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Vietnamese Shaking Beef

- Alex 1 Comment

Even though I am ‘at home’ most of the week I don’t have nearly as much time as I’d like for cooking exciting and elaborate dinners. So I am always on the lookout for tasty things that I can get out of the kitchen in reasonable time.

Trawling through my delicious bookmarks I spotted this recipe for Vietnamese Shaking Beef. A quick google indicates that this is an actual Vietnamese dish but I can’t comment on how authentic this recipe is. All I know is that it’s pretty quick, doesn’t require a raft of ingredients and is really tasty.

The recipe comes in three parts: marinade, dipping sauce and the actual stir fry.

The marinade is really simple: for about 500g of rump steak use 1 generous tbsp of oil (use a neutral oil such as peanut), one large clove of garlic, minced, a splash of fish sauce, 1 tsp of sugar and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Fresh black pepper is a big part of this recipe, so grab the peppercorns and the grinder now!

Chop your 500g of steak into chunky bite size cubes and marinate for at least half an hour.

The dipping sauce is equal parts water and lime juice (I used ⅓ of a cup of each), with (again) minced garlic and fresh black pepper and balanced with a touch of salt and sugar.

When you’re ready to cook the steak, heat some oil in a wok, fry off some more minced garlic and add the steak, along with some more black pepper. The ‘shaking’ part of the dish’s name comes in now – as you’re supposed to keep the meat moving in the wok. You want to brown the meat and cook it but ideally you’ll leave it at least medium rare.

Finish the stir frying with a splash of soy sauce and a sprinkling of sugar.

Serve the cubes of beef on lettuce, with sliced tomato and steamed rice on the side. Pour a little of the dipping sauce over the meat and serve the remainder on the side. Whatever you do, don’t skimp on the dipping sauce – the lime juice really makes this dish!

We all rated this dish highly – definitely one we’ll be making again.

Chettinad Fried Chicken

- Alex 1 Comment

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There is a restaurant review in the works but today I’m running short of time so here is an excellent chicken recipe that you might find useful over the long break. This is an Indian recipe (Chettinad is a region in Tamil Nadu, in southern India) but it’s a really welcome change to a big saucy curry. It stands on its own perfectly well, but if you are putting together a curry extravaganza, then this is a pleasant contrast to sauce rich dishes. It’s also fab because it doesn’t require 3000 different spices, carefully roasted and ground.

I got this recipe from my mum and I’m pretty sure it did originally come out of a cookbook – I’m sure she’ll let us all know which one!

Begin by taking about 1kg of chicken (I use skinned thigh fillets cut into large cubes) and rub it with about 1 tsp of salt and a generous sprinkle of turmeric. Set aside.

Prepare some salted water – 3 tbsp of water with ¼ tsp of salt. Ensure the salt dissolves in the water.

Heat some peanut (or other flavourless oil) in a wok and ½ tsp of mustard seeds, ½ tsp of fennel seeds, and 5 whole dried hot red chillis. Keep the chillis whole – this does keep the heat of the dish under control. If you have it, also add 1-2 tablespoons of skinned urad dahl. If you don’t have it – don’t bother seeking it out. You could also add some curry leaves.

When the spices are crackling and starting to darken add a finely chopped onion and cook until brown (that’s brown – not burnt – don’t get impatient and whack the heat up!).

Add the chicken to the onion and stir fry, sprinkling on some salted water as you go. Keep adding the water. You want to have used up all the water by the time you finish cooking BUT you must sprinkle the water in, so you don’t end up stewing your meat.

It’s best if you can cook the chicken all in one batch but realistically that might not happen. Just be aware that the longer you have the heat on the chillis the more likely they are to start breaking down and the hotter the finished product will become. If you do want to keep some of this dish mild then reserve some cooked chicken from the first batch.

When the chicken is cooked and the salted water is used up, remove the chicken (and onion and spices, of course) from the wok and serve. You don’t need to serve straight away – this dish is perfect to prepare in advance. Once cooked, put everything into an oven proof dish, cover with tin foil and reheat (with the tin foil on) when you are ready to serve.

Best eaten with pappadums, raita, naan … and don’t worry about having too much – there’s very rarely any left over!

Beef and Beer Stew

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Beef and Ale Stew

Well, Adelaide’s cool weather appears to have disappeared for a while, but our friends in the northern hemisphere are freezing their little tootsies off, so at least some readers should have an immediate use for this recipe. The rest of us can save it up until the next cool snap.

As you may have gathered, I have loads of cookbooks and while they’ve all been read they have not necessarily all been cooked from, and even those that have are not used on as regular basis as they could be. Phil Vickery’s Britain: The Cookbook was a gift (if you ever give me a book as a gift, please do write in it!) that has been utterly neglected.

I chose this recipe for several reasons – it looked hearty, it looked simple and it was in the Beer chapter, which Vickery bases around the beers of the Shepherd Neame brewery in Kent. I lived in Rochester, Kent for 9 months and it was while living there that I developed my taste for real ale and went to my first beer festival. I have a soft spot for all things Kentish, bar Morris dancing.

This recipe is perfect for those of you who have a small person (or persons) underfoot because it is so quick to assemble. Like all stews, it requires time on the stove so you won’t be able to knock it up in half an hour for dinner. Make it on a Sunday and save it up for a mid week supper.

The quantities that follow (altered slightly from the book) served 2 adults for dinner (one had a generous second helping), a small person for two meals and also had enough left over for one lunch.

Take a big pan, place it on the stove and add approximately 500g of diced beef (I used diced blade, the book suggests chuck steak). Have some faith at this point because you are NOT going to brown the meat.

Keep on adding … some stock (I used one of those little stock pots, use stock paste, use a stock cube … you get the idea), 300mL water, a small (330mL) bottle of lager (I used Bitburger because that’s what was in the house – if you can get your hands on a real winter ale, that’s what you should use!), 2 carrots, peeled and chopped, 1 large onion, peeled and finely sliced and 2 tbsp of tomato purée. Add plenty of salt and pepper, give it all a good mix and bring to the boil. Once the mix is boiling, reduce the heat and cook at almost a simmer for 2 or so hours. DON’T cook it too vigorously or the meat will dry out and toughen up.

While all this simmering is going on, preheat the grill and grill 4 large Swiss Brown mushrooms. You want to help them dry out so grill them on one side for a bit and then turn them over. You may need to lightly brush them with oil (if your grill pan has not just been used for cooking bacon!). Cut the grilled mushrooms into thick slices and stir into the stew.

Finish the stew by making a beurre manié: a mixture of softened butter (don’t forget, a quick blast in the microwave will help you here!) and plain flour.

That, seriously, is it.

I was really worried – no browning of the meat, no herbs or spices … I thought it would be tasteless and nasty. Which just goes to show how wrong I was! It was delicious, hearty and solved a good few meal problems. As Vickery suggests, we served with plenty of mashed potato and some roasted parsnips.

Yet again, proof that you don’t need to throw everything in the cupboard into the pot to make a tasty meal!