New Zealand

A few more pics of my trip downunder.  I loved every second of it.  I didn't take many photos unfortunately.  I was very slack which is annoying.  I didn't even take photos of Juanita's amazing beach pad in Kouatounu.

We mainly hung around their lovely home.  Their place is beautiful as is their garden.  We did lots of cooking which is always my favourite thing to do anyway but doing it with them takes on a new type of awesomeness. 

Dad's so cute in the kitchen

He was cooking from a very young age with my nana (as did I)

Joey's a wee iphone girl.  Actually dad is too.  Well he not a girl so much.

Dad's an exceptional natural cook.  Everything he makes is utterly delicious

Dad decided to make a wee extra for dinns.

Joey's a little baker these days.  She bakes all sorts of slices and cakes and pops 
them in the freezer for lucky unexpected visitors

The key to dad's success in the kitchen is the attention he pays and his on point seasoning.

Dave loved hanging out with Dogbones

My gorgeous Joey and dad

Some pics of my time in Whitianga.  Such a beautiful spot with such beautiful people.

Me and little Joey in Whitianga

My big cuddly dad.  He's like a lovely big teddy bear.

Dave and Dogbones

Gosh, am I washing my hands???  Little Joey is always taking notes in the kitchen when I'm cooking. 
She's cute that way.

Dinns with Juanitz.  Ummmm.... Joey is that your wine glass WITHOUT a coaster????

 

My gorgeous mum and dad

 With little Tim in the oven slowly baking away.  They were only 19 and 23!

Summertime lunch...

Hot smoked torched mackeral, roasted tomatoes, caramalised onion, fresh cows milk cheese.  Absolutely delicious.

 

When a BBQ turns a wee bit wet

 We were having a perfectly lovely bbq, doing some lovely whole sea bream when the skies turned a little bit grey.  It was warm and there was no wind so a bit of rain wasn't going to worry us under the umbrella.  Until...

Christmas 2023

 We'd been meaning to buy oysters for ages but always got a bit scared because we hadn't shucked them before.  There are stacks and stacks of boxes of oysters here at this time of year.  They set up a whole separate area in the supermarket for them.  

Anyway this year we bought a box and a shucker.  Andy shucked them (it's pretty easy) and we had them with champagne on Christmas eve.  It was fun and they were delicious.  We'll get more for New Years.

For Christmas dinner we bought a prime rib or côte de boeuf.  I did what I always do with cuts of meat.  I salted it for a few days to season it and dry it out so that the moisture content reduces and the crust is delicious when cooked.

I found a blog: https://www.seriouseats.com/perfect-prime-rib-beef-recipe which made a lot of sense.  Most people really make no sense whatsoever when they have their own techniques with cooking, including most chefs in my opinion.

This blog was really along the same thinking as mine including the salting technique beforehand.  Something I've been doing for years whether it's sea bream, salmon, chicken, pork or beef.  I don't do it with duck as duck fat needs to be nicely rendered and it's easier if it's not too dry.

Anyway the theory behind this was to cook the côte de boeuf to a perfect medium so that the fat is nicely melted but the meat still very tender.  Not too rare where the fat can be still quite uncooked and unpleasant to eat in my opinion and the meat can be quite chewy.  Not too overcooked where it starts to dry out.  Just medium.  So this means cooking it to an internal temperature of 55deg before resting and giving it a final blast to crisp before serving.

The way this is done is to cook it long and slow in the oven at 65 degrees C for about 5 hours on a rack over a deep baking tray.  Letting it rest for 30 mins then turning up the oven to 250 degrees C and giving it a final 10 minute blast.  It was an amazing way of cooking for a couple of reasons.  1. The result was absolutely incredible.  The beef was so tender, the fat beautifully melted and it really was the best cote de boeuf we've ever had.  2. It meant there were no spatters all over the kitchen which suits me.  

We served it with roasted Jerusalem artichokes from the garden, celeriac dauphinois (from the garden), roasted potatoes and onions, caramelised onion puree and a foie gras  green peppercorn sauce.

Delicious.  This is definitely a technique worth doing again and again for a cut of beef like this.  It would not work on a tenderloin or similar.  Anyway we had a fab 2023 Christmas.  Excuse the rather crap photos!

The beef after being salted for a few days, all nice and dry and a little dehydrated

After coming out of the oven, resting ready for a final blast on high heat

All crispy and delicious on the outside

Perfectly evenly pink inside and melty fat