Thai Tea

The Friday before last had seen the end to a very busy but exciting week at work and the Friday evening afforded me the opportunity to catch up with old friend of mine who I worked with a few years previously. He has a taste for Far Eastern food down in no small part to the fact that his wife is Chinese.

This said I decided to make a Thai Curry as it was something that after a long day at work was quick to prepare but also very substantial.

I first took half a cauliflower and cut it up into several fairly small pieces about the size of the flowerhead of a dandelion. I next warmed some olive oil in the bottom of my wok on the hob and then added the cauliflower to it with two teaspoons of Thai Red Curry powder and two teaspoons of ground coriander. As I always say the way to get the best out of your spices is to apply them early in the cooking process and this meal was no exception. I stirred the cauliflower for around ten minutes until it started to soften a little and it was totally coated in the spices.

It was then time to add about eight ounces of cubed butternut squash and frozen quorn pieces. You can vary the recipe at this point by choosing to add some cubes of Tofu or alternatively some pieces of chicken. After stirring the quorn pieces and butternut squash cubes for five minutes I added the juice of one whole lime and also to bring out the sweet flavours in the curry three tablespoons of dark soy sauce.

The trick with this part of the preparation of the meal was to ensure the cauliflower, squash and quorn pieces softened without at the same time burning them too much. The best way to do this is to apply a medium heat to the wok and keep stirring the ingredients constantly.

After the food began to soften I added half a pint of chicken stock and simmered the food moderately while stirring it until it had absorbed a lot of the stock. I also added some frozen peas to the wok and started to simmer some noodles in another pan of water.

To help ensure that the food was soft enough to be edible and rich I added a tin of coconut milk to the wok and again simmered the until it had absorbed about half of the milk. Doing this also helped mean the mixture wasn't too runny when I served it.

Around the same as the contents of the wok were ready the noodles had also been simmering for enough time to be ready to serve. This said I shared out the noodles in two bowls and then added the curry mixture to the bowls as well. I also pulled out a mandatory bowl of prawn crackers to dip into the curry.

The sweetness of the soy sauce served to make sure the spices were flavoursome but not unecessarily overpowering while the milk lent a richness to this curry to make it substantial. In all the dish was a success and my friend ate all of his share quickly.

The Italian Job

After the surprising richness of the Glazed Swedes (see my last post for more on this) I wanted something a little lighter and quick to make due to being a little tired after a wonderful long walk that morning in the late Autumn sun.

My thoughts turned to the many Italian dishes I have enjoyed over the years and I decided to make a pasta rigatoni with a number of different ingredients.

By now the playlist had moved on from Zappa and the Mothers' eclectic and intriguing "Absolutely Free" to take in Jefferson Airplane's politically radical (for the time) 1969 offering "Volunteers". The album features an excellent rock version of the traditional song "Good Shepherd", an eerie version of "Wooden Ships" (better known through its recording by Crosby Stills and Nash) and the punchy title track, which like the album it is from was written in a more idealistic time when people thought that music could really change the world.

The first step with the pasta was simply to take eight ounces of pasta rigatoni and boil them for around fifteen minutes. While the pasta was boiling away I halved eight baby tomatoes and cut up a medium sized block of feta cheese into cubes.

Feta is something that tends to polarise people; like marmite you either like it or you don't. I find it a delicious accompaniment to many pasta dishes and also risottos. It does make your throat dry but then that gives you the excuse to have a refreshing glass of red wine or a pint of continental lager with it.

I then sliced up two slices of prosciutto ham on the chopping board. When the pasta was ready I drained it and added it to a glass serving dish covered with olive oil. I also added two teaspoons of dried basil, five sundried tomatoes, the prosciutto I'd sliced up and the halved cherry tomatoes. After all these items were mixed together I had a quick main meal on my hands that was ready to serve.

The taste was first class with the pasta providing plenty of substance and protein while the sundried tomatoes and feta provided a rich and mature taste that was offset by the basil a the fresh taste of the prosciutto. This meal is certainly one for someone wanting a filling meal that does not take too long to make nor is it too demanding to prepare either.

Above an easy to prepare and very filling meal with the full spectrum of flavours that Italian Food offers.

The Red Hot Chili Swedes

Yesterday was one of those days where it was good to catch up on things around my house, do a bit of work I'd brought home with me, have a long walk with the dog and some cooking. In short a pretty chilled out day. I needed a day like that though as the week had seen two rather challenging and busy meetings in connection with the charity I am president of this year, much rewarding work in the day job, a lunchtime drink with two good friends and a meal out at the end of the week with my parents who had finally returned from a month at sea.

On the media player today was an album that had arrived that morning; it was Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention's sophomore effort from 1967 "Absolutely Free". Zappa's music both with the Mothers and solo takes in almost every genre of music in Zappa's own idiosyncratic way. Some might argue with good reason that he was his own genre.

The first course of my tea last night saw me attempting to make Swede interesting. It has never been one my favourite vegetables being tough to prepare due to its tough skin making it difficult to peel and it's taste is not as pleasant as parsnip or carrot. When in doubt as to how to make a foodstuff more flavoursome I use spices. In this case I decided to use cumin, chili and honey.

