Cooking with skippy2421 (yup another cooking thread but this one is to be updated weekly)

[skippy2421]

As some of you may remember from a thread some weeks ago asking for advice about roast lamb, I mentioned me and my girlfriend are going to be cooking something different each weekend. Firstly I would like to state we are certainly not professional cooks just a couple of students trying to learn how to cook basically. So I figured I'd start up this thread to share this culinary journey. The meals we'll be cooking wont be overly complicated and will be doable on a budget (naturally everything wont be home made). This should prove useful to the large student contingent here as well as the more keen cook. By all means feel free to contribute with recipes and experiences but please bare in mind the point of this thread, simple food on a reasonable budget (so no £20 lumps of meat or unless there are cheaper alternatives available)

First of all I would like to say this thread is for food only, those who want to talk about to photography stick to your own section thanks, I wont have my thread trashed like Raymond's.

So a bit of closure to begin with my lamb went very well and this was the end result:

The next week we chose to cook home made enchiladas served with warm nachos with melted cheese and chillies along with some salsa, however despite how nice it looks the meal was very bland and as such I haven't bothered to document it here. The recipe for the enchiladas however can be found here:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1655/chicken-enchiladas-with-red-mole-sauce

ours turned out like this:

Looks nothing like the picture in the recipe and was extremely bland with nothing but the chillies giving it flavour, the nachos were actually the best part. We poured the extra sauce over the top in a desperate attempt to give it more flavour. This was our first disaster meal.

 

[skippy2421]

Spicy Chorizo and rosemary rigatoni

Ingredients:
200g rigatoni
100g chorizo , chopped into small chunks
olive oil
a pinch chilli flakes
2 sprigs rosemary , needles chopped
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
4 tbsp double cream

Nice and simple this one, pasta to be cooked like any other pasta, you don't need instructions on this.

As for the rest, firstly dice up your chorizo, I made a bit of a mistake in making the chunks a tad big, make them nice and small. Oh and check my manly pink knife (not mine honest)

The next step is to fry your chorizo in a little olive oil for three or four minutes. once this is done fire in your chilli flakes and rosemary (we only had dried rosemary on hand and used this instead, which was fine). A minute later add the tin of chopped tomatoes and allow to simmer for 15 mins. This would probably be the point you put your pasta on now.

Once this is done add in your cream and stir in. Then mix with your pasta and we're done. Nice and simple tasty pasta dish. admittedly doesn't look anything special and isn't helped by presentation not exactly being our strong point.

Certainly ideal for you students and could quite easily be done with sausages however the chorizo does give it a lovely kick.

 

[skippy2421]

Self saucing Jaffa Pudding

100g butter , melted, plus a little extra for the dish
250g self-raising flour
140g caster sugar
50g cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
zest and juice 1 orange
3 eggs
150ml milk
100g orange milk chocolate or milk chocolate, broken into chunks (we used lindt orange intense)
single cream or ice cream, to serve or unless you're like us who just used the rest of our double cream.

FOR THE SAUCE

200g light muscovado sugar
25g cocoa

We used half the ingredients here as there's only 2 of us.

Firstly butter a 2-litre baking dish (or 1 litre in our case) and heat oven to 180C

Put the flour, caster sugar, cocoa, baking powder, orange zest and a pinch of salt in a large mixing bowl

Whisk together the orange juice and any pulp left in the juicer (alternatively be a man and mash it with your hands, yeaaaaahhh!), the eggs, melted butter and milk.

Then pour onto the dry ingredients and mix together until smooth. Then add the chocolate.

Then fire it all into the baking dish.Then Mix 300ml boiling water from the kettle with the sugar and cocoa for the sauce, then pour this all over the mix. It will look weird but trust me it works. Put in the oven for 30 mins then serve with your choice of cream or ice cream. End results:

Verdict: Was brilliant, very rich and the orange flavour as you would expect complimented the chocolate very well. Got somewhat sickly after a while so don't try and eat the amount we did we had to invite a third to eat our cake.

 

[skippy2421]

jeez you're a hard crowd, the thread is going to improve, they were our first ventures into cooking, yes it's a pre-made yorkshire it's daunting enough doing your first roast so taking it easy. Several more recipes to come yet (including cake).

