I Heart Cooking

Scottish Shortbread

Rincewind — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 02:00:55 +0000

Scottish Shortbread

Summary: A classic recipe that every Scotsman grows up eating. Shortbread is a well know favourite. Often found around Christmas and New Year or shortly after on Burns Night, hardly a year goes by when I don’t receive a tartan clad tin of shortbread. However, I rarely eat the stuff now that I have become an expat, living away from my homeland. If I want shortbread now, I have to cook the stuff myself. And you know, I reckon that my own is better than many of those fancy tin box versions.

Ingredients

50g Castor Sugar
100g Butter
150g Plain Flour

Instructions

The ingredients for this recipe are so simple. It’s just flour, butter and Sugar in the ration of 3:2:1 respectively. Very easy to remember. Ideally the butter should be left out of the fridge for some time to allow it to soften slightly. However, don’t let it melt.

Firstly place the sugar and butter in to a large bowl. Use you hands to combine them together. Now add half the flour and by hand, rub the flour into the butter. Add the second half of the flour and rub in until the mix comes together as a ball of dough.

place the dough on a floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll it down to about 6 or 7mm thickness (about 1/4 inch). The dough is now ready to be cut to shape. Many shapes are possible, you can rectangular fingers, round biscuit or you can keep it as one big piece and break it apart later. If you have a pastry cutter, this will help you to make neat shapes.

Cut your shapes and place on a baking tray. Put the dough into a preheated oven at gas mark 5 (180C) for about 15 to 20 minutes or until they look golden coloured.

Once out of the oven, dust the top of the shortbread with sugar. Allow the to cook a little before touching them. Once cooled, use a knife to lift the shortbread from the baking tin. This shortbread keeps quite well in an air tight box.

Quick Notes

I’ve seen this dough used as the base for some desert pies including cheese cakes. My mother used to make “American shortbread” which was the same biscuit but covered with caramel and chocolate.

Preparation time: 10 min

Cooking time: 20 mins

Total time: 1 hour 30 min

Yield: 8 servings

Diet type: Vegetarian

Meal type: dessert

Culinary tradition: English

By Rincewind42

My rating:5 stars: ★★★★★

Traditional Christmas Cake

Rincewind — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:56:11 +0000

Traditional Christmas Cake

Summary: Christmas just wouldn’t be complete without a traditional Christmas Cake. The rich fruity cake, laced with brandy or sherry then coated with marzipan and white royal icing, just makes the whole feeling of Christmas complete. It’s a touch of luxury that we can treat ourselves to once a year. However you wouldn’t want to do it every day. This is one of the more time consuming cake recipes to make. My own mother starts her preparation more than a full month before Christmas. At the least, you should take 3 days over it. I usually start a week before hand.

Ingredients

400g Saltanas
250g Rasins
110g Currants
110g Mixed peal
110g Dried figs
110g Pitted Prunes
110g Dried Apricot
200g Glacéed cherries
200g Macadamia nuts or hazel nuts or almonds
150ml Brandy or Sherry
1 Orange zest and juice
250g Butter
200g Dark brown sugar
300g Flour
5 medium eggs

Instructions

Well before cooking, preferably the day before or the week before, collect all the dried fruit and nuts in a bowl. Chop them coarsely then add the brandy, orange zest and juice. Leave as long as possible for the fruit to soak up the brandy. The more brandy you get to soak into the fruit, the better you cake will be.

Just before you start on the cake you need to prepare your cake tin. This should be double lined and greased with parchment or grease proof paper. I can’t stress enough – double lined. The sides of the paper should extend about an inch above the height of the tin itself. Also you should wrap a page or two of newspaper around the outside of the tin and on the bottom of the tin. Use some string to hold it in place. This will all stop the cake sides from burning when cooking. Put your oven on to preheat at 150C.

