And Another Thing

Sun Herald

Sunday November 2, 2008

Adrian Richardson

It's mouth-watering, career-making and altogether appetising - chef and author Adrian Richardson explains why he loves his meat and no veg.

I love animals. They are delicious. Especially the little ones - it's amazing how something as cute as a little woolly lamb can be so tasty - I mean a mouth-watering, tummy-grumbling, don't-forget-the-mint-sauce type of tasty.

I did the vegetarian thing in my youth. A few months of eating lentils and tofu, all in the name of love (well, lust). And it worked. I lusted after her and she lusted after me. But that spinach salad with goat's cheese and chickpeas, as good as it was, just wasn't enough to sustain me. A man needs meat and, in my case, I needed lots of it.

I grew up loving food. I ate a little too much, most of the time. A chubby little fellow was I. But who could blame me, surrounded by a food-focused Italian family? I spent hours in Nonna's kitchen, cooking and watching Elvis movies, while my grandfather crouched in the backyard vegetable garden, sowing the seeds he'd smuggled into Australia in his socks. It was little wonder I ended up in the kitchen full-time.

When I started as an apprentice chef in 1988 aged 18, I worked for a large company, with many chefs in big kitchens. A commercial kitchen has quite a few sections - pastry, sauce, fish - and the bigger the kitchen, the greater the number of sections. My favourite was the butchery. I spent the entire fourth year of my apprenticeship running the butchery section of a large kitchen. I was a natural; I could see animals in X-ray. I knew where to place my knife to remove the meat from the bone with little or no wastage; I could break down boxes of prime cuts with lightning speed. My day was spent smoking and curing meats, processing cuts for restaurants and making pate and terrines using offal and offcuts. The skills and techniques I learned took me around the world.

One of the things I love about meat is that you don't need to be a great cook to make it taste good. Some of my friends are terrible cooks - they burn water - but give them tongs, a few thick pieces of T-bone and a hot barbecue, and Bob's your uncle. (I just make sure I'm around to take my steak off before the cremation begins, just in case.) Cooking meat well is as simple as following a few basic rules.

First, buy the best meat you can afford, from a reputable butcher. Good quality usually comes at a price, though, so don't be scared to dig your hands a little deeper into your pockets. I would rather have one fantastic dry-aged, grass-fed,

700-gram T-bone steak once a week than chew on meat as tough as boot leather night after night.

Next, you have to cook each cut in the right way. A fillet steak will show all its tenderness and juicy flavour by being cooked quickly in a pan with a little butter. A lamb shank has to be cooked low and slow, with things such as wine and garlic, to get that falling-off-the-bone texture. With just a prod from a fork, the perfect shank almost shreds itself before your eyes.

Salt loves meat and meat loves salt. The reason restaurant food tastes so good is that chefs use heaps of salt - so much so, you'd think that most chefs are on a retainer from the local hospital cardio ward. Salt in abundance might not be good for you, but it makes meat taste really good. My advice? Don't salt the vegies; salt the meat instead. Other flavours such as wine, garlic, spices and herbs help to enhance the meat, but beware the heavy hand when adding flavour: I prefer to taste the meat I've cooked rather than a chewy version of my spice rack.

Finally, rest your meat. I recommend at least half the cooking time, in a warm place. This will allow the muscle fibres to relax, making the meat more tender and retaining the all-important flavour-giving juices.

A happy animal is a tasty animal. Farmers who respect and care for their animals are the ones who produce the best meat. They nurture their stock, ensuring they are fed natural diets of grass and feeds that don't accelerate growth to gain weight unnaturally. The animals are free to roam their fields, grazing and enjoying the sunshine and fresh air, the way animals are meant to live. It's these animals that I love to eat and, hopefully, following the few simple steps I've outlined, so will you. If all else fails, you could grab a nice bottle of red and come over to my place - did I mention I cook a mean steak?

Adrian Richardson is head chef and owner of La Luna Bistro in Melbourne. His book Meat (Hardie Grant, $60) is out now.