Happy Day After Australia Day! Yes, I know, the last post I did a few hours ago said happy new year, but shhh, work with me here. It all makes sense! Now I don't know about you, but for me, cooking when it is hotter than holy cooked egg on a rock is not on my list of 'top things to do today'. Eating a hot meal when it is hotter than that crispy egg on a sizzling rock is -equally- low on the list.
But, we need to eat or else we'll wake up at 2am with a growling belly going 'oh god so hungry' and after eating it's 'oh god so tired WHY do I have work in the morning' while you can't sleep and... yeah, it's just not pretty. So what do we do? We make a food that is eaten -cold-. Yep! Lovely coldness. For this recipe you will need:
Pork (tenderloin, chop, whichever, could also use a beef steak... doesn't matter)
Potato salad:
5 medium-large potatoes
5 eggs
2 cups of peas
2 cups of corn
~250g of bacon
2-3 Tbsp of mayonaise
1/2 tsp of worchestershire sauce
2 tsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp garlic powder.
Tomato salad:
1-2 tomatoes
3-4 button mushrooms, fresh
1-2 2cm thick slices of cheddar, cubed.
Peel and dice your potato, try to keep all of the potato pieces around the same size, as this is the size of your final potato salad will be. Put them in a pot with cold water, bring to the boil, put in the peas and corn -- yes, into the -same- pot, why waste water, or make extra dishes for yourself if you don't have to? -- put on the lid cracked a little to let steam out, and bring to boil a second time, leaving to simmer. Once that part is cooked, drain the water, and put them into a bowl to cool.
Get out four eggs from the fridge, put into a pot of water (you can use the potato pot if you like) and bring to boil (it should take around 5 minutes) once boiling (thats when the big bubbles are plopping up and effecting the water surface) put the timer on for about seven minutes. If you prefer, you can boil the water -first-, just add a teaspoon or so of vinegar to the water, this will keep the egg shells from cracking, and if they -do- crack, then the egg-white will stay inside, once boiling, carefully put the eggs in (I balance them on a table spoon and slide them in gently) and set the timer for seven to ten minutes. Once the timer is done, pull them off the heat and set aside to cool in the water, or, conversely, empty out the hot water, and replace it with cold. There's more than one way to boil an egg!
Once they are cool enough to touch without you going 'ow ow ow hot hot!' peel and dice the eggs. Three slices, and cut into quarters. You can add more, or less egg as is your preference. While the eggs are cooling, whip out a frying pan, spray oil in it to warm up. While it is warming, you want to slice and dice your bacon into small cubes. Fry them in the pan until cooked, slightly crispy, but not burnt. So they shouldn't crack or crunch when you eat them.
Toss them into the bowl with the potato, along with the egg, and leave to cool down. Or rather, let it rest while you mix the mayonaise with the vinegar. It will separate, and form little clumps as you are stirring it (in a separate bowl to the potato) but you should remix the vinegar in until the mayonaise looks like it did before you thinned it, only smoother and slightly creamy looking. Same principle, add the garlic powder and worchestershire sauce, stir until well mixed in and creamy looking, add to your potato, egg, bacon etc, and stir the whole lot through. Leave to cool -completely- in the fridge. Warm potato salad tastes funny to me.
For the 'tomato salad', I'd been having a hankering for raw mushroom, and this fullfilled that nicely. Raw button mushrooms are very dry, and powdery in taste, the tomato juice counterbalances that nicely, and there's cheese well.. because I like cheese in my salads.
Dice up your tomato, top and tail, three slices horzontally and then checker-board the upper edge, three cuts vertically through the meat of the tomato, and another three crossing over -those- cuts to cube the tomato nicely. Slice the mushroom into little umbrellas, and then cut each umbrella in half. Slice and cube the cheese, toss it all into a bowl, and voila. Another nice cold salad!
Put your meat on (whatever type you chose) and cook it through. If lamb, or pork, you'll be wanting/needing to turn it over -four- times, each time letting blood rise to the surface and puddle slightly before turning it over, the last turning is to sear the juices onto the outer layer. If it's beef, or steak, then you needn't worry so much. Just cook it how you like! 10 seconds sear on each side for, I think, blue rare, 30 seconds on each side for rare... and so on. Personally, I prefer medium well done which is blood to rise twice, and three turnings to cook on each side and sear.
Put the meat on the plate, serve up the potato salad and tomato stuff, and have a lovely cool dinner on a wicked hot day. If you wish to add a dash of surprising freshness, simply slice up some of a cucumber and place it on the plate. It works well!
Deliciousness Delivered.
No comments:
Post a Comment