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Home made Dim Sum – minced pork dumplings

14 Sep

My first Dim Sum experience was shortly after I moved to London 6 years ago to embark upon my three year university experience. Well, I actually can’t say too much for a university experience but that’s a whole other story.

‘Lets go to Chinatown on Sunday to get Dim Sum’ exclaimed one of my course mates. Dim Sum I thought, what on earth could that be. Sure enough, when the bamboo baskets full of small pasta looking parcels arrived, I was a bit flabbergasted. I bit into my first one, a crunchy, pork filled morsel and devoured it in seconds. And so went the next and the next and the next until I was totally full and completely satisfied.

Where I’m from (Nottingham), the most Cantonese we’d get was a sweet and sour chicken or beef in black bean sauce dish with a side of chips and curry sauce(!?) from the local take away on a Friday night. I don’t think Dim Sum exists in that part of the world!

This is one of many reasons I love London. The diverse cultural aspect means that there is superb food to go with it. Since my trip to Chinatown 6 years ago, I think I have only been a further two times. Whoever I have dined with has always preferred a pizza or pasta, or a burger. I’ve been to Ping Pong a few times but I’m not totally sure it’s as authentic as my first Dim Sum experience.

So, many of you will know that last week I took part in a London treasure hunt (Hong Kong style) in order to help promote the week long Hong Kong – Live in London festival that is taking place this week on South Molten Street until Sunday 18th September.

The insight into Hong Kong’s vibrant culture has inspired me to try my hand at various Cantonese dishes. Having cooked pan fried Duck with bok choi and damson sauce over the weekend, on Tuesday night it was the turn of the mighty dumpling. We prepared one filling and made crescent shaped fried dumplings and wonton. The dumplings turned out incredibly well but the wonton not so well. They tasted great but looked a bit of a monstrosity!

I was surprised how easy it was to make – simply mix all of the filling in a bowl, fill the dumplings and then fry! I’d highly recommend attempting Dim Sum at home if you never have before. It’s incredibly rewarding and totally delicious.

Ingredients

25g dumpling wrappers
200g minced pork
1 tsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
1 clove crushed garlic
2 small shallots, chopped
2 tbp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
8 shiitake mushrooms, finely diced
Two handfuls of chinese cabbage
2 tbsp groundnut oil
100ml water

Method

1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl
2. Fill the dumpling wrappers, fold and seal by pinching together
3. Heat a large non stick pan and when really hot add the groundnut oil
4. Add the dumplings to the pan and fry for 3 minutes, or until lightly browned
5. Add the water and seal the pan with a lid. Let the water gently simmer for 10 – 12 minutes

Serve with various dipping sauces. We had sweet chilli sauce, home-made damson sauce, oyster sauce and soy sauce with coriander and chilli.

My failed attempt at wonton:

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Hong Kong – Live in London. Monday 12th – Sunday 18th September

11 Sep

On your marks, get set, GO! Although our experience of the Hong Kong tourism board treasure hunt was not competitive, our fitness levels were sure put to the test as we scurried, Anneka Rice style, around Central London on Thursday evening. It was a good job we put trainers on that morning!

So, why did the Hong Kong tourism board have us running around London, gathering clues to inform our next move, with a quick pit stop to sample some delicious Cantonese fusion canapés courtesy of a two-Michelin starred chef before ending up in Aqua, one of London’s chicest bars to sip two of their latest Asian inspired cocktails on a grand terrace overlooking London’s unmistakable skyline? To showcase a few of the many cultural connections between our great city and Asia’s world city and to give us a preview of the week long street festival, Hong Kong – Live in London, taking place in Central London this week.

Hong Kong – Live in London will run on South Molton Street from Monday 12th – Sunday 18th September and will feature a glut of themed entertainment, including Chinese acrobatics, face changing, live music and dancing, not to mention five specially commissioned interactive dragons, each armed with an iPad to educate visitors about Hong Kong’s vibrant culture. The Dragons will introduce visitors to the many fascinating aspects of Hong Kong’s diverse culture – cosmopolitan, fusion, variety, vibrancy and trends. But why a dragon? Next year in Hong Kong is the year of the dragon, an ancient mythical creature that symbolises power, strength, and good luck. The Dragon is an integral part of everyday life and symbolic of the energy and spirit of Hong Kong. So don’t miss your chance to catch daily entertainment on South Molton Street at 1pm, 3pm and 5pm and don’t miss the opening ceremony and dragon dance, which kicks off at 5pm on Monday 12th September.

