Crockpot Herbed Lamb Shanks

It's been a while since I gave the good word to my friends at Wai-Ora, but that time has rolled around again.

I would have loved to have posted more lovely lamb deliciousness this winter, but it has not been the case. Mostly, this is because when we cook lamb we generally keep it very simple, and so there's not much to say about it, really.

The other thing is this: We are big fans of Lamb Shanks. Knuckles, Shanks, whatever you call them, there was a time, not so long ago, when they were a cheap and delicious meal that we would have at least every couple of weeks.

But something changed. The twin-packs of knuckles we used to get from the supermarket for $5 have crept up to $7 or $8, or even more. For two people (and given the long cooking time) that's not such a great deal anymore. You could pretty much buy steak for that price, and cook it in 10 minutes.

What happened to push up the price of a joint that used to be considered little more than offal?

I tell you, it's those damned Celebrity Chefs again. That, and possibly the severe shortages of lamb due to last year's weather, the declining market, the shift from lamb farming to dairy in New Zealand, and whatever else. But I'm going to blame Oliver and Ramsay. By doing the right thing and championing delicious cuts of meat like the Lamb Shank, they've pushed up demand and therefore market value for something that really should be an affordable family meal. Now it's almost a luxury.

With this small travesty simmering in my viscera I went to the market, and drooled over the selection in the Wai-Ora lamb fridge like I always do. When I saw two Lamb Shanks for $7, I was equally outraged, but then I did the math.

It was the same price as you'd pay for the ones in the supermarket, and they were slightly smaller, but, as we well know, of a much superior quality (I kid you not, and I have the pictures to prove it). Reluctantly accepting that if Lamb Shanks were now to be a treat they might as well be a delicious treat, I bought them.

No regrets.

But it does seem a shame that Lamb Shanks might now be a rarity in our diet, rather than a reasonably frequent staple. There's nothing quite like having that bone on the plate, all melting meat and oily juices. Very primal. For the sake of preserving these memories for future generations, I took the liberty of recording in great detail the cooking and even eating of these most delicious joints.

Because that's what I do.

Crockpot Herbed Lamb Shanks

(Serves 2)

Ingredients

2 Lamb Knuckles
Fresh Mint, chopped
Fresh Thyme, chopped
Olive Oil
Freshly Ground Pepper and Salt
Zest of 1 Lemon
2T Flour or Potato Flour for Gluten-Free
4 Cloves of Garlic, minced
1 Cup Beef or Lamb Stock
1 Onion, chopped
2T Sour Cream

Grind up the herbs, lemon zest, garlic, flour and seasoning with a mortar and pestle, adding enough olive oil to loosen it. Coat the knuckles thoroughly.

Place the knuckles in the slow cooker, push the onion in around the meat, and pour the stock in around the edges of the dish. Be careful not to rinse the herbs off the shanks with the stock.

Cook on High for 1 hour, then switch to low for a further 3 1/2 - 4 hours.
When the shanks are done, blend the remains in the crockpot into gravy.
Add the sour cream to the gravy, mix well and spoon onto plates.Lay the shanks on top of the gravy. Serve with couscous cooked in beef stock and fresh steamed vegetables. As promised, this is the depth of colour you'll get in the middle of one of these lamb shanks. That, my friends, is flavour, and that is why we have to do so little to get Wai-Ora lamb tasting amazing. It already is.

In case you missed it before, you can find the Wai-Ora truck at various markets around Wellington on the weekend, or you order direct from their site. And as I've said before, Wai-Ora don't pay me anything to promote their product. I'd just hate to see them disappear from my market, so get out there and support them, or I'll be cross.

Steak with Herbed Garlic Butter

I've talked here before about eating less meat but of better quality for the sake of our health, the environment, and so on.

When it comes to eating better meat, you can't go past Eye Fillet Beef Steak.

OK, I see you throwing your hands in the air and declaring (with only the mildest hint of indignation) that who, in the current economic climate, can afford fillet steak? It's not 1986 now, after all.
But here's the thing: Communities can.

