This was the last lesson of Meat, the class next week is called revision, but it’s really a test of knowledge and skill regarding what we’ve learned over the past four weeks. I really enjoyed this class, and where as two of the meat cuts are a little unusual, they happen to be favourites of mine. In order of preparation we made; Braised Beef Cheek Bourguignon with Crushed Potato and Green Beans, Tea smoked Kangaroo with Root Vegetables & Grilled Marinated Rump Steak with Sesame Seeds and a dipping sauce. My favourites being the Beef Cheeks and the Kangaroo.
The Beef Cheeks, which take approximately 3 hours in the oven under a cartouche at 180C, needed to go in immediately. The cartouche controls the rate of evaporation which slows the reduction of moisture. Being a bourguignon sauce, bacon was used, so very little salt should be added at the beginning, seasoning can be adjusted to taste at the end of the cooking process. Well-cooked Beef Cheeks can practically be eaten with a spoon and I can’t describe just how tender and unctuous they are. When the Beef Cheeks were ready, I removed the meat, mushroom and pearl onions from the pan and drained the sauce, which was lip smacking delicious! The potato was simply boiled in its skin, seasoned & crushed into a ring cutter, bathed in softened butter and then baked in the oven for approximately 30 min at 180c until it was golden. I made the potato again when I got home as it looked so good and I didn’t have time to eat any in class. The plating of this dish came easier to me than some to date, it’s a dish I am familiar with and make several times over the Winter months at my son’s request. That is a crisp piece of bacon atop the beef.
People outside of Australia might find it interesting, strange and/or terrible that some Aussies enjoy a little bit of Skippy on our plate! There are of course many who don’t, but I am firmly in the ‘like’ category and really enjoy a well-cooked piece of farmed Kangaroo meat. It is a very lean meat which needs to be cooked quickly on high heat. As you can see, it’s quite dark in colour and perhaps as expected has a gamey flavour, which lends itself perfectly to pairing with a fruit glaze. The aim is to serve the meat medium rare, around 58C. In class, the meat was first smoked over a bed of tea, rice, sugar and maple syrup, before being finished off in a very hot pan and served with a robust, albeit a little too sweet for my taste, blueberry glaze.
The first task in preparing the rump was to make the marinade and the dipping sauce. After marinating for approximately 40 minutes, the rump was lightly seasoned & oiled and cooked on a hot French grill until the internal temperature reached 58–60 C (medium rare). I love, love, love my new meat probe thermometer, at just $9.99 AUD at IKEA it was a bargain and a fantastic way to ensure meat is cooked exactly how intended. I know there are meat gurus who can do this without any fancy probe, simply by touching or looking at the meat, sadly I am not one of them so thank goodness for the probe. As there were no small dishes for the dipping sauce, we simply added the sauce to the plate. A nice salad and some sweet potato fries to accompany perhaps?
As next week is the exam (or revision), I doubt that I will have time to snap photos, it’s challenging enough during class, but I’ll see how I go. The three recipes we have to recreate are; Goat Curry with Minted Yoghurt (Lesson Three), Seared Lambs Liver with Onion Rings and Garlic Mash (Lesson Three) and Grilled Marinated Rump Steak with Sesame Seeds and a dipping sauce (Lesson Four). In addition to class, I’ve also had three more service periods confirmed by chef; coming up is a small dinner, which will be table service and a wedding, which will count for two service periods…… that will make five….whittling them down slowly.
Bon Appetit
Kathryn 💙👩🍳
Marinated grilled Rump Steak with toasted Sesame Seeds
A tasty and tender grilled steak with asian flavours. Paired with some sweet potato fries and a salad or steamed greens, it’s a quick weekday option when you’re short of time.
- 200 gm Rump Steak
- 20 gm Peanut oil
- 20 gm Toasted sesame seeds
- 1 clove Garlic, minced
- 20 gm Fresh ginger, grated
- 60 ml Soy Sauce, light
- 15 ml Sake
- 15 gm Sugar, white
- 2 gm Shichimi Togarahsi, Japanese seven spice mix
- 20 mls Water
- 5 gm Miso paste, red
- 1 Green spring onion, cut finely on the diagonal.
