Substitute Chef

Chicken and Vegetable Cobbler

2010-03-10T14:00:00.008+09:00

The last few days have been strong winds and driving rain here, coupled with a drop in temperature that makes me go home and want to huddle in my apartment with warming, homey food. This cobbler is great because it has all the great taste of chicken pot pie, but none of the faffing around rolling out pastry. You try swapping half the flour for a whole wheat alternative if you wanted to make it a little better for you.

This is from a recipe I found on the New York Times website.

Ingredients
1 leek, well washed and chopped
Salt and black pepper
2 cups (140g) quartered button mushrooms
1.5 cups (375ml) chicken stock
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 medium carrots, cut into coins
2 boneless chicken thighs, diced
1 cup (130g) peas, frozen or fresh
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup (125g) flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 (125ml) cup buttermilk/soured milk
1 egg.

Substitutions

I didn't make any big changes, but quite a few little ones. I used a beef stock cube because that's what I had on hand, and I used chicken breast instead of chicken thighs. Thighs have a lot of flavour and are great for this kind of thing, but I had breast already and wanted to keep fat content down where I could.

I can't get butter milk here, so I used soured milk instead (put a tablespoon or two of fresh lemon juice into the milk and then leave it for 5 minutes). I used a sprinkling of ground, dried rosemary instead of a fresh sprig, and added a little bit of sage too.

The cobbler topping had margarine instead of butter, and as mentioned before you could also go for half whole wheat flour to make it a bit better for you.

Method

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Put oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When oil is hot, add the leek, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook until liquid has released and evaporated, about 8 to 10 minutes.

2. Add stock and rosemary; bring to a boil, and let bubble for a minute or two, then add carrots and chicken and reduce heat so the liquid simmers. Cook until carrots are almost tender and chicken is cooked through, 8 to 10 minutes. Add peas and cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are brightly colored and just tender, another minute or so; fish out rosemary stem and discard.

3. Whisk cornstarch with a few tablespoons of broth to make a slurry. Add slurry to pot and stir until liquid thickens slightly. Transfer everything to an ovenproof dish and set aside.

4. Put flour in a food processor with baking powder, soda and salt. Add butter and process until mixture resembles small peas, no more than 30 seconds. (You can also do this by hand, using two knives, a fork, your fingers, or a pastry cutter). Transfer mixture to a bowl and mix in buttermilk and egg until it just comes together; it should be sticky. For this part you may have too much liquid (at least I did). so I would recommend whisking the egg and adding small, equal amounts of egg and milk until you reach the consistency you're looking for. The dough was wetter than I expected (I was thinking it would be more like scones, but it's much stickier than that) so don't be worried if it seems quite wet.

5. Drop spoonfuls of batter on top of vegetables and chicken and smooth with a knife, covering as much surface area as possible but leaving a few gaps for steam to escape. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until golden on top and bubbly underneath. Scoop into bowls and serve immediately.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

2010-02-18T18:32:00.006+09:00

These are not the soggy sprouts that appear on your Christmas plate.

I enjoyed my roasted cauliflower so much yesterday that when the bag of Brussels sprouts I ordered arrived yesterday, a pan of them immediately went into the oven.

These were made exactly the same way as the cauliflower, with 300g of sprouts coated in 2tsp of olive oil and 1tsp of garlic paste, then seasoned and put in the oven. It was even more delicious than yesterday's attempt!

If your only experiences of sprouts involve being forced to eat them as a child, this might be just the thing to change your mind.

Along with my Brussels sprouts, I got a delivery of meat from The Meat Guy (link in sidebar). One of the things I ordered was 3kg of 'Mystery Meat', that is a guaranteed 3kg in weight of meat that gets chosen by the store. Among the very delicious products were two more unusual products; a crocodile claw and a bag of four pig tails. Having never cooked or eaten these before it should make for interesting times in chez subchef.

Roasted Cauliflower

2010-02-16T20:54:00.006+09:00

Roasted Cauliflower, where have you been all my life?

Today I had a lesson plan to finish at home, so I wanted dinner that didn't require a huge amount of effort on my part. given how easy this was I'd say it more than fit the requirements. The recipe and preparation is simplicity itself, so much so that even I didn't have to sub in anything!

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower (approx 300g/10oz), cut into florets
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp garlic paste
salt and pepper to season

Method

1) Preheat oven to 220C/425F (I had mine on 200C because I use a convection oven)

2) Put all cauliflower, oil and garlic into a bowl, then toss together until the cauliflower is coated in the mixture.

3) Empty bowl out onto a baking pan, making sure it's an even, single layer, and season with salt and pepper.

4) Put into the oven for about 40 minutes (depending on the size of your florets)

And you're done! This would also be delicious with a little parmesan grated on top. Feast your eyes on the beauty, the crispy, the deliciousness of the final product!:

Go forth and make this immediately. You can thank me later.

Chili

2010-02-14T19:12:00.005+09:00

Ahh fail tag, we meet again.

I was hungry and didn't want to go out in the cold, so I decided to whip up this chili from things I had in the house.

From now on, I'll stick to recipes.

It wasn't 'bad' precisely. It was edible, it was warm, and it was filling. And with a good glug of red wine and some more herbs it would have made a nice, hearty topping for pasta, but as a chili? Failure. This had almost no heat, and all in all turned out quite bland. It's one of those things that I'll eat because I made it and don't want to waste things, but wouldn't recommend to others.

Cottage Pie with Sauteed Carrots

2010-02-01T20:19:00.007+09:00

The rain battering my city ensured that I arrived home chilled and with wet feet. Cold, and wanting something to envelope my apartment with comfort, I decided on a cottage pie for dinner.

I have a basic go-to recipe, but it can be a little bland on occasion, so I went looking for a recipe that would have a bit more depth to it, but still be a traditional pie. I ended up on the channel 4 website with an old Gordon Ramsay recipe for Shepherd's Pie. Unfortunately lamb in a no-go around here, so I switched it out for beef mince and was in business!

Ingredients

Shepherd's pie
* 2 tbsp olive oil
* Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 500g minced lean lamb
* 1 large onion, finely grated
* 1 large carrot, finely grated
* 2 cloves garlic
* 1-2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
* 1 tbsp tomato puree
* Handful of thyme sprigs, leaves picked
* 1 sprig of rosemary, needles chopped
* 250ml red wine
* 300ml chicken stock
* 1kg potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
* 50g butter
* 2 egg yolks
* Parmesan, for grating
* Olive oil
* Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

Pan-roasted carrots
* 2 sprigs of rosemary
* Small handful of thyme sprigs
* 1 garlic clove
* 500g medium sized carrots, peeled and trimmed
* 2 tbsp olive oil
* Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
* Few knobs of butter

Substitutions

As mentioned, beef mince for the lamb

I realised in the middle of cooking that I didn't have red wine (hence the paler look to my pie). I was disappointed, but couldn't really do anything about it just then, so I went without.

Switched the chicken stock for beef.

As I was having carrots for a side, I didn't want them in the pie too. I did throw in a handful of peas though.

Method

1) Cook the potatoes in boiling salted water until tender. Drain, then return to the hot pan over low heat to dry out briefly. Pass them through a potato ricer then beat in the egg yolks, followed by about 2 tbsp grated Parmesan. Check for seasoning.

My potatoes were a bit dry at this point. It may be because Ramsay's recipe called for Desiree potatoes and I have no idea what kind mine were, but if you wanted to add a little butter/cream to make it smoother I wouldn't tell anyone.

2) While the potatoes are cooking, heat a large pan until hot. Season the mince and fry in the oil over moderate to high heat for 2-3 minutes. Stir the onions and carrot into the mince then grate the garlic in as well. Add the Worcestershire sauce, tomato puree and herbs and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Pour in the red wine (err... oops), and reduce until almost completely evaporated. Add the chicken (or beef) stock, bring to the boil and simmer until the sauce has thickened

3) Spoon the mince into the bottom of a large ovenproof dish. Using a large spoon, layer the mashed potato generously on top of the mince, starting from the outside and working your way into the middle. Grate some extra Parmesan over and season. Fluff up the mash potato with a fork to make rough peaks. Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes, until bubbling and golden brown

4) While the pie is in the oven, chop the carrots and boil them in a pan of water with the garlic and herbs for 2-3 minutes to soften them a little. Drain, then pat dry. Add oil to a hot pan, season the carrots, then saute until the carrots are browned all over, adding the butter at the end.

Orange Ricotta Pancakes

2010-01-30T15:31:00.008+09:00

Try and contain your excitement my dears, I'm back.

Half entertaining thoughts of just deleting this blog, I made these pancakes the other day and decided they were so good they deserved to be up here. There's a new supermarket opened up in my city and a nearby one, that sells a range of foreign goods mixed in with the usual foods, hence the reason why I have a real-persons sized tub of ricotta on hand.

This recipe came from the BBC Food site. I halved it because there's just me, but this is the full recipe.

Ingredients

250g/8¾oz ricotta cheese
4 tbsp caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
1 large orange, finely grated zest only
50g/2oz plain flour
2 tbsp melted butter

Substitutions

I used regular granulated sugar instead of caster

Although I used orange zest, you could easily switch this for lemon and top it with some blueberry jam instead.

Method

1) Beat together the ricotta, sugar and the egg yolks until light and fairly smooth (you don't want any lumps of ricotta left)

2) Add the finely grated orange zest (I didn't grate mine quite as finely as I should of. I found this to be OK, but it's personal taste), and the flour and stir in gently.

3) In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a balloon (or electric, my personal choice because I'm lazy) whisk until it forms stiff peaks. Then fold the egg white mixture into the pancake batter carefully, you don't want to beat it and knock all the air out. This step will make them the lightest, fluffiest pancakes ever!

