Beef Fried Rice

It's a good thing I took this picture when I did, five minutes later most of this was gone. I think Karen and I left teeth marks on the wok.

Ingredients

2 Tbsps. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 lb. finely chopped beef
1 tsp. fresh ginger, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium carrot, finely chopped
1 celery rib, finely chopped
1 green onion, chopped
2 cups cooked rice, cold

Instructions

Combine soy sauce, sugar and salt and pepper to taste in a small bowl and set aside.

Heat oil in a heavy nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Cook eggs about 45 seconds, stirring constantly, until eggs are just set. Transfer eggs to a bowl and set aside.

Add beef, garlic, and ginger. Stir-fry until browned, remove and set aside.

Heat a bit more oil, and add carrots. Stir fry for 5 minutes, then add celery and green onion. Stir fry for one more minute then remove and set aside.

Increase heat to high and add rice. Stir-fry about 1 minute, until heated through.

Add all other ingrediants to wok, stir fry to heat through. Serve.

Curry Stock

Part two. This is used with in conjunction with the curry sauce, as just posted.

ingredients

250ml water
the coarse stalks from a 15g – 20g bunch of fresh coriander
10 whole black peppercorns
1 × 2.5ml spoon whole coriander seeds
a thin slice of fresh ginger (skin left on)
1 skinny clove of garlic, peeled but left whole

method

1. Put all the ingredients into a saucepan.
2. Bring the water to the boil, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Pour off the liquid through a sieve into a jug and discard the herbs and spices left in the
sieve.
4. Use as directed in the recipes. Refrigerate the stock once it has cooled to room
temperature. It will keep for up to 3 days in the fridge.

Base Curry Sauce

I've been meaning to do this for a while now, but it'll be lengthy and involve several posts so I've put it off a bit. But anyway, now is the time, so here we go. I ordered online a cookbook specific to replicating the curry dishes that can be had in English curry houses. Curry as we know it (Vindaloo, Tikka Masala, Butter Chicken and all that stuff) isn't really from India directly...you normally can't go there and just find it (unless they have some places now to keep the tourists happy). In the 1970's when "Indian" food really took off in England, it was actually restaurateurs from Bangladesh, mostly the city of Sylhet.

So, the book. It's not exactly a series of separate recipes, but more of a "system" that a restaurant would follow, as they have to put out a lot of food in a fairly short time, but the food benefits from long cooking. To solve this issues, they make a vast amount of a long-cooked basic sauce, and a basic stock. Pretty much every dish is created from this base, saving a lot of time. It's not unlike a typical Italian place which has many dishes coming forth from a gigantic pot of a basic tomato sauce. I've previously posted one finished dish from this system, Beef Bhuna, but note there is no recipe. I really appreciate this book and the author's intent, so I won't publish and recipes except for the few that he has available as "samples" and are publicly available from his website.

So, a day or two before you are going to cook your dishes for the guests, you make your sauce and stock and keep them on hand, this way when it's time to start cranking out dishes you're pretty much 1/2 done already.

Curry Sauce

• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee (clarified butter)
• 2 medium onions - finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic - peeled and sliced
• 1.5 inch piece root ginger - peeled and thinly sliced (it should look about the same volume as the garlic)
• teaspoon turmeric powder
• teaspoon ground cumin seed
• teaspoon ground coriander seed
• 1/2 small can of tomato paste mixed with 1 cup of water

Method

1. Heat the oil in a heavy pan then add the chopped onion and stir for a few minutes with the heat on high.
2. Add the ginger, garlic. Stir for 30 seconds then put the heat down to very low.
3. Cook for 15 minutes stirring from time to time making sure nothing browns or burns.
4. Add the turmeric, cumin and coriander and cook, still very gently, for a further 5 minutes. Don't burn the spices or the sauce will taste horrid - sprinkle on a few drops of water if you're worried.
5. Take off the heat and cool a little. Put 4 fl oz cold water in a blender/food processor, add the contents of the pan and whizz until very smooth. Add the tomato paste mixture and stir. Even better, do this right in the pot and use a stick blender.
   
