Tag: recipe

Yelly Eats

Fajita night!

Yelly

I am a wannabe domestic goddess (you wouldn’t think so if you saw what my front room looked like!  Martha Stewart I definitely am not!) and I have illusions of joining the Great British Bake Off.  I say illusions because I am in no way, shape or form ready to bake at that level just yet!  I say “just yet” because it is the great dream…and I am slowly self-training my way into readiness.

I love to cook and I adore my tiny kitchen.  But there are days when I really don’t want to spend to much time in it.  Tuesdays, more often than not, are days when I don’t really want to cook.  It’s my I’m-so-tired-I-could-cry day for some reason.  So on a Tuesday night, I will usually find myself sitting on the train hoping there are leftovers in the fridge, or me buying a ready meal from the supermarket to pop in the oven when I get home or there is the phoning-takeaway-of-choice  route.

Tonight however, is different.  Tonight is fajita night!  While I cheated yet again tonight (I bought a fajita spice packet from the supermarket!), here’s a fajita spice mix recipe that I know works really well:

Ingredients:

Spice Mix
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1-2 teaspoons chili powder (or go without, this really depends on how hot you want it to be!)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon paprika (sweet variety, or if you can find the smoked variety, that will work too)
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon crushed chicken bouillon cube
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon cumin

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
650g chicken thighs, diced (I use chicken thighs because they don’t dry out as much as chicken breasts)
1 medium sized white onion, sliced thinly
1 red, 1 green and 1 yellow bell pepper, julienned (pepper colours can be changed, of course, depending on what’s available)

Directions

  1. Mix together all the spice mix ingredients.  In a metal or glass bowl (only because the spice mix will stain plastic bowls), mix chicken, vegetable oil and the spice mix together until the chicken is well coated.
  2. Making sure the pan (I used a non-stick pan) is very hot, brown the chicken and cook for about 10 minutes.  Add the onions and the bell pepper and cook for a further 5 minutes.
  3. Serve in warm soft tortillas with sour cream, salsa and guacamole.

And there you go!  A meal that’s quick, easy and surprisingly healthy (especially if you go easy on the condiments!).

Yelly Eats

Sweet and sour fish!

Yelly

I few weeks ago, I finally managed to go to Hung’s in Chinatown in London, upon the recommendation of  London foodie, Helen Pang.  Helen has never recommended anything that has disappointed.  She was the one who introduced me to Gelupo Gelato and Gelupo is now a mainstay of my London trips–whatever the weather.  So when Helen recommended Hung’s, I made a mental note to try the food there.  I’m still, sort of, mourning the loss of Tai Ka Lok and I was still sort of looking for a restaurant to replace it in my list of absolute London Chinese restaurant maintstays.  The first visit to Hung’s was so amazing that when we went to London again a few weeks later, it was a definite must-go-to.

We had a lovely supper: braised mushrooms and pak choi, a portion of crispy pork, sweet and sour fish and boiled rice.  The sweet and sour fish was absolutely divine!  The fish was lovely and sweet and it kind of melted in your mouth!  I’ve been dreaming of Hung’s sweet and sour fish that I had to do something similar at home.  It was a pretty good idea because I had frozen basa fillets lounging in my freezer!

My mom used to make sweet and sour sauce from scratch, Filipino style, but I wanted to see if  I could make something closer to the Chinese style of making the sauce.  I googled it and found a recipe that was so similar to my mom’s that I knew it was going to taste really nice.  You can find the instructions for the recipe here.  It cooks in 5 minutes and you can add anything you want to it.  You just put together all the ingredients and cook it until it’s as thick as you want it to be.

  • 1/3 cup white or rice vinegar (Note: rice vinegar gives better results)
  • 4 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon ketchup
  • 1 teaspoon soy sauce
  • 2 teaspoons cornstarch mixed with 4 teaspoons water

I breaded the fish before I fried them.  I sort of love breading anything really.  I do a little conveyor belt of the elements bowls of  seasoned flour (or cornstarch), beaten egg and breadcrumbs.  Depending on what you’re making, seasoned flour to me usually just means salt and pepper mixed in with the flour.  One tip I learned from either Nigella or Ina Garten (it was so long ago that I can’t remember!  It might even be Giada de Laurentis!) was to use just one hand so that you kept the other hand clean because breading things can be quite gluggy!

