Marcella Hazan's Bolognese Sauce

Posted by Vivian in Beef, Italian, Pasta

0 comments

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2/3 cup chopped celery
• 2/3 cup chopped carrot
• 1 pound ground beef (around 500 gm)
• Salt
• Fresh ground black pepper
• 1 cup whole milk
• Grounded nutmeg
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1-½ cups canned plum tomatoes, torn into pieces, with juice
• 1-¼ to 1-½ pounds pasta (preferably spaghetti), cooked and drained
• Grated Parmesan

Preparation:

• Heat oil with 3 tablespoons of butter and chopped onion in pot over medium heat.
• Cook and stir onion until it has become translucent, then add chopped celery and carrot. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring vegetables to coat well. 
• Add ground beef, a large pinch of salt and a few grindings of black pepper. Crumble meat with a fork, stir well and cook until beef has lost its raw, red colour. 
• Add milk and let simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it has bubbled away completely. 
• Add a tiny grating, about 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg and stir. 
• Add wine and let it simmer until it has evaporated. 
• Add tomatoes and stir thoroughly to coat all ingredients well. When tomatoes begin to bubble, turn heat down and let simmer. 
• Cook sauce uncovered for 3 hours or more, stirring from time to time. While sauce is cooking, it will begin to dry out and the fat will separate from the meat. Add ½ cup water as necessary. At the end of cooking, the water should be completely evaporated and the fat should separate from the sauce. 
• Taste and correct for salt. 
• Add remaining tablespoon butter to the hot pasta and toss with the sauce. 
• Serve with grated Parmesan on the side.

Burger... Dressing It

Posted by Vivian in Beef, Chicken, Potatoes

0 comments

“Burger” - synonym of “fast food” is what we usually grab when in a rush or when in need of a quick fix. But not when burgers and fries are served at home. I was dubbed as “Burger Queen” by the kids some time ago and I quietly believe it is because this is the only “burger outlet” that serves up enough fries in one go to satisfy their craving for shoestring fries. The burger is really only secondary to them.

 

Nonetheless, I try to jazz up the burger in whatever possible way I can because I just cannot face the fact that I am serving the family an unhealthy meal and one without much thought being put in. Since there is nothing much I can do about the calories, salt and fats level, I try to at least put more effort into the other aspect. Over a period of time, there is now a set way I go about making the burger a little different and not just one with a patty in between a bun.

 

While the children felt that the burgers and fries are good enough for a restaurant standard, I wonder which paying customer will have the patience to wait 2 hours for the food to be served no matter how good it is.

 

 

Beef burger:

• Onions – Cut onion cross-sectional (about 1 cm thick) and separate into individual rings. Reserve the inner rings for making mushroom sauce as these tend to be smaller. Melt a knob of salted butter in a non-stick pan and brown both sides of the sliced onions.
• Mushroom sauce – Dice up reserved onions and 2 to 3 Swiss Brown mushrooms. Melt a knob of salted butter in a pan, stir-fry onions till translucent and add in mushrooms. When cooked, stir in 1 leveled tablespoon of plain flour. Lastly pour in 150 ml of chicken stock and let simmer till the sauce thickens.
• Beef patty – Mix salt, black pepper and grounded thyme in a small bowl. Sprinkle over both sides of beef patty before grilling.

(The beef burger is usually topped with mushroom sauce, onion rings (if desired), sliced cheese and a squirt of ketchup before sinking in the teeth.)

 

Breaded Chicken burger:

• Mayonnaise sauce – Remove skin and seeds from cucumber, and finely dice about one third of the cucumber. Remainder of the cucumber can be cut into 1-inch sticks and served as a side. Mix real mayonnaise and Japanese mayonnaise (in the ratio of 1:1) with cucumber. Japanese mayonnaise tend to have a smoother consistency but slightly sweeter. Mixing both types of mayonnaise together yields a better flavoured and smoother paste. 1 to 2 teaspoon of lime or lemon juice can be added for an extra tangy kick.

(Mayonnaise sauce pairs well with breaded chicken patty.)

 

Burger Bun:

• To up the flavor intensity, halve burger bun and spread with garlic and herb spread. Lightly toast the bun in oven.

 

Fries:

• In addition to sprinkling salt to fries, toss with a generous amount of Japanese powdered seaweed before serving.

Korean Marinated Beef - Bulgogi (불고기)

Posted by Vivian in Beef, Korean

0 comments

Partly inspired by the mouthwatering bulgogi we had in Seoul and partly because I had to feed Matthias with something since he is not a fan of Japchae unlike Elaina, I daringly took up the challenge to recreate the dish at home.