But hold on, perhaps even more exciting is YOUR chance to win one of seven holidays for two to Hong Kong and experience this lively city first hand! The holiday includes two economy flights on Cathay Pacific Airways, four nights hotel accommodation and a meal for two at two-Michelin Starred Ming Court at the Langham Place Hotel in Mongkok. There are also seven chances to win £400 vouchers for Bosideng, South Molton Street’s newest menswear store due to open in July 2012 and a meal for two with a bottle of wine at Mews of Mafair! The competition runs daily through the duration of the festival so head to South Molton Street before 6pm each day and enter your name into the hat. Wow… It’s as simple as that!!! And if shopping is your thing, special offers and free gifts are to be had at participating stores on South Molton Street. Shops taking part include Ted Baker, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Lush Cosmetics and more. See full details here.

I also urge you to visit the Hong Kong Film Festival from Tuesday 13th – Friday 16th September at Prince Charles Theatre, Leicester Square, London. For more information and tickets, visit www.thinkasiathinkhk.com

Now back to my evening of discovery (Hong Kong style)… After receiving a single pink rose, a stylish pen and being encased in heady aromas of ginger flower upon entering the Langham Hotel in London, we shot off in taxis to The Dorchester. On entering we marched quickly through The Promenade to China Tang where we rather mysteriously entered the plush toilet cubicles as a group and listened to a poem that triggered off our next move playing out from the speakers above us. It was destination South Molton Street so we jumped in another cab but soon aborted and continued on foot as rush hour traffic got the better of us. We swerved the mass throng of eager fashionistas attending the annual Vogue’s fashion night out and snaked past discerning drinkers to arrive in the chefs dining room at Mews of Mafair. Surrounded by original wooden beams and a wall smothered in antique maps, we entered to find Chef Tsang Chiu King, Executive Chef of two-Michelin starred restaurant, Ming Court at the Langham Place Hotel in Hong Kong waiting for us, standing alongside Executive Chef of Mews of Mafair, Alan Marchetti.

Chef Tsang Chiu King has flown over to London especially for Hong Kong – Live in London and will be taking part in a culinary collaboration with Italian chef Marchetti in the kitchen at Mews of Mafair for two whole weeks from Monday 12th – Sunday 25th September. But it’s not just his kitchen paraphernalia that he has brought over, he’s also brought his extensive Cantonese fusion recipes with him and the kitchen at Mews of Mafair will be working hard to recreate Chef Tsang’s dishes and will be giving diners their own little piece of Hong Kong to remember. Expect dishes such as crispy sole fillet, sealed with Yuzu honey & juicy pineapple, home made black sesame shrimp toast, pan seared chicken and chestnuts coated in bold black truffles, buttery plump pumpkin and caramelised pork lion, braised in Merlot, sprinkled in black peppercorns. We all know that the sweet stuff is important to me and I’m excited to see that Tsang will be serving a green tea and lime tart with lychee ice cream and poached plums with vanilla rice pudding for dessert! The specially created limited edition menu will cost £19 for 2 courses and £24 for 3 courses. So if you don’t manage to get down the South Molton Street next week, you have an extra week to try to Michelin style Cantonese fusion dishes at Mews of Mafair!

And of course we were lucky enough to have a tester on Thursday. After watching Chef Tsang cook his signature dish of pan seared chicken and chestnuts coated in bold black truffles, we each slid the silver spoon into our mouths and waited. We waited for an explosion of flavours to hit us. And it did. The softness and sweetness of the steamed pumpkin with the saltiness of the chicken patty and unmistakable aroma of black truffle sauce had us all wanting more. I nodded my head in approval at Chef Tsang and a wide smile emerged across his face. He had certainly delivered the goods. Chef Tsang (via his capable interpreter) explained his ‘East meets West’ cooking style and inspiration– an example of this was the truffle and pumpkin used in his signature dish. Both ingredients are somewhat uncommon in Cantonese cooking but the combination certainly works.

