Food

[nomadpete]

Gentlemen please!

 

Bats, termites and MANIA have no place in our FOOD

 

 

thread.

 

 

Focus please.

[facthunter]

AW Sugarant. Now you've gone and  killed great potential.   OK Personia  It was sexist.  Is Bird's Nest Soup on the personu? .  Nev

[willedoo]

I remember my mother used to make a great meatloaf. I've used this recipe I got from her years ago which is fairly foolproof. Unfortunately for my taste buds, I no longer eat red meat, but I have good memories of this recipe.

 

Glazed Meatloaf:

Ingredients:              750gm mince                               1 beaten egg

                                  1 cup fresh breadcrumbs            1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

                                  salt & pepper                                2 tablespoons tomato sauce

                                  1 medium chopped onion            185gms (6oz) powdered milk

                                  2 teaspoons mustard powder     quantity of frozen mixed vegetables (the cubed type)

 

Glaze ingredients:    1 tablespoon dry mustard powder      quarter of a cup of tomato sauce

                                    1 tablespoon brown sugar (I've used raw sugar instead)

 

Method:                    Combine ingredients for the glaze, set aside. Mix together all remaining ingredients: press into greased 20cm x 10cm loaf tin, then turn upside down on to aluminium foil-lined oven tray, leaving tin still over loaf. Bake in moderate oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, remove loaf tin. Brush well with glaze (do not replace tin). Return to oven, cook further 50 to 60 minutes. Good hot or cold or on sandwiches. Also freezes well, so can be cut into individual slices for freezing.  

 

Edit: From memory, the frozen veges I used to use were those packets that have peas, corn kernels and diced and cubed carrot. You can vary the amount by preference. Best not to underdo or overdo the amount of frozen vegetables. Whatever looks right when you are mixing it.

             

    

Edited December 17, 2023 by willedoo

[facthunter]

Put mashed potato on the top and you have Shepherds Pie if you omit the glaze ingredients. Mince your own rump steak and cut down the fat and get more taste .I rarely eat meat these days unless it's free of  fat..  Nev

[willedoo]

6 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Put mashed potato on the top and you have Shepherds Pie if you omit the glaze ingredients. Mince your own rump steak and cut down the fat and get more taste .I rarely eat meat these days unless it's free of  fat..  Nev

To get Shepherd's Pie, you would have to omit the breadcrumbs and powdered milk as well, otherwise it would be too stiff and bulky.

[willedoo]

Shepherd's Pie - now that's another one I used to like. I only eat seafood these days so a bit hard to make fish herders pie.

Edited December 17, 2023 by willedoo

[facthunter]

Yeah delete my  suggestion and don't muck it up (except the rump mince bit) if wille doo approve  I should leave your recipe alone. Nev

Edited December 17, 2023 by facthunter
more content.

[willedoo]

Here's one for ome. Is it Shepherd's Pie with an apostrophe or Shepherds Pie? The apostrophe would mean it's a shepherd's pie. Without the apostrophe it would mean it's a pie of shepards (plural) the way I see it.

[willedoo]

8 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Yeah delete my  suggestion and don't muck it up (except the rump mince bit) if wille doo approve  Nev

I think minced rump would be good in meatloaf, but I wonder what role the fat content of the standard butcher's mince would play in holding it all together. The breadcrumbs bulk it up and add to the meatloaf texture, but my guess is the egg and powdered milk are the main bonding agents. The fat might not make a difference to how firm the end product is.

Edited December 17, 2023 by willedoo

[facthunter]

I just don't trust "Bought" mince . Some would be OK if you can trust the butcher. Like How do you know what's in a meat pie. You might be better NOT KNOWING. That's why I've given them up, but I did have some YABBIE pies at Phillip Island a few years ago. Pie contents are usually runny.   Nev

[willedoo]

Just a quick observation on taste-good foods like meatloaf. Technically, meatloaf is not super healthy if you use fatty mince, and it does have that sugar content in the glaze. But foods like that are primarily designed to give a good taste sensation and probably quite healthy enough if it's not being eaten all the time. I can certainly understand the concept of cooking primarily for taste as I've been a pescatarian for five years now. Apart from seafood, the only animal based protein I have is cheese on the occasional pizza. The challenge with it is to come up with meals that taste good, and that's not easy. For example, how much salmon can one eat?

