Roast Turkey Shanks

It's been a busy week in the eat quaff laugh household and I haven't had much chance to sit down at the computer and write. With my parents over and school holidays in full swing, there has been plenty of baking, eating and drinking going on, but no time to blog.

Yesterday I came across some turkey shanks at the supermarket and knew that I just had to create something delicious with them. The fact that the weather had turned cold again made it almost irresistible to slow roast them. I love turkey, but generally only eat it at Christmas. I've certainly never had turkey shanks before, so was intrigued as to how they would turn out. I needn't have worried, as they were delicious.

After slow roasting, like lamb shanks, for 2 hours, the meat was tender and falling off the bone. Being the dark meat of the thigh, it had a stronger flavour than you would normally expect from turkey breast. I didn't want to overwhelm the flavour of the turkey, so I simply cooked it in onion, garlic and chicken stock. Now that I know that the shanks have a stronger flavour, I might try a tomato and wine based sauce next time.

I served my shanks with some lovely steamed asparagus and roasted cauliflower 'steak' topped with a panko crumb and sesame crumble. I had some left over sweet potato and cashew dip in the fridge that I spread on top too, but you could equally use pesto or just grated cheese and bread crumbs.

I was really impressed with the turkey and will definitely cook it again. The slow cooked meat would be lovely shredded and tossed through a salad, pasta or risotto. For a winter comfort dish, serve with creamy mash or polenta. Yum! The Steggles website has a number of recipes for different cuts of turkey, that sound great too.

Slow Roasted Turkey Shanks With Cauliflower Steak

2 turkey shanks

1 onion, cut into quarters and thinly sliced

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 cups of chicken stock

1/2 a cauliflower (you won't need all of it)

1/4 cup pesto or dip

1 Tbs panko crumbs or regular bread crumbs

1 tsp sesame seeds

Olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Steamed asparagus, or other green vegetable, to serve

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.

Heat a drizzle of oil in a fry pan over medium heat until hot. 

Add the turkey shanks and brown on all sides.  Season to taste.

Remove the shanks to an oven proof casserole dish with a lid.

Add the onion and garlic to the hot pan and gently fry until it begins to soften but doesn't brown.

Add the onion mixture to the shanks and then pour over the chicken stock.

Place in the oven and cook for about 2 hours, or until the meat starts to pull away from the bone.

Every half hour, turn the shanks so that the other side is in the stock, keeping the meat moist and helping it to cook evenly.

For the cauliflower, cut the piece in half and then cut a 2cm thick slice from each centre piece, to make two 'steaks'.

Place on a baking tray and drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until the cauliflower starts to soften.

Remove from the oven, spread with dip or pesto and sprinkle with sesame seeds and panko crumbs. 

Drizzle with a little more oil and return to the oven for another 10 minutes, or until the cauliflower is cooked through and the crumbs have browned.

To serve, place one shank, one cauliflower steak and a bundle of asparagus spears on each plate. Spoon over some of the turkey cooking sauce and onion.

Enjoy!

And To Drink....

We picked up this bottle of 2006 Charles Melton Voices of Angels Shiraz when we were in the Barossa Valley about 5 years ago. It probably wasn't the best match to have with the turkey shanks, but it certainly was a delicious wine. Having a bit of age on it, the tannins had softened and it had become a beautifully complex wine with some oaky spiciness, but still with plum and red berry characteristics. I could quite easily have drunk this wine without having any food with it at all!

My husband felt like a nicer red wine with dinner, and being a Shiraz fan, this was his selection. The turkey was really quite meaty and being dark meat, rather than white breast meat, it had a stronger flavour than I would have expected. A white wine, even an aged Chardonnoy, wouldn't have quite worked either. I think probably a Grenache or even a Merlot, with lots of fruit flavours, but without much tannin, would have been better.

Even though this Shiraz wasn't the perfect match, it did still have characteristics that were lovely with the meal. If I had cooked the turkey with tomatoes and red wine, it would have been wonderful!

Champagne and Fresh Pasta (With a Dash of Shiraz!)