4) Warm a pan over moderate heat and add the butter. Place heaped tablespoons of batter into the pan, turning them over when they start to bubble. Top with melted cherry jam and enjoy.

Pumpkin Spaghetti

2009-11-09T09:33:00.005+09:00

Wow, has it really been that long? Things have been busy and it's making the days fly by. Yesterday I had lots of odds and ends in my fridge to use up, most notably some pumpkin from a pumpkin cookie recipe I used for school Halloween lesson prizes recently. After a quick look online I found this Pumpkin and Sage Spaghetti recipe that I adapted to use up a few other bits and pieces I had. I've never really though of using pumpkin in pasta before (though I was served it once a while back and enjoyed it), but it turned out really well, and it gives a surprising heartiness and warmth to the dish, making it perfect for autumn.

Ingredients Serves 1 hungry person

160g Japanese pumpkin (flesh only), chopped into small cubes
70g dried wholewheat spaghetti
20g polish sausage, finely diced
Half a medium red onion
1 clove garlic, minced (or garlic puree)
1 tsp butter
160g frozen chopped spinach
Juice of 1/4 lemon
5 sage leaves, roughly chopped
20g Parmesan , grated
Sugar (optional)
Salt
Black Pepper

Substitutions

This is really my own version so there are too many to mention. The sausage was a spicy, soft salami type sausage, but any spicy sausage would do. I only used a tiny amount diced very finely because a) that's all I had left, and b) I don't tend to like that kind of sausage normally. I find the flavour a little overpowering and just wanted a hint of it to add some depth to the dish. If you'd like to add more or keep the pieces chunkier then feel free.

This recipe was originally vegetarian, if you'd like to keep it that way then skip the sausage altogether. You could saute a dried chili or add a drop or two of hot sauce to the sauce if you want a bit of non-meat spiciness.

I had to cook the pasta first, then make the sauce, because I only have two burners. If you're lucky enough to have more then I am jealous, and you can make everything at the same time so the pasta doesn't have to sit.

Cheese is to taste.

Method

1) Put pumpkin into a saucepan with a fitted lid, season with a dash of salt and a dash of sugar. Drizzle with approx 3 tbsp and place, covered, over a medium heat. Stir it occasionally and add a little water if needed. You want the cooked pumpkin to be tender but still hold its shape, it will take about 10-15 minutes.

2) While the pumpkin is cooking, cook the pasta according to packet instructions until just ready, reserve some of the pasta water and then drain the pasta and set aside.

3) In a pan over med-high heat, saute the red onion, butter, sage, garlic, and sausage together until the the onion is soft. Add the lemon juice and allow it to splutter for a moment or two. Tip the pumpkin, 3-4 tbsp of the reserved pasta water, and half the Parmesan cheese, into the pan and give it a good stir. Add the pasta, and serve well seasoned with salt, pepper, and the rest of the cheese.

Chicken Curry

2009-10-26T11:09:00.006+09:00

Trying to combat the onset of winter weight is never easy, all those comforting, soul-food recipes just begging to be made as you swath yourself in warm clothes and heated rooms to chase away the chill from outside. This week I'm trying to focus on bringing lunch to work every day so that I stay away from the convenience store, so am either working on making healthy recipes (101 series, you're so good to me), or paring down the recipes I find to a healthier version. If nothing else I can lose a few pounds and enjoy putting them back on over Christmas!

The original version of this recipe can be found here, I'm sure it would also be delicious as written if you're lucky enough to not need to watch your figure.

Ingredients serves 2

1 boneless skinless chicken breast (approx 200-250g), diced
2 tbsp (30ml) canola oil
1.5 medium onions
1 garlic clove
0.5 tsp cayenne (red pepper)
0.5 tbsp coriander (or less to taste)
1 tsp garam masala
1 cup (245g) non-fat plain yogurt
0.5 tsp sea salt (or less to taste)

Substitutions

I used non-fat (0%) yogurt for this recipe, but it had a tendency to separate when cooked. It comes back to together again when simmering, and your whizzing this in the blender anyway so it's not a huge issue, but you may be able to help this using a yogurt with higher fat content.

Speaking of higher fast content, I really reduced the oil for this recipe. Originally you were supposed to use 2 tbsp oil for the onions/spices, and then another two for the chicken. I halved that but you don't have to.

Method

1) First prepare the sauce: Slice or chop the onions. Using a large heavy frying pan that has a lid, saute the onions in half the oil. When they are translucent and beginning to brown, add the garlic.

I realised at the last moment I only had 1 yellow onion to hand, so I used half a red one too.

2) When its moisture evaporates, add the cayenne, coriander, and masala seasoning. Add the yogurt. Lower heat and simmer 5 minutes, partly covered. Remove from heat.

3) Puree the onion-and-spice mixture in your food processor or food mill. Don't make it into baby food, but make sure there are no stringy pieces of onion left in it.

4) Over medium-high heat, heat the other half of canola oil until very hot, then dump in the cut-up chicken all at once. Stir continuously for 2 minutes, then saute for 3 more minutes, stirring occasionally.

5) Add the onion-and-spice pure to the cooking chicken. Add salt. Stir the mixture until it starts to bubble, then lower heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Let cool until ready to serve. The longer you wait, the better it will taste.

Nutritional Info:

Calories per serving: 320
Fat: 15.2 g
Carbs: 18.2 g
Protein: 29.4 g

Beef Pot Roast with Red Wine and Tomato Gravy

2009-10-22T18:34:00.015+09:00

With the weather still playing games with me I take any overcast day and grab on to it greedily, going through my backlog of winter recipes for things I can make. A few days before I made this I walked into my supermarket and was shocked to see them selling reasonably big cuts of meat. Well, big by Japanese standards, the 5-700g (1.1-1.5lb) beef roasts were the biggest (possibly the only?) proper roasting pieces I've seen grace my fresh meat counter shelves in the just over two years I've been here. I bought two, and vowed that the next time the weather dropped below 20C during the day I would make something with them. A few days later the skies were cloudy enough to need a cardigan to walk to school and I started searching 'beef' on foodgawker. Oh man, doing stuff like that is a good way to torture yourself.

After passing up some truly mouthwatering looking dishes, I came to this country style pot roast with red wine tomato gravy at ezrapoundcake.com.

I had found it.

For Japan residents who may be having trouble finding bigger cuts of meat, if you have a local Brazilian store they are usually good sources for big, cheaper pieces of meat. If that's not an option for where you're living then I have linked to The Meat Guy in my sidebar, it's easy to order what you need.

Ingredients

1 large boneless beef chuck roast (5 1/2-6 pounds), tied
Salt and pepper
4 teaspoons vegetable oil
3 medium onions, chopped
1 large celery rib, chopped
4 medium carrots, chopped
6 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup red wine
800g (28 ounce can) crushed tomatoes
500ml (2 cups) low-sodium chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
3 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Substitutions

This recipe was intended for a slow cooker, but mine was a little small for everything so I used a dutch oven on my stove, at the lowest heat my gas was capable of giving me. It worked out fine (I'd say the equivalent of a slow cooker on 'high' for the sake of this recipe's timing) but I wouldn't recommend leaving the house if you do this because of the dangers of the flames going out.

I had two smaller roasts that together added up to about 900g/just under 2lb, so I halved the ingredients. This left me with a lot of sauce but I had no problem with that.

I can't stand celery, so I didn't put it in. I also forgot the parsley at the end.

My crushed tomatoes were actually two cans of chopped/diced tomatoes forced through a sieve.

Because I was using smaller joints I was tempted not to tie them up. This would have been a mistake, the meat goes spoon tender at the end, and taking it out of the pan at the end would have destroyed it if I hadn't. Go here for how to tie meat.

As the recipe itself mentions, if you're using smaller pieces of meat don't forget to reduce cooking times. I ended up simmering mine for about 3 and a half hours all told.

Method

1) Assemble and prepare all ingredients

2) Liberally season roast with salt and pepper. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown roast on all sides, 8 to 10 minutes (you may need a shorter time for smaller pieces, you want to seal everything in and get a nice colour, not have it go black or hard). Transfer roast to slow cooker.

3) Reduce heat to medium. Add remaining 2 teaspoons oil to skillet, along with onions, celery, carrots and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer to slow cooker.

4) Increase heat to high. Add red wine to empty skillet, scraping up any browned bits with wooden spoon, and simmer for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and broth, and bring to a boil. Add pepper flakes, bay leaves and thyme. Transfer to slow cooker.

5) Set slow cooker to high, cover, and cook until tender, 6 to 7 hours. Or, cook on low for 9 to 10 hours. (Check the temperature with a meat thermometer about 2 hours before the roast is supposed to be done to prevent overcooking). As I mentioned I cooked mine for about 3 and half hours on the equivalent of high in my dutch oven. Any big/heavy saucepan would do I think, so long as it has a well fitting lid and is reasonably thick. You'll have to be really careful with how high the temperature is if you're using a thinner pan, else you'll end up with a nasty burnt layer on the bottom.

6) Transfer roast to carving board; loosely tent with foil to keep warm. Discard bay leaves. Allow liquid in pot to settle, about 5 minutes, then use wide spoon to skim fat off surface. Puree liquids and solids in batches in blender or food processor. (Or, use an immersion blender.) Stir in parsley, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

7) Remove strings from roast and cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Transfer meat to serving platter. Pour about 1 cup gravy over meat. Serve, passing more gravy separately.

NOTE ON REDUCING RECIPE: If you cut this recipe in half, be sure to reduce your slow-cooker time to about 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low.

This was everything I'd hoped it would be. I'm toying with the idea of doing a beef order from the meat guy myself so I can make it again.

Meaty Ragu

2009-10-14T12:36:00.009+09:00

Excuse the absence everyone, I've been in Kobe for the long weekend. Given that I didn't do any of my own cooking over the weekend, today I'm posting I a recipe I tried right at the beginning of this blog and for some reason (probably the blinding heat of summer) never posted.

