Sunday, December 25, 2005

Honey pepper beef Fajita Tortilla

In the lexicon of food, a fajita generically refers to grilled meat served on a flour tortilla with condiments. Popular meats are beef, chicken, pork and shrimp. They are often cooked with onions and bell peppers. Popular condiments are sour cream, guacamole, salsa, pico de gallo, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. (courtesy of Wiki)
Oh dear, my fridge has run out of bell peppers and tomatoes. Oh well, improvise...
Ingredients
2 rump steaks, sliced
1/2 Pepper, deseeded and sliced into squares (optional)
Small onion, chopped

1 tsp English mustard (Djion's fine too but I like the 'kick' of English)
1 tbls honey
1 tbls chinese dark soya sauce
1 tsp corn flour
2 tsp tomato paste
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper

Method
1) Put the slices of steak, peppers and onions into a deep bowl.
2) Marinate by mixing with honey, dark soya sauce, corn flour, mustard and black pepper.
3) Once well marinated, drain away the marinade and set aside the marinade for later.
4) Grill the beef between 3 to 6 mins (depending on how rare you like your steak) on a very hot grill. Remove.
5) The peppers and onions take longer and have juices oozing out, so should be grilled after the beef. You don't want to 'stew' your beef by having the juices ooze out and bringing down the temp of your grill. These vegs can be grilled until the onions are nice and caramelized and the peppers have nice char marks on their skin.
6) Warm up some tortillas in a microwave, 10 seconds on High. Alternatively, warm on a dry frying pan, turning over to warm both sides. Remove tortillas and brush with the tomato paste.
7) Microwave the marinade to cook it (15 seconds on high should be sufficient). I use this as a salad dressing for my salad.
8) Wrap the beef, peppers and onions with the tortilla, and serve with salad.

Simple and nice for a hot summer's day!

Friday, December 23, 2005

Alternatives to bread

Wanted to try Mex food and went to the supermarket. Was mind-boggled by the types of warps available ...tortilla, taco, pita arrrgggghhhh! What's the diff?

(Courtesy of old Wikipedia - Wiki's your friend :P)

Tortilla (Mex) - It is made by curing maize in lime water, grinding and pre-cooking it, kneading it into a dough called masa nixtamalera, pressing it flat into thin patties, and cooking it on a very hot comal (a type of light sheet-metal griddle).

Enchilada (Mex) - An enchilada is a traditional Mexican dish. Enchilada literally means "seasoned with chiles". The traditional enchilada sauce is just that—dried red chile peppers soaked and ground into a sauce with other seasonings. The enchilada is typically made with a corn (maize) tortilla which is fried briefly in hot lard or oil to soften it, and then dipped in the chosen enchilada sauce. The tortillas are filled and rolled up, placed in a casserole, then layered with sauce and possibly other additions such as cheese and chopped onions. Fillings may be almost anything, depending on the cook's taste and means.

Quesadilla (Mex) - (from "queso", Spanish for "cheese") is a tortilla folded over shredded cheese or a cheese slice (often a Mexican-style soft farmer's cheese such as Chihuahua cheese or other light colored melting cheese), which might also include cooked meat and/or bean filling. It is then fried, deep fried or toasted using a broiler, griddle, or open fire, and sometimes spiced with salsa. The term can also be used for a pair of tortillas, with the cheese and other fillings between them, similarly cooked.

Taco (Mex) - A taco is a traditional Mexican dish comprising a rolled or folded, pliable tortilla (of either maize or wheat flour) filled with meat (generally grilled beef or pork), chili-based salsa, guacamole, and garnishes such as pico de gallo or cilantro. It may also contain just about any other filling that lends itself to it — generally meats or vegetables that are chopped and fairly dry.

Pita (Turk/Greek) - (also called pitta or pita bread or Turkish pide bread) is a round flat wheat bread made with yeast. Pita and other flat or pocket bread is traditional in many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines from North Africa through the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula to India and Afghanistan and is believed to have originated in Ancient Syria. It is also commonly called Lebanese, Syrian or Arabic bread, especially in the Arab world, Israel and communities with Arab immigrant populations.

Naan (Indian) - a round flatbread made of wheat flour. Naans are a staple accompaniment to hot savoury meals in Central and South Asia, including the Punjab and Rajasthan and Gujarat regions in north-west India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and the surrounding region. In Turkic languages (such as Uzbek and Uyghur) the bread is known as nan.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Snails!

Dad outdid himself at dinner again. Of all the exotic stuff he chose to serve up, tonight was (sea) snails! It's served steamed with a chilli/garlic/lime sauce. To eat, it's got a little claw and just jab a toothpick into the flesh and lightly tug, and the whole thing comes out. Even Tara loved it. (without chilli of course!)

Monday, December 12, 2005

Sausages

My favourite food! And I know I'm not alone. There are so many variations - the Germans have their Weiners and Frankfurters, the Italians have their salami, the British have their bangers and chipolatas (affectionately also known as 'chips'), the Mexicans have their chorizo and us Chinese have our unimaginatively-named Chinese sausages (or lap cheong).

Doing a Wikipedia search boggles the mind - there are so many types (it runs in the hundreds) of sausages and they are actually classified into categories such as cooked, cooked smoked, fresh, fresh smoked, dry etc!

