I’ve spent the last few nights as a private chef to two delightful Australian couples from Adelaide, I’d loved to have been able to show you all shots of the food but as they were eating in the kitchen I thought taking photos of the food might have seemed a bit odd. Added to that I was on my own without my 11 year old photographer, Fraser. That said there was a little bit of leftovers for us tonight.
Anne and I have been married for almost 17 years now and it still gives me huge pleasure to see her face light up at the diner table after she’s had a hard day at work. It’s probably not fashionable these days, but who cares, I adore my wife. She works so hard, at work and also studying for an MBA, that our family meal becomes so important to connect with each other and the kids.
Pork Scotch with Spiced Red Cabbage, Pureed Carrots and Herbed Cous Cous
Eating good food is such an important part of our lives, even if they are left overs from a job. I find that meals at home always end up as experiments, either with the food or in this case with the presentation. After all there is no finer way to express your love than to prepare a meal for those that you care about that helps to melt away the troubles of the day.
Now all is quiet, Anne is 
working on her next assignment and the kids are in bed, leaving me by the fire with the dog writing this. It’s a contented silence around the house after we’ve talked and laughed together around the table. Happy Days!
A few years ago we bought a couple of Highland Steers for our little paddock, partly so that we could have access to really good meat but mostly because they were really cute.
See I told you they were cute!!
The trick was to not get too personal and always remember why they were there.
We decided to call them Lunch and diner, in honour of their contribution to the family. Tonights dish is the very last bit that we’ve been saving and I just wish that I could let you all taste a bit.
Tournedos with Polenta Croûtes & Salsa Verde
Serves 2
2 x 140g Angus Pure™ tournedos (trimmed beef fillet cut from the centre)
110gg instant polenta
60g Parmesan cheese
60g unsalted butter
75ml beef stock
2½ tbsp dry sherry or Madeira
Salt and pepper
Avocado oil for frying and greasing
Salsa Verde:
1 garlic cloves ½ tbsp Dijon mustard
Bunch of flat leaf parsley ½ tbsp wine vinegar
Bunch of basil or mint leaves 75ml extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp capers
Method
Allow steaks to come to room temperature. Meanwhile, make the polenta, stir in the grated parmesan cheese and half the butter and season liberally. Pour out 1cm thick onto an oiled baking tray. Refrigerate until set firm and then, using a pastry cutter slightly larger than the tournedos, cut 4 rounds from the sheet of polenta.
To make the salsa verde, finely chop the garlic and then put into a food processor with all the other ingredients except the olive oil. Process until evenly chopped and then add the oil, continuing to process until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Preheat oven to 220°C. Melt half the remaining butter in a frying pan with 1 tablespoon oil. Lightly season polenta rounds and fry for 1 minute each side and transfer to a lightly oiled baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven, carefully turn over using a spatula and bake for a further 5 minutes until crisp.
Heat a clean frying pan dry until very hot. Flatten tournedos slightly with heel of hand and season. Cook over a high heat for 3 minutes on each side for rare and 4 minutes for medium. Transfer to a warm plate, cover and keep warm. Pour beef stock and sherry or Madeira into pan to deglaze, quickly reducing liquid to a syrupy consistency. Add remaining butter, a small piece at a time, swirling pan until incorporated to finish the texture of the sauce and give a beautiful gloss.
To serve, put a crisp polenta croûte on each warmed plate and top with tournedos. Stir into the sauce any juices that have exuded from tournedos while resting and then spoon this over each steak before spooning the salsa verde on top.
Always a problem, what do you cook on a busy night? Well tonight is that night with Anne running late with a meeting and Alex at rugby training. Nothing else for it, Fraser and I are on dog walking and diner.
Its so easy to let good cooking slip when time is short, the trick is to have a few things up your sleeve or in this case in the freezer. Risotto isn’t ideal in the freezer as it tends to dry out but needs must and you just need to add some fun stuff to keep it moist.
