Recipe: The Terroir Pig

Out of all these months I’ve been writing I haven’t really shown you guys what I like to make when I’m cooking at home for friends and family. So after a few days of planning and seeing what’s good and in season I decided to come up with an Earth inspired dish.

I always wanted to give this a go after watching the guys on Top Chef Season 4 do a challenge which involved elements.

At the Thomas Dux Richmond (My favorite Supermarket/ Grocer) I found some.
-    Jerusalem Artichokes.
-    Fennel
-    Sage
-    Pork Belly
-    Beetroot
-    Granny Smith Apples.
-    POM Pomegranate Juice

“Terroir Pig” Crispy Pork Belly. Lup Cheong Soil, Jerusalem artichoke Puree, Baby Beets & Apples.

Sounds like a complicated and strange combo? Probably is and needs to be refined but it tasted amazing.

Ingredients

6 Medium Sized Jerusalem Artichokes
1 Bulb of Baby Fennel
Bunch of baby beetroots
1.5 kg Pork Belly
1 Tbs Fennel Seeds
1 Tbs Chopped Thyme
4 Tbs of Salt Flakes
1 tsp Cracked Pepper.
1 Granny Smith Apple
473 ml POM Wonderful, Pomegranate Juice
3 Cloves of Garlic
½ Onion (Finley Sliced)
2 Chinese Sausages
200g Bread Crumbs
50g Butter
1/4 Cup Cream
1/4 Bunch Sage
3 Cloves of Garlic

Mise en place

Cut apples into small 1cm x 1cm cubes and place in water with lemon juice.
Reduce pomegranate juice with a sprig of thyme and a clove of garlic till syrupy strain and set a side
Slice onion and fennel finely. Reserve fronds of fennel for garnish.
Steam or roast beetroots till tender and cut into quarters or wedges depending on the size.
 

Pork Belly.

Make several slits along the skin of the pork belly, this allows heat to penetrate the layers of fat easily and also lets the fat escape when its being rendered down later.

Make some holes in the flesh from the side with a knife and fill the pockets with a few pieces of sage, garlic, and fennel.

Mix salt flakes, cracked pepper, fennel seeds and thyme in a bowl until well combined then massage thoroughly into the pork belly, making sure it gets into the slits in the skin you made previously.

Place the piece of pork in a baking tray skin side down, through in some fennel and Jerusalem artichoke pieces and roast at 180 for roughly 45 minutes, or until internal temperature of the pork belly is between 60-67 degrees.

During this time start to cook your beetroot and have it peeled while you finish off the puree, next make the lup cheong soil, and follow with puree toward the 40 minute mark. 

At this point you can rest and press the pork overnight or continue on by placing the pork skin side down in a low heat pan with a splash of oil, slowly turning the temperature up over 12 minutes and rendering the fat out of the skin whilst forming crackle at the same time. Make sure the pork is flat and that all the skin is touching the pan. Weigh it down with a baking tray and stack multiple heavy things on top

Cut pork in ½ and portion appropriately, careful not to damage the crackle as it may be fragile.

Jerusalem Artichoke Puree

Peel artichokes and boil them till tender, meanwhile, sweat off some onions in a pan till completely soft, place into a blender with the pieces which have been roasting with the pork and puree both till smooth, add cream and butter and season to taste.

Lup Cheong Soil

Place 3 lup cheong in the blender with some bread crumbs and blend till they are both roughly the same consistency, you want a course soil like texture, not a puree.

Heat a pan up with a dash of sesame oil and butter and lightly toast the soil mix till fragrant and slightly caramelized.

To assemble.

Smear puree across the plate, place a portion of pork off along the puree, as well as several beetroot pieces and some lup cheong soil.

Scatter a few apple cubes around the plate and garnish with some fennel fronds.

To finish drizzle some pomegranate reduction on the plate and serve.

There you go, my first big blog recipe, "The Terroir Pig”. I  hope you enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoyed cooking at eating it.

Day 154 - 155: Contagious Chilli Crab

This week I’m only working 3 days, I’ve requested some time off to spend some QT with the girlfriend and hopefully get a booking at the much anticipated opening of Duck Duck Goose at QV.

This week I had two splits before my break, on Wednesday I was asked to make a sauce for some blue swimmer crabs for the four tastes. From memory I had a sauce I randomly came up with earlier last year, a variation on a sauce used for chilli mud crab. Though it was slightly more Asian than they usually like for Donovans I was allowed to use it on the tastes. That night we had 100 booked and we sold at least 50 tastes. I really hope it was the crabs that made it the main selling point.

