Jools's Favourite Beef Stew

I have totally lost track on the cookbook challenge. I'm being too busy during weekends and recently very poorly organised. Plus all the extra time travelling to work doesn't help at all. I'm so behind that I'm not sure should I still continue or skip the themes I miss. Plus I will be away for 7 weeks in 3 months time. Definitely don't see myself stepping into the kitchen during the 7 weeks other than helping mum to do some cooking or washing. But I did mention to Mr. I'm thinking of documenting our vacation journey as I didn't manage to do it last year. Even suggested to split the load. I can concentrate on food and he on diving + places we travel. Should we? Good idea? Hope with IPhone + IPad + Macbook we won't have any more excuses :P

Back to food, last month we already experienced some cold weather in Melbourne. During such weather, I always hope to have a hearty meal and stew will pop into my mind. It's easy to  cook, minimum preparation, just dump everything into a big pot, slide into the oven.

Found this recipe from 1 of the Jamie Oliver's cookbook that I owned. I was wondering which to try as there are two very similar recipes in this book. In the end, chosen this because I had never cooked parsnip or even tasted them before. A good chance to give it a go.



Cookbook : Jamie's Dinners
Author : Jamie Oliver

Jools's Favourite Beef Stew
serve 4

Olive oil
A knob of butter (skipped it, don't think it makes too much different)
1 onion,peeled and chopped
A handful of fresh sage leaves (got it from my herb garden)
800g stewing steak or beef skirt,cut into 5cm pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flour, to dust
2 parsnips, peeled and quartered (might had cut it too small )
4 carrots, peeled and halved
1/2 a butternut squash, halved, deseeded and roughly diced
Optional: a handful of Jerusalerm artichokes, peeled and halved (skipped this as well)
500g small potatoes
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1/2 bottle of red wine
285ml beef or vegetable stock (does beef cube count?)
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated (ran out of lemon at home)
A handful of rosemary, leaves picked (got this from my herd garden as well)
1 clove of garlic,peeled and finely chopped (Australian garlic which I love!!!)

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Put a little oil and your knob of butter into an appropriate sized pot or casserole pan. Add your onion and all the sage leaves and fry for 3 or 4 minutes.



Toss the meat in a little seasoned flour,then add it to the pan with all the vegetables, the tomato puree, wine and stock, and gently stir together.











Season generously with freshly ground black pepper and just a little salt. Bring to boil, place a lid on top, then cook in a preheated oven until the meat is tender. Sometimes this takes 3 hours, sometimes 4 - it depends on what cut of meat you're using and how fresh it is. The only way to test is to mash up a piece of meat and if it falls apart easily it's ready. Once it's cooked, you can turn the oven down to about 110 degrees and just hold it there until you're ready to eat.

Think I overcooked it, left it in the oven for too long. It was a bit too dry when I pulled it out from the oven. Both of us prefer to have more gravy for our bread. Plus most of the vegetable were all mashed up. Can't find any pumpkin, can only see pretty small chunks of carrot and parsnips if you notice on the 1st photo. It's still a nice and hearty stew regardless. Will try experience more stew recipes this winter :-)

Cookbook Challenge (Outdoor) - Whole Grilled Fish with Curry Paste

5th Cookbook Challenge Theme is Outdoor.

Dish chosen : Whole Grilled Fish with Curry Paste
Cookbook : Holiday
Author : Bill Granger

I had always wanted to try this recipe ever since I got this book but I have no idea why I waited so long. In fact when I saw the 5th challenge theme, this dish popped up immediately. Barbecue/Grill definitely link to outdoor.

This recipe stated it serve 4. But with only 2 of us, we didn't had any problem finishing up the whole fish. We love seafood maybe that's why. Plus I didn't serve it with rice as suggested. I roasted some potatoes and pumpkin with home grown rosemary instead.

Ingredients
1.5kg Whole Snapper, cleaned, gutted and scaled - I'm not sure how heavy this snapper was. The picture looks strange too because I had all the fins cut off.


2 tablespoons Red Curry Paste - This is the curry powder used to cook fish. I have another curry powder specific for meat and it's the same brand but packaging in green instead of yellow. I'm not too sure what's the different between the curry powder for fish and meat but was told by my FIL I should have both in my kitchen. I just follow his instruction.


1 Lime, sliced, plus 1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons Grapeseed Oil (or other light-flavoured oil)
Sea Salt
Freshly Ground Black Pepper

To Serve
Steamed Rice
Lime Wedges

Using a sharp knife, make four or five diagonal cuts in each side of the fish. Push the lime slices into the cavity of the fish.
I also placed some lime slices in the diagonal cuts.



Mix together the red curry paste and lime juice and spread over both sides of the fish. Leave to marinate for at least 30 minutes. - I used more than the suggested lime juice. I didn't manage to marinate for at least 30 minutes. I was running a bit behind time.


Arrange two large pieces of foil slightly overlapping on your work surface and drizzle with half the oil. Put the fish in the middle of the foil, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with the remaining oil. Wrap the fish up well in the foil, then wrap another layer of foil around it.

