Slow-cooker Lamb Curry

I fancied a curry, but needed something I could pop in the slow cooker all day whilst doing other things. So I adapted a recipe for Seyal Gosht from "50 Great Curries of India" by Camellia Panjabi - by simply throwing everything together and slow cooking.

It turned out deliciously spicy, and was really easy to prepare. I will definitely be making this again!

Hot Milk Cake with Pandan Kaya filling

So we went to Hoo Hing recently and as usual Random Things To Try somehow found their way into the trolley.

This time the things included a jar of Pandan Kaya, which turned out to be a thick custard-like spread made from eggs and coconut milk, flavoured with pandan leaf. My immediate thought on trying it was that it would make an excellent filling for a cake. Preferably a light plain sponge cake that would show off the filling's flavour without overpowering it.

This American Hot Milk Cake from Farmers Weekly sounded perfect, just needing a couple of tweaks.

I don't bother to keep self-raising flour AND plain flour, and of course when I looked in the cupboard there wasn't quite enough plain white flour left so it ended up being about 2/3 plain white flour and 1/3 chapathi flour.

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

Ninniko Shoyuzuke

Don't you hate it when it turns out that somewhere on its journey from farm to shop, someone refrigerated the garlic?

The garlic thinks: "Hm. It was really cold for a while, but now its getting warmer. Must be springtime! Sprout factor 9, Mr Sulu!"

...And your lovely big bargain bag of garlic bulbs starts sprouting everywhere and needs to all be used up at once ASAP!

Fortunately, this Japanese style no-cook garlic pickle is very quick and easy to prepare - though it does take a couple of months to mature.  There is even a bonus extra side product halfway through!

Your sprouty garlic disaster will be saved, and provide a bounty of garlicky deliciousness.

Crumpets

If I'd realised they were so easy to make, I'd've made crumpets years ago!

Crumpets are yeast-leavened pancakes that are cooked on a girdle, supported by a metal ring. The name is believed to possibly be a borrowing into English of the Welsh word crempog, meaning a pancake.

Freshly-baked crumpets make you realise how stale and old the ones you buy in the shops really are. So next time you fancy some crumpets for tea, get cooking.

Date and Walnut Loaf

A dense fruity date and walnut loaf.

Perfect as a less-sweet alternative to biscuits or cake. You could even have a slice as a quick breakfast if you've not got time to grab anything else.

In fact it's so popular that someone managed to scarf down half the loaf before I got round to photographing it!

Stuffed Marrow

Before we went on holiday, we carefully checked the courgette plants and removed developing fruit. But obviously we didn't check hard enough because we returned to be greeted with a full-sized marrow anyway.

Nothing for it but to make Stuffed Marrow for dinner.

Modelling Chocolate

This year, my daughter requested an Ohmu shaped birthday cake.

Previous birthday cakes have been cartoon characters that can be made easily using coloured buttercream on a flat shaped cake, but this one required some 3-dimensional construction.

I piled up rectangular layers of chocolate sponge cake stuck together with blueberry fruit spread - it's less sweet than jam - and then carved out the oval shape of the Ohmu.

After a skim coating of chocolate buttercream to smooth over the cake edges and give something for the outer layer to adhere to, it needed some brown rollable icing to make the carapace plates. Stick on some glace cherry halves for eyes, and add the legs at the front.

Now, commercial fondant icing is all very convenient and available in many colours. BUT IT TASTES HORRIBLE. A cake decorated with it may look pretty, but your guests will be quietly peeling the icing off before they eat. So I went looking for a recipe to make a rollable chocolate-flavoured icing. And discovered a new cake decorating wonder material!

All it takes is TWO ingredients.

Chiles en Vinaigre a.k.a Mexican Carrot Pickle

Mum used to make this one regularly when I was growing up. Unlike many of the other pickles and chutneys, this one was a big hit with us kids and a batch never lasted long.

