Beef and rice noodle soup

My non-spicy son was off with buddies watching Thor part three, so I thought I’d treat my spicy son with a new dish.

Pretty much improvised, it worked out well. So here it is.

Ingredients

• 1 round steak
• 2 cups beef stock (or vegetable stock, or water if you’re caught short)
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 1 teaspoon five spice powder
• .25 cup chopped shallots
• 1 tablespoon chopped lemon grass stem
• 1 tablespoon chopped galangal root
• 2 cups frozen veggies
• 1 tablespoon Xo sauce
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 3 birdseye chillies, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 4 tablespoons peanut oil
• Rice noodles

Method

This is a very quick dish too assemble - all you have to do is cut the beef into rectangular slabs and pop them in the freezer about three hours ahead of time.

So - take the round steak and cut it into rectangles, removing fat and connecting tissue. You are going to slice it thinly across the grain, so you want each piece no more than 4 cm wide. Lay them flat in one layer in a plastic bag and put in the freezer for three hours. You are aiming at firm, but not hard. This will enable you to slice the beef more thinly.

Once the beef is the right consistency, slice it thinly across the grain and marinate in lemon and five spice powder.

Sauté lemongrass, galangal, garlic, chilli and shallots on low-medium heat for about 10 minutes. Stir in Xo sauce.

In a new saucepan, put on water to boil.

In the soup pan, add stock, and bring to boil. Add soy sauce to taste.

Zap veggies in the microwave.

Add noodles to the boiling water. Toss sliced beef and juices into the soup pan. Beef will cook almost immediately. Add the veggies. And you are done.

Once the noodles are tender, drain, divide into bowls, and ladle over with soup.

Spanish omelette

A Spanish omelette is a great breakfast or snack. It keeps well in the fridge and is very good out-on-the-boat food.

This recipe basically follows this one on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JceGMNG7rpU  Tortilla de Patatas by Omar Allibhoy

I use desiree potatoes, washed but not peeled, and I slice both the onion and potatoes using a V-slicer with the “thick slice” attachment, then cut the bigger slices and onion rings in half.

Ingredients

• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 3 medium potatoes, thinly sliced
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups olive oil
• Salt, pepper, ground cumin

Method

Heat oil in heavy-based frying pan.

When oil is hot, add onion.

Once onion begins to brown, add potatoes.

Once potatoes begin to brown at the edges remove from heat. Using a slotted spoon, remove the onion and potatoes to a bowl. Break eggs into the bowl, add seasoning and stir through the mixture. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes.

Once you’ve let the oil cool, pour off and strain, and keeping for reuse.

Give the pan a wipe with a paper towel. Return enough oil to just cover the pan - not too much as we will be flipping this over and we don’t want to be burned by hot oil.

Once the pan is hot again, pour in the mixture and push evenly to the sides of the pan.

Cook on high for 1 minute, then on low for 2 minutes - I use a cast iron pan, so I actually take it right off the heat.

The way you flip it is to put a wide plate over the pan - the plate needs to extend at least a centimetre beyond the edge. If you don’t have a big enough plate, try a pizza tray. So, placing the plate face down over the pan, and pressing down, turn upside down and lift the pan away. There is your first cooked half. If should be a little dark in places, but mostly golden or brown.

Add a little more oil if necessary, raise heat again, then slide the uncooked side into the pan. Again, 1 minute on high, 2 minutes low.

Remove from pan using the same flip method.

Digital kitchen

Which app to choose

I have been using Bento for my recipes on my desktop and mobile. This was always kind of clunky and try-hard (a bit like the author - come on, I hear you...). Now it is part of the app graveyard for iOS 11, I'm having to make a move. But where to?

Free options

Evernote is what I use most. You can clip from the web, type in manually with lists, checklist and rich text tools. You also tag and sort/search by tag or free text search. You just create a notebook called "recipes" and away you go.

It's a web app, mobile and desktop - so it's pretty much anywhere anytime and one of the most indispensable digital tools out there.

I miss the "Food" app that Evernote no longer supports - which was basically a re-skin of your recipe notebook.

Google Docs will also do most of what you need, and you can share with the Google community pretty easily.

Collecting

The options above are mostly for organising your own recipes - though both with also handle links of course, and Evernote's clipping is pretty good. Other free collectors include Pinterest and Reddit. Copy Me That is a web app and on mobile. There is also a Google Chrome extension. It is also well worth a look.

