"Tibetan" beef curry with steamed pak choi

So, film night again at Kitchen Fairies HQ.  The chosen film was Seven Years in Tibet, so I looked into Tibetan cuisine.

Apparently the diet is quite calorific, to cope with the climatic conditions, and there is quite a lot of meat included.  There is an absence of yak around these parts, so I made a stew with shin of beef instead.  Also, I was surprised to learn that a lot of root vegetables are used.

Less surprising, possibly, is that there is a real combination of spices used, both from Chinese and Indian influences.  Anyway, this is what I invented, and it was tasty.

coconut oil

onion

garlic

ginger

cumin

shin of beef, cubed

chilli

soy sauce

oyster sauce

rice wine

rice wine vinegar

celeriac

butternut squash

carrots

chicken stock

tomatoes

new potatoes

pak choi

1.  Sautee chopped onion in coconut oil.  Add garlic, ginger and cumin seeds.

2.  Add cubed beef and brown off.

3.  Add soya sauce, oyster sauce, rice, wine, rice wine vinegar and chilli flakes.

4.  Add a little water and simmer for a while.

5.  Prep celeriac, carrots and butternut squash - cut into fairly even sized pieces and add to the meat mixture.

6.  Simmer again, after adding chicken stock and a few chopped tomatoes, for about 2 hours.

7.  Boil new potatoes in a separate pan.  When they are nearly done, strain and add to the stew, simmer for another 20 minutes.

8.  Chop pak choi - steam the soft leaves, and add the white stalk to the stew.

9.  Serve, scoff ... it was very tasty, the beef just melting!

I'm not sure how authentic it was, but it was a decent invention.

Pork chops, in a mustard cream sauce, sauteed new potatoes and carrots, peas parisienne

 

Well , the photo is a disappointment, but the dinner wasn't!  It was film night at KitchenFairies HQ, and I try to theme the dinner with the film.  The film was "Hugo" ... the connection was that the film was set in Gare du Nord, Paris - so it was French Bistro food.

Also, I have no idea if peas parisienne have any authenticity to them - it's just what I have always called leeks, peas and lettuce cooked this way.

Pork loin chops

Olive oil

Meat seasoning (black pepper, garlic, celery salt, paprika)

New potatoes

Carrots

Butter

Leek

white wine

Little gem lettuce

Garlic

Chicken stock

Dijon mustard

Cream

1.  Rub the pork loin chops with the seasoning and olive oil, set aside for an hour.

2.  Peel new potatoes and carrots, cut potatoes in to quarters, length wise, and the carrots into diagonal chunks.

3.  Wash and shred leeks.

4.  In a heavy frying pan with a lid melt butter (lots ... twice as much as you think you need) and add the potatoes, carrots and cup of water.  Put the lid on and simmer for about 10 minutes.

5.  Take the lid off the potatoes and simmer off most of the water.

6.  Sweat the leek off in olive oil, add crushed garlic.

7.  20 minutes to go ... heat butter and olive oil in a frying pan, when hot add the chops and cook for 3-4 minutes on each side.

8.  Stir the potatoes and carrots, put the lid back on and let them crisp up.  Shake about every 3 minutes to stop them catching.

9.  Remove chops from the pan, add white wine to the pan, with a little chicken stock and a teaspoon of dijon mustard, stir and simmer.  Add cream.  Put chops back into the sauce and keep on a low heat.

10.  Add frozen peas and wedges of little gem lettuce to the leeks, add a splash of white wine.  Simmer for 3 minutes.  Add a drop of cream.

11.  Serve, scoff ... it was delicious!  really rich - but fabulous.

Pork and beans with pasta

 An exercise in using up the veg and pasta oddments.

• Onion
• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Fajita spice mix
• Mushrooms
• Green beans
• Yellow pepper
• Pork chops
• Tomatoes
• Wholegrain mustard
• BBQ sauce
• Sweetcorn
• Flour
• Cannellini beans
• Pasta
• Grated cheese

1.  Sautee chopped onion in olive oil.

2.  When onion is softening, add garlic, spices and other chopped vegetables.  After a few minutes move them to the edge of the pan.

3.  Chop pork into bite sized pieces and add to the pan, stirring so that they get the heat from the bottom of the pan.

4.  Keep cooking for 10 minutes or so, then add chopped tomatoes, mustard, BBQ sauce and sweetcorn.  Stir in.

5.  Add a spoonful of flour to thicken the sauce, stir in until you can't see it any more, then add water or stock.

6.  Simmer for about 30 minutes, adding more water if necessary.

7.  Cook pasta.

8.  Add tinned beans, stir in and heat through.

9.  When it's ready mix pasta into sauce, serve, with grated cheese an dscoff.

Camping breakfast

 

Left KitchenFairies HQ for a short camping break - so cheese dreams and baked beans for breakfast.  Easy, but delicious.

