5 Days Food Challenge: Day 2 with Pasta with tomatoes, tuna and chillies

This super easy pasta recipe inspired by Gordon Ramsay’s Ultimate Cookery Course. When I bought this book, I thought it will be hard to follow recipe book, since Gordon is one if the Michelin Award Chef. My 1st Gordon book nothing short from long list of ingredients to achieve full flavour Asian Food. This book, amazingly caters for mum like myself that short of cooking time most of the nights !

Unfortunately I could not find Anchovy on Supermarket shelves lately, so we substitute with tuna and the outcome is delicious as expected.

For 4 serves,

Here are the ingredients:

·         400gr dried spaghetti

·         Olive oil for frying

·         3 garlic cloves, peeled, finely chopped

·         1 red chilli, chopped into small pieces

·         50gr tuna flakes on water

·         200gr pitted black olives, chopped

·         3 tbs capers, drained and rinsed

·         250gr cherry tomatoes, halved

·         Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

·         Basil leaves

 

1.       Cook pasta accordingly

2.       Meanwhile, heat a wide frying pan over medium heat, add glug of olive oil, then fry the garlic,chilli and tuna for 1-2 minutes until garlic is aromatic.

3.       Add olives, capers and tomatoes to the pan and stir over medium heat for about 5 minutes until tomatoes become a bit softer and everything is well combined.

4.       Drain the pasta, toss into the pan with sauce. 

5.       Seasoning with salt and pepper as your taste.

6.       Garnished with basil leaves, and ready to serve.

5 Days Food Challenge : Day 3 with Spicy Beef Goulash

Nothing better that hot spicy soup on rainy day, even if I have to do some effort. Good food was never easy, and this spicy soup originated from Hungary is worth trying.

As this process required oven as well, please make sure you cook on deep oven-proof stew pot with a lid, that you could put inside the oven later on, instead of changing from one cooking pot to another. Heavy based pot served well.

If you opt for stove-top cooking, make sure you double up you cooking time.

For 4 serve, I use:

• ·         ½ kg good quality beef, topside part would be perfect
• ·         1 medium size red-onion, peeled and finely chopped.
• ·         1 fresh chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
• ·         4 tsp paprika
• ·         1 tsp ground caraway seeds
• ·         Bunch of small marjoram or oregano, leaves picked
• ·         200ml tinned plum tomatoes, or can be substitute with 2 fresh plum tomatoes, de- seeded and cut into cubes, and 100ml tomato paste
• ·         1 capsicum/paprika, de-seeded, cut into cubes
• ·         1 tbs red wine vinegar
• ·         1  small bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped.
• ·         Olive oil
• ·         Salt and pepper for seasoning
• ·         Rice,potato or pasta for serving –we choose white rice-

How to:

Pre-heat your oven to 180C.   Heated your pot, put a good lug of olive oil on, and brown the meat for about 15 minutes on medium heat. Put aside.

·         Add another glug of olive oil, put onion,paprika,caraway seed,chili, marjoram/oregano to the pot, stir for about 10 mins, add salt and pepper, stir well.

·         Add capsicum and tomato, mixed well.

·         Put your beef back to the pot, pour enough water to submerge your beef, add the red wine vinegar, and bring it to the boil.

·         Once its boiling, cover with the lid, and put into the oven for about 1 hour.

After 1 hour you should see the beef is tender and can be separate easily using fork.

Serve with hot white rice –topped your rice with chopped parsley- and its ready to dig in!

5 Days Food Challenge: Day 1 with Thai Green Beef Curry

We loves curry –Indian,Thai,Malay,Indonesia, Japanese, anything-  and always had great feedback from my kids.

I cook Thai Green Curry regularly, using many different recipes from many sources, and now my kids can tell the different between ‘light curry’  that recipe requested not more than 5 steps cooking, or something more serious.

This Green Curry recipe is my interpretation from Gordon Ramsay’s Great Escape book, a rather long process including washing loads of kitchen utensil, but you really can tell the different. One first spoon and layers of flavour hits in an instant.

Original recipe is using chicken, we change with beef and substitute the aubergine with sweet baby corn –whatever available on my fridge-

Here what I use for curry paste:

·         4 large green chillies, deseeded, chopped coarsely

·         4 garlic cloves, peeled & chopped

·         3 shallot, peeled & chopped

·         2 lemograss stalks, trimmed & chopped

·         3 kaffir lime leaves

·         2 tbs ground coriander

·         1 tsp cumin seed

·         2cm galangal, peeled & chopped

·         Handfull of corriander stalks, chopped

·         1 tsp salt

·         1 tbs canola oil –original recipe using groundnut oil

And for the curry:

·         2 tbs canola oil

·         3 garlic cloves, peeled, thinly sliced

·         1 medium carrot, peeled, diced

·         10 sweet baby corn, discard its tip, diced

·         Handfull of french beans, cut into 2cm long

·         400gr thinly sliced beef

·         200ml thick coconut milk –we not biggest fan of coconut milk-

·         500ml water

·         1 tsp palm sugar

·         2 kaffir lime leaves

·         2 tbs fish sauce

·         Handfull of corriander leaves, chopped, reserve some for garnish.

·         2 tbs fresh basil, torn –it should be thai/holy basil, but I found difficulty finding it-; reserve some for garnish.

·         Juice of 1 Lime, if you like

How to paste:

Place all paste ingredients in a blender/ food processer, process it until smooth.

How to cook the curry:

·         Heat the oil in heavy based pan, add all the curry paste to the pan, stir fry for 2-3 minutes.

·         Add garlic, carrot, french bean and sweet baby corn –all veggies- and stir fry for about 3 minutes.

·         Add beef, cook for about 4-5 minutes; then ad coconut milk, mix well and cook for another 5 minutes.

·         Add water along with palm sugar, lime leaves and fish sauce. Mix well

·         Reduce the heat, simmer gently for about 20-25 minutes, or until all cooked well.

·         Add corriander & basil, cook for further 1-2 minutes.

·         Turn off the heat. I added juice of 1 lime to get extra punch on the flavour –but you could skip this part if you don’t feel like to-

Scoop into a bowl, garnish with reserved coriander & basil.

Serve with white long grain rice on the side.

Simple Tomato Pasta

Inspired by ‘Save with Jamie’ book, I did this simple pasta for weekend lunch. No fuss, ready in in less than 30 mins, and kids –and hubby- loves it.

I tweak bit of the recipe –sorry Jamie- based on what available on my fridge and pantry.

For 4 serve, I need:

·         400gr Penne –cook according to packet instruction

·         1 capsicum, deseed and finely dice

·         2 red chillis, deseed and finely slice

·         3 cloves of garlic, finely slice

·         1x 400gr tin tomato sauce

·         4 ripe tomatoes, finely dice

·         1 tablespoon red wine vinegar –skipped it if you don’t feel like using it

·         Olive Oil

·         Salt & pepper for seasoning

·         Parmesan cheese , to serve

       How to:

·

• ·         Cook penne according to packet instructions, drain well.Reserve 1 cup of cooking water for later.

• ·         On large size pan, add olive oil and cook capsicum & chilli for about 10 minutes on medium heat, stirring regularly.

• ·         Add garlic, fry for about 1 minute, then add 1 tbs red wine vinegar, diced fresh tomatoes, cook for about 5 minutes, strirring regularly.

• ·         Add tomato sauce, season with salt & pepper, bring to boil.

• ·         Once its boiling, add penne and a cup of water –reserved from cooking penne.

• ·         Mix evenly until penne is all coated with sauce. Turn of the heat.

• ·         Serve hot with grated parmesan cheese on top.

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