Sloppy Joe

I came across this recipe on the Food Wishes website today while looking for something to make with the beef mince I had in the freezer. A sloppy joe is basically a burger but minus the whole binding, shaping and chilling the patties part. As such, it was super easy to make and tasted good! I did make some alterations to the recipe due to necessity though and I've posted the slightly modified recipe here. For the original (which serves 4-6) and the video on how to make it, go here.

Serves 2

Ingredients:
250g lean beef mince
1/4 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 red pepper, diced
5 tbsp ketchup
A dash of worchestershire sauce
Just under 1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 cup water
About 1 tsp (or to taste) salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
cayenne pepper, to taste

2 sesame seeded burger buns
a knob of butter

Method:
1) Start with a cold pan. Put the mince (helps later if you break it into small pieces first) and onion in the pan.
2) Turn on the heat to med-high. Stir the beef and onion while breaking the mince up into crumbly pieces.
3) Once all crumbly, add the garlic and stir.
4) Add the red pepper and saute for 2 mins.
5) Add 1/2 cup water and stir. (this de-glazes the beef juices that have dried up at the bottom of the pan)
6) Add ketchup, brown sugar, dijon mustard, worchestershire sauce, pepper and salt. Stir them all in.
7) Add 1/2 cup water and bring to simmer. Turn the heat on low and leave to simmer for about 30mins or until most of the water has evaporated.
8) Taste and adjust seasoning. Add cayenne pepper in and stir.
9) For the burger buns, butter the side that will come in contact with the mixture later. Place the butter side down on a hot frying pan. Remove from heat once it turns golden brown.
10) The mixture is ready to be served in the burger buns once the water has evaporated and you can pile the mixture on top of a spatula (and tilt it side to side) without it tumbling down.

See, no getting your hands all icky with burger patties! It also has a nice, sweet-salty taste and if you add cayenne pepper, it becomes slightly hot :)

Sorry, by the time I thought of posting this recipe up, I had already wolfed down the whole burger :S It's that good!
So, the pic up there was taken from the Food Wishes website and photo credits go to them.

Peanut Cookies

I was looking through this cookbook a friend got me before I left for the UK. It's called Betty Saw's Kitchen Secrets and I was browsing through the recipes looking for something to make this Chinese New Year. The peanut cookie (Fah Sang Peng) recipe seemed pretty straightforward so I tried it! I'm proud to say that everyone who has tried the cookies liked it :)

So here it is for you guys to recreate it on your own.

Ingredients:
350g shelled roasted peanuts
270g (1 1/4 cups) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
350g (3 1/4 cups) plain flour, sifted
250ml (1 cup) good quality groundnut oil
Glace cherries, cut into 1/4 cm pieces, for decoration
Egg wash: 2 egg yolks + 2 tsp milk, beaten together

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 325-350F/175C/ Gas 3-4.
2) Blend roasted peanuts in electric blender until fine and crumbly
3) In a large mixing bowl, combine peanuts, sugar, vanilla essence and flour.
4) Make a well in the centre and pour in the groundnut oil.
5) Mix well with a wooden spoon.
6) Lightly run through the mixture with fingers to bind into a crumbly dough.
7) Shape into balls about the size of a cherry and lay out on baking sheet.
8) Make a dent into each ball with the pointed end of a chopstick. Place a piece of cherry into each dent. If not using cherries, just use a straw to make a circle pattern instead of a dent.
9) Brush cookies with egg wash.
10) Bake in oven for 20-25 mins or until golden.

When I was making this, Sara was using pretty much the same recipe to make almond cookies. All you need to do is substitute the peanuts for roasted almonds. She also reduced the amount of sugar slightly since almonds don't have as strong a flavour as peanuts. You could always taste and tweak the measurements as you go about making them.

Enjoy!

*Sorry no picture. When I made this, I had not replaced my stolen camera yet :( *

Currant Scones

I found this recipe on Chef John's Food Wishes website. It looked so good yet easy to make that Mich and I had a 'bake date' to try it out. It was a success! :D Buttery, fluffy and yet substantial... and it doesn't crumble when you break into it!

However, we used the British version of measurements and I'm not sure if that changed anything but it still tastes good. So if you're using British measurements, then just follow the recipe provided. If not, you could use the one given at Chef John's website when you click on the link below.

So here is the video.

Makes 8 medium scones.
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups (190g) plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup (57g) granulated sugar
1/8 tsp (a pinch) salt
5 tbsp (75g) unsalted butter, ice-cold (freeze them before cutting into cubes)
1/3 cup (50g) dried currants
1/2 cup (120ml) milk (full fat ok YMW)
1/4 cup (60ml) soured cream
1 egg + 1 tbsp milk for egg wash

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 400F / 200C / Gas 6.
2) Put the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl and mix with whisk.
3) Add the ice-cold butter in. Break up the butter into small chunks using the whisk (or fork). 2 important things to remember: the butter must be very cold and you should stop mixing once you get a crumbly mixture.
4) Add the dried currants, milk and soured cream. Using a fork, roughly mix until just combined. Don't overmix!!
5) Using hands that have been coated in flour, roll the batter into ice-cream scoop size balls and place on baking sheet.
6) Put a coat of egg wash and spinkle with sugar for each ball. This makes the scones a shiny golden brown when cooked.
7) Bake in over for 15 mins or until golden brown. Chill for 10-15 mins before eating.

It's so easy! We probably took less than an hour from start to finish!

Enjoy!

Fiery Pork Curry (I didn't name this ok!)

As the name suggests, it's really spicy! So you might need to reduce the amount of chillies that go into it. Unless, you're one of those types that can eat a whole cili padi and not cry.