In this case a bit of panfried Bok Choy with soy and some prawns with coriander and garlic, all topped off with a perfectly poached egg fresh from the neighbors. Finally a bit of seasoning ad a drizzle of good olive oil
Easy Risotto
The main point to remember when making risotto is that any liquid which you use, whether it is stock, wine or cream, should be boiling hot before you add it to the rice. This will stop your risotto from “clumping”.
For 2 – 3 main servings:
1 cup Ferron risotto rice
2½ cups stock, boiling
½ onion or 2 shallots, chopped
1 – 2 cloves garlic, chopped
Extra virgin olive oil
100 ml white wine
Salt and pepper
Parmesan, grated
Extra hot stock, olive oil or butter
Method
Heat the wine gently (and saffron, if using.) In another large pan, heat a little olive oil and sweat the “soffrito” slowly – garlic, onion and any other root vegetable being used (e.g. carrot, leek). Add the rice and heat through for 1 – 2 minutes (called toasting). Add wine and allow to reduce. Add the boiling stock all at once, bring back to the boil and add seasoning. Cover and simmer for 15 – 18 minutes.
Add flavourings, rest for a few minutes and then stir through parmesan, a little extra stock, gently heated cream, extra virgin olive oil or butter – the amount depends on how ‘allonde,’ or creamy, you like your risotto.
Suggested additions:
➢ Porcini: Soak 15g Gigante porcini in 250ml warm water for at least 20 minutes. Strain and use some of the stock in risotto. Add sliced porcini at half way point. Add heated cream at the end, along with parmigiano and chopped Italian parsley. Drizzle with Ceruti Truffle oil.
➢ Smoked Mushrooms: As above, but use Aromatics Smoked Mushrooms instead of porcini.
➢ Smoked Salmon : Add chopped leek to the initial ‘soffrito’. Before adding parmesan, add chopped, cooked Aoraki Smoked Salmon.
➢ Chorizo & Saffron : Add a pinch of crushed saffron to the wine/stock and, before you add the parmesan at the end, fold through 2 cooked, chopped chorizo sausages.
➢ Pumpkin: Cook cubed pumpkin slowly in EVO with garlic and some red wine and add with the parmesan.
➢ Lamb, Feta & Capers: Add 1 – 2 seared lamb fillets, marinated in Giusti Balsamic Vinegar and Olivo Infused Olive Oil (Lemon or Porcini) plus 2 tablespoon salted capers, soaked and rinsed and 100g cubed Zany Zeus Creamy Feta.
Every monday night the boys take it in turns to cook, tonight it’s Alex’s turn and he’s decided to do fajitas.
As much as it is important to eat together as a family, it is also vital that we pass on the cooking skill to our children. My dearest wish is that by the time our boys leave home they are both more than capable of looking after themselves. They’ll be the most popular students at university and who knows, they might be able to earn a few dollars on the side.
To often these days the family meal is not taken together, not in our house. I love the Italian idea of all eating together, after all how else do we find out about everyones day. It’s more than being nosey though, this is family time and it’s so important to us all.
Now to the recipe, this is a tricky one as it’s not mine and to be honest I have no idea what Alex put in. Except for the Bok Choy, which he didn’t want to use but I insisted, to use it up.
As I’m writing this the aftermath of a family meal is going on with Anne and the boys chatting excitedly by the fire. It just makes me smile that our two are just blabbering away about their day with no edge or attitude.
Enough for now, I’m off to join in, this is too good to miss.
I’ve been talking about this for quite some time now, and to be quite honest haven’t done much more than talk. Thats about to change.
Food and cooking is not a competitive sport, it’s all about love and passion. After all what is better than making and sharing a wonderful meal with those that you care most about.
In my case that is my inspirational wife Anne and our two boys, Alex and Fraser.
Now cooking for the family every day is always hard even for a chef, so we are going to share our daily lives with you all, hopefully it will give you some inspiration on those days that you just don’t feel like making the effort.
Like everything in our life this is a family affair with the photography courtesy of 11 year old Fraser and all of us doing the cooking.
What we eat is without doubt the most important decision we make every day, not just for our health but also for the social function that the time spent cooking and eating together provides.
Enough for now, we’ll be back with ideas, photos and recipes very soon. Happy Cooking.