 

Vegetarian alternatives don't do too much for me, like tofu which is just curdled soy milk. Cooked lightly, it tastes like just that. It has a bit more taste if it's pan fried brown and glazed with a bit of soy sauce while still in the pan, but it's a bit like trying to put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. The problem with it is that to make it edible, you have to almost cook it into oblivion due to the high water content drying up. And as far as tempeh goes, best not to comment too much. I think I'd stand a better chance of making a sandshoe edible.

 

I was at the physiotherapist through the week and we were discussing protein intake. She was born in Bombay and is a vegetarian but not vegan, and consumes eggs and all dairy products. She looks healthy and is a good weight, so obviously has no trouble getting the minimum protein intake per day. Without beef and chicken, protein intake is something you need to keep an eye on. I'm allergic to dairy, so don't have that on a regular basis to add to the protein count. She talked me into giving the powdered protein shakes another go.

[old man emu]

22 minutes ago, willedoo said:

Here's one for ome. Is it Shepherd's Pie with an apostrophe or Shepherds Pie? The apostrophe would mean it's a shepherd's pie. Without the apostrophe it would mean it's a pie of shepherds (plural) the way I see it.

There are two dishes which originally were made from the leftovers of the Sunday roast. If the roast was beef, the ensuing dish is called "Cottage Pie". If it was lamb or mutton, the dish is "Shepherd's Pie). The apostrophe denotes that it is a dish that would be commonly made by someone who had easy access to sheep. Similarly we have"Ploughman's Lunch", an English cold meal based around bread, cheese, and fresh or pickled onions. The good old Cornish pasty, while associated with that most wonderful of Counties, derives its name from Vulgar Latin "pastata "meat wrapped in pastry" from Latin pasta "dough, paste".

 

A recipe for shepherd's pie published in Edinburgh in 1849 in The Practice of Cookery and Pastry specifies cooked meat of any kind, sliced rather than minced, covered with mashed potato and baked. Neither shepherd's pie nor cottage pie was mentioned in the original edition of Mrs Beeton's Household Management in 1861, perhaps due to matters of social class. More recently "shepherd's pie" has generally been used for a potato-topped dish of minced lamb. According to the Oxford Companion to Food, "In keeping with the name, the meat should be mutton or lamb; and it is usually cooked meat left over from a roast".

 

So if your daughter has given up a date with Tom Cruise for a Sunday Roast Lamb, there's not likely to be any leftovers, so you'll have to get some minced meat from the butcher. And with the price of lamb these days, it won't be shepherd's pie but cottage pie you'll be making.

 

 

[old man emu]

30 minutes ago, facthunter said:

How do you know what's in a meat pie.

A Four and Twenty, or a Sergrants without the seasoning sensation of rodent droppings or domesticated hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta, would be a bland disappointment.

[willedoo]

Dog's eye was a common rhyming slang term for a pie, but maggot bag was a popular term in these parts. I found a tooth in one once, not a big cow's tooth, more like a roo tooth.

[Litespeed]

Use

 

You can make a great fish pie 🥧, with a potato and breadcrumb top. Or trad pastry top.

 

Much better than cottage pie.

 

I mainly eat fish, pork, chicken and lamb.

Bored with beef unless it's a high end cut.

 

I find pork mince added to lamb or veal mince adds a lot more flavour and the fat is much healthier than beef, also keeps the meat moist and tender. Most don't realise for example, Italian recipes use pork and veal eg Bolognese sauce does not use beef. The flavour is worlds apart.

 

 

Favourite pie is a homemade turkey pie perfect from leftover Christmas lunch.

I have even cooked whole turkeys just to make pies. Lots of flavour.

 

I wonder what brush turkey tastes like?

 

No I won't kill one to find out.

 

[onetrack]

SWMBO is big on less meat and more vegetarian stuff - but I'm a total carnivore. A meal without meat is a dead loss to me.

She likes frittatas made with chick pea and gluten free flour and zucchinis - I hate that kind of stuff. I also detest mushrooms and peas.

 

Both give me severe indigestion, and if eat even as little as a mouthful of some sauce with mushroom in it, my farts would kill a rampaging bull at 40 paces. I kid you not, you couldn't stay in the same room with me after I've ingested any mushroom.

 

I've always been a big meat eater and so was my Dad. He tried a vegetarian diet when he dabbled in the Seventh Day Adventist religion for a while - but he reckoned he had no stamina for hard physical work without some meat every day.

 

My preference is beef and lamb, and a bit of low-fat bacon occasionally. I almost never eat pork now, I find it way too fatty and not particularly tasty. I always eat lean beef and lean lamb and lean mince.