Fillet steak follows the same rules in a supply/demand/price-point market as any other product, and suppliers know this. On a per kg basis, no, you can't necessarily afford to buy fillet steak in meal-sized portions off the supermarket shelf. We certainly can't.

But any good butcher or wholesaler (like, say Prestons or Moore Wilsons in NZ) will supply fillet steak in whole lengths, and the price per kg is significantly less than you would pay for cut, trimmed, packaged fillets from the coldshelf.

But still, you argue, the price of a whole fillet ranges into the $40-50 mark, and who can justify that sort of a spend on one piece of meat?

Well, consider this: You're not paying a cent for bone, and virtually nothing for fat. Hunt for a lean cut of fillet steak, and your price per kg is practically 1:1, top-notch meat to dollar. No amount of chops, sausages or stewing steak will give you that degree of economic return.

With a full cut, you can also poke and prod to your heart's content, finding the most tender specimen. Yes, a soft, tender hunk of raw meat will cook up more tender than a tough piece. Amazing, eh?

Sorry, did I say something about community? Why yes, I did. It comes back to that matter of outlay. Who has the outlay to buy these large, if delicious, cuts of meat? Restaurants, for one.

Restaurateurs understand the economy of the whole fillet, and it works even better for small groups of people. Let's say, for example, a 2kg fillet, costing $40, is bought by two couples. That's $20 each.

Now, each of those couples have 1kg of fillet steak. A nice decadent size for a fillet steak if 200g, so that's five steaks, each costing $4.00. That's an $8.00 steak meal for two; I challenge you to find 400g of pre-cut steak on the cold-shelf in NZ for less than $10.00.

And of course, you don't have to be decadent. You can cut that steak into six, or eight, or even ten pieces. You may have a smaller piece of steak, but you still have top quality. And for the sake of our bowels, we shouldn't eat more than 100g of red meat a day anyway.

The only catch is that a 200g steak will cook more nicely than a 100g steak, so to get around this, just cut to 200g, cook as a single steak, then slice and share. Perfect.

It does require someone have a freezer, and that you cut and store the steak in individual portions, but that's not a big deal these days. Freezers are our friends.

This is just one way that reaching out to the people around you can improve not only your budget, but the quality of the food you're eating as well.

Give it a go. You'll thank me for it.

Now, what to do with that delicious, top quality steak? I've already written a detailed post on how best to cook pretty much any steak, but here's another lovely option: Herbed Garlic Butter.
Cook your steak as per that post, but you can flag the garlic at the preparation stage. The Herbed Butter will do all the hard work for you. Eye fillet steak will require less tenderising than other cuts as well, but a little bit of a bash never hurt.

Herbed Garlic Butter
Ingredients:
100g soft, salted butter
2T fresh thyme leaves
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4T freshly grated parmesan cheese

Combine all ingredients in a mortal and pestle, or you can probably use a hand blender.
Scrape the butter onto a dish to pop on the table when the steak is served.
Be sure to fry a few mushrooms and onions around the side of the pan with the steak.
Scoop the butter onto the steak, along with the mushrooms and onions. Serve with oven-baked fries, eggs and a little green salad, just for colour.

Herby Bread

It's the weekend. If it's not the weekend where you are, rest assured that it's probably the weekend somewhere. If that is simply impossible no matter where you are, you can take comfort in the fact that at some point it will be the weekend again.

OK, now that I've put that nonsense to bed, I want to show you something I love to do on the weekend, when I have the chance: Bread.

Don't be scared. I'm a lazy baker. I trust whole-heartedly in the stringent work ethic of the electric breadmaker. What I don't like about breadmakers is their complete and utter failure to present even a semblance of artisanship when they deliver up their final product.

Being inanimate may be somewhat to blame for this, but when you're dealing with a cook as fussy as me, there are certain standards I expect to be met. Let's just ignore that laziness comment for now.

Bread shouldn't just be a sustenance that gets us through the days. It should be a joy. If you think about how much bread you eat (gluten-intolerants are welcome to shake their heads in disgust at this point in time), why not make it yourself, and make it delicious?

