Learning to cook in 2010? NTSC-UK Recipes

[smouty]

I see from the fun things to do in 2010 thread that learning to cook is popular and I have to agree so how about posting recipes with an easy to follow guide which constantly achieve the desired result

I'll start with this - Spicy Thai Meatballs from my Blog where I did want to document my favourites.

The ingredients list is quite daunting but everything is available in my local Sainsbury's which is fairly small

Ingredients
For the meatballs
600g/1lb 5oz minced Pork or Turkey
1 medium onion, grated
1 egg, lightly beaten
50g/2oz fresh white breadcrumbs
1 long red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp garam masala
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
pinch sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp vegetable/sunflower oil

For the curry sauce
3 tbsp ready-made massaman curry paste
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
4 tomatoes (or 1/2 Tin), chopped
200ml/7fl oz coconut milk
200ml/7fl oz chicken stock
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp brown sugar

To serve
3-4 tbsp cashew nuts, lightly toasted and finely chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
steamed basmati rice

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.
2. For the meatballs, place all the meatball ingredients except the oil into a large mixing bowl and mix together well with your hands.
3. With wet hands, shape the mixture into small balls (1″-1.5″) and place into a large roasting tin. Drizzle over the oil and stir gently to coat.
4. Transfer the tin to the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the meatballs are golden-brown.
5. Meanwhile, for the curry sauce, heat a large frying pan over a medium heat. Place the curry paste and ginger into the pan and cook, stirring, for one minute.
6. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, for another 2-3 minutes.
7. Add the coconut milk and stock and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for five minutes.
8. Add the meatballs to the sauce, stir carefully to coat and simmer in the sauce for 20 minutes.
9. Gently stir in the lemon juice and brown sugar.
10. Serve the meatballs in curry sauce over steamed rice, garnished with the cashew nuts and coriander.

Would love to hear any feedback if you try this but trust me it is great

[fuse]

That does sound awesome but a bit out of my league - I am tempted to give it a go on a day off some time but it will probably take me 10x longer than it should!

I have quite enjoyed making the shift from student cooking to actually edible, enjoyable food, but making things completely from scratch is still a bit beyond me. Whilst I do get all of my meat from the butchers and do actually dabble with marinading, seasoning etc, I generally don't do that much with it that isn't from a jar or packet... the main dilemma I have is that I don't get home from work till 7, am often just cooking for 1, and simply cannot handle the fuss of spending that much time in the kitchen on top of then having to clean up after

[ItsThere]

White Chocolate and Blueberry Waffle Souffle

You will need an oven proof dish and a mixing bowl.

Ingredients: (sorry I don't do many measurements)

A punnet of fresh blueberries
A bar or two of white chocolate (to taste - x2 if you like it sweet)
Enough waffles to cover the bottom of your oven proof dish (any variety or home made)
500 ml creme freche
3 eggs
2 tbl spoons castor sugar
2 tbl spoons plain flour
vanilla essence

Instructions:
Cover bottom of oven proof dish in waffles
Cover waffles liberally in blueberries (put them in the holes if you like)
Grate or break the white chocolate on top of the blueberries

Whisk together the creme freche, eggs, castor sugar, plain flourand vanilla essence until no lumps remain.

Pre heat oven to gas mark 5 and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Serve and reap the rewards of your excellence, this is very very easy to make but impresses more than it should.

[wicky]

Everyone loves this dish !

Parmesan Chicken Recipe
INGREDIENTS
1 clove garlic, minced
1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup or 1/4 pound), melted
1 cup dried bread crumbs (or about 2-3 slices of bread)
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or 2/3 cup if you are using a Microplane zester)
2 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
A large pinch of Italian seasoning (herb mix)
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 lbs of skinless, boneless, chicken meat, cut into pieces no larger than 2x2 inches
METHOD


1 Preheat oven to 220°C.
2 In a bowl, combine the minced garlic with the melted butter. In another bowl mix together the bread crumbs, Parmesan, parsley, salt, garlic salt, Italian seasoning, and pepper. Dip chicken pieces into garlic butter, then into crumb mixture to coat.
3 Place coated chicken pieces on to a 9x13 baking dish. Try to leave a little room between each piece. Drizzle with remaining garlic butter and bake uncovered 15 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear. Note that the chicken will get much more browned on the bottom side than on the top.

