An Offally Good Luncheon

For my last birthday I was given a beautiful Nose to Tail cookbook by a good friend (the one with the weird egg intolerance), so thus inspired I decided to have an Offally Good Luncheon and invite all my girlfriends round (Himself was off golfing in Tasmania, much to his relief).  The date was set, invites sent out and goodies ordered from F&B.  The menu was a challenge – stuff that was using secondary cuts but which would still be mainstream delicious and not too challenging visually, to eat.  To be honest, I’m not a big offal person; I find organs very hard going indeed (with the exception of pate, but I actually had to teach myself to like it so there you go).

After much deliberation and dithering I decided on the following menu:

Pho Jelly with Oxtail Croquettes

Brawn on Toast with Crispy Ear Salad

Crispy Rabbit with Truffled Chips

Beetroot Sorbet with Dark Chocolate Chips

Cheese

Put my order in with F&B and excitedly awaited my box.  Box came, everything as ordered including a pig’s head sawn in half – incredibly confronting! Damn thing watches you as you walk around the room like a well-painted portrait.  But not to be deterred I froze one half and put the other half in the fridge in an empty vegetable crisper awaiting transformation into something beautiful¹.  The issue with dishes like brawn and pho is the sheer amount of time they take to cook.  Obviously when these dishes were invented:

a. You couldn’t afford to waste anything, what with you being starving and all, and

b. You had plenty of time on your hands when these things were invented/cooked (no boring office job for them). 

Oxtail looking decidedly unattractive

I alas, do not have plenty of time on my hands but luckily did decide on a Sunday Luncheon because I ended up cooking from Friday night to Sunday lunch pretty much straight.  Am I exhausted? Totally. 

I was planning on cooking my oxtail for my beef croquettes on Friday night when I suddenly realised I’D FORGOTTEN TO ORDER OXTAIL. Bugger.  So I let my fingers do the walking and found a butcher near work who had them in stock.  Funny thing about oxtail, every cow has one, people hardly use them (and if they do it’s more in the winter than the summer) and yet butchers don’t always stock them.  The ones at the butcher I found were actually fresh and unsliced, so I asked for one, cut into pieces.  I had a work colleague with me when I ordered; he looked a little dubious when it was taken out. I told him “fear not! When cooked it is a thing of beauty, a more unctuous, melting stewing beef you cannot buy.”

Starting the pho stock

So oxtail in hand² I returned to work then finally after a long day trotted off home (after dropping Himself off at the airport) and put the oxtail on to cook (I will put the recipes online soon).  Oxtail takes an age but I just left it alone to simmer in water and got on with the pho stock, which is a two-day process.  I used Luke Nguyen’s recipe (of Red Lantern fame) for the pho stock.  Back to the oxtail…  After it was cooked I stripped the meat and fat off the bone and left it in a bowl covered in its broth to keep the meat moist until I was ready to make the amazeballs³ filling.  The pho stock was left simmering on a very low heat overnight.  On Saturday morning the house smelt strongly of the simmering stock, a fairly funky smell I have to admit.  Not to be deterred I continued with the stock.

Rabbit hiding in trotter gear

Happily, BFF had offered to be my sous chef for the weekend, which was great.  Her Saturday consisted of racing around trying to find things for me I’d forgotten or needed – her most important trip was finding me a nice new shiny stock pot as I did not own a pot big enough to contain even half a pig’s head – who knew?  There was lots of picking over bones and simmering of meats.  The Rabbit was confit in ‘Trotter Gear’ which is pig’s trotters simmered in stock and Madeira and then cooked until soft, bones removed, rest retained as a vehicle for confit.  As an aside, I really don’t enjoy jointing rabbits or chickens, but only because I don’t have a cleaver so it’s very hard work for me.  The doggies and cat did enjoy the rabbit’s kidneys though, which I removed, along with the suet fat before jointing them.  The pho was then finished⁴ so I clarified with egg whites then put in the chest freezer for a few hours so I could remove the very substantial layer of fat.  Once I removed the fat it was ready to make into jelly and also for use in the amazeballs.

It's amazing how that eye watches you... and check out my new pot!!

Jelly Pho Teacups

For the amazeballs I gently re-heated the oxtail to melt the gelatine that had set around the meat then strained off the liquid.  I made a roux and whisked in some pho to make a thick sauce.  Stirred through the oxtail and put it all in the fridge to set overnight.  I then made the pho jelly using gelatine leaves and poured the jelly into teacups to set (it was a ladies luncheon after all!)

After that the pig’s head was ready to be brawnafied.  So once again, picking over bones (this time the head), peeling the tongue and dicing the cheek and jowl meat.  After browsing through some other recipes I decided to mix through some finely chopped curly parsley – I’m glad I did, it really gave the flavour a lift, plus I added some coarsely ground white pepper corns.  The meat was placed into a plastic lined loaf mould then the reduced cooking liquid poured over the top.  Finally ready to put the brawn in the fridge to set overnight.