It's been a busy weekend in the eat quaff laugh household. I've had family over to celebrate my little girl's 5th birthday and a couple of other personal celebrations. There has been lots of eating and drinking going on, but no time to actually write about it!

We started off the celebrations on Saturday night with an amazing bottle of 1998 Krug. What a champagne! This was certainly liquid gold! Beautifully yeasty, but still with amazing acidity and stone fruit flavours, it was delicious! My husband is not much of a champagne drinker, but definitely approved of this one. Shame it won't be a regular on the menu. If only we could win Powerball!

The Krug was too beautiful to serve with food. It was drunk with family, as a celebration of life and love, and just to savour the flavours on it's own. The perfect aperitif with loved ones.

Caught up in the wonderful champagne, and maybe a little bit tipsy, I completely forgot to take any pictures of the delicious dinner I'd made. Oops! It was a slow cooked osso bucco and red wine ragu served atop fresh tagliatelle. I didn't make the pasta myself, but the ragu slowly simmered away for 4 hours, making my kitchen smell divine! Fresh pasta definitely turns a simple dish into something sublime.

A slow cooked ragu might not look the most exciting, but what they lack in looks, they certainly make up for in flavour. If you didn't want to serve this with pasta, you could have mashed potato, polenta or couscous. Even just some fresh, crusty bread to mop up all those delicious juices would be fantastic!

Osso Bucco Ragu With Fresh Tagliatelle

1 Tbs butter

A good drizzle of olive oil

1kg osso bucco

2 rashers of short cut bacon, finely chopped
2 carrots, diced
1 onion, peeled and diced
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
4 sprigs of thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
500ml red wine (I used a cabernet)
2x 400g tins of diced tomatoes
1 cup beef stock
250g fresh tagliatelle or other long pasta
Grated parmesan cheese to serve

Preheat oven to 160 degrees.
Heat the butter and oil in an ovenproof casserole dish over medium heat.
Sear the osso bucco pieces, in batches, until browned on both sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.
Add the bacon, carrot, onion and garlic to the pan and cook for 10 minutes or until softened.
Add the red wine and reduce by half the volume. This should take about 5 minutes.
Stir through the tomatoes, stock, thyme and salt and pepper to taste and bring to a simmer.
Return the meat to the pan and make sure it is covered in the juices.
Place a lid on the casserole and bake in the oven for 3 hours, or until the meat has fallen off the bone.
You may need to add a little extra water if it starts to dry out.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
When the meat is cool enough to handle, remove all bones, fat and gristle and coarsely shred the meat back into the sauce.
Season further to taste.
Return the pot to the stove top to simmer gently for another 30-45 minutes, until the meat is tender and the sauce reduced.

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water until al dente.
Fresh pasta should only take about 5 minutes to cook.
Drain well.

To serve, place a twirl of pasta on to your plates and top with a generous spoon of sauce and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

Enjoy!

And To Drink....

I used a lovely Barassa Valley Cabernet to cook with when making the ragu, as I wanted something nice and rich and full bodied.  As there wasn't much of that bottle left after using 500ml in the sauce, I unfortunately had to open something else!

Turkey Flat are another great Barossa Valley winery who create a wonderful selection of red, white and rose wines. The reds are their flagship wines and they produce some pretty amazing drops!

This 2007 Shiraz was a beautiful match to the ragu. Produced from vines planted in 1847, these shiraz vines are some of the oldest in the world. Even though I'd used a cabernet to cook with, the shiraz still matched perfectly. Having seven years of bottle age under it's belt, it was lovely and smooth with a beautiful rounded mouthfeel. The tannins were low and it was very easy to drink! There was some residual sweetness lingering and big plum and blackberry flavours, which complemented the slow cooked sweetness in the beef.

Salads and sun!

I love that time in spring when the weather starts to warm up and you can move away from eating all those heavy winter dishes. Don't get me wrong, I love a slow cooked casserole and rich pudding, but it is nice to have lighter flavours, which don't leave you just wanting to have a snooze on the couch.

Melbourne has recently turned on the weather, and my thoughts have turned to stuffing vegetables with tasty combinations of mince and fresh herbs. Lots of herbs and lemon juice sing spring and summer to me.

