There was nothing but a dozen prawns, some celery, and cream in the fridge and it needed to feed two – so time to figure out how to make it so we could feast on something ridiculously delicious and filling.

Doing a normal fry up just wasn’t gunna cut it as that would normally just be an entrée, considered an Asian-style soup but lacked some key ingredients, so with some soul searching and wine-induced inspiration we decided to make a chowder.

Chowder is basically just a thicker creamy soup, traditionally people use starchy junk to thicken it up, but we avoid unnecessary processed products and excess carbohydrates so had a go with just real food.

Discussion in the forums.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons of ghee/butter
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1 cup of white wine
• 1/2 tablespoon of lemon zest
• 700ml of stock (preferably crab/seafoodish)
• 12 raw prawns
• 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped chives
• 200ml of cream
• 2 dollops of mascarpone
• salt and pepper to taste

Serves two moderately hungry folk.

Preparation/Cook Time

2-3 glasses of wine.

Method

Dry off the prawns.

Rip off the tails/shell and chuck them into a pot with the stock, in this case it was a crab stock that we’d previously made and frozen, but I guess any kind of seafood or vegetable stock might do.

Many people don’t like the shell, but I reckon the crunch of a prawn tail is fantastic, not to mention packed with great nutrients.

Reduce the stock gently to 250ml while preparing the other stuff.

Salt and pepper the prawns and leave them to sit there and think about what they’ve done.

Chop the onion, try not to cry girly man, sauté gently for 2 mins in ghee/butter.

Chop the celery, crush the garlic like a mortal enemy – then add them to the pan.

Cook till tender and slightly browned.

Deglaze the pan with the wine, reducing by half.

Also whilst cooking it’s very beneficial to reduce the rest of the bottle of wine by drinking it.

Add the reduced stock and stir in, continue simmering gently.

I don’t have a food processor, if you are rich enough to own one though you can strain about half the celery and onion, allowing to cool sightly, then process till smooth as a baby’s butt, then return it to the pan. This helps thicken it without adding evil crap like flour and stuff to it.

Plop in the cream.

Because of our lack of food processor we just HULK SMASH old school style.

Simmer for a bit longer until it’s sorta thicker, then toss in the prawns, lemon zest and half the herbs.

Simmer for 3-4 min until prawns are only just cooked.

Too long and they go can go rubbery, we want them to basically be edible by a granny with no teeth.

Serve in bowls garnished with remaining fresh herbs, and plop a dollop of marscapone on top.

Serve with a decent reisling or pinot gris.

Let it make love to your tastebuds.

Discussion in the forums.

There’s a whole host of reasons why broth is awesome nutritionally, I can’t be arsed going over them right now though, but this page has a bunch of decent info.

About 3kg of marrow and soup bones.

Chuck ‘em in a roasting pan with some onion and garlic.

After an hour or so in the oven at about 200°C/400°F they are good to go.

Mmmmarrow!

Deglaze the pan.

Chuck all the bones and deglazed stuff into a big pot.

Cover with water. Add salt and pepper and stuff if you like.

Bring it to the boil, then simmer on ultra low for a day or two.

Here’s after about 12 hours:

Perfectly fine as is for a base to a soup or whatever, but I want a drinkable broth, so I’ll reduce it slowly for another 12-24 hours.

A day later:

Remove all the stuff – FWIW the meat is tender as hell, but almost completely tasteless. This is good, means all the flavour has gone into the broth.

Ended up with about 1.3L/44floz of broth.

Distributed into 5 servings of 250-300ml each.

Then just chuck ‘em into the chilly bits for storage – fridge if you’re consuming it within a week, in the freezer if it’ll take longer than that.

So, a few days later you want yourself a nice broth hit to get your day going, here’s my recommended method:

250g serving from freezer – about 50% of which is pure fat – full of lovely bone marrow and connective tissue stuff, gets your morning supercharged bro.

Just drop it in a pot on low heat and it should schloop out – hopefully before the plastic melts.

Here it is half-melted. Mmm, fat.

