Beef Rendang

I just love a good curry and am always trying out new recipes, both at home, in restaurants and as takeaways.   This is one that I will definitely be making again.   It’s very rich and so so delicious.   My new favourite curry.   And also my new favourite dish to make in the slowcooker.

Beef rendang is a dish I’ve wanted to make for a long time but I needed a push from My Kitchen My World to finally get around to making it.    When I saw that the destination for June was Indonesia I was delighted and immediately knew that this was what I was going to make. Well, I had all of June to make it but typically did not manage to make it until nearly the end of June.   In fact, I was almost too late.   The end of June crept up on me and I still had a few recipes I wanted to make before the end of the month.   Fortunately, this was one of the lucky ones.

Ingredients – Serves 2

400g braising steak

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

Small knob of ginger

1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp turmeric

2 red chilli peppers

1 tsp dried lemongrass

1 tbsp toasted coconut flakes

1 bay leaf

2 tsp soft brown sugar

1 tbsp soy sauce

200ml coconut milk

How to make Beef Rendang

1. Put the onion, ginger, garlic, chillies, lemongrass, coriander, turmeric and coconut flakes into a food processor.   Add a little water if necessary.    Blend till you get a rough paste.

2. Put the beef in the bottom of the slow cooker.   Spoon the paste over the top.   Add the soy sauce, bay leaf and sugar. Top with coconut milk.   Add a little extra water if necessary.   Stir and leave to cook for 8 hours.

3. Take the rendang out of the slow cooker and put in a saucepan on the hob.   Simmer for about an hour till the sauce reduces.

4. Serve with rice.

 

Steak with Pink Peppercorn Sauce

I’d forgotten all about this recipe until I was looking through my drafts folder.    I made it earlier this year when the weather was cold and the best thing to eat was crispy roasted potatoes and creamy sauces.   Now, that’s a pretty good way of eating at any time of year and this dish is certainly going to get made again before the cold weather returns.    In fact, this is a dish to impress someone with.   It’s easy, but it tastes great and are there many people who don’t love roasted potatoes, steak and creamy sauces?  Not many that I know of anyway.

It’s also a pretty dish.   The peppercorns are a lovely bright pink, especially before they go in the sauce.    Unfortunately they lose some of their colour as they cook but this could be avoided by adding them at the last minute.  The red onions also keep the pink theme.    But don’t worry, it’s not just a feminine dish.    Trust me, you’d find it hard to find someone who wouldn’t like this sauce.

I was sent the pink peppercorn from Healthy Supplies who have a great selection of herbs and spices on their website.

Ingredients – serves 2

2 steaks

4 mushrooms

1/2 red onion

1 garlic clove

1 tbsp pink peppercorns

2 tbsp port

150 ml beef stock

3 tbsp cream

1/2 tsp dried thyme

How to make Steak with Pink Peppercorn Sauce

1.Fry the red onion, garlic and mushroom until they have softened.  Add the thyme and peppercorns.

2. Add a dash of port and let it bubble for a couple of minutes.    Then add the stock.   Simmer for 10 minutes then add the cream.

3. Begin cooking the steaks as the sauce is simmering.   Use a frying pan or griddle pan.  Turn once during cooking.    When done to your liking, remove from the pan and leave to rest.

4. Add some hot water from the kettle to the steak pan.  Scrape any bits off the bottom and add to the pan with the sauce.   Before serving, also pour any resting juices from the steaks into the pan with the sauce.

5. Serve the sauce on top of the steaks along with some roasted potatoes and vegetables.

 

Chicken Breasts in Lemon and Sage Sauce

Sometimes when I go to the library I like to pick up a cookbook by a mystery author.   I often choose one I wouldn’t actually go out and buy, but that I’m happy to browse through and that was exactly how I felt about Gino D’Acampo’s Fantastico.    I don’t know much about him, apart from that he is on Ready Steady Cook, which I don’t watch as I’m not at home when it’s on, but I like Italian food, some of the pictures looked nice and it wasn’t too heavy – I still had other shopping to do and the main point of going to the library wasn’t actually to pick up cookbooks but to get more books to read on the tube to work every day.

I decided to make this chicken dish as I have never used egg to thicken a sauce and I was intrigued about how it would turn out.   I also very rarely use sage but love lemon so the combination of flavours was different to what I was used to.   I found the fennel seeds give the sauce quite a strong flavour and can be left out if you’re not so keen on fennel, but the sauce does taste very fresh and overall it is very easy to do.

