Category Archives: Recipes – Meat – Other

Abalone con Riso allo Zafferano

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A dear friend gave us four abalones. We have not often cooked this before but we knew that we could not mess this up. Many videos were watched, shockingly some recipes included so many additives that one could replace the abalone with just about anything and not notice. Mrs BYF’s simple effort was absolutely delicious so here is the recipe:

Firstly, lock all the doors so no one can come in and share. Then tenderise the abalone by beating it with as mallet or, go the dramatic African way by tying it in a tea towel and smashing it repeatedly on the back step. Both ways worked beautifully.

Recipe

Heat a large cast iron skillet

4 Abalones tenderised and sliced in 2cm thick slices

150g Butter

2 Cloves garlic chopped

Handful of parsley

No salt was needed, so don’t be tempted lest the abalone goes tough

Melt the butter in the hot pan and add the garlic, then the abalone. Stir the abalone turning it over a few times and fry for about 2 minutes. The result was lovely soft abalone that tasted of the sea. We like raw fish so if some of it was a bit underdone we were happy. We ate it sprinkled with parsley, on saffron rice and with a fresh salad from the garden.

We opened a bottle (or two) of wonderful Prosecco for the occasion. After lunch we had to have a nap.

Kentucky Fried Rabbit

with Polenta and Zucchini

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Even though I am not a loyal KFC customer, I know lots of people who are (Obviously not close friends of mine). When I stumbled upon an Italian food site claiming to have “acquired” the famous KFC recipe (tongue in cheek off course from the Italians) and disclosed it all on their page, I was interested. I am often asked how to cook rabbit as I have AMPLE supplies in my freezer, my standard answer always is that you can cook it in any way you cook chicken. Having made the connection between chicken and rabbit and having the secret recipe at hand, I was determined to try some KFR (Kentucky Fried Rabbit) or DFR (Dunedin Fried Rabbit) in my mission to eat every one of these NZ PESTS!!!

It was my turn to cook Saturday lunch and I thought I may as well try my new adventurous recipe on Mrs BYF. Weighing out the ingredients to the closest gram and carefully following the intricate steps of the recipe, I had some food on the plates about two hours later and to my BIG SURPRISE it was very good (Some of my regular KFC munchers even seriously commented it to be better than the famous KFC!!!) Watch out Colonel here comes New Zealand!!

BILTONG

Biltong

Cut the meat (Silverside, Topside or Rump) into strips of about 25 mm thick. Remove excess fat, but not all. Also clean meat up by removing connective tissue, lumps, glands and non solid pieces of meat.

Mix enough 25 : 75 :: Worcestershire Sauce : Brown Vinegar to quickly dip and rinse the meat in and then put in a flat container, layer by layer. Sprinkle Biltong Spice Mix to start with in the container, then follow with a layer of meat. Repeat until all the spice and meat has been used. Put in fridge for 12 hours, turn and put back in fridge for 12 hours.

Meat can be hanged as is, or washed with a 10% brown vinegar water solution (boiled and cooled) and then hanged. Make sure the hanging area is about 12 C and well ventilated.

Biltong Spice Mix

For every 1kg of meat mix the following spices:

  • 18 g coarse Salt
  • 2 g coarse cracked Black Pepper
  • 1 g brown Sugar
  • 4 g coarse roasted and screened Coriander
  • 1 g Sodium Bi Carbonate

Mix all spices well together

The ITALIANS go INDIAN with KIWI Rabbits

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Being creative in the kitchen is a lot of fun, especially if one can rely on the hunter who often brings lovely, fresh, organic rabbit. He hunts on properties where insecticides are not used, and the grass is not sprayed with hormones and other awful things.  Mrs BYF has always loved chicken tikka saag, with saag in restaurants being mostly spinach, so she decided to re create the dish using a young rabbit and some tender stinging nettle tips. I do not normally enjoy Indian food, but this was delicious. What made it even more delicious is that the main ingredients were free. The rabbit was a gift and the nettles were picked by me in a friend’s vegetable garden!

1 rabbit cut up in pieces

1 cup blanched nettle tips, seeds included if they are still green

1/4 cup vegetable oil for frying

1 table spoon of flour (I know this is the hard one!)

1 medium onion finely chopped

1 teaspoon fresh ginger

1 small chili

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

4 cardamom pods, smashed

1 teaspoon coriander seeds ground

2 cloves garlic

2 teaspoons garam masala

1 cinnamon stick

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup of stock, I used home made quail stock

Heat the oil in a pot or pan big enough to hold all the rabbit pieces lying flat. Brown the rabbit well and remove from the pan. In the same pan, fry the onion until soft then add all the other ingredients except the nettles. Fry the spices until they release their aromas. Add the nettles, the rabbit and the stock, sprinkle the flour over the mix, stir until the rabbit is covered in sauce, cover the pan and cook on medium heat for about 1 hour (this depends on the age of the rabbit) until tender.

I served the dish with a cup of cooked basmati rice, tinted a lovely yellow by adding a teaspoonful of turmeric.

Mrs BYF has done well again and we washed it all down with some home made Elderberry Wine

Risotto con le Ortiche – Stinging Nettle Risotto

Our attempt to buy as little as possible from the supermarkets is paying off! It is almost as if we had spent the past 5 years preparing for this lockdown event.  We have not visited the supermarket since two weeks before lockdown started, and will go to get only white vinegar and body wash tomorrow morning as early as possible. The vegetable garden is now going into winter and everything has slowed down in the cool weather, we have some beans, artichokes, cardoon, lettuces, rocket, potatoes, leeks, spring onions, a few green tomatoes, lots of fruit and so on left to pick. One source of greens, however that is growing well now with lots of tender young shoots is stinging nettle. There are a few plants in the chook run that the chooks like to peck at, but they left enough for us to harvest. We love the taste and since today was leftover day, which means risotto with everything in the fridge, Mrs BYF pulled it all together by adding a handful chopped  stinging nettle. The result was so delicious that I decided to share

Stinging nettle also makes wonderful pesto  – just use nettle instead of basil

Risotto with everything and Stinging Nettle

1 Cup blanched stinging nettle. The blanching gets rid of the sting, if you use gloves you can skip the blanching

1 Cup diced leftover roasted lamb (home butchered) including the gravy left in the pot

4 Skinny leeks (out of the garden) chopped including the leaves

4 Spring onions (out of the garden) chopped including the leaves

2 Cloves garlic (out of the garden) chopped

1 Green chilli (out of the garden) chopped

11/2 Cup of Arborio rice

1 Litre of good unsalted stock, I used home made quail and vegetable, kept hot on the side

1/4 Cup or more of olive oil or vegetable oil for frying

1/2 Cup grated parmigiano to sprinkle at the table

Salt and pepper to taste

Mrs BYF uses her trusty medium sized cast iron pot which is good for everything

Pour the oil in the pot, add the chopped leeks and spring onions and fry gently until tender, put the garlic in towards the end of the process to avoid it burning. Add the rice and fry until the first grain pops then pour in a glass of white wine (home made). When the wine has evaporated, ladle about a cup full of stock on to the rice, more if needed to stop the rice from sticking. Now keep stirring to gelatinise the starch in the rice slowly over low heat to make a creamy risotto, intermittently adding a few spoonfuls of stock, not too much at a time. When the rice is almost al dente, it takes about 20 minutes, add the  diced meat and the nettles. Heat through, check for salt and pepper and serve immediately in warmed bowls or pasta plates. Sprinkle with lots of grated parmigiano at the table.

Enjoy with a couple of glasses of home made red wine !!!