ingredients – Page 4

Chicken stir-fry

When you’re on holiday, eating out every day, you start feeling like you’re ready for that home cooked food again. And you know that coming back after being away for a couple of weeks, work will be pretty busy. This stir-fry dish is great, because I always make a really big portion that will last you for several day, whether you want to take it as lunch to work, or have it waiting at home for dinner after getting home late. This is one of my husband’s all time favourite foods that I cook, so it’s a winner all around. Packed with vegetables and other healthy ingredients, it’s also great at boosting your immune system.

2 large chicken breasts

1 carrot

1 green pepper

5 medium chestnut mushrooms

1 brown onion

1 courgette / zucchini

300g bean sprouts

100g green beans

150g mangetout peas

100g baby corn

3 small green chillies

a thumb size piece of ginger

100g cashew nuts

4-5 garlic cloves

150g dry noodles (I use vermicelli)

50ml groundnut oil

50ml toasted sesame seed oil

50ml dark soy sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

I tend to chop all ingredients beforehand, because the actual cooking phase will be quite quick, and you won’t have time to chop the next ingredients. I usually have two containers; on box number 1 I put all the ingredients that require slightly longer cooking time, and box 2 the ingredients that will be added a little bit later.

1. On box no1, peel and slice the carrot in match-like sticks. Chop the green beans in about inch size pieces. Rinse and drain well the mangetout, and add to the box. Finely chop the chillies, and peel and finely chop ginger, and also add the cashew nuts to the box no1.

2. For the box no2, deseed and slice the pepper. Slice your onion and mushrooms, and cut the courgette into strips like the carrots. Cut the baby corn into pieces, and finely chop the garlic.

3. Cut the chicken breasts into thin strips. Heat the groundnut oil in a large wok, and add the chicken. Stir around for about 30 seconds – 1 minute, then add the ingredients from the box no1. Fry, stirring, for about 5 minutes.

4. Add the ingredients from the box no2 and stir. You’ll want to fry everything for about 5 minutes again. While doing this, boil some water, and pour over the noodles. You only want to soak the noodles (if using vermicelli) for 3 minutes. Do check the packaging for how long you need to soak the type of noodles you’re using. Drain the noodles well.

5. Add the bean sprouts to the wok, stir in for couple of minutes, then add the noodles. Add all the remaining liquid ingredients over the noodles, this will help you separate and stir the noodles into the rest of the dish more easily.

Roasted red pepper soup

This tasty soup is light and healthy, and just seeing the vibrant colour makes you want to tuck your spoon in.

5 red peppers
1 large onion
4 garlic cloves
450g tomatoes
900ml chicken stock, click here for recipe (or for vegetarian version, vegetable stock)
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
salt
black pepper

1. Cut the peppers in half, and core and deseed them. Place on a foil lined oven tray, skin side up. Brush with 2 tbsp olive oil, and grill under medium to high temperature for about 10 minutes, until the skin is getting black, and peppers soften. Remove from the oven, wrap in the foil and let cool for about 10 minutes.

2. Boil some water. Dip the tomatoes in the water for about 30 seconds, and take them back out. We are not cooking them at this stage, this will just allow for the skin of the tomatoes to come off easily. Peel and chop the tomatoes.

3. Peel and roughly chop the onions, and peel and finely chop the garlic. Fry the onion in 1 tbsp of the olive oil for 5 minutes until they become translucent, then add the garlic and fry for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, stock and vinegar.

4. Peel the blackened skin off the cooled peppers, and roughly chop them. Add to the other ingredients and bring to boil. Cover with a lid, lower the temperature to simmer, and cook for 30 minutes. Set aside to cool, then purée into a smooth soup.

