Food

Osso Bucco



Osso Bucco

Coat 4 pieces of osso bucco (inch thick pieces of veal or beef shin) in a combination of flour, salt and pepper. Brown off in a large pan. Once browned, remove from the pan and set aside. Add one diced onion, and three cloves of finely chopped garlic; and cook until aromatic. Next, add 1 can of tomatoes, diced; then place the beef on top, and cover with beef stock (or water).

Cook gently for 1-1 1/2 hours.

The plan for tonight…

…is to make Fritatta.

Which barely has a recipe.

The fridge, has the last of the left over pork from the roti de porc au lait that I made on Saturday. The pantry cupboard has potatoes, onions, garlic and scallions; along with eggs. Ergo, fritatta seems like a good way to go.

So, about that pork

Hmm. I’m not so sure about it.

It ended up kind of splitting; so I ended up straining the braising liquid and making a thin caramelish sauce. I have a feeling that if I had an immersion blender it might have come right.

The pork ended up extremely delicate though.

Mise En Place



Mise En Place

This is some of the prep done for making dinner tonight (and tomorrow night. Probably the night after that, too). We made a pot of beef stew.

We took about 1 kilo of topside beef, which was diced; then tossed in a combination of flour and paprika to lightly coat. Once coated, the beef was browned in batches, then set aside.

Next, 1 red onion, 1 white onion, about five cloves of garlic and a capsicum (bell pepper) were diced, then sauted in the pan the beef was in. Once the vegetables were nice an translucent; I added a couple of splashes of chicken stock to deglaze the bottom of the casserole dish (to get the delicious bits from cooking the beef). Return the beef to the casserole dish, along with two diced potatoes, and add a combination of chicken stock and water so there is enough liquid to reach most the way up the solid ingredients.

Every half hour or so, give the stew a bit of a stir. After about two hours, add six sliced flat mushrooms. Another half hour later, add about three “leaves” of silverbeet which have been shredded. Another half hour later, the stew will be fabulous!

Crepes, with caramel sauce and whipped cream



Crepes, with caramel sauce and whipped cream

Delicious. Although a bit like eating dessert for breakfast.

Crepes: sift 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder together

Whisk 1 egg, 2 1/2 cups of milk, about 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and a pinch of salt together.

Make a well in the flour, and pour the liquid in and whisk everything until smooth.

Take a non-stick pan, and melt about 75 grams of butter. Whisk the melted butter into the batter.

Wipe the excess butter from the pan, and swirl in about 1/3 cup of the batter. Cook until the batter sets, then flip over.

Caramel Sauce: take a small saucepan, and add enough sugar to cover the bottom of the pan in a complete layer. Add enough water to cover the sugar. Add a little drizzle of corn syrup.

Gently heat the mixture until it caramelizes (it’ll take a little while – there’ll be a phase of dissolving, then it will bubble, then it’ll turn light yellow, then darker.); then whisk in 1/2c of cream.

Continue heating the sauce until it thickens.