quick

Jap Chae

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Jap Chae

I spotted a recipe for this Korean noodle dish which was featured on the UK’s Market Kitchen. What I’ve had of Korean food I’ve loved (yes, I do really think that kim chi and rice makes a fantastic breakfast) so I was keen to try it out.

Since making it, I’ve done a little research and it appears that this is not a dish that has a particularly rigid list of ingredients. The important themes seem to be vegetables (the chae) and the use of sesame seed oil.

As usual, I departed from the recipe a little. In a couple of places the original calls for sesame seeds which we didn’t have, so they were omitted, but next time I’ll make the effort to include them. I omitted the mushrooms, as Andy doesn’t like them, and added some crushed chilli. Sliced fresh chilli would have been better but our chilli crop is not all it could be this year … I also messed around with quantities which has left me wondering how the original recipe can claim to feed 6.

I started with just over 300g of rump steak, which I sliced finely and then mixed with a heaped tsp of sugar (the demerara was first out of the cupboard), 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 3 tsp of mirin and 2 tsp of dark (toasted) sesame oil. This mix went in the fridge for a marinate.

Next I made a very simple omelette using 3 eggs, cooked in a little vegetable oil in a non stick pan. This was then finely sliced and set aside.

I soaked 125g of rice vermicelli in warm water until soft, then drained them and refreshed in cold water, before mixing well with 3 tbsp of soy sauce. The original recipe uses less meat than I did but DOUBLE the amount of noodles. Personally, I think that would make your dish pretty lopsided – we had a ton of noodles and certainly didn’t feel like we needed any more to balance out the beef or vegetables.

When you’re ready to eat heat some oil in a wok and add two sliced onions and garlic to taste. Fry over a low-ish heat so that you soften the onions and garlic but don’t colour them.

Increase the heat and add the beef (and any juices from the marinade) and cook quickly. Stir in 4 or 5 sliced spring onions, a finely sliced (think julienned) carrot and 100g of spinach. Stick the lid on the wok (if you have a lid) to allow the spinach to wilt, and cook until the vegetables are tender.

Finally, add the noodles and omelette and stir fry until the noodles are hot through and tender. Mix in 4 tbsp of sesame oil and 3 tbsp of soy sauce.

At this point I added my crushed chilli and plenty of black pepper. With the soy sauce you won’t need salt.

The original recipe says to serve immediately – which I wasn’t able to do and the dish did not suffer for it. In fact, I think that a bit of time sitting on the stove on a very low heat helped the flavours mature quite a bit.

If you want to make your dishes look pretty, sprinkle with some toasted sesame seeds.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

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Chocolate Fudge Cake

Well, it’s Chocolate Week in the UK so it’s a happy coincidence that, at the last minute I decided to make a cake as an additional dessert for a BBQ with friends.

As I still subscribe to (and read!) a lot of UK based food newsletters chocolate was featuring heavily and this simple fudge cake recipe from the UK’s version of Delicious magazine stood out as something I could put together in a very limited amount of time.

I have to confess that part of the reason I was attracted to it was the use of red wine vinegar. There’s something about cake recipes with unusual ingredients that always makes me want to try them out!

The cake hit all the spots … it was super quick to make and everyone liked it (I even packed up a doggy bag for a missing husband!) so it’s definitely one I’ll be making again.

I followed the recipe pretty closely and was a bit scared by the ‘chuck all the dry ingredients’ in the food processor approach but it turned out OK. However, next time I might adopted a slightly more conventional ‘cream butter and sugar’ method …

Begin by greasing and baselining a 20cm spring form tin and preheat the oven to 160°C fan (or 180°C).

In your food processor (or mixing bowl) combine 100g unsalted butter, 15g cocoa powder, 300g self raising flour, 1 tsp bicarb soda, 225g caster sugar (use golden or unrefined if you can) and 2 eggs. If you’re mixing by hand or with an electric hand whisk you might want to sift the flour and bicarb first. The add 100g of melted dark chocolate (I am a new convert to melting chocolate in the microwave – but you do need to watch it very carefully!) and finish by mixing in 250mL of milk mixed with 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar.

Pour the batter in to the cake tin and bake for 1 hour, until firm in the centre and a skewer comes out clean (with my oven I think next time I’ll check after 55 minutes). Cool in the tin for a few minutes and then turn out to cool on a rack.

When the cake is cool, it’s time to make the ganache and finish the cake.

For the ganache, melt 225g dark chocolate with 100g unsalted butter (be careful with the microwave – watch carefully and mix every minute or so to keep an eye on things – you don’t want the microwave coated in butter and chocolate!). Stir this mix until smooth and then add in about 150mL of thick (not thickened) cream. As this is an English recipe it specifies a 142mL carton of double cream so I just guessed approximately 150mL from my 200mL carton of pure cream.

Allow the ganache to cool to a good, spreadable consistency and then slice the cake in half. Use approximately a quarter of the ganache for filling and then use the remainder as icing. Make sure you resist ‘tidying up’ the ganache until you’ve finished with the cake!

The cake kept well for about 2 days … by that time it was all eaten (mostly served with cream!).

Arni Souvlaki – Easy Greek Lamb

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14 Sept 2010

With winter retreating, albeit very slowly, it’s time to start thinking about ways to use the BBQ. We were actually trawling some cookbooks looking for a hearty, warming dinner before we realised that actually we didn’t feel like a big pie or casserole. Something lighter and quicker was definitely in order.

Elizabeth David’s A Book of Mediterranean Food* provided inspiration in the form of her recipe for the Greek classic arni souvlaki. This is another great example of needing a recipe to keep things simple … because I know that, given a pile of lamb to marinate, I’d end up using most of the spices in the spice drawer – whereas in this case I used just the one.

David’s recipe doesn’t specify any quantities but I used (approximately) the following. We had about 600g of diced lamb to which I added the juice of two smallish lemons and about 2 tsp of oregano (she specifies rigani and substitutes marjoram). I gave it a good mix and finished off with plenty of pepper and a little salt. That was it. Oregano, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Let’s face it, sourcing the lamb is going to be the most difficult part of this dish.

The mix only needs to be left for about half an hour. If you’re aiming for a more authentic Greek dish, you can thread the lamb on to skewers, but if you want quick, then just fire up the BBQ. Once it’s good and hot, throw the lamb on, grill it and you’re good to go.

The lamb cooks quickly and it should be reasonably tender (depending on cut, I guess) and you get a lovely herby, lemony, grill flavour. It’s not cluttered – just simple flavours that marry together well.

Of course, such a simple, quick dish needs a simple, quick accompaniment. For something with a mediterranean flavour we opted for couscous. Add a cup and a half of boiling water to the same amount of couscous, stir it through and cover. Then, I coarsely chopped an onion and fried it off with a very large clove of garlic. When it was softened I added a chopped red capsicum to the pan and turned off the heat.

Mix some good quality olive oil and butter through the couscous – you might need to put it back on the heat – and then add in the capsicum and onion mix. I finished with a generous handful of parsley and mixed through a small amount of crushed chilli, a teaspoon of ground cumin and a generous sprinkling of sumac.

All far far too easy and, best of all, very tasty – we’ll definitely be serving this at our next BBQ. And don’t worry about cooking too much and having leftovers – it’s tasty even reheated in a microwave the next day for lunch!

* also available from Amazon UK, Amazon US or from The Book Depository for world wide delivery.