Lord of the Flame, King of the Coal

So Himself has discovered the joy of coal barbecues.  We had a gas ‘cue for ages and then one day we were all like “what’s the point of this? I mean, FBJ cooks on gas ALL THE TIME inside! What is the point of cooking on gas outside???” and we decided we needed a coal ‘cue.  I’ve been watching a lot of Bobby Flay on pay TV, a New Yorker who does a whole lot of barbecuing, and while his restaurant in NYC was SHITE his TV recipes always look amazeballs so dying to try that stuff.

When we were in Mildura for Christmas to visit my olds we were discussing our yearning for a Weber and The Old Fella mentioned that there was a Weber in The Shed.  They had purchased the house last year and he was still working through the Aladdin’s cave that is The Shed, and said that he didn’t want it and if Himself wanted to clean it up and take it home he could.  HOORAY!!!! Himself did just that, it was in really good nick so it was piled in the back of the Outlander (love that car) with all of our presents and the wine we picked up from Chateau Mildura (classy name) and brought it back to Sydney.

Himself has been giving it a bit of a workout and stuff has been delicious – do not underrate the power of the charcoal my friends.  But I decided to bite the bullet and buy a Bobby Flamey Flame Flay cook book because his recipes on Addicted to Barbecue continued to entice.  The book finally arrived and in anticipation I went to the local Lebanese Fruit Shop (Bankstown – not the nice end) to pick up a 15kg bag of charcoal for the Weber and Himself chose four recipes to try out.

I won’t mention the bit where he fell asleep reading Bobby’s cookbook (wanted to take a picture but refrained to continue with my happy marriage) and once he woke up again we went down the road for many, many herbs, a few veg aaaaannnnd that’s about it.  I’d already picked up some delicious meat from Feather and Bone, a Lord and Lady McAuley Meat Tray*, extra mince and some skirt steak.  I don’t really want to mention the skirt.  I know I’ve told you before about how delicious skirt is, but this is a touchy subject for me.  

I remember when lamb shanks were $2 each.  But now, all the annoying foodies have realised shanks are delicious and the damn things are $13 for two. Pricks.  But skirt is delicious when cooked medium rare over a high heat and cut against the grain.  It’s the shit. Please, don’t tell the pretentious foodies...

So four recipes were chosen and then the wee girl and I retired to the Housos’ Lounge on the front porch whilst Himself started making his magic** in the kitchen.  I haven’t mentioned the Housos’ Lounge have I?  We recently bought a new lounge for the small TV room (yeah, we so posh we have two TV rooms my friends) and anyway the lounge in there was really old and getting a big funky so we thought we needed a new one.  We went to Ikea and picked one up (how we got it home was a really, really funny story, but unless I get AT LEAST 10 comments on people wanting to hear that story I’m not going to tell you) and then we had the old lounge to dispose of thoughtfully.  Hmmmm what to do with lounge asks Himself.  Wellllll says I, I’ve always wanted to have a lounge on the front porch... just saying... You’re such a bogan he says, and puts it out there for me anyway.  That’s love.  So, the Wee Girl and I sit on the front porch on the Housos’ Lounge drinking rose (well, me drinking, her not) while he slaves in the kitchen deciding exactly how much is 1 cup of parsley anyway?  It’s just a guide I say, just feel the parsley, be at one with the parsley...

Four and a half hours later it was dinner time Hooray!!! And what can I say? Well, I’ll tell you what.  IT WAS FUCKING DELICIOUS!!!!!! Skirt steak with chimichurri (red AND green), potatoes with herbs, stuffed peppers*** and these mangos.... ooohhh the mangos, words cannot express.  Praise be the power of Bobby Flay and the King of Coal (Himself).  So glad I married him, cause if I hadn’t, I would have now, because it was so delicious I’m about to throw in the wooden spoon and let him cook forever as long as it’s on charcoal.

Did I say it was delicious?  Yes it was.

There have been other things he’s done, and I was going to blog about them, but all pales into significance to the meal he cooked tonight.  Here’s a picture.  Look at it and weep....

Delicious.

Yes.

