Parsee Red Curry

This curry is adapted from the "Parsee Red Chicken Curry" recipe from 50 Great Curries Of India by Camellia Panjabi, for making in the Instant Pot. I have added vegetables and chickpeas to it to fill it out for use as a bulk cooking recipe for portioning out and freezing.

Simple Meatloaf

This particular recipe has been knocking around the kitchen scribbled on the back of an old envelope for a couple of months now, so it's time to write it up here. It turns a packet of cheap mince into a midweek roast dinner.

Slow Roast Belly Pork Slices and Vegetables

I've made this dish a couple of times now, so this article is to record how I've been modifying the original recipe, which is here. This also works if you replace the belly pork with chicken thighs and drumsticks.

Fish and Vegetable Fritters

So, this week's surprise from the vegbox delivery people was a carton of 15 egg whites that needed using in a few days(!) Not wanting to fill the entire house with meringues, I made these for lunch. Two days in a row.

Lamb and Lentil Ragu

A delicious stew of lamb, lentils, and root vegetables cooked with tomatoes, red wine and herbs.

This goes well over pasta or polenta, and cooks fast enough in the pressure cooker to be doable on a week-night evening after work. 

If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can just dump all the ingredients in a slow cooker and let it cook for 8 hours.

Since this recipe makes enough for about 4-6 servings, I generally serve one third on the day, and divide the rest between tubs to freeze and eat later.

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.

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.

Sort of Persian-inspired Fish and Rice

A random experiment to use up some broad beans, inspired by reading through some Persian recipes.
The result was tasty, and worth recording so we can repeat it another day.
Add more chopped fresh herbs if you have them - parsley, dill, chives, fenugreek leaves...

• 1 Onion, chopped
• a knob or two of Butter
• 1 bunch Coriander Leaves, finely chopped
• a few sprigs of garden Mint Leaves, finely chopped
• 1 cup Basmati Rice
• 1 mini carton of White Wine, plus water to make it up to 1.5 cups total liquid
• Salt, Pepper, Cinnamon and a little Turmeric to season
• 3 frozen fillets of White Fish
• Fresh Broad Beans, shelled.

Turn on the rice cooker to cook mode and melt the butter in its pan.
Saute the onions in the butter until translucent.
Add the rice, wine+water, chopped herbs and seasonings and stir to combine.
Layer the frozen fillets and the broad beans on top of the rice.
Put the lid on the rice cooker, switch it off and on again, and restart the cook cycle.
Once the rice cooker switches to keep warm, let it stand for a few more minutes to finish steaming the fish and beans.
Break up the fish into bitesize pieces and fold gently through the rice.

Buckwheat Kasha

Buckwheat is one of those things you find lurking with the other unusual whole grains in places like health food shops. It is not actually a true grain at all, but the seeds of a plant related to rhubarb.

Once or twice as a student, I had attempted to cook buckwheat by boiling it like rice, but it tended to just turn into an unappetising mush.

When I bought a rice cooker, I went looking for books on how to cook different grains in it. I discovered The Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook. And therein, I discovered the secret of how to cook buckwheat without turning it to mush: just add an egg or two.

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.

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.

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.

Sweet and Sour Mussels

So I decided to try something different for tea tonight, and bought some pre-cooked pre-shelled mussel meat.

I adapted a recipe for Sweet and Sour White Fish from my copy of Wei Chuan Chinese Seafood to cook them.

This is a bit involved, so cook the rice in a rice cooker, or use pre-cooked rice to accompany it rather than try to juggle cooking rice in a pan as well.



First mix the following in a bowl and let marinate in the fridge whilst you prepare the other ingredients.

• 250g cooked shelled mussels
• 1 tbsp sherry
• 1/2 tsp salt

Measure rice and water into the rice cooker and switch on to cook.

Next, mix the following in another bowl to form the batter, and set on one side to rest.

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup cornflour
• 1/4 cup water

Now, mix the following in a mug to form the sauce mixture.

• 5 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar
• 5 tbsp water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 5 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tbsp cornflour

Prepare the vegetables.

• 1 onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 green pepper
• a few broccoli florets

Peel and coarsely chop onion.
Peel and slice carrot.
De-seed pepper and cut into pieces.
Blanch broccoli florets in boiling water and drain.
 
Drain the marinated mussels and mix into the batter.
Heat a deep fat fryer and deep fry the battered mussels until golden, then drain on absorbent paper.

Now to assemble the final dish.

Heat a couple of tbsp of oil in a wok and stir-fry the vegetables for a few minutes until lightly cooked.
Stir the mug of sauce mix and then pour it over the vegetables in the wok.
Continue to stir-fry it all as the sauce mixture boils and thickens.
Add the fried mussels and toss to coat evenly in the sauce.

Serve immediately with boiled rice.


My daughter said that the mussels weren't completely horrible but she didn't like them. Hohum.

Kedgeree

The classic English fried rice dish. This works well with pretty much any kind of smoked fish - kippers, yellow fish (smoked haddock), smoked mackerel, or even smoked salmon.

It is as good cold the next day as it is served warm from the pan, so I usually make a big batch and pack half as the main part of a bento style lunch

Spicy Red Tomato, Pepper and Squash Chutney

The last of the tomato and pepper plants in the greenhouse are fading now that the days are getting shorter. So we've picked what was left, ripe or no.

Time for another batch of chutney.

I've been looking at recipes for indian tomato pickles, and so whilst this recipe is based on the Red Tomato Chutney from Home Preservation of Fruits and Vegetables, I have completely changed the spices used, and substituted peppers and squash for some of the tomatoes.

Chicken Stock in the Pressure Cooker

After the Sunday roast chicken has been eaten, and the last of the meat has been pulled from the bones and lies boxed in the fridge, there is still one last meal to be squeezed from the carcass. It is time to make stock for soup.

Into the pressure cooker goes all that remains: skin, bones and cartilage. Add a quartered onion and a sliced carrot. A couple of stalks and seedy parts from green peppers. Four peppercorns, a good pinch of celery seed, a bay leaf or two.

Now pour in a couple of litres of water - enough to cover it all. Bring to the boil. Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Let it hiss to itself over a low flame for an hour or so to leach the gelatinous proteins and minerals from the bones, to melt away the cartilaginous joint capsules into the water, to extract all the flavour possible from the last of the chicken.

When the hour is up, turn off the heat and let it stand and cool. When the pressure has released, strain through a sieve into a large bowl. Discard the solid remains, and put your stock into the fridge to chill. By the morning it will have jelled, ready to be made into soup.

Skirlie

It's a Sunday evening, and so there is a chicken roasting in the oven.

Now, to many people, roast chicken demands sage and onion stuffing. But not me. My Aberdonian ancestry means that roast chicken demands skirlie.