Before these spices came into play I first took half a swede, peeled it and then cubed the flesh. I next added it to a pan of boiling water and boiled the swede flesh for around twenty minutes. I then drained the pan and fried the swede flesh in olive oil in my wok with a teaspoon of cumin and a teaspoon of chili powder.

After frying and mixing the cumin and chili powder for around five minutes I added to the wok five teaspoons of honey and on a medium heat on the hob I fried the swede cubes vigorously until they took on a glazed appearance and once the surplus honey had been fried away the pieces were ready to serve as a delicious starter to my mains- a starter I call glazed swedes in chili spice.

The honey added a sweet edge to the swede's often bitter taste, a taste that for some reason always reminds me of dreary winter Sunday dinners when I was a child,  while the chili and cumin added a warmth and flavour that lifted this dish above the ordinary.

Golden glaze- this dish is one way to make the experience of eating swede a lot more pleasant.

Popping over

One of my approaches to cooking is informed by taking traditional recipes and giving them a modern twist. That was the case on a Saturday last month when I chanced upon an old recipe for Beef Popovers- something that is a throwback to the days of the 1960s and before.

Essentially beef popovers are tiny Yorkshire Puddings filled up with mince beef. However my twist was to use Quorn Mince instead of mince beef. With the sounds of ELO's underappreciated third album "On the Third Day" playing out in the background I got a patty cake tin case and greased each individual compartment with plenty of margarine to stop the batter casing I was to make from sticking unnecessarily.

I then put four ounces of plain flour into a mixing bowl and made a hole in the middle of the flour. Into this hole I poured the white and yolk of one egg. I then gradually stirred the egg into the flour until it absorbed as much of the flour as possible.

Next I added gradually around half a pint of milk and stirred it into the egg and flour until I had a very liquid batter mixture. I then distributed the mixture evenly between the tin cases like the father of many children who treats none as his favourite.

I weighed out eight ounces of Quorn Mince and after adding a pinch of white pepper to the mince I shaped the mince into 12 two centimetre balls. The mince was surprisingly ductile and easy to fashion into the desired shapes. I then put a ball each in the tin cases and cooked them in the oven for around 15- 20 minutes on 210 degrees (220 for non-fan ovens).

After allowing them to cool a little I served them with a side dish of leeks, melted margarine and tomato ketchup. They tasted (as expected) like bite size Yorkshire Puddings and the Quorn Mince had all the taste of mince beef but without the unpleasant fat content and aftertaste so regularly associated with mince beef.

The popovers, which I consumed at lunchtime after my morning walk, set me up well for a fruitless trip to the south of the county that afternoon and much more rewarding trip out that evening for an enjoyable catch up with two good friends.

These popovers were delicious when served with some boiled Leeks, melted margarine and tomato ketchup.

Jam Side Down

The last Sunday in September found me in a reflective mood and recharging my batteries as the number of unexpected adventures in the last  month and the responsibility of looking after two houses and two dogs began to take their toll.

As always when I need to focus on having some downtime I fall back on my love of cooking and music. I picked Pink Floyd's 1977 effort "Animals" to bake some blackcurrant buns to. The album, although one of their best, is often overlooked by the casual fan, as it falls between two of their greatest albums (both of which are more accessible) 1975's "Wish You Were Here" and 1979's "The Wall". Animals' best track is "Sheep" which I was lucky enough to see its writer Roger Waters perform in 2008 on his excellent solo tour.

I realised I had mentioned my cooking skills to my work colleagues and I decided that actions spoke louder than words and therefore I should make something to take in for them to enjoy. The recipe I chose was a variation on an old recipe from a 1960s cookbook. It is essentially used to make buns that are topped with Jam.

I first added eight ounces of self-raising flour to my mixing bowl followed by three ounces of  margarine which I cut into cubes and then stirred into  the flour until the mixture resembled large golden breadcrumbs or shingle on the beach.

Then I added two and a half ounces of brown sugar and one egg. After I had thoroughly mixed these ingredients into the margarine and the flour I saw that it was all far too sloppy to cook. This said I added four ounces of plain flour to the bowl which meant that after I had stirred it in there was a mixture that almost had the consistency of cookie dough.

I divided the mixture into twelve equal pieces and put them on a greased baking tray. Then I added half a teaspoonful of black currant jam to the top of each piece trying as I did so push the jam down into them so it didn't run off in the heat of the oven.

I cooked the buns in the oven at 200 degrees (190 for fan ovens) for a period of fifteen minutes. I noticed the buns had become a pale bronze colour, a little like a meathead who hadn't applied enough fake tan before a night on the town, and when a put a skewer into them it came out clean meaning they were ready. The jam had also run a little and crystallised on top of the buns to create a tasty topping.

I tried one after I consumed a large stew for my tea and I found that buns sweet and rich but not too rich that I couldn't manage one comfortably despite a big main course.

At work the reaction was positive as pretty much all the buns were eaten by the colleagues in my team which has motivated me to do more cooking projects to take into work.

Straight out of the oven with a pale bronze colour showing in the dough and the jam well crystallised on top of each bun.