[abigsmurf]

Chilli con carne:

500g minced beef
2 tins of baked beans
2 drained tins of kidney beans or 2 (undrained) tins of chilli beans
1 tin of chopped tomatoes (if you used kidney beans in salt water)
chilli powder
1 onion (optional)
chilli peppers (optional)

Preheat a pan (don't use any oil). Dump the minced beef and chopped veg in.

When they're cooked, drain the fat, add the tins, add chilli powder to taste (you'll need lots if you used regular kidney beans).

leave on a low heat for 10 minutes or so to thicken the sauce and give the beans a chance to absorb the flavour.

Depending on if you have it on its own or not, serves 2-4

[Dirty Sanchez]

Pear Tarte Tatin

You'll need a 20cm frying pan, perferable if it's a little thick with a good non stick coating.

Pre heat oven to 200c.

This size of pan should take 8 to 10 pears (conference pears are best - something firm). Peel and cut pears into two halves, take out the cores.

Heat (medium/high))100g of butter (unsalted) and 100g of caster sugar (golden works best), with a cinamon stick, 2 star anise and 4 cardamon pods. The butter will split (this means the clear oil will seperate from the soilds - don't worry) and the sugar will melt, it will be bubbling. Keep stirring until the mixture JUST becomes a honey/golden colour (take off the heat now - if you let it get any darker now it will taste of burnt sugar). Put all the pears in the pan, put back on the heat(medium)turning them,coating them in the syrup. Do this for about 10 minutes.

Take off the heat and arrange the pears to be rounded side down with their tops pointing to the middle of the pan (like a flower), and fill the middle of the pan/flower with the pears left. Pour over 2 tablespoons of brandy and set it alight - leave to burn off the alcohol.

Now get 400g - 500g of puff pastry, rollout to about the thickness of a pound coin, cut round a plate the same size as your frying pan (normal dinner plate size). Put pastry over the pan and tuck the overlapping pastry down the inside of the pan between the rim and the pears. Whack that whoel thing in the oven for 15 minutes.

After 15mins turn over to 180c, if the pan is boiling over liquid then drain a little of this off. Leave in the oven for another 15 minutes.

Take out the oven and let it stand in the pan for 10 minutes then put a plate over the top of the pan, holding it tightly turn the pan over leaving the tarte neatly on the plate and looking fantastic.

You can eat it now or let it cool, great with cream or ice cream.

Sounds difficult but honestly it is so easy.

[Dirty Sanchez]

Steak Pie

Get 750g of braising steak or shin of beef (other more expensive cuts of beef just don't work - they end up too tough - you need a bit of fat in there).

Season well with salt and pepper and a sprinkle of flour. Get your pan hot with a tablespoon of oil and toss the meat until browned (better to do in two batches - stops the meat steaming and not sealing properly). Should take 5 minutes or so. Set the meat aside.

Two onions, chopped with two carrots chopped, in the pan with the meat juices, keep stirring for 5 to 10 minutes to slightly soften. Bang the meat back in the pan with two bay leaves, 300 - 500g of mushrooms (halved or sliced depending on size), two table spoons of tomate paste (or ketchup), a 500ml bottle of stout or beer, two beef stock cubes (I prefer the hard cubes rather than crumbly oxo types). Bring that up to the boil then turn it down, half covered on a low simmer.

Skim of any froth or gunk that lies on the top of the stock after 30 mins or so.

To fully break down this is going to simmer to 2.5 to 3.5 hours. Test the meat for tenderness after 2.5 hours, it should start breaking apart easily, if it doesn't leave it another 30 mins and try again. Should be nice by 3.5 hours. Put the lid on and leave it too cool down, perferable leave it overnight to mature.