5. Pour the soup back in the pan, re-heat, and season to taste.

Crab risotto

I went on a wild goose chase trying to get uncooked crabs for this dish. It seems it’s something people don’t ask for much around where I live, so I in the end had to get cooked one from my fishmongers. I would have steamed mine, to have sweeter meat, the ones I bought were boiled (I think boiling is the more common method). A word of warning thought, if you’re not used to handling crab, and taking the meat out yourself. It is pretty fiddly! Now, I could’ve also bought crab at the fishmongers, where the meat had already been taken out, served on the big back shell (this excludes the claws and legs). I, however wanted all the pieces of shell, for making the stock, to use it in the risotto.

Crab stock
1 large crab, all the shells once the meat has been removed
1 onion
1 celery stick
1 carrot
4 garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp black peppercorns
2 tsp sea salt
2 stalks of parsley
3 stalks of thyme
150ml brandy
2 litres water
1 tbsp tomato paste
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Crab risotto
250g uncooked arborio risotto rice
150ml dry white wine (I use Sauvignon Blanc)
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 celery stick, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
3 tbsp olive oil
25g butter
salt
black pepper
handful of chopped dill
meat from 1 whole crab
800ml stock (made from the shells)

1. Pull the claws and legs out of their joints. A good way to do this is twisting (rotating the whole joint) and pulling out at the same time.

2. Remove the meat from the crab shell. This can be fiddly and time consuming. Make sure you scoop out all the cavities of the mid-body, legs and claws. Also, there can be cartilage pieces inside bigger pieces of meat, holding the meat strands together, make sure to check and remove these.

3. Place the shells (including the mid-body carcass), onion, garlic, celery, peppercorns, carrot, bay leaves, parsley and thyme in a large pan with the splash of olive oil, and fry for about 5 minutes until it starts getting fragrant. Add the brandy, and bring to boil, until the mixture doesn’t smell of alcohol anymore. Add the water, salt and tomato paste. Bring to boil, and boil uncovered for about an hour.

4. Strain through a fine sieve. I would recommend using an additional piece of muslin, to leave all the muck behind, and getting a very nice, fine stock. When straining the stock through, you will need to keep scraping the bottom of the sieve with a wooden spoon, as the muck will collect at the bottom, stopping the liquid draining through.

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5. Place the oil, butter and shallots in a pan, and fry for 3 minutes, until translucent. Add the garlic, celery and bay leaves, and fry for 1 minute.

6. Tip all the rice in, and stir, to coat it all in the oil / butter mixture, for about 3-5 minutes. Add the white wine and let it bubble, stirring the rice.

7. Little by little, start adding the stock, stirring the rice until the liquid has disappeared, then adding more.

8. Once all the liquid has been used, stir all the crab meat in. Season to taste, and stir some cut dill in.

Stuffed cabbage rolls

When my husband heard the word cabbage mentioned in the same sentence as dinner, I could see he was quite sceptical. I’m glad he did actually enjoy the end result though, and has eaten the leftovers for separate meals since too. There are two variations of this very Finnish food. Stuffed cabbage leaf rolls, and a casserole, where the ingredients are layered in an oven casserole dish, and baked in the oven. The rolls require more work , and the casserole is easier to make. I normally make the casserole, but wanted to try the rolls this time. You would normally use white cabbage, however I wanted to try whether savoy cabbage would work. In terms of flavor it was absolutely fine, however I think white cabbage leaves will work better for the rolls as the savoy cabbage leaves are more fragile, therefore more difficult to use.

1 white cabbage
salt, 2 tsp per 1 litre of water, used for cooking the cabbage
250g mince beef
1 egg
1 tsp salt
a splash of white pepper
1/2 dl uncooked rice, cook in 2 dl water
cooking liquid of the cabbage
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Sauce
2 dl cooking liquid of the cabbage
2 dl beef stock
2 tbsp plain flour
salt
pepper

1. Use a knife to cut out the hard core of the cabbage. Boil in salted water until the leaves soften. Take the cabbage out of the water and drain. remove the leaves on at a time, then let cool. Shred / finely chopped the small inside leaves, as they will be used in the stuffing. Keep the cooking liquid.