The actual cake mix needs to be put together in just the right order. If you have an electric hand mixer, this will be of great assistance. Leave the butter out to come to room temperature then mix it with the sugar. Beat the mix roughly so that the sugar and butter blend into a cream. Now half the eggs. Mix, and then add the other half the eggs. A single spoonful of flour might help the mix come together. The eggs, sugar and butter should be well mixed. Carefully fold the fruit mix into the cake. Don’t over stir or you will flatten the cake. Once the fruit is all coated, add a few spoons of flour. Fold in the four one spoon at a time till the mix becomes thick. Spoon the cake mix into the prepared tin and smooth flat.

Cook in your oven at 150C for 2 or 3 hours. Use a cocktail stick, poked into the centre of the cake, to test if is cooked all the way through. If the top starts to burn, reduce the temperature by 10C and cover the top of the cake with some parchment paper. When finished, allow the cake to cool inside the tin before turning out.

Christmas cake is traditionally dressed with marzipan and royal icing. You could make your own (I do so) but most supermarkets stock some ready made to roll and eat. Brush the outside of the cake with jam to make it sticky, then roll out the marzipan and place it over the cake. Trim of any extra pieces and Leave overnight to set. The next day roll out the royal icing and place over the top of the marzipan. Keep your cake wrapped in cling film or tinfoil, inside a large plastic tub. In this condition, the cake can last several weeks if not months.

Prep time: 24 hour

Cook time: 3 hour

Number of servings (yield): 24 slices

Meal type: Desert

Culinary tradition: British

My rating:5 stars: ★★★★★

Hong Kong Style Lemon Tea

Rincewind — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 06:58:44 +0000

Hong Kong Style Lemon Tea

Summary: A popular lemon tea recipe typical of Hong Kong.

Ingredients

1 lemon
1/2 cup of sugar
2 litres of water
2 or 3 teabags (black tea)

Instructions

Making this recipe couldn’t be easier. To start, bring the water up to the boil and while simmering, drop in the teabags. Squeeze the lemon’s juice into the tea and then drop in the remaining lemon peal. The outer yellow part of the lemon peal contains oils that help flavour the drink. The white, pith, of the lemon peal is unwanted as it can give the drink a bitter taste. Let them stew for 3 minutes or so. Remove the tea bags and lemon skins and add the sugar, stir to ensure that it all dissolves. Then enjoy this refreshing drink, ideal for both summer and winter.

Variations

This drink can be enjoyed hot or ice cold depending on your mood. Instead of white sugar, you can experiment with brown sugar and or honey as sweeteners.

Preparation time: 5 min

Diet (other): Reduced fat

Number of servings (yield): 8

Meal type: snack

Culinary tradition: Chinese

My rating:5 stars: ★★★★★

Steak Pie

Rincewind — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 07:21:47 +0000

Steak Pie

Summary: Traditional Steak Pie is one of my favourite English recipes. English food or British food doesn’t have a great reputation, however, there are some real classics in that repertoire that are worth making. A really good steak pie with flaky puff pastry on top is a treat for any meal. I highly recommend you try this one. I personally make my own puff pastry for the top, however, these days you can buy ready made puff pastry in the supermarket that saves you an hour of preparation, allot of work, and always comes out perfect. So for this pie I am omitting the pastry recipe. I’ll give you my puff pastry recipe again in another blog.

Ingredients

1 pack of puff pastry or flaky pastry
500g Steak Beef, cut into cubes
200g chopped pork sausage
1 large onion
1 carrot
1 tbsp of beef stock powder or stock cube
3 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp Ground mustard seeds
2 tspGround black pepper
1 tps Garlic powder
1 tbsp of corn flour or starch
Some water
Salt to taste

Instructions

Chop up the beef, sausage, onion and carrot and fry in a sauce pan until the beef is coloured. Add the other wet then dry ingredients (except the water and egg) to the pan and bring to the boil. Prepare a large pie dish – there’s enough filling here for two pies of six inches diameter. Place the filling into the pie dish and spread evenly but do not over fill. Add a little water into the pie to fill up any remaining spaces and keep the pie moist when cooking. On a floured work surface, roll you puff pastry to just a bit larger than the pie dish and place on top. Now press around the edges to make a good seal all round. Whisk the egg lightly and use a pastry brush or your fingers to coat the top of the pie with the egg. this will give the pie the lovely yellow colour when cooked. Discard any excess egg (or make an omllet). Cut two small slits in the top of the pie for the air to escape when cooking. Place the pie into an oven at gas mark 6 or 200C for 20 to 30 minutes or until the pie looks ready.