The book the recipe was taken from was Fantastico by Gino D’Acampo.   I would say it’s a book for people who don’t do a lot of cooking and are looking for an introduction to easy Italian cooking.   There were a lot of nice recipes in the book, recipes I would happily make, but not many that really excited me and made me think, I’ve got to make this!   I’ll be saying goodbye to it soon as it goes back to the library, but at least it’s taught me a new technique.   I’m sure this won’t be the last time I use egg in a sauce.

I am  linking this to Mom’s Sunday Cafe for Cookbook Sundays.

Ingredients – Serves 2

2 chicken breasts

1/2 lemon

1 tbsp flour

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp fennel (optional)

200ml chicken stock

1 egg yolk

1 tsp sage

Salt

Black pepper

Olive oil

How to Make Chicken Breasts in Lemon and Sage Sauce

1. Make a paste with the flour, garlic and lemon juice.   Coat the chicken with the paste and leave for half an hour.

2. Put a little olive oil in a sauce pan.   Scrape the paste off the chicken and keep for the next step.   Add the chicken and the fennel seeds to the pan and fry the chicken on each side.

3. If the paste is quite thick, thin it with a little water or stock then add it to the pan and stir with a wooden spoon. Then add the rest of the stock, sage, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil then lower to a very gentle simmer for about 20 minutes.   Or, put in the oven at about 180C for half an hour.

4. Mix the egg yolk with a little lemon juice.    Remove the chicken from the pan.   Stir in the lemon juice.   Keep stirring as it thickens but don’t let it boil.

5. Serve the sauce poured over the chicken with rice or potatoes and vegetables.

 

Potato, Egg and Anchovy Salad

I’d planned to write about chocolate ice-cream today but unfortunately my camera has not saved the picture I took and the recipe could also do with a little tweaking.    The flavour was perfect – but the texture was a little thick for the machine.   What a shame! Or rather, what a great excuse to make it again!  But not this week.   I promise you I’m going to be healthy from now on.   Well, at least until next weekend.

After this month’s Daring Cooks Challenge I have actually become quite keen on potato salads.   So keen that I now choose to make them whereas before I would have run a mile.   I actually like the taste of new potatoes, still a bit warm with the olive oil, black pepper and lemon soaking in.    I chose to pair them this week with anchovies – another ingredient I would have avoided like the plague a couple of years ago.   I used the ones that are tinned in olive oil so I could use the anchovy flavoured olive oil in the dressing.   Delicious – if you like anchovies.

You could say this is a variation on a salad nicoise.   A seared tuna steak instead of (or in addition to) the anchovies would have been equally delicious.

I am submitting this to Kahakai Kitchen for Souper (soup, salad and sammie) Sunday.

Ingredients – serves 1

5 new potatoes

1 egg

6 tinned anchovies + the oil from the tin

Handful of mangetout

Handful cherry tomatoes, halved

6 asparagus spears

Salt

Black pepper

Lemon juice

How to make Potato, Egg and Anchovy Salad

1. Halve the potatoes and boil them for about 15 minutes or until cooked.

2. Put the egg on to boil for about 10 minutes.

3. Just before the potatoes are ready, add the asparagus.

4. Remove the egg and put it in a bowl of cold water, before removing the shell and quartering.

5. Arrange all the ingredients on a plate.    Season.  Drizzle the oil from the anchovy tin over the salad and finish with a squeeze of lemon.

 

Garlic Sea Bass

This dish was inspired by our Croatian holiday but as I had run out of olive oil and used butter instead, it is slightly more French.  Well, that’s what I say, a French person may not agree.  But, going back to this dish, Dubrovnik is by the sea so fish is really popular everywhere especially, it seemed, sea bass.   It was usually served very simply with boiled potatoes and greens and a garlic and olive oil dressing.   As far as I know, it isn’t usually served with broccoli, it was generally chard.  The fish was grilled/barbecued, usually whole and had a lovely crispy skin.   As you can see from the picture, my fish is not whole, I didn’t grill it, I fried it, but it does have a crispy skin.    Next time I’ll make sure I have some olive oil in the kitchen before I start and will use that instead of butter.    After all, although the butter was nice, and the garlic delicious, I am more of an olive oil girl at heart.

Ingredients – serves 2

2 sea bass fillets

5 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

Olive oil

Small knob butter

Garlic salt

1 Lemon

New Potatoes

Broccoli or other green vegetables

How to make Garlic Sea Bass

1. Put the potatoes on to boil.   Five minutes before they are ready, add the broccoli.

2. Wash the sea bass.  Scrape off any scales if necessary.   Dry and season with garlic salt.

3. Heat a little oil in a frying pan.   Add the sea bass.   Turn after 2-3 minutes.

4.When ready take the sea bass out of the pan.   To the pan, add the butter, a little extra oil if necessary and the chopped garlic.

