Sucessful Goulash

Retribution after my previous failed attempt.

Diced onion, sauteed until just golden then roughly chopped green and
red capsicum, carrot, diced veal, obscene amounts of paprika and a
little s&p. Stir all to combine - don't add any water or stock - all
the moisture you need will come out of the meat and veges.

Leave on the lowest flame possible for 3-4 hours, stiring occasionally.

Served with boiled chats and sour lettuce.

Beef Rendang

A seriously tasty dry beef curry served with quinoa.

Curry paste made by pounding lemongrass, garlic, corriander, chilli,
ginger, onion, anchovy, curry powder, cinnamon, s&p and oil in a
pestle and mortar.

Fried off, then add cubed beef and browned, add a can of coconut milk
and simmered for a couple of hours until the meat is tender.

Finished with a little sugar, a squeeze of lime and toasted grated
coconut.

Southern Style BBQ Ribs

Classic American style (lamb) ribs - marinated overnight in barbecue
sauce, finely chopped onion and garlic, ketchup, vermouth, balsamic,
evo oil, oregano, cayenne, cinnamon and s&p.

After 24, the ribs are removed and the excess sauce wiped off. They're
then barbecued over a medium heat for about 15 minutes until the meat
starts contracting off the ends of the bones.

At the same time the marinating sauce is simmered for about 10 minutes
and served with the ribs.

Served with corn on the cob and crispy roast potatoes.

Finger licking good.

Spanikopita and Moussaka

Another Greek style spread.

Spanikopita - fetta, ricotta and pecorino mixed with egg, breadcrumbs
and thinly sliced fresh english spinach, seasoned with nutmeg,
cayenne, s&p and olive oil - encased in layers of filo pastry sprayed
with oil.

Moussaka - a vegetarian version of the Greek classic - thinly sliced
eggplant, sprayed with oil and roasted in a very hot oven until
lightly browned - then used like pasta sheets in a lasagne - a little
tomato sauce* in the bottom of a roasting tin then a layer of
eggplant, then sauce, then basil, grated pecorino, eggplant, sauce,
basil, pecorino and so on until you run out of eggplant. The last
layer covered in a generous amount of cheese and baked until golden
brown.

Served with Za'tar pita, Greek salad and tzadziki.

* sauce made with canned tomato, onion, garlic, cinnamon, sumac, cumin
and s&p

R

Meatloaf

One of my favorite dishes as a kid.

Veal mince, egg, breadcrumbs, sauteed onion & garlic, cumin, paprika,
fresh parsley, Woostershire, tomato sauce and mustard. Mix to a moist
consistency and form into a loaf.

Coat in a thin 'glaze' of tomato sauce, then bake at 175 for about
50mins

Pizza e Birra

The simplest dinner yet - and possibly one of the best.

Greek souvlaki pita, topped with crushed tomatoes, chili evo oil, s&p
and torn fresh buffalo mozzarella.

Cooked in a very hot oven until the cheese is bubbling and melted and
the edges are crispy.

Once out of the oven, topped with marinated white anchovies and served
with a cold beer.

Linguini with Spicy Italian Meatballs

Probably more of an American favorite than a traditional Italian dish.

50/50 beef and veal mince mixed with fresh parsley, chili, egg,
breadcrumbs, allspice and s&p. Rolled into golf-balls, sprayed with
oil and baked in a hot oven until 90% cooked.

Then finished in a sauce of simmered canned tomatoes with tomato
paste, garlic, a touch of rosemary and s&p.

Served over al-dente linguini with a sprinkling of chopped parsley.

Apple and chocolate puffs

Super easy to make using wonton sheets! Never thought of using wonton sheets in this way until I read about it in Donna Hay.

Place a slice of apple and some dark chocolate between two wonton sheets (seal edges with water), brush margarine on top and bake in an 180C oven for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar.

The wontons come out really crispy! Next time I would chop up the chocolate first so it melts over a bigger area. (Also I'd experiment with some other fruits rather than apples but I guess you don't want anything too moist).