This recipe was taken from Bitchin Camero, a recipe site that I absolutely adore. This dish is perfect for chilly afternoons as it needs simmering on the stove for a while, leaving a rich tomato-meat smell to hang on the air and spread warmth around your kitchen and into the other rooms. As soon as the last of summer releases its death grip from the back of the neck of this year, I will be making this again.

Ingredients

2 tbsp. olive oil
450g (1 lb) pieces of lamb (I used boneless shoulder chops)
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
2 carrots, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
190ml (3/4 cup) red wine
800g (28 oz can) whole, peeled tomatoes (preferably San Marzano tomatoes)
coarse salt
1/2 – 1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

Substitutions

I substituted beef for lamb as it is incredibly hard to find here, and even when you get it it is in very small Yakiniku sized pieces. I ended up using two steaks and and yakiniku beef pack my supermarket had on offer because that was cheapest for me, but whatever works for you. Pieces big enough to pull apart when the time comes are best.

I used two cans of whole peeled tomatoes because the large ones aren't available here.

Method

Excuse the quality of the pictures, they were taken right at the beginning of this blog.

1) Assemble ingredients, and chop onions, carrots, and garlic. You don't absolutely have to do this, but it takes time and I find it much easier to have them prepared.

2) Heat a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium. Once it’s hot add the olive oil. Season the lamb with salt and sear it in the olive oil, allowing for about 5 minutes per side. You want a nice, brown char on the meat.

3) Remove the lamb and add the onions and carrots. Saute for 3 – 5 minutes, or until the onions just begin to get translucent.

4)Add the meat back in and cover with remaining ingredients. Mix, and once the liquid comes to a boil, reduce it to low and let simmer for about an hour.

5) After the hour (or 2 – whatever works for you) passes, remove the lamb to a plate. Using 2 forks, pull the meat apart to a shred (like pulled pork). Once all of the lamb is shredded, add it back to the pot and simmer for at least another 30 minutes.

6) Ladle over pasta and sprinkle with freshly ground Parmesan (or your cheese of choice).

Again, sorry for the pic quality, but I assure you this is wonderful.

Apple Cake

2009-10-03T21:10:00.010+09:00

Autumn has finally hit Japan! It psyched me out a few times but it's finally here. After an unusually long Spring rainy season, Summer came very late this year, this in turn meant that a mere week ago I was still using a fan at night and cursing the skies every time I had to make the trek to school schlepping my laptop and books. However, at the beginning of this week the heavens opened and sent forth the rain, and it's only stopped for little breathers since.

I love the rain, maybe it's because it reminds me home, maybe it's because it signals an end to the horror of Japanese summer (I'm British! I'm just not designed to withstand the heat!). I love sitting in my apartment listening to it hit roof, I love watching lightening (though we haven't had any yet this season), and I love walking home under my umbrella instead of under the harsh beating of an unforgiving sun. I don't love the fact that my gaijin ('foreigner') proportions means I have no rain shoes, but you can't have everything in life.

This year particularly I've loved that the loss of extreme heat and humidity in my kitchen means that I can start spending more time in there. Walking home from school the other day I arrived home a little chilled and with wet feet and remembered this recipe I'd seen the previous weekend. A perfect autumn recipe, my whole house kept that sweet baked apple smell long after the cake came out. Even better, because there's so much apple in it, making the cake very moist, it can be baked in the convection oven with far less problems than the light and airy recipes I've attempted and failed with before.

This came from Kosher Camembert and actually required very little by way of modification.

Ingredients

For the apples:

4 apples (1 each of Gala, Fuji, Granny Smith, and Crispin)
lemon juice to prevent apples from browning as you cut
2 tbsp margarine (or butter if you are making dairy)
1-2 tbsp sugar (or to taste)

For the cake batter:

125g (1 cup) flour
190g (3/4 cup) sugar
2 eggs
125ml (1/2 cup) canola oil
5g (1 tsp) baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
2-3 T demerara (coarse grained) sugar (optional)

Substitutions

My apples were a little on the large side so I only used 3. I have no idea what type they were as my expertise stops at 'red', 'granny smith', or 'golden delicious'. My apples were red, and a quick gander at the packaging tell me they were from Tsugaru, the western region of Aomori Prefecture, but beyond that I couldn't tell you. They were quite sweet.

I used butter to cook the apples instead of margarine because I didn't have to worry about the recipe being kosher.

Method

1) Preheat your oven to 180C/350F. I did mine to 170C, then turned it down to 160 once the top had browned as I'm still experimenting with converting temperatures while baking when it comes to my convection oven. Grease your cake pan.

2) Peel and core the apples, then cut into slices. Sprinkle with lemon juice (you don’t need much – maybe a tablespoon or so) while the others are being sliced to prevent browning.

3) Heat margarine in pan over low heat and add apples and the 1-2 tbsp white sugar. Stir, ad allow to cook for about 10-15 minutes until apples soften. Some of the liquid will soak into the apples, but if too much of it starts to evaporate, then turn the heat down.

4) While the apples are on the stove top, mix together the remaining ingredients (except for the demerara sugar) — flour, 190g sugar, eggs, oil, baking powder, and vanilla - in a bowl.

(I added to flour to this after mixing these together, to make it easier to mix smoothly)

5) Add half the warm apples (juices and all) to the batter and mix.

6) Pour the mixture into your prepared pan, and arrange the remaining apple slices any way you like on top.

7) If using the sugar on top then sprinkle the cake pan with sugar, bake for 1 hour.

Ideally this should have been a little less brown on top, but I've so many instances where I've thought a cake is done and ended up with a raw bottom/centre because the convection oven hates full sized cakes, that I erred on the side of caution. There are enough apples in this that it stayed nice and moist inside, so the usual problem of overcooked cakes being dry wasn't an issue.

The cake can be a little difficult to move because the amount of fruit in it makes it prone to breaking apart, so wait a little for it cool before trying to take it out of the pan.

Scallops with Asparagus and a Bean Mash

2009-09-27T17:00:00.006+09:00

Mostly I'm a meat girl. I eat sushi and sashimi here of course, it's Japan after all, but when it comes to home cooking I'm much more comfortable cooking meat than I am fish or seafood. However, I'm trying to branch out a little and vary my diet, and practice is the only way to make me better at cooking these things, so I found this recipe and thought I'd give it a go. My scallops didn't turn out perfectly, I should have cooked them at a higher heat for a shorter time to get a nice crust on them, but it's all a learning curve.

This recipe originally came from here, and had a cauliflower puree instead of the beans. I wanted something a little more substantial though so I switched things up a little, any white bean would work for it, I used soybeans because they're the only canned beans I have and I didn't want to wait until tomorrow for my dried ones.

Ingredients serves 2

1 lb jumbo sea scallops (about 10)
1 small head cauliflower
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch asparagus*
2-4 tbs snipped fresh chives
1/2 c Greek yogurt
1/2 tbs butter
Olive oil spray (or you can brush/drizzle)
Salt and pepper to taste
Seasoning salt

*bunches here only ave 4-5 stalks, so you may one one per person

Substitutions

The big one was my bean mash: replace the cauliflower with a can of white beans/soybeans, then put the beans into a bowl with the cloves of garlic (crushed/grated). Mix the two until well combined and put in the microwave until heated through. Add to a food processor with the yogurt to mix, or mash together with a fork/masher if you don't have a mixer.

Instead of yogurt, I used sour cream and a little milk to get the consistency I wanted in the mash because I happened to have them in the fridge and didn't want to go out and buy anything.

I used a saute pan to cook my asparagus because my grill is awful.

My scallops were smaller instead of jumbos.

I didn't have any chives so I skipped them.

Method

If using cauliflower:
Bring a large stockpot of water to boil. Add chopped cauliflower and whole cloves garlic. Simmer until cauliflower is fork-tender. Drain and remove from heat, mash with a fork until cauliflower and garlic are completely pureed. Add chives and Greek yogurt, stir to incorporate.

If using beans: follow the instructions in the 'substitutions' section.

Meanwhile, heat a grill pan over medium heat. Spray or drizzle asparagus with olive oil, salt and pepper. Grill until just done and still crisp.

While the veg is cooking, in a saute pan heat butter until foam subsides. Season scallops on both sides with seasoning salt. Place scallops in pan and do not move until they can be moved freely (not sticking at all). Turn over and remove from heat. The heat of the pan will continue to cook until perfect.

To serve, mound cauliflower puree/beans in the center of the plate. Top with asparagus spears, then scallops. Garnish with chives and serve immediately.

Baked Chicken Stuffed with Pesto, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, and Cheese

2009-09-26T18:18:00.011+09:00

I've gained a bit of weight recently (heh, too much baking, those Cheesecake Brownies get me every time). Wanting to continue fitting into my clothes, finding foreigner-sized clothing can be difficult here, I've started up on the South Beach Diet again. I don't want to get too boring, but it means for the next couple of weeks I'm on low-carb, then I'll start adding in whole grains again. Don't worry though, feel free to serve any of the recipes I post with mashed potatoes, pasta, or whatever other carb-filled goodness might catch your fancy. Don't be scared dear reader; it's only for a couple of weeks.

With that out the way, let's move on to this delicious looking recipe I found on Kalyn's Kitchen. Usually I post the original recipe as written and then list my substitutions, but I ended up making a lot of changes so I've linked the original recipe above and will list the final one I used.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast
1-2 sun-dried tomatoes
2-3 tsp pesto
28g (1oz) soft cheese
28g (1oz) grated cheese

Method

1) Chop your sun dried tomatoes finely. The only sun-dried tomatoes I can fin are packed dry, but if yours are packed in oil then blot any major excess off.

2) Mix the chopped pieces into the pesto, leave while you prepare the chicken.