5. When the garlic begins to brown, spoon some of the butter and garlic over the fish.

6. Drain the potatoes and brocoli and add to the frying pan with the rest of the garlic and butter.    Shake to coat the potatoes and broccoli in the sauce and serve with the fish.

7. Serve with lemon wedges and black pepper.

 

Potato, Feta and Asparagus Salad

This month’s Daring Kitchen theme was to make a healthy potato salad.   Recipes were provided but we were encouraged to be inventive.   Now, I always thought I didn’t like potato salad.   The salad I had as a child always seemed coated in loads of mayonnaise and had been kept in the fridge before eating so was too cold.   Not being a fan of cold potatoes or new potatoes generally and being very picky about the type of mayonnaise I liked I decided potato salad was one of those things that wasn’t for me.  It’s only in the last couple of years that I have begun to occasionally buy new potatoes.   I like making a salad when the potatoes are still warm, dressing with olive oil, lemon juice and lots of back pepper.    And of course, potatoes go perfectly with cheese so this time I added loads of feta to make a delicious well-balanced and healthy light meal.

Blog-checking lines: Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

Ingredients – Serves 2

About 10-12 New potatoes, halved

12 spears of asparagus

Handful of sugar snap peas

Feta cheese, cubed

2 small handfuls of spinach

Cherry tomatoes, halved

Juice of 1 lemon

Extra virgin olive oil

Black pepper

Salt

How to make Potato, feta and Asparagus salad

1. Boil the potatoes.  Add the asparagus just before the potatoes are ready.

2. Put a handful of spinach on each plate. Sprinkle with the tomatoes and sugar snap peas.

3. Drain and separate the potatoes and asparagus.

4. Make the dressing by mixing the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

5. Dress the potatoes. Make sure they are coated all over in the dressing.

6. Add the potatoes to the salad. Then the asparagus and top with the feta.

7. Drizzle the excess dressing over the salad.  Season with extra black pepper and salt if necessary.

 

Raspberry and White Chocolate Ice Cream

Since getting my new ice cream maker last week I’d been looking forward to testing it out.   All week different flavours have been running through my mind and also conflicting opinions between me and my husband.    My husband loves chocolate, toffee and caramel type flavours.  I prefer fruit flavours.   He prefers real ice cream but I like sorbets and frozen yoghurts.   In the end, I came up with a compromise of raspberry ice cream with white chocolate chips.

It was less sweet than shop-bought ice cream so you might want to add more sugar than I did.   Maybe up to twice as much depending on taste.  To save time you could also leave some whole raspberries in the mix or even not bother with getting rid of the seeds and just mash the raspberries a little before adding to the cream.  Anyway, it makes a lovely summer dessert served with a few extra raspberries.

Ingredients – Serves 4

200g raspberries

300ml single cream

1 tbsp icing sugar

1tsp vanilla essence

100g white chocolate

How to Make Raspberry and White Chocolate Ice Cream

1. Put the raspberries in a blender and blend till smooth.

2. Cut the chocolate up to make small chocolate chips.

3. Put a sieve above a bowl and push the raspberry mixture through the sieve till only the seeds are left in the sieve.

4. Add the sugar, cream and chocolate to the bowl and stir to combine.

5. Put into an ice cream maker, following the instructions given for your machine.

 

Puerto Rican Chicken and Rice

Rice, spice and chicken.   In my little flat those are some of the key ingredients to a great dinner and this dish, a bit like a spanish paella but a bit spicier, fits that description perfectly.    I love dishes that can be cooked in just one pot.   Less washing up for a start but also so easy to make.   This dish is one I’d been planning on making since about 2009 when I got Caribbean Food Made Easy by Levi Roots.   As happens all the time, I’d thought it looked good, planned to make it but hadn’t made it immediately and then forgotten all about it until I was flicking through the book again.  I don’t make or eat a lot of Caribbean food but I do like it whenever I have it and always think it’s one of those cuisines I’d like to know more about.    Living in London where it’s possible to get so much Caribbean Food, I really have no excuses.

I loved the flavours in this dish but the chicken was just slightly dry.  In the original recipe, thighs and drumsticks were used and this would mean the meat would stay moister.   The darker bits you can see in the rice are the scrapings from the bottom of the pan.    As the dish is not stirred as it is cooking, a slight crust forms on the bottom, but this is really tasty so scrape it onto the plates.   I also substituted black olives for green ones, just because of what I had in the fridge.