Wednesday morning I was actually on the pass. When chef got in I already was setup with most of my tastes set up for lunch and dinner. For lunch I had bresola with olives and radishes, swordfish with pickled fennel and coriander with salmon roe, braised red and yellow peppers and pumpkin, pine nuts and spinach frittata.

For dinner there was grilled quail salad, carrot and mint fritters, chilli blue swimmer crabs, and the braised peppers again. Everything sold well again that night with them having to be refreshed multiple times.

Pumpkin, Pine Nut and Spinach, Frittata.

Ingredients

11 Eggs
1 Onion,Finely Sliced
150 Toasted Pine Nuts
1/2 Butternut Pumpkin, Julienned
Handful of Baby Spinach
500ml Thickened Cream
1 Cup Parmesan Cheese

Method

1. Preheat Oven to 175

2. Sweat off onion in a pan till colored and soft

3. Add in julienned Pumpkin and Pine Nuts.

4. Add Spinach and cook out till pumpkin is soft and the spinach is wilted.

5. Mix eggs and cream together.

6. Add in Pumpkin and Onion mixture with a cup of Parmesan and combine

7. Season to taste.

8. Pour into non stick pan and bake for 30 minutes or till set.

9. Let Frittata cool for 10 Minutes and turn out onto baking rack.
 

School Day 11: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

7th of June and the 7th day of winter, it’s another freezing morning in Melbourne, as I walk up the alleyway between the building that used to be Shell and the Lindrum hotel, I can feel my eyeballs ache as they do when your skiing down the slope with no goggles.

I sigh relief as I enter the heavy gated security door which marks the staff entrance to the twin towers of Melbourne.

The classroom was quiet as it usually is at 9am. We start off with a quick chat about our weeks and the good food and wine show over the weekend. After reading a few chapters of thickening agents and sauces we head to the kitchens to make our fish stock and bisque.

I grabbed a slimy Rockling frame for my fish stock and start to disassemble it with a handy borrowed cleaver. Not long after we started the bisque, this was definitely one of the best smelling classes of the year; I love the smell of crayfish.

I decided to go with my roots and give the bisque a small Asian twist by adding some ginger and lemongrass and coriander, these flavors are very similar to a dish served in many restaurants with crispy egg noodles and stir fried ginger lobster or crab.

Anyway I compiled my recipe for my Bisque with a twist for you guys to try if you're interested. 

Ginger and Lemongrass Infused Crayfish Bisque.

2                Lobster heads or shells
2                Blue swimmer crabs
4                Scampi heads

2 Lt            Fish stock.

4               Cloves Garlic
1               Carrot
2               Sticks of celery
1               Onion
2               Bay leaves
3               Sprigs of thyme
200g          Tomato paste

200 ml         Dry white wine
100 ml         Brandy
250 ml         Cream
50gm          Butter
50gm          Corn flour dissolved in water

1                Chilli
80 gm         Ginger
1                Stick of Lemongrass
Hand full of coriander

 

1) Finely dice 1 clove of garlic and 30gm of ginger set aside. Then roughly chop remaining vegetables for a mirapoix.

2) Clean crabs by removing the flap on the underside along with the head plate then remove gills and rinse under water. Roughly chop and the lobster, crab and scampi into smaller pieces, heat oil in a pot till smoking point add in the shellfish and clove of garlic and ginger fry till fragrant. Once all shells have turned bright red add the mirapoix, herbs and tomato paste and cook till vegetables are soft.

3) Add the brandy and flambé, once the flames subside, deglaze with white wine and simmer for 7 minutes. Now add the fish stock and reduce for 20 minutes stirring occasionally.

4) Using a strong stick blender or food processor, blitz until the shells have all been reduced to a course grain. Return to the heat for further 10 minutes. Strain several times through a fine strainer till the liquid has no shell or grittiness into a new pot and skim off any fat appearing on the bisque.

5) Roughly chop up the remaining, garlic ginger and coriander and chili and add into the liquid and bring to the boil, reduce heat and let the flavors infuse for 15 minutes. Restrain once more. Add cream and butter and whisk to combine. Dissolve corn flour in small amount of water to create a slurry, add slowly into bisque to it reaches desired consistency. Finally season with salt and pepper to taste, garnish with deep fried coriander leaves, and serve with crusty bread. 
 

Day 101 - 103: Char Siu Bao, Cleaning and Cake

Long and boring nights. I think I would rather get slammed than sit around waiting for tables to come in. With nothing to do we resorted into cleaning things. We took advantage of the night by making a few recipes we always wanted to try. I started on bread dough to make steamed pork buns and someone else attempted a Stephanie Alexander adaptation of a flourless orange cake which I really liked.

