King prawns

My internet's rubbish, 3mb rubbish but there's never been any availability in the local cabinet to upgrade. Until recently. So I placed my order, waited for upgrade day and then lost the internet for 3 weeks. I apologise for the lack of updates.

On the other hand I've found my pasta machine which has meant fettucini for every meal since. Thinking of what to go with, prawns offered themselves as an option so with a hungry girlfriend and a song in my heart, off we went.

Top rump

Since the whole silverside thing happened, I decided to try another cheap beef joint to see how it went. All in all it went pretty well but due to the number of oil-rich bags I've just used, this post is unsuitable for Greenpeace supporters or as I call them, perverts.

Don't get me wrong, any sane and decent person wholeheartedly agrees with Greenpeace's principles and I stand shoulder to shoulder with every one of them. Then I see a dozen of them trespassing someone's ship and it makes me want to burn some tyres. Here's my advice to Greenpeace - engage, not enrage.

The reason I used so many bags was because the beef kept releasing juices which traveled up the bag under vacuum ruining the seal in the process. Next time I'll open the packaging and leave it to dry in the fridge for 24 hours giving me ample time to storm a BP fracking rig.

Tenderstem broccoli

I'm going for the shortest blog post ever. The entire post is going into the intro.

Sometimes in life it's nice when something's surprisingly hard. With tenderstem broccoli however, less so. Cooked the same way as asparagus at 85 degrees for 20 minutes it's annoyingly firm. Watch for an update soon.

Silverside

Us Brits are known for our roast beef. It's instinct borne of generation. Hunks of meat searing in a crackling hearth, dutifully turned on the spit while embers pop and crack in an otherwise lifeless space.

These days we stick it in a box of water replacing the fire risk with botulism and call it progress.

Duck breast

We love duck, so much so that we had a whole one a few Christmases ago. Not between the two of us, I'm talking one each. One duck, one potato, one sprout, some gravy. You'll need to buy bigger plates for that event. We've been doing confit duck legs the past couple of Christmases because every holiday deserves so much salt it takes your mind off the fat. In this episode, we tried breasts and it was a rip-roaring success.

Asparagus

So far, every post has given the impression we gorge solely on freshly culled animals but believe it or not, we really like vegetables. After all, what else are you going to feed cows on? Sometimes though you've gotta get those vitamins so today's post is about asparagus. Very controversial. Bear with me if you're a devout carnivore.

Lamb breast

Good news - I've found my carving fork.

In other news, we've cooked lamb breast. This is one of those times when a water bath excels because this particular cut of meat is full of flavour but it's tough like Vin Diesel so benefits from long slow cooking. Vin Diesel on the other hand probably doesn't.

Only one of those things is relevant.

Venison haunch

As it was my birthday and I got an Anova circulator as a present, I decided I wanted to buy a thick ribeye and cook it to see how the new machine got on with it. Then we went to the pub and got a pizza on the way back which left us with one steak between the two of us the following day. Being the resourceful types that we are, we had a bear-like forage in the freezer and up came venison haunch to top-up the meatiness. Veg stumbled into the impromptu protein party and along with some supporting characters, lunch was done.

Rabbit loin

If you've read the previous post you'll know we had steak, venison and rabbit in the same meal. It was a mistake. Let's give it perspective though. We didn't gamble it all on red, touch it to see if the paint really was wet or come back from a weekend in Magaluf with a tattoo of an ex. Nobody died apart from three cute fluffy animals so everything's a-okay. I feel bad now.

On the flip side, our botched meal means more to post about so learn on.

Ribeye steak

As Dinah Washington famously didn't say, what a difference a year makes. That's how long I've had my water bath and it's only now I find out it runs a little bit cooler than the display suggests. What this means is that for all the previous posts, you should drop the temperature by 0.5 unless by some outrageous good fortune yours runs a bit cool too. For this post going forward I'll measure the water temperature to make sure I'm not plucking random numbers out of a hat. Sorted.

Pork loin

If you've read the turkey breast post, you'll know we've never been the biggest fans of pork. It just tastes a bit too.. well, piggy. What we've found is that brining takes away the slightly bitter taste, adds seasoning and makes it a whole different beast altogether. We've been cooking more of it ever since. The risk is it can easily go dry so fattier cuts are good but cooking sous vide, you can go tasty lean without any of the 'hockey puck' swallowing you need to get it down.

Pigeon breast

If you're my girlfriend, this post starts off on a positive note. Firstly she loves pigeon, and secondly the sirloin from last time hasn't completely trashed her camera lens. On the downside I've just found a Chinese restaurant I'd like to go to that serves duck feet and fish lips, both of which she's stoutly refusing to eat. Kids eh??

Back to this culinary adventure and apart from the mushrooms, it was all borne from a good forage through the freezer which was just as well as there's still a week until payday.

Roast sirloin

With the holiday season approaching, we decided we wanted a joint of beef for New Year's Day. We were thinking about rib because that's a bit of a favourite but finally settled on dry aged sirloin. We bought it, plonked it in the fridge and waited for the day to arrive.

I say waited, we were eating the other stuff I've posted about but you get what I mean.