3) Place your chicken breast between two piece of saran wrap, smooth side up, and pound it until it's of even thickness (about 1/4 inch thick). If you don;t have a meat hammer to pound it with then don;t worry, you can use any heavy object (e.g a heavy bottomed pan, a heavy jar base etc). I ended up being a bit clumsy here because I'd forgotten that I'd thrown away the heavy jar I usually use for this kind of thing. This led to me experimenting with a few different things, not all of which were successful. I ended up with a tear in my chicken where I'd it a little too hard in one spot, try to avoid that if you can.

4) Remove the saran wrap, and flip your chicken to the other (not smooth) side. Take your pesto and smooth it evenly over the surface, then add a layer of soft and hard cheese. The original recipe called for goats cheese, which I couldn't find and don't really like, so I used a mix of soft cheese (I got 'Fromage Roux', but Camembert is readily available here and would work instead), and some of the grated cheese I had in the fridge.

If you decide to go with goats cheese, a good way to combine the ingredients is to whiz the pesto, cheese, and tomatoes in a mini food processor and just spread it all on. I don't have a mini chopper so I went for layering the ingredients.

5) Starting from the thin (pointed) end of the chicken, roll the breast up like a Swiss roll. Secure the roll with toothpicks to ensure it doesn't come undone while cooking.

As I said before I had some problems during the hammering section of this, so mine doesn't look as pretty as it could.

Put in the oven to cook, times will change depending on the final size and thickness of your chicken breast, but mine took about 35 minutes. This is optional, but you can also sprinkle a little cheese on top before putting it in the oven.

Beef Fajitas with Pico de Gallo Relish

2009-09-21T17:27:00.013+09:00

Mexican food is harder to come by in Japan for some reason. Italian foods (or an approximation of it) are widespread, as are Indian and other Asian cuisine, but for some reason Mexican just isn't as common.

In an attempt to satisfy the craving I dug this recipe out. In the book it calls for store bough tortilla wraps, but with the closest supply being an hour or so train ride away I made my own using this recipe. The beef has to marinate overnight, so keep that in mind when planning this meal.

Ingredients serves 4

500g (1lb) beef steak (calls for rump, but whatever you have)
8 tortill wraps
chopped coriander to garnish
1 avocado, stones, peeled, and diced
sour cream

Marinade
Juice of 1 orange and 1 lime,
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander,
a few drops Tabasco sauce
salt and black pepper

Pico de Gallo Relish
6 tomatoes, diced
10 radishes, coarsely chopped
5 spring onions, thinly sliced
1-2 green chilies, halved, seeded, and chopped
4 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
juice of 1/2 a lime

Substitutions

I used dried coriander instead of fresh. The ratio is 3:1, so 3 tbsp fresh coriander = 1 tbsp dried.

I forgot to grab chilies at the store (duh!) so I put a bit of chili powder in with the relish.

I sliced my beef before putting it in the marinade, and then cooked it in a hot pan rather than under the grill. If you saw my grill you'd understand.

Method

1) Make the marinade: In a large, non-metallic (metal will react with the acid in the juices) bowl, combine the orange and lime juice, garlic, coriander, and Tabasco, and season with pepper and salt.

2) Turn the steak in the marinade, cover, and leave to marinate overnight in the refrigerator.

3) Make the pico de gallo relish: on a bowl combine the tomatoes, radishes, spring onions, chilies, coriander, lime juice, ad salt to taste. Cover and chill until ready to serve.

4) Remove the steak from the marinade and pat dry. Put the steak under a hot grill, 7-10cm (3-4in) from the heat, and grill for 3 min on each side for rare steak, 4 minutes for medium, or 5-6 minutes for well done. Cover with foil and leave to stand for 5 minutes.

5) Meanwhile, warm your tortillas (sprinkle each tortilla with a little water, and stack them in a pile. Wrap them in foil and warm them in a preheated oven at 140C (275F) for 10 minutes). Or if making them using the recipe linked above, get a dry pan and cook them (details in the link).

6)Slice the steak, arrange on serving plates, and sprinkle with coriander. Serve with tortillas, relish, diced avocado, and soured cream

Lemon Vinaigrette Roasted Chicken with Gorgonzola Mashed Potato

2009-09-15T22:05:00.012+09:00

The weather was cool enough when I woke up this morning that I could wear sleeves that go past my elbows, meaning I am officially justified in roasting, simmering, slow-cooking, stewing, and otherwise spending hours in the kitchen: hurrah!

Ingredients (Serves 6)

For the chicken:
2 unwaxed lemons
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, halved
6 boneless chicken breasts with skin
A handful of fresh thyme sprigs
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp sherry or cider vinegar
4 tbsp honey
85ml (2/3 cup) olive oil
salt and pepper

For the mash:
1.3kg (3lbs) baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 8 pieces
3 fresh rosemary sprigs (optional)
250ml (1 cup) milk, warmed
5 tbsp unsalted butter
115g (4oz) Gorgonzola cheese, cubed
sea salt

Substitutions

I found apple vinegar, and figured cider is made from apples so went with it.

I used dried herbs instead of fresh, just eyeball how much you'd like.

Next time I might use a tiny bit less milk for the potatoes, or rather I'd add the milk bit by bit instead of dumping it all in at once.

I used a little less cheese then the recipe stated because I find it a little strong, but just a hint of the flavour was really good.

Method

1) Preheat oven to 220C/425F

2) Grate the zest and squeeze the juice from 1 lemon and set aside. Thinly slice the remaining lemon. Scatter the lemon slices, onions, and garlic over the base of a roasting pan just large enough to hold the chicken breast comfortably in a single layer.

3) Place the chicken breasts on top of the lemon slices. Season well with salt and pepper and sprinkle with thyme.

4) Whisk together the reserved grated lemon zest and juice, vinegars, honey, and olive oil in a bowl.

5) Pour the vinaigrette over the chicken and cook in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.

6) Meanwhile, make the Gorgonzola mash. Rinse the potatoes and cook them in a large pan of boiling salted water with the rosemary sprigs (if using) for 12-15 minutes, or until they start to break up. Drain and mash, the put the potatoes back in the pan. Beat in the warm milk and butter and season well. Stir through until smooth, and gently fold in the Gorgonzola just before you serve so the cheese is just beginning to melt.

7) Remove the chicken from the oven and then from the tin, set it aside in a warm place. Place the pan over a medium heat and bubble the juices until syrupy.

OK, here is where I made some changes.

At this point you're supposed to pour the reduced sauce oven the plated potatoes and chicken and serve, but after reducing it down there was a lot of oil and it didn't look that good. The oil separated to the top though, so pour the oil away and then add some water to the pan. Take the pan back to the stove and use a spoon to get all the blackened goodness from the base of the pan, then add a stock cube, and mix it in. Let the sauce reduce down again to the consistency you prefer. This ended up so much better than the book version.

Tarte au Citron

2009-09-13T22:23:00.011+09:00

I put together this lemon tart I came across in Mary Berry's Kitchen Favourites for a friend that was coming for lunch. Just a quick word of warning though, this recipe makes tonnes of filling. I had a smaller tart base so I expected to have leftovers, but I could have halved - possibly even quartered! - the filling recipe and been fine. I ended up freezing what was left into a really nice ice-cream. I think that even if I had made a 28cm base the way the recipe said I still would have extra.

Ingredients (serves 10-12)

For the pastry:
250g (8oz) plain flour
125g (4oz) chilled butter, cut into cubes
60g (2oz) caster sugar
1 egg
2 tbsp water
28cm (11in) 4cm (1½in) deep loose-bottomed fluted flan tin
baking beans

For the filling:
9 eggs
300ml (½pint) double cream
grated zest and juice of 5 large lemons
375g (12oz) caster sugar
icing sugar for dusting
lemon twists to decorate

Substitutions

The lemons I had were a little small so I used 6 instead of 5.

I used granulated sugar instead of caster sugar

Method

1) Make the pastry: put the flour into a large bowl. Add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Alternatively you can put it food processor and pulse until it reaches the right consistency.

2) Stir in the caster sugar, then bind together with the egg and water to make a soft, pliable dough. I didn't need all the water, so use your own judgment. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.

3) Put the oven on to preheat at 200C/400F.

4) Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and use to line the flan tin. Cover in foil and weight with baking beans (dry beans or dry rice work just as well), then bake blind for ten minutes. Leave some extra pastry around the edges because the shell will shrink a little as it cooks, you can trim it later.

5) Remove the baking beans and foil, and bake the pastry shell for 5 minutes or until the base has dried out. Remove from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 180C/350F.

6) Beat the eggs in a bowl and add the cream, lemon zest and juice, and caster sugar. Stir until smooth, and pour into the pastry shell.

7) Bake for 35-40 minutes until the lemon filling has set. Cover the tart loosely with foil if it gets too brown on the edges.

8) Leave the tart to cool a little, then dust with icing sugar. Decorate with lemon twists, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Not Quite Falafel with Homemade Pita

2009-09-07T17:43:00.011+09:00

I had an almost disaster when I realised (after I'd had them soaking over night and was excited about trying the recipe) that I'd actually bought dried soybeans instead of the dried chickpeas I thought I'd purchased. JAPANESE LANGUAGE FAIL. I nipped back to the shop to see if I could find the right kind of beans, but I couldn't. Not wanting to waste food I decided I'd just go ahead with the soy, I mean for this purpose beans are beans right? I certainly hoped so. The recipe actually calls for canned beans but I couldn't get them so I had to go the slow way. Revel in the convenience of your canned beans Westerners!

Ingredients serves 4

400g/15oz can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), rinsed and drained
1 small red onion, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
Handful of flat leaf or curly parsley
1 tsp each ground cumin and coriander
1/2 tsp harissa paste or chili powder
2 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp sunflower oil
toasted pita, salsa, salad to serve (optional)

Substitutes

The aforementioned language issue means my version was made from soybeans instead of chickpeas. Given that it was a success I'm going to say choose whatever beans make you happy.