Olive oil

Butter

Sliced bread

Cheddar cheese

Eggs

Baked beans

1.  Butter bread, make sandwiches with sliced cheese.  Cut into quarters.

2.  Whisk eggs, dunk sandwiches into eggs, seal on all sides.

3.  Fry cheese dreams in olive oil and butter.   Turn over and cook on the other side.

4.  Stack cheese dreams to make room for the beans, add beans and heat through.

5.  Serve, scoff ... don't laugh, it was fab and very welcome.

Stuffed pork chops, chips & beans

 

There's a thing about this home delivery malarky which means you kind of loose the "oh that looks nice, what should I do with that?" Don't get me wrong I also support my local shops and market.

So today, the veg box comes tomorrow - the outside market opens on Wednesday - so it was very much - what have we got?  and trying to do something a tiny bit different ...

So - cheese and mustard stuffed pork chops, coated in breadcrumbs - frozen chips, steamed green beans and baked beans.  Surprisingly, it worked well - and it got some green things into the veg dodger!

Pork chops

Flour

Eggs

Breadcrumbs

Mixed herbs

Whole grain mustard

Sliced cheese (maasadam)

Olive oil

Frozen chips

Green beans

Baked beans

1.  Bash the pork chops out until quite thin (I reckoned on doubled in area, halved in depth)

2.  Match the pork chops up as close as possible to each other.

3.  In the pairs, smear wholegrain mustard on one, top with cheese and plonk the other squished chop on top.

4.  put the chips in the oven.

5.  Squash the pork "sandwich" together, and then pop into flour, dust, and then shake off the excess.

6.  Now add the "glue" - put the porky cheesy thing into whisked eggs, and cover every surface.

7.  Transfer the pork to breadcrumbs seasoned with herbs.  Squish into the breadcrumbs making sure all surfaces are covered.

8.  Chop the green beans, put them over a pan of water to steam, put the baked beans in an oven proof dish in the oven.

9.  Fry the pork in a hot pan - 3 minutes on each side.  Transfer to an oven dish and bake for a further 20 minutes.

10 Serve, scoff ... delish

Caribbean chicken curry and rice

 

Movie night at Kitchenfairies HQ ... the film is "Straight Outta Compton" - a wholesome american tale of rap, drugs and alcohol, etc ... but also, dig deeper - Dr Dre (the dj) has dug deep in these troubled times and donated a shed load of money to help feed the community in Compton, joining up with restaurant chain "Everytable" ... and has provided 150K meals to people who need them in his community.  Respect!  This is my interpretation of one of the dishes on the menu.  It were lovely!

Vegetable oil

Onion

Garlic

Caribbean curry spice mix

Green beans

Chicken thighs 

Yellow pepper

Mushrooms

Courgette

Tomatoes

Chicken stock

Mango chutney

Basmati rice

Natural yogurt

1.  Sautee chopped onion and crushed garlic in oil, add in curry powder.  Add chicken thighs, skin side down to brown a little.

2.  Chop all the veg, turn the chicken, chuck veg in the pot, stir.

3.  Add about a pint of chicken stock and simmer for 30 minutes, stir in a couple of spoons of mango chutney and simmer again for about 10 minutes.

4.  Cook the rice.

5.  Serve, with natural yogurt, scoff ... 

Chicken, ham, leek and mushroom pie

 

This was actually an exercise in using up leftovers, but it was delicious as well as "frugal".  We had chicken left over from some roast chicken thighs and ham left over from BBQ pulled gammon.

I made a sauce using the last of the leeks and mushrooms from the veg box, and some soya milk.  Threw on a pastry lid, bunged some potatoes in the oven, and we finished the coleslaw.

Olive oil

Leeks

Mushrooms

Cooked chicken

Cooked ham

Plain flour

Soya milk

Flour

salt

butter

Yogurt

Cold water

1.  Make pastry - rub butter into salted flour.  When it resembles breadcrumbs add a couple of spoons of natural yogurt and a splash of cold water, work together gently to make the pastry.  Form into a ball, wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

2.  Fry mushrooms and leeks in olive oil, add cooked meats.

3.  Sprinkle a spoonful of flour into the pie filling mix, coat all of the elements, then add about a muful of soya milk, stir in to form the sauce.