Drop in a couple meatballs, from This recipe, some chives too.

Smoosh the meatballs into chunks, and because this broth is a long way from what I’m used to drinking in such things like Cup O Soup etc, I’m adding in an Oxo Cube to give it a more familiar flavour.

Simmer for a bit, then tip it in a mug, ya mug.

Just like a cup o soup, only meaty.

Dropped into Star of Greece on the way home for brekky/lunch, started the day with a glass of Pol Roger…

The oysters naturale with caviar and chives and stuff.

Maybe I need more silverware to tackle this…?

Salt and Szechuan Pepper Squid.

Scallops and stuff – they’re actually quite larger than they look in the pic.

Tuna sashimi with wasabi caviar and other stuff.

Smoked eel in some kind of bacon broth I think.

Didn’t really take any shots of the view, it’s fairly damn good – depending on where you get seated though.

Only took this one in the carpark…

Overall, amazing quality food, lots of effort goes into every single dish and you can see where the somewhat elevated price comes from.

My recommendation – do as we did, don’t bother getting a regular main meal (we saw others getting them and they were just basic steak/fish n chips/salmon/etc), just order a whole bunch of entree’s.

If anyone cares maybe I’ll put up a proper recipe, for now, here’s a drunk guy making meatballs:

Oh, and for those interested, the “transcript”:

0:00 – Fade from black
0:05 – Chop half an onion
0:30 – 3 tbsp of ghee in frying pan
0:45 – Add onion to pan
1:00 – Smash and chop 4 cloves of garlic
1:30 – Add garlic to pan
1:50 – Peel and chop chorizo
2:40 – 500g of beef mince in a bowl
2:50 – Chop some chives and parsley
3:05 – Chuck chorizo, chives, and parsley into mixture
3:15 – Crack two eggs into mixture
3:25 – HULK SMOOSH
3:45 – Put onion and garlic into mixture
3:50 – SMOOSH
4:05 – Pinch off mozzorella chunks
4:15 – Create base of meatball
4:20 – Insert cheese into ball
4:25 – Put lid on meatball
4:30 – Play with your balls
4:55 – Voila! 16 balls – ah ah ah!
5:05 – Spare burger patty
5:25 – Balls in the pan
6:00 – Flip balls
6:15 – Remove balls
6:30 – Burger in pan
6:40 – Meatballs EXTREME CLOSE-UP
6:45 – Money shot
7:00 – Burger flip
7:15 – Meatball taste test (“fuck yeah”)
7:40 – Burger transfer
7:50 – Parmesan application
8:00 – Fat storage
8:10 – Sauce to pan
8:30 – 3 points
8:50 – Burger EXTREME CLOSE-UP
9:10 – Burger innards EXTREME CLOSE-UP
9:15 – Burger taste test (“fuck yeah”)
9:30 – Balls back in pan with sauce
9:45 – Sauce taste teste (“fuck yeah”)
9:55 – Balls n sauce EXTREME CLOSE-UP
10:10 – Add run-off from balls back to pan
10:30 – Marinating balls off heat
10:50 – Flipping balls
11:00 – Serving balls
11:05 – Applying parmesan
11:15 – Parmesan sauced balls EXTREME CLOSE-UP
11:25 – Sauce n balls in pan EXTREME CLOSE-UP
11:35 – Matured balls EXTREME CLOSE-UP
11:55 – Instagram wanker
12:10 – Money shot
12:20 – Taste test (“fuck yeah”)
12:25 – Money shot
12:30 – Fade to black

That is not a heart-shaped box – kinda.

D’awwww. Our hands on my heart…

But, now we’re hungry – let’s get cooking!