When it said coriander I wasn't sure if it meant ground coriander or coriander leaf, so I added both.

I used canola oil instead of sunflower.

If you don't have a food processor then cut you ingredients a little finer, then mash and mix together until it's well combined and a consistency you like.

Method

1) Pat chickpeas dry with kitchen paper. Tip into food processor along with the onion, garlic, parsley, spices, flour, and a little salt. Blend until fairly smooth.

This was the consistency mine ended up, it may change depending on what kind of beans you use, but once cooked the burger patties were fried the bean texture was quite soft under the crust, so I'd err more towards coarse than smooth if you're not sure. As long as it keeps shape you're fine.

2)Shape into 4 patties with your hands. I had small pita bread so I made smaller patties. I made 4 and only used half the mixture, so size is up to you. If you're having trouble keeping your patties together you can either try adding a little more flour, or (if you have time) chilling the mixture to help it bond.

3) Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan, add the burgers, the quickly fry for 3 minutes on each side until lightly golden brown (I overdid mine a little so they're darker)

Serve in a toasted pita with salsa and a green salad, or any other way you'd like.

With the exception of the oil you use to fry them, these are really healthy. If you'd like to cut down on the fat, you could try baking them in the oven (flip over half way through) until both sides are nicely browned.

Pasta with Prosciutto and Peas

2009-09-05T16:17:00.006+09:00

This recipe from my Great Food Fast book is simple, tasty, and quick. I didn't actually take any pictures of the process because I didn't think I would post it here, and with there not being many steps I didn't bother grabbing my camera until I saw how pretty it looked in the bowl. Once I'd tried it though, I changed my mind.

Ingredients serves 4

340g/12oz fettuccine
1 tbsp butter
1 large shallot, finely chopped
65ml/¼ cup heavy cream
1 package (280g/10oz) frozen peas
8 slices prosciutto (about 115g/4oz), halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise
1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
50g/½ cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated, plus more for serving (optional)

Substitutions

As I've mentioned before, my pasta choices are limited, so I used spaghetti for this instead of fettuccine. I think any 'strand' pasta would work.

I used a mix of finely chopped onion and garlic instead of a shallot.

I can't buy frozen peas at my store, so I settled for canned. If I were in the UK I wouldn't do this because tinned peas are really soft and wouldn't hold up to mixing very well. The tinned peas in Japan seem to be a little more robust so it worked, but I would recommend using frozen if at all possible.

I couldn't get fresh Parmesan so I bought ready grated. I also threw in a big pinch of shredded mixed cheese to the sauce, but that is personal preference.

If you wanted to switch the Prosciutto with bacon or a smokey ham I think it would work really well.

Method

1) Cook the pasta according to packet instructions, until al dente. Reserve 1 cup (250ml) of the pasta water, drain the pasta, and return the pasta to the saucepan/

2) Meanwhile, make the sauce: In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-low heat; add the shallot and cook until softened (about 5 mins). Add the cream, peas, and prosciutto; bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Simmer until the peas are heated through (3-4 minutes).

3) Stir in the lemon zest and juice. Pour the sauce over the pasta; add the Parmesan, and season generously with salt and pepper. Add enough of the reserved pasta water to thin the sauce as desired. Serve immediately; top with additional Parmesan if desired.

Note: I was really tempted to leave out the lemon because I would convinced everything would curdle and it would be gross: not so! The lemon gives a subtle lift to the dish, making it lighter and the flavours brighter.

Beef with Mushrooms and Red Onion

2009-09-04T17:36:00.000+09:00

I actually made this a little while back, but never got around to posting it up. The beef in this dish gets fork-tender, and (though I ate it in mid-summer) is the perfect dish to leave simmer on the stove as the cooler weather comes in.

Ingredients serves 6-8

1.5kg/3lb 5oz beef braising steak, thickly sliced
3 red onions, thinly sliced
600ml/1 pint boiling water
15g/½oz dried porcini mushrooms
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp plain flour
425ml/¾ pint port or red wine
250g/9oz chestnut mushrooms, whole, or halved if large
handful chopped parsley, to serve

Substitutions

This recipe tells you to preheat the oven, but I actually did all this in a heavy bottomed pan on the stove. You can put it in the oven like a casserole if you want, but I didn't need to. It was perfectly happy with a slow simmer on my cooker top.

This simmers long enough that you don't have to worry too much exactly what type of beef you buy, but a bit of marbling for flavour tends to be good.

I bought some mushrooms, but have o idea what type they were because I couldn't read the kanji. They were quite large so I quartered them.

I skipped the parsley, personal choice. A scattering of green brightens up the dish to the eye, but it's up to you.

Method

1) Preheat oven to 160C/320F for fan assisted, 140C/285F/Gas mark 3 for not. Pat beef dry with kitchen paper and season both sides. Pour the boiling water over the dried mushrooms. Soak for 30 minutes, then strain, keeping the juices for later.

2) Heat half the oil in the casserole dish/pan, then add the meat in batches and fry on both sides, until browned.

3) Remove meat from the pan, pour in the remaining oil, fry the onions for 10 minutes until softened.

4) Return the meat to the pan, spinkle with flour and cook for 1 minute

5) Add the port/wine, mushroom liquid and soaked mushrooms. Bring to the boil, season, then cover and cook for 1½-2 hours until tender. Check after 1 hour, if the sauce looks like it's getting too thick, add a splash of boiling water.

If you're doing this on the stove like I did, then bring to the boil, season, cover, turn heat down to medium (so it's not quite so vigorous) the check every half hour to give it a stir to make sure the onions don;t stick to the bottom because of the direct heat.

6) After meat is tender, taste ad season, then add the chestnut mushrooms and cook for a further 10 minutes. Serve sprinkled with parsley (or not). I served mine with some broccoli and sliced carrots that I tossed in olive oil, seasoned, and roasted in the oven for about 20-25 minutes

Leek and Potato Soup

2009-08-29T19:33:00.006+09:00

I spent a ridiculous 2 and a half hours in a phone shop today trying to sign up for a new phone contract. It finally did get done though, and I am now in possession of a shiny new iPhone. In most Japanese phone companies, they'll give you a little present after you sign up as a thank you; it's usually more home related than phone related, the first time I got to roll a giant felt dice (the use of which was almost a prize unto itself!) and whatever number I rolled was the number of instant ramen cups I got to take home. This year they gave me a bag of fireworks (seriously! Absolutely nothing could go wrong in this scenario!) and a multi-pack of peach scented toilet paper. The presentation of these items was almost worth the time. Almost.

When I got home I just wanted something that didn't require a lot of effort and/or involvement from me, which made this soup (found in the same book as my last post, I'm working through it a bit) a good way to go. For a soup it really didn't take that long either.

Ingredients

6 medium leeks (about 1kg/2.25lbs), whites only halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise, cleaned
850ml (29oz) low-sodium chicken broth
1 baking potato (225g/8oz), peeled and diced
190ml/0.75 cup heavy (double) cream
0.5 cup snipped fresh chives

Substitutions

My chicken broth was replaced with the ever present chicken consomme/stock cube.

On closer inspection I found double cream in my supermarket, but it costs three times the price of single or whipping cream, so I refused to buy. The difference between the types of cream is the fat content, heavy/double having the most at about 40%, whipping cream has about 30% and single going down to about 18% (-ish, for all of those), given that this is a soup I don't have to worry about beating it, so I went for the slightly lower whipping cream. For how we're using it here I think even single cream would be OK.

I didn't have chives, but they're just a garnish. I tapped a little dried thyme on instead at it was surprisingly delicious.

Method

1) In a large saucepan, combine leeks, broth, potato, 2 cups of water, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until the vegetables are very tender (20-25 minutes).

2) Working in batches, puree the soup in a blender, transferring it to a clean bowl as you work. (To prevent splattering fill the blender only halfway, and allow the heat to escape: Remove the cap from the hole in the lid, and cover hole firmly with a dishtowel. I was using my regular smoothie blender, so I filled it half way and kept the lid on).

3) Stir the cream into the pureed soup, and season with salt. Garnish with the chives (or whatever herb you prefer) and serve immediately.

If desired, you can chill the soup by covering it loosely with plastic wrap and chilling until cold (at least two hours, up to two days). If necessary you can thin the chilled soup with water, season with salt. This would be really refreshing in the middle of Japanese summer!

I originally had a cup of soup as you see in the heading picture, but it was so good I quickly realised that a bigger bowl would be needed!

Beef and Orange Stir Fry

2009-08-28T20:40:00.006+09:00

Apologies for the lack of updates, I've been full of cold this week and it made me lazy, so I mostly stayed out of the kitchen. I'm feeling much better today though so we can press on with the quick dinner I made myself tonight.

This recipe comes from the Martha Stewart Living book 'Great Food Fast'. I spent some time today going through marking recipes I wanted to try and this was among them.

Ingredients

3 oranges
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp soy sauce
680g (1 1/2 lbs) trimmed, boneless sirloin or rib-eye steak, cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 tbsp cornstarch
1-2tbsp canola oil
6 scallions (spring onions), green part only, cut into 1 inch lengths.

Rice for serving

Substitutions

For the meat I bought a ready sliced pack of Japanese beef, the slivers are thin, like bacon or parma ham. I would have preferred to cut up a steak and have some thicker pieces, able to stand up to stir-frying a little better and less damaging to the orange so the pieces would stay more whole, but that would be really expensive here, and the taste is fine.

Method

1) Into a small bowl, finely grate the zest and squeeze the juice from 1 orange. Add garlic and soy sauce.