Then came the crispy sole fillet, sealed with Yuzu honey & juicy pineapple. The sweet honey sauce matched perfectly with the tender white fish and the pineapple (I thought) was a nice touch. We were also given a glass of Mudhouse Sauvignon Blanc, which is a recommended pairing. All dishes that will be served at Mews of Mafair from Monday 12th – Sunday 25th September will have a suggested wine pairing, yet another nod to Tsang’s East meets West philosophy.

After scraping the sticky honey off my front teeth, I turned around to see a tray of delicious looking homemade black sesame shrimp toast. I’ve always been a sucker for prawn toast and I couldn’t wait to stick my honey clad teeth into it. My mouth is watering just remembering the crisp yet indulgently oily toast, accompanied by a butterflied prawn with the fantastic black sesame topping. It was so good, I snuck another one after everyone had taken one off the tray. Tsang worked his magic and as we ran out of the restaurant, I was planning my trip back next week.

In fact, the whole evening really opened my eyes to Cantonese cuisine and culture, and if my experience was anything to go by then vistors to Hong Kong – Live in London will not be disappointed. I can’t begin to count the amount of times my dad visited Hong Kong on business when I was a child. I had (and still do) a passion for stationary and the bags and bags of quirky, colourful goodies that were given to me as presents upon his return kept me quietly occupied for months. Not to mention the empty suitcases that he filled and brought back with clothes that had my brother’s friends extremely envious. I’ll never forget his stories of Hong Kong reaching all of your senses in one go because as soon as he walked out of his hotel, the sight, sounds and smells hit him immediately. Then the stories of how people trade – seeing people carrying wheelbarrows full of jewellery, clothes and trinkets and selling to the passers by.

It seems there is a common misconception that Hong Kong is predominantly visited as a business destination and is something of a gateway between the UK and other areas of Far East and Australasia. But just from the brief insight that I had on Thursday, it is obvious that Hong Kong offers so much more as a holiday destination in its own right. I’d love to experience this vibrant city and see it for myself!

As a result of Thursday’s excitement, I felt inspired to try something that I have NEVER attempted before… cooking Cantonese style. I asked Chef Tsang what the five most important ingredients in Cantonese cooking are. His answer was salt, sugar, soy sauce, vegetable oil and a wok. So the next day we set off to Hoo Hing, a Chinese supermarket not too far from our house to buy a trolley full of ingredients that I had mostly never cooked with before. The result was a delicious combination of duck breast with home made damson sauce, bok choi and shiitake mushroom. See the recipe here. Ok, so it’s not quite on the scale of Chef Tsang’s delicacies but considering that this was our first venture into Cantonese cooking, we both devoured it and vowed to experiment further within the realms of Cantonese cuisine. We also picked up ingredients for pork dumplings, which will be on the menu Tuesday evening!

Hong Kong – Live in London takes place on South Molton Street on Monday 12th – Sunday 18th September and features live entertainment daily at 1pm, 3pm and 5pm.

Tip
Hong Kong – Live in London will no doubt get busier towards the end of the week so get down there early in the week to be in with a chance of winning that fantastic trip for two to Hong Kong!

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Pan fried duck with damson sauce, bok choi and shiitake mushrooms

11 Sep

This dish was inspired by my recent London treasure hunt, where I was given an insight into the fascinating culture of Hong Kong. Read more about my experiences here.

Ingredients

2 duck breasts
1 star anise
3 sprigs of rosemary
25 butter
10 shiitake mushrooms
1/2 red chilli, cut into rings (keep seeds in)
200g bok choi
A few drops of fish sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp groundnut oil
3 cloves garlic
120g white rice
Sea salt and pepper to season

For the damson sauce

3 cm ginger, grated
1 red chilli, seeds removed and diced
225g damsons, stoned and halved
75g light muscovado sugar
15ml balsamic vinegar

Method

For the damson sauce

1. Stone the damsons and place into a pan, along with the balsamic vinegar, chilli and ginger. Cover with the sugar and plase on a medium heat. Let the sugar dissolve and leave to bubble for 5 minutes or until the damsons are soft
2. Blend the damson mixture until smooth and the pass through a sieve to get rid of all of the pulp

For the duck

1. Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees
2. Score the skin of the duck and rub with salt and pepper
3. place into a pan on a medium heat and fry for 6-7 minutes. Add the butter, star anise and thyme and baste
4. Place into a the oven and cook for 6 minutes (pink) and 10 minutes (well done)

For the bok choi and shiitake mushroom

1. Heat the oil in a wok for 30 seconds. Add bok choi for two minutes until the leaves are slightly wilted
2. Add mushrooms and fry for a further two minutes
3. Add chilli and garlic and fry for a further minute
4. Add the fish sauce and soy sauce at the end just before serving

Plate up and enjoy the delightful flavours of Cantonese cuisine!