Ingredients

• Medium size beef heart (1kg/2lb)
• 1/4 cup gluten free flour
• Salt and pepper
• 2 carrots, quartered
• 2 celery sticks, sliced
• 1 parsnip, cubed
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3 tablespoons of butter
• 1 tablespoon of duck fat
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon of rosemary, chopped
• 1 teaspoon of dried thyme, chopped
• 1 chilli, pierced
• 1 cup of red wine
• 2-3 cups of beef stock

TL;DR Instructions

• Slice heart into strips
• Coat with flour, salt, and pepper
• Sear for ~40 secs each side in butter/fat
• Sauté onion and garlic
• Deglaze pot with red wine
• Reduce wine by half
• Add bay leaves, chilli, herbs, and onion – stir
• Add heart slices – stir
• Add beef stock to just about cover the meat
• Simmer for half an hour
• Add veggies
• Simmer for 2+ hours
• Eat your heart out

Timing

Preparation: 1 glass of wine

Cook: 1-6 bottles of wine – depending on number of guests and cook time

Method

Cut heart into 1/2 inch slices, lengthwise.

Whilst the heart itself is very well covered in fat, the inside is quite lean, and has a great feeling texture.

Combine flour, salt, and pepper.

I’m personally not one for eating flour products, but this isn’t a huge amount, we only used about 1/4-1/3 of a cup in the end.

Coat heart slices.

It’s actually a very light dusting, and will mostly come off in the bottom of the pot to help create the sauce.

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 tablespoon of duck fat in a pot.

Or whatever fat you have handy really.

Over medium heat, sear the heart pieces for ~40 secs per side.

Doesn’t really matter if you under or over do it, this is really just creating the base for the sauce, the meat itself will be cooked slowly for hours yet.

Thought I’d try a piece just how it comes out seared – very nice. The texture is a bit rubbery but it’s not chewy, and the taste is quite strong – about halfway between rump steak and liver. The girl did not approve, but I thought it was quite decent.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pan and sauté onion and garlic, do not brown.

Deglaze pot with red wine and reduce by half.

Don’t sweat it on the wine choice, I’ve used shitty box goon and $85 a bottle stuff to make sauces before – I can’t tell the difference – it’s always amazing.

Add the bay leaves, chilli, herbs, and onion. Mix it up a bit.

Add the heart and mix it around to get it well distributed, and put in enough beef stock to just about cover the meat.

Leave on low-medium heat – just bubbling – for 30 minutes, you should be halfway through your second glass of wine by now, enjoy the aromas floating around the house, then add the rest of the veggies.

Leave it to cook for another 2+ hours, stirring a couple times.

The longer you cook it the more soft and delectable the meat will be, around about 2 hours leaves the meat with a slight spongey texture, but very soft without being chewy.

We then removed the meat and veg from the broth and served it with mashed spuds, and used some of the broth to make a gravy (not pictured), however this would be equally well served as a stew or even chunky soup.

The Verdict

Amazing.

Most of the “gamey” taste of the heart that was experienced after a quick sear was gone, and it was just a deep – well, hearty – taste left.

The final texture of the meat after 2+ hours is kind of spongey but not chewy at all, really enjoyable, and I suspect the leftovers we have will make a sensational base for another stew.

Hearty stew – 10/10 would beat again.

This is a relatively simple and almost infallible method for consistently cooking a perfect steak and sauce, all in a single pan and with limited effort.

Prep/cook time: 2-3 glasses of wine

Total hands-on time: 10 mins

This recipe and method is a slight butchering of Sexy Time Steak by Tim Ferriss, from his new book The Four Hour Chef. As a hyper-learning fan from way back (I have more books on accelerated learning from my teenage years than Playboy mags) and an avid cook, this book really calls to me.

It’s not a book about just becoming a great cook – within it is a clandestine blueprint to becoming a great *anything* – but I reckon it’ll get you to being decent enough in the kitchen if you follow it.

Calling T4HC a cookbook for geeks is like calling Fight Club a boxing movie for the lazy. (yeah I’ve read the book too, but I reckon the movie is way better – apart from Marla’s line about grade school, it didn’t quite have the ring of the alternate abortion statement…)

In the end there’s some legit criticism levelled against it, it’s quite scattered and random in some ways, but I think the author is just trying to take you through the same process - albeit accelerated - that he went through to get where he is, I recognise the sentiment, and the failings of the approach. The whole “learn by my mistakes” thing is an attractive goalpost, but for many of us we still NEED to learn by mistakes.

