Hot Chilli Sauce

Hot Chilli Sauce, eh?

 You don't look so tough!

Chillis, check

Some other shit, check!

"Mix it and cook it in a pot like gumbo"-N.W.A

Blitz it!

Violin. Hot Chilli Sauce.

Vague instructions:

 1 drop cooking oil

 3+ fresh Scotch Bonnet peppers, sliced and seeded... I has 2 habanero,jalapeno,2 fresno,1 fireflame

 1 cloves garlic, crushed

1/12 cup minced onion

Pinch salt

1/3 cup water

1/24 cup distilled white vinegar

1/3 tablespoons white sugar

In a large sauce pan over medium-high heat, combine oil, peppers, garlic, onion, and salt; cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Pour in water, and cook for 20 minutes, or until the ingredients are soft. Stir frequently. Remove from heat, and allow mixture to cool to room temperature.

Transfer the mixture to a blender, and puree until smooth. Pour in vinegar and sugar; blend until mixed. Keep refrigerated .

Lemon Cake

I have not been writing here for quite a while, which is annoying as I am back to not keeping my perfected recipes again.

The first iteration worked pretty well except the cake sunk in the middle due to lack of experience (i used cold butter straight from the fridge), and fell apart when i was taking out of the baking tin. Still tasted amazing though.

The second iteration I decided to make a lemon drizzle as well as the frosting and changed up the cake mixture a little as well: room temperature butter, more egg and baking powder. This worked great! It rose to perfection. While still warm I lanced it all over with a skewer then poured a lemon drizzle on it. Unfortunately then I messed up as I left it overnight in the tin to cool, it took a lot of messing to get it out in one piece.

So without further ado, my lemon cake recipe thus far:

Ingredients

Mixture

227g room temp. butter (200 for mixture, 27 for icing if you only have the half pound block)
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
finely grated zest 1 lemon (might up this to two)
225g flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder
pinch of salt (not sure why i put this in, leave out next time)

Drizzle GENTLY HEAT THIS NEXT TIME!

juice 1 lemon
85g caster sugar

Icing

juice 1 lemon
50g knob of butter (or just use the 27g if it's all you've got left), this seems to make it yellower
125g castor sugar

Method

Preheat oven 180 C.
in mixing bowl with wooden spoon, make sure butter is soft, add sugar and whip till light and more fluffy looking.
add and whip eggs one by one.
sift in flour, baking powder, and salt mixture mixing well
do not forget the lemon zest, and mix until seems kinda fluffier.
Grease tin and pour in mix.
Cook for 45 mins.

Take out and poke holes in with skewer. Mix up drizzle, and pour over, try and get in holes.
Let drizzle set, then take out of tin immediately!! or else it will get stuck.
Let cool completely, do icing after that: mix, spread on top.
Voilà!

Potato and Leek Soup

I perfected this classic after a few goes about a month ago, but forgot t write it up, and have completely forgotten my recipe. This is why this blog is here dammit!
Leaving this here t remind myself for next time.

Broccolli Broth

~1l homemade chicken stock 
3 medium onions 
500g broccoli, dice the stems
small carrot finely diced
1 teaspoon thyme
1 bay leaf 
3 small garlic cloves
4 tablespoons butter? ~2cm off de end of de block
2 dessertspoons flour
some milk
Freshly ground black pepper and salt

Instructions

Chop the onions and defrost the chicken stock.
Put a large saucepan on a medium heat saute the onion and garlic.
Add the chicken broth, the onions, carrot, broccoli, bay leaf, thyme and garlic cloves. Season well. Bring the mixture to a boil then let it simmer for ten minutes. I let it roll for about 5mins to break stuff up.
Made a roux for the laugh. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the flour while stirring continuously. Add the milk in small portions while mixing it carefully until smooth.
Mix the broccoli soup slowly with the milky liquid.

Done. Nice and chunky broccoli broth

N.B. This didn't keep well in either the fridge or freezer. Eat immediately!

