Category: stuff

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Scallops with Noodles

Scallops with Noodles

One thing I like about cooking oriental (inspired) food is the speed. This dish took about ten minutes from getting into the kitchen to putting food on the table.

Now I did cheat a little by using a pack of prepared stir fry vegetables, you can (as I usually do) prepare the veg yourself.

Once in the kitchen I put some water onto boil for the noodles, that take two minutes to cook.

I got the scallops and cut them in half through the middle to “double” the number of scallops. This is a trick I picked up from Gordon Ramsay on making scallops go further.

I heated a large frying pan and added a splash of sunflower oil. I let the oil heat through I then added a dash of Chinese Five Spice before adding the prepared stir fry veg.

In another pan I cooked the scallops. They don’t take long and you don’t want to overcook them.

Once the vegetables are nearly cooked, in other words still crunchy I added the noodles and some oyster sauce.

I then placed the noodles and vegetables on a plate and topped with the pan fried scallops.

For a variation I would have added some cashew nuts for crunch and some squid and prawns to complement the scallops.

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Marmalade Roly Poly

I have cooked many things in my life, but this was a first for me, a traditional steamed pudding. Yes I have heated up shop puddings, using steam or the microwave. But this was the first time I actually started with basic ingredients, made the pudding, steamed it and ate it!

So why marmalade?

Well we didn’t have enough lemons for a lemon pudding. No strawberry jam so “dead man’s leg” was out of the question. No dried fruit, so no spotted dick. But I did have marmalade… well it tastes of orange!

150 self-raising flour , plus extra for dusting
70 dried suet
45g caster sugar
finely grated zest of a lemon (well my lemon was a little soft so didn’t get too much zest)
100ml milk
some spoonfuls of marmalade

For the dough, mix together the flour, suet, caster sugar and lemon zest with a spoon. Stir in some milk until the mixture reaches the consistency of a soft pastry. Gather together into a ball, but don’t overwork or it will toughen.

This I then flattened out onto a flour dusted work surface.

I then spread the marmalade over the dough. Now to be honest if you try and spread like you do with toast then it isn’t going to work. Think of what you would do with hard butter on fresh soft white bread.

I then rolled the dough up. You can use a bit of milk to seal the edges.

I placed the rolled dough onto some greaseproof paper which I then placed on some foil.

I made a parcel of the greaseproof paper and used the foil to ensure it would retain it’s shape and sealed the edges. Leave rool for the pudding to rise.

Place the parcel in a steamer and steam for an hour and a bit, until firm to the touch. Allow to rest for a minute or two, unwrap, slice and serve. Custard is the obvious accompaniment.

Now as you can see it didn’t come out exactly to the shape I thought it would.

However once sliced it looked okay.

It was delicious served with custard.

It did need more marmalade, however I couldn’t use all of the jar as I wouldn’t have any for my toast in the morning…

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Cakes

These cupcakes (or fairy cakes) are based on a recipe for a traybake cake.

Ingredients

250g softened butter , plus extra for greasing
280g self-raising flour
250g golden caster sugar
½ tsp baking powder
4 eggs
150ml creme frache – the recipe calls for yoghurt, but I didn’t have any.
1 tsp vanilla extract
handful of choc chips

To make the sponge batter, beat the butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, creme frache and the vanilla in a large bowl with an electric whisk until lump-free. Stir in the choc chips. Spoon into the tin, then bake for 15-20 mins until golden and risen and a skewer poked in comes out clean.

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Noodles in a Thai Basil and Lemongrass Sauce

Okay hands up, I “cheated” by using the Blue Dragon Thai Basil and Lemongrass Sauce. Though the vegetables were all fresh. I took some onions, pepper, courgettes, green beans, broccolli, mushrooms and baby sweetcorn. I stir fried these in a hot pan for a few minutes,  before adding the sauce and a handful of cashew nuts. I then added the noodles that I had cooked earlier in boiling water for a couple of minutes.

I served the noodles alongside my spiced pork belly.

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Tunnocks Teacakes

YumYou know when you shouldn’t but you still do. Well it’s like that for me and Tunnocks.