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Small plates – lamb and pearl barley, tomato salad and roasties

30 May

Small plates are all the rage at the moment. Some of my favourite London restaurants are serving them and those restaurants have become extremely popular over the last year. Take Polpo as an example. The small Beak Street Venetian restaurant did so well that owner Russell Norman quickly opened a sister restaurant, Polpetto on Dean Street above the infamous a French House watering hole. This was followed by Spuntino, a scarily cool American diner set in downtown New York in the prohibition era. This week he is also due to open his fourth, no doubt fabulous restaurant in Covent Garden, Da Polpo. I can’t wait.

So my Sunday dinner this week was mostly inspired by a few dishes that I have recently had at Polpo. Roast shoulder of Lamb with pearl barley and pan fried mushrooms, vine ripened and Golden Beauty plum tomatoes with marinated red onion, basil and radish and a simple plate of rosemary roast potatoes.

For some reason, food seems more satisfying when sharing with your fellow diners and I much prefer this to being restricted to one dish.

Serves 2 with left overs.

Lamb with pearl barley, pan fried mushrooms and British tenderheart cabbage

There was something missing with the Lamb dish. I substituted the faro for pearl barley and I think that this may have been the problem. Maybe I could have added a bit more seasoning to the pearl barley but next time, I think I will use puy lentils instead. There is quite a bit left over and I’m going to have a go at making a stew with it – I think that pearl barley is better suited for this!

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Ingredients

800g shoulder of lamb joint
5 cloves garlic
2 sprigs rosemary
Sea salt
Black pepper
150g pearl barley
6 mushrooms
3 leaves British tenderheart cabbage
4tbsp rapeseed oil

Method

1. Place the room temperature lamb into a dish and season with salt and pepper. Rub with 2tbsp rapeseed oil and place rosemary sprigs on top.

2. Place in the oven and let roast for 1 hour 10 minutes. The amount of time you roast the lamb for corresponds to how heavy the joint is. Allow 25 minutes for each 500g plus an extra 25 minutes.

3. Rinse the pearl barley well. Place in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Let boil for 10 minutes and then reduce to a simmer for 1 hour.

4. 10 minutes before the lamb is ready, fry your mushrooms in 2tbsp rapeseed oil. Season with salt and pepper.

5. 5 minutes into cooking your mushrooms, place the cabbage into a pan of boiling water and boil for 4 minutes.

6. When the cabbage is tender, drain and add to the mushroom pan. Fry for one minute before serving.

Vine ripened tomato salad

This salad is utterly delicious – my local supermarket only had two varieties of tomatoes but I would recommend using as many different varieties that you can get your hands on. The raw red onion and radishes give the salad a welcome crunch, while the red wine vinegar provides a fantastic taste.

Ingredients

3 large vine ripened tomatoes
6 Golden Beauty plum tomatoes, halved
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 red onion
Sea Salt
Black pepper
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 radishes
Handful of torn basil

Method

1. Chop all tomatoes and place in a large salad bowl.

2. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and add black pepper.

3. Chop radishes finely and add.

4. Chop red onion finely and marinate in red wine vinegar for 20 minutes. Add to the salad, along with the torn basil just before serving.

Roast potatoes with rosemary

Despite this being a pretty standard dish, it is delicious and one of my favourites. My potatoes may look a little pale but they were crispy and oily, just how I like them!

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Ingredients

3 large potatoes
5 garlic cloves
Sea salt
Black pepper
3 tbsp rapeseed oil

Method

1. Peel and chop potatoes. Place in pan of boiling water and boil for 15 minutes (or until they have just started to go soft)

2. Drain and shake in the pan. Place in a roasting dish and season with salt and pepper.

3. Drizzle over the rapeseed oil and place rosemary on top.

4. Roast in the oven for 45 minutes – 1 hour, or until crispy.

Serve on small plates and enjoy your feast!

