The Best Part of Cooking

There’s a cut of meat I always look for in the supermarket. Not a big roast, nothing showy, not unless I’m having a dining room full of guests and that’s vanishingly rare in these pandemic days.

Oyster blade. My local often has it packaged up with a crust of spices — mostly pepper — and there’s enough for three people at one sitting, or one person with lots of yummy leftovers. Perfect.

They roll it up with butcher’s string because it’s a big flat slab of muscle and it looks better — cooks better, too — if it’s folded or rolled into a more compact shape.

They call for 30 minutes per kilo at 200° and 20 minutes resting but there’s a strip of connective tissue running through the cut and that needs careful cooking. I drop the temperature and increase the time so that gristle melts away instead of becoming chewy.

That’s not my secret.

Bits to add in

Meat and three veg. Standard fare. I’ll cut up some carrots and beans later on, give them a boil while the meat’s resting. Only takes a few minutes in salted water; not too much or they will soggy up, not too little or they will be too crunchy. Better crisp than sog, but still, fair in the middle is better than both.

That’s not my secret.

Potatoes go wholus-bolus into the microwave, mash the “Potatoes” button, and store them in the fridge when they are done.

Not the secret, but we are sidling up to it.

Into the covered roasting pan, I’ll add a couple of tomatoes chopped into fingerjoint sizes — careful with the Santoku there, Britni! — onion likewise, a couple of cloves of garlic peeled and crushed, sprigs of rosemary from the forest at my front door. Everything I cook has rosemary to flavour now but still the forest grows faster than I can cook it.

Maybe a half glass of wine that’s been hanging around the fridge for a bit. Yesterday it was a nice rosé. As spring comes on, I move from Shiraz to Chardonnay and I’m about halfway through the cycle.

Normally I’d add in a few rings of chilli, some spices, bit of macadamia oil. I’m mindful of that pepper rub, but. Don’t want to be tasting nothing but heat.

Getting close now

Turn the roast every half hour or so. See how the pan juices are going. I have some stock in the fridge, maybe some bone broth, but today I don’t need to top up the liquid.

I don’t want it to evaporate off entirely and burn to a crust, but nor do I want to steam my meat rather than roast it.

When the meat is getting close, I’ll pull out a cob or two of corn, pop them in boiling water for ten minutes, set them aside.

After a couple of hours the roast is done. I pull it out and set it under a cover on the bench to rest. Just slice off the end to check. Oh bliss!

Slice the potatoes in half, set them and the corn in the pan juices as I return the pan to the oven while I get out the plates, set the table, attend to the veges, light a candle.

After a bit I can turn off the oven. The thick walls of my baking dish will finish the work.

Last thing — and here’s my secret — I pull out the potatoes and corn onto the plates beside the slices of tender, tasty meat, discard the sprigs of rosemary for the chooks, and drain the deliciously soft roast vegetables and pan juices into the blender. Maybe a touch of wine if there’s any left — as if! — to scrape out any lumps.

Give it a whiz and there’s my secret sauce for the dish.

It’s all harmony. The meat gives up some juice (and the odd stray pepper corn) to the sauce, the tomato and garlic and wine help out the meat, the texture and colour complement the meat and veges.

I can always turn the juices into gravy with some flour and a little mustard, but a simple sauce is perfect. Only takes a second but pays off to tie the meal together.

I’d like to say I dressed for dinner, but standards are slipping. Baggy strides, old fleece from some tourist shop in San Francisco, long lockdown locks straggling over and while the ugg boots have had their winter, it’s not yet warm enough to go barefoot in the kitchen, so some old woolen socks keep my toes happy.

The finishing touch

Open another bottle of wine to start the cycle afresh. Cheers!

Britni