The actual name of the recipe in the recipe book is Chiles en Vinaigre, but Mum went lighter on the chillies and bulked it out with the other vegetables, so we called it Mexican Carrot Pickle.

These days, I put in the original proportion of chillies - mild to medium big juicy ones like jalapenos, not scotch bonnets though!

This is the recipe for a single batch, but you could double up if you have a glut of peppers or carrots to use up.

Coconut Macaroons

Having made the Key Lime Cheesecake Pie yesterday, I had 3 egg whites sitting in a bowl waiting to be used up.

Time to bake some Coconut Macaroons.

Key Lime (Cheesecake) Pie

Key Lime Pie was invented by American settlers of Florida to use what they had to hand - fresh-laid eggs, tinned condensed milk and fresh key limes. The original pie filling used nothing more than this and relied on the acidity of the lime juice to coagulate the eggs and milk alone.

In these days when we get our eggs from the supermarket of an unknown age, modern recipes lightly cook the pie in order to ensure the raw egg yolks are pasteurised.

This variation bulks out the condensed milk filling with some cream cheese, which makes it a little less sweet, and a bit more cheesecake-like.

Shepherd's or Cottage Pie

Another easy weekday recipe noted here for my daughter's benefit. This is my take on the traditional potato-topped mince dish.

The name reflects the choice of meat: Shepherd's Pie when made with minced lamb or mutton, and Cottage Pie when made with minced beef.

A vegetarian version using cooked beans/lentils or reconstituted TVP instead of the meat, and vegetarian gravy granules, also works.

I usually make one huge pie, and we eat half immediately, and the other half reheated then next day.

Pan-fried White Fish

I've mostly gotten over the 'orrible cold I had for the first half of this week, but things still taste slightly weird to me. I'm still finding that I don't fancy the usual foods. I am still drinking gallons of hot mint tea all day to keep my throat moist, even if I am no longer coughing and drowning in snot between cups.

I can't face my usual salad for lunch, and have been craving natural yoghurt for breakfast.

Naturally, this all wreaks havoc with trying to decide what to make for tea, and I've resorted to comfort food and easy stuff that can be thrown in the oven and forgotten about for the last few days. Stuff like Cheesy Potatoes (boil some potatoes, melt some cheese over them - it's raclette without the machine) hardly rate as a recipe.

Today was another can't decide want something easy quick type of evening, and having used up all the packets of sausages in the freezer, it fell to the frozen white fish fillets to provide.

I sort-of wanted fish and chips, but didn't have breadcrumbs to bread the frozen fish, so I ended up with pan-fried fish to accompany potato wedges baked in the oven.

With only 10 minutes left until the potato wedges were baked, I pan-fried the still frozen white fish fillets in melted butter. Seasoned lightly with salt and pepper, and sprinkled over some bottled lemon juice. Popped the lid on the pan and let them cook through over a low heat.

After dishing up the fillets, I then boiled down the lemony-buttery-fishy juices until they thickened into a syrupy consistency, and spooned this sauce over the fish.

This was quick, easy, and delicious. And now noted here so that I remember to consider it next time I am tired and looking for something simple to do with frozen fish.

Sort-of Japanese style Soup Thing

Today, despite the weather, I fancied a light soup for dinner.
Possibly because I have a bit of a snuffly cold.

So I made this sort-of Japanese style soup out of a tub of homemade chicken stock from the freezer, various vegetables, leftovers and some random things I bought in Hoo Hing that have been sitting in the cupboard.

I say soup, but it ended up more as a big bowl full of lightly cooked vegetables and noodles with some soup underneath. It was light and delicious and just right.

My daughter especially enjoyed this soup, and wants it recorded here for posterity, so that she can make something similar herself one day.

Improving Shop-Bought Mincemeat

When baking mince pies in bulk - for an event or bake sale - even if you normally make your own mincemeat from scratch, there comes a point where you need more mincemeat, and need to buy some in.

Commercially made mincemeat can however be somewhat disappointing. Too often the producers go overboard on cheap spice-flavoured syrup or apple sauce and skimp on the more expensive dried fruit.