Paid apps

Paprika has many admirers. It has lots of features and scaling recipes up and down, shopping list creation and exporting to Reminders or Calendar. But I don't like how you have to pay twice - for the desktop and for the iPad app - and the app appears to be iPad only, not phone. There is also no suck it and see option that I can find.

The one I'm currently using is Recipe Keeper. I like its clean interface and that it works on both phone and tablet. There's also a Windows version on the Microsoft store apparently, but no Mac version yet. So far I like it, and you can use it fully featured up to 20 recipes before deciding to buy.

What it lacks is a good export tool so that you can share (or move) the recipe itself rather than a link to it.

Any other suggestions?

How to poach an egg

Eggsplanation

The trick with eggs - poached, scrambled, boiled, fried or coddled - is to be gentle, especially with the heat.

And eggs are cheap - so you can afford to buy eggs that are gentle on their mothers. A dozen cage free eggs weighing in at 700g cost $3.50. Less than 30 cents an egg.

And a poached egg is a prince at that price.

The way I do it is basically the Heston method with a few changes.

First, I don’t use a thermometer, and second I don’t put my plate in upside down. I found with the plate upside down, the eggs tend to slide off and end up off touching side of the pan, which defeats the purpose.

Most good quality plates have a rim at the bottom, which lifts the surface away from the direct heat, and this combined with removing the saucepan from the heat does the trick.

What you need

• Bread-and-butter plate
• Saucepan just large enough for the plate
• Slotted spoon
• Small bowl
• Spatula

Method

Pour about 6cm of water into the saucepan and bring to boil. Once it’s boiling, remove from heat. Wait 1 minute, then slide in the plate right-side up.

Prepare the egg by breaking it into a slotted spoon over a bowl or paper towel so that the watery yolk is discarded. With the slotted spoon, gently slide the egg into the water - you do this by lowering the spoon into the water, then gently letting the egg slide out onto the plate.

If you are doing more than one egg (and you generally will be) take note of which is first, second and third so that you can remove them in that order. For more than that, you will need a new batch - or two saucepans.

Once the eggs are in, I put the toast on. In three minutes the first egg will be ready. Remove from the water with a spatula - if you want it to be really fancy, you can trim the edges of the egg. But, as you can see, I can’t be bothered doing this - I just want to eat it.

Season with salt and pepper. Also a tomato salsa is nice. I also find tamarind sauce or chutney goes very, very well with egg.

Wrapped fish fillet bake

I have decided that Wednesday night is seafood night. Quick to cook, and I buy fresh from Paddy’s Markets, along with the veggies, and eat with the boys that night. Here is episode one.

The sauce

• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons chopped shallots
• 1 tablespoon each rice wine, rice vinegar, lemon juice, grated ginger, crushed dried lemon myrtle leaves, peanut oil
• 1 teaspoon chopped coriander root
• 1 teaspoon palm sugar
• 1 pinch white pepper

The fish

• 1 kg ling fillets cut into large pieces
• .5 lemon, thickly sliced
• 4 tablespoons peanut oil
• About a handful of halved cherry tomatoes
• Greaseproof paper

Garnish

• Handful of coriander leaves
• .5 lemon thinly sliced

Method

Preheat oven to 200ºC

As always, take any refrigerated ingredients out into your kitchen to let them reach room temperature. Combine sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

Tear off pieces of grease proof paper big enough to easily wrap each piece of fish.

Heat the remaining peanut oil to a high heat. Brown the ling pieces in each side, one at a time - about a minute each side. You just want some brown and crispy patches.

Remove the fillets to a sheet of paper.

Brown the lemon slices on each side.

Add the lemon slices to the fish.

Add the sauce and fold the paper over, collecting the ends in a bunch almost like a bonbon.

Place on a baking try and put into the oven for 10 minutes.

Serve with rice and steamed vegetables.

Embrace the bitterness - it's a very bachelor thing to do

Well, it’s more sour than bitter - but you get the picture.

My kaffir lime plant, now fIve years old, has produced good fruit this season. But what to do with it… The limes look great - like little green brains from something little, green and brainy.

There are lots of seeds inside, and a tough and conspicuous core - but the juice is strong and tasty, likewise the rind.

So I found some oranges that needed to be used, rounded up all the sugar in the pantry, and set to work.