After breading the fish, I fried the fish to a crispy, lovely golden brown.  Make sure that you rest them on kitchen paper so that the excess oil is absorbed.

Then while the fish was cooling, I cooked the sweet and sour sauce.  Instead of adding the cornstarch right away, I added sliced onions and chopped red and yellow bell peppers and allowed them to cook slightly.  I added a few cubes of pineapple out from a tin.  A slight variation from the recipe, instead of using 4 teaspoons of water, I added 4 tablespoons of the pineapple syrup from the tin to dissolve the cornstarch and added that to the cooking sauce.

Once the sauce is at the thickness that you want it to be, you can assemble your dish.  To keep the fish lovely and crispy, I suggest just pouring the sweet and sour sauce over it.  And voila!  You have sweet and sour fish!

Yelly Eats

Pistachio, coconut and cardamom burfis

Yelly

We’re having a curry lunch at work tomorrow and we’ve been asked by the work colleague hosting the curry lunch to bring anything that we think will go with curry.   I’ve decided to bring roti bread (shop bought as I haven’t learned how to make them yet!) and pistachio, coconut and cardamom burfis.

I’ve always liked Indian food, but I must say that I’ve never really had proper Indian food until I moved to the UK.  One of the consultants who used to work for the government corporation I used to work for in the Philippines used to bring us Indian-inspired dishes and she introduced me to roti bread which I am now in love with!

Anyway, apart from the adorable roti bread,  I’m bringing pistachio annd coconut burfis to work tomorrow.  A burfi (or barfi or burfee, or borfee) is a sweet confectionery from India.  It is usually made with condensed milk cooked with sugar until it solidifies.  I saw this version being made about 5 or 6 years ago on a food-related channel on the Discovery Travel and Adventure channel.  It wasn’t until about 4 years ago, when I moved to England, funnily enough, that I had the opportunity to try making this recipe.  On the programme I was watching, it looked easy to make, and it was—very, VERY easy to make.  Most burfis ask for the condensed milk to be cooked in sugar until they harden, but as I am diabetic (and very lazy), I thought I’d try it without the long cooking process and the added sugar.  The condensed milk is sweet enough!

Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients:

  • 250 grams dessicated coconut
  • 200 grams shelled pistachio ones (avoid the salted pistachios)
  • 10 cardamom pods
  • 350ml sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

  1. In a small food processor, roughly chop the pistachios until they resemble small shards.  The chopped pistachios don’t have to be too processed because you do want to be able to bite into the occasional chunky piece of pistachio.
  2. Remove the seeds from the cardamom pods and, using a mortar and pestle, grind the seeds into a fine powder.  I find this particular part of the preparation very therapeutic!
  3. In a large bowl, combine the 200 grams of the dessicated coconut (reserve 50 grams to roll the burfis in later), the chopped pistachios, the ground cardamom seeds and the condensed milk.  Mix until everything is well combined.
  4. With lightly oiled hands (because the condensed milk is very sticky!), scoop enough of the pistachio-condensed milk-coconut mixture to make a ball that’s about 1inch in diameter.  Once the balls are formed, roll them in the dessicated coconut you reserved.  Place on a plate or box to store.


The burfis can be eaten as soon as they are made but it’s much nicer if you refrigerate them for at least 2 hours before you serve.  These keep in the fridge for about a week.  Although, I very much doubt that they’ll last that long as they’re very moreish (moreish, or more-ish, is a word I learnedafter moving to England.  It means causing one to want more–usually food!)!

Yelly Eats

Luxurious oatmeal cookies

Yelly

I love oatmeal cookies.  I remember late nights with warm cookies and a large glass of milk. Oatmeal cookies are comforting and they remind me of home.  There’s something about the smell of cinnamon wafting from the oven that just brings out the happy hormones.