2. Cook the rice, rinse with cold water and let drain. Mix the cooked rice, raw mince beef, finely chopped cabbage, spices and egg together. Add 1/2-1 dl of the cooking liquid.

3. Put a bit of the stuffing on the cabbage leaves. Turn the end of the leaf over the stuffing, then the sides, and roll.

4. Melt some butter in a pan, and fry the cabbage rolls until browned. Add some cooking liquid to the pan, cover with a lid a let cook for about 30 minutes.

5. Measure the cooking liquid and beef stock in a pan. Mix the flour separately with additional 1/2 dl of the cooking liquid, and stir until fully mixed with no lumps. Pour into the pan. Cook, stirring. Check taste and season if necessary.

6. The cabbage rolls are typically served with lingonberry jam. On this occasion, however, I’ve served them with my father’s homemade rowan berry jam.

Yakitori chicken skewers

The good thing about being open to experimenting with all kinds of cooking and holding a pretty varied basic stock of ingredients is that your options are limitless, with little prior planning required. I often give my husband options he can choose from, from the basic ingredients (ie chicken). After choosing the main ingredient, he might sometimes say he’d like it a certain way. So today’s chicken became Japanese style food, which was different to what I had originally though for the particular meat, however I’m now pleased I went for this option, as I’ve not cooked this in a while. I think people might be put off cooking foods from different cultures because it seems to be the unknown. Some might be concerned that there are difficult cooking techniques involved, as well as strange ingredients. I would say that often this doesn’t need to be the case. For example, with this dish, making of the yakitori sauce is very easy, with only a few ingredients involved.

500g chicken breast
6 chestnut mushrooms, cut in quarters (or if using small button mushrooms, 24)
1 red or green pepper
1 onion
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Yakitori sauce
150ml soy sauce (I use half and half of light and dark)
90g sugar
1 1/2 tbsp sake (or replace by dry white wine)
1 tbsp plain flour

1. If using wooden skewers, soak them in cold water for half an hour.

2. Mix all the sauce ingredients together in a pan. Bring to boil. Stir continuously, keeping an eye on it. Lower the temperature, and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring. This will reduce the sauce by about a third, and make it thicker and syrupy. Break any lumps of flour during cooking.

3. Cut the chicken and vegetables into chunks, and thread on the skewers. Pre-heat the grill. Brush the skewers generously with the yakitori sauce (also the underside), and grill for 5 minutes. Brush all over with the sauce again, and grill for another 5 minutes.

4. Strain the liquid (the sauce and some cooking juices) through a sieve back to the pan, bring to boil, and serve as a dipping sauce.

Eggs Benedict

This breakfast and brunch dish is very similar to the Eggs Royale click here for recipe that I’ve posted before. The differences between the two are that the Eggs Benedict uses ham instead of salmon, and I use Hollandaise sauce instead of Béarnaise sauce. Perfect served on brioche.

Hollandaise sauce
5 freshly ground white peppers, or 3 shakes of ground white pepper
2 parsley stalks
4 tbsp water or white wine (or mixture of both)
200g butter
3 egg yolks
paprika powder
1/2-1 tbsp lemon juice
salt

1. Put the pepper, parsley and water (and/or wine) in a pan. Let boil until the liquid has reduced to about half. Strain the liquid.

2. Melt the butter.

3. Put the egg yolks in a bowl, and drizzle over the strained liquid, whisking / stirring.

4. The eggs will need to be cooked in a bain marie (hot water bath). This is actually not as complicated as it sounds, please don’t let that deter you from making this sauce! You need a pot with water at the bottom, which will be heated to boiling. It’s important that the bottom of the bowl with the eggs doesn’t touch the hot water, as this could result to your sauce splitting. Whisk / stir the eggs until it’s starting to thicken. Next, start adding the melted butter to the eggs in drops at first, mixing/whisking as you go, then slowly drizzling the rest. You need to keep mixing the sauce until thickened.