 

[skippy2421]

More to come when I can be bothered to write it up, but that should tide you over for now.

 

[skippy2421]

Food looks awesome! Might have to try the Jaffa Pudding some time .

Is that knife one of those ceramic knives? If so are they any good?

No idea what the knife is but it's rather rubbish, I'll ask when i get back in from uni.

2nd pic down in the jaffer pudding post...is that a boy or a girl?! Varnished nails and ugg style boots, yet manly arms!

Pudding looks good.

Oi you cheeky sod, that's my missus, don't hate because she has bigger arms than your weedy things

that cake looks just awesome. and orange+ chocolate is my favourite flavour of chocolate.

bit confused at the baking part, you pour the chocolate sauce OVER the mix but in the serving pic it looks like the sauce is on the bottom.


but unfortunately your pictures are all in focus and we can see exactly what you have cooked.

Yeah was a bit of a mystery to me, but it seemed to works it's way around the edges to give a gooey chocolate sauce between the bowl and the pudding.

Next up will be warm chocolate fondants and spicy Singapore noodles (we kind of cheated on this one though.)

 

[skippy2421]

I'm BACK!!!!!!!!

Right going to apologise in advance for the lack of photos in some of the recipes to come, we had a bit of a lovers tiff in the middle and photos were forgotten about. Next week will be better.

Lot's to come but let's start with........................

Chocolate biscuits with soft chocolate centres

Great biscuits, very easy to make and take almost no time at all.

Ingredients:
140g butter
140g caster sugar
2 egg yolks
255g self-raising flour
30g cocoa powder
chocolate with lots of small squares i.e dairy milk (can be milk, white or plain chocolate, whichever floats your boat)

Grease a large baking sheet.

Cream the butter and sugar together.Beat in the egg yolks, then add the flour and cocoa powder to make a dough.

Turn out and knead, then pop it into the fridge for a while. Preheat the oven to 190ºC.

On a lightly floured surface, roll about a third of the dough out thinly, Then cut out as many biscuits as you like using small circular cutter. Put these in a tray and place a chunk of chocolate on top then with the remaining dough roll out and cut out slightly larger circles and place on top, pushing the edges down. (no pictures unfortunately)

Pop into the oven for 10 minutes and this is the result:

These were absolutely gorgeous, the 24 we had lasted less than 2 days. Best eaten warm when the chocolate in the centre is melted but even when they're cold they're lovely and the chocolate in the centre remains rather soft.

 

[skippy2421]

Why are they so much darker in the last picture?

We had 2 trays worth, the darker ones were from the second tray which seemed to have cooked differently.

To who asked about the knife yes it's a ceramic one and despite my slagging it off last time it actually proved to not be that bad on second time of using.

 

[skippy2421]

Spicy singapore noodles (cheat's version)

Not going to dwell on this one too long as it's cheating but the recipe is here (chosen by the misses): http://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/spicy-prawn-singapore-noodles

The sauce we ended up using (couldn't get wagamammas stuff) was the sharwoods spicy tomato szechuan

So in short it tasted nice, not terribly filling (or unless you're a girl then apparently it is).

pics:

Moving on to the dessert I picked:

Chocolate Fondant with hot chocolate sauce

For the fondant
110g/4oz butter, plus extra to grease
110g/4oz self-raising flour
110g/4oz caster sugar
1 free-range egg yolk
2 free-range eggs
85g/3oz good quality dark chocolate, melted

For the chocolate sauce

150ml/6fl oz double cream
85g/3oz good quality dark chocolate, chopped
55g/2oz pecans, chopped

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.

Grease two ramekins with butter and set aside. (we needed 3)

For the fondant, place the butter, flour, sugar, egg yolk, eggs and chocolate into a food processor then spoon the mixture into the two ramekins to three quarters full and transfer to the oven. Cook for 8-10 minutes, or until cooked through.


For the chocolate sauce, place the cream into a saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil, then remove from the heat and add the chocolate and chopped pecans.