This recipe is slightly more luxurious because of the amount of butter that is used in the recipe.  But it is definitely worth it.  The cookies are yummy and chewy.  I try to justify it by saying it is oatmeal, and oatmeal IS healthy and good for you!

Oatmeal CookiesIngredients:

  • 270g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 160g caster sugar
  • 160g soft dark brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 380g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 200g quick cooking oats
  • 225g raisins

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C (360°F).
  2. In a bowl, mix flour, oats, salt, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon together with a balloon whisk until well-combined.  Set aside.
  3. In another mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars together (I use a rubber spatula but you can always use a handheld mixer) until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well and making sure that you scrape the sides of the bowl so that you mix all the ingredients well.
  4. Add the flour-oats mixture to the butter mixture in thirds, mixing well eat time.  Stir in the raisings until evenly distributed.
  5. To make relatively uniform sized cookies, I use a 18/8 gauge ice cream scooper.  If you use the scooper, this makes about 42 cookies.  Arrange the cookie batter scoops on a tray, evenly spaced.
  6. Bake for about 12 minutes, make sure that you check the cookies at the 10 minute mark to make sure they aren’t burning.
  7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly on trays before turning out on wire cooling racks to cool completely.
Yelly Eats

Neiman Marcus Cookies

Yelly

This recipe has been making the rounds for ages.  My aunt sent me the recipe a few months ago with a request that I try out the recipe and perfect making it, so that when I went home to Manila for a visit, I could bake the cookies for her.  I’ve been planning the cookie bake for ages, but have had other baking projects in the works.  But tonight was the night for the so-called Neiman Marcus cookies.

The recipe calls for nuts, and I chose to use 2 kinds: pecans and hazelnuts.  I didn’t add the Hershey bar shavings anymore because I felt that there were enough chocolate chip cookies for it to be oh-s0-chocolatey already.

Here’s the recipe, as I received it.  I halved the recipe and it yielded 50 cookies already!

NEIMAN-MARCUS COOKIES (Recipe may  be halved)Neiman Marcus Cookies
2 cups butter
24 oz. chocolate chips
4 cups  flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp.  salt
2 cups sugar
1 – 8 oz. Hershey Bar (grated)
5  cups blended oatmeal
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp.  vanilla
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)

Measure oatmeal,  and blend in a blender to a fine powder. Cream the butter and both  sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt,  baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, Hershey Bar, and nuts. Roll into balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie  sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112  cookies.

Yelly Eats

Banana cupcake

Yelly

I was craving a banana cupcake (with peanut butter!) and, as luck would have it, I had just enough bananas to make up a batch of 12 cupcakes!

Sometimes, it’s the simple things that make me really happy.  And sometimes, it’s just a banana cupcake!

It’s the easiest cupcake recipe that makes the moistest of cupcakes!

Ingredients:

  • 180g of plain flourBanana Cupcake
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon of baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 3 ripe bananas, mashed
  • 150g light brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 75ml vegetable oil (or softened butter if you want a more luxurious treat)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 190°C (180°C for fan ovens).
  2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and mix with a balloon whisk.  If you’re making a Christmas version of this recipe, you can add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and ½ teaspoon of nutmeg.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix oil and sugar.  Mix until sugar granules appear to be smaller.  Add the egg and mix until the mixture is smooth.  Add the flour mixture in thirds.
  4. Mix in mashed bananas and stir until mashed bananas are well-distributed.  Scoop into a muffin pan lined with cupcake cases.
  5. Bake for 18-20 minutes.  The cupcakes are completely cooked when a toothpick is inserted in the centre of a cupcake and it comes out clean.
  6. Makes 12 cupcakes exactly.  I use an ice cream scooper to distribute the batter equally.
Yelly Eats

Chick pea-chorizo-pork stew

Yelly

This recipe evolved because I missed the callos dish that my mom prepared for us.  Callos is made with beef tripe and has chorizo and red bell peppers and is served over rice.  When I moved to England, I didn’t know where to buy tripe because there weren’t any butchers that were close by and the bigger supermarkets didn’t have tripe on their shelves.  I had to figure out how to get my callos fix without having to buy tripe.  It was a brainwave when I remembered that oxtail is also used to make kare-kare (which is a peanut-based stew popular in the Philippines).  So I figured, if I used oxtail soup, then it would give me the taste of tripe.

