Series One Recipes - Episode Six
John's Grilled Flounder
Ingredients.
One flounder per person, skinned.
Salt
Oil
A bbq
Juice of 1/2 a lemon per flounder.
Small handful of parsley per flounder
2 spring onions per flounder. Liberal quantities of good olive
oil
Pepper.
Method
Salt flounder and cook over coals on a well oiled bbq.
While flounder cooks, cut up
Parsley
Spring onion
And mix together with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and
pepper.
Spoon sauce over cooked flounder and serve.
Richard's Fabulous Fancy Flounder.
Ingredients
Two medium sized flounders, filleted, skin on.
That'll give you eight fillets and the frames to make a
stock.
One medium sized fillet of some other white fish, about 150 grams.
I used monkfish (also known as stargazer)
(These fish, flounder and monk, are both listed by Royal Forest and
Bird Society as being endangered)
Half an onion
200 ml cream
1 lemon
1 Tbl brandy
4 Tbl white wine
1/2 tsp thyme
Salt/pepper
6 slices fresh white bread
80g butter
2 Tbl oil.
Seasoned flour.
Method
Ahead of time: Put the fish frames, the half onion and 1 cup of water in a covered pot with the flounder frames and simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool then strain and set aside. In a food processor make bread crumbs with white bread and half the butter. Set aside.
Roughly chop the fillet of white fish and place into the food processor bowl with the brandy, 1?2 tsp salt, a grind of black pepper. Slowly add 100ml of the cream while the processor runs. Puree to a paste.
Lay the flounder fillets skin side down and spread the paste evenly on the flesh side. Press the breadcrumbs into the fish paste and set aside in the fridge.
Slice half the lemon as thinly as you can.
To serve: Pre heat oven to 200 C and put a flat roasting dish in to heat up.
Make the sauce: Bring stock to the boil and reduce to 1?4 cup, then add remaining cream and thyme, bring to a simmer then add the white wine and the juice of the remaining half of lemon. Reduce to about 1?4 cup, and check seasoning.
Pre heat a non-stick frying pan and add the oil and butter. The butter should sizzle, but not burn.
Flour the skin of the flounder and cook the fillets skin down for 1 minute each. Cook in batches, and when they are all done, transfer the fillets skin side up, crumb side down, into the hot roasting dish in the oven and place a slice of lemon on the skin. Cook in the oven for 8 - 10 minutes. Serve with the crisp skin up and spoon a little sauce around each piece.
Rachael's Rack'o'lamb.
Ingredients.
Marinade
Zest and juice of two oranges.
A 'dollop' of honey
A knob of ginger peeled and grated.
A smaller 'dollop' of soy sauce.
1 Tblspoon oil
lots of ground black pepper
3 cloves of garlic, chopped.
Method,
Warm all of above together and muddle about with a spoon.
Tip over, under and around the lamb racks. Marinate for a few hours
or a day, turning occasionally.
Method.
Remove lamb from marinade and brown in oil and butter in a heavy
pan.
Put into an oven proof dish and cook in a 180 oven for 10
minutes.
Remove from oven and let stand (under a teatowel) for 10
mins.
Slice into cutlets, and serve.
Richard's Scalloped potato.
Ingredients
50g butter
1 clove garlic
Peeled potatoes
Peeled onion (1 onion to 5 potatoes)
Cream
Milk
Salt
Pepper.
Method
Butter bottom of a wide shallow baking dish
And add chopped clove of garlic
Slice potatoes and onions in food processor
Tip into dish, season well with salt and pepper and toss all
together.
Press down into dish
Then tip over ý milk, ý cream until it almost covers
the potatoes. You should see the milk when you press down, but not
when it sits on the bench without being pressed.
Cover tightly with foil and bake,
2hours, @ 180.
And Standing Rib Roast
The meat will be cut from ribs 6 through 12. I'd suggest cooking a 5 rib roast. The better end of this is the smaller end so you might ask your butcher to cut it from ribs 8 through 12. I guess he might snigger and give you any bloody ribs he feels like. From this end it is a prime rib roast. The eye is larger (which is the meat we are after) and there is less cap meat. The meat is much more flavoursome from being roasted on the bone, and makes an impressive sight in the oven and on the table.
This is a great recipe because it is provides and opportunity to use your meat thermometer, or even better buy one with a real sense of purpose. This is an expensive piece of meat and you want to cook it to you favourite "doneness" reliably. Take the temperature in the centre of the small (loin) end of the roast. As a rule of thumb, it'll take about 30mins per kilo at 180 C. But for pink meat at the thin and rare at the thick end, you should remove the meat from the oven when the internal temp at the thin end is 49 C. The temperature in the core will continue to go up after this for some time. This is to be expected and as part of the laws of thermodynamics. A five rib roast will take about 2 1/4 to 2 and 3/4 hours to be pink to rare. A three rib, 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 hours. A two rib about 60 - 70 minutes. The internal temperature of 49 C still applies. For more cooked meat seek 52C, for well cooked to medium rare 54 C and for pretty much well cooked remove from the oven with an internal temperature of 60 C.
Let the roast stand in a warm place for 20 or so minutes. It can be kept in an oven set at 50 C for as long as an hour and one half, but most ovens are not reliable at such low settings and may be hotter and consequently cook the meat more than you wish.
Get the meat from the fridge for at least 2 hours before it needs to go into the oven.
Pre heat the oven to 180 C.
Smear each of the cut ends of the meat with a tablespoon of butter.
Place in the roasting pan ribs down.
Cook.
Baste the cut ends frequently with juices from the pan.
With 40 mins to go scatter one half cup of coarsely minced onion in the pan.
Remove meat from the pan.
Pour off fat.
Add 2 1/2 cups beef stock.
Deglaze pan and simmer down by half.
Strain into gravy boat.
Julia Child suggests removing the meat from the bone. Giving you a large slab of fine eye meat to slice, and the large rib bones to serve for those at the table who like to gnaw.
Des' Bombe Alaska.
Ingredients
Rounds of store bought Madeira cake. One per serving
Raspberry jam 1 Tbl per serving
Hokey pokey Icecream
4 egg whites
1/2 a cup of sugar
Dash of Brandy
Dash or two of Frangelico
Chocolate sauce
Cooking chocolate
Cream.
More brandy to serve.
Method
Stamp out rounds of Madeira cake with a glass or purpose built
cutter.
Spoon on Brandy enhanced jam
Beat up egg whites, gradually adding sugar. Beating until smooth
and glossy.
Add lump of hokey pokey onto cake and jam, then pipe over beaten
egg white. Covering all and making beautiful.
Freeze for 2 or more hours.
Heat oven to 'hot as it goes'.
Take bombes from freezer straight into oven,
Bake for 3 minutes
Brown with blow torch, if that's your thing,
To serve tip over chocolate sauce (cooking chocolate melted with
cream) and as you head to the table, tip over warmed brandy and set
alight.
TAKE EXTREME CARE WITH FLAMING ALCOHOL PLEASE!
Richard's Triple Chocolate Mousse .
Ingredients
White
Dark
Milk chocolates total of three together (or just one type of
course) 300g
2 eggs separated
2 Tbl sugar
250 ml cream
Method
Beat yolks with 2 Tbl sugar
Heat cream.
Off the heat beat in the egg and sugar mix
Return to the heat and cook briefly, stirring constantly. Do not
boil!
Add chocolate
Stir until dissolved
Beat up egg whites
Fold into the chocolate mixture
And spoon into serving cups, glasses, whatever.
Chill and serve.