With a breadmaker, all the hard work is done for you. Let the machine make the dough, then pull it out, let it rise, dress it up and slide it in the oven. Lovely stuff.

Mediterranean-style Herb and Garlic Bread

(Disclaimer: I've never actually been to the Mediterranean, so this could very well be a false claim. Nonetheless, it has olive oil in the recipe, so I'm sticking with it.)

Dough Ingredients:

300g Strong Flour
200g Semolina Flour
2T Breadmaker Yeast
1T Honey
1/2t Salt
280ml Warm Water
3T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Cloves of Garlic, finely chopped
(Alternatively, you can use Garlic-Infused Olive Oil, and make sure you get some of the chunky stuff in there)

Place all ingredients in the pan of the Breadmaker and turn on to a dough cycle.
When the cycle is finished, pull out the dough and gently shape on a floured bench. Because of the olive oil, this bread will be slightly denser than usual. That's OK. We like that.
Place the dough in a oiled baking tray and put it somewhere warm to rise for one hour. I always use the Hot Water Cupboard. While it's doing its thing in there, chop up some more garlic and some fresh rosemary and thyme.
Preheat the oven to 200C. Take the risen dough and brush gently with more olive oil. Sprinkle with the garlic and herbs and bake for 20 minutes.
It should come out a bit denser than normal bread. Delicious eaten warm with butter melting through it, or for sandwiches or toast or to soak up soup or whatever. Mmmm.

The Taste of Pork

It seems that pork just isn't what it used to be.

Twice in the past month or so I've had conversations with family members from older generations who have lamented the decline in the taste of pork from how they remember it. As I understand it, the old adage that you are what you eat applies to livestock as well. I've commented before on the way free range meat tastes so much more real than bulk-produced stuff. We're lucky in NZ that our beef, lamb and mutton are pretty much free range by default, and it's only our chickens and pigs that are raised in confinement and fed grain.

Much as I take issue with pen-bred meat, I've also discussed on this blog the dilemmas of trying to eat well, and trying to retain some sort of ethical compass while keeping ourselves nutritionally healthy on a budget that we can afford. I imagine that I'll draw some criticism just by raising the issue of animal rights, but that's OK. Debate is healthy.

Like I've said before, if we could afford to eat all organic free range meat and produce we would, just like if I could grow all the fruit and veges I needed to feed my family I would. No doubt if we were forced into the situation of having to keep animals as a food source we would find ourselves eating a whole lot less meat overall. But the social and economic realities are that I only have so much time in a day, and while I make an effort to do what I can to support humane and sustainable food production, there comes a point when we have to look at what's on the shelf and what's in the wallet, and take what we can for what we can afford.

We all find different ways to manage the minefield of existing as an omnivore in a social order where our eating habits are largely driven by profit-geared corporations, their market placement and their advertising machines. I'm aware that we don't co-exist with our food sources, but exploit them and the land (or sea) that they live and grow on, not simply to survive but to fully enjoy the bounty that agribusiness can supply us with. However, for all my good intentions, I can't provide my family with protein and nutrients simply out of goodwill. And I've listened to all the arguments in favour of vegetarianism, and while I agree with a lot of it, particularly the stuff that relates to how we treat animals, I'm still an omnivore. I feel guilty only when I think about it too much, but never when I'm eating.

As a rule, we only buy free range eggs, and that's a win all round, since good FR eggs have more taste and thicker contents than cage eggs. I also get them from the market, where they're cheaper than similar products at the supermarket. I also buy lamb from the Wai-Ora stall at the market every week, as I've posted several times. I've been pleased to see these guys are bringing more product to the market now than they had been previously, which hopefully means that word-of-mouth advertising like mine in support of suppliers like them is working. And that in itself is a step in the right direction.

I've also made the point before, and I'll make it again: We all (and I mean all of us, not just the Kiwis reading this) need to learn how much is enough when it comes to eating meat in particular, and cut down. There are so many good reasons to do this that it would make a post all of its own, but suffice to say that it's better for the land, the animals, our wallets and our bowels to eat less meat. (I don't shy away from that image - after all, we're all animals made of meat and offal too, remember).

