lamb – foodisthebestshitever

BBQ lamb sausage rolls

Sausage rolls: an Australian institution.

BBQ: also and Australian institution.

Lamb: also an Australian institution.

Can you see where I’m going with this? Of course you can. You are not as simple as you look.

These little suckers are so tasty you’ll find yourself cooking up extra lamb just to make more.

Get your little meat roll thing going on.

Roll them up, egg wash, dust with a little extra seasoning and then into the oven they go.

BBQ LAMB SAUSAGE ROLLS

(makes 24 rolls)

4 – 5 cups leftover BBQ or roast lamb – cutlets, ribs, shoulder or whatever it is you have – chopped
1 kg beef mince (helps to bind the cooked meat)
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 medium zucchini, grated
100 g (1 ½ cups) fresh sour dough bread crumbs (these soak up some of the meat juices and keep them inside the sausage roll which, in turn, keeps the sausage roll moist and tasty)
1 tbls herby lamb seasoning, plus extra to dust
6 squares ready rolled puff pastry. They all seem to be a pretty standard size out here so we’ll stick with the standard size today.
Egg wash (1 egg beaten with a splash of milk)

Preheat oven to 200 C (390 F).
Chuck all ingredients except pastry and egg wash into a bowl and mix until combined.
Lay out puff pastry sheets side by side on a bench top.
Slice pastry squares to form two rectangles.
Lay a sausage-like mound of meat lengthways down the pastry sheet. Roll pastry over the meaty mound and back onto itself so meat is fully encased. Slice through middle to form two sausage rolls.
Place sausage rolls side by side (2 cm gap so they don’t puff up and stick to each other) on oven trays lined with baking paper.
Glaze with egg wash and sprinkle with extra lamb seasoning.
Bake for 20 -25 minutes or until golden brown, rotating trays twice during cooking.
A your choice of sauce, or none at all, and eat that shit.

October 31, 2018

foodisthebestshitever1 Comment

Braised lamb cutlets with bubble-and-swede… and a couple of things that grow really well on the south island of New Zealand

Yeah, I know right. Who uses lamb cutlets for braising?

Well, in the south island of New Zealand where the sheep population grossly outweighs that of the humans*, lamb cutlets are cheap as bro, so today I would do whatever the heck I wanted with them.

Also, what is this whole bubble-and-swede thing, you ask? A damn clever play on words and a really tasty way to eat the humble swede, that’s what it is.

You see, on an island that seems to have the climate to grow absolutely nothing, the folks down south are pretty effing adept at growing the humble swede. Mostly to feed the ever-growing sheep population it would seem, but occasionally for human consumption also. But probably not very much for human consumption as I would imagine they’d be pretty sick of them by now. Probably the carnie folk would still relish a good swede though, I would imagine…

So much dribble.

Whatever the case, it was not uncommon to see roadside market stalls selling swedes (and swedes alone) the size of the head of the carnie folk they might eventually feed, for a buck a pop.

So, the scenario is this – we drove through the hills (there is always “the hills”) of the sheep growing, swede producing south and I said to myself, “today I shall purchase some sheep and some swedes and I shall cook them for our evening meal”.

“That would be heaps Kiwi-ish”, I agreed.

Get a bit o’ colour on those lamb cutlets

Truly delicious. Wash it all down with a local alcoholic beverage of some description

LAMB CUTLETS, TAGINE GRAVY, BUBBLE-AND-SWEDE

(serves 4)

8-12 lamb cutlets, depending on size and appetite (NZ origin)
Moroccan seasoning (dubious origin)
½ onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped (NZ origin)
1 small knob ginger, grated (origin unknown)
1 teaspoon chilli paste (origin unknown)
A splash of some white wine (NZ origin)
400g tin diced tomatoes (definitely not of NZ origin as we could not afford the barter of 12 gold doubloons and 3 sex slaves that was necessary to obtain said tomatoes)
1 decent sized swede, diced large (NZ origin)
1 leek, sliced (NZ origin)
1 potato, diced large (probably NZ origin)
50-100g butter (we had some NZ stuff earlier in the week, but… hmmm… we don’t have any more)
Salt and pepper to season

