Posts tagged ‘recipe’
Eats: Vietnamese dishes
It’s been ages since I posted a recipe, so sorry. I’m mourning a batch of wine lost due to recent high and uneven temps in NSW and the presence of my MIL for curbing my culinary hobby.
Anyway, thanks to the wonderful SBS channel (our multi-cultural free tv channel) who produce great foodie shows, you can watch exciting vietnamese recipes, as selected and prepared by Luke Nguyen. I’m stoked to finally learn the secrets of this cuisine.
Leek and Potato soup
I know there are hundreds of recipes for leek and potato soup but C made this last night and it was soo satisfying. This is her recipe. Makes 2 large bowls.
Ingredients:
- 3 medium-large potatoes – skinned and diced
- 2-3 rashers of bacon – diced
- 1 large leek – sliced
- Chopped garlic (as much or as little as you like)
- Butter / oil
- Water
- Salt and pepper
- Chopped parsley or spring onions (optional)
- Half a cup of milk or cream
How:
Start by sautéing the bacon in butter and oil, then add the potatoes, then the leeks, stirring for a few minutes in between each. Add the garlic. Once you have a good mix, pour in water until it covers everything with an extra inch of liquid. Bring to a boil, then simmer until potatoes are soft.
Stir in the milk or cream, and parsley. Add salt to taste. Take the soup off the heat. Blitz the soup to preferred consistency (I like it rough) then ladle into bowls. Sprinkle on top the spring onions, fresh pepper and a dash of cream or olive oil. Serve soup warm, with bread.
Quick-bake dinner
I love it when experimental cooking works brilliantly. This is a baked pasta dish I made with bits from the pantry and fridge. Dead easy to make and vegie eaters friendly. You can even mix it all a day earlier. Feel free to substitue any ingredient(s).
I used for this Pasta Bake:
- Half a packet of spiral pasta (uncooked but preferably cooked al dente if you want the dish ready faster. If using dry pasta, double the cooking time)
- One tin of mixed beans – rinse beans in cold water
- One tin of condensed mushroom soup, mixed with equivalent amount of cream or milk, as you prefer
- Sliced mushrooms (if you have any)
- Handful of frozen peas/broad beans or whatever fresh (non-leafy) veg you have, but small pieces (optional)
- Chop a clove or two of garlic (optional)
- Semi-dried tomatoes (optional but recommended)
- Grate or slice into small crazy pieces some hard cheese
- Pepper
Mix all together. Place mixture into a suitable baking container such as a casserole dish. I used the baking dish from the start and just kept chucking in ingredients. Before baking, sprinkle more cheese on top.
Bake in a pre-heated oven, covered, at 180 C between 30-50 minutes (depending on if you used dry or cooked pasta). Whip off the cover and bake or salamander for about 5-10 minutes before serving, just to brown the top. Serve pasta warm, accompanied with wine.
Additions: Bacon, chicken, sausage meat.
C polished off two helpings, then asked me, “What made you think of beans and pasta?”
Simple soup
It’s been ages since I posted a home recipe, hasn’t it? I’m still cooking but most dishes, being tailored, don’t translate well to formal measurements. Anyhow, here’s a v simple recipe for French Onion Soup I learned. Very easy, veg friendly (if you use water instead of beef stock) and great for a cool night in. In fact, I made it last night for today.
You will need:
- Bunch of large onions (white or brown)
- Chunk of butter – be generous.
- Flour
- Water/stock
- White wine or white Vermouth or, as I prefer, Cognac
- Salt and Pepper
- Gruyère cheese
How:
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Preserving fruit
I like to sleep. I also like staying up late at night. Eventually, the body wins. Something must’ve knocked me out yesterday because I was horizontal for most of the 24 hours that was Saturday. Can’t have been the massive food shopping and cooking detail, no no.
From a huge farmer’s market, we indulged in spicy smoked sausages, hand-stuffed olives (must try making those), local farmhouse cheese and delicious salt-bush lamb. Salt-bush lamb are sheep that graze in drier, harsher, outback conditions. Their meat is surprisingly not gamey but is deeply evenly flavoured. Just fantastic.
