New Year's Eve Dinner: Roast Prime Rib

I had never attempted to roast a prime rib rack before, and thought I should try it out while we were still in Australia. The rack of 3 ribs cost me about $17+ for an 800+gram piece, which was just incredibly affordable considering Lawry's charges around $60? $80? for one piece. Of course this wasn't USDA, and this was also bought during the NYE lelong session at Queen Victoria Market, where the butchers were all desperate to offload all their stock. But it was pretty damn good quality Aussie beef, marinated with garlic, red wine, mustard, rosemary, oregano and pepper. 

I had some roast potatoes going on the side too, with garlic, pepper, thyme and rosemary. 

Beautifully crisp when done. 

The prime rib was a huge success. I followed an internet recipe that called for roasting at 70 deg C for 4 hours, then blasting at 250 deg C for 30 mins. It worked like a charm. Although when we cut it up, the meat turned out more medium-well than medium. 

Another angle showing how good it looked from the top. 

We had a friend visiting from Sydney, who thankfully, preferred her beef well done. So the two outer ribs went to her, and myself - because it was my fault the beef was overcooked. Sigh.   

However, it was still wonderfully flavourful, juicy and moist. So even though it could have been just slightly more reddish, the overall experience was extremely positive and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal. 

The husband took the rib in the centre, which was just a little short of PERFECT. It was a beautiful medium in the centre, with the sides slightly more cooked. Which means that next time, I just need to blast the roast for 5 mins less. Easy peasy! 

Christmas Eve Dinner: Thai-inspired Roast Chicken

For our first Christmas Eve dinner away from the family, I was determined to cook something extremely delicious and memorable for the husband. Since I had been working with beef quite extensively, and was quite intimidated by the thought of doing a turkey, I decided to roast a chicken instead. 

One of my fondest childhood memories was of this Thai lady selling Gai Yaang outside the Yaohan supermarket at Bukit Timah Plaza. Just thinking of the name of the dish brought back memories of the smoky, sweet meat that was evenly cooked yet moist. Even though all I had was a traditional electric oven, I thought it was doable. So I trawled the internet for a few recipes and decided to combine the gai yaang marinade with lemongrass, lime and shallots. 

I chopped up the stem of the lemongrass very finely. 

And added minced garlic, chopped coriander stems and roots, shallots and white peppercorns to it. 

I threw in some limes, and mixed it up with sugar, fish sauce and lime juice. 

Left the chicken to marinate in the fridge for around 4-5 hours. 

I made a chilli dip on the side, using fish sauce, sugar, shallots, mint leaves, coriander leaves and chilli powder. 

After half an hour of roasting at 190deg C, the chicken was done. It was absolutely perfect. Cooked right through to the inside, yet moist and juicy. I regret not taking a picture of the meat after the chicken was carved; we were ravenous by then. 

The chilli dip went beautifully with the chicken. 

I also prepared a couple of salads, one with spinach leaves and cucumber with mint, Thai basil, coriander leaves and shallots with a vinegar and lime dressing. 

And another salad of raw swiss browns with asiago cheese, topped with lemon infused olive oil, salt and cracked pepper. 

It was one of our most enjoyable home cooked meals in Melbourne :)

North Island NZ Snippets

We spent a week on the North Island last month, and what a beautiful time it was. Quite by chance, we discovered the western beaches close to Auckland and they were absolutely gorgeous. Miles and miles of scenic coastline, just like in the photo below. 

We went to Muriwai to see the gannet colonies. Those little spots on the rocks? All gannets! 

The two birds in the centre doing a little honey-I'm-home-from-work dance, and you can just about make out a tiny egg under the one on the right. All the other gannets still waiting for their partners to come back. 

We drove to the Coromandel Peninsula for a night - this view was taken at the top of a cliff. The sea was unbelievably blue. 

Cathedral Cove, as seen from the water. It's an arch-shaped cave accessible only by foot or by boat. Lots of snapper swimming around in the area too, but it's a protected marine reserve so the fine for poaching is apparently $200,000. 

Our boat took us inside a sea cave. It was surreal.

We stopped by Hahei to do a short walk up the cliffs to the Pa site, which is basically a Maori fortress. 

Rotorua - lots of bubbling mud. Not terribly pretty and rather smelly. 

Huka Falls

Lake Taupo, which is the size of Singapore. 