It was no mean feat having to grill the pieces one by one.   The first attempt was a flop.  Due to the lack of time and in order make sure the kids get to school in time and fed with lunch, I ended up "stir-frying" the meat.  It didn't work very well unfortunately (but not quite unexpected).  By the third try, I was adamant to follow the recipe as closely as possible especially since I have a Korean pear sitting in the fridge.  I wanted to test it myself if the pear can tenderise the beef as claimed.  It didn't turn out too badly.  But I admit I am more inclined to say that the method used for Chinese stir-fried beef wins hand down in this aspect.  Although to a certain extend, its not the same cooking method so it really isn't a fair comparison.


Ingredients:

• 300 gm sirloin beef (sliced)
• 3 tablespoons Korean regular soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1/2 onion (sliced)
• 1 spring onion (diced)
• 1/2 tablespoon sesame seed
• Pinch of black pepper
• 50 gm pureed pear
• 1 tablespoon rice wine
• Sliced shitake mushroom and/or julienned carrots (optional)

Preparation:

• Mix all ingredients and leave beef to marinate for at least 30 minutes.
• Grill beef using griddle or pan over high heat.
• Sprinkle over with some sesame seed (optional).
• Serve over rice and with lettuce as a wrap.

Most recipes did not call for the meat to be grilled in individual pieces.  I did so in this attempt since I have time and I wanted to get the done-ness right.  The vegetables (onions in this case) was stir-fried after that and added to the beef.

Number of Servings: 4

Non-Spicy Korean Stir Fried Rice Cake (Ddukbokki 떡볶이)

Posted by Vivian in Beef, Korean

0 comments

At a recent get together with my bunch of girlfriends, I finally got to try the Korean Rice Cake after having seen it being served in countless k-drama.  The one that we had was probably not very traditional, as it was topped with Mozzarella cheese and baked to a golden hue.  Traditional or not, it had a nice chewy texture to it.

Not long after that dinner, I spotted packets of frozen Rice Cake on display at the supermarket which I frequent.  Without much thought, I took home a pack but it ended lying in the freezer for weeks waiting for the day when I am in the mood to make something out of the usual menu.  Fortunately, I did get to it even before the Rice Cake expired.

Because the kids are not used to taking spicy food, I decided to randomly search for recipes hoping to find one that is non-spicy.  The cyberworld didn't disappoint me and it didn't take me very long to chance upon one here.  The recipe looked promising from the fact that it was one passed down from generations within a Korean family.  There is no way one can go wrong with that!

I made a minor tweak when cooking the beef though since I had used beef flank which is the cheapest cut available at the supermarket.  Not because I was on a tight budget but rather I had discovered that no matter how bad the cut is, stir-fried beef can still turn out tender when done using the velveting method.  I read some years back that velveting is how Chinese restaurants whipped up nice tender stir-fried beef and since then I never bothered to splurge on beef to be used for stir-frying. 

Ingredients:

• 1 pack of Korean Rice Cake
• 350gm of beef (cut into thin strips)
• 1 stick of carrot (julienned)
• 1 medium sized onion (cut into thin wedges)
• Few stalks of spring onion (cut into 2 inches long)
• 1 teaspoon of minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon of crushed sesame seed
• Half an egg white
• Cornflour
• Light soy sauce
• Sugar
• Sesame oil
• Grounded black pepper

Preparation:

• Marinate beef for 30 minutes to 1 hour with:
• Minced garlic
• Crushed sesame seeds
• Egg white
• 2 teaspoons of cornflour
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sesame oil
• A dash of black pepper
• Soak Rice Cake with cold water and thereafter parboil for 2 minutes or until soft and chewy taking care not to overcook.  Run Rice Cake under cold water after removing from boiling water.
• Mix 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of sesame oil in a bowl. Set aside to be used as finishing sauce.
• Heat about 4 to 5 tablespoons of oil in wok using high heat.  Add beef to wok and quickly stir-fry for 30 seconds or until the beef is nearly cooked and still showing bits of pink.  Remove beef from wok and set aside.  Allow additional oil to drain.
• Reheat wok with some oil and sauté onion and carrot.  Season with salt and pepper.
• Add Rice Cake into the wok together with the beef.  Mix well and allow mixture to cook for a minute.
• Pour in finishing sauce and spring onion.
• Remove from heat when well-coated.

Number of Servings: 5 to 6

Cottage Pie

Posted by Vivian in Beef, Pie, Potatoes

0 comments

It has indeed been a while since an entry was made for this blog. Didn't even realise that I had taken such a long break. Too much had happened both at work and at home, zapping all ounces of energy away from me.

The thyroid surgery in October was the biggest culprit. I spent the immediate days following the operation mostly in daze, subsequently the lack of voice projection frustrated me to no end and which left me not in the mood for anything except to get through the days doing the bare necessities. The kitchen was still the place where I spent part of my weekends at. The family continued to get food laid before them but each time after whipping up a storm, I only wanted to get down to the eating part. Hopefully in the days to come I will remember to recreate the dishes that I had some success in for the last few months.

