mushrooms Archives - Page 9 of 13

October 2, 2016January 20, 2024

Thai style stir fry

I do like Thai food, one of my favourite places to eat in Oxford was Sais’s Thai in the covered market. As I have never actually been to Thailand I couldn’t say whether what they cooked was authentic, or typical of the cuisine. What I can say, is I really liked their food and what they served. I have tried quite a few times to recreate the experience at home, sometimes with an element of success and sometimes it was just okay.

For this recipe I took some chicken thighs and cut them into strips, I prefer using chicken thighs over chicken breast, as the flavour is much better and it cooks better in a stir fry, staying moist and tender, whilst breast can dry out.

The chicken is mixed with soy sauce and I used some rice flour (one of the family is on a wheat-free diet). I mixed the chicken until it was all evenly coated.

This was then cooked in a some sunflower oil in my trusty wok. The chicken is stir fried until just cooked and removed from the wok. What happens next depends very much what is in the house and in the fridge.

 First goes some garlic and usually a combination of onions, pak choi, green beans (or mange tout), sliced mushrooms, baby sweetcorn, broccolli, basil and spinach. I had fish sauce and more soy sauce. You can add some chopped red chilli for heat if you want. I do like to get Thai Basil if I can, but I have found normal Basil an okay replacement. This is all stir fried, and when this is nearly cooked, the spinach has wilted, I add back the chicken and some cashew nuts. A little more stir frying before serving on a dish (and sometimes topping with more cashew nuts).

I find this quite a simple, yet very tasty dish, serve with plain steamed rice or noodles.

July 30, 2016January 16, 2024

Time for some dumplings

I did think that I might miss the Temple Quay market this week because of the rain, however it stopped so off I went.

There were fewer stalls this week, and fewer regulars, but even so there was a great choice of food. I thought the rain might have put people off, but the queues were already really long. The queue for the Thai stall was already across the square!

I did start queuing at the Scoff and Relish stall as the salad and grilled chicken sounded great and looked fantastic too, being chargrilled on their tiny portable barbecues. I also liked the idea of the accompanying scoff balls, savoury scones. Alas they were struggling with the demand and the queue wasn’t moving and the food wasn’t quite ready. Maybe next time…

In the end I went with Ah Ma’s Dumplings. There was a slow moving queue here too. The stall has these huge towers of bamboo steamers laden with freshly steamed dumplings containing a choice of fillings. There was no tiger prawn, scallop and leek (probably sold out) today, so the choice was pork and ginger, beef and spinach, chicken and coriander or vegetarian.

I went with the veggie shitake and cashew pan fried dumplings along with the pork belly with hoisin bao.

I was impressed and tempted with the dumpling pots complete with vegetables, noodles and broth, likewise the sides of Asian salads sounded very interesting. That day they had carrot & courgette ribbons with a tahini, honey, lemon dressing; the other choice was sweet chilli pickled cucumber with toasted black sesame seeds.

The dumplings were really impressive, beautiful steamed dough that because of the pan frying. Inside was a filling that was deep, tasty and even a little meaty, but they were vegetarian (well ‘ish they are pan fried in the same pan as the pork and chicken ones, so if you are vegetarian you might want to have them steamed instead).

The bao was delicious, the slow roasted pork belly was both sour and sweet, full of interesting deep flavours and very tender. The steamed dough made is substantive. I have seen neater and tidier bao buns before, but the flavour of the filling made up for this.

Ah Ma has a growing reputation, having been mentioned as one of the top sixteen street food stalls in the UK in both the Metro and Olive magazine. In my mind that is a well deserved reputation, delicious food, beautifully made and presented and lots of interesting choices of flavours and textures. I hope to visit them again.

May 1, 2016

Mushroom Pasta

I have been using the woodland mushrooms from Morrisons for a while now. Now I know they are not from woodlands, but are farmed, but they make a nice difference to dishes that usually use common mushrooms.

When it comes to mushrooms I usually buy chestnut brown mushrooms rather than the more common white ones. I prefer the colour and flavour.

The woodland mushrooms include oyster, and some others that I haven’t’ identified!

My recipe for mushroom pasta is relatively quick and easy. I have been using fetticine pasta, which only takes a few minutes to cook. For my pasta sauce I use some onions, chopped mushrooms (and for a non-vegetarian version of the recipe use some smoked pancetta) .

In a large heated frying pan, drizzle a little olive oil, then add the pancetta, until nearly cooked. Add some finely chopped onion, which is cooked until soft, I then added some chopped mushrooms. Once these were cooked, I added some crème frache and grated parmesan. The cooked pasta is then drained and the sauce stirred in.

This dish is as tasty as is, served with some additional parmesan on top. However I have been using the woodland mushrooms to add another aspect to the dish. I keep the mushrooms whole, or halved. With the … this is sliced.

I then in another frying pan, put it on a high heat, add some butter and cook the woodland mushrooms. The butter adds some colour to the mushrooms, once cooked, they are added to the top of the pasta dish.

There are some variations, you can of course, lose the pancetta to make a vegetarian version. Another thing you can do is to add is spinach and pine nuts.

I like the woodland mushrooms and I am pleased with how I have cooked them and their flavour. I have had trouble in the past with cooking wild mushrooms, but cooking them on a high heat with some butter, seems to do the trick.

October 23, 2011

Roasted Vegetables

I really do enjoy roasted vegetables either as a meal in itself or as an accompaniment to another dish.

On this platter I have roasted squash, red onions, red pepper, mushrooms, tomatoes, courgettes, aubergine, parsnips and sweet potato.

