On the radio
So today I was on the radio. Regular readers here and over at Yummy Lummy will know of my love of the iconic Australian pastry treat, viz., the Vanilla Slice. I joined Jolene Laverty on Lish Fejer‘s Sunday Brunch show on ABC Canberra, and we talked about our love of vanilla slice.
As an aside, Who listens to the radio? by The Sports was one of my favourite songs growing up.
I mentioned Jolene earlier in January after she wrote a brilliant piece for The Guardian and she was kind enough to mention my vanilla slice review on Yummy Lummy. Lish reached out to Jolene to appear on her show and she generously extended the invitation to me too. I had a lot of fun. I’ve appeared on radio and TV before when I was working in Darwin, but this was my first in-studio experience.
Jolene had made some vanilla slice after she wasn’t able to buy any at her chosen bakery yesterday. I brought in some from the new Dobinsons Bakery Cafe at Westfield Belconnen. I really liked the flavour of Jolene’s slice. It had a lovely caramel flavour to it and the pastry was thin but it held enough without being friable.
The Dobinsons slice was really very good. I brought it in because Jolene had mentioned she hadn’t tried a slice with passionfruit icing. The custard of the Dobinsons’ slide had a near perfect consistency. It was soft and tongueable. As Goose would say, these are the ducks guts.
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It was fun eating and talking while on the radio.
Hear me on the radio
You can hear the fun we had from about the 35 minute mark. Click on the link and it opens the ABC site and you can listen to Lish’s entire show from today. We even had the High Commissioner from New Zealand telling us about his favourite vanilla slice too.
More cooking news
This week I received in the mail two products (which I paid for) to help me cook meat. The first is a MEATER® thermometer and the second is an Anova Culinary precision cooker.
MEATER® thermometer
This is a very fancy meat thermometer which despite oven temperatures can communicate via Blue Tooth or Wi-Fi with a smartphone app. While I do own an old fashioned meat thermometer, I like the idea of using something that I can read in real time without having to open the oven door. I’ll be writing a proper review for Yummy Lummy soon.
I like that with meat thermometers I won’t overcook my meat. I just need to get the internal temperature to the desired temperature, remove the meat from the heat source and then let my meat rest.
My default for cooking chicken has been to cook for an hour at 200 °C. The meat was always moist but I always wondered if I could cook the muscle for a shorter period. Obviously, cooking chicken requires some care, so getting the internal temperature of the largest muscle bundle to 75 °C is paramount. The MEATER® turned out to be a great aid. I was able to more than halve the cooking time. The flesh was juicy, moist and tender. The juices ran clear and I felt safe.
Last night I cooked a piece of Scotch fillet steak in the oven using my MEATER® and it was delicious. I even went to the extent of searing the outside with a kitchen torch.
Sous Vide Everything
Over many years I’ve contemplated sous vide cooking. I know it’s recently become a fad and up until recently, I had assumed that unless I used old second-hand laboratory equipment I’d be up for a really expensive closed system. I didn’t realise I could purchase a water recirculator and a plastic bucket to do the job.
I’ve been watching Sous Vide Everything on YouTube and the hosts (who are South Americans living in Florida), have convinced me there is an affordable and space conscious way to cook sous vide.
One of my major concerns was where to set up a cooker in the one bedroom flat I rent. There is barely enough space for the bench top oven and induction hob I use. I see that with a detachable water recirculator I can use a plastic bucket to store things and put it away after each use.
While the recirculator arrived this week, I’m still waiting for the plastic bucket and lid. I bought the container via Amazon Australia and expect delivery later this month. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m excited about cooking salmon and red meat sous vide.
What else happened this week?
Not much really. That said, I did break the 79 kg barrier that I’ve been sitting on for so long. I expect after today’s vanilla slice extravaganza though, I may be approaching 80 kg when I weigh in tomorrow morning 😳 😜
Graph of my weight loss since October 2017
What I ate this week
Monday dinner
Baked salmon and a colourful fennel salad
Tuesday lunch
Leftover salmon
Tuesday dinner
Chicken Maryland cooked with the help of the MEATER®. The tomatoes were a gift from a workmate. They were amazing.
Wednesday dinner
Chicken Maryland cooked with the help of the MEATER®
Thursday dinner
Baked speck and vegetables
Friday lunch
Chicken schnitzel with chips and gravy
Friday dinner
Speck and fennel salad
Saturday breakfast
Crispy bacon and poached eggs
Saturday lunch
Macca’s Nugs and mustard
Saturday dinner
Scotch fillet steak cooked with the aid of the MEATER®
This is a gallery of photographs showing a sequence of what I did to prepare the steak. Click on one photograph and scroll through each image.
Sunday breakfast
Coon cheese and sesame seed omelet
Sunday lunch
I ate vanilla slices
Final words
I’m not sure if you’ll ever hear me on the radio again, I hope so, it was a lot of fun.
I’ll be enjoying a pork chop for dinner. I’m not sure if anything exciting is happening in the week to come. I hope you have a good week and eat well.
Ducks guts
A great piece of Australian slang and best epitomised by one of the best sequences of cinema ever made. In fact, I prefer watching this than anything else I’ve ever seen at the movies including Star Trek movies.
Hear Goose at about the 1 minute mark but better yet, watch the entire clip.
NATIONAL CLUBS GYMNASTICS CARNIVAL 2017 MY JOURNEY TO AND FROM BENDIGO