I'm Back - and the first ride of the 2015

Pedal Failure

My Look Keo Max pedal snapped it's axle yesterday.  Put my foot on it to start off and it just fell off.  Bit of a worry given that my previous ride was round the bay.

Detent

Hot coffee brewing, PBS belting out black American Gospel, wind gently shaking the windows. I'm diligently reading reviews of stationary trainers. I've worked out that I could set one up in the middle of out galley kitchen and thereby resolve the tensions between wanting to stay inside, cook and play music, and getting some km under my bottom in prepation for the Round the Bay ride.

Cauliflower Steamed over Chicken stock

Winter brings an almost pathological need for the comfort of mashed potatoes.  There's something about the texture, and the lashing of butter, that fortifies the medieval Anglo-Saxon heart for the deprivations of the coming winter.  It's primal, akin to the gorging of polar bears prior to their long hibernation.

However this is not good for the power to weight ratio of aspiring sprinters, climbers and domestiques.  It does help with the downhill bits, but that is another story.  So an analogues had to be found the fill the emotional gap previously filled with lovely, creamy, butter and salt laden mashed spuds.

Enter mashed cauliflower, steamed over chicken stock. This is so delicious and so simple that words fail me.

Take a cauliflower, any leaves and hard bits of stem off, but leave the head whole. I don't want you cutting off any of the florets.  Put it in a snug fitting pot with about 250mls of really good chicken stock (see my post). Please note we are steaming the cauliflower not boiling it.  The chicken stock should only come up the sides of the pot 2 or 3 cm.  Bring the stock to a moderate boil for about twenty minutes, or until the cauliflower is tender.

Take care not to let the pot boil dry.  Check regularly and add a little boiling water from the kettle if it is getting too low.

When the cauliflower is cooked, remove the pot from the heat. Strain any remaining stock into cups and serve as a starter.  Crumble 50-100 grams of feta cheese into the put with the cauliflower and take to it with either a mixing wand or the trusty potato masher.  Serve with a sprinkle of dukkah. Delicious.

As a variation, try this mixture with a mix of cauliflower and broccoli (they're from the same family).

Chicken Stock

Running out of stock is almost as bad as running out of coffee. It is the basis of many of our dishes, including our own very special steamed cauliflower. Without chicken stock we're stuffed, and I get twitchy if there are not at least three containers of stock in the freezer.

Really simple to make, so don't waste money buying something inferior. In a five litre pot put in one-and-a-half to two kilos of chicken wings, a half onion, a stick of celery a a handful of green pepper corns.

Note: don't add salt. Stock is an ingredient.  If you add salt to it you are going to have too much salt in the final dish, what ever that may be.

Cover with water and bring to a very, very gentle simmer. I leave it for a couple of hours with the lid on. Cooking stock slowly results in rich, flavoursome stock. It's all about contact time.  The longer you cook, the more flavour can be infused in to the water.  Don't boil the bejeezus out of it.

The wings become very, very tender but still remain whole so the stock is clear and golden. The meat from the wings can be shredded by hand, the bones discarded and the meat can be used for any number of dishes, or frozen. Put the stock in small container in the freezer.

Home Made Yoghurt

I remember when a large bowl of my sister's freshly brewed yoghurt leaped to the arms of my unsuspecting mother, who just happened to be putting clean sheets in the hot water cupboard. For many years after I believed yoghurt making to be just too socially destructive to be mentioned in polite society.

However, Rosemary has discovered a simple and environmentally friendly process. I have been converted, and complex childhood issues relating to the production of dairy products have been largely resolved. It's great on porridge, often along side stewed rhubarb, and I have discovered it as a recovery drink after the gym or a ride.

To make one litre of yoghurt, heat one litre of fresh, homogenized, whole cream milk in a pot. Stir in six tablespoons of skim milk powder (the additional milk fats will make the yoghurt thicker). Take it off the heat just before it boils and let it cool to blood temperature. Pour it onto a suitable container. We use a two litre bucket with a firmly fitting lid. Stir in a couple of tablespoons of natural whole milk yoghurt, preferably with acidophilus, bifidus and casei cultures. Leave in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours for these happy little cultures to propagate.

Making yoghurt has been made even easier by our move from the icy wastes of New Zealand to the relative warmth of Melbourne. Our kitchen has an ambient temperature of about 20c. We wrap the bucket up in a tea towel and leave it on the bench. Refrigerate before they develop a system of tertiary education.

Standing Rib Roast

Ok, the challenge I set myself went to plan.  I started with a three rib standing beef roast of approximately 1.5kg.  The butcher "touched" - i.e. cut - the bones so that it can be carved gracefully.  This was taken out of the fridge about three hours ago to allow it to come up to room temperature.  I cannot stress enough how important this is.  It was also rubbed with rock salt, black pepper and a little olive oil.

I headed the oven to 220c; poured a glass of riesling; put the roast into the oven for thirty minutes and set about building this blog.  So far so good.

At thirty minutes the timer went off, three posts were in the blog. Onions and kifler potatoes were added to the pan along side the roast, and the oven was turned down to 160c and ignored for an hour or so.  At that point we inserted the trusty meat thermometer, which indicated a core temperature of 140c, also know as "perfect".

The dish was taken from the oven, covered with a sheet of foil and then a tea towel and the meat was left to rest for ten to fifteen minutes.  Just time to cook the sugarsnap peas and pour a couple of glasses of pinot. (Yes I know it is too light, but it was open and worked a treat).

Carved, appropriate exclamations at the juicy faint pink of the interior, and served accompanied with a fine Milawa mustard.