Season cutlets with Moroccan seasoning. Brown cutlets in a pan over med-high heat for 2 minutes each side. Remove and set aside.
Add onion, garlic, ginger, chilli and a little extra Moroccan seasoning to the same pan with all of the lamby flavour, and sauté for a few minutes or until soft.
Deglaze pan with a splash of white wine and add diced tomatoes.
Return lamb chops to pan, cover and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes or so, until lamb is nice and tender.
While that’s going on you’ll need to sort your bubble and swede.
Boil swede and potato until nice and soft. Drain.
Sauté leek with half of the butter until soft and sexy smelling.
Mash swede and potato with remaining butter, mix in sautéed leek and then season well. Taste it and make sure the seasoning is good.
Plate it up however you see fit.
A bit of parsley would be nice but as you can probably see, we didn’t have any of that on hand.
Feeling the NZ vibe? I am.

*Seriously. I grew up in the south of Western Australia and I thought that place was an oversized sheep property but this place is nek level. The locals around here would be chucking a few sheep in the front yard before they ever contemplated putting in a rose garden or a kids cubby house I can guarantee you. I have respect for that kind of sheep love.

August 8, 2017

foodisthebestshitever4 Comments

Sausages and lamb ribs and eggplant… and red rice.

I would like to start by informing you all that I really like a good sausage.

These sausages are quite frankly what I consider to be the best sausages in these here parts – made by the fine folks at Hayters Hill Butchery. His bratwurst (Well, not his bratwurst. I know nothing of this man’s sausage and that is the truth) was my sausage of choice on this day – absolutely a pleasure to put in mouth. Hmmm. I’m sounding more and more like a “lady of the night” by the word…

I’ll try again.

The sausages were reals good after 2.5-3 hours at 110C (220-230F) over ironbark. Really bloody good. The Hayters Hill crew also do a cracking chunky pork snag which is also a tasty tasty thing after a few hours in a smoker. I am also pretty sure that these sausages would even be hella tasty raw, but that it just a guess and based on absolutely zero personal raw sausage eating experience I will admit it.

You will probably not be able to find any Hayters Hill sausages at your local market because we pretty much buy all of there stuff up here in the northern rivers of NSW, so you can use whatever it is that you consider to be a great sausage in your own mind…

The lamb ribs were given that same ironbark-smoky 110C treatment, and very similarly to how you may do pork ribs, they were given 3 hours of smoke, followed by wrapping and another hour in the smoker, followed by a 1 hour rest after that. The internal temp was 92C (200F) and they were fricking perfect.

Lamb ribs are definitely not pork ribs but they are still damn tasty in the smoker and something a little different for you next BBQ. They can also offer that same sort of smoky ribby wow factor but at a heaps cheaper price tag than pork or beef ribs… that is, until the butchers work out that they are just as tasty as their high-end friends and bump the price up on these puppies too.

I also made some red rice and miso & maple glazed eggplant, and placed some peppery hot sauce and smoked salt on the table to complete the package that was our dinner on this evening. It was all plenty tasty. My eldest son, Seba, even commented that although he doesn’t like eggplant, and this was certainly no exception, it was the best eggplant he’d ever been forced to eat.

You’re welcome.

I borrowed the recipe for red rice from right here

The whole thing looked rather sexy, actually

MISO AND MAPLE GLAZED EGGPLANT

(serves 4 as a side with left over miso glaze for next time)

1 large eggplant, cut into 8 wedges
3 tablespoons red miso paste
2 tablespoons each rice vinegar, maple syrup and water
1 small knob ginger, grated or finely chopped
Oil for cooking

Heat a little oil over medium heat in a cast iron skillet or pan. Add eggplant and cook for 2 minutes each side until browned and starting to soften.
Using a pastry brush or your fathers best paint brush, glaze the eggplant generously with the miso number.
Place under a pre-heated grill (broiler) until caramelized and sexy.
Eat it and force your children to eat it even if they don’t like eggplant.

June 27, 2017June 27, 2017

foodisthebestshitever6 Comments

Bad-ass many meat gumbo

This is a beast of a meal that originated from a surplus of leftover cooked meats from weekend catering jobs that were loitering in my refrigerator that I needed/wanted to use… and I had a raging desire to get a bit of variety into the diet of the carnivorous dinosaur I keep as a pet under my back stairs.