Two months on after the surgery, I thought to myself that it was probably high time for me to build up the momentum again and get back to doing other things that didn't quite fall under the "bare necessities" category. So here I am ready to bring on the the main lead of this post.

Cottage Pie was something that I had wanted to attempt to conquer almost a year ago for Christmas. I was cajoled to give it a go because a colleague of mine claimed that this is a very simple and easy to make pie, and partly because I was so inspired by the yummy Cottage Pie I had during a Christmas luncheon in office. Well, sadly it didn't happen for some unmentionable reason (think procrastination!) and so a year on, I finally cranked my engine and got moving... and I have to disagree with my colleague, because it took me 2 hours to put together the entire thing and I don't know how she could have classified this as simple. Nonetheless it was still very delicious.

Cottage Pie - a beef version of Shepherd's Pie, is typically eaten during Autumn / Winter season. After having fed the entire family with just a small portion and still had another serving left behind, I can understand why that is so. A little does go a long way.

Ingredients:

• 500gm minced beef 
• 1 stick of carrot (cut into small cubes) 
• 10 button mushrooms (sliced thinly) 
• 2 cloves of garlic (minced) 
• 1 medium-sized onion (cut into small cubes) 
• 300ml beef stock (or chicken stock as substitute) 
• 2 teaspoons of worcestershire sauce 
• 1 teaspoon of grounded thyme (can be replaced with other types of herbs) 
• 1 tablespoon of plain flour 
• 5 large-sized potatoes 
• 1 large knob of butter 
• 4 tablespoons of milk 

Preparation:

• Bring a big pot of water to boil and place potatoes in ensuring that all potatoes are covered. 
• Cook potatoes till soft (about 20 minutes). 
• Peel potatoes while still warm and mash potatoes with butter and milk. Set aside once done. 
• Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in pan and add garlic. 
• Once the garlic turns fragrant, add onion to pan and continue to stir until the onions turn translucent. 
• Add carrot and let cook for about 5 minutes. 
• Add button mushroom to mixture, and follow by minced beef, breaking all lumps. 
• Once the beef is almost done, season with worcestershire sauce and grounded thyme. Stir to mix well. 
• Pour in stock and cover pan to let simmer for 15 minutes. 
• Turn on oven and set to 190 degree Celsius. 
• Season with salt to taste when mixture thickens. 
• Remove from heat and transfer content to a oven-proof deep dish. 
• Top mixture with mashed potatoes and brush top with some melted butter. 
• Using the back of a fork, create lines across mashed potatoes. 
• Shove into oven and let it bake for 30 minutes, until the top browns nicely. 

Number of Servings: 4


"Celery, peas, corn, tomatoes can be added as variations to this dish. Other herbs like oregano, parsley can be used to substitute thyme."

Spaghetti with Meatballs

Posted by Vivian in Beef, Pasta

0 comments

The blog is starting to grow moldy due to the lack of updates. It has been so neglected that I didn’t even realize that the formatting has got haywire and needed some adjustments, until late last week, which then took me another few days to set it right. The thumbnail on the homepage is still not back to what it was. Clicking on it doesn’t link to the post but a bigger-sized photo. I can’t remember how I had revised the html back then and I couldn’t find the old post by a someone, somewhere detailing how to do it. I’m too lazy to squint my eyes sieving every line and go through a trial and error process… so I think I will just have to live with it for now until I am “inspired” to do something about it.

Since we got back from our family vacation, I have been revisiting all the old recipes. Sadly, even though I had practiced hard to make the recipe perfect in the past, I have failed to continue to practice to stay perfect. Not just the recipe, but the food porn (like the one up there!) is starting to look a bit messy.  Will it sound a little too lame if I shift the blame to the not quite photogenic meatballs??

Whatever it was, I finally got my act together last weekend and made something different because I have gotten too used to throwing in the usual suspects each time someone in the family requests for pasta (ABC pasta to be exact!). So I went through my recipe books late one night and persuaded myself to try my hands on making meatballs. The ingredient list didn’t look too complicated, which is always a push factor for me to want to try but I definitely underestimated the amount of time required to prepare the meatballs.

The taste was there but not quite the texture of the meatballs and I blame in on my over-confidence where preparation time is concerned. It was nearing lunch time and I was still buzzing around the kitchen not ready to fire up the stove. PANIC!

In the end, I was only working towards getting the minced beef ball-like looking neglecting the texture. It turned out that the meatball didn’t hold well together and breaks apart with just a light touch. Better luck next time… hopefully.