So far this summer, we've only had leftover meat after one barbeque, rather than after every one like we used to have, and those leftovers were eaten up the next day. Reduce the excess, reduce the waste, cook what you need, and enjoy it. And your finances will appreciate it too.

Which brings me back to my original point: If our pork is raised in pens now and is accordingly of a much lower quality and inferior taste to what it used to be, then that might go some way towards explaining why the old methods of cooking pork were fairly simple, letting the meat speak for itself (apologies for the bad imagery), while nowadays there seems to be a fixation with dressing pork up with chilli, herbs, spices, nuts, fruits, and other bits and pieces to give it flavour. Instead of being a taste explosion all its own, pork has become a blank canvas for a good chef to demonstrate his skills on.

It seems a shame. But until free range pork becomes affordable, I'll still eat what they stock in the supermarket (we have a butcher across the road from where I work who stocks organic, free range meats, but at $16.00 for 2 pork steaks, you can see why I'd prefer to pay $6.00 at the supermarket for unethically raised, bland, but affordable meat).

There's always wild pork, of course, but that's just as expensive, and a completely different flavour that Dessert Chef can't abide, so we won't be going down that road anytime soon.

And on that note, here's one of my most recent entries in the Dollying up the Pork stakes.

Pork Chops with Sage and Apple Crust

(Serves 2, with a bit sliced off for the little fella)

In a small pan, heat some olive oil and fry the following:
2 Cloves of Garlic, minced;
1 Onion, finely chopped;
1 small Apple, finely diced;

Once the apple and onion have started to soften, add a splash of worcester sauce and 3T of brown sugar. As this reduces, add the leaves stripped from 3 stalks of fresh sage and 3 stems of fresh mint, roughly chopped. Once this has heated through and is a bit saucy, remove to a bowl and heat fresh oil in the pan.
Season two large pork chops with freshly ground pepper and salt, and place in the hot oil. Allow the chops to brown a little, then add a splash of white wine. Shake, and allow the wine to be absorbed. When the underside of the chops is nice and brown, turn over and repeat. Cook until there is no pink in the juices.

Spoon the apple mixture over one side of the chops, grate some parmesan cheese over top, and place under the grill to brown.
Serve with couscous cooked in chicken stock, fried mushrooms, and fresh veges.

Seasoning the BBQ in the BBQ Season

Summer is the season of the barbeque, as we all know. Barbeques are a classic kiwi tradition, as I'm sure they are in much of the rest of the world. Yes, for some reason we seem to think this is a unique condition.

I have a few curious observations to make about barbeques and the culture that surrounds them, which I'd like to share. Please be aware, some gentle male sensibilities may be offended (the rest of us are permitted to laugh ourselves silly, if we so desire).

For starters, I have yet to understand why barbeque tools seem to come in such ridiculous sizes. Personally, I use the little paring knife and a pair of tongs from the kitchen when I barbeque. We concluded that the reason for barbeque tools being so stupidly big is so that men can stand around the barbeque with their beers in one hand and compare the sizes of their tools.

Which I'm sure is also not a uniquely kiwi practice.

While we're on the subject of men and their misplaced sense of entitlement to the role of barbeque chef, may I ask what it is about having the appropriate chromosomes that makes so many males think that suddenly, despite not having stepped in front of any piece of cooking equipment more technical than a toaster for ten months of the year, they can suddenly claim dominion over the outdoor gas (or charcoal) grill? They then proceed to stand over said grill, drink beer, talk sh!t, burn the sausages, reduce the steak to hunks of leather, drink more beer, talk more sh!t, and complain about where the salad is and why the bread isn't buttered already.

Gents, I hang my head in embarrasment for you. The barbeque's a glorified frying pan, that's all, and if you can't drive a frypan, then you have no right to ruin everyone else's food by declaring yourself its master. "BBQ FLAVOUR" is not a substitute for basic culinary competence. Get into the kitchen, make the salad and butter the bread, and let the cooks do the cooking.

Full credit to all those men who can and do cook; you have every right to be out there, drinking beer and talking sh!t to your hearts' content (so long as you made the salad and buttered the bread before you started!).