In this case, I think Tim’s book is fantastic for those who have tried and failed, or at least tried and had mediocre results then resorted back to normal habits, there are some real sharp mostly failproof guidelines to success, along with some good guides to seeking success.

Also to note, I have the Kindle version – Tim has specifically mentioned this should be a benchtop book, even in this digital age.

Anyhoo enough about the book, let’s talk about Sexy Time Steak…

Ingredients

• 400-600g steak (ribeye/scotch gives best results easiest)
• half an onion (or a few sliced mushrooms)
• 3-5 spriggs of Rosemary (or whatever)
• 3 cloves of garlic (or more, can never have too much)
• knob of butter (grass-fed if you please)
• chunk of fat (tallow/lard/ghee/coconut oil/whatever)
• half glass of red wine (doesn’t really matter what)

TL;DR Instructions

• dry steak with paper towel
• put in freezer for up to an hour, don’t freeze (dries surface)
• rub in some garlic, salt, pepper
• heat oven-proof pan and fat/oil to scorched earth levels
• sear each side for about a minute
• lay down the herb spriggs and onion slices and put the steak on top
• stick it in the oven until it reaches temp
  • 50°C/120°F for bleu
  • 55°C/130°F for rare
  • 60°C/140°F for med-rare
  • (if you’re here for anything else you don’t deserve to be reading this, go away)
• transfer steak to plate, put it in turned off oven
• put frypan on med heat for a few minutes to finish off the sauce
• tip sauce on steak
• serve that mofo

Operational Hardware

I’ve had a couple fails with this Sexy Time Steak method, but I realise now it’s largely because my oven is a big effing liar about it’s temperature. I’d previously been setting the temp on the oven dial – a Miele mind you – at Tim’s recommended 93°C/200°F, however after way overcooking two steaks I suspected shenanigans and so used my wireless temperature gauge to give me a “true” reading. As it turns out, 70°C/160°F indicated actually sets the oven at the right temp, who knows what the “proper” 93°C/200°F temp would have given in reality – basically, it cooked the meat way too quickly for me to catch it so stick to temps between 70-90°C/160-200°F.

The Meat

Before having discovered this flaw, I decided I was going to nail this recipe – if not improve it – and so went ahead and bought a whole slab of ribeyes to practice on for the next week.

This is how I “dry age” my steaks at home. Of course you can eat them whenever, but I’ve found optimum to be about 4 days stored like this.

In today’s case, I’m just cutting a piece off and going for it.

The Dry

Drying the surface as much as possible, Tim recommends “dry brining” which is basically putting salt flakes on the meat (to draw out moisture) and leaving it in the fridge overnight, I’m too lazy to be that prepared so I just skip to the paper towel step.

Then chuck it in the freezer for 45-60 mins, this apparently evaporates any extra moisture from the surface.

The Rub

Then for each side use half a clove of garlic chopped into a few pieces and crushed with the side of a knife, take the garlic and rub it onto the meat. Then go ahead and rub some salt and pepper into it.

The Sear

Heat the pan up to scorched earth levels, toss in some fat of some kind – I like ghee – and then cook the surface of the steak for about a minute on each side.

The Flavour

Lay down a bed of onions and herb sprigs.

Then lay out the meat on the bed of herby stuff (in this case, onions, garlic, rosemary). This both infuses a bit of the flavour and sets us up for a delicious sauce and stuff, but also removes the steak from the direct heat of the pan to prevent it overcooking or heating up too quickly.

The Transfer

Chuck the pan in the oven – pre-heated to about 93°C/200°F. In this case the inner temp of the steak was only 26°C/79°F, so clearly I could have scorched the outside somewhat further if it was desired to have a more seared steak.

The Sauce

I left it in there about 10 minutes and then tipped in some red wine – D’Arenberg Footbolt Shiraz in this case, a bold fuckoff wine that goes fantastic with red meat. You can probably use pretty much whatever though, so don’t sweat the wine choice, it’s mostly wankery.