This is an excellent soup for the winter months when you need something hearty and hot.  It can be served on rice or eaten on its own.  If you plan to not have it as a rice topping, I’d suggest adding another can of chick peas or a can of cannellini beans or red kidney beans to make it more substantial.  You can choose to add a spicy kick to it by adding either the cayenne pepper or the tabasco sauce.  I’ve been known to add both though.  It just adds a really comforting heat to the stew during the winter months.

This is a slow-cook recipe but it is definitely worth the wait!

Inspired by a tweet from Daphne Oseña Paez, requesting that I share the recipe, I challenged myself to weigh ingredients and approximate amounts.  So here goes(…nothing?!?)!

Chick pea-chorizo-pork stewIngredients:

  • 1 kilo belly pork cut into cubes
  • 226 grams of chorizo, cut into 1/4 inch disks
  • 2 400g cans of chopped tomato
  • 1 400g can of Heinz Oxtail soup
  • 1 400g can of chickpeas (or 240g of dried chickpeas soaked in water overnight to soften)
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 600g potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 2 teaspoons garlic, chopped finely
  • 2 large white onions,
  • 3 heaping teaspoons paprika
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 2 pork stock cubes
  • 1 litre water
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 heaping teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional
    or
  • 2 teaspoons tabasco sauce, optional

Directions:

  1. Heat the olive oil in a stock pot on medium heat.  Add the chorizo disks and fry until they crips around the edges.  When the chorizo oil turns the bottom of the pan slightly red, add the onions.  Reduce the heat slightly  Once the onions are softened and slightly translucent, add the garlic sautee for 2 minutes (approximately).
  2. Add the pork and sautee for about 15 minutes, until fat in the pork belly cubes have rendered slightly and the flesh has lost its pink colour.  Add chopped tomatoes, oxtail soup, pork stock cubes, 500 ml of the water and spices.  Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, making sure the pork pieces and chorizo don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
  3. Once the stock begins to boil, reduce heat to allow it to simmer for 30 minutes.
  4. Increase heat again, to add potatoes and chick peas and remaining water.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  It’s at this point that I add either 1 heaping teaspoon of cayenne pepper or 2 teaspoons of tabasco sauce for a kick.  You don’t have to add both if you don’t want it to be too spicy. Bring to a slow boil and reduce heat and allow to slow cook for a further hour, or until the pork is tender.
  5. This will serve 4-6 greedy people if served as an all-in-one meal or 8-10 if served over a bowl of rice.
Yelly Eats

Weekend Pudding: Applesauce Cake

Yelly

I brought applesauce cakes to work once because someone at work had given me cooking apples. Since I got the apples for free, I thought it was only fair for me to share.

I’ve been using this recipe for ages so I know it’s fool-proof.  That’s why I feel confident sharing this recipe.  This cake batter can be used as a base for any cake with fruit.  This works well with bananas (you only have to add 3-4 mashed overripe bananas).  You can replace the apples in this recipe with 2 cups of chopped pineapples as well.  To make the recipe more festive (for the holidays), add 2 teaspoons nutmeg to the flour mixture in the cake.