The other thing that men seem incapable of doing more often than not is cleaning the barbeque after it's been used. The excuse for this is also BBQ FLAVOUR, that indefinable taste which seems to be not so much a matter of ingredients and technique but rather one of cultivation; as in, strains of bacteria. Perhaps there is some primal urge among men to bulk up their immune systems by allowing all manner of germs and micro-organisms to breed on "their" cooking grills, and the obligatory overcooking of any meat that comes within range is therefore more a matter of survival than anything else. That special flavour can only be achieved by allowing the petrie dish to fester and then cooking that flavour off onto the meat, which must then be virtually incinerated to ensure it is safe to eat. All of this men know instinctively, and is perhaps why they can't actually cook on a barbeque despite what all the advertising tries to tell us.

Please note, I write the above lines in the full knowledge that my own barbeque is sitting outside uncleaned since last I used it, but I assure you it will get a thorough scrub before it is used next.

Do I have anything useful to say, or am I just taking great pleasure in deriding my fellow man? (Ah, the joy of picking on people who aren't here to defend themselves...)

In fact, I do. This comes back to the cleaning of the barbeque. There is the small matter of the last of the soapy taste that you can't quite get rid of, and who wants to cook on that?
Here's the solution:Chop up a large onion and a handful of fresh herbs and garlic, mix it up with some rice bran oil and freshly ground pepper and salt, get the barbeque really hot and season it with the onion-herb mixture. Cook this stuff right down, constantly shifting it around the grill. Some of it will stick, and thats OK. Scoop the rest off, and you have a seasoned barbeque, with no soapy residue whatsoever. Real Barbeque Flavour, without the heirloom cultures.
A couple of weeks ago Liz E. Bear's Mum brought a pile of steak around, dressed in fresh sage and rosemary from their garden, and I didn't want to waste it. So I proceeded to RESEASON the grill with the herbs before cooking the steak, letting them wilt and adding a little more oil and salt, so that there was a lovely herbed oil sizzling away on the barbeque for the steak to go onto. I then removed the herbs and put the steak on to cook, placing the wilted herbs back on top of them to infuse the meat as it cooked.
Blimmin' delicious it was. And if you want to know how to cook the perfect steak, go read this too.

Hooray for real Barbeque Flavour!

P.S. To anyone out there who may feel offended by what I've said here, tough. Pun intended.

EDIT: Go on, read the comments. You know you want to. Heeheehee.

Plantings

I promise, this isn't a rant. When we hear the arguments on either side of the Climate Change fence, there are two voices: The believers and the deniers. Those who believe that Climate Change is real and happening say Yes, we (people) have some degree of responsibility for this and we can do something to make it better. The deniers say Climate Change is a natural process that the planet goes through every so often and is absolutely unaffected by the amount of carbon that has been released into the atmosphere over the past hundred years. The deniers invariably fail to account for the fact that the "normal" changes to our planet's boisphere have taken place over the past 100 years, since the start of the Oil Age, rather than over the thousands of years that these processes usually take.

OK, so it's pretty obvious where I sit. But here's the thing: When faced with the prospect of a looming crisis that may or may not be real, and which may or may not be affected by what we do, there are two things that we can choose to do:

SOMETHING

or

NOTHING.

This is a complex argument which is best summed up by WhiteBoard Guy, [EDIT - THIS LINK SHOULD NOW WORK] but the basic answer is this: If we do nothing about it, we deserve what we get. If we do something about it, it can only be better than if we do nothing. And if nothing happens, we've still done something good.

So we're doing something. We're getting things growing in the ground, which is an awfully good place for that to happen. And rather than bang on about Climate Change any more, I thought I'd just take you on a quick tour through our very early Spring Garden.

Tomato shoots coming up

The sole surviving Brocolli

The Potato seedling goes wild

Strawberry seedling - this is one we bought, mind you...

And below, the only thing I've ever managed to keep alive for years on end, I think because they're just glorified weeds that you can eat: my herbs.

Mint

Oregano

Sage