I would like to submit this to Cookbook Sundays, hosted by Melynda at Mom’s Sunday Cafe and also Savoury Sundays at The Sweet Detail.

Ingredients

2 Chicken breasts – but meat on the bone would probably be better

85g basmati rice

1 tsp all purpose seasoning

1 onion, chopped

1/2 red pepper, sliced

1/2 green pepper, sliced

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp ground all spice berries

1/2 tsp turmeric

2cm piece of root ginger

1 red chilli, sliced

300ml chicken stock

1/2 tsp dried thyme

2 bay leaves

Handful of black olives

1/2 lime

How to make Puerto Rican Chicken and Rice

1. Rub the all purpose seasoning into the chicken.

2. Heat a little oil in a heavy bottomed pan.   When hot, add the chicken.   Brown on all sides then remove.

3. Add the onions, peppers and garlic to the pan.   When they begin to soften add the turmeric, allspice, ginger and chilli.  Stir

4. After about  a minute add the chicken again.  Put the rice around the sides. Add the stock. Sprinkle with the thyme and add the bay leaves.  Turn the heat right down.   Cover and leave for about 20 minutes.

5. Sprinkle the olives on top. Cover, and leave for another 15 minutes.

 

Carob and Chocolate Cake

I have decided that there is nothing I like better than recreating a favourite dish after a holiday. And when that dish is as interesting as this cake then so much the better.

I left Croatia a couple of weeks ago, having made a new discovery.    That discovery was carob.   It wasn’t a completely new discovery.   When I was in my early teens, my sister made something with carob in.  I say something as I have completely forgotten what it was.   It could have been a cake, biscuits, whatever, but it’s not important.   I asked what carob was and was told it was a substitute for chocolate.    Of course,   I was imagining some sort of delicious chocolatey dessert and when I tasted it, and it clearly wasn’t chocolate, I was very disappointed, as would any adolescent be.   I decided carob was not for me, and I would probably not have tried it again except for that fact that in a lovely Italian restaurant in a suburb of Dubrovnik, I fancied homemade cake for dessert.    There were only two types of homemade cakes.   As I peered into the glass cabinet trying to work out which to choose, I asked the waiter what the delicious looking chocolate coloured one was.   He didn’t know the word for carob in English, but it sounded a bit similar.    He showed me a dried pod and told me it grew in Croatia.   He had me hooked.   A local ingredient, something different.   Maybe it was time to try carob again.   After all, it looked so good.

When it came, I wasn’t expecting a chocolate cake, and so I wasn’t disappointed.   I tasted it to see if I liked it, trying to work out what it tasted of, but I couldn’t really say it tasted like anything else I knew, but it did taste really good.   I loved it, but apart from the carob, I couldn’t quite work out what it had in it.

That first night was near the beginning of our holiday, and I kept thinking back to that cake.  We ate in lots of places, in the old town of Dubrovnik and near our hotel, but I didn’t have another dessert I liked quite as much, and I was still mulling over what the ingredients were in that carob cake.   We decided to go back.   Once again we had a lovely meal, with a lovely relaxed atmosphere and at the end of the meal I finished with the carob cake.    Just as good as I remembered.   But I still couldn’t quite work out what it had in it.

A few days passed, we went home, I looked for carob cake on the internet, but all the cakes seemed to use carob as a substitute for chocolate.   I wanted a recipe for a cake that would celebrate carob as an ingredient in its own right.   Also, none of the recipes I found sounded quite right.   And so, having kept the card, I emailed the restaurant, not even knowing if I would get a response.   Then, about 24 hours later, I got a reply.   Srdan had very kindly taken the trouble not only to reply but also to translate the basics of the recipe into English.   I danced around the living room!

I was a little bit unsure of what was meant by some of the ingredients, but I experimented and followed the basic method.   The cake I ended up with didn’t taste exactly the same as in the restaurant, but it was similar.  It still had that carob flavour, distinct from chocolate.   The texture was also different.   Mine was crumblier, not as solid as the restaurant one and the bits of apple were jucier.   I also didn’t have any rum so I decided to substitute it with sloe gin.  I thought it would go well with the fruitiness of the apple and currants, although my cake guinea pigs said they would like to have it with rum next time.   One of my cake guinea pigs thought the apple needed to be cooked more before going in the cake but the other cake guinea pigs liked the little cubes of juicy apple.   Overall, there is room for some more experimenting with this cake before I declare it an absolutely final recipe – I would quite happily make it and eat it again as it is but I think I’ll experiment with preparing the apple in different ways.   There was also one ingredient that  stumped me – flavour.   Was it a misspelling of flour?  Or was it something else?   I could have asked, but I was enjoying the experimental nature of the whole challenge – so I decided to use ground almonds.    After all, why not?

