Month: January 2016

Mongolian Beef

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I simply had to share this dish especially as we are coming up to Chinese New Year. This year we are celebrating slow cooker style but this dish can also be cooked traditionally in a wok. My youngest devoured this after initially refusing to taste it but after a little persuasion declared it his new favourite dinner.

500grams striploin / sirloin or round steak

37 grams /¼ cups cornflour (corn starch)

1tablespoon olive oil

I garlic clove minced of shopped finely

1 centimetre fresh ginger finely chopped

177 millilitres /¾ cup soya Sauce

177 millilitres / ¾ cups water

100 grams / ½ cup brown sugar

2 scallions chopped to garnish

2 carrots, ribboned with a potato peeler or your own choice of vegetable e.g. peppers

Method

Cut the steak into thin strips. In a zip lock bag add the steak and cornflour and shake to coat the steak.

Add olive oil, garlic, ginger soya sauce, water brown sugar and your choice of veg to the slow cooker. Stir the sauce ingredients to combine, then add the steak and stir again until coated in sauce.

Cook on high for 2-3 hours or on low for 4-5 hours. Serve with rice or noodles.

Alternatively:

Cook this dish in a wok

Fry off ginger and garlic and add the steak coated in cornflour and fry over a high heat until cooked with your choice of vegetable. Add the soya sauce (½ cup) and the brown sugar (¼ cup) and stir fry until sugar is dissolved.

To make this dish gluten free, use a gluten free soya sauce.

Adapted from The Recipe Critic: Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef

Sticky Toffee Pudding

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I love this pudding on a cold day served with toffee sauce and vanilla ice-cream. This is an easy recipe and you don’t have to worry about cooking individual puddings just slice and serve. My oldest girl loves this cold in her lunch box as well as a tiny portion of toffee sauce if there is any left.

225 grams/ 8 ounces stoned dates chopped

250millilitres / 9 fluid ounces black tea

100 grams/ 3 ½ ounces soft butter

175 grams/ 6 ounces sugar

3 medium eggs

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

225 grams / 8 ounces self raising flour ( or All Purpose  with a teaspoon of baking powder)

¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda/ baking soda

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F and line the bottom of a 20 centimetre / 8 inch loose bottomed tin. Grease the sides of the tin also to prevent the cake sticking to it.

Place the chopped dates and tea into a sauce pan and bring to the boil. Cook for a few minutes to soften the dates then remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Cream the butter and sugar in your mixer until fluffy and incorporate the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the cooled date mixture followed by the flour, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice.

Pour the batter into your prepared tin and bake for about 35-40 minutes and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out cleanly.

This pudding works really well gluten free; just substitute the flour and baking powder with a GF variety. I like Dove’s Farm brand. Remember to include ¼ teaspoon of Xanthan gum.

Toffee Sauce

55 grams/ 2 ounces butter

125 grams/ 4 ½ ounces sugar

140 grams / 5 ounces golden syrup

115 millilitres/ 4 fluid ounces cream

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Place all the ingredients in a sauce pan over a high heat and boil for approximately 5-5 minutes stirring continuously until it has thickened. Serve warm.

Adapted from Rachael Allen’s Bake

Pulled Pork

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This is all the rage at the moment and it’s surprisingly easy to do. I like to serve it in the brioche burger buns available in Aldi. It’s great for lunchboxes too!

For the marinade

4 tablespoons hoisin sauce – readily available in the Chinese section of your local supermarket

1-2 cloves garlic peeled and finely chopped

1 cm of fresh ginger peeled and chopped finely

1 star anise – available in the Spice aisle of Tesco, Supervalue and even Tiger in Mahon Point or Mr. Bell’s in the Old English Market.

4 teaspoons muscovado sugar

½ teaspoon Chinese five spice powder

2 tablespoons honey

800 grams – 1 kilogram of pork neck  (available in Sheehan’s Butchers)

You can prepare this the night before:  place the marinade into a freezer bag and add the pork neck and place in the fridge. Then in the morning dump everything into the slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours. I normally place everything into the slow  cooker set a timer for it to come on at 6am.

Once the pork is ready shred it with a fork and serve.  If you want to serve it with a sauce, decant the juices into a saucepan and thicken with a slurry of cornflour and water.

For a gluten free option replace the hoisin sauce with a GF soy sauce and use GF rolls

Adapted from Gok Wan’s Honey glazed Char Siu Pork

Star Anise is a small dried star-shaped fruit with one seed in each arm. It has an aniseed flavour and is used unripe in Asian cookery.

Sticky Gingerbread

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This is a wonderful moist cake that never lasts long in my house. It is delicious iced or just sliced and served with butter. It reminds me of a fond friend and colleague André Goddard who used to love this when I brought it into Faculty Meetings.

 

225 grams / 8 ounces self raising flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

1 tablespoon ground ginger – this is not a misprint!

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

115 grams / 4 ounces butter

115 grams  / 4 ounces dark muscovado sugar. (I used golden caster sugar and it was fine)

115 grams / 4 ounces black treacle

115 grams / 4 ounces golden syrup

250 millilitres / 9 fluid / 1 cup ounces whole milk

85 grams /3 ounces drained stem ginger finely grated*

1 egg

Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F

Line a 2 pound loaf pan or an 18cm round, 7cm deep cake tin.

Put the flour, bicarb ( baking soda) and all the spices into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix in the grated stem ginger.

Put the sugar, treacle, golden syrup and milk in a medium saucepan and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring the mixture to just below boiling point. Pour in the treacle mixture into the flour mixture stirring as you go with a wooden spoon.

Beak in the egg and beat until all the mixture is combined and resembles a thick batter.

Pour this into the prepared tin and bake for about 35-40 minutes until a skewer pushed into the centre of the cake comes out cleanly.

*Stem ginger is root ginger that is preserved in sugar syrup. It is very difficult to find in the US and crystallized ginger is the closest comparative. 4 pieces of stem ginger is about 4 ounces of crystallized ginger. For stem ginger syrup use 4 tablespoons light corn syrup plus  ¼ teaspoon ground ginger.

To ice this cake mix together

 50grams / 2ounces of icing sugar

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix until you have a smooth, slightly runny icing. Add more juice if needed. Drizzle the icing over surface of the cake