Amount used was probably half to 2/3 of a glass – so about 100ml I guess.

Put together a knob of butter, two cloves of garlic crushed/whatever, some random herbs (I’m partial to cloves usually, but in this case just took whatever jarred crap I have), and some cracked pepper.

Smoosh it!

Then smother it on your steak.

The Doneness

Depending on your preference, take the steak out at a given temperature, I prefer bleu and so once it hits low 50°C/120°F I take it out.

I just love the mouth-watering feel of meat served at almost exactly body temperature like I just ripped the flesh straight from my prey, it’s neither hot nor cold, and just seems to melt in the mouth.

Of course there are issues with the fatty/sinewy/connective tissue (gristle) that don’t get cooked “properly” when done bleu, this can make them difficult to cut apart but don’t conflate that with “chewy”, rare meat is anything but chewy which is another illogical wrong idea out there in conventional wisdomland – the chewy parts will be the not meat stuff, but totally worth it if you seek the ultimate in steak pleasure – however it does take a while to de-acculturate from eating hot overcooked meat, but once you discover the primal beauty of body-temperature flesh it’ll be hard to stomach “cooked” meat ever again.

If you’re cooking for others, I and Tim suggest ramping temps up to 57°C/135°F. This is enough to properly render the fat which is more tasty and less ick factor for those unaccustomed to rare meat, and gives the flesh a half red half cooked look and feel about it.

The Resting

Then transfer the steak to a plate and chuck it back in the oven, but turn the oven off. This will keep it about the same temp for the next 5-10 mins that you finish off the sauce.

The Sauce Finish

Then chuck the pan onto high heat for a bit and reduce the wine further whilst cooking the other stuff a bit more.

The Plating

After a few minutes, tip the lot on top of the steak.

The Serve

I’m yet to find anyone else do pork belly on a regular BBQ grill plate, every method I’ve found via the Google has been for either ovens or Weber-like contraptions, so I thought screw it, I’ll give it a shot.

Standard Woolies pork belly, probably not the greatest quality but I was just hungry. It says free range and stuff at least.

Didn’t put anything on it, straight from the shelf to the BBQ, low-medium heat, and slapped the pig belly down.

Left it 20 minutes and turned it over. Cooked on the flesh side for ten minutes, then jacked up the heat and put it belly side down again for five minutes.

Result.

It works nicely. Lost a bit of the fat down the BBQ which I’d usually use to drizzle back on top with some garlic and stuff, but otherwise worked out just fine for a quick no-mess no-fuss (no-smoke!) bachelor pig out.

Once infected by the Lone Star Tick’s saliva, the once content meat-lover becomes allergic to meat, and eventually turns to alternative low-quality sources of fuel such as sugar, vegetables, and grains.

One can only hope the effects wear off before permanent brain damage sets in.

The common effect is a delayed onset of anaphylactic shock, which is interesting in that most food allergies typically manifest almost immediately, however in this case meat allergy typically doesn’t display any symptoms for 3-6 hours after ingestion.

NOPE, I WILL NOT EAT DONUTS WITH LEGS

Love the atmosphere there, the staff are friendly, and all the food is completely excellent.

Seafood platter.

Salmon.

My striploin.

Then we went out for a cabaret show and some dancing, by the time I got home I had built up a hunger again so ducked into Hungry Jacks on the way for a dirty burger.

However when I got back in my kitchen I noticed I still had one solitary ribeye in the fridge from last week’s bounty, sooooo may have gone and cooked that up as well – COVERED IN BACON.

This time was certainly no exception.

On the menu it’s listed as a 500g ribeye, but this this is at least 600g, probably closer to 700g – an utterly beautiful piece of meat, and at $34 bucks an absolute bargain for this size and quality.

None of the sauces on the menu particularly jumped out at me so I asked the waitress if they could make me a herb or garlic butter – she said no, so I went to the salad and bread area and purloined 4 tabs of butter instead.

It had been a long evening, just got home before midnight and felt like a grease up, so whipped up some steak, bacon and eggs.

Egg yolk is pretty much the best sauce ever.