I wish I had done this with my recent pickles - for bachelor proportions, turn to the microwave!

Kaffir and orange marmalade

Ingredients

• 3 medium oranges, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 3 kaffir limes, cored, seeded and finely sliced
• 5 cloves
• Sugar (in this instance I used up all the sugar I had - caster sugar, about 200g, raw sugar, about 200g, and brown sugar, also 200g.
• Water

Method

• Prepare fruit, and weigh, then add to about 2 litre mixing bowl. I have found the best way to handle the kaffir limes is to quarter them down the core. That way the core peels away easily in four strips, and the seeds (and there are quite a few of them) are more easily scooped out.
• Add same weight of sugar, plus a bit more because the kaffir lime is more sour than your average fruit, to mixing bowl
• Pour in enough water to cover - hold the fruit down with your flat hand, and once the water reacher your knuckles, that is about enough
• Put in microwave on high for 10 minutes
• Taste - things you can add if it’s not quite right include more sugar, maybe orange juice, lemon juice
• Add cloves, stir, and return to microwave on medium for another 10 minutes
• The mixture should have a fairly homogeneous colour by now, and be close to gel point. You can tell it is at gel point by taking a teaspoon and pouring onto an cold saucer. If it thickens as it cools, it is ready. What you are after is not to be solidly set, but to just holds the spoon and drips out rather than pours freely. If it is still runny, pop the mixture back in the microwave at medium and repeat until gel point is reached.
• Once you have established gel point, let the mixture cool a little so that it is safe to handle, but not set.
• Stir, and transfer to sterilised jars, seal, and refrigerate immediately

Yields: 1 kg marmalade for breakfast toast and arvo cheese platter

The juice is the dressing

Simple pickles and how to use them

Last weekend I took the boys to visit their grandma. As we were sorting out the lunch spread, my mum handed me a jar from the fridge and said - polish this off for me.

It was the last of a simple vegetable pickle - mostly pickle juice at this stage. And I thought - what a salad dressing this would make!

So we talked about how the little pickle can be done, and how I could use some spare veggies in my pantry - carrots and white radish. The carrots came from Paddy’s Market, Sydney; the white radish from Throg: the farm from beyond, Wootton.

Ingredients

• 2 cups shredded carrots and white radish
• 2 cm cub ginger, sliced
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 6 or 8 pepper corns
• .5 teaspoon cummin seeds
• .75 cup vinegar (e.g. combo white and cider)
• .25 cup water
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

Method

Combine vinegar, water, sugar and salt, and bring to boil Add the remaining ingredients Bring back to boil and continue until the carrots are softened, but still slightly crunchy Transfer to a sterilised jar with enough juice to cover Refrigerate straight away
Yields: about a jam jar’s worth: approx 360gm

And putting to use…

The boys were back with their mum, so I rebranded the cooked lamb chops into cubes - to make them sort of like little meaty croutons, frying in butter, quickly just to get that crunch. A simple baby spinach leaf and tomato salad, with crispy lamb and pickles. Thank you and goodnight!

Gosht saagwala - lamb and spinach

Ingredients

• .5 kg boneless, cubed lamb
• 2 medium bunches English spinach, chopped - NOT silverbeet
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 2 cups water
• .25 cup yogurt
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil

Marinade

• .5 cup yogurt
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger
• 3 coves chopped garlic
• 3 chopped coriander roots
• .5 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

Whole spices

• 2 bay leaves
• 3 cardamom pods
• 3 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick or bark
• .5 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
• 6–8 black peppercorns
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds

Side

• Chopped coriander leaves
• Chopped tomato
• Slivered almonds
• Chopped fresh green and red chilli (optional)
• Lime slice

Method

Combine marinade and coat lamb pieces and set aside for 30 minutes at least, but several hours or overnight if you can.

Blanch spinach with water and let rest also.

In a casserole dish, dry-fry whole spices until they are fragrant (do not burn).

Add peanut oil, then chopped onion.

Sauté until soft and translucent.

Turn heat to high and add lamb and all the marinade. Use a wooden spoon to stop the mixture from burning at the bottom of the pan.

Once the colour starts to turn a rich, darker colour, add the water from the blanched spinach (I use this water to rinse the marinade bowl), bring to boil, add spinach and yogurt, and simmer, partially covered for 1 hour, or until the liquid reduces and green colour of the spinach intensifies.

Serve with side, using some of this to garnish main.