Chicken and green olive tagine

Another tagine dish. I like the way meat turns out - it's tastier and more 'solid' than poaching.

Spices were cumin, tumeric and paprika with fresh garlic and ginger. Make a paste with the spices, preserved lemon, olive oil and s&p. Marinate for an hour. Soften some onions, add the chicken and chicken stock and cook for 45mins - 1 hour. Then I added home-made green olives and some honey (I thought I had dates, but found out too late I didn't) and cook for a further 15 mins.

Served with couscous (with sultanas) and garnished with chopped preserved lemon.

Cauliflower Tandoori

A perennial favourite - cauliflower tandoori. Easy as pie - break up the cauli into florets, marinate in yoghurt and tandoori paste and then bake in a hot oven.

Goes great in school lunches too :)

Italian Lentil Soup

A hearty, filling, perfect Autumn soup.

Puy lentils simmered till tender then stirred into sauted onion,
garlic, carrot, celery and parsley. Moistened with stock and canned
whole tomatoes and simmered to combine.

Seasoned with red wine vinegar and s&p.

Served with grilled bread spread with fresh goats cheese.

Chilli and garlic stir-fried Chinese broccoli

A great side dish or a snack when served with rice. I think that you probably need 1 bunch of Chinese broccoli per person either way.

Fry up some garlic and chilli, and add the stalks and stir-fry for about 3 minutes. Then add the tops of the broccoli, add a little stock, soy sauce, etc. and cook until the leaves of the broccoli are wilted. The stalks remain crunchy and the leaves have that great wilted texture. Lots of flavour with the chilli and garlic.

Baked egg with cooked tomatoes in pita

Based on a recipe from 101 Cookbooks. Quite interesting.

Take some cumin, garlic, chilli and smoked paprika, heat until fragrant, add spring onions and chopped cherry tomatoes. Cook until tomatoes soften.
Cut up some pita bread into quarters, open up and lay 2 quarters criss-cross in a muffin tin for each egg. (I butterred the pita to make it go more crunchy but this is probably not necessary). Spoon in the tomatoes and top with an egg.

Bake in a warm oven for about 15 mins. Very tasty. For a proper breakfast you probably need 2 eggs per person, so if you only make 1 per person serve something else also :) Very tasty.

Nectarine sorbet

Very simple sorbet that doesn't need an ice-cream machine. First take some ripe fruit (nectarines in this instances, but could be blood plums, etc.), cut up into pieces and freeze.

When you want to serve the sorbet, take the frozen fruit, put it into a blender, add sugar (about 25% of the fruit's weight in my case) and blend until you have a sorbet consistency. Serve.

Tagine of beef and prunes

Bought myself a tagine from Vital Ingredient that could be used both on the stove top and in the oven. I have never previously cooked with a tagine, so I was quite excited to do this dish.

First I seared the beef in a separate pan. Then I cooked some onions in the tagine on a low heat, and when translucent added back the sealed beef and some carrots. Meanwhile I had marinated the prunes in some weak tea, and I used this marinating liquid for the tagine liquid. Cooked over a very very heat until the beef was tender. About 30 minutes before the end, added the prunes and some honey also.

I cooked the dish only on the stove top rather than in the oven this time. Very impressed with the results. A lovely very slow simmer resulted in a very tender great tasting meat.

Served it with couscous and topped with caramelised apple slices.

Spicy lamb ragu with pasta shells

Had some left-over lamb shanks cooked osso bucco style, so I converted them into a ragu.
Because I had cooked the shanks in a pressure cooker, there was still quite a lot of liquid left. I reduced this to about half to make it thicker, and then shredded the remaining lamb shanks into the sauce.

Served with large shell pasta. Great leftovers!

Lamb shanks osso bucco-style

Had Bec over for dinner and made lamb shanks osso bucco style.
Normal osso bucco recipe - brown the meat, fry up onions, garlic, carrots, celery, return the meat, add anchovies and tomatoes, and I usually add a bit of sambal olek and s&p - but cooked in a pressure cooker for 1 hour, so the meat was just falling-off-the-bone tender.