When faced with using a tub of commercial mincemeat that has been made overly-cheaply in this way, this is how I give it a bit more body.

Bolognese Sauce in the Pressure Cooker

A weekday night mainstay. Pasta with Bolognese sauce.

Cooked in the pressure cooker, it is easy to quickly put together a big batch of the sauce, which can then be portioned out into tubs and frozen.

Minced beef is the traditional meat used, but minced pork also makes a good sauce.

Roast Potatoes

By special request of my daughter, so she can look up how to cook roast potatoes when she's older.
Here is my method for super-crunchy roast potatoes.

Plum and Almond Tart

This gorgeous tart of lightly-cooked fruit embedded in a gooey almond sponge looks and tastes impressive, but is actually pretty quick and easy.

It's good when served warm from the oven as a dessert with cream or icecream, or when served cold to accompany a mug of coffee or tea.

Instead of plums, try apricots or ripe dessert pears instead.

Empty Jar Generating Lemon Loaf Cake

If you have been making much in the way of homemade jam or pickles, you may well have hit the point where you have things you could jam or pickle, but a shortage of jars.

Once you have already hit on all your neighbours, co-workers, friends and family for their empty jars, then there are places that will happily sell you empty jamjars and lids - prices vary from over a quid each (!) down to about 37p if you are prepared to buy by the hundred.

Alternatively, you can wander into any branch of Tesco/Sainsburys/Asda and pick up jam jars with lids for a mere 22p or so each. The catch is that they come filled with a free helping of cheap lemon curd, which you will need to empty out first.

Just scooping it out and throwing it away just seems like ... an unnecessary waste. So some way of using up lots of lemon curd is needed.

Lemon Curd wine would seem a little ill-advised due to the egg content (though at least one person seems to have tried to do that).

And then I found this recipe for a Lemon Loaf Cake on a forum post.

Using up lemon curd at the rate of 1 jarful per loaf, this quick to mix loaf cake is perfect for when you need a few more empty jars in a hurry. The cake freezes well, perfect for later use as trifle sponge, or just to have a cake in the freezer for emergencies.

• 100g softened butter
• 75g sugar
• 175g Plain Flour
• 3 tsp Baking Powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 jar of cheap lemon curd

Grease a 2lb loaf tin and line with a strip of greaseproof paper.
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Measure all ingredients into a large bowl and whisk together with an electric whisk until it forms a light and fluffy cake batter.
Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, smooth out the top, and bake for 40-45 minutes until the loaf is golden on top and a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean.
Cool in the tin for a minute before turning out onto a wire rack and peeling off the paper. Let cool completely before slicing.

Update:

I have also tried making this as a lemon and ginger cake, adding 2 tsp ginger and 1tsp cinnamon to the mixture.

Update 2:

Replacing the jar of lemon curd with a jar of value marmalade, and replacing a couple of tbsp of flour with cocoa powder makes a decent chocolate orange loaf.

Update 3:

Though not quite in the original spirit of emptying a jar of cheap jam... I found Korean Honey Ginger Tea in the local Chinese Supermarket - it consists of finely grated candied root ginger in a sugar/honey syrup flavoured with cinnamon and yet more ginger. Substituting 450g for the jar of lemon curd yields a deliciously moist and fierily gingery cake!

Ham Risotto in the Rice Cooker

I make a lot of Asian-inspired rice cooker dishes, but tonight I fancied a more European flavour to my rice.

Rice cookers can be subverted into cooking a risotto. The trick lies in how a rice cooker works. A basic rice cooker heats the carefully measured water and rice mixture until the water evaporates, at which point the temperature rises above 100C and the rice cooker switches off.

To cook a risotto, you need to add more water than the rice needs to cook through, and manually switch off the rice cooker when the rice has finished cooking.

Best of all - with the rice cooker risotto method, there is no need to stand over the pan constantly stirring and adding liquid!