Preheat your barbecue or chargrill to medium-high. Cook the fish 7-8  minutes on each side, or until the flesh shows white and firm through the cuts you made. Serve with steamed rice.
The weather wasn't suitable for barbecue therefore I popped the whole fish into the oven and finish it off by grilling it.




This is a really simple recipe. Most important is the freshness of the fish. It wasn't too spicy nor too sour even though lime was used. Both of us enjoyed this a lot and it was something different from my usual way of cooking fish.

Cookbook Challenge (Love) - Flourless Hazelnut Chocolate Cake

4th Theme for the Cookbook Challenge is Love. Honestly I was a bit stuck with this theme. How am I going to link the food with Love? Something which I love eating? A dish which uses a ingredient which I love? 

I started seeing others who written about the meal they cooked for Valentine day. I didn't cook anything special. Just steak with 2 sides which all the ingredients were purchased from the Farmers Market the day before and yes I did try new recipe for the 2 sides but I didn't manage to take any photos. So fail big time :-( 

Then it occurred to me, I haven't got the chance to blog about the birthday cake which I made for myself. It was the 1st time I used the recipe. It's a bakecook which I seldom used. I used my birthday present to make the cake which I loved! The present was from my lovely husband. Should fit in the theme right? Or it's still consider cheating??

Mr. kept requesting me to bake my own birthday cake a week or two before the actual day. That is actually pretty unusual! Being together for more than a decade, he had never made such request even for his own birthday. Smell something fishy!!!

A few days before my birthday, I accidentally saw Mr. checking out the KitchenAid website. A stand mixer as gift??? That was my guess as he knows that's one of the many kitchenwares I wanted to add to my kitchen but price was holding me back.

Two days before my birthday, Mr started to hint me about the gift. He even allowed to let me search the house and I can open it if I find it. But he never expected me to find it in less than 1 min!!! Although the house area is pretty big but areas to hid something from each other is pretty limited.

With just a big box + super heavy, I knew it must be the KA stand mixer!!!! Yeah!!! Finally I own it!!!! Plus I love the bright red colour!!!





As there's isn't any discount, Smatchbox gave a free cookbook and offered Mr. the latest edition KitchenAid cookbook. I had flipped thru the book but hadn't got around to try it. What surprised me was it didn't contain much baking recipes at all! A handful of bread making recipes and rest were mostly cooking recipes.

It didn't take me long before having a play with the new toy. On my birthday eve, I baked a tray of chocolate cupcake for work. I was falling in love with my toy. I was learning about my toy.



On my birthday, I started immediately baking my birthday cake once I got home from work. I even managed to document the process.

Cake for the occasion : Flourless Hazelnut Chocolate Cake
Bakebook : Crave a passion for chocolate
Author : Maureen McKeon



Ingredients
300 g chopped dark chocolate
100g unsalted butter
7 large eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
115g caster sugar
80g ground hazelnut

Method
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Butter a 23cm (9 inch) springform tin or deep round cake tin and line in with baking paper.

Melt chocolate and butter gently in a heatproof bowl over hot water, ensuring that the base does not touch the water.


Remove from the heat and allow to cool.


Using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks for 1-2 mins, or until pale and thick and ribbons form when the beaters are lifted out of the mixture.


Using clean beaters, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar in a large bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the sugar, then continue beating until the mixture is stiff but not dry.


Combine the egg yolks and melting chocolate mixture and beat gently. Using a rubber spatula, fold half the meringue into the chocolate mixture, then return this combined mixture to the remaining meringue. Add the ground hazelnuts and fold in gently until combined.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50-55mins, or until the cake comes away slightly from the side of the tin. Allow to cool completely in the tin before turning out.

The cake actually raised a lot during baking. Lucky I laid the baking paper above the tin height as you can see from the photo below. But it started to sink once I took it out from the oven. What did I do wrong?? Over mixed?



It looked all fine when I turnover the cake. Yes it looked ugly but it taste really nice. It was still moist inside :-)



We had it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Just the way we like it.

Cookbook Challenge (Rice/Noodles) - Chicken Briyani

3rd Cookbook Challenge theme is rice or noodle. I kept pestering Mr. to pick a recipe from the pile of cookbooks I owned. In then end, he chosen a dish which I had cooked and even wrote before. Does it still considered a challenge??

This time, I did follow the recipe pretty strictly. Included all the herbs even though knowing Mr don't like them. I did went through the end product and try picking all the herbs out.

As usual, I didn't use any tomato puree. I used a lot more tomatoes instead.


I didn't colour the rice and still wondering why the rice turned out brown.


Maybe because the shallots were burned?


Every time I cook, I spend ages in preparation. Just like baking, I like to wash all the ingredients and chopped them up, placed them into individual bowl/plate, placed them all next to the stove before turning on the heat. Totally opposite from Mr.


This time I managed to shot more photos during the cooking process.


Frying ginger, garlic and chillies. I added red chillies this time to more it more spicy.


Waiting for the tomatoes to break down. It did take a while.


With the chicken pieces added in.


