Weekend Cooking: At the Show

This past week has been very busy!

Last Sunday I went to a wedding. The wedding and the reception were a great mix of Greek and Australian traditions, and I left not feeling lonely and depressed which is a pretty good sign of a good night! One of the highlights of the food at the reception was a seafood platter to start with. This was especially good news seeing as there were only a couple of us at the table who were eating from the platter! Lucky, lucky me!

Tuesday was the little chef's birthday, so we had a birthday excursion, birthday pizza and my wonderfully talented sister made him an awesome cake which perfectly reflects his current interest slash addiction slash obsession!

What I really wanted to post about though was a trip to the Royal Melbourne Show on Wednesday with the little chef, my sister and brother in law and my two nephews! It was a gorgeous day and I think everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.

Here are a few photos of the day:

Devonshire Tea at the CWA Cafeteria - perfect scones!

Apple slinky

One of the things that we did do was attend a cooking demonstration in the Paddock to Table pavilion. The two presenters called themselves the Butcher and the Chef because one was a butcher, and yes, the other was a chef. They demonstrated the following recipe for Vietnamese Lamb and I have to say, it smelt absolutely delicious!

As part of the demonstration, the butcher started off with a leg of lamb  that he then used to show where the rump steaks would come from and then got rid of most of the fat from the piece of meat and then cut that into steaks.

The chef then took over, demonstrating how to make this recipe which I have to say looks pretty easy as long as you have all the ingredients and have enough time to marinate the meat for the hour or two that was recommended.


Vietnamese Lamb Rump

 4 x 120g lamb rump steaks

The Butcher and the Chef

1 tablespoon ginger puree
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 tablespoons caster sugar
1/3 cup (80ml) Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 limes, juiced
1/4 long red chilli, finely chopped
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 medium brown onion, finely sliced
1 butter lettuce
1 cup each coriander and mint leaves




1. For the marinade, combine ginger, one clove of chopped garlic, turmeric, one tablespoon of sugar and rice wine. Trim any excess fat off the lamb and rub in marinade.

2. Sweet chilli dressing; whisk together the remaining sugar and two tablespoons of water, add the fish sauce and lime juice and stir to dissolve sugar completely. Add the remaining garlic and chilli.

3. Heat the oil in a large frying pan on a medium heat. Drain the lamb from the marinade and add to the frying pan. Cook for eight minutes, turning occasionally on all sides. Remove from the frying pan, add onion and cook for one minute or until just softened.

4. To serve, slice lamb and distribute along with onion in lettuce cups and pour on dressing. Add coriander and mint and top with chilli if you desire.

We collected a couple of recipe booklets and there are some delicious recipes included. You can see the lamb booklet here

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