The method I used for this was in the roasting pan I placed the squash, the parsnips, red onion and sweet potato with a good splash of olive oil. This was then roasted in the oven for about 15 minutes. I then added the mushrooms, tomatoes, aubergine, courgette, red pepper and another splash of the olive oil. This was then roasted for about 15-20 minutes.

Simple and delicious.

August 12, 2011

Breakfast

A traditional English breakfast usually consists of bacon and eggs with sausages, beans, fried bread and maybe a portion of tinned tomatoes. Obviously there are other things you can add such as grilled kidneys, black pudding, mushrooms, hash browns.

Actually the more you think about it, a cooked breakfast can be quite diverse and much more than just bacon and eggs. Eat a little later and it turns into Brunch.

I quite like a cooked breakfast now and again, but very rarely go down the traditional route. This was the basis of a recent breakfast and consisted of grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and onions.

I took some cherry tomatoes and halved them. If you halve them with the stalk point at the top then they will always look nice. If you slice them through the stalk point then they may (well usually) don’t look as nice. I splashed a little olive oil on them and some torn basil leaves.

For the mushrooms I trim the stalks and then spread a small knob of butter on them and some freshly ground black pepper.

For the onions I just again splashed a little olive oil and more black pepper.

These were all then roasted in a hot oven for about 10-15 minutes.

I served them with some toast and a poached egg.

August 6, 2011

Chestnut Mushrooms

In the dark and distant past the only mushrooms I bought were those white ones and on the odd special occasion I would get little white button mushrooms. More often used as texture rather than flavour for most dishes I would cook.

However it is now much easier to get a wider choice of mushrooms in your local supermarket. You can even get wild mushrooms in some.

For chinese cooking I do like using Oyster and Shitake. They are very different to your traditional closed and chestnut mushrooms so add an exoticness to any chinese cooking.

For all other times I use mushrooms my preference is for the Chestnut, mainly for flavour, but also for texture. I either use them as part of a recipe or cook them on their own. I do like to roast them with other vegetables to accompany a roast dinner. To cook them on their own I like to use a really hot pan and a little butter. On a low heat they will become soggy, on a higher heat they will shrink and the flavour will be really enhanced.

So what’s your favourite mushroom?

July 23, 2011

Steak with Peppercorns and Pancetta

This is quite a quick meal and can be served with steamed vegetables and crispy potatoes.

I normally prefer ribeye cut of steak these days, with sirloin as second choice, as I prefer the flavour of ribeye. Rump, though cheaper, is often tougher than either ribeye or sirloin. I find fillet, not just more expensive, but often lacks flavour. Though in this dish it would work as the peppercorns and the pancetta add a striking flavour to the dish.

I prepare the steak by rubbing in some olive oil. Then in a plain unoiled hot pan I cook the steak. About half way through cooking I added some black peppercorns.

In order to save time, in a seperate pan I cooked off some pancetta and once they were nearly cooked added the mushrooms.

Removing the steak from the pan, once cooked, I added the pancetta and mushrooms and added half a tub of creme frache, which I let heat through.

I sliced the steak, put on the plate, poured over the sauce and served with steamed vegetables and crispy potatoes. It would also work well with plain rice.

April 18, 2011

Steak and Black Pudding

The other week I was lucky enough to have dinner at the Mustard Seed Restaurant in Inverness. For my starter I had had the crayfish and salmon salad. For my main course I had the pan fried rump steak served with roasted fine diced black pudding and potatoes with parsley and garlic crème fraîche.

This was really really nice.

The steak was a rump steak, and I have found at many restaurants that rump steak can be quite tough, this one though was cooked to perfection and was very tender. I did ask for it to be cooked medium rare and I think that helped. The black pudding and potatoes were done well and really enhanced the steak. It was all complemented with the parsley and garlic crème fraîche, which had a subtle garlic flavour and the freshness worked well in opposition to the strong spiced flavour of the black pudding. Across those flavours you could still certainly taste the flavour of the beef.

Overall a really nice combination of ingredients, that was cooked well and was as a result delicious.

November 6, 2010

Roasting Vegetables

One of the things I like to have with a roast are roasted vegetables. I also add cubes of bread towards the end of cooking, these go all tasty and crunchy.

There are different vegetables you can use, this time I was using squash, pepper, mushrooms and onions.

September 29, 2010February 5, 2024

Breakfast in Bloomsbury

I had really enjoyed the breakfast I had at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury back in 2008.

It was a splendid affair, and though there was an element of self-service, what was nice was the staff took your cooked breakfast order and brought it to the table.

Beautifully served, it consisted of an excellent meaty sausage, some very nice grilled bacon, a small bowl of baked beans, grilled (and skinned) tomato, mushroom, bubble and squeak, black pudding and egg. You had a choice of eggs (chicken or duck) and cooked to your liking, I had a poached duck’s egg. It was also garnished with lettuce, not sure about the lettuce.

So when I was lucky enough to stay at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury again recently, I was really looking forward to coming down for breakfast.

I wasn’t expecting to get an identical experience, but it was pretty close.

The eggs were cooked well, the sausage was nice, as was the bacon. I liked the grilled mushrooms. The tomato wasn’t as good as before and there was a solitary small hash brown.

Luckily no lettuce, just some parsley.

There was quite a choice of other cooked items as well, such as boiled eggs and kippers.

Along with the cooked breakfast, there was also a (self-service) selection of toast, bread products such as croissant and panettone, fruit, yoghurt, juice, cold meats, cheese and smoked fish.

Excellent service and great food. A good start to the day.