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Baked eggs with ibérico ham and parmesan

24 May

Most of you will know that we got three beautiful hens a few weeks ago. Only one of them is laying so far and the eggs have been quite sporadic, until recently when we’ve been getting one every day.

Although we currently have 5 Bantam eggs sitting in our egg rack, I have to admit that the eggs in this recipe aren’t from our hens, they are from my boyfriends parents hens down in Chichester. We had some ibérico ham in the fridge that needed eating so I made a delicious dish of baked eggs with ibérico ham and parmesan for dinner.

This dish is exceptionally easy and fast – it only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish, if that! Serve with a couple of slices of bread drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with sea salt.

Ingredients

2 large cloves garlic
6 slices of ibérico ham (or enough to cover the pan that you want to use)
4 large free range eggs
sprinkle of curly leaf parsley – about 4 tsp
4 tsp extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to season
a grating of parmesan cheese

Method

Pre heat the grill to the highest setting

1. Heat the oil in a pan. Add the garlic and fry for one minute. Season with salt and pepper
2. Add the ibérico ham and fry for one minute
3. Make a space for each of the eggs and crack in. Fry for a further minute or until they start to go white
4. Grate over the parmesan and then place the pan under the grill for 2-3 minutes, or until the eggs are cooked
5. Take out of the oven, sprinkle with parsley and enjoy with your delicious bread

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Glorious soup competition

8 Feb

At the tail end of last year I entered the Glorious Soup competition with a few fellow bloggers. The task? Create your own Brazillian inspired soup recipe. The prize? The winners soup would make it into the Glorious range. Pretty cool.

So I set to work on my recipe and after a bit of research had a soup that fit the bill. It consisted of Chicken, Quinoa, Sweet Potato, Coconut Milk and Spices.

The competition itself was fun – I made it down to the final 5 alongside Charlie Nelson (Eat My Nels), Michelle Minnaar (Greedy Gourmet), Carla Spuri (Can be bribed with food) and Danny Kingston (Food Urchin). I was invited to the cook off where our soups were judged by Lee Bennett, Head Chef at Le Pont de la Tour, Karen D’souza (a massive fan of the brand), food writer, broadcaster and photographer Tim Hayward and Matthew Owen from Cool Earth.

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We arrived at the kitchens and it felt like a smaller scale Masterchef – our cooking stations were all set out for us, including rather nice Glorious aprons and chefs hats plus our recipe and a name card (Twitter profile picture included!)

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We had around an hour and a half to cook and at the end the judges walked around the room, armed with spoons and tasted our creations. 20 minutes later we were told that a decision could not be made easily and that they had to go and test the recipes to see what would best fit in with their existing range.

A few days later an email landed in my inbox with bad news, I hadn’t made it down to the last two. But it was congratulations to Charlie Nelson (Eat My Nels) and Michelle Minnaar (Greedy Gourmet) who were to battle it out for the public vote at Taste of Christmas. We’re still waiting for details on the winner but I’m still wishing them the best of luck.

You can watch footage from the day and find out about Cool Earth’s involvement here.

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Recipe:

Ingredients

100g Quinoa
500g Chicken thighs, boneless
1 litre chicken stock
1 can coconut milk
2 red onions
3 garlic cloves
1 green chilli
1 red chilli
1 lime leaf
3 tbsp fresh corriander
1 lime
3 tbsp olive oil
250g (about small) sweet potatoes, cubed
1 teaspoon of tumeric

Method

1. Heat olive oil in a pan and fry onions on a medium heat for 8 minutes or until translucent
2. Add chilli, garlic, turmeric and fry for a further minute
3. Add coconut milk, sweet potato, chicken thighs, chicken stock and lime leaf. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and sweet potato is soft
4. Meanwhile, place quinoa in a pan with the cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 8-10 minutes (you want the quinoa to have a slight crunch)
5. Drain any remaining water from the quinoa and add to the soup along with coriander and lime juice
6. Serve with fresh chopped red chilli

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Split Red Dal, Chicken with Fenugreek leaves, Chapati and Paneer in Tomato Sauce Recipes

1 Feb

Curry curry curry. If you would have asked me a year ago what my favourite food was, I would have said pizza. I know what you’re thinking – everyone else used to think it to. And although I still love the humble crispy tomato and cheesy feast, curry has since fast taken over the top spot.