5. Remove from the heat, and season with the paprika, lemon juice and salt.

Poached eggs
1 tbsp vinegar
couple of pinches of salt

All you need to poach eggs successfully are spacious enough pan, spoon for stirring boiling water, slotted spoon for removing the egg from the water, a bowl for the cooked eggs to let excess water drain out. I tend to break the egg into a cup, to have one ready to be cooked as soon as one comes out of the boiling water.

1. Put vinegar and salt in the pan, pour water and bring to boil. Stir in the centre with a spoon, and immediately pour egg into the eye in the center. This, together with the vinegar and salt will hold the egg together.

2. Cook for 3 minutes, and remove from the water with a slotted spoon. I tend to put the egg in a bowl first, to drain excess water, before plating it, otherwise you’ll end up with a soggy plate of food!

Enjoy the food!

Pan seared, oven roasted duck breast with garlic potato mash and roasted beetroot

I was so late with my food shopping order last night, that I wasn’t able to get it for delivery today. I’ve therefore had to rummage through my fridge and freezer for any left over ingredients I can use for dinner tonight. Luckily, I’ve found a duck crown (I’ll be cooking it on the bone), potatoes and beetroot. With these ingredients, I somehow don’t think I’ll be starving tonight.

serves 2-3 portions

250g beetroot
olive oil
salt
black pepper
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1 duck crown
salt
black pepper
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5-6 medium white potatoes
1-2 garlic cloves
50g butter
milk
dash of cream
salt

1. Heat the oven to 180°C (fan) / 355°F.

2. Peel the beetroot, and cut to wedges. put in an ovenproof dish, splash with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. Cook in the oven for about an hour.

3. Peel the potatoes, wash, cut in half (or quarters if bigger in size), and boil in salted water for about 40 minutes or until soft. Pour the water away, and mash the potatoes. Add butter, milk and salt to taste and texture desired, finish with some cream. Squeeze in the garlic.

4. Rub some salt and pepper on the skin of the duck breasts. Cook in a frying pan, skin side down, until browned. If you’re cooking breasts off the bone I would also sear them briefly on the meat side too.

5. Put in the oven, skin side up, and roast for 15 minutes. Take out of the oven and let rest for 10 minutes (this will allow the juices to stay in the meat better). On high setting, grill for 10 minutes.

Tip I find it easier to get a crispy skin on duck breasts that are cooked off the bone. When cooking this way, I slit the skin with a sharp knife, then rub salt and pepper in. Then fry in a pan in a little olive oil until browned and slightly crispy, and finish off in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

Mince beef soup

This winter warmer soup is especially perfect for those cold, cosy days. This is a very Finnish style soup of basic runny liquid base, with all the ingredients as bitesize chunks, rather than those thick, puréed soups. I personally quite like these kind of soups, because you can see and taste the ingredients separately. This soup contains a lot of healthy root vegetables, and doesn’t actually require a lot of cooking itself, most of the work goes to chopping the vegetables. This recipe makes a big soup, which is perfect. I think homemade soups are a little bit like curry, in a way that they seem to taste even better the next day. Also, the great thing about this kind of food is that you are not restricted to follow the ingredients too strictly, but can add other ingredients too. My recipe will be ever so slightly peppery-hot, if you don’t like any heat in your food you might want to leave out the white pepper, or reduce the amount.

1 onion, finely chopped
250g mince beef
1.2kg potatoes
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp allspice
1.5 litres beef stock click here for homemade recipe
1 large parsnip (200g)
2 small turnips (200g)
300g swede
1/2 large leek, finely chopped
3 bay leaves
2-3 dl frozen peas
(1 tsp salt if necessary, to taste at the end. I tend to use sea salt for this)

1. Fry the onions in vegetable oil in a pan, until starting to get translucent. Add the mince beef and mix with the onions. Add the spices, and fry until cooked. During the cooking process, keep braking into small pieces.

2. Take about a quarter of the potatoes, and peel and chop into small pieces. Boil in the stock, covered, until cooked, then mash them.