2) With a sharp paring knife, peel the remaining 2 oranges. Slice the oranges crosswise 1/2 inch thick, then halve the slices; push out and discard any seeds. Set aside.

3) In a medium bowl, toss the meat with the cornstarch until coated. Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large non-stick pan/skillet over high heat. Work in batches (adding more oil if needed), brown the beef on all sides, 3-5 minutes; transfer to a plate.

If your using the same kind of beef I was it obviously won't take that long, so keep an eye on it until you're happy with how it's done.

4)Pour the juice mixture into the pan and boil until syrupy (about 1 minute). Return the beef to the pan; add orange pieces and spring onions. Toss until coated and heated through. Serve hot with rice.

This is a quick and easy weekday meal, perfect after you get home from work and don't want to spend too much time cooking. Especially if your kitchen is as hot as mine was today!

Cheesecake Brownies

2009-08-24T16:57:00.012+09:00

This is actually my first time to both eat and make these. How has it taken me so long? The pairing of chocolate and cheesecake is obviously one of life's better inventions, so shame on me.

This is a David Lebovitz recipe that I found on his site. Apparently France has the same issue as Japan in that cream cheese is quite expensive, so this is a good way to get your cheesecake hit without breaking the bank to fund the cooking.

Ingredients

For Chocolate Mixture:
6 tbsp (85g) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 oz (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup (130g) sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup (70g) flour
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup (80g) chocolate chips

For Cheesecake Mixture:
8 oz (200g) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk
5 tbsp (75g) sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Substitutions

Instead of buying chocolate chips I bought a thin bars of milk chocolate (Lotte Ghana Milk if you want to know, the chocolate I used for melting was Ghana Black.). I froze it to help the chunks keep their shape in the batter, then broke it up by bashing the foil wrapped chocolate with the base of a knife. As long as you get the pieces reasonably small I prefer the slight irregularity in size to that of ready bought chocolate chips. You tend to be able to use better quality chocolate too.

When it came to the 1/8th tsp measurements, rather than fuss around with it I used my own judgment to add a pinch of salt and a couple of shakes of the vanilla essence bottle.

Method

1) Line the baking pan with foil, making sure you go all the way up all the edges (use two sheets if you have to). Oil spray or lightly grease the foil.

2)Preheat oven to 350F/180C

3) Put the brownie bitter chocolate in a saucepan with the cut up pieces of butter

4) Melt them down over a low heat (if, like me, you're not using the double boiler method, then be careful not to burn the mixture! Keep it low and have patience, it doesn't take long).

5) Take the chocolate /butter mix off the heat and beat in the 130g sugar to the saucepan, mixing well, followed by the eggs. Once I added the eggs the batter when really glossy and smooth, like chocolate pudding (which, I guess is essentially what it was at this point). Make sure your mix isn't too hot when you do this, you don't want to cook the eggs.

6) Add the flour, cocoa powder, salt, vanilla, and chocolate chips/frozen chocolate pieces to the pan and mix. Once incorporated, spread the batter into the base of your baking pan.

7) In a separate bowl, beat together all the cheesecake ingredients until smooth, then add the cheesecake mix in eight or so dollops to top of the chocolate batter.

8) Take a dull knife, pallet knife, spatula, or skewer and draw some squiggles through the batter to give it a marbled effect. At this point my batter looked more liquid than the original recipe pictures (possibly because of my hot kitchen) so how fully you're able to mix the layers may vary.

Bake for about 35 minutes, until the centre is just set. Let it cool completely before removing it from the pan and foil and cutting it up. I tried to cut the time for this part but it turns out it falls apart really easily when still hot (I guess because the cheesecake parks remain quite soft) so it really is better to resist the smells and wait.

Not that I did

I had plans to share these out at school, but they're so good I don't know if they're going to last that long. Apparently these can be stores in an airtight container for a couple of days but I feel no pressing need to test this out. They also freeze well and taste good straight from the freezer!

Substitute Chef takes no responsibility for increased jean sizes. Even her own.

Apple Pork Chops

2009-08-22T12:54:00.004+09:00

I got home last night and suddenly realised I had an appointment I couldn't miss, so dinner would have to be fast and easily attained. While this recipe started off as an intention to make fruity meatballs, in the end I had so many subs that it ended up being more 'inspired by' than 'from' my book. The following recipe is my version.

Apologies for lack of pictures, as I said I was in a rush, so when some pics didn't come out well I didn't get a chance to retake them.

Ingredients serves, well, me, but it depends how hungry you are.

Two boneless pork chops
1 apple, cored and sliced
Approx 200ml vegetable stock
1/2 red onion, chopped fairly small
Tsp oil
Tsp flour
Tbsp Vietnamese caramel sauce (optional)
Thyme
Rosemary

Substitutions

I used the caramel sauce I made for the Vietnamese Ribs I made a week or so ago if you want you can replace it with honey or omit it all together.

I had half a red onion left in my fridge so I used it, I think you could sub regular onions if you wanted.

Method

1) Heat the oil in a saucepan over a medium-high heat, then add the pork chops, chopped onion, and herbs to the pan. Rosemary has a way of overwhelming if you're not careful, so don;t be too heavy-handed with it. Brown for about two minutes on each side to get a nice colour and allow the onions to soften and caramelize a little.

2) Add the flour and a stir for a few seconds until it disappears. This will help the sauce to thicken

3) Add the sliced apples, caramel/honey (if using) and stock to the pan, bring tot he boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes until the apples and pork are cooked, and the sauce has thickened (if your apples/pork chops are on the thicker side you may need to add a little more stock so your sauce doesn't dry up)

I had to have this over rice because that's what I had on hand, but it would be perfect served over mashed potatoes.

Roasted Vegetable Pasta with Pesto Chicken Kebabs

2009-08-20T14:39:00.014+09:00

Flicking through a little cookbook I bought recently, and came across this recipe. In the mood for something colourful and reasonably healthy yesterday, this seemed to fit the bill. Today I tossed the left over roasted vegetables into some couscous with a splash of lemon juice for a quick 5 minute lunch.

Ingredients Serves 4

350g (12oz) butternut squash, halved, seeded, cubed
2 courgettes (zucchini), cubed
1 onion, chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and cut into small pieces
4 thyme sprigs, leaves removed
2 tbsp oil,
4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized pieces,
juice of 1 lemon
4 tbsp pesto
16 cherry tomatoes,
400g/14oz dried penne pasta

Substitutions

Instead of butternut squash I used kobocha, a Japanese orange pumpkin with dark green skin that can be found, cheaply, everywhere here.

Fresh thyme is great, but I used dried because it was much easier to find.

My supermarket only sells spaghetti or macaroni (oh, actually, it sells tri-colour fusilli too, but with so many strong colours in the vegetables I didn't want to add more) so I went for the largest macaroni I could find (gratin macaroni for anyone Japan based looking). It worked fine, but penne would have made the dish looked a little more balanced I think, as it's a little bigger and would have stood up to the larger chunks of veg easier. This is purely an atheistic problem though, the taste is fine, you can chop smaller to balance or I imagine penne is fairly easy for most other people to get.

Method

(notice I actually managed to get a courgette instead of accidentally buying a cucumber this time: progress! I asked one of the shop ladies to be sure, I should have known it would be known by the American word. The assistant noticed that I was checking my recipe book and apologised that they only had one left, but as I reducing the recipe a little it didn't matter)

1) Preheat oven to 200C(fan)/180C (390/355F) or gas mark 6. Put all vegetables in a large roasting tin (I lined it with foil for easier removal), scatter with thyme and season. Drizzle with 2 tbsp of oil and roast for 40 mins, turning halfway through.

Because my pan was a bit full, when it came time to turn I took and spoon and mixed the veg a bit, ensuring everything got a bit of time at the top (careful not to break up the veg when you do this, the pumpkin especially will be getting softer).

2) Meanwhile, leave 8 wooden skewers to soak in water. Put the chicken into a shallow dish and mix with lemon juice and pesto.

3) Thread the chicken pieces and whole cherry tomatoes on to the skewers, then put them on a baking sheet. Drizzle with the rest of the oil and roast them for 20 minutes.

Because I can only have one thing at a time in my microwave oven, I left the chicken sitting in the pesto/lemon mix for a few minutes until the vegetables had finished roasted, then swapped them out for the chicken skewers. The pasta will be hot so it doesn't matter if the veg cools a bit. If you decide you want it all together you could cook the skewers in a pan or on the grill.

4) Cook pasta according to instructions, drain, then toss with the vegetables. Serve with the kebabs on the side. Leftover veg can be a delicious part of lunch the next day (re: my couscous) but be aware that it does contain onion so be sure to reheat properly.

Coconut Lime Chicken

2009-08-18T12:38:00.011+09:00

I've just realised that while this picture has been in my Flickr account for a while, I hadn't actually finished the post on it. My bad!

This recipe comes from Chaos in the Kitchen. I served it with brown rice and a serving of the best broccoli of your life from the Amateur Gourmet. I halved this recipe when I used it.

Ingredients (serves 4)

2lbs (900g) boneless, skinless chicken breast
3 tbsp (45ml) oil, I used canola
zest of one lime
1 tsp ground cumin
1.5 tsp ground coriander
2 tbsp (30ml) soy sauce
1.5 tsp salt
2 tbsp (30g) sugar
2 tbsp curry powder
0.5 cup (125ml) coconut milk
a pinch of cayenne pepper
1 minced small hot chili (optional)
0.25 up cilantro to garnish
fresh lime wedges to garnish

Substitutes

Not many surprisingly. I can't get fresh cilantro but I had dried coriander leaf? Unsure if it would be an acceptable replacement, and not thinking the dried stuff would particularly add tot he look the way a touch a fresh green can, I chose to ignore it. I chose not to add the optional chili though I could have, and everything else was available here.

