Bulgogi flavoured Mince

This is a quick weeknight recipe that has the flavours of Bulgogi, but without the planning ahead and remembering to actually marinade stuff.

And using cheap beef mince instead of finely sliced steak.

The sauce paste is based on the Bulgogi marinade from Our Korean Kitchen.

Tomato 'Instant' Kimchi sort of thing

The tomato plants in the greenhouse are still fruiting, and there are tomatoes aplenty in need of using up. More tomato recipes are urgently needed!

Inspired by the 'instant' emergency cucmber Kimchi recipe in Our Korean Kitchen, I went searching to see if Tomato Kimchi was a thing. And it was - I found Park Shin Hye's Tomato Kimchi.

I didn't have any Gochugaru (chilli pepper powder) , but I did have some Gochujang (sweetened fermented chilli pepper paste). So I substituted gochujang for the gochugaru and sugar. I also added some chopped fresh basil as I was out of chives. It seems to work, even if it's not authentic.

Quick Chicken Liver Pate

Every fortnight I receive a pack of organic chicken carcasses with my vegbox order. These are what is left over after a chicken has had breasts, thighs, drumsticks and wings cut off - namely the main body, neck and giblets (internal organs). The pack generally contains the remains of two butchered chickens.

I separate out the livers from the giblets, and throw everything else into a roasting tin, cover with foil and pop in the oven to roast, and then into the pressure cooker to make Chicken Stock.

The livers, I make into pate.

Tamale Pie

This is a way to turn leftover Chilli or Picadillo into a one-dish meal.

The pre-cooked chilli is topped with a quick-mix cornbread batter, and then thrown in the oven to bake.

I initially came across this sort of thing in Laurel's Kitchen, where it is called Tennessee Corn Pone. However, this dish is apparently more commonly called Tamale Pie across America.

Baked Polenta

I've made this a couple of times now.
It's easy to lob in the oven whilst pressure-cooking something to accompany it, and avoids the traditional constant stirring on the hob of most polenta recipes.

This method of cooking polenta comes via Joy the Baker.

An attempt at something vaguely resembling Pho

This morning's experiment turned out as a good light lunch for a hot sunny day.

In the meat box delivery this week were a pair of chicken legs and a pair of gammon steaks, so I decided to make a chicken and ham pie. Having roasted the chicken legs, and cut up and cooked the gammon ready for the pie, I had sufficient chicken bones, skin, cartilege and gammon rinds to make a small batch of stock.

I threw it all in the pressure cooker along with a quartered onion, a sliced carrot, a couple of bay leaves, 4 peppercorns and a tsp or two of celery seed in the usual way. Pouring over a litre and a half of water, I brought it to high pressure and let it cook for an hour or so whilst wandering off to decide on what sort of soup to make for lunch.

I ended up looking at some Vietnamese Pho recipes. This is normally made with beef stock, but hey, chicken and gammon stock is what was in the pot.

The packet of Thai rice noodles in the cupboard looked close enough. Plenty of fresh herbs in the garden for the garnish. Just needed some spices to have gone in with the stock...

So, a quick cooldown of the pressure cooker under the cold tap later, I added:

• 6 cloves
• 4 green cardamon, crushed to split the pods open
• 2 black cardamon, crushed to split the pods open
• 3 star anise
• a couple of inches of cassia bark
• a tablespoon of coriander seeds
• a tsp of fennel seeds
• an inch or so of fresh root ginger, sliced

Got it back up to high pressure and gave it another half hour whilst I rounded up and prepped everything else.

• The rice noodles simply went in a bowl, pour over boiling water to cover and leave for 4 minutes before draining and dividing between the serving bowls.

• A bundle of coriander leaves and chives and a sprig of fennel leaves, all roughly chopped together and divided between the serving bowls.

• A small onion, peeled and thinly sliced, and divided between the serving bowls.

By this point, the pressure cooking time was up, so back under the cold tap with it for another quick cooldown.
I strained the soup through a plastic sieve into a large bowl, then added to taste:

• a couple of tablespoons of fish sauce
• a dash or two of light soy sauce
• a dash or two of bottled lime juice

Pouring the soup over the noodles and herbs in the bowls, and it was ready to serve.

Not having actually ever eaten the real thing, I have no idea how close I got to the right flavour, but my daughter said she had had pho at a Vietnamese restaurant with her Dad once, and it tasted pretty close.

She then drowned it in sriracha sauce.


Categories: Vietnamese  Soup

Broccoli and Stilton Soup

This is a tasty, creamy soup, full of green vegetableness, and subtly flavoured with stilton cheese. Even the blue-cheese-hating members of this household will eat it.

It is also very quick to cook up in the pressure cooker.

Black Bean Sauce

 A quick savoury stir-fry sauce.

All the ingredients are the sort of stuff that is generally lurking in the back of the kitchen cupboards and/or fridge - in my kitchen anyways.
And cause its not from a jar premade, you can juggle the balance of ingredients to your own taste.

Salted fermented black beans are available from Chinese supermarkets.

 This makes enough for a stirfry to feed 3-4 people.

Overnight No-Knead Bread

A lovely round crusty loaf, with very little work.
Just a good helping of time to let it slowly rise.

You will need a large (2.5-3 litres capacity) pyrex or glazed iron lidded casserole to bake the bread in.

• 500g Strong Plain (Bread) Flour - either all white or a 50-50 mix of white and wholemeal.
• 350g Water - this is 70% of the weight of the flour, a ratio that you will need to maintain if you scale up or down the recipe.
• 10g Salt.
• 2 tsp granulated Yeast.
• Optional: nuts, seeds, dried fruit - whatever you want to flavour your bread.

Measure all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix together until all the flour is incorporated into the dough.
It may need a little extra water added,  especially if you are using wholemeal flour or optional extras that will absorb moisture - add this a tablespoon or so at a time until all the flour mixes in. Better to be slightly too damp than too dry.
Loosely cover the bowl with a plastic bag and just leave it on the side in the kitchen to slowly ferment for at least 12 hours.

When the rising time is up:

Wet your hands and gently slide your fingers down the side of the dough in the bowl and lift and fold it towards the centre of the bowl. Repeat another 3 or 4 folds, working round the side of the bowl. This will knock back the dough slightly, and gather it into a soggy dome. Let it stand for a few minutes whilst you get the oven ready.

Put your casserole dish and lid into the cold oven and set it to heat up to 240C.
Once the oven is to temperature, take the hot casserole dish out and stand it on a trivet.

Sprinkle a little flour over the surface of the dough in the mixing bowl.
Carefully half-roll-half-pour the dough out of the bowl into the hot casserole dish as a single 'ball' of dough. Use a spatula to help push and shape the dough as it rolls and unsticks from the sides of the bowl and finally drops into the hot cassserole dish.
If you want the loaf to spread in a controlled fashion you should slash the top, but I generally find that it rises fine unslashed as the casserole lid traps steam to keep the surface of the bread moist and flexible as it expands in the oven.
Put the lid on the casserole and pop it back into the oven. Set a timer for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, open the oven and remove the lid from the casserole.
Bake the unlidded bread for a further 25 minutes to crisp and brown the upper crust.
Now turn it out of the casserole onto the oven shelf and tap the bottom of the loaf. If it sounds hollow, it is done. If not, bake for a few minutes more and test again.

Once the bread is fully baked, let it cool down completely on a rack before slicing.
If you slice it too early, the bread inside will still be a bit too moist and stick to the knife.

Store cold uneaten bread in a plastic bag to delay staling.


Categories: Bread