6. Put the puréed mixture back into the pan and cook for 20 - 30 minutes (the longer the better) over very low heat stirring occasionally. You can add a little hot water if it starts to catch on the pan but the idea is to gently "fry" the sauce which will darken in colour to an orangy brown. The final texture should be something like good tomato ketchup. Keep in the fridge until needed.
   

Turkey Noodle Soup

At the end of a relaxing long weekend at Karen's parent's place, we left with a big Ziploc bag of leftover turkey. As I still had chicken stock in my fridge from one that I roasted last week, I decided to make soup. Good news for Karen, as she picked up a bad cold while we were gone.

1 tbsp olive oil
2 large carrots, diced
4 celery sticks, diced
1 lb. chopped cooked turkey
6 cups good chicken stock*
1 large onion, halved
2 bay leaves
175 g vermicelli pasta
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil in large dutch oven or stock pot, saute carrots and celery until slightly softened. Add turkey and stock, onion halves, and bay leaves. Simmer for an hour, do not boil if possible.

2. Optional step: Remove and chill the soup, then skim off the surface fat, this will make the finished soup more clear and consistant.

3. Add the pasta and chopped parsley, and season. Simmer for 6-8 minutes until the pasta is cooked. Serve.

Angry Red Lentil Soup

A hearty soup with spicy-hot zip, fantastic for cold weather. It's a shame the lentils turn corn-yellow when cooked, because the colors in the bowl don't reflect the agressive flavor.

4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup minced onion
1/4 cup minced carrot
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 habanero pepper, minced
1/2 cup red lentils
2 cups water
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
chopped chives, for garnish
fresh grated parmesan cheese, for garnish

Instructions:

Place cooking vessel on camp stove over medium to medium-high heat. Add olive oil. Add onion, carrot, garlic, and habanero, cook until onions are caramelized. Add red lentils and toast for about 30 seconds.

Add the water and cover the pot.

Simmer the soup until lentils are tender, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep the lentils from sticking.

Mash the soup with a fork or wooden spoon against the sides of the pot, breaking up some of the lentils to thicken the soup. Season with salt and pepper.

Garnish and serve.

Chicken, Spinach, and Pine Nut Stuffed Shells

Hey, special treat for me...the wife cooked for me. :) I was her loyal sous-chef and did some of the dirty work, but she was in control of what went where and when, and I just followed orders. The meal was just terrific, I honestly could not have done it better.

16 jumbo pasta shells
2 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken meat
1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
1 package thawed chopped spinach
1/2 container ricotta cheese ( 237.5 g)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp chili flakes
shredded chedder cheese
fresh parsley

Sauce:

1 tbsp olive oil
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium onion, diced
1 16 oz can of diced tomatoes
1/2 can of tomato paste
fresh parsley


1. In saute pan, heat olive oil and add onions and garlic until softened. Add diced tomatoes, paste, and parsley and simmer until reduced. Replace lost liquid with chicken stock and reduce again. Add a shot of vodka, combine, and set aside covered to keep warm.

2. Cook pasta shells, underdone and firm, then drain and set aside.

3. In large mixing bowl, combine all other ingrediants and stuff shells. Arrange in casserole dish and cover with the sauce, then shredded cheese and parsley. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 1 hour. Serve with fresh parmesean and a twist of cracked pepper if you like.

Simple Roasted Chicken

Why use a recipe? You want a roasted chicken and you want it today. No problem.

Take some butter out of the fridge and let it soften to room temperature. Cheat with the microwave if you have to.

Chop up a whole mess of root vegetables so they're roughly the same size. Potatoes, squash, onions, carrots, yams, etc. Sprinkle them with salt, pepper, rosemary, and olive oil. Toss them around, then into a roasting pan.

Cut a lemon into quarters and shove some lemon inside the chicken, along with whatever else you have. A piece of onion, a chunk of orange, more rosemary, a sprig of thyme, whatever. Rub the chicken all over with the soft butter. Toss some salt and pepper all over it. Lay it on the vegetables. Roast for an hour at 400 F then test either with internal temperature (170-180 F), juices running clear, or wiggling a leg (the chicken's, not yours) to see if it's loose. Everyone seems to have a technique. Don't worry, chances are you won't poison yourself. Enjoy.