Fish, Crackers, Tongue, Bacon....WTF!

The fish delivered from Egmont Seafoods was rather good. For dinner last night I whipped up a mashed kumara, honey, onion and sage patty, pan fried it in the outdoor kitchen with the gurnard…… in butter of course. Served with a splash of lemon juice and a handful of Roebuck Farms greens dressed with a mix of lime infused olive oil and pomegranate molasses. Perfect with the requisite glass of Hamden Estate Rose! Plate by Mirek Smisek, reputedly the first person in NZ to make a living out of pottery.

Another morning I was up and running early.

I cooked the crackers, they are pretty good , slightly sweet. They could have some refinement I feel, a little more salt and as my oven is crap I should have cut them into smaller pieces so they cooked more evenly. I put the flash-est peice on the top in the photo to fool you all. They were particularly good with Wiked PB.

I managed to procure a tongue of all things so I consulted Mr Fingerstall's River Cottage Cookbook for a brine. So the tongue will languishing in the following concoction that I cooked up and then chilled. It is now I the fridge in a plastic container, completely submerged for five days.
2 L water
600 g salt
200 g brown sugar
2 bay leaves
½ a t each of black pepper corns and juniper berries
3 cloves

While I was dicking around with my brine I burnt the edges of the cake I posted last week which I made with feijoas, so I won’t share that photo, but it is still marvelous once you navigate around the brown crisp edges. Back on the bacon, I poured less liquid off it this morning and it is getting quite hard, it only required 3 or 4 desert spoons of salt. I consulted Mr Fingerstall again and 5 days seems to be the benchmark. I happened upon this quote in his book. “By making your own bacon and hams, you will set a benchmark for excellence – standards that, once appreciated, you should never need to slip from.” Enough said.

Comments

The official blog launch, or is it lunch of entertaining!

Ok here is the thing, my key performance indicator, to use corporate wank language is how much fun I am having. I have had three rules for many years. 1. Don't hang out with shit people. 2. Avoid all things boring unless absolutely necessary. 3. Always have something to look forward too. (I stole this one off a friend) in recent years I have added 4. Only stay in Hawera 1 weekend a month. Oh how the mighty have fallen! (I ripped that line from Tom Waits) if you don't know who he is I am not surprised. 1. I now have a dog to hang out with for a month, His name is Murphy, and he is only borrowed. 2. All those jobs here in my house, like cleaning it, tedious shit like painting that window, weeding the garden properly, sorting the shed out, renovating my desk (an old table from Butcharts Bakery), even mowing the lawn, there it all is right there in front of me with all the time in the world to get on with it having ignored i...

A quick soup, best I can do in a short timeframe

Hot & Sour Soup 500g shark 1 packet mild Singapore laksa paste (I know I know I know, but sometimes needs must) 1 t salted shrimp 1 t tamarind 2 T of the oil leftover from spicy smoked mussels ½ an onion peeled and finely diced 4 cloves garlic peeled and finely diced 1 thumb ginger peeled and finely diced 2 silverbeet leaves or other leafy green 1 tin coconut cream 500 g fish stock 2 serves noodles I used ramen 1/4 cup fresh lime juice Fry the onion, garlic and ginger in the oil, add the spice paste, salted shrimp and tamarind stir it all around until it is cooked a bit then add the fish and cook for 5 minutes then add the stock and simmer for 10 minutes. When you are ready to serve it add the coconut cream, bring to boil again then add the noodles, when boiling yet again add the silverbeet or greens. Once wilted turn off and add the lime juice.

Give a cake a go day.

I received a delivery of jam, the fruit was left in the bowl at Kidsbarn for lockdown so Emma knocked up a batch of jam with it, I scored a bottle on the proviso it appeared on the blog so this is what I did. I based in on a recipe from a book called Harbour Kitchens which was a fundraiser many years ago for the schools in Lyttleton. There is a classic recipe from the witt of Joe Bennett for fish and chips if you can get your hands on a copy. This is an adaptation of the Lemon Yoghurt Cake by Jane Simmons. False Pretences Cake Zest of 2 lemons 1 ¾ C sugar 2 eggs Juice of half a lemon 4/5 C of greek yoghurt Half a jar of orange, pineapple and kiwifruit or other jam ¾ C oil 2 1.2 C flour 2 large t baking powder Line a largish tin with baking paper, I lined a smallish tin, then had too much mixture, so I lined another tin spooned the rest of the mix into that and it was too big! So I lifted it out and transferred to a loaf tin, what a palave...

Entertaining!

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