But throwing that all aside, I've had a long association with sausages. Since that 1st morsel I tasted in my school canteen - the lady pan fried what looked like normal canned cocktail sausages, but she was always able to make the crispy on the outside but not burnt, and melts-in-the-mouth on the inside. I began my life long search for the perfect sausage. To this day, I have never found the brand or the cooking method (does she boil them first?) that produces quite the same effect.

Thru the years, I used to think that all sausages looked the same - what I knew of as canned cocktail sausages. But then I went to UK and started eating their bangers which totally disgusted me. It had a horrible 'piggy' smell, was raw and liked to 'explode' (hence the name) and sacriledge of all sacriledge - they called them sausages too! I longed for a frankfurter!

Today I found my perfect chipolata - all this time I've been buying the wrong thing. I've been buying chicken chipolatas but by chance today I saw pork and tried them and I'm in heaven!

For me, I've had a life long love affair with frankfurters, can't go wrong with any one, but just the brand - have yet to find a brand that isn't overly salty when eaten neat. I remember in my ex-company, after a particularly tiring morning, all that I need to perk me up was to toss my frankfurters into the toaster oven with some hotdog bread, slap on the butter, cheese and mustard, toast the bread until the cheese melts, slap on the frankfurters and glugs of tomato and chilli and bring to mouth - absolute bliss! Enough to drive away any dark clouds.

But my life long quest for the perfect cocktail sausages isn't over. I hope to be rewarded one day.

Meanwhile, just to finish off with a bit of trivia:
The difference between a Full English Breakfast and a Big American Breakfast:

Full English: bacon, eggs, toast, bangers, baked beans, kidneys, grilled tomato, mushrooms, potatoes/hash brown/bubble & sqeak. The Scots vary it with black pudding or haggis.
Big American: bacon, eggs, sausages and toast with baked beans and hash brown

Hungry eh? ;)

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Teriyaki salmon

The thing about teriyaki sauce is that it's so simple to make yet. A lot is a matter of taste, so just adjust the quantities till you get a taste that you like. I learnt this from (of all places) British telly! The basics are these:
Ingredients
3 tbls dark soya sauce
3 tbls light soya sauce
5 tbls dark brown sugar
3 tbls sherry/Japanese mirin wine/Chinese rice wine
6 tbls water
1 salmon steak

Method
1) Mix everything except the water and microwave for 30 seconds and stir until the sugar dissolves.
2) Marinate the steak (works well with beef steak or chicken wings too)
3) Brush with oil and grill or bake at 200 degrees C for 20 minutes. To prevent splatter all over the oven, I wrap my salmon/steak/chicken wings in some foil as a foil packet. The downside of course is that the skin (for wings even salmon skin) will not get crispy.

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Rumballs by Mag

Okok I admit I've been somewhat neglecting my cooking recently. The other day, opened my cupboard and saw my baking tins and brand new jelly mould (thanks ZH!) sitting there sadly in a corner and felt guilty about not using them. Work has been bothering me a lot lately, whoever said Dec was a lull period??!!

Anyhow, Mags posted this superbly easy recipe, really inspiring to try, if I can haul my lazy ass off to the supermarket to get the ingredients!

ME Rumballs(serves 30)Ingredients
1 dark fruit cake (supermarket variety)
1 x 250g dark cooking chocolate
50g butter/margarine
Real Rum (recommended brand: Bundaberg Rum, of course!)

Instructions1. In a deep bowl, break up dark fruit cake using fingers. Pour 1/2 cup of rum over mixture. Mix it well. Cover with cling wrap. Set aside for overnight if you can. (I was too impatient and only left it alone for 2 hours, but still GOOD!)

2. In a microwave bowl, cook the cooking chocolate in the microwave according to instructions on pack. In a seperate microwave container, melt margarine/butter in the microwave for 15 seconds.

3. Pour melted chocolate and margarine/butter into dark fruit cake and rum mixture. Mix very well.

4. Take a tablespoon of mixture and shape it with the palm of your hands until they resemble golf balls. Place each rumball into small paper cake cups to prevent each rumballs froms sticking together. Refrigerate overnight to allow the rum to infuse.

5. You may also choose to roll your rumballs in dessicated coconut or chocolate bits for texture and presentation. I left mine au natural. It is simply divine!

Tip: The rumballs keep very well because they are alcohol laden. If you love your rum, add more to the mixture. They freeze well for a long time. So make plenty now and freeze them. When friends come over, thaw them out on your kitchen benchtop and they would compliment you to no end!

Verdict:
1) Finally tried out the receipe and realised that it's not really suitable for humid weather! :( The mixture started to melt pretty fast so you gotta work fast. Towards the end, everything was just a river of rummy choc and my balls weren't spherical at all. Alternatively, after adding the hot stuff and mixing properly (the melted butter and cooking choc), return to the fridge for just 20 mins to firm up again. Not too long or it sets as a blob and you can't work it into balls either!
2) I added left over choc chips to the mixture. Simply divine! Adds crunch to the bite. By the same token, u could add nuts too, altho that's not very 'rumball-ish'.

Updated: another recipe http://simmetra.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/rum-balls.html

Buchujeon (Garlic chives pancake)