I live in a predominantly Indian area of London and because of this, the high street is rich with Indian supermarkets, fashion stores and cutlery shops. Rather than take our usual Sunday trip to Waitrose last weekend, we decided to head to Ealing Road and indluge in some Indian cooking.

I bought the India Cook Book when it came out and it has been sitting on the shelf for quite a while so I decided it was time to put it to use. There are 1000 recipes in the book but we whittled it down to 4. We chose Tamatar Chaaman (Paneer in Thick Tomato Sauce), Methi Murg (Chicken with Fenugreek Leaves), Masoor Dal (Split Red Dal) and Chapaati.

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Unfortunately we couldn’t get all of the spices, Asefotida being one of them but with a little research when we got home, I saw that Matthew Fort has listed a couple of places to buy it from on The Guardian website. I’ll have to place an online order for next time. Asefotida crops up in a lot of the recipes in The India Cook Book so it is definitely worth purchasing it. I think it’s a rather pungent spice as apparently you need to keep it in an airtight container – but when it’s cooked, the flavour mellows.

We were cooking for a few hours and we served the food in the brand new Indian dishes that we had bought – I think that it looked fantastic but the taste didn’t live up to expectations. I was half expecing the dishes to be similar to my favourite Indian restaurant Karahi King but really, who was I kidding?! It was my first time cooking a curry and that restaurant has been in business for YEARS! I’m not giving up though and next week I’ll be trying some other recipes.

Chapaati – we adapted this recipe and used Spelt Flour instead of Wholemeal Flour

Ingredients

400g Spelt Flour
Pinch of salt
Melted Ghee (or butter) for brushing

Method

1. Sift flour and salt into a bowl
2. Add 250ml water and start mixing until a soft dough is formed
3. Divide the dough into pieces and roll into balls. Flatten into balls
4. Roll each ball out on a floured surface
5. Heat a pan and fry each bread separately, turning over half way through. The dough is cooked when brown patches form on the surface

Masoor Dal – We didn’t have coriander so this recipe has been adapted

Ingredients

250g red lentils, rinsed and drained
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp ghee or vegetable oil
4 dried red chillies
1/2 tsp ajwain seeds, ground
4 green chillies
pinch of salt

Method

1. Put 1.2 litres water in a pan and add the dal and turmeric
2. Bring the water to the boil and remove scum from the surface with a slotted spoon
3. Reduce the heat, season with salt and simmer for20 minutes, or until the dal is soft
4. Heat the ghee or oil in a grying pan
5. Add the dried red chillies and ground ajwain seeds and stir fry for about 2 minutes
6. Pour over the dal and simmer for about 2 minutes
7. Add the green chillies before serving

Methi Murg – We adapted this recipe quite a lot – we roasted the chicken before hand and we didn’t have a few of the spices. Funnily though, this dish turned out to be the tastiest!

Ingredients

1/4 roasted chicken
2 large cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
3 green chillies
50ml vegetable oil
2 tbsp greek yoghurt
1/2 tsp ground caraway seeds
125g fenugreek leaves
juice of 1 lime
pinch of salt

Method

1. Roast the chicken and leave to rest for 10 minutes before slicing what you need for the dish. We used 1/4 of the chicken
2. Heat vegetable oil in a pan and add all of the dry spices. Fry for 2 minutes
3. Add the fenugreek leaves and fry for 3-4 minutes
4. Add the chicken and simmer until the leaves are fragrent
5. Add the yoghurt and then squeeze the lime juice into the pan

Tamatar Chaaman – I had to adapt this recipe as I didn’t have a few of the ingredients. I found that I needed to decant a lot of the oil before serving

Ingredients

250ml vegetable oil
500g paneer
5 cloves
5 green cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
750g pureed tomatoes
2 tsp ground fennel
1 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
pinch of salt

Method

1. Heat the oil in a pan
2. Add the paneer and fry for about 5 minutes or until golden brown
3. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen towel
4. Add the whole spices to the pan and stir fry for a minute, or until they change colour
5. Add the pureed tomatoes and cook for about 10 minutes, or until all of the liquid has evaporated
Pour in 250ml of hot water along with the ground spices and season with salt
7. Bring to the boil and add the paneer
8. Reduce the heat and cook for 5 minutes

It was a proper feast and the dishes were tasty. I was surprised that the Dal didn’t contain any ginger or garlic and I will change this next time. I think I’ll also take away one of the Cinnamon Sticks in the Paneer too as the Cinnamon taste was just a tad overpowering.