 

Today, it's silverside/corn beef day. Just put the silverside on in a big stockpot.

Soaked the silverside for 10 mins to reduce the salt level, placed it in several litres of filtered water so it's well covered.

Added about 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, about 3 teaspoons of Mazzetti Balsamic vinegar, 3 heaped tablespoons of Demarara sugar (it's got the right level of treacle in it), about 8-10 whole cloves, 3 or 4 bay leaves, a large carrot diced into thick slices crosswise, and a large onion cut in half, down the middle.

Bring to the boil, simmer on low heat for 1.5 hrs, drain off all the liquid and the bay leaves and cloves - then slice the silverside across the grain and serve with the carrot and onion, along with mashed potato with some white sauce, if you prefer. Bon appetit!

Sometimes we make a mash combining pumpkin and potato, this is great for a change. About 1/3rd pumpkin to 2/3rds potato.

Edited December 17, 2023 by onetrack

[willedoo]

I remember when my dad used to kill a beast, he would corn the silverside and brisket without a wet brine. He'd rub rock salt into it then put it in a freezer bag with a handful of the same salt and freeze it. I can't remember how long he would leave it in the freezer to corn before eating, but I would guess a month minimum. It was really delicious but had a brown colour like roast beef when cooked rather than the usual red.

[onetrack]

The bright red colour of the shop and butcher silverside comes from the sodium nitrite used to "cure" it.

 

I was under the impression that artificial colouring was used to produce the red colour in shop meats, but apparently the sodium nitrite turns the meat bright red without the need for colouring.

 

The nitrite of course, is used to kill the Clostridium botulinum bug, and it also has a degree of preservation effects on other harmful and spoilage bacteria.

 

I find the silverside lasts about 10 days in the fridge, and it will last longer if you cut most of the fat off after 3 or 4 days, as the fat goes rancid earlier than the meat.

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by onetrack

[ClintonB]

On 16/12/2023 at 9:02 PM, onetrack said:

I buy Roma tomatoes, because they taste better and are more "meaty". Our tomatoes often come from Carnarvon, it's a great spot for growing a wide range of fruit and vegies, when it's too cold down South.

24 years ago I used to work growing the seedlings for all the Vietnamese share farmers there. I would seed with the boss, then when they germinated spend my week picking out doubles and triples etc replanting them in new trays or missed cells. When you have an order from one share farmer for 1 millions seedlings you know they are farming on a huge scale.

[facthunter]

IF you farm the same crop in the same soil it will get  depleted after a while if you don't return something to it. Having a near neutral Ph helps  availability of soil nutrients. In practice a tendency towards Alkaline is easier to manage Worms do wonders and help reduce nematodes which can reduce crop yields and general vigour.. Foliar sprays can be used for zinc and nitrogen giving rapid responses.  Nev

[onetrack]

We've got 2 worm farms, we feed them all the kitchen food scraps and they produce great organic fertiliser, both liquid and worm castings.

I tried a couple of foliar sprays this season on my mango tree to see if it improved fruit set, one zinc spray and one boron spray. It seems to have improved the fruit setting a bit.

[old man emu]

I put in 8 tomato plants and 9 pumpkin vines. The poor things are really suffering in the high heat. They droop pitifully by late afternoon, but seem to pick up overnight if they get a good drink in the afternoon. I decided to steal a march this morning and watered them before it got hot.

 

In the morning there is a cool breeze from the north-east, but it swings to the north-west around lunchtime and blows up to 15 kts until sunset. That's what dries out the plants. I reckon that they are just trying to survive and haven't given a thought to getting bigger. 

[facthunter]

IF  you can partly shade them it will help. You've picked the two that really wilt in the heat. You'll get rain on Wednesday, I hope. 

[old man emu]

The pumpkins are in the shade of some trees and bushes, but the tomatoes have to defy full sun. 

[Litespeed]

Ome,

 

It's always tough with the sun screaming down on the tomatoes.

 

Morning and evening watering helps but could you try drip irrigation around the roots. This can give a constant low flow and tends to stop the wilting. Any water on the leaves in the strong sun acts like magnifying glasses and burns the leaves.

 

I used to use a spray from the worms liquid and a seasol mix as foliage spray late afternoon and used drip irrigation. Very few problems but heat can still knock them about.

 

Given how strong the sun is these days the white shade clothe maybe a big help on scorching days.