Applesauce Cake, August 2011Ingredients:

Cake

  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup full cream milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Applesauce mixture

  • 2-3 medium-sized cooking apples,peeled, cored and diced finely
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice
  • 3 tablespoons cornflour
  • 2 tablespoons cinnamon

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C.  Grease 2 loaf pans.
  2. To make the applesauce mixture, combine ingredients in a saucepan, making sure everything is well-incorporated.
  3. Over a low heat, bring to a slow boil.  When sauce has thickened, remove from heat and set aside.
  4. Mix flour, baking soda and salt together.  Either sift, if required, or mix using a wire whisk.  Set aside.
  5. Cream butter and sugar together.  Once butter has turned smooth and fluffy, add eggs, one at a time. making sure everything is well-incorporated.  Add the vanilla.
  6. Fold in flour mixture, adding 1/4 of the mixture each time.  Alternate adding the flour mixture with adding the milk, also a 1/4 portions at a time.  Add the applesauce mixture and make sure everything is well-combined.
  7. Pour into pans and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean.
  8. Cool for 15 minutes before removing from pans and cooling completely on wire racks.
  9. Wrap in cling film and store at room temperature for up to 5 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days.
Yelly Eats

Choi sum in a ginger-garlic-wine sauce

Yelly

After eating at the HK Diner, I’ve been wanting to duplicate the choi sum dish that we had there.  It was stir-fried choi sum in garlic, ginger and rice wine.  It was lovely and very light.  Something I could snack on really.

So I haven’t really eaten rice in a while.  And just eating vegetables was probably not going to be filling enough.  I went to the Oriental Supermarket last night and bought a few things.  We’ve been wanting to have fried tofu so I thought it would be a good way to fill out the vegetable dish I was planning in my head.

It turned out amazing so I thought I’d share the recipe!

Choi sum & tofuIngredients

  • 400g choi sum (or chinese broccoli) or tenderstem broccoli (or purple sprouting broccoli)
  • 200g fried tofu cubes
  • 15g ginger root, peeled, cut into thin strips
  • 5 large cloves of garlic
  • 4 tbsp rice wine
  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 100ml water
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. With a pestle and mortar (or a food processor, but a pestle and mortar is infinitely more cathartic!), pound the ginger and garlic to a paste.
  2. In a wok or sautee pan, heat the oil.  Sautee your garlic-ginger paste until garlic starts turning golden brown.
  3. Add rice wine and simmer for about 2 minutes.  Turn down the heat to medium to low making sure that the rice wine doesn’t dry out completely.  Add the oyster sauce and and half the water.  Simmer for another minute.  Add the broccoli.  Cook for about 3 minutes covered.
  4. When the vegetable turns bright green, add the rest of the water and simmer for 2 minutes.  Add the tofu, making sure you toss the vegetables and tofu so that the tofu is covered in the ginger and rice wine sauce.
  5. Simmer for a further 5 minutes, covered.  Serve.
  6. Will feed 2-3 without rice, 4-5 if served with rice.

Look, Ma!  No rice! 🙂

Yelly Eats

Easy-Peasy Chocolate Tart

Yelly

Mind you, this recipe still needs refining.  And I used store-bought pastry.  It was too hot today to deal with making my own pastry today (plus I was being slightly lazy!).  As a shortcut, I melted the chocolate in the microwave (brilliant tip that I found online, 90 seconds in the microwave on medium heat per 100g of chocolate.  200g should require a bit more than that, about 3 ½ minutes should do quite nicely!).  But if you like ooey-gooey chocolatey tarts, this is the one to try!

Ooey-Gooey Chocolate TartIngredients:

  • 200g plain chocolate, melted
  • 50g plain flour (I added another 25g to make the chocolate more solid as opposed to runny)
  • 500g shortcrust pastry pack , rolled out to the thickness of a 20p piece and used to line 23cm flan tin
  • 100g golden caster sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • cocoa, for dusting

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C.  Line flan tin with pastry (I used the sweet short crust) and blind bake pastry for 15 minutes (don’t forget your baking beans!!!).  Set aside to cool.
  2. Lower oven temp to 150°C.  Melt chocolate and brush about a fourth of the melted chocolate on pastry bottom.  Set aside remaining chocolate to cool.  In separate bowl, mix eggs, sugar and flour in a mixing bowl.  Combine egg mixture and chocolate.  Pour into pastry-lined flan tin and bake for 20-25mins (surface might crack a little).
  3. Cool on a rack and dust with cocoa powder and serve.