This week I was inspired by one of my favourite foodie blogs, Delicieux. Jen always makes the most amazing looking food and her photos are fantastic. Her recent post for Moroccan Chickpea Salad started me thinking about all the possibilities with this great legume.

I had some haloumi left over from the blood orange and chicken salad, so thought I'd use that too, along with some middle eastern flavours. An abundance of mint and parsley in the garden, a lemon tree heavy with fruit and some spices in the cupboard, and I was set.

Now that the salad was organised, I needed something light, but tasty to go with it. I love the flavour of roasted capsicum and thought that the sweetness of the capsicum would work perfectly with a meaty stuffing, again with middle eastern flavours. 

We are lucky enough to live in an area with loads of middle eastern grocers and butchers, so finding the right ingredients is never hard. We eat a lot of goat, and this was the perfect choice to go with the capsicum.

I pre-browned the goat mince with the spices, onion and garlic, so it was sure to be cooked when the capsicums were roasted. I also pre-roasted the capsicums for 10 minutes to start softening them and releasing their juices.  You could have everything prepared the day before, or in the morning, so the final roasting is quick and easy.

Depending on the size of your capsicums, it's likely that you'll have some of the filling left over. Not at all a bad thing. For a simple and easy lunch, heat the left over meat and eat san choy bau style, wrapped up in crisp lettuce leaves. Another option is to make quesadillas by putting some of the filling and grated cheese between two tortillas and frying it up in a dry pan to crisp the outside and melt the cheese. I went with this option for the kids dinner and they devoured it in no time!

Chickpea, Sumac and Haloumi salad

1 400g tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/4 small red onion, finely diced
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup mint, finely chopped
2 tsp sumac (or to your liking)
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil (I used the lemon infused from Cobram Estate)
1 Tbs verjuice
Salt and pepper
100g haloumi, sliced into 1/2cm slices
Olive oil for frying

Combine all the ingredients, except haloumi, in a bowl.
Adjust the seasoning or sumac to your taste. Allow to sit for an hour, if you can, for the flavours to infuse.
When ready to eat, heat a fry pan on moderate heat with a thin layer of olive oil. Fry the haloumi slices until browned, then flip and brown the other side.
Gently toss the hot haloumi into the salad and serve.

Goat Stuffed Roasted Capsicums

2 red capsicums
1/2 a red onion, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely diced
500g goat mince (or lamb if you prefer)
1/2 cup fresh coriander, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
Cut capsicums in half and scoop out the seeds and membrane. Place them on an oven tray sprayed with oil spray and roast for 10 to 15 minutes, until they are just starting to soften, but not fall apart.
While the capsicums are roasting, prepare the filling.
Heat a drizzle of oil in a fry pan and cook mince until just starting to brown, breaking up the big pieces with a wooden spoon. Drain the fat off and set aside.
In the same pan, cook onion and garlic until starting to soften. Add the browned mince, ground cumin and coriander, chilli flakes, salt and pepper to taste.
When combined and you are happy with the flavours, take the pan off the heat and add the fresh coriander and lemon juice.
Take the capsicums out of the oven and fill with the mince mixture. Put left overs in the fridge for tomorrows lunch!
Return tray to the oven for another 20 mins or until the filling is cooked and the capsicum is nicely roasted and softened.

Serve with the chickpea salad.

Chickpea salad with goat roasted capsicum

The Perfect Drop

Even though this was a nice light dish, it still had pretty strong flavours with all those middle eastern spices and the sweetness of the goat and roasted capsicum. We love a nice big red in this house, so a Barossa Shiraz from one of our favourite wineries, Kellermeister, was perfect. This big red, the Dry Grown Barossa Shiraz, was actually under the Trevor Jones label but they went their separate ways a few years ago.It was full of berry and plummy flavours with a good amount of tannin. 

We recently went to the Kellermeister annual tasting in Melbourne and stocked up on some of their amazing premium red wines. They do also make wonderful white wines and a very quaffable rose, which are perfect for summer. It's well worth checking out the wines that these guys make. They are a talented bunch!

Trevor Jones Dry Grown Barossa Shiraz