Brawn ready for the fridge

A lot was achieved on Saturday, but by the time it was dinner I couldn’t face any kind of meat.  My kitchen was covered in a layer of animal fat and my pots were filthy.  I Loaded up the dishwasher, cleaned down the benches and decided to order my favourite Gnocchi Royale from Mama Barone’s in Mortdale (which BFF was awesome enough to pick up for me on her way back over with a bottle of wine) hooray!  I passed out at 9:30…

Sunday morning and I woke at 7:30 and bounced⁵ out of bed.  BFF and I had done a list the night before of things left to do and last minute shopping.  Before she arrived I crumbed the amazeballs and shredded the pigs ears… the end was nigh!  We raced out to get boring stuff like flour and oil, but also cool stuff like white material for a table cloth (which still needs to be hemmed!) and a candelabrum.  We’d decided Vinnies was the place to go for kitsch candelabras⁶ so in we went.  Success!! A lovely Czech Crystal jobbie.  Perfect.  Once home the candelabra was washed and polished the put on the ‘tablecloth’ ohmigod, it looked beautiful! What a revelation, it looks gorgeous!! I think I’ll keep it!!

BFF crumbed the rabbit while I crispified the pig’s ears and blanched the chippies in the mammoth pot.  Just in time we finished for the other girls to arrive.  After a cheeky drink, I was back to the kitchen to fry the amazeballs.  Once fried they were cracked open and popped onto the pho jelly.  They looked really pretty and were a hit (but this is a tried and tested recipe, so no surprises there).  Lots of gossiping and catching up was going on.  I tore myself away for the next course primping and presentation.

Pho Jelly Cups with Amazeballs

The big moment, it was time to turn out the brawn, I had a taste – delicious! phew!  What a relief, or it would have been a salad course.  The idea was to win people over, not scar them for life. I cooked some toasts and cut them into hearts with a biscuit cutter.  I then cut the brawn with the same cutter to fit on top (very pretty!) and served with a radicchio and baby spinach salad, topped with the crispy ears.  It also went down well, with everyone surprised about where the meat had actually come from (we are so sanitised in our eating) except for my one English friend who knew exactly what it was and was still happy to hoe in.  It was at this time that I explained they had eaten nose (snout in brawn) and tail (in amazeballs) best not to let these things out of the bag too quickly one finds.  Girls were happy, brawn was eaten.  Again, more drinking and gossiping. Another reluctant retreat to the kitchen.

Brawn at its most beautiful

Luckily it was the final push for cooking - finishing the chips (second cooking until brown and crispy, then truffled pecorino grated over the top) and then the rabbit quickly browned.  Because the rabbit was already cooked it was just a matter of browning the crumbs and warming them through.  

The chips and rabbit were served with aplomb on share platters on the table along with more salad and lots more wine.  A ketchup heart was squeezed onto each plate (home-made ketchup from an earlier FBJ adventure).

A Cheeky Pink Tongue

Finally, groaning we turned our attention to dessert.  I had decided to go simple and had made a beetroot sorbet (will also attach recipe), which had dark chocolate chips through it.  I should have taken it out of the freezer earlier, it was more like a granita than a sorbet but a fantastic colour and the flavour was certainly different and delicious.   A lot of time was spent admiring the colour of each other’s tongues after finishing the sorbet.

We finished on a high⁷ note of cheese.  I love cheese plates but they can add up as good cheese is expensive, so I got around that by asking the girls to bring 150g of their favourite cheese.  Unbelievably, every cheese was different and they were all delicious!  All served on the gorgeous camphor laurel cutting board the Wee Girl gave me for my birthday.  The cheese came from all over with the highlight being cheese fresh from overseas (Tasmania).

The wine was finally finished and everyone departed (very full) at about 5pm.  What a lovely Sunday afternoon!  Also, being the considerate friends they are they had washed as we ate so the kitchen was almost clean.

Would I do it again? Probably not all those things at the same time – way too labour intensive, but I will do the brawn again for my Dad, he will love it.  The pho is definitely also worth the effort.  The chips? Of course! And the rabbit was delicious – although I think I would ask for it to be jointed for me!  The dogs did enjoy the discards though, especially the brawn trimmings on their biscuits for dinner!

A long blog for a long three days… J

1. Anything was an improvement to be honest

2. I wished it wasn’t cut up – I could have practiced my lightsabre moves on the way back to the office

3. You could call them croquettes – but when you taste them you’ll understand
4. OHMIGOD MULTI-TASKING HELL

5. Only very small bounces

6. To be returned after the luncheon

7. Stinky