Corn & Crab Soup [from little thai book]

ingredients:
2 tbsp oil
4 cloves garlic
5 shallots
2 stalks lemongrass
chunk o ginger
1 litre chicken stock
can o coconut milk
225g frozen sweetcorn
can o crab claws
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 lime juice
1 tsp jaggery/brown sugar
garnish: coriander/scallion

method:

oil, garlic, shallots, lemongrass, ginger on low heat couple o mins.
add stock n coconut milk, bring to boil, add corn for more mins
finally add crab, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, n simmer for 1 minute

Thai "Green" Chicken and Mushroom Curry

A variation on this http://thaifood.about.com/od/thairecipes/r/greencurrychick.htm

Ingredients:

• "GREEN" CURRY PASTE:
• 1 large red chilli
• Two dried red chillis steeped in hot water to soften (i also steeped some peppercorns to soften)
• 1/4 cup shallot and purple onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 thumb-size piece galangal OR ginger
• 1 stalk fresh lemongrass OR 3 Tbsp. frozen or bottled prepared lemongrass
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp. shrimp paste
• 1 (loose) cup fresh coriander/cilantro leaves and stems, chopped didnt have any
• 3 Tbsp. fish sauce
• 1 tsp. palm sugar
• 2 Tbsp. lime juice
• CURRY INGREDIENTS:
• about 550g chicken breast, cut into chunks
• about half a pack of chestnut mushrooms
• 1 can coconut milk
• 6 kaffir lime leaves(steeped and softened and stems removed, and finely cut.
• a nice bit of stir fry mix from a bag with long cut peppers, tiny corn etc
• a small bit of chinese leaf
• Generous handful fresh basil scallion
• 2 Tbsp. coconut oil

Preparation:

1. Place all the "green curry paste" ingredients together in a food processor, and process to a paste. If necessary, add a few Tbsp. of the coconut milk to help blend ingredients (i added loads). Set aside.
2. Prepare the lime leaves by tearing the leaf away from either side of the stem. Discard the central stem. ut leaves into thin strips. Set aside.
3. Warm a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the oil and swirl around, then add the green curry paste.
4. Stir-fry briefly to release the fragrance (30 seconds to 1 minute), then add 3/4 of the coconut milk, reserving 2-3 Tbsp. per serving portion for later.
5. Add the chicken and softened peppercorns, stirring to incorporate. When the curry sauce comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium or medium-low, until you get a nice simmer.
6. Cover and allow to simmer 3-5 more minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Stir occasionally.
7. Add the stir fry veg and chinese leaf, plus the strips of lime leaf (or lime zest), stirring well to incorporate. Simmer another 2-3 minutes, or until vegetables are softened but still firm and colorful. Mine was for a lot longer, does anyone follow these times exactly
   
8. Do a taste-test for salt, adding 1-2 Tbsp. fish sauce if not salty enough. If you'd prefer a sweeter curry, add a little more sugar. If too salty, add a squeeze of lime or lemon juice. If too spicy, add more coconut milk. Note that this curry should be a balance of salty, spicy, sweet and sour, plus bitter (the bitter is found in the fresh basil scallion garnish).
9. Serve this curry in bowls with brown basmati  rice on the underside Top each portion with scallion , then drizzle over 1 Tbsp. coconut milk, and ENJOY!

Pork Wellington

ingredients:
pork fillet
puff pastry
shallot, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
millions of salt and pepper
thing o mushrooms, cleaned and finely diced
thing o pate
some thyme
1/2 cup o water
1 egg lightly whisked.
-i couldn't afford prosciutto in my local shop. no replacement used.

first off i'd just like to mention in hindsight this was always going to be a disaster.
[ EDIT never mind just ate some, it's lovely =) ]

cut fat off de fillet, rubbed salt and pepper all over it. easy on de salt, some msg to compensate.
lotsa butter foaming in pan but not burning out, seared fillet on all sides and left to cool.
cleaned pan and started again with fresh butter.
softened finely chopped shallot then threw in finely diced mushrooms and garlic, water. brought to boil then reduced till dry. it really shrinks! added salt (+msg) and pepper and some thyme. let cool to room temp.
in medium bowl work the pate with a spoon a bit then added the duxelles (mushroom mix) and mixed together.

here's where it gets weird. cook a base of pastry on a buttered baking tray big enough for fillet to go on (12mins @220c) and let cool. <- all the juices are going to go down onto this so do not worry about burning later on. put duxelles on one half of meat, put that side face down on cooked pastry. cover the rest of the fillet in duxelles. make sure it's thickly covered everywhere.
brush egg on one side of remaining pastry, put said side face down onto top of fillet. tuck it in all sides and meeting if possible on the bottom (i didn't do this right). make sure it's sealed in pastry at both ends (i didn't coz i couldn't roll it out properly), brush the outside heavily with remaining egg.

I popped this in oven for 20mins on 220c then 25 mins on 200c. was supposed to be on rare side of medium but it went the other way. need to reduce time if doing again.

Turned out OK. Pastry was a bit of a mess though. Totally soggy on the bottom, totally dry on the top. Two holes at either end let a lot of moisture go :-( but tasted pretty good! will do better next time.

Yummy!