A simple Feast with these easy recipes

Thought I better get round to posting some of these recipes of the dishes that we whipped out during our simple Christmas feast for we will definitely see most of these back on our dining table when entertaining at home.

The starter was these really delicious stuffed portobello mushrooms with chopped mushroom stems, prosciutto ham, onions, parsley, rosemary, thyme and since we didn’t have any bread left at home. The helper crushed some crackers and I threw them into the mix. Pan-fry the ingredients and then stuff them into the mushroom caps. Drizzle a little olive oil and pop them into the oven. After approximately 20 mins, these babies should be done.

Next, we always need a side of veggies to make our meal a little more wholesome. This is simple to put together. We got some pumpkin, broccoli and corn for the roast. All we did was to drizzle the olive oil liberally, add some salt and srigs of rosemary and thyme. Pop them into the oven for about 20 minutes. Remove broccoli and pumpkin from tray, pop the tray with the corn into the oven for about another 10-15 mins and it should be done.

Highlight of our meal has got to be this Truffle Butter Roast Chicken recipe that I got off from Lavishley. Simple yet extremely flavorful! This is definitely making a comeback at our parties!

Last but not the least, the Man’s favorite molten chocolate lava cake with salted caramel ice-cream that I got from Marks and Spencer.

Hope these simple recipes would inspire you to cook more for the coming year. It definitely has inspired us to come up with a New Year menu.

Can burgers be healthy?

Well, yes, if you make them yourself.

I was in the mood for some home-made burgers but wanted a twist in my previous recipe.   So I surfed around and realised that I could substitute the Panko (Japanese bread-crumbs) in my recipe with tofu.  And the best part?  You won’t even know the difference.

If you like to give this recipe a try, click here and follow the steps.  Just omit the Panko and the milk if you are using tofu.  As for the type of tofu to use, I would recommend that you use the firm type of tofu and drain the moisture out of the tofu with paper-towels before throwing it into the meat mixture and mashing them up to form the hamburger patties.

An easy and wholesome dinner idea served alongside rice or in our case, a soup and potato gratin for a full meal.

 

Dinner-time: Truffle Pasta with Poached Egg

The mom-in-law. She lives with us so she does most of the cooking on weekdays. But she’s away for a couple of days so I took the opportunity to head back into the kitchen and whip up a simple dish for a weeknight dinner.

While stocking up for groceries to prep for the weeknight meal, the Man decided to pick up some Tagliatelle. He was in the mood for some Tagliatelle with white truffle oil. I found this recipe online.. tweaked it a little and viola.. whipped up this pasta along with some barbecued pork and steamed broccoli for a simple meal.

The recipe called for poached eggs. The Man and I, we attempted making them once but it failed terribly and ended up looking like flower eggs in hot water, so I never really dared to make them again. This time round, I was fairly determined to make them. Went online to find a tutorial on You Tube… watched the Gordon Ramsey video a couple of times before heading to the kitchen to make the poached eggs.

If you followed the step-by-step guide listed by Mr Ramsey, you’ll find that you will also be able to poach eggs at home too! We added white vinegar to the boiling water as it’s supposed to help the egg envelope in a cocoon faster. Pleased with the result, I started to prep the rest of the dish.

With some olive oil, I sauteed the portobello mushrooms and once it’s cooked, I added the cooked Tagliatelle pasta. If you find the pasta a little dry, you could add about 2-3 tablespoons of the pasta water (retained from cooking of the pasta). Thereafter, add about 3 tablespoons of white truffle oil. Give it a good toss and prepare to plate the pasta before putting the poached egg on top of the dish. Throw in a little chives as garnish and you’re done!

Kinda easy peasy huh?

So, S from Schwingen in Switzerland and L from The Swiss Watch Blog, I hope this recipe has inspired you gals to bring out the truffle oil and start cooking.

Spiced-up comfort food

Whenever the Man ain’t feeling all too dandy (usually after a hard night of drinking), he would crave for mouse noodles 老鼠粉.  Yikes, what are mouse noodles?  They are actually called Mee Tak Mak, rice noodles shaped like a mouse’s tail.  Sounds and looks gross but trust me, it’s good.  After a hard night of partying, these mouse noodles are best served in a hot chicken broth.  Totally clears the system and immediately you’ll feel better as well.

When I popped over to my cousin’s place earlier this week, she kindly cooked lunch before we proceeded to whip up some macarons.  Her creation of the Mee Tak Mak all spiced up was so-so good!  This was more like comfort food for me rather than the soupy version for I love spicy stuff.  So I decided to recreate this spicy dish for the Man and the family last night.

Verdict?  The family loved it!  Even the helper who usually can’t quite take spicy stuff gave this a thumbs up. 

Spicy Mee Tak Mak with Korean sauce (Serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 2 packets of Mee Tak Mak (got the packet ones from NTUC)
• 1 medium red shallot – diced
• 2-3 tablespoons of Korean Gochuchang paste
• 1/2 cup of water
• 4-6 pieces of Taiwan Sausages
• Handful of bean sprouts
• Salt – to taste
• Chinese parsley – coarsely chopped, for garnish (OPTIONAL)
• Century egg – coarsely chopped, for garnish (OPTIONAL)

Directions:

1. Heat oil in a medium pan over medium heat. Add shallots and sweat them till it turns soft and translucent.
2. Add Gochuchang paste and stir paste into shallots.  Add water.
3. Add Mee Tak Mak and stir-fry the noodles till desired texture is achieve (I like my noodles abit firmer than soft).
4. Add Taiwan Sausages and bean sprouts and mix them well with noodles.  If noodles are too dry, you can also add a little more water.
5. Add salt to taste.
6. Turn off heat and add chopped Chinese parsley at this point.  Remember to mix parsley well with noodles before dishing it up.
7. (OPTIONAL) Adding the century egg gives the dish another flavour, so if you are a fan of century eggs, you could add this to the dish.