Preparation time: 30 min

Number of servings (yield): 6

Meal type: Dinner

Culinary tradition: British

My rating:5 stars: ★★★★★

Egg Fried Rice

Rincewind — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 03:48:50 +0000

Egg Fried Rice

Summary: Synonymous with the Chinese takeaway, is the portion of egg fried rice. Here is the authentic Chinese recipe for this infamous dish.

Ingredients

3 Eggs
250g Rice Soy Sauce
100g Pre cooked Meat (usually chicken but anything will work)
1 spring onion
2 teaspoons of Chicken stock granules

Instructions

Start by cooking the rice, the usual way in water. I often use rice that was left over from the day before. Drain the cooked rice and keep on the side. Now break the eggs into a frying pan and mix them as they cook to make something like an omelet. While that’s cooking, cut the spring onion finely. Add that to the eggs. Now put the rice in and mix it into the egg. Add some soy sauce. Different brands of sauce have different flavours so you’ll need to experiment to find just how much to use but two tablespoons would be a good start. Mix and combine the rice with the sauce but don’t be too aggressive or your mush up the rice. Lastly add in the meat and chicken granules. I often use just whatever meat was left over from the night before. If you don’t have chicken stock granules, you can use half a chicken stock cube.

Quick Notes

If you want more flavour in the rice, cook it in chicken stock rather than plain water. Use peanut oil for frying this dish to get an authentic taste.

Preparation time: 10 min

Number of servings (yield): 1

Meal type: lunch

Culinary tradition: Chinese

My rating:5 stars: ★★★★★

Chinese Fried Cicken

Rincewind — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:00:28 +0000

Chinese Fried Cicken

Summary: Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants have taken china by storm. They are far and away the most popular fast food. The Chinese, especially the children, love the spicy finger licking good fried chicken tasted. Part of the success, I think, has been because the Chinese already had a similar spicy fried chicken recipe. The recipe below is the chinese home grown version but very similar to the Southern States method.

Ingredients

500g Chicken wings or drumsticks
100g Corn Flour
Ground chili pepper
Ground mustard seeds
Ground paprika
Ground black pepper
Ground white pepper
Ground Szechuan pepper
Salt to taste

Instructions

Wash your chicken and dry lightly with some paper. Place all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix together. You want roughly equal quantities of all the spices. However, the exact amounts depends on personal taste. First time try a teaspoon of each and see how it suits you. I like mine spicy so put in two or three teaspoons of each spice. It’s a personal choice.

Put the chicken into the spice mix and toss well to coat all the chicken in flour and spice. Don’t worry to much if there is some spice left over, as long as you have covered all the meat evenly with flour. Make sure you get the spice under any folds of skin.

Heat up a pan of oil. If you have a deep fat fryer, use that. Remember to be careful when deep frying as pan fires are common. Never leave the hot pan unattended, not even for a minute.

Place the floured chicken into the oil. Allow them to cook for about 10 minutes. The chicken wings will start to float on the oil when they are ready. Use a spoon to turn the chicken several times during the cooking so as to ensure the chicken is cooked evenly. When you think the thicken is ready, take out the largest of the chicken pieces and cut it open with a knife to see if it is cooked all the way through. If there is any pink meat or blood, put the chicken back in to cook for a few more minutes. Always make sure your chicken is well cooked.

Once ready, take the chicken out and allow the excess oil to drain off. Then serve hot to the table.

Preparation time: 15 min

Number of servings (yield): 3

Meal type: lunch

Culinary tradition: Chinese

My rating:5 stars: ★★★★★

The Perfect Steak

Rincewind — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:00:07 +0000

The Perfect Steak

Summary: You can’t get a good steak in China. I’ve been to restaurants up and down the country with friends and relatives, and often, they’ll order a steak. They are always disappointed. It’s usually pail coloured and lacking flavour. They either over cook it or else, if you as for it rare, they serve the steak cold. And I mean refrigerator cold. I have been served steak here that looked perfectly char grilled on the outside but was icy cold and raw inside. However, rare meat is strange to the Chinese, more often they will just cook the meat till it is dried up and tough as old shoe leather. But it shouldn’t be so. There are few things easier than cooking a steak. To cook a perfect steak needs a little more knowledge and a marinade. So this recipe is one of my steak marinades.