It is quite simply the same as my recipe here (because we still have a shit load* of all sorts of varieties of kale taking over the place we once called a garden and they are now petitioning the parliament for cessation from the Commonwealth and acknowledgement of their new sovereign state; Kaleland… I really think they could’ve been a little more creative with the name of their new state but let’s just remember, kale is renowned for being really healthy and shit, not for it’s intellectual capabilities.), but instead of the whatever meat was in the original recipe I subbed in a pile of leftover roasted chicken legs and thighs, roasted lamb shoulder and roasted pork belly.

I am not so stupid that I don’t realise that it’s not every week that one has a few different types of leftover meat hanging around so just so you know what? It is very OK to go out and buy a bit of this meat and a bit of that meat until you feel the T-Rex you have living under the back stairwell will be satiated.

And before you eat it you should douse it with your favourite hot sauce.

Get on it.

*an actual measurement

October 11, 2016

foodisthebestshitever4 Comments

Gumbo. Smoked lamb gumbo…

Today I made gumbo… or something that is sort of gumbo, I guess.

Best as I can figure gumbo was created in Louisiana as sort of a use-up-all-of-the-shit-in-your-garden, chuck-in-whatever-bit-of-meat-you-can-afford, roux flavoured, file or okra thickened, po’ folks type food, so I’m pretty sure that means I’m following the brief… and not even with a chance of getting locked away… like if I was following the briefs… like the knickers… sniffy, sniffy… hmmm, quite possibly going in a bad direction here I think.

Straight up digression. Certainly not breaking any new ground here, am I.

So the thing is I had some lamb loin in the smoker, and I had some Andouille sausage in the fridge, and then I went and Viking raided the absolute crap out of all of the leafy green things in Jennee’s garden. The answer to that question is definitely GUMBO. Oh, and I do know there wasn’t actually a question there. I’m just checking if you’re on your toes. Well done little fella, you passed. Next up we’ll check which way you sit on a toilet seat and then… um. Digressing again. Soz. I write recipe now.

The only ingredient I didn’t have on hand was file powder (dried and ground sassafras leaves), which I read is quite essential for thickening a good gumbo. But then I also read (yeah, working my peepers over-time here) that okra is also used for the same purpose. So this time I just happened to have some okra in the fridge so that’s what I went with. I’ll try to get hold of some file for next time…

Get a heap of green things from the garden... — Get a heap of green things from the garden…

...and chop it the heck up — …and chop it the heck up

And then get the rest of it in there too

Save that smoked lamb until the end though

Get it into your belly, washed down with whatever you see fit

SMOKED LAMB GUMBO

(Serves 4-6)

800g lamb loin*, smoked at 110C (230F) for 4 hours
1 andouille sausage (or what ever smoked sausage you can lay your grubby little mits on), diced
3 tablespoons butter or bacon dippings
3 tablespoons plain flour
1 onion, chopped
1 green capsicum, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
10-15 okra, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 bunches mixed green things – curly kale, Russian kale, cavolo nero, spinach, chard, turnip leaves, broccoli leaves, grass, whatever, chopped
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
½ teaspoon cayenne or died chilli
2lt some kind of stock
Salt and pepper
A large handful parsley, chopped
Hot sauce and rice to serve if you want to be somewhat traditional. Otherwise, serve it with whatever the fuck you want – I actually had mine with potato salad and a splash of olive oil… don’t tell anyone please

• Make a roux with the butter and flour (you can google that I reckon) and cook it out slowly until it is a nice medium-dark brown colour
• Add sausage, onion, capsicum, celery, okra and garlic and cook out over medium heat for another 5 minutes
• Add greens and spices and cook out for another 5 minutes
• Add stock and season with salt and pepper. Simmer gently for 30 minutes
• Add lamb, smoky lamb juices and simmer for another 20 or so minutes until lamb is tender
• Check seasoning and adjust if necessary
• Hit it with a heap of parsley and get it into your face

This shit is so damn good.

*The flavour of the awesomeness that is Gumbo is one that will lend its self to be a suitable home for just about any other meat. Don’t be afraid to sub in chicken, seafood, beef, pork, koala, emu and any other coat of arms animal you can think of.

August 16, 2016

foodisthebestshitever11 Comments

Humour, Australia Day and Hipster by proxy

Um, I have a question.