Ingredients:

• 500 gm minced beef
• 1/2 onion (minced)
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
• 3 tablespoons plain flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Tomato based pasta sauce
• 500 gm spaghetti (cooked according to instructions on packing)

Preparation:

• Combine minced beef, onion, dried oregano and worcestershire sauce.  Season to taste with a pinch of salt.  Mixed ingredients well using hands.
• Roll level tablespoons of the mixture into balls and dust lightly with plain flour, shaking off excess.
• Heat olive oil in pan  and cook meatball in batches, turning often until browned all over.
• Transfer meatballs into heated pasta sauce and allow to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.
• Serve over spaghetti. 

Number of Servings: 4

Stir-Fried Beef with Oyster Sauce

Posted by Vivian in Beef, Chinese

0 comments

I was first "introduced" to Kylie Kwong by Cathy.  Not a physical introduction but more like I got to know about this Australian Chinese chef, TV presenter, restauranteur cum cookbook writer when Cathy got me one of Kylie's cookbook for my last birthday.  I got my hands on another book of Kylie Kwong while doing Christmas shopping a few months ago.

This time round it was a back to basic cookbook on Chinese cuisine.  The recipes are no where near fancy but more day-to-day dishes that our mothers put on the dining table.  While it is easy to find a gazillion food blogs for simple recipes like these, it is one in a million to get a book written by a true professional on elementary stuff for ordinary people like me whose only desire is to put together a decent home cooked meal for the family.

Even though it was a very basic dish, it took me 2 tries to get this one right (I am that dumb!).  I had sliced the beef to 1 cm thick was instructed by the book but somehow the meat turned out to be too chewy.  I am certain that I must have done something wrong during the frying process but I couldn't pin my finger on the exact cause. At least the taste was there and sufficient to nudge me to attempt a second try.  This time, I sliced the beef real thin and seasoned with cornflour.  I happily declared victory when I took the first bite.

To get a thicker consistency of the sauce, I had added cornstarch instead of just water and the broccoli (which was really because Matty had requested that I cook some for him this weekend) turned out to be a great garnish because we could use that to dip into the sauce and clean out the whole plate.


Ingredients:

• 500 gm beef (sliced thinly)
• 6 slices of ginger (can be julienned as well)
• 3 cloves of garlic (minced)
• 1 medium-sized onion (cut into think wedges)
• 4 to 5 stalks of spring onion (cut into 1-inch long)
• Cornflour
• Light soy sauce
• Malt vinegar
• Shaoxing wine
• Oyster sauce
• Sugar
• Sesame seed oil

Preparation:

• Marinate beef with 2 tablespoons of Shaoxing wine, 2 tablespoon of light soy sauce and 2 teaspoon of cornflour for 30 minutes.
• In the meantime, mix together 1 1/2 tablespoon of oyster sauce, 1 1/2 tablespoon of light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon of malt vinegar, 1 tablespoon of Shaoxing wine and a dash of sesame seed oil.
• Using another bowl, mix 100 ml of water to 2 teaspoon of cornflour and set aside
• Heat wok with some oil and stir-fry half of the beef for 30 seconds and remove from heat.  Stir-fry the other half of the beef likewise.  (I like to remove beef when it is still a little pinkish to avoid overcooking when it gets returned to the wok)
• With the same wok, heat up more oil and stir in onion, ginger and garlic until the onion starts to brown.
• Add in sauce mixture and let it simmer slightly.
• Place beef back into wok , giving it a quick stir.
• Low the heat slightly and add in spring onion and cornflour mixture.  Mix well.
• Remove from heat as soon as the sauce starts to thicken and while the beef is still tender.

Number of Servings: 4

Stir-Fried Soba with Teriyaki Beef

Posted by Vivian in Beef, Japanese, Noodles

0 comments

This noodle dish originated from a famous Australia food magazine - Superfood Ideas, but this recipe is somewhat far from the original. I made a few tweaks to the recipe because I find the original a little too dry to my liking.

The most challenging part is to get the beef cooked to the right texture and it took me a few attempts before I got it right.

Ingredients:

• 300 gm soba (pre-cooked) 
• 300 to 400 gm lean beef (sliced) 
• 100 gm beansprout (tail and head removed) 
• Teriyaki sauce 
• 2 cloves of garlic (diced) 
• Freshly ground black pepper 

Preparation:

• Marinate the beef with 3 tablespoon of teriyaki sauce for at least 1 hour 
• Heat oil in wok and add in garlic 
• Using high heat, quickly stir-fry beef until 80% done and set aside 
• Add 1/2 cup of teriyaki sauce to the same wok and bring it to boil 
• Add soba to the boiling teriyaki sauce and mix evenly 
• Stir in the beansprout and let it cook 
• Put the beef back into the wok and stir-fry a little ensuring that it doesn't overcook 
• Quickly grind some black pepper over the noodles and mix evenly 
• Top with some Japanese seaweed before serving (optional) 

Number of Servings: 4