This week’s recipe give-out is a challenge to make your own pickle or conserve. Probably the easiest to make is jam. Pick a tart fruit, cook it with the same weight in sugar, and add the juice and zest of one lemon. Microwave jars to sterilise, pour in the cooling jam, and cap them tightly. They make great gifts.
If you like extreme pickles, try preserving lemons for cooking. Get unwaxed, thick rind lemons. Quarter them almost to the tip, rub salt inside and outside them then line them up in the jar – adding a spoon of salt for each lemon that goes in. You can spice them up with bay leaves, peppercorns, chilli or other whole spices. Cover the whole lot with fresh lemon juice, as much as possible, as during pickling you’ll be turning the bottle every week.
After at least 6 weeks, the lemon rinds are ready for use. Remove the pulp and thinly cut the rind, you’ll use only a little, when stewing lamb or other sweetish, earthy dishes. Ideal for Moroccon and North African meat dishes.
You could pickle other citrus fruits such as limes, oranges, citrons, tomatoes etc in a variety of pickling agents, juice them or even oven dry them. They are well worth making.
Zucchini burger
Veggie burger recipe from C. Due to popular demand, I’m posting it here. Pretty easy but a little bit more work than the zucchini slice. We’ll be using leftover mashed potatoes for bulk.
How to:
Grate and salt the zucchini. Leave aside to de-water then squeeze the excess water out.
Slice and cook down one onion (or more depending on the quantity you are making). Let it cool.
Mix zucchini, onion and mash potatoes with an egg to bind. Season well. You may add fresh herbs if you have any. Shape into patties.
Fry or grill the patties. Assemble the rest of the burger ingredients – buns, veg, cheese (optional). Top with sweet chilli sauce or picalilly.
Eat.
Easy zucchini
A supersimple zucchini slice recipe from C, in the style of a quiche sans pastry. Karina, I hope you enjoy it.
2 large zucchini, grated, salted and placed aside to de-water for about 20 minutes. Squeeze out excess water.
Beat 6 eggs with 2 cups (500ml) of cream. Season with salt and pepper.
Stir through zucchini in the wet mixture.
Pour into a greased pan, small enough for the mixture to come up to at least an inch.
Bung the pan into a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes. Check the top is brown and the inside cooked.
Serve with salad.
Go on, you’d love a bit of pork*
I had possibly the best pork chop in all my time in Australia last night. It made me so happy that I’m going to share the recipe for this incredibly simple and lovely dish. Vegetarians, turn away now.
This recipe works just as well with any paillard of meat.
First off, I didn’t use a pork chop cut, they were pork butterfly steaks (free-range, please) with a sexy bit of fat at the sides. Before you ask, Yes, they reminded me of another view.
Other ingredients to assemble:
- Stale bread – this can be a bun (aka roll), white bread, pita bread … whatever bread you have in the corner - de-crusted, cut up then blitzed in the food processor into semi-fine breadcrumbs. Old bread is good to use because it is drier, crisps up well. (Substitute with prepacked breadcrumbs or tempura crumbs)
- Good, matured Parmigiano Reggiano (aka Parmesan) or Grana Padano, blitzed to the same consistency as the breadcrumbs. Use a recent slice of cheese, never buy pre-grated. Get good cheese and you’ll only need to use a little. The Parmesan should be smellable but when cooked, it’ll be subtle.
- Mix the parmesan and the breadcrumbs together. [Tip: store excess in the freezer. When toasted, the mixture can be used as garnish for a creamy pasta dish or on seared scallops.]
- Bit of regular flour and milk (separately). You may substitute a beaten egg for the milk.
Method:
- Batter the pork steaks if they are too thick. Thinner steaks mean shorter cooking time and even cooking.
- Salt and pepper the steaks, lightly coat them in flour, then dip in the milk, then finally in the breadcrumb mixture.
- Ensure pan is hot to fry on low medium heat with a bit of oil. When the steaks turn brown on both sides, bung them in the oven for about 12-20 minutes @ 180-190 Celsius (sorry, I don’t know the conversion), depending on thickness. Test for doneness before serving. Pork should be firm with a whisper of pink inside.
- Serve warm, with any veg, and drink red wine with them.
Great, now I won’t need to write the recipe into my book. Enjoy.
*Slogan for Australian Pork Ltd. In Strine, that phrase means um sexual intercourse.