Whether it be Chocolate Caramel Wafers or as it was tonight with a Teacake, there is something very nice, but also guilty about eating these very sweet delights.

The Teacake is a crumbly biscuit, covered in marshmallow and covered in a thin layer of milk chocolate. No matter how careful you are crumbs and flakes of chocolate drop over you.

Tasty, yet not quite delicious.

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Bananas

Skins

Like a lot of children, my children love bananas and eat a lot of them. They are very much a staple at home and we take a bunch of them when we are out and about.

I am not averse to them myself. However unlike when I was young, my children do not like bananas and custard. This was a staple pudding of mine when I was a kid. Reminds me that I haven’t had a banana split in a while either, probably not had one of those either since I was a child.

Interestingly they don’t really like banana flavoured stuff either, you know that banana milk or banana flavoured sweets. I would suspect that’s because they don’t really taste of bananas!

Recently buying bananas has been a little fraught with some purchased bunches going black very quickly, or very bruised already. So much so that I have been buying them loose rather than buying them pre-packed. It wasn’t unique to a single supermarket either, regardless of where I was buying them, pre-packed seemed to be bruised or ripened too much. I wonder if it was anything to do with the recent weather?

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Baking Cakes

Baking Cakes

These cupcakes (or fairy cakes) are based on a recipe for a loaf cake.

It is based on a recipe from the BBC Good Food magazine for a chocolate loaf cake.

I had to adjust the ingredients as I had run out of cocoa.

Ingredients

175g softened butter , plus extra for greasing
175g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
140g self-raising flour
85g ground almonds
½ tsp baking powder
50ml milk
1 tbsp cocoa powder
50g plain chocolate chips

Heat oven to 160C/140C fan/gas 3.

Add paper cases to a bun baking tray

To make the cake batter, beat the butter and sugar with an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, flour, almonds, baking powder, milk and cocoa until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips, then spoon into the cases.

Bake for 10-20 mins until golden, risen and a skewer poked in the centre comes out clean.

You could then drizzle melted chocolate over them, ice them, or leave them plain.

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Poaching Eggs

When poaching eggs I use to use one of those poaching pans, you know the kind a frying pan that has four little “cups” into which you break your eggs over boiling water. The eggs come out as though they were a top sliced football.

Having once asked for poached eggs in a hotel and getting those that had been done in just a pan of simmering water, I knew that I would have to attempt to do it.

I was surprised by how easy it was and since then I have always poached my eggs in this way.

Simply put, bring a pan of water to the boil, I then stir the boiling water into a “spin” and crack the egg into the spinning vortex. Turn down the heat to a simmer.

Poaching Eggs

At this point I put my halved bagel (or slices of bread) into the toaster when this is done then I know my eggs are done.

Poached Eggs on Bagel

A lot of books I have read (and seen Chefs on the TV) say that you should add vinegar to the water to “stop the egg from breaking apart” as you cook it. Personally I don’t add vinegar as I find it has a minimal or negligible effect (in other words I have seen eggs break apart even with vinegar in the water) and it also adds a vinegar flavour to the egg. I certainly noticed this when I last had poached eggs in a hotel recently.

I find that actually the best thing is to use really fresh eggs, it is old eggs that fall apart when poaching and not the use of vinegar, however I may be wrong on this. Though as you can see in the picture of my eggs above, still nice and whole!

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Quiche

I am never quite sure if I am a fan of quiche or someone who would prefer something else.

For me it always appears to be not quite a pie and not quite an omelette.

I do make quiche, and enjoyed it, but not quite sure if I am a fan.

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Risotto

I normally make a lemon and rocket risotto, however when I made this risotto I had no lemons or rocket! So I made this variation which was very tasty and went down well.

In a large frying pan, place some olive oil and butter. Then add some finely chopped onion. I also added some diced pancetta.

Soften the onions.

Bring up the heat.

Add the risotto rice and ensure that the rice is coated in the oil and butter. The key I have found to a good risotto is using good risotto rice.

Not having any chicken stock, I added some beef stock and some dried Italian herbs.

Keep topping up with stock to ensure that the rice doesn’t dry out.

Once the rice is virtually cooked I added a large handful of grated parmesan and some freshly ground black pepper.