Have people, like the total generalization of the human race, just lost their fucking sense of humour? Did we all just get so damn middle aged and serious? Have we all forgotten how much fun it can be to just have a good goddam laugh at our own selves, or even the small child who might fall over a hit his face on the concrete. Oh how we would laugh; ha ha ha, he he he, and all the while our mouths would be turned upwards, saluting the gods of funny and happy with the technique commonly referred as a smile…

And then this Sam Kekovich bloke comes along as the newly appointed “Lambassador” and champion of the lamb industry this Australia Day (Happy Australia Day PS), and upsets the shit out of the vegans because they don’t like being told to eat lamb. Honestly, they don’t need to eat the lamb. I would go so far as to say please don’t the lamb – I will look after your share without a problem.

Captain Cook got the call up for the Australia Day Lamb Campaign too

Has the time left us when people would not think too far into television advertisements? Or has that time passed when people may have just turned the effing TV off and done exactly what they wanted to do as apposed to thinking that they are obliged to do what the TV tells them? If I tell you the truth, I am more than happy for these peeps to leave the lamb for me. More than happy! And, you know what? If it’s such a huge fucking issue, maybe they should just go and make their own television advert and tell everyone to eat something that isn’t lamb for Australia day; eat some gum leaves or billabongs or something like that and keep it real legit.

I had myself a lamb pie for Australia Day because a guy on the television told me I should

Which brings me to my next little issue… or whine… or waaaah waaah… or baaah waaaah (that was a bit of a lamby reference for those of you who weren’t paying attention); What about the prejudices against the middle aged, bearded, caucasion male, the weight of the hipster movement, and the rights of the common man to just wear a goddam beard?

Was that a segue? I doubt it. I have not yet seen a real live segue grace these pages, and indeed I do not expect to see one anytime in the foreseeable future.

Anyway, as you may or may not be able to tell, I am pretty effing sick of it (but at least I’ve calmed down enough to stop using the language of the herpes infested salty old sea dog), and I am ready to set this rant upon the world via the interweb super highway and a currently paid up-to-date account with my internet service provider.

If you don’t want to hear about it you should smash your computer now, because I am getting exponentially more confident by the minute…

I mostly blame Jennee, a) because it’s easy, and b) because she was so generous of spirit to point out that I kind of am a hipster by proxy… all except my name. I need a name that’s some kind of hybrid, left field, a surname first name or something from the Victorian era, and I could possibly scrape in with something Scandinavian at the very least. Christianeous, Leonard, Michaelangelo, Matheous…

And what the heck even is this hipster by proxy business I am talking about? Well, plain and simple I’ve just been asked once too often if I am a hipster.

Now I contemplate mowing my facial hair back to reveal the smooth face of a man I used to know and I also contemplate what it is about me that has made it so very simple for peeps to enquire as to whether my religion, or freaking out-look or whatever, is “hipster”…

I will tell you now; look carefully because there are a few key differences. Allow me to demonstrate;

Hipsters have large beards that are perfectly manicured and smell very nice because of the flowers they put in them – I have a large beard that is not manicured even one little bit and it doesn’t necessarily smell the best. Also, at any given moment, it contains enough barbecued meats for a Viking wedding celebration
Hipsters like cold brew, organic, artisan, ethically grown, small batch coffee – I like to drink cold coffee but my preferred method of attainment of said coffee is leaving it on the bench for an hour… so I guess it could be said that I actually enjoy cold stale coffee
Hipsters pay fat wads of cash for minimalistic, pared back design and re-purposed, ethically gathered materials – I fitted a restaurant out with plywood counters and tables because it was all that we could afford
Hipsters have a top knot – I am merely top notch
Hipsterism is on trend – Grazism is not even close to being on trend

So, as you can see, it is not actually that hard for us to be friends. If you cannot see how easy it is for us to be friends then, well, you are probably doing the weekly shopping while wearing active-wear at the moment and I am not actually qualified to help you with those problems and I can only pray that natural selection will take you from me.

Done.

That is my lamb pie, lid lifted and stuffed with mashed potato and mushy peas. Who ever decided this would be a good idea is a fricking genious

PS I did eat your lamb in the form of an off-the-hook-good lamb pie from the Southern Queensland institution that is the Yatala Pie Shop. I “floatered” the living shit out of it with mashed potato, mushy peas and a kick-ass gravy that had little bits of meaty goodness in it. Soooo damn good!

Happy Straya Day.

The end.

January 26, 2016January 26, 2016

foodisthebestshitever32 Comments