Make the marinade: combine the garlic, half the ginger, half the soy sauce, sugar, sake and half the seven spice in a bowl. Taste and adjust to your taste
Add the steak to the marinade and leave for minimum of 30 minutes.
Cut the spring onion in fine diagonal slices and place in iced water.
Make the dipping sauce: Combine the remaining ginger, remaining seven spice & remaining soy sauce with the miso and water. Taste and adjust to taste – sugar can be added if desired.
Remove the steak from the marinade, pat dry and brush with oil. Pan fry or grill on French grill to medium rare (58c – 60c).
Roll the cooked steak in the toasted sesame seeds and rest.
Plate the steak, either cut into diagonal slice or cubes. Serve dipping sauce either in separate dish or over the meat and scatter the cut spring onion on top.
I’m hoping the Braised Beef Cheek Bourguignon with Crushed Potato and Green Beans will be on the menu next time I visit – i just love beef cheeks! 🙄💖
It is now….we may even have a roof…not too sure if the floor or ceilings will be in 😳 Can’t wait to see you x
A good lesson today Kathryn. I’m also in the “like” camp when it comes to Skippy. However, I’ve only had it once- I wish we could get it here, but nope not yet. We can get beef cheeks as well as pig cheeks, so your Braised Beef Cheek Bourguignon caught my eye. The rump steak dish looks yummy, I’ll have to compare your rump cut to our cuts and find a suitable cut to give that one a try.
Thanks Ron… I haven’t had pig cheeks but as I enjoy Pork I am sure I would like them. The attitude to eating Kangaroo in Aus is interesting; this is traditional bush tucker of our indigenous Australian’s, but adoption by the non-indigenous Australians has been very slow/almost non-existent. Hopefully things are changing, albeit at a glacial pace!
What a great lesson! You’re taking me back to my culinary school days. I loved studying certain topics like this so intensely. The rump steak with the sesame seeds look SO delicious!
That’s very kind of you Valentina, thank you. I wanted to document the passage of home cook to trained cook…I know the work at college is only part of it and experience under a chef is really important. The rump steak was very tender and tasty. I would have preferred to also serve it with sides, as a complete meal, but at this stage we have completed those components so it’s more just about the meat.
Good luck with your exams! The challenges seem to be ramping up…as for the kangaroo meat, is the way you learned to cook it in class the most popular, the easiest, or the fanciest?
Thank you… I am just home and it went really well so I am riding a high right now 😊 I have only had it cooked this way – quickly on high heat. But another Blogger I follow who also does great travel blog (Hotly Spiced) shared with me that her son makes Kangaroo Pie and I think that would be fabulous…
Hooray on your exam going well! I’ll have to head over to Hotly Spiced to look into this kangaroo pie idea.
Thank you for your lovely comment 😊
I love your banner photo. What a beautiful kitchen! The course sounds amazing. Good luck with all the dishes you have to recreate. My son loves to cook kangaroo and makes a really good kangaroo pie xx
Thank you…. I am very grateful that I have such a nice space to enjoy my passion.
Kangaroo Pie sounds fabulous…I think it’s a great meat and also a healthy one and would love to see it embraced by Aussies.
On that point, I’m reading a fantastic book a friend put me onto ” The Getting of Garlic” by John Newton, which unravels the lack of Australian ‘food culture’ and why we have not embraced the foods specific to our island home. Very interesting.
Well Kathryn good luck for next week!. I am going off to Ikea to find one of those probes. I have to say in a professional kitchen a probe is a very important tool and now that you are experienced at using it it will be invaluable. They are generally far more expensive that that. When in a big operation you can’t feel each tray of meat or meatballs or chicken but you can certainly stick a prob into various places in a tray and see how you are going
Thank you fro taking the time to comment! My Chef at college put me onto the probe…it’s great. I did have to ask one of the helpful floor staff where they were located as they were tucked away a bit.
I have never tasted kangaroo, so I found this interesting. The meat looked a lot like venison, which we are quite familiar with here and it sounds like they share a similar cooking technique. I thought your plating was lovely, especially the photo of the rump steak!
Thanks so much Dorothy. You are spot on, it is like Venison, with that deep red colour and the taste of game. The Rump Steak was one of the dishes I had to redo in my revision…which I am just writing up now.