I did have it in on the stove for a while to thicken the gravy. Knowing Mr. loves the gravy, I did increased the liquid ingredients amount.


Frying ginger and garlic for the rice.


Added in the pre-prepared shallots.


With all the herbs and rice without liquid


Liquid added in. I cooked the rice on the stove instead of rice cooker. I had never done that before. No idea what trigger me to give it a try. Lucky it turned out fine.

Cookbook Challenge (Citrus) - My Mother-In-Law's Madeira Cake

I should be working on my 3rd or 4th cookbook challenge but I'm so disorganise that I only manage to finish the 2nd challenge. But it's better to be late than never right? Hopefully I can catch up, work on the 3rd challenge next week and 4th the week after. Wish me luck!

The theme for the 2nd challenge is Citrus. I love this theme because I jus simply love lemon and lime. Do you know I can actually eat fresh lemon and I enjoy it. Especially when having fish and chips, I can squeeze the juice onto the fish, peel away the skin and eat the pulps away.

For this challenge, I chosen My Mother-In-Law's Madeira Cake by Nigella Lawson How To Be a Domestic Goddness. I'm visiting a ex-colleague tomorrow and felt this will be a great gift. Not nice to turn up empty handed.

I added more lemon and poppyseed into the basic recipe. So it can also be consider as Lemon Poppyseed cake. I have never came across poppyseed till I stayed in Aust. Bought a pack of poppyseed and kept it the pantry but never managed to use it till now. Poppyseed is actually banned in Singapore, I had never seen it available. In fact, a SG blog which I followed experienced Central Narcotics Bureau knocking on her door and confiscated all her poppyseed. Is it really necessary? It's for own consumption anyway.



Did a taste test just now when it had cooled. Smell lemony but find it a bit dry. Quite crunchy on the outside. Taste a bit like pound cake, guessing due to the amount of butter used.





My Mother-In-Law's Madeira Cake


240g softened unsalted butter
200g caster sugar , plus extra for sprinkling
grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
3 large eggs
210g self raising flour
90g plain flour
23 x 13 x 7cm loaf tin, buttered and lined


Preheat oven to 170 degrees.
Cream butter and sugar, and add the lemon seat.
Add the eggs one at a time with a tablespoon of flour for each.
Then gently mix in the rest of the flour and,finally, the lemon juice.
Sprinkle with caster sugar (about 2 tablespoons) as it goes into the oven, and bake for 1 hour. (mine was done before 1 hour)
Remove to a wire rack, and let it cool in the tin before turning out.


Variation:
For lemon poppyseed cake, add the juice of another half lemon and a tablespoon or two poppyseeds. I added two tablespoons.

Cookbook Challenge (Stonefruits) - Cherry Tart

After being active in Twitter, I being following my favourite food bloggers on twit. It has definitely increase my interaction with them :). I also learn about the 2011 The Cookbook Challenge when the organiser are twittering about it. Decided to join when I learn about it.

The 1st Challenge theme is Stonefruit. I'm slightly behind as the 2nd theme just started yesterday. Hope I'm able to catch up and finish all 26 themes for my 1st blog event challenge.

Without planning, I went to Gaswork Farmers Market yesterday with Minister to do some marketing. Bought a kg of cherries which is fresh and sweet! Both of us are not a huge fan of cherry but just couldn't resist of getting some after tasting. It occurs to me I could do something with it for my cookbook challenge. With quite a few cookbooks I had in my collection, I knew I won't have any problem finding a recipe which involves with cherry.

Presenting to you, Cherry Tart from Bill Granger Holiday

This is definitely a dessert which I will not try if not for this challenge. It's also my 1st time making tart and instead of making 1 big tart to 8-10 people, I divide all the ingredients into 3 and make 2 small individual tart.

 

See the strips of baking paper under the pastry base? I seem it being done on some cooking program and tested it. It really make it so much easier to remove the tart from the baking tin.

Mr. loves the pastry and me too especially it's so easy to make! No food processor involve, no cutting in method, just a big bowl and wooden spoon. As for the cherries, I pitted it using a chopstick which I learned from Not Quite Nigella. It works very well! Thanks for sharing NQN!
The tart didn't even manage to cool totally before Mr. and me started digging into it.

Cherry Tart
Serve 8-10

Pastry
125g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
90g caster sugar
175g plain (all-purpose) flour
a pinch of salt
2 tablespoons almond meal

Fillings
170ml cream
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons plain (all-purpose) flour
550g cherries, halved and pitted (fresh are best)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease a 24cm round loose tart tin. To make the pastry, stir together butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the flour and salt and stir to make a soft dough. Transfer the dough to the tin and press evenly into the base and side of the tin with your fingertips. Put the tin on a baking tray and bake fore 12-15mins, or until the pastry is slightly puff. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the almond meal over the base.

Meanwhile, to make the filling, whisk together the cream, eggs, vanilla extract and sugar. Add the flour and whisk until well mixed. Arrange the cherries, slightly overlapping, over the pastry base and pour the cream filling evenly over the cherries.

Return the tart to the oven for a further 40-50mins until the filling is firm. Leave to cool and serve with cream or ice cream.