Both recipes turned out very well. But my buns could have been whiter instead they were a dirty white and in some areas which were somewhat kinda see through allowing the meat to show through.



Flourless Orange and Almond Cake

6 eggs (beaten)
2 large oranges, washed

250 g ground almonds

250 g sugar

1 tsp baking powder

Boil oranges in a little water in a covered saucepan for two hours. Allow to cool, then cut open, remove pips, and chop roughly.

Preheat oven to moderate and grease and flour a springform tin. Blend oranges and remaining ingredients thoroughly in a food processor. Pour batter into prepared tin and bake for 1 hour.

I made a simple cream cheese icing with just Philadelphia, orange juice, and icing sugar and finished it with some toasted flaked almonds. I wanted to try candied orange peel as well but i ran out of oranges and its raining so I really can't be bothered buying some.

School Day 5: Doughnuts and Steak!

As I said last week, this week we covered, theory of deep frying, baking and grilling. It was the same format as last week. Firstly the theory on the methods, then we were handed our recipes.

Doughnuts and steak sandwich with our own non fail bread dough recipe.
Personally my doughnuts weren’t as sweet as I’d liked them to be but it was interesting to make them for the first time and watch as the dough expanded and turned into those fluffy balls of pillow-y sugar.

I found that forming the smooth texture of the product was very important because as they fry they enlarge and all the marks become much more visible.



Doughnuts
250g strong flour
Pinch of salt
30g butter
5g dried yeast
30g sugar
125ml warm milk
½ egg

1. Sift flour and salt and rub butter into flour till a bread crumb like consistency
2. Make a well in the center of the flour and place yeast and sugar and pour in some blood temperature milk into the yeast.
3. Beat the egg into the remaining milk and add it into the mix.
4. Kneed the dough till its smooth and elastic
5. Place it in a bowl and cover with a damp cloth till size doubles.
6. Knock the dough back and divide the dough into 50g portions and roll them into balls or rings. Allow them to double in size again.
7. Heat oil till its 175 degrees and cook each side for 2 mins.
8. Drain the doughnuts and roll them in cinnamon sugar. ( the doughnuts should feel light and airy before you remove them from the oil)    

Day 71: Ricotta Fritters and Arancini Arm Ache

Well a ½ day on the pass. I got in just before 9. I started off by cleaning 12 crabs, then off to finely chop some onion celery and carrots for my Mushroom Arancini balls for the function on Thursday and Friday nights.

There were 3 recipes for me to make but with my lack of knife skills and inexperience I managed to successfully make the delicious and fluffy Ricotta Fritters and prep up on the Sicilian egg plant salad. Before I ran out of time and had to set up and finish rolling and crumbing all the fried stuff that would be on the 4 taste menu in the next few days.

I think I rolled and crumbed over 100 items today and boy did my hands get dirty! Today I saw all the duties that were on the people who worked on the pass, as well as having to look after everyone in the different sections and plate food.   

Well anyway here is the Recipe.  Enjoy

Savory Ricotta Fritters

1 cup Ricotta
1⁄3 cup Parmesan
3 tsp. finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves
1⁄2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1⁄8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
6 eggs
1 cup Milk
1⁄4 cup Flour
1 cup dried bread crumbs
Canola oil, for frying

1) In large bowl stir together ricotta, 4 eggs, flour, lemon zest and nutmeg, until mix forms are wet dough like consistency.

2) In a separate bowl mix together dried bread crumbs, chopped parsley and parmesan cheese, make sure the crumb mixture is consistently mixed.

3) Wisk eggs in a new bowl then add milk.

4) Season ricotta mixture with salt and peper to taste. Then begin to roll and crumb the fritters, using the keep one hand dry method. Feel free to double crumb if you have to

5) Heat enough oil to 150 degrees and begin to deep fry in batches for around 3 minutes.

6) Drain Ricotta Fritters on paper towel and serve with a wedge of lemon.

Day 18: Christmas Sausage...

Having the easiest week ever! This is most likely because the hours during Christmas and New Years are going to be hell. But I’m enjoying the peace while it lasts. I helped to make a Duck, cherry and pistachio sausage today, it very festive even in the colors of the ingredients.

Whilst drying out the tomatoes for the tarts I discovered, what I found to be huge mutant of a TOMATO just as big as the bananas delivered this morning. Check out the size of this monstrosity!

Christmas Sausage Recipe...

Hummingbirds..

I walked by this relatively new cute little coffee shop on Flinders Street this morning. It reminded me of one of the nicer days in winter this year, whilst doing the exact same thing I stumbled on to this same cafe with my girlfriend and there we were introduced to a amazing treat named the Hummingbird! Which we loved, inspired I went home and came up with this little recipe.