Beef and wooden spoons
It all began with a pair of elegantly slim wooden spoons that I saw in a favourite kitchenware showroom.
The moment I saw them, the first thing that came into my mind was scooping out delicious beef bone marrow. A few days later somebody shared a link for a Gordon Ramsey home cooked dinner – BBQ brisket with light coleslaw and roasted sweet potato – this was how the whole beef dinner started.
Since my brother was about to take off on a big wooden boat down to South East Asia seas for his 5 week fishing trip/life experience (I have to mention that he’s an dreamy artist not a fisherman :S ), I felt the need to stuff him with some proper meat before the poor guy was stuck taking in the just-fish-and-nothing-else diet.
The BBQ brisket turned out beautiful, Gordon Ramsey didn’t lie, it was really easy to make, both Mr. Fluffy and my brother loved it!
Fortunately it also acted as a really good test, the week after I had an important dinner with my two new bosses and a hard-to-deal-with client as my guests. Time to cook to impress 😉
Entrée: pretty and delightful watermelon bites with feta cheese and mint – the sweet and fresh taste of watermelon combined with salty creamy feta, scented with mint was the best way to lure guests into the feeling that dinner was going to be light 😛 besides, there was no sweet taste in second entrée and main, and I always wanted to present all tastes (in balance) in my cooking.
Second entrée: roasted beef bones marrow with condensed balsamic, simple salad of shallots and flat parsley, and truffle oil. In Vietnam the only way we use beef bones marrow was to cook them for a day in the giant Phở broth pot, all together with other spices like gingers, shallots, cinnamon, star anise, black cardamom, … all small fire roasted before joining the marrow. It was quite a complicated process of cooking. But this, I am talking about the easiest thing ever. Just par-boil the bone marrow with some salt to clean them first, preheat the oven to 180oC, then crack some sea salt and pepper on top, chuck them to the oven altogether with some thymes to add up a subtle fragrance, for 15 mins, voilà!
This is how a bite of roasted bones marrow should look like. And not even close, but just let me try to explain you the taste: imagine super creamy marrow with tangy balsamic, shallot and parsley’s refreshment on brown and crunchy toast, uhmmm, and let’s not forget the amazing flavour of truffle oil. The process of putting this in your mouth, having a bite and enjoying it, was equal to the process of cracking a smile on your face, all in slow motion 🙂
Main: Gordon Ramsey’s home cook dinner – slow cook BBQ beef brisket with light coleslaw (yogurt and whole seed mustard instead of mayonaise, and extra chive) and roasted sweet potato. Everything came along amazingly!
This is probably the longest post I had ever written but consider it’s joined by two dinners, fair enough. I’m signing it off by the pure heart of a true meat lover, that will perhaps be haunting your dream from tonight, bahahaha *evil laugh*
Sincerely yours 😛