We served all of the dishes with the Chapati and Brown Rice.

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Beef and spinach curry with spring onion cakes

10 Oct

My new thing is cookbooks. I’m a 23 year old girl and I’d rather sit at home reading a good cookbook and cook a delicious meal than go out clubbing. Am I old before me years?!

I don’t care – I’ve had my fair share of ‘fun’ over the years and now I just love devouring a delectable book page by page, picking out recipes that I want to recreate.

Kitchen Garden Companion

So I was a VERY happy bunny when Stephanie Alexander’s ‘Kitchen Garden Companion’ landed on my doormat. I do have a garden, although it doesn’t get much sunlight. In fact, it pretty much doesn’t get ANY sunlight due to the massive (albeit beautiful) trees surrounding. The best I have is a (sort of) ‘roof terrace’. What I really mean when I say ‘roof terrace’ is a flat gravelled roof that we occasionally use for sunbathing in the summer.

We are just in the process of refurbing an old bedroom and making it into a kitchen and the ‘roof terrace’ is accessible through that kitchen widow. So next summer I plan to do some good potting. Until then I will continue to buy my veg from my local supermarket.

The book lists a large number of fruit and vegetables in alphabetical order and there are detailed instructions on how to get the best out of them when growing. Each veg also comes with at least one recipe.

Last weekend, while my boyfriend was engrossed in the Ryder Cup, I plonked myself down next to him on the sofa and read every single page bookmarking every recipe that I wanted to try.

So when the decision of what to cook came around, we opened the book to a random bookmarked page. ‘Tony Tan’s Beef and Spinach Curry’ looked out at us and that was that. Now, what to go with it? The next random choice was rather fitting, ‘Spring Onion Cakes’.

The photography in the book makes you want to engross yourself in it for hours – it’s sharp, bright and beautiful, i’ve never seen so many handsom vegetables!

The Spring Onion fish cakes were pretty fiddly and they took a long time to prepare. There was a lot of short bursts and then leaving for 30 mins, not long enough to do much so they require your presence in the kitchen for a good 2 hours. Nonetheless they were extremely tasty and had a lovely crunch.

The curry recipe started off by telling me to stick the onion, ginger and garlic in a food processor. Having never done this before with onion, I was slightly surprised to see the bright purple paste. It did match my purple cooking pot though!

These are fantastic lazy Sunday recipes and you’ll have enough for left overs for lunch the next day.

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Tony Tan’s Beef and Spinach Curry

Ingredients

50g tamarind pulp (I used tamarind paste)
60ml boiling water
2 onions, roughly chopped
1 x 6cm long piece ginger, roughly chopped
80ml peanut oil
1 cinnamon stick
6 whole cloves
6 cardamom pods, lightly bruised
1 1/2 tbsp ground corriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp chilli powder
1.5kg beef oyster blade, cut into 3cm pieces
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
500ml water
1 tsp salt
250g spinach, washed
basmati rice and spring onion cakes to serve

Method

1. Make tamarind water using tamarind and the boiling water. Process onion, ginger and garlic in a food processor to form a paste.
2. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees C
3. Heat peanut oil in a 4 litre enamelled cast-iron casserole over a medium heat and fry onion paste, cinnamon stick, cloves and cardamom pods for 5 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent sticking.
4. Stir in corriander, cumin, chilli and tamarind water and cook for 2-3 minutes.
5. Add meat and stir, turning to coat with spice mixture. Tip in tomato, tomato paste, water and salt. Stir again.
6. Cover and bring to simmering point over medium heat, then transfer to oven and cook for 3 hours. At the end of this time the meat will be tender.
7. Leave to stand, and skim off and discard any exess oil that has risen to the surface.
8. Meanwhile, fold each spinach leaf along stem-line with rough side uppermost, then pull stem up and along the leaf. The stem end and central stem will come away leaving two pieces of leaf. Wash leaves well.
9. Ten minutes before serving, place curry over low heat to reheat, then drop in spinach leaves, season to taste with salt and serve with basmati rice and spring onion cakes

IMG_3557

Spring Onion Cakes

Ingredients

125g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp salt
20g lard
100ml water
1 tsp sesame oil, plus extra for brushing
peanut oil, for shallow frying
Spring onion filling

