|
Putting the crunch back into the Sunday lunch
For a vast number of New Zealanders now, the Sunday lunch is only a nostalgic memory from childhood and for others a myth. But many remember the Sunday mornings filled with the mouth watering smells of roasting meat and the conviviality of the one meal that the whole family took part in.
Our contemporary frustration as cooks is to reproduce those crunchy, succulent roasts – mainly of lamb but sometimes beef and pork. Contemporary ideas about fat are a large part of the problem. Our meat is bred and butchered lean. Yet fat is not only a major part of flavour, it is the medium that cooks the meat. Fat has a massive effect on meat fibres during cooking and on the moistness of roasted meat. It also stimulates the flow of saliva – mouth watering is not a fanciful description it is a serious part of the enjoyment of flavour and the digestion of food.
We all believe the mantra that 'fat is Bad' yet the proof is poor – endless gorging on bad fats is certainly bad and probably lethal and processed food is certainly not some corporate gift to good health – but the human diet has sustained itself on naturally occurring fat and our species continues. Some diets are higher in meat fats than our own and yet significantly lower in the diseases attributed to fat. But this is not an argument for fat – it is an argument for less messing about with meat through a fear of fat.
We can’t cook a flavoursome roast of meat, moist to the palate, without sufficient fat. In these recipes there are a few ways to put that crunch back into the lunch. |
|
A good roast starts in the butcher shop. Select meat that has been aged and, in beef, shows visible marbling of fat. If you suspect it is too fresh, buy it several days before cooking. For lamb, make sure it has not been trimmed of all its fat. For pork, insist that it is free-range and do not buy it if it is not. There is more flavour in a happy pig – especially in one where exercise has given it good circulation. Meat roasted on the bone has more flavour.
Prepare the meat several hours or even a day ahead of cooking by massaging it with a fat (duck, goose) or olive oil-based paste.
 Hamish's & Simon's Recipes
Lamb Leg or Shoulder with Courgettes Provencale and Soft Almond Polenta
Courgette Provencale
Soft White Almond Polenta
Roast Rib or Beef with Yorkshire Puddings
Pork Loin on the Bone with Ginger and Juniper Cabbage
Roast Lemon Chicken
Butterflied and Barbequed Leg of Lamb
|