If you ever get the chance to go to Dubrovnik, and if your hotel is in Lapad,  I would strongly recommend the Konoba Atlantic.   There are a lot of hotels in Lapad and a lot of restaurants, many of them on the main pedestrianised road leading to Lapad beach, but this restaurant was a clear step above these.   It was on a very quiet residential road, running parallel but behind the main road.   Unless you knew it was there, you wouldn’t just wander across it, and because of that the quality and service were of a much higher standard and meant we had a much more enjoyable meal out.   Delicious bruschetta, homemade pasta, and of course for me, the star of the meal, the carob cake.

Konoba Atlantic can be found on Kardinala Stepinca 42, Dubrovnik

www.konobatlantic.com

I am submitting this to Sweets for a Saurday at Sweet as Sugar Cookies and Cupcake Apothecary for a Themed Bakers Sunday

Ingredients

4 apples, peeled and diced into tiny cubes, about 2mm

4 eggs

30g  currants

100 ml rum, alternative alcohol or fruit juice

100g caster sugar

100g carob powder

100ml oil

60g ground almonds or 100g flour ( as in the real recipe)

50ml milk

120g dark chocolate

How to make Chocolate and Carob Cake

1. Put the currants in a bowl and pour the alcohol on top and leave to stand.

2. Put the egg whites in a bowl and whisk till they turn white and begin to form soft peaks.

3. Gradually whist in the sugar, egg yolk, ground almond, oil, milk and carob powder.

4. Mix the apple, currants and alcohol together.   Then mix the fruit mixture into the other bowl.

5. Grease the bottom and sides of a springform tin and then add the cake mixture.   Bake in the oven at about 180C for 40-45 minutes.   Check it is ready with a skewer or cocktail stick.

6. When the cake has cooled, melt the chocolate and spread on the top of the cake.

Update: Srdan has since got back to me and the mystery ingredient, flavor, was actually a typing error for flour.  Next time I’ll try it that way and let you know how it turns out.   I imagine it will be less crumbly and with a more similar texture to in the restaurant, but the taste should be almost the same.

 

Fish with Spinach, Olives and Tomatoes

Why is it with fish that whenever I have a particular dish in mind when shopping, the shops never have the fish I want?  I really wanted a flat fish for this – lemon sole would have been my first choice, but I’d have settled for Plaice, which is what Jamie Oliver used in  Happy Days with the Naked Chef, which is where this recipe is adapted from.  As there was no flat fish, I chose some small fillets of pouting as they were the flattest fish I could see and they didn’t have many bones in them.  I just hate removing bones, trying to grasp them between your nails and pulling only to be left with raw fish beneath your nails and the bone still in the fish.  Yes, I know I could use tweezers – but that would mean going on a hunt around the flat to find them.

The filling in the middle is a variation of tapenade so you could use a jar of tapenade instead of making it, but it can easily be made while the sauce is simmering.   I loved the ways the olives flavoured the sauce but my lovely husband found it a bit fishy.  Unfortunately, that is a problem he seems to have with fish.  Why can’t you get sea bass? He asked.   Ok, next time.  Or, as soon as I can find it…

I am submitting this to IHCC. The theme this week is Something Fishy.

Ingredients – Serves 2

4 small fish or 2 larger ones – flat fish is best but small thin white fish also work, ideally skinless and boneless

1 tin chopped tomatoes

1 small onion, chopped

1 large clove of garlic, chopped

1 cup stock (or wine)

75g stoned black olives

2 anchovies

1 tsp dried basil – but use fresh if you have it

2 handfuls of spinach

Salt

Black pepper

Olive oil

How to make Fish with Spinach, Olives and Tomatoes

1. Heat a little olive oil in a saucepan.   When hot add the onion and garlic.  When it softens add the stock, basil and chopped tomatoes. Turn the heat down so it simmers gently.

2. Prepare the olive paste.   Put the olives and anchovies in a food processor with a little olive oil.   Blend till smooth.

3. Remove the skin from the fish if it has it and any bones. Spread the fillets with  the olive paste. Roll up and secure with cocktail sticks.

4. Gently place the fish into the sauce.  Put the lid on the pan and leave to simmer for about 15 minutes.

5. Carefully remove the fish from the pan.   Add the spinach and stir till it wilts then spoon the rest of the sauce over the fish.

6. Serve with fresh bread.