Served with smashed chat potatoes, and topped with gramalata. Delicious!

Dry beef curry (Rendang)

Tried to do a dry beef curry after a recipe on 'Cook and the Chef' (but they used goat instead of beef).
But I had a lot of trouble trying to get the rempah to separate and burned the rempah as a result. The final curry was good but obviously had burnt undertones :(

Took forever to make the rempah paste (lots of lemongrass, ginger, coriander, cumin, chilli, garlic, onion). After you make the paste, you are supposed to fry it in oil and then lower the heat and cook for 10 minutes until it separates. Didn't do it right: too much/too little oil or too hot/not hot enough?

Then add the beef, brown the meat, add a little bit of coconut milk (not much), sugar and kaffir lime leaves, cover and simmer for 1 hour. After this time remove the lid and cook for a further 30 mins and you finally end up with a dry curry. Served with rice, etc.

Macadamia-encrusted fish with roast pumpkin

OK, so I forgot to take the photo until it was too late. It was that delicious!

Prepared the fish in my favourite way - marinated for 15 minutes in buttermilk. Then I I used crushed-up macadamias to make a crust and oven-roasted the fish. The pumpkin was also oven-roasted, but basted with maple syrup (obviously started the pumpkin before the fish). Steamed sweet corn on the side as well.

Chicken, macadamia and fruit salad

Had some left-over chicken breast, so I made up this summery chicken salad.

Chicken, avocado, tinned pineapple pieces, white peaches and macadamias on a bed of lettuce. I had really wanted to use mango, but by the time I got to the supermarket they had no mangoes left and I had to settle for white peaches.

Not bad, but mango would have been much better :)

Pepper-encrusted seared tuna

Yum! Pepper-encrusted tuna seared in a hot pan, and then taken off the heat and covered with foil for 5 minutes. After it was rested, I sliced the tuna. Obviously still rare in the centre, but tasted fantastic.

Served with home-made oven-baked chips. Another great variation on fish and chips!

Chicken and sweet corn laksa

I have been cooking and taking photos of my cooking for the past month but keep on forgetting to post the meals on the blog :(
So the following 'x' entries will be stuff that I cooked over the past few weeks.

This was a 'quick and dirty' laksa made with Red Curry Paste (no shrimp paste in this!) instead of proper laksa. Sweet corn, rice noodles, coconut milk, snow peas.

Overall not as good as a proper laksa and I wouldn't use the 'quick and dirty' method next time.

Steak & Mash

I've been craving a juicy steak for a couple of weeks, so when I saw
this piece of beef smiling at me at the butchers I couldn't resist.

Marinated with roughly chopped garlic and lemon zest, whole sprigs of
rosemary, freshly ground pepper and evo oil.

Seared on a hot BBQ and roasted in a hot oven until medium rare then
rested on a warm plate for a couple of minutes.

Served with mashed potatoes and the tiniest baby asparagus.

Lahmacun (Turkish Pizza)

A traditional Turkish style pizza - which I somewhat basterdized but
still ended up with an incredibly yummy dinner.

Minced beef and very finely diced tomato, red pepper and onion mixed
with tomato paste, pomegranate molasses, sumac, cumin, cayenne and s&p.

The 'paste' spread very thinly over a pita and baked directly on the
racks in a very hot oven until the meat is cooked.

Garnished with chopped parsley, toasted pinenuts and a squeeze of lemon.

Served with an Israeli style salad and babaganoush.

Italian style stewed goat

This is the classic italian soffritto of onion, garlic, carrot and
cellery, then once softened chunks of goat shoulder was added and
'sealed' - moistened with a couple of cans of tomatoes and seasoned
with a bunch of parsley and s&p and let to stew for 2.5 hours.

Served with instant polenta (not quite as good as the real thing but
much easier - 3 mins of stiring instead of 40) and an avocado and cos
salad.