4.  Transfer pie filling to pie dish, roll out pastry and cover the top.  Wash with soya milk.  Bake for about 30-35 minutes.

5.  Serve, scoff

Pulled gammon and coleslaw (Movie night - Gangs of New York)

Movie night - Gangs of New York - well, there's drinking involved, and "Bill the Butcher".  The biggest lump of meat we had was a big gammon joint, so I tried pulled gammon.  It was tasty, but if I did it again I might boil it a couple of times in water to reduce the saltiness.  I made it with a tin of peaches to add a fruity note to the BBQ sauce - which worked, to a certain extent.

• Big lump of gammon (or pork)
• Tin of peaches
• BBQ spice
• Cider
• Wholegrain mustard
• Tomato Ketchup
• Sugar
• Chilli sauce

• Red onion
• Carrots
• Cabbage
• Radish
• White wine vinegar
• Olive oil
• Mayonnaise

• Chips and bread rolls to serve

1.  Make the marinade by zizzing up peaches into a puree and mixing in BBQ spice, cider, wholegrain mustard and enough water to sit two thirds of the way up the joint of meat.

2.  Remove fat and rind from the gammon joint, turn over in marinade, put in a medium oven for 4-8 hours.  Checking every now and then, turning the meat and add more liquid if necessary.

3.  Make the coleslaw by chopping the veg - sprinkle with a little salt, stir in a splash of olive oil and white wine vinegar, let it set for 30 minutes to start to soften a little, then stir in mayonnaise and chill in the fridge.

4.  Remove joint from marinade - "pull" with 2 forks.  Moisten with a ladle of the cooking liquor.  Keep warm.

5.  Make additional BBQ sauce by straining the cooking liquor, and then stirring in ketchup, sugar and chilli sauce to taste.  Heat through briefly to help the flavours meld.

6.  Serve, scoff .... we were SOOOOOO full!

 

Vegetable, cashew nut and noodle stir fry, with seared ginger soya steak

Steak

Peanut oil

Garlic

Ginger

Soya sauce

Spring onions

Garlic

Red pepper

Carrots

Mushrooms

Pak choi

Udon noodles (rice noodles)

Cashew nuts

Beansprouts

Rice wine

Rice wine vinegar

Oyster sauce

Tomato ketchup

Soya sauce

1.  Marinate steak, in crushed garlic, ginger, soya sauce and peanut oil.

2.  Chop the veg, into this slivers, for the stir fry, crush garlic.

3.  20 before due to serve - bring a pan of water to the boil, put a wok and a grill pan on to heat up.

4.  When the grill pan and wok are hot put the steak in the grill pan, and start the veg stir fry in the wok - using ingredients from the list down to the pak choi (the white bits of the pak choi, save the green leaves until the last stage.  Put the noodles in the water to boil for 5 minutes.

5.  After 2 minutes turn the meat.

6.  Keep stir frying veg, add condiments and a spoonful of noodle water, keep moving in the wok.

7.  Take the meat out of the pan and leave to rest.

8.  Drain cooked noodles and add to the veg, add beansprouts, cashew nuts and the green tops of the pak choi - keep tossing together.

9.  Serve, scoff ... was delicious.

Pork, chorizo and mushroom pasta, with peas

I'm trying not to run out of inspiration in these very dark days - though I admit we have had more than a few comfort dinners eg. sausage, mash and beans, in the past weeks.  Today there were pork chops in the fridge - and I was heading towards another tray bake (nothing wrong with that) ... but then, I remembered there was a chorizo sausage to use up and some proper decent pasta ... so, a little bit more effort in chopping the meat later - I enjoyed this much more than I would have done big lumps of pork.

Onion

Garlic

Olive oil

Pork chops

Chorizo

Mushrooms

Flour

(Soya) milk

pasta

peas

black pepper

1.  Gently sautee chopped onion and garlic in olive oil.

2.  Chop pork into small pieces, and add to the onion mixture.

3.  Chop chorizo into small pieces and add to the pan.  Keep stirring and cook out for a while.

4.  Chop mushrooms and add to the pork mix.

5.  Cooks the pasta.

6.  Add a couple of spoonsful of flour to the pork mixture, stir in, then add a cup of soya milk.  Stir it in to make a sauce.  Simmer.

7.  Add a handful of frozen peas to the sauce, then add pasta.

8.  Toss together, serve, scoff ... it was delish!