Cooking: A week with AH2

[Glaucus]

Well I know some of you wanted some simple delicious dishes.
So I have 5 easy and cheap dishes for you to try.

Pork and apple braise with vegetable hotpot
Beef and veg stew with dumplings
Simple mossaka
BBQ sauce smothered pork chop with potato rosti and corn on the cob.
Turkish beef pilau

Beef and veg stew with dumplings

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon Olive oil
250g Beef Skirt
100g Shallots (10 or so small shallots)
120g Celery (3 sticks)
250g Carrots (3 medium carrots)
300g New potatoes
500g Fennel (1 fennel)
300g Courgettes (2 Courgettes)
250g Chestnut Mushrooms
1 red chilli or some chilli flakes
2 Tablespoons fresh parsley
1 oxo cube in 600ml of water or 600ml of fresh stock
300ml white wine

Dumplings:
100g Self raising flour
50g Mature cheddar (stronger the better)
50g Butter
1 Tablespoon Thyme

Suggested Servings: 4


Method:
1) Add the olive oil to a large sauce pan, cube the beef and add to the pan. Peel and half the shallots and add to the beef. Fry until beef is sealed.
2) cube Thickly dice the carrots, celery and fennel and add to the pan and fry for about 10 mins.
3) add the stock, wine, chilli and a good pinch of pepper and simmer for about 2hours.
4) Add the mushrooms and courgettes.
5) make the dumplings, rub the flour and butter together to form bread crumbs. Mix in the grated cheese, thyme, salt and pepper. Bring together with a little water till it forms a dough.
6) Roll the dough into 8 balls and place in the pan, simmer for about 30minutes.
7) server.

 

[Glaucus]

I used beef mince in mine as it was far cheaper. But it's usually made with lamb and teh sauce could have done with being reduced more as it's not meant to be so liquid.

Moussaka

Ingredients:
Mince:
500g Lamb mince
1 large onion
1 teaspoon mint
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 can chopped tomatoes
200g cheddar cheese
1 Aubergine


White Sauce:
500ml semi skimmed milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons plain flour

Suggested servings:3


method:

1) dice the onion and fry in a little olive oil until translucent, add the mince and garlic and brown.
2) Add the chopped tomatoes, mint and cinnamon. Simmer for at least 20minutes until reduced to a good consistency.
3) thinly slice the aubergine and brush with the remaining olive oil and grill till golden brown on both sides.
4) In a saucepan make a rough out of the flour and butter and slowly add the milk, letting it thicken before adding more. Once all the milk is in, bring to a gentle boil for 5 minutes.
5) In a pyrex dish, layer 1/2 the mince in the bottom, followed by half the aubergine and finally 1/2 the white sauce. Repeat this process then top with the cheese.
6) Place in the oven at 160 for 45-60minutes. Until golden-dark brown.

 

[Glaucus]

Damn, that's all you need to make dumplings? I may have to do something at some point....

There's a few way to make dumplings, but yes it's as easy as that.
Another way is equal amounts of suet and flour + what ever flavourings you want. Brought together with a little water.

 

[Glaucus]

Good thing with stew is the long cooking time mellows flavours out.

yeah no need to salt or peel them and hasn't been for years. Although people still do.

 

[Glaucus]

This is the one I've been waiting for all week. not the healthiest dish. But omg so so tasty.
On another note I don't think I will ever buy pork chops again. These spare rib chops are so tasty and have lots of meet, as they don't have the large edge of fat.

BBQ sauce smothered pork chop with potato rosti and corn on the cob.
Ingredients:
4 Pork chops
8 corn on he cob
5 Tablespoons butter 1 1/2 for the corn on the cob. The rest for the rostis.
1 medium onion
1 can of chopped tomatoes
4 tablespoons dark brown Sugar
4 tablespoons vinegar ( I used red wine vinegar, but any will do)
4 tablespoons Soy sauce
4 tablespoons Ketchup
2 tablespoons Worcester sauce
1 Tablespoon mushroom sauce (optional)

Suggested Servings: 4


As I have used spare rib chops, they need to be slow cooked, so I popped it into a roasting tray filled with water and sealed with tin foil and placed in an oven at 160 for 2hours.