Put oven on 200c, bring the filling up to warm and thicken as required with cornflour mixed with water (a table teaspoon of cornflour mixed in a cup with a couple of teaspoons of water - mix until it looks like milk with no lumps - if you add the flour to the pan dry you'll just get horrible lumps) stir the mixture into your pan, it should thicken in 30 secs or so. Repeat until you get the consistency you want your pie to be (I usually go for about 4 to 5 teaspoons worth - thick but still runny gravy but not thin and watery).

Pour mixture into ovendish, roll puff or shortcrust pastry to size of dish and wap over the top. Put in the oven for 30 minutes.

Awesome.

[Darwock]

This thread is a fantastic idea, I can't cook a single thing aside from boiled eggs and the thread has tempted me to start.

Small problem - all the recipes posted so far (bar one) require the use of an oven, and Japanese kitchens don't have them.

Anyone got any recipes that can be done on a stove or via grill?

[abigsmurf]

My recipe can be done on a stove and only requires a single pan.

[Dirty Sanchez]

This thread is a fantastic idea, I can't cook a single thing aside from boiled eggs and the thread has tempted me to start.

Small problem - all the recipes posted so far (bar one) require the use of an oven, and Japanese kitchens don't have them.

Anyone got any recipes that can be done on a stove or via grill?

You could grill the puff pastry if it was cut thin and serve on the side of the pie, or do without and just have the pie as a cassorole.

The pears can be eaten without the puff pastry, just as delicious. You could serve them on a bit of 'eggy bread' - bread dipped in beaten egg and pan fried then sprinkled with icing sugar (French toast as it's know in some posh places)

The meatball recipe - just pan fry the balls before placing in the sauce - should take 5 to 10 minutes to brown them.

I would think the chicken would be grillable - only problem maybe the breadcrumbs browning too much leaving the chicken too raw, you can get around this by grilling them wrapped in foil for 20 mins, take off the foil and finish off to 5 to 10 mins to brown the breadcrumbs.

[kryss]

Kryss' Garlicky Mouldy Turf (a.k.a. "beef was on offer in the supermarket day")

Ingredients:
Steak
Mushrooms
Fresh Garlic
Olive oil

Method:

Put some olive oil in a frying pan and set on a medium heat.
Lightly crush the cloves of garlic (the back of a rice scoop is goo for this) and then chop into small pieces. Add to the frying pan when it's hot.
Chop the steak, and remove fat if so desired, and add to the frying pan once the garlic has been given a minute or two.
Turn the steak pieces over after a minute or three.
Wash and slice the mushrooms.
Turn the steak again and add the mushrooms.
Fry until the meat is cooked as desired, turning as many times as necessary (take one of the thicker pieces out and cut it open if you are unsure if it's cooked or not).

Serve with rice or chips.

[Jebus]

Isn't there already a recipes thread somewhere, or did I imagine it?

[PeteJ]

There is one but no harm doing it again

This one is dead simple, takes about 15 minutes and tastes great.
You'll need:
Pasta
bacon
creme fraiche
mint
oil or butter
frozen peas
two pans

Boil up enough pasta for however many people are eating
In another pan fry up small bits of bacon in a small amount of oil (or butter)
Once cooked poor in a load of frozen peas - shake about a bit and cook for about a minute
Add a few spoonfulls of creme fraiche and a large helping of chopped up mint - if you can't get hold of the fresh stuff then dried mint will do
Mix it up and leave on low heat until the pasta is done
Drain the pasta and add to the other pan, mix up and you're done!

Easy peasy

[stevie vip 99]

Chicken yuk sung:

1, Pick up phone and order from local chinese
2, Wait for delivery
3, Enjoy

Hope this one helps lol

[fuse]

This one is dead simple, takes about 15 minutes and tastes great.

For me this one fitted the bill in terms of simplicity and preparation time, and since there's no time like the present so I went home via the shops to get what I needed. Tesco & Sainsburys do quite handy little packs of cubed pancetta for those who want to go the extra lazy mile. Just finished up, and it was lovely! Cheers Pete!

I have Friday off work and have got company Thursday night, so I am threatening to try ItsThere's souffle. Wish me luck