*They must have named that after some amazing individuals

**OMG YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE MESS HE LEFT!!!!

***I told you it was American – peppers... pffftt!

I'm Just Mad About Saffron (The MasterChef Australia Edition)

Saffron’s mad about me… Don’t you love that song? I do – it would appear though, that MasterChef Australia’s Producers DO NOT…

You wouldn’t believe it peeps (well, most of you will because I already told you) but I had a MasterChef audition this week!! What? FBJ?? But you say the only MasterChef in the world is the UK MasterChef – WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???  To be honest, I wasn’t planning on applying, I didn’t even know they were recruiting (again‽) Mrs Feather sent me a link to the application asking if I was applying.  “What the hell?” Thinks I and filled it in, “it, not like they’re going to call me right?” wrong. Unbelievably one of the very nice production team gave me a call and invited me to audition.  Shit. What do I cook? It’s not like I actually have a signature dish!

I told the Wee Girl when she called after work “Australian MasterChef??? You’re not actually going to go are you??” You will remember my previous post, where I may have said we prefer UK MasterChef? I stand by my views – a far superior contest… “Yes Wee Girl, I will, I mean, what a laugh right? “Maybe…” She says – she is not convinced, believing that a personality contest is inferior to a cooking contest.

So I turn up with all the other hopefuls in our timeslot – 20 in all, so they’re chewing through about 60 people in a day – that’s a lot of broken cooking dreams left burning in the halls… Me on the other hand, well – I’m here for a good time.  If they like me, they do, if they don’t? Well… there’s no accounting for some people’s taste*

So a few of us get chatting and having a bit of a laugh – seems like the 5 of us are all from Sydney, and they’re a really nice bunch.  We swap stories and talk about stuff – general nervous bonding I guess.  Amongst others, there’s an IT Girl (that makes two of us) and a young lad who is studying the bassoon at the Sydney Institute of Music – dude, why are you here? The bassoon is a far superior calling, I mean, you get to sleep in, play late, miss gigs... way more fun than a chef I reckon…

So finally a young, spunky producer comes in and introduces himself (his name now escapes me of course, we’ll call him Good Prod).  He tells us he loves us all and really wants us all to succeed so, you know, cook our best and we’re all in with a chance!  Everyone is pumped – itching to cook.  They really want to see our REAL personalities he says (hmmm be careful what you wish for dude – I’m not sure you can handle my real personality).  They’re going to be filming us too – uh oh, there goes my street cred…

He then goes on to warn us of the perils of double dipping.  Oh FFS!! What is it with people and double dipping?? Seinfeld has a LOT to answer for, the un-funny bastard.  I mean, remember when you’d go out when you were young and fancy free, meet some guy and snog him – there were no swab tests beforehand! WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE??? What a load of wank. I have no cold and no cold sore – I am clean!  Oh, and of course, no cutty cutty meat on the same board as your vegies, it’s not like they’re both going to be cooked to kill all the bacteria right?  Salad? I concur, otherwise? Pfft!!

So into the kitchen we go.  I’ve decided to cook ravioli filled with ricotta, basil and lemon with a lemon cream sauce.  I don’t know if I mentioned, but when I was in Umbria we did a pasta making course with the gorgeous Leonardo and Alessandra (as you do).  The pasta recipe had been passed down through generations and one of the things he stressed was that pasta dough needed to be kneaded (ha ha) for half an hour. Phew! Half an hour?? That’s a lot of kneading… We did it there, and I’ve done it again since coming home and it really does make for an amazing pasta dough.  Unfortunately though, I’ve only got an hour so… ten minutes later dough is done and looking pretty, shiny and squidgy.  Camera man comes round and does a close up of me kneading – look out for that if it makes the cut on the show ;-) I hope he doesn’t show my age spot up close…

So now second producer strolls around, let’s call him Bad Prod – I really did feel like they had the Good Prod/Bad Prod thing going on, he was a whole lot more serious. He complimented me on my glossy dough and moved on (phew).  I made my filling and suddenly, a wee box of saffron catches my eye… hmmm saffron, I LOVE saffron! Maybe it will give my dish that extra je ne sais quoi? So I add a bit to the filling.