1tsp salted black beans
1cm long piece of ginger
3 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped

Method

1. Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl.
2. Melt lard in the water in a small saucepan over medium heat, then tip into flour.
3. Mix with a wooden spoon until flour is incorporated. As soon as you can touch the dough, knead it for 1 minute or until smooth, then return it to the bowl and cover with a damp muslin cloth or tea towel. Leave for 30 minutes.
4. To make the spring onion filling, put black beans into a small bowl and crush with the back of a teaspoon
5. Finely chop black beans on a chopping board with ginger.
6. Return to bowl and stir in spring onion, then set aside.
7. Take the ball of dough and roll it into a fat sausage shape, then cut the roll into 8 equal pieces. Shape each piece into small ball and dust with extra flour.
8. Roll each ball into a thin 12cm round with a rolling pin. Repeat with the remaining balls.
9. Brush each round very lightly with sesame oil.
10. Scatter filling over dough rounds, dividing it evenly. Using your fingers, roll each circle up like a fat cigar to enclose filling. Slightly flatten each ‘cigar’ and then roll it into a snail shape. Pinch ends firmly.
11. Lay rolled ‘snails’ on a baking tray and cover with a slightly damp tea towel. Leave for 30 minutes.
12. Lightly dust ‘snails’ with flour. Flatten each one gently with your hand and roll out to a thin 10cm round with a rolling pin. Leave for 30 mintues.
13. Preheat oven to 100 degrees C and put a paper towel-lined ovenproof plate inside to warm.
14. Pour oil into a medium sized non stick frying pan or wok to a depth of 1cm in the centre and heat over a high heat. Add sesame oil.
15. When hot, put as many pancakes as will fit in a single layer. They should bubble and blister after about 1 minute.
16. Turn to cook other side, then drain on paper-towel lined plate in oven. Serve warm.

Kitchen Garden Companion
Quadrille, £30

Cod wrapped in Parma Ham with Asparagus tips and Watercress salad

9 Jun

Cod and parma ham go so well together. Plate it up alongside a few asparagus tips and a watercres salad and you’ve got a healthy albeit tasty meal.

This one also goes into the quick and easy category – it took about 20 minutes from start to finish. You can bake the cod if you like but it takes longer and I prefer to pan fry in olive oil.

Ingredients

2 Cod fillets
4 slices of Parma Ham
12 Asparagus tips
handful of watercress
4 small vine tomatoes
2 spring onions
glug of olive oil

Method

1. Prepare the salad by chopping the spring onions and tomatoes and place into a salad bowl. Toss with salt, pepper and olive oil
2. Sprinkle the cod with black pepper and wrap two slices of parma ham around each fillet and hold together with four cocktail sticks
3. Heat a drizzle of olive oil in the pan and fry for 1 1/2 minutes on each side
4. Meanwhile steam the asparagus
5. Plate and enjoy

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Chorizo, Butter Bean and Spinach with Sea Bass

1 May

When stuck for what to cook, I can always count on a combination of Chorizo, Tomatoes, and Butter Beans. Today is one of those days – the sun isn’t making it’s mind up and I don’t know whether to go with something hearty or light so to make things easier I revert to an old favourite.

I usually eat this meal with a bowl of roast potatoes or rice but having just found some good quality Sea Bass in the local supermarket, I decided to go for this and some added spinach.

Ingredients

1 medium red onion, diced
1 red chilli, chopped finely
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
3 bay leaves
2 x 400g tinned tomatoes
1 x 420g tin of butter beans, drained
Chorizo (as much as you want)
2 sea bass fillets
400g bag of spinach
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp butter

Method

1. Heat a large pan with olive oil. Add onions and chilli and fry off until onions are translucent. Add garlic and fry for another minute
2. Add the chorizo and fry off until brown
3. Add the tinned tomatoes and bay leaves. Leave to simmer for 5-10 minutes and then add butterbeans
4. Meanwhile, rub both fish fillets with salt and pepper (I like Maldon smoked sea salt) and heat a pan so it is really hot
5. Add the fish fillets skin side down and fry for 5 minutes or until the fish becomes white. Turn over a fry for another minute. Turn again, add butter and pour lemon juice over the skin
6. Serve and enjoy!

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