Blends.

I’ve never really been into kitchen gadgets. They are simply functional to me serving the basic needs to get food on to my table. That was until I started to learn how wonderful these gadgets can be in the kitchen; helping me to cut down preparation time and churning pretty food on to the table. I bought my very first hand-held whisk here in Geneva because I had wanted to make me some macarons. It’s gone on to be my partner-in-crime whenever I wanted to whip up some macs to be enjoyed.

Since then, I’ve gone on to add another tool: a handheld blender cum food-processor into our kitchen. Well, because it was on offer (yes, I couldn’t resist purchasing a device on sale after collecting some 25 stamps – it was one of those coupon thingy) and because I wanted to try my hand at making home-made soups – a first for me.

While surfing, I came across this recipe for Curried Carrot Soup posted by Ashlet from littlepaperplanes. Seemed fairly easy plus I had a big bag of curry powder stashed away that I could use for this. So I tried my hand at making and blending my very first soup for dinner one night and it was really.very.good if I may add.

Curried Carrot Soup (Recipe adapted from littlepaperplanes)

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 onion – chopped
• 2 teaspoons of curry powder
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 4 cups of water
• 1 chicken essence cube
• 3 carrots (approx. 500g), peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
• 1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, 2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish (OPTIONAL)

Directions:

1. Heat butter in a medium pot over medium heat. Add onion, curry powder, salt, and pepper (the latter 2 ingredients according to taste). Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is soft, about 5 minutes.
2. Add broth, carrots, 4 cups water, chicken essence cube; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover, and simmer until carrots are tender, about 20 minutes.
3. In a blender, puree soup in batches until smooth; transfer to a clean saucepan. Add more water to thin to desired consistency. Reheat, if necessary.
4. Stir in lemon juice. Serve garnished with cilantro, if desired.

I omitted step 4 as I tasted the soup which I thought was good enough for me and I was kinda worried that the lemon juice may change the flavour of the soup. I also added more curry powder for I wanted the soup to be a little spicier. Lastly, I couldn’t find cilantro at the supermarket here so I ended up garnishing with parsley and some cracked red pepper. Turned out pretty well too. That’s not all, this soup can be served warm or chill so no worries about making more of the yummy soup and stashing it in the refrigerator if you can’t finish it all.

This recipe is definitely for keeps and looks like my new kitchen tool is here to stay.

A quick meal

After reading Miss Ene’s recent post on Cooking up a storm, I was inspired to whip up one of the dishes – Three Cups Chicken (三杯鸡)- that she made for dinner one evening.

It turned out to be a pretty simple recipe which made for a very tasty meal for a weeknight dinner.

Three Cups Chicken (三杯鸡) [Recipe adapted from Noobcook]

Ingredients: (Serves 2)

• 450g chicken thighs, cut to small pieces
• 1.5 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1.5 tbsp Chinese wine (Hua Tiao/Shao Hsing)
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce
• 10 cloves garlic, peeled & slightly bruised
• 2 stalks spring onions, cut to 5cm (2 inch) lengths
• 40ml water
• 0.5 tsp sugar
• 6 slices ginger & a handful of fresh sweet basil leaves (I left these out as I didn’t have them on hand)

Method:

1. Heat sesame oil in pot and add garlic cloves, ginger, the thick bottom white ends of the spring onions. Stir fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
2. Add chicken pieces and stir fry until the surface is no longer pink.
3. Sizzle Chinese wine and add light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, water and sugar. Stir evenly, and cover the lid to simmer for about 6 minutes.
4. Add the rest of the spring onions and continue simmering until the sauce is greatly reduced.
5. When the dish is cooked, stir in some fresh basil leaves before serving.

I guess the next time I’m making this, I will be throwing in some dried chilli or fresh chilli padi (bird’s eye chilli) for a spicy kick in the taste-buds.

What are some of your favourite weeknight meals? I’ll love to hear what’s cooking in your kitchen.

Quick fix assam meal

I love my spices (alot)! One of my favourite dishes has got to be Assam Ikan Pedas (Spicy Tamarind Fish).  My family, especially my dad, loves this dish and when we have our family dinners at the Peranakan restaurant along Joo Chiat Road, we would order a huge fish and drench our rice with the spicy sauce.  Arh.. miss those days!

So armed with one precious bottle of Assam paste from Woh Hup, I tried to recreate the dish to evoke memories of home.   Obviously that didn’t work for we couldn’t get the right cut of fish and the sauce turned out to be too spicy for the Man’s taste-buds.  Half a bottle of the paste was left sitting in my refrigerator for the longest time and in a bid to clear out our sauces before we leave, I decided to make good the sauce again.

Once again, I ‘ran’ to my genius of a cook cousin for help.  After a couple of text exchanges, she helped me with this baked seafood platter with Assam sauce.

First, I boiled some water with some slices of ginger and 2 stalks of lemongrass, then I added the paste plus 2 teaspoons of sugar to reduce the spiciness of the sauce for the Man.  Once the marinade started to come to a boil, I turned the heat down and set the marinade to cool.  Then I arranged the baking dish with a cut of Salmon, some calamari, scallops and clams.  Poured the cooled marinade and set the dish into the oven for the seafood to be baked.

And what a simple but sumptuous dinner it turned out to be.. this time round, the level of spiciness was just right!  We tucked in straight away and guess what I did?  Yup, drenched my rice with the sauce, just the way I like it!