Ingredients

500g Beef Steak Meat
4 table spoons of Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Ground Black Pepper
Pinch of salt.

Instructions

The longer time you have to marinade your meat the better. Pace the meat on a plate or flat bottomed dish, cover with the sauce and spices. Turn the meat in the dish and rub with your fingers to ensure that the spices get into the meat. Place into the fridge and chill until ready to cook. The longer the better. If possible, do overnight or else do in the morning for eating in the evening. However, if you are pressed for time, half an hour will do.

There are several choices for cooking. You can shallow fry, you can grill, or you can BBQ. I have always found the BBQ gives the best steak. It will also put on that char grilled stripy pattern that looks so mouthwateringly tasty. Whichever you do, make sure that you warm things up. Get you pan or grill hot before you put the steak in. You want to hear that hissing sizzling sound as soon as the steak hits the pan.

How long should you cook for? Well that depends on whither you like your steak rare, medium or well done. A rare steak neads only a couple of minutes on each side. You’ll notice the steak contracting slightly in the pan, then turn it over. Cook for just a short time to give the other side some colour and then serve. The steak should be cooked on the outside by red raw on the inside, though not cold. When pressed with a finger, the steak should feel like the cheek flesh on the side of your face. Soft and springy.

A medium steak should be cooked slightly longer after turning. When pressed with a finger, it should feel like the flesh on your upper lip. When cut through, a medium steak with be pink on the inside but not rare.

A well done steak takes just a little longer cooking time. If pressed with a finger it will be firmer than a medium steak. Something akin to the flesh on the front of your chin. Firm but not hard. If it feels like the flesh on your forehead, then you have over done it and should start again.

Serve the steak as soon as cooked along with potatoes and vegetables of your choice.

Quick Notes

My personal favourite is to BBQ the meat quickly on both sides, leaving it rare in the centre. This will leave the steak soft and juicy. Well done steaks usually end up being tough and dry to eat.

Preparation time: 45 min

Number of servings (yield): 4

Meal type: dinner

Culinary tradition: English

My rating:4 stars: ★★★★☆

Victoria Sponge Cake

Rincewind — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:00:05 +0000

Victoria Sponge Cake

Summary: I remember my first year of high school, home economics class. It was an almost total waste of time, but the did teach one thing that I found useful, a classic recipe, the Victoria Sponge Cake. This is the definitive cake from which all others are measured. It’s quite simple to make but produces beautifully delicate, light and airy cakes that are a pleasure to eat.

Ingredients

The eggs, sugar, butter and flour should be in equal quantities. The exact amount depends on the size of your eggs.

3 Eggs
Self Raising Flour
Butter
Sugar
1 pod of vanilla or 1/4 tea spoon of vanilla essence.

Instructions

Start by taking the butter out of the fridge and letting it warm to room temperature for an hour or so. Weigh your eggs (inc shell). Measure the same weight again each of flour, sugar and butter. Crack your eggs into a small bowl and mix with a fork. Also put your oven on at gas mark 4 (180C) to preheat. The preheating the oven is important.

Now place your butter and sugar into a large bowl and mix vigorously. If you have an electric whisk, you can use this. It is at this stage that you are adding the air to the mix that will later make your cake light and soft so mix well. Now add the eggs a little at a time. Then follow with the flour. Be careful not to over whisk now as you could knock the air out again now that the mix is more liquid.

This quantity will make two 6 inch cakes that you will later sandwich together. If you have a large enough oven, you can cook both at the same time, however, I usually cook them one after the other. Spoon half you mix into a greased cake tin and smooth out. Place into the oven at 180C or gas mark 5 for 15 to 20 minutes.