Mt Ruapehu, Mt Tarawera and I think it was Mt Tongariro - 3 volcanoes visible from the shores of the lake. 

Roses at the Taupo Rose Garden

We also went to the Auckland Botanic Gardens, which was surprisingly really enjoyable. It's located about 10 mins from the airport, and it was such a great place to kill time before checking in for our flight. 

We didn't have very interesting meals in NZ, unfortunately, so the best shots are entirely scenery pics. However, we made it to Matua for some tastings, and managed to get a couple of bottles of cellar door release Sauv Blancs. 

More Melbourne food posts on the way when I find the time to upload them :) 

Trout - Caught and BBQ-ed

We headed out to a small town called Buxton just 10 mins drive from Marysville over one weekend, and tried our hand at trout fishing. There were a few ponds, ranging from easy to challenging. Since we needed lunch, we headed for the easy pond first.

And the fish were soon biting! Like this fella here. He must have been very hungry or greedy, or both.

It was a lovely cool summer day, and there were heaps of families out having a picnic in the sun.

We brought some food along too. Those were scotch fillets, or rib eye steak, as well as onions and sausages.

The boys at the grill starting with the sausages and mushrooms while the trout fillets were being cleaned.

They looked amazingly fresh. We had a few different flavours- lemon and herbs, sambal and tomyum.

 Steaks on the barbie- our chef insisted on making sure everyone had their steak to their desired doneness, so the orders ranged from rare to well done.

Sambal trout with onions 

All sauces ready for marinating

Pretty large grounds, a great place for a birthday party.

The trout with lemon and herbs. Super super fresh and yummy.

Our fishing rods being hung up.

We also went to Marysville for some sightseeing. This was Steavenson Falls, with the Steavenson river flowing into Buxton too.

Signs of regrowth at Marysville after the Black Saturday fires in 2009.

Pipis - Dug and Fried

Earlier this week we headed to Venus Bay near Melbourne to pick pipis, which are basically the local shellfish found in the sand at the intertidal area. There's been a lot of online controversy over whether this area has been over-dug, with the locals claiming that Asians have come to rape the beach and that the fishing inspectors aren't doing anything about it. That morning we went, we saw lots of people of different races digging for pipis so it could be that the Asians had come and gone, or the locals were unfortunately colour blind, ie. everyone looked Asian to them, or perhaps they could be having other vision issues. 

But the locals are right about one point, which is the complete absence of fishing inspectors which I would have expected over the busy summer period. The obedient Singaporeans had their fishing licenses all ready for inspection, as well as a 2 litre bottle to determine our catch limit. It was a beautiful, gorgeous, lovely summer day of around 22 deg C.

We arrived just around low tide, and there were already people digging away on the beach. Just for the record, the majority of diggers (or rapists) appeared to be either Anglo, Italian or Greek. Let the Asian here tell you definitively that although all Anglos look the same to us, just as all Asians look the same to a white person, it is extremely difficult to mistake a white person for an asian and vice versa.  

We started digging just near the edge of the water, and very soon, found a few clusters of shells just a few centimetres below the surface of the sand. We left the smaller pipis for someone to pick another day, and focused on the bigger guys. 

Like this chappy here. It was a bit of a treasure hunt in the dark, using our hands and feeling for shells below the sand. Fishing regulations state that you can't use a spade or anything else, only feet and hands, so we groped around slowly. And our patience paid off - we picked up enough for dinner. 

This chap was doing surf fishing, but didn't catch anything while we were there.

All in, we had about a litre of pipis which was enough for us, and headed off with some sea water in the bucket to keep the pipis alive. We picked up a few empty shells along the way thanks to a blond curly-haired kid who couldn't have been more than 2 and a half years old, who got very excited and insisted on "helping". In the end we had to try to sieve out the little pipis so that we didn't end up bringing them home. And as we went off, the other groups that arrived before us were still digging away, so perhaps yes maybe an optometrist would do pretty well in the area. 

After we got home I transferred the pipis to another container to try to get the sand out, and soaked them in tap water plus salt. 

The little blond kid's dad asked me how I was going to cook the pipis. "On the barbie, with some lemon?" I was vaguely horrified. Hell, no. With garlic, sambal belachan and Chinese rice wine, in a frying pan! (I'd have said a wok if only I had one). 

Absolutely beautiful, fresh, succulent and delicious.