It’s now time to roll out the pasta – and the thing with ravioli right? I don’t like it too thin, there’s a chance it will burst, when it cooks it looks like old ladies undies and also, I like it with a bit of substance or it all gets a bit soft and mushy, so I roll it out to my satisfaction and it really is a spanking dough (if I do say so myself).  Back to my bench and shit, there’s still HEAPS of time to go… Oh well… I make my wee ravioli and put them aside to be cooked at the last minute.   I did the sauce in about 3 seconds flat – it’s just not that hard and at the last moment think – hmm maybe some saffron in there too… Why not after all?

And then the camera, producer and sound guy is bearing down on the guy next to me, he’s talking it up – living the dream, saying what he wants to achieve out of this.  Good Prod then says to me, well you’re doing a whole lot of standing around; well I’m just efficient says I (maybe I SHOULD have kneaded the damn dough for half an hour…)

The camera then descends on me – what are you cooking, what do you want to achieve? And a few other things, maybe what inspires you? I don’t remember.  And so what do I say? Hmmm I would like to be in food writing.  Food writing?? WTF FBJ? where’s the cooking in that?? I dunno, maybe I should have said I want to start a cooking school for underprivileged single mothers teaching them how to cook wholesome meals – but that’s already been done right?  I did have an opportunity to bang on about Feather and Bone – how much I loved them and how I love cooking ethical meat, my whole 80/20 rule and all that… I’m not sure if that’ll make the cut – I may have come across a bit manic (who me?) Good Prod seemed to like me – but I reckon he’s like that with everyone.

When it was time to plate up I did – the dish did look lovely (I would have taken a photo but that was totes not allowed) so you’ll have to deal with a photo free blog.  Bad Prod came around and made a snide remark about seeing the saffron threads in the cream – I should have heard the death knell then…

So we have to stop cooking (which I had really stopped about 20 minutes before).  And there we stand, waiting for them to come around and taste all our dishes.  I wait as my pasta congeals on the plate – mmm delicious… So finally it’s my turn, Bad Prod and 2 ladies I did not have the pleasure of meeting beforehand start to judge my food.  Oh, that’s waaayyy too much saffron says Bad Prod WRINKLING HIS NOSE AT MY FOOD - OMG stop me now… It’s given it a real ‘funky’ taste.  Hardly, I think.  Oh and that cream sauce (what, the one that’s been sitting there congealing for 20 minutes? That cream sauce?) It’s way too heavy says woman number 1.  Well, that’s why I put the lemon in, says I.  That was never going to work with all that cream and butter says Bad Prod patronisingly to me – (#@@$^%^#$ I think to myself)

Then, woman number 2 cuts a piece of my pasta off and says (wait for it) “I haven’t actually tasted it but this pasta looks too thick to me” ARE YOU SERIOUS? You are not even going to deign to taste it, but you’re judging it? These people are too much.  I mentioned what I learned in Umbria – from Leonardo, who you know; uses a recipe passed down through generations about a 30 minute knead*.  Pfft! Says the tasters, it only needs 10 minutes max (in their most pretentious tones) yeah, right, Mr Fiftieth Generation Umbrian has no idea right…

Good Prod is hovering in the background and as the Bad Prod and his entourage sweep off he has a bit of a taste, happily he didn’t gag and luckily he didn’t comment on the saffron – Good Prod to the end – go you.

Was it my best ever dish? Nope. Did it deserve the nose wrinkling disapproval by Bad Prod? Nope again – I thought it was yum when I tasted it, if a bit lemony of all things…

A lot of us got ordinary comments, so we all swapped commiserations afterwards while waiting for them to come in and give us the, who goes through news.  My name was not called; I’ve decided they’ve already filled their position for Plucky Comic Relief so I was out on my ear.

I am a bit glad though, my 2 week dry aged Dexter sirloin on the bone was still safely in my hotel room, and the amount of food they actually tried when they were judging was miniscule – I’m not sure I’d want to waste that glorious cut of meat on their judgey judgmentalness – especially when the majority of it goes to waste – that cow will not die for naught! Himself and the Wee Girl will give it the love, affection and respect it deserves…!!!

I walked back to the hotel that evening singing Mellow Yellow at the top of my voice… I'm just mad about Saffron, Saffron's mad about meeeeeeeeee, I'm a just a mad about Saffron, Saffron's mad about me! They call me Mellow Yellowwwwwww.....

*note that foodie double entendre??
*and his pasta was not rolled wafer thin - it has to have bite you see...