To test that the cake is ready, insert a wooden tooth pick into the centre of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready. Allow the cake to cool slightly before removing from the time. Place onto a wire rack to cool fully. Clean your tin and repeat with the other half of the mixture to get your second cake layer.

There are many options for dressing the cake. I like to sandwich the two cakes together. I choose one or the sponges. Whichever is the flattest, and I cut the top crust off to make it level. Now spoon some jam on to the sponge. Also jam the bottom of the other sponge ready to go on top. If in season, I’ll chop some fresh strawberries or other fruit onto the lower sponge and add some whipped cream, though you don’t have to. Then place the top sponge on to the lower. Dust the top with a little icing sugar or glazing or even more cream and strawberries if you like.

Variations

You can make small fairy cakes in small cake tins if you like using the same cake mix. Remember to reduce the cooking time slightly as the small cakes will be ready faster.

If you don’t have self raising flour, use plain flour and add a level teaspoon of baking powder or baking soda.

Preparation time: 60 min

Diet type: Vegetarian

Number of servings (yield): 6

Meal type: dessert

Culinary tradition: English

My rating:4 stars: ★★★★☆

Scallops in garlic and lemon

Rincewind — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:00:30 +0000

Scallops in garlic and lemon

Summary: One advantage of living in the north east of china is the abundance of cheap shellfish. Yesterday I cooked some scallops. These are a type of clam. To add a bit of interest to the flavour, I made a marinade for the scallops of olive oil, garlic and lemon. This imparted a wonderful aroma to the flesh of the shellfish and proved popular with my dinner guest.

Ingredients

10 Scallops
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon of chili pepper
2 teaspoons of oregano, finely chopped
2 teaspoons of rosemary, finely chopped
2 table spoons of olive oil
1/2 a lemon juiced

Instructions

To start with, blanch the Scallops in boiling water to cook them. Remove the flesh from their shells and take off the corals (the black mushy bit). If your buying scallops that have already been shelled then you can skip that step. Put the scallop meat into a large bowl. Add all the herbs and the olive oil and mix together. Leave to marinade for a short time. Warm up your frying pan with a little olive oil. When the pan is hot, place the scallops into the pan and cook, turning occasionally. Since the scallop meat has already been blanched, you only need to heat them up so just a few minutes will cook them. Remove the pan from the head and squeeze the lemon juice over the scallops. Toss them gently to cover them will the lemon juice. Remove the scallops from the pan and serve on plates along with some salad.

Preparation time: 25 min

Diet (other): Reduced carbohydrate, High protein, Gluten free

Number of servings (yield): 2

Meal type: dinner

Culinary tradition: French

My rating: 5 stars: ★★★★★

Simple Pancakes

Rincewind — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:00:55 +0000

Simple Pancakes

Summary: There is more than one way to make a pancake. Some are simple using just four and water others are more complex including beer or even fruit. This recipe is for a simple traditional British pancake that is easy to make. These pancakes can be prepared for a verity of uses. By varying the quantity of milk you can change the thickness and size of the pancake. The small Scottish drop scone sized pancake is idea for afternoon tea topped with jam and cream. Large middle thickness crepes can take fruit or other sweet fillings such as Canadian maple syrup. Using more milk, you can make very thin savoury pancakes, ideal for making sandwich wraps with chicken, salad and such.

Ingredients

100 g of plain flour
2 eggs
150 to 350ml of milk
50 g butter, melted
A pinch of salt to taste

Instructions

Sift the flour to remove lumps and add all the flour, salt, eggs and milk into a large bowl. Whisk the ingredients well. The better you whisk the more air gets into the pancake making it light to eat. Melt the butter in a pan. While whisking, pour the butter into the bowl with the other ingredients.

Variations

For a sweet pancake, you can add a little sugar (25g or so). You could also mix a little dried fruit such as raisins in.

For a fluffier, lighter pancake you can add small, level, tea spoon of baking soda to the mix.

Preparation time: 30 min

Diet type: Vegetarian

Number of servings (yield): 12

Meal type: breakfast

Culinary tradition: English

My rating: 5 stars: ★★★★★