To serve, drizzle the chocolate sauce over the fondants and serve with vanilla ice cream.

and when you can actually get the damned things out of the ramekins

EPIC BODGE MOMENT first attempt at getting a fondant out didn't go too well, hell didn't even have a clean knife to hand so had to use (clean) pen knife lol

Go on have a laugh at me, you don't get these sort of moments in AH's threads.

Anyway, in short this dessert was amazing and we'll definitely be making these again at some point. The pecans were a nice touch to the dessert as it gave it a bit of crunch. I'd definitely advise serving with ice cream otherwise it's quite rich and can get a bit sickly without.

 

[skippy2421]

Why another sauce on the fondant? isn't the whole point is that the sauce is already there, inside it?

Just the recipe we were using. I do understand your point however but it definitely worked out better having it just for the pecans. Can never have too much gooey chocolate my friend.

Up next: homemade steak mince burgers with stilton and chilli sweet potato wedges. After that white chocolate creme brulee (didn't go as plan)

 

[skippy2421]

Manly arms? Ahahahaha! Maybe if you're talking about a man suffering from an extreme lack of testosterone.

I Appreciate you stepping in to defend my gf mate but let's not divert the thread.

Manly just means 'that of a man'. It doesn't have to mean Arnold Schwarzenegger.

enough now please, she does read this thread you know.

Burgers recipe and creme brulee will be up soon, I'll sort the pics after i've had a shower.

 

[skippy2421]

Great job, all looking good even if it's not turned out quite how you wanted. more you cook the easier you'll find even totally new techniques/recipe, you just get an eye/instinct for it. looking firward to burger one sounds amazing.

Did you butter then flour dust the mould for the fondant?

Also if you like noodle/prawn dishes this is well worth making.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10724537&postcount=28

I found it needed more lime and chilli other than that great recipe.

Why thank you. Cooking is slowly becoming more natural but we still have much to learn. We buttered the mould but did not flour it, seems that's where we went wrong.

Funny you mention that prawn recipe, we have some prawns left in the freezer, sounds ideal.

 

[skippy2421]

Steak mince and stilton Burgers and chilli sweet potato wedges

Ingredients:


Burger
500g steak mince
3 crushed cloves of garlic
1tbsp mixed herbs
salt and pepper to season
stilton (as much as you want)
Rolls (ready made or make your own)

Everything in a bowl (except the stilton) and mix it up.

Then make two burger shapes from half the mince, place the stilton on top then cover with the rest of mince.

Once done flour a surface and coat the burgers.

All good up until now? So we thought too until i hear "Mark I think we have a problem" I turn around and:

First attempt at making bread rolls turns to fail, nowhere near as big as expected and just look at them lol.

So burgers might need a remould as the original plan was to use three of the rolls the day after. So new amended burgers being floured:

Cook on medium-ish heat in a pan with some oil. generally about 7 mins a side but may vary:

Cook yourself some onions and bacon whilst you're at it too.

Chilli sweet potato wedges

Ingredients:

as many sweet potatoes as required
chilli flakes
olive oil

Chop em up:

Then coat in oil and chilli flakes (amount of chilli flakes as per preference)

put in the oven at 200c for about 30 mins, may need to leave them a little longer if required ours took about 35 mins

serve it all up:

There we have it. Absolutely delicious. But tips for those attempting to try it, the garlic can be quite strong so if you're not keen hold off a bit, also be extremely heavy handed with the stilton we definitely didn't put enough in but we could taste it. The burgers can be quite crumbly, I hear egg yolk is supposed to keep them together, so you may wish to try this. As for the wedges, brilliant. Easy and simple and perfect if you're in need of something to serve alongside a dish.

 

[skippy2421]

I'm back!!!!!!! Unfortunately could not update weekly as uni work has been a bit crazy lately, in fact I should be doing work now. Anyways back to where I left off the creme brulee I promised (which I have somehow managed to lose half the pics for ).


White Chocolate Creme Brulee

Ingredients

568ml pot double cream
100g White chocolate , broken into pieces
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 egg yolks
2 tbsp golden caster sugar , plus extra for topping

Heat the cream, chocolate and vanilla extract in a pan until the chocolate has melted. Take off the heat and allow to infuse for 10 mins, Heat oven to 160C.