Anyway, I got this recipe from D's mum who has spent some time trying it out and tweaking it to perfection (except for heat level). The method is pretty straightforward although there is quite a bit of waiting around (30mins here, another 30 mins there...).

The ingredients might seem a bit tricky to acquire at first BUT I managed to find them ALL at Waitrose (sigh... my fave place!) so no worries there! Furthermore, most of the ingredients needed are of the store cupboard kind so you could always make this pork curry again whenever you feel like it! :)

Okay, enough bla-bla! Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

For the Paste:

20 dried chillies

1 tbsp coriander seeds

½ tbsp black pepper

½ tbsp cumin

125 ml (1/2 cup) water

For the curry:

500 g pork with some fat (lean belly), diced

2 peeled onions, cut into chunks

3 green chillies, sliced

2.5 cm knob ginger, peeled & sliced

5 cloves garlic, peeled & sliced

1 stick cinnamon

5 pods cardamom

5 cloves

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp vinegar (I left this out since I don't have it. Still tastes good!)

3 bay leaves

250 ml (1 cup) water

2 stalks curry leaves (Waitrose, not an Asian supermarket, was the ONLY place that sold them. Even then, it was the freeze dried version which can still be used.)

Method:

1. First, prepare the paste. In a dry wok, roast dried red chillies until smoky but not burnt. Remove. Roast coriander seeds, pepper and cumin briefly until seeds are hot. While still hot, grind spices with roasted chillies and water until very fine. Grind preferably with mortar & pestle. I used a blender so it wasn't as finely ground.
2. Use pork that has some fat content so that the final dish will not be too hard and dry. Cut it up into small bite-sized pieces. Mix pork with ground paste, onions, chillies, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, salt, vinegar, oil & bay leaves. Set aside for 30 minutes.
3. Add water and mix well. Cook over medium heat until water begins to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Test meat using a fork. The fork should pierce through the pork easily. Once pork is tender, adjust seasoning to taste. Plunge curry leaves in and set aside for another 30 minutes before serving with rice. (I didn't bother setting it aside for 30 mins after plunging the curry leaves in; probably 5-10mins.)

Meanwhile, for those of you who might find the paste a bit too labour-intensive to make, D's mum has even provided a 'lazy' substitute!

Substitute for paste:

Marinate the pork with:

2 tbsp meat curry powder

1-2 tsp chilli powder, to taste.

(Taste as you marinate. Just don't swallow the stuff!)

And there it is, fiery pork curry! Try it out and let me know :)

x Dedicated to YMW who has asked for it to be put up x

Beef Shepherd's Pie

I got this recipe off Sophie Dahl's cooking programme on BBC iplayer and made a few changes to it (due to necessity more than anything!). Nevertheless, it tasted amazing! So good that I made it a week later (I usually don't repeat recipes til at least 3 weeks or so)!

Anyway, here's the video of the whole episode if you wanna watch her make it (and a few other things) step-by-step. She only makes the shepherd's pie towards the end though. She also does a vege option for the recipe by replacing the beef with puy lentils. However, since most of us are avid meat eaters, I'll only be posting the beef one.

Serves 2-3

Prep time : 30 mins

Cooking time: less than 1 hour

Ingredients:
For the champ topping:
3 potatoes (her recipe calls for floury potatoes, such as King Edward or Maris Piper but you can use any type tbh), peeled, chopped
small handful frozen peas
knob of butter
2 spring onions, roughly chopped
25ml/1fl oz milk
75g/3oz cheddar, broken into chunks
pinch smoked paprika

For the beef mixture
1 tbsp olive oil
1 red/white onion, peeled, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, peeled, crushed
2 small carrots, peeled, chopped into small pieces
1 celery stalk, trimmed, chopped into small pieces
400g/14oz canned plum tomatoes
1½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp Tabasco
pinch smoked paprika
1 fresh bay leaf (I used those freeze dried ones instead)
85-90ml/3-3½fl oz red wine
100ml/3½fl oz chicken/vegetable stock
1 sprig fresh rosemary (Again, I sprinkled freezed dried ones from a bottle)
splash balsamic vinegar (Left this out since I didn't have it)
small handful fresh (or dried but use less) flatleaf parsley, roughly chopped
250g/9oz lean beef mince
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. For the champ topping, heat a pan of salted water, add the potatoes and bring gently to the boil, then simmer until the potatoes are nearly cooked through, about 15-20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, for the beef mixture, heat half the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and gently fry the chopped onion, garlic, carrots and celery for 5-10 minutes, or until softened.
3. Add the remaining beef mixture ingredients except for the mince and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat slightly and simmer for 4-5 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Keep warm.
4. Heat the remaining olive oil in a separate frying pan over a medium heat, add the mince in batches, if necessary, and fry until golden-brown. Stir the tomato sauce into the beef.
5. When the potatoes for the champ topping are almost done, add the frozen peas and cook for a few more minutes until the peas are tender.
6. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat, then gently fry the spring onions until softened. Add the milk and heat through.
7. Drain the potatoes and peas and mash roughly. Add the warm milk mixture to the potatoes and continue to mash until combined but still chunky.
8. Spoon the beef mixture into a medium pie dish and top with the champ. Scatter over the cheese and smoked paprika.
9. Place the dish onto a baking sheet and bake the pie for 25-30 minutes, or until the potato is golden-brown.

Like most stews, it still tastes amazing, if not better, if eaten the next day :)
Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of it after I made it (twice!) :( Sorry, will make sure I do the next time! Watch video if you need enticing!