1) Speratly place the corn on the cob in foil, with a little butter and some salt. seal up and place in the oven at 160 for 1hour.
2) Finley chop the onion and place in a pan with the olive oil. And fry till golden. Then add teh tomatoes, soy sauce, ketchup, sugar, vinegar, Worcester sauce and mushroom sauce. Bring to a simmer and allow to reduce for about 40minutes or until thick. Keep checking on it, to insure it does not burn.
3) Take your cooked spare rib chop or uncooked normal chop. Smother in bbq sauce and place in a roasting tin. Add some more bbq sauce on top. Cook at about 160 for about 30 mins or until cooked
4) Grate the potatoes, and strain as much water out as possible. Either place in a tea towel and ring out, or in a sieve and squeeze. Once dry add a little salt and and pepper.
5) In a good none stick frying pan place the rest of the butter and bring up to a medium heat. Add the potato and form patties. Cook for about 8 minutes a side over a medium heat.

















The bbq sauce is the nicest thing in the world.

 

[Glaucus]

erm, surly you put the dumplings in and the cook the whole thing in the over for at leased 30 mins or the flour will still be raw?

yep stick it pan, stick lid on and simmer for at least 30 mins. Or untill they are cooked.

Wow, will try that Mousakka.. without the mince though.. as I'm a Vegetable lover at the moment.. what could I use an alternative AH?

Obviusly vegeteraian mince. Although i would be tempted to use mushrroms instead. Probably about a kilo of mixed mushrooms diced would work well.

Ps what's up with the forum.Won't load in FF and only half loads in Ie missing most of the avatars and other buttons.

 

[Glaucus]

would however have thought red wine would make a lot more sense in a beef stew? I'd only ever use white wine in a chicken or fish dish normally.

It's more of a veg stew with a little meat. If you want a proper meat stew you would need to at least double the meat and red would work brilliantly with it.

 

[Glaucus]

Something someone else posted. Rather interesting.

The Greeks would never use cheddar anyway (that's a lie actually as they use a cheese close to cheddar which is basically cheddar but it's the greek version (called kafelotiri, and mix it 50/50 with parmesan). The cypriots put potato in theirs too just for your edification. Also you tend to add breadcrums to the top when browning it off with the cheese. In fact it's all rather magic, and to get a good moussaka is very hard to find and most restaurants unfortunately do very generic and bland versions

 

[Glaucus]

how much would you say this would all cost for the week?

looks awesome

using cheap meat, roughly £7 a meal.

 

[Glaucus]

If anyone wants a healthier mossaka
Make these changes

1 tablespoon low fat sunflower spread instead of 2 tablespoons of butter
greek feta cheese instead of cheddar
lean beef mince instead of lamb

wow that's made a huge difference

 

[Glaucus]

well tonight didn't turn out quite as well as I hoped. The pork was great, the hotpot a little less well.

So I'm going to post how I would make it next time. so the pics will look slightly different to the recipe.
Braised pork and apple
Ingredients
4 pork chops
1 cox apple
1 pint of stock
2 bay leafs
1 tablespoon grain mustard
1 tablespoon flour
1 table spoon olive oil
1 large onion

Vegetable hot pot
3 leeks
1/2 a savoy cabbage
3 medium potatoes
100grams Goat cheese
100ml milk
tablespoon of thyme

Suggested Servings: 4


Method:
1) Dust the pork chops in seasoned flour and fry in a little olive oil till brown, remove and place in a oven prove dish. Add the onions to the pan and fry till lightly coloured and ass to the pork chops. Add the stock and enough water to just cover. Add in the bay leafs and mustard.
2) place in the oven at 160 for 2 hours. Mean while core the apples and fry in a touch of butter till caramelised, add to eh pork and cook for a further 30mins with the lid off.

vegetable hot pot
1) finely slice the leeks, savoy cabbage and goats cheese and place in an oven proof dish. Pour over 150ml of milk and season.
2) finely slice 3 potatoes and layer over the leek and cabbage mix. Sprinkle some thyme on top.
3) place in the oven at 160 for about 45mins.

 

[Glaucus]

I'll be walking to work tonight then. But still better than 3000Kcals or what ever dominoes pizza is.
Makes 35cm pizza.
Dough:
160grams plain flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
100ml warm water
1 packet of fast acting yeast

Topping
1/2 mix of bbq sauce, from earlier in the week.
1 mozeralla bull (125g)
1 red pepper
1 red onion
125g chorizo

1) place your pizza stone in the oven at full whack for 1hr
2)Mix the dough together, need for 15mins until elastic. Allow to double in size for 1hr-1 1/2hr under a damp tea towel in a warm place.
3)Roll out to the right size and leave to rest for about 15mins
4) remove pizza stone and place. Add the toppings and place back in the oven for about 7mins
















The base was nice but not amazing, shall have to try some other base recipes, or maybe it's just the flour.

 

[Glaucus]

I must ask, where are you getting the calorie info from? It looks like a web based calory counting site or something, looks useful.

Valve

www.thedailyplate.com