I didn't have a meat tenderizer, but any smooth, heavy object can work.

Method

1) Remove skin from the chicken breast. If you buy yours skinless obviously skip this part, but I don't. You need to butterfly the chicken breast, so starting at the thick end, cut down the centre (not all the way) and open it out like a book. You can see from the picture that I cut a little too far down with mine.

2)Place each breast between two sheets of parchment paper (or between plastic etc) and using either a meat mallet or another smooth heavy surface (like the bottom of a small pan etc), carefully pound the meat until it's one even thickness. For me the only heavy smooth item I had that fit the bill was a big ass jar of marmalade one of my grandmother-type adult students had given me a while back.

It worked perfectly.

3) In a large enough bowl to hold the chicken, mix all the remaining ingredients except the lime wedges and the cilantro you have listed for garnish.

4)Marinate the chicken in the mixture for at least two hours. You can use the time to get any side dishes ready.

5) After time is up, remove chicken and reserve excess marinade into a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and keep boiling for two minutes. The sauce has had raw chicken in it so this step is important, but I did find that my mixture went very thick, so you may need to add a little water and keep stirring. After boiling for 2 minutes turn down the heat and stir occasionally to ensure it doesn't burn.

6) In a heavy skillet or grill pan, heat a splash of oil over high heat. You will have to cook the chicken in batches to prevent over crowding the pan, this wasn't an issue for me because I had reduced the recipe, but if you're making the full thing or more then keep your cooked chicken pieces in a warm oven or under foil while you cook the rest. Place the breasts in the hot pan and cook without turning for a couple minutes, then flip the breasts over and cook until the other side is golden, it shouldn't take long depending on the thickness of your chicken.

7) Sprinkle with fresh lime juice and cilantro. Serve with sauce on the side.

Chocolate Cheesecake

2009-08-15T00:41:00.010+09:00

Okay, one last dessert and then I'll move on to something else for a while. I went to Nagoya today and got a little cookbook, so we'll see what I try from that.

This cake's recipe was originally found at A Bowl of Mush, and awesome food blogger I've just started reading, but all pictures here are of my attempt. The cheesecake is very rich and extremely delicious, though I was a little disappointed about how my base turned out.

Ingredients

Base:

375g (1 1/2 cups) chocolate chip cookies (or chocolate digestive biscuits if you have them)
55g (1/4 cup) butter
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder

For the topping:

550g (3 1/4) cups dark chocolate (best quality possible), broken into small pieces
250g (1 cup) finely ground white sugar
250ml (1 cup) heavy cream
450g (16oz) soft cream cheese

My conversions into metric may be slightly off compared to the imperial, cups of different things confuse me and I have to search the Internet for (sometimes disagreeing) answers, but these are what I used.

Substitutions

I didn't have any caster (fine grain) sugar, so I used granulated. This made my warm topping really grainy which worried me a lot, but ones I put it in to chill the mixture smoothed out.

I could only find single cream. I don't know how thick the topping would have been if I'd used double, but it was fairly substantial even with single so I'd say it's fine.

I went to the foreign food store hoping to find digestive biscuits but no luck, I swapped it in for cookies but they were chocolate chip rather than chocolate covered and that ended up being too dry and casing my base to disintegrate when I cut it. It needs more butter but I didn't want it to end up tasting greasy? I recommend either using digestives or graham crackers, or upping the butter.

Method

Either put the cookies in a Ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin, or grind them up in a food processor. When they're about crumb size add add the butter, brown sugar and cocoa powder. I melted the butter before adding it.

Press the mixture into a 9in/23cm tin and refrigerate.

Make a double boiler set up on your stove top my partly (1/3) filling a saucepan with water and bringing it to a simmer, then placing a heatproof bowl on top, this is the easiest way to ensure you don't burn your chocolate.

Put your chocolate pieces in the bowl, stirring occasionally until it's melted.

When the chocolate has melted add the sugar and stir well, then add the heavy cream. Once everything has melted down take it off the heat.

Add the cream cheese to the bowl of chocolate and whisk it well with an electric mixer (you can use a hand mixer and some elbow grease if you prefer). After I had used the electric whisk my topping took on an almost jello pudding type texture that really concerned me, and it was still a little grainy. Everything was fine after it had chilled for a while so it's nothing to worry about. It may be normal for this recipe, or it may be an ingredient in the Japanese brands of cheese/cream giving it that effect, so I don't know if yours will do that or not.

Pour this mixture on top of the base in the cake pan and smooth over the top. Refrigerate the cheesecake for at least 3 hours until set.

As I said, this is really rich. Utterly delicious, but very rich. Some fresh raspberries (or something similar) for a little contrasting tartness would work well I think.

Carrot cake

2009-08-12T20:54:00.006+09:00

My muffin pans arrived from amazon.co.jp this morning, along with my new copy of Great Food Fast. I've been craving carrot cake recently, but have been unable to get my mum to send her own awesome recipe, so the book's version seemed like a good alternative.

Ingredients (makes 12 full sized muffins)

125g (1 1/4 cup) shredded coconut
250g (1 cup) sugar
85ml (1/3 cup) vegetable oil, plus more for pan if needed
2 tbsp fresh orange juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
160g 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp flour
165g (1 1/2 cups) shredded carrot
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Substitutions

The majority of the shredded coconut is toasted as a topping, I don't hate it, but I have my limits, so I discarded it and just eyeballed approximately how much I wanted in the batter.

I don't like walnuts so I left them out

Along with the allspice I added a generous shake of cinnamon and nutmeg, completely optional but I prefer it.

I used canola oil.

I have a full size muffin pan and a mini (the results of which are pictured above), so I made a mix of both. I haven't iced the larger ones yet, but I'll get to that tomorrow and possibly update pictures then.

Method

1) Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Spread 100g (1 cup) of the shredded coconut out on a baking sheet, and toast in the oven until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer the coconut into a small bowl and set aside to cool.

2) In a bowl combine sugar, oil, orange juice, vanilla, and eggs.

3) Stir in baking powder, baking soda, allspice, and salt. Add flour; mix. Stir in the shredded carrots, the walnuts, and the remaining 25g (1/4 cup) shredded coconut.

4)Oil a standard muffin tine or line with paper muffin cases; distribute the batter evenly.

5) Bake until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool before frosting with cream cheese icing. Garnish with reserved toasted coconut.

Sliced Vegetable Bake

2009-08-11T13:02:00.016+09:00

I made this last night in a bid to convince myself I hadn't lost my cooking mojo. And after a day of eating nothing but failed cake (what? I gotsta hide the evidence!) I needed some form of vegetables to ensure I stayed one step ahead of scurvy.

This recipe was going to be SK's Ratatouille’s Ratatouille, but owing to the fact that what I hoped was a courgette (zucchini) turned out to be a huge and oddly shaped cucumber, and there was no yellow squash to be had, mine turned out less bright and summery than the original. I'd like to think equally delicious, but more something you'd have as a side with meat, or atop of pasta (especially once I put cheese on top). I had to make do with the vegetables I had in the fridge, so I used a mix of white fleshed sweet potato, aubergine (eggplant), and red bell pepper. I used between a half and a quarter of each vegetable because I was making an individual serving, so I'd guess to use one of each it would serve 3-4 people.

Ingredients
Tomato sauce
1 clove garlic, sliced really thin
Onion, finely chopped
olive oil, some for the tomato sauce and some for the top
Aubergine (eggplant), sliced very thinly
Courgette (zucchini), sliced very thinly
Sweet potato, sliced thinly
Salt and Pepper
Oregano (or herb of choice)
Cheese (optional)

Substitutions
My supermarket stopped selling tomato sauce, so I had chopped tomatoes

I thought I had the thyme the original recipe calls for but it turned out I didn't, so I used oregano instead.

As mentioned, my courgette turned out to be a cucumber, so I used a sweet potato I had.

Method to the madness

1) Preheat oven to 375F/190C (convection oven: 355/180C). Run your can of chopped tomatoes through a sieve until you have a nice smooth sauce

Pour the sauce into the base of your cooking dish. I covered the whole base with a thin layer which made the end result a little more wet (good for pasta etc), where as the original used less.

2) Scatter your garlic and onions into the tomato (hence the need for the pieces to not be too big or thick), and stir in half your olive oil (a tablespoon or a teaspoon depending on how big the dish is). Salt and pepper generously.

3) Make sure your vegetables are thinly sliced. I have a slicer to do that, but you can do it with a sharp knife and a bit of patience. I actually ended up taking a knife to my bell pepper because it was too big for the slicer surface (there were no taller longer ones in the produce section that would have fit it).

4) I really liked the look of the vegetable layering in the SK recipe, so I used it. Place one of each vegetable slice on top of each other with just the edge of the veg showing. Repeat this until you've gone all the way around your dish and filled in the centre.

5) Drizzle the rest of your olive oil over the top, add salt and pepper, and sprinkle it with whichever herb you decided on.

6) Cut a piece of waxed paper (parchment paper) top fit inside the dish over the veg a a lid.

7) Bake for 45-55 minutes (convection oven: 35-45), until the vegetables have released their liquid and are cooked through, but still retain their shape (you don't want them too limp). I used more sauce as I said, so I think it's ok for them to be a little softer provided they're not mush, you want to keep the layers for pretty presentation.

Once it was done I took the paper lid off and added some cheese, then turned up the oven to melt/brown it for 5 minutes. You could also do this under the grill or skip the cheese altogether.

Serve it with pasta, as a side for meat, or (if like me you're full of cake and not wanting anything too heavy) just on it's own.

Lemon Blueberry Yogurt Cake

2009-08-10T16:36:00.016+09:00

It appears I've been getting too confident in the kitchen. Every now and then you get taken down a peg or two by a recipe; today was that day.