3. While the potatoes are boiling, peel and chop all the other root vegetables into small, bite size cubes. Add to the stock and mashed potatoes, together with the bay leaves.

4. Peel and cut the remaining potatoes into small pieces, and add to the soup. Lastly, add the finely chopped leek, peas and the mince beef.

5. Cook until all vegetables are cooked. After all the ingredients have been added this should only take about 10 more minutes, depending on the size you’ve cut your potatoes.

6. Check the taste, and add the salt if required.

Cottage pie / Shepherd’s pie

This is a heart and belly warming classic British dish, however I’m sure other nations have their own variation of the same thing. Even in my native Finland we have something similar. I have added ingredients to the basic version, so it actually probably doesn’t even have any particular national background. For a long time, I always had to check with my British husband what the difference with cottage pie and shepherd’s pie is. The difference is very simple: cottage pie is shepherd’s pie, but with a cheese crust on top. This kind of food is proper, honest home cooking. I tend to make a large batch, which will give you couple of dinners, or dinner for the first night and lunch to take to work with you for few days. I like mine with slight heat from the pepper, if you would like yours mild I would suggest reducing the black pepper and white pepper to half (or just use full amount of black pepper and leave white pepper out).

1.5 kg potatoes
2 tsp salt
50g butter
3dl milk
pinch of salt
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1 medium onion
2 small or 1 large carrots, peeled
1 courgette / zucchini
4 chestnut mushrooms
500g mince beef (if you don’t eat red meat, you can easily swap this to mince turkey)
2 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
1/2 – 1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp ground allspice
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3 dl cheese

1. Peel and rinse the potatoes. Cut in half or quarters, depending on size. Place in a pan and cover with cold water. Add the salt, and bring to boil. Depending on the size of the pieces, boil gently for about 20 minutes, or until soft.

2. While the potatoes are boiling, finely chop the onion, carrots, courgette and mushrooms. I normally use standard brown/yellow onions for cooking, but I have a lot of very strong red onions in my cupboard, so I used that instead.

3. Fry the onions in the oil for few minutes, until starting to turn translucent.

4. Add the meat. Keep beating it with a wooden spatula as it’s cooking, to break it into small crumbly texture. During the cooking, add all the spices. This’s whole step will take you around 10 minutes.

5. Once the meat is cooked, add the carrots, courgette and mushrooms, and fry for 5 minutes, stirring.

6. Once the potatoes are soft, discard the cooking water. Mash the potatoes, and add the butter, milk and salt. I prefer my mash to be firmer when using it in a dish like this, otherwise it won’t hold the mince mixture in a separate layer.

7. Layer half of the mash at the bottom of an oven casserole dish. Then add a layer of the meat mixture. I usually pat it into a firm, dense, even layer. They add the remaining mash. To make sure you have an equal amount to cover the whole dish, I usually start by adding a dollop in the corners, then in the middle, and then plead it across evenly.

8. Finally, add the cheese. I normally tend to use a mixture of extra mature cheddar and red leicester, however this time I replaced the latter with gruyere. Cook in preheated oven 180°C / 355°F for 40-45 minutes until the cheese top has become slightly crunchy.

Thai green curry paste

When cooking foods that are not part of your original culture, it’s often easy to think that it’s something very difficult and complicated. I’ve loved the fragrant Thai green curry for a long time, but didn’t really know how to make it. Until I started making my own paste, and realized how easy it actually is.

6 small green chillies
1 onion
large piece root ginger
3 cloves of garlic
small bunch of coriander
2-3 stalks of fresh lemongrass
1 lime, juice and grated zest
8 kaffir lime leaves
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 tsp Thai fish sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp olive oil

1. Break the whole spices with either a pestle and mortar or a spice mill.

2. Cut the stalks off the chillis, and chop roughly to smaller pieces.Peel and roughly chop the garlic, onion and ginger, and prepare the lime. Also chop the lemongrass into smaller pieces.

3. Put all ingredients in the food processor, and blitz until smooth paste.

4. The paste is now ready to be used.