Beat yolks and sugar until pale. stir in the chocolate cream. Strain into a jug and pour into ramekins. Place in a deep roasting tray and pour boiling water halfway up the sides. Bake for 15-20 mins until just set with a wobbly centre. Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hrs.

To serve, sprinkle some sugar on top of the brulees and caramelise with a blowtorch or briefly under a hot grill. Leave caramel to harden, then serve.

This was gorgeous but the serving was a PITA. I found the grill option for this did not work well (crappy uni accommodation ovens), it just turned the rest of it gooey. To get around this we just grilled them all and let them cool and bunged them back in the fridge. Not ideal but worked. If you have a blowtorch you will not have this issue.

 

[skippy2421]

King prawn curry with noodles

Firstly I was going to try AcidHell2's recommended recipe however our local sainsbury didn't have all the ingredients annoyingly. So we went with this nice and simple recipe instead. Takes no time at all and have cooked it several times now.

Ingredients

300g of straight to wok noodles
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 fresh chillies, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2 tsp curry powder
200ml double cream
king prawns, peeled, You can cook these but we went with ready cooked as they were on offer. Obviously if you go for raw prawns this recipe will need to be adjusted.
1 lime, juice only
1 tbsp chopped basil



heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the garlic, chilli and onion and fry until softened. Stir in the curry powder and fry for a further minute.

Pour in the double cream and bring to a simmer.

Add the king prawns and cook for 5 minutes, then add the lime juice, the noodles and the chopped basil and stir together.

let cook for another couple of minutes regularly stirring then serve.

Absolutely delicious for such a simple recipe. Even us students can manage this especially as most supermarkets seem to be doing deals on prawns right now. As said, this is now a regular dish here due to it being so simple and requiring so little. The chillies gave a nice kick to what is quite a creamy recipe, If you're a chilli fan obviously different chillies could be used.

 

[skippy2421]

Cracking thread Skippy ! Do you reckon the steak mince and stilton burgers could be replicated with Quorn instead of mince?

Not sure to be honest mate not had much experience with quorn stuff everything I've seen that is quorn is frozen so depending on what sort of form it takes when defrosted would determine if you could use it. If it takes similar properties to the normal mince when defrosted, i.e you could mould it around the stilton and It could hold a burger shape with minimal crumbling then maybe. If i had to give an answer I'd say it'd be difficult, but nothing ventured nothing gained I suppose, just have a couple of normal quorn burgers to hand should it mess up.

May have a couple chicken recipes coming up which you could use quorn for though which could be of use to you. You'll have to wait for those though as I need to get my dissertation finished.

 

[skippy2421]

Thanks Skippy, I'll give it a try.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, let us know how you get on.

 

[skippy2421]

Your reply was alright . I've made Quorn burgers many years ago, so it does bind with egg yolk and flour.

Well if you've done it before the only difference is you're jamming Stilton in the middle. So should be fine, happy cooking buddy

 

[skippy2421]

Fudgy Coconut Brownies

Ingredients

100g cocoa
250g butter
500g golden caster sugar
4 eggs , beaten
100g self-raising flour
100g desiccated coconut

A quick and easy brownie recipe that was absolutely gorgeous. Incredibly unhealthy but didn't stop me eating 6 squares in one sitting. Unlike some brownies these were nice and moist and remained that way even several days after baking. You could definitely taste the coconut in it but it wasn't bounty bar levels of coconut taste obviously. It did remove some of the richness you sometimes get in brownies that sometimes make them quite sickly and as a result made them incredibly moreish (hence me eating six immediately).

Heat oven to 180C. Line the base of a square tin with baking parchment (or if you don't have any of that just grease it like we did). Put the cocoa, butter and sugar in your largest saucepan and gently melt, stirring so the mixture doesn't catch. When the cocoa mixture is melted and combined, cool slightly, then stir in the eggs, little by little, followed by the flour and coconut.

Tip into the tin and bake for 45 mins - check after 30 mins and cover with another piece of baking parchment if the crust is browning too much. Cool in the tin, then carefully lift out and cut into squares.

Ours did not take 45 mins to do, in fact they were pretty much done after 35 and we didn't bother with the baking parchment nonsense. Just keep an eye on them when you do them. Should be able to tell when they're done.