Take a look at at this. This is the recipe I was using from over on Smitten Kitchen. See the beautiful photography? The golden brown crisp exterior, filled with a moist, blueberry studded yellow filling? The lightly applied gentle snowfall of icing sugar?

Well, that didn't happen.

It all started really well, I don't think my downfall was hidden anywhere in my prep. Ingredients were assembled:

I can't tell you how good the lemon was making this batter smell. When I was young I would go to my grandfather's house with my older sister and sit on his kitchen counters watching him mix up his cakes. Afterward we would flip a coin to see who got to lick the mixing spoon and who got to take a teaspoon to the bowl. This is the kind of batter you scrape the bowl for.

So everything was fine right up until I got to here:

Oh Noes! Apparently looking up this convection oven time/temp calculator should have occurred to me before putting the cake in, yes?

Hoping to salvage the last hour of anticipation I performed some quick cake surgery

But as with any balding man, the illusion could be kept up from some angles...

...but not from others

Okay. So my cake is not what we'd term 'a looker' but it's what's inside that counts right?

Sadly, adding insult to injury, I cut into my cake to find that all my blueberries had sunk to the bottom.

It actually still tastes rather good, but let's be honest; it has a face only a mother could love (and if we're really honest, I'm not overly keen).

Here endeth the tragic tale of the blueberry lemon cake. Convection Oven: 1, Me: 0.

We shall fight this battle again some day.

Vietnamese Ribs

2009-08-09T18:39:00.007+09:00

This is a really delicious marinade posted here (post has three recipes in so scroll down to the second one) on the 'Seriously Asian' section of Serious Eats. A warning: this isn't an instant gratification recipe. You have to make the caramel, and have the ribs marinate overnight. I would say it's worth the wait, but you'll have to judge yourself. Don't be scared off though, the different parts require time but no huge amount of skill, so anyone can give it a go.

Ingredients
2 pounds pork spareribs, cut crosswise through the bone into two long strips

3 cloves garlic, minced
1 small shallot, minced
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons caramel sauce (recipe here)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon canola oil, or another neutral oil
1 thick stalk of lemongrass, trimmed and minced (about 6 tablespoons)

Substitutions

I halved the recipe and used a small pack of ribs, rather than a big rack (which would be very difficult to get hold of without special ordering here)

I had no lemongrass. I think I might be able to get it frozen from the Brazilian store, but for a half hour walk each way in the heat to possibly find out they didn't have it, I wasn't about to check. I used the zest of a lemon instead (use two lemons if you're making the full amount instead of halving like I did)

Instead of a shallot I grated a bit of onion

I couldn't find a Thai/Vietnamese fish sauce but I found a Japanese version (魚醤油 uoshouyu) that did the job

Method

1) Make caramel sauce, allow to cool completely.

2) Combine the garlic, shallot, brown sugar, and pepper. Add the caramel sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, oil, and lemongrass (/lemon zest), and mix well.

3) In a large bowl, add ribs and coat well in the mixture. Allow to marinate in the fridge overnight.

4) Remove the bowl from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking. Prepare a medium charcoal fire on your grill, or preheat a gas grill to medium. Alternatively, position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 475°F/250C. Arrange the ribs on a baking sheet lined with foil.

5) Arrange the ribs on the grill rack, or slip the baking sheet into the oven. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes, or until browned and a little charred on the edges. Monitor the progress, making sure the ribs cook evenly. My ribs were a bit chunkier, so I cooked them a little longer, and then finished them on the grill to get a nice charred look, but that's up to you.

Salted White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

2009-08-08T18:44:00.006+09:00

For the most part, I don't make cookies in my kitchen. Don't get me wrong, I love cookies and I love baking, but my little convection oven means that I can cook a maximum of 6 at a time. This leads to me doing laps in my kitchen every X amount of minutes, and a complex factory line system of next raw batch, wire rack, space for hot exiting baking tray, finished cool plate/box that always seems a touch too big for my little table. With this recipe you have to rotate the cookies half way through so I'm yoyo-ing more than usual.

However, I wanted to make a little thank you gesture to the school office for getting my new refrigerator sorted for me, so I decided to man up and deal with the constant back and forth for a couple of hours.

Fortunately, these cookies were totally worth it.

Recipe from smittenkitchen.com. I made about 3 dozen cookies from this recipe, but it really depends on the size of each. Metric conversions added by me, so blame me for any mistakes.

Ingredients

1 cup (175g) all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) (200g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 cup (250g) sugar
1/4 cup (50g) packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups (225g) old-fashioned rolled oats

6 ounces (170g) good-quality white chocolate bar, chopped (not “white chocolate” chips; they’re almost always artificial. I am adamant about this.)

1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt (for sprinkling on top)

Substitutions
My supermarket had precisely one type of white chocolate bar so I didn't have a choice, but I too much prefer breaking up bars to buying chips. The bar I bought was quite thin, so I out it in the freezer for half an hour and then took it out and used the base of a knife to pound it for 20 second or so. The result was a pile of good sized but pleasantly irregular shaped chocolate pieces. With the amount of time my cookie dough spends in my warm kitchen because of the whole relay race setup, freezing helps stop it melting too quickly.

I couldn't get nice flakes of sea salt, but I found some ground seas salt a sprinkled a little on top, it was very tasty.

1) Preheat oven to 350/175C degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and table salt in a medium bowl.

2. Beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula, then add egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Scrape down bowl again. Add flour mixture gradually and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add oats and white chocolate and mix until well incorporated.

3. Divide dough into 24 equal portions, each about 2 tablespoons. Roll between palms into balls, then place on lined baking sheets about 2 1/2 inches apart. Using fingertips, gently press down each ball to about 3/4-inch thickness.

(These cookies do spread [as can be seen in the picture] so make sure to leave enough space)

4. Sprinkle a flake or two of sea salt on each cookie

5. Bake until cookies are deep golden brown, about 13 to 16 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack to cool.

These ended up being so delicious it was a real battle to stop myself from scoffing them all before getting them to school. The touch of salt helps so the white chocolate from being too sickly.

Coconut and Pineapple Chicken Curry

2009-08-07T19:19:00.009+09:00

Caught in foodgawker.com (I swear I lose hours of my life every time I click over to there, I just can't tear myself away!) I came across this delicious sounding recipe from Meseidy at The Noshery and decided to give it a try.

Ingredients (serves 4)

2 Chicken breasts, diced
1 tbsp Vegetable oil
1 Onion, diced
3 Cloves Garlic, minced
1 tsp Ginger, minced
3/4 cup (180ml) Coconut milk
1/2 a chicken bouillon cube
2 tbsp Madras curry powder
1 cup (?g) Pineapple chunks
2 Carrots, shredded
1 Red bell pepper, sliced
1/4 cup Cilantro, chopped

Substitutions

My supermarket didn't seem to have vegetable oil, and I didn't want to add the flavour of olive oil to the mix, so I went with canola oil instead.

The only chicken flavoured cube in the stock section was for chicken consomme soup? I cut one in half and used that instead. It didn't adversely affect the dish, so I'm going to say it was fine.

Japan seems to have hundreds of curry cubes but they're all to make Japanese style curry (which seems to me more a stew with curry taste, rather than an Indian variety). I went to the spice section and bought the 'hot' tin of spice and hoped for the best, but I find Japanese curry all tastes pretty much the same so we'll see.

Cilantro: I had dried coriander leaf, which I added to the pot, then I garnished with some Italian parsley I found while shopping to get the look (if not the taste).

I grated the ginger and garlic instead of mincing; it was easier so sue me.

There's quite a lot of cutting/chopping/grating involved so I found it easier to do it first.

1) Heat a large pot over a medium-high heat, add oil, ginger, garlic, and onions. Saute until onions are tender.

2) Add chicken, bouillon, and curry, and stir until chicken in well coated and browned.

3) Add pineapple and coconut milk, bring to the boil, then turn down to medium and simmer for 10 minutes.

When it came to the pineapple I wasn't sure how much a cup converted to in metric (I guessed 250g, but does anyone know?), so I just bought one of the fresh pineapple mini-punnets that you can see in the ingredients picture. Also the cans of coconut milk were 5.5oz/165ml. As this recipe calls for 3/4 cup (180ml) of coconut milk I decided not to open a new can for the tiny bit extra, and instead added a little water.

4)Add carrots, red pepper, and cilantro, and simmer for another 5 minutes

5) Serve hot over side of choice (the original recipe calls for rice noodles but I went for brown rice), and garnish with cilantro.

Overall I really liked this curry, but I wish it had been hotter. This was entirely the fault of Japanese curry powder producers, rather than anything to do with the recipe itself, so next time I'm in a foreign food store I'll have to see if I can get better spices. I was worried that the pineapple was going to be overpowering but it wasn't at all. I have the other half of this in a jar in my fridge, and I'm sure it will only get better given time for all the flavours to meld together.

Starting small: Pizza Dough

2009-08-06T10:00:00.016+09:00

Pizza is always an adventure in Japan.

Aside from being on the expensive side, the choices of topping can range from 'OK', to 'inventive', to 'Oh God Why?'. Toppings include sweetcorn (something I have no problem with as it is often available on pizza back home in the UK, but it tends to freak my friends out a little), fried eggs and whole wiener sausages, mini hamburger patties, all kinds of seafood, squid ink sauce, shredded seaweed, and (it seems most important) it is often topped with either/both lashings of mayonnaise or a poached egg. Not being a fan of mayo at the best of times (though my tolerance has greatly improved since my arrival), seeing some of the combinations tends to do a number on my appetite. A perusal of the Pizza 10.4 menu should give you an idea what you're facing (site in Japanese, but the pictures are worth a thousand words).

With that in mind I decided homemade pizza was the way to go.
Recipe adapted to taste from this recipe on Exclusively Food.

Ingredients
350g (2 cups) white bread flour
7g (1/