Browsing through the lengthy room service menu I finally settled on the "3 mini-burgers" and some buffalo wings.
The 3 mini burgers were the highlight, but nothing outstanding. It was a nice concept and worked well visually, the problem though was that other than the beef patty, lamb patty and chicken tenderloin on each burger, the rest were identical, a slice of tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise. They relied too heavily on the meat. When your concept is to have three individual burgers, you'd expect you'd do something so each one stood out individually? It would have been an easy fix, some caramelized onion on the beef, a dab or tzatziki instead of the mayo on the lamb, and perhaps some chili on the chicken?
As for the buffalo wings, they hardly rate a mention. They were warm and had a crispy skin with paprika and basic spices.
Breakfast the following morning was back in the club lounge and was equally disappointing as the canapes the night before. Just the stock standard sliced fruit, juices and cereals on the cold side of the buffet and on the warm there was just bacon, hash browns, sausages, scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes. Individually everything was nice enough, but it certainly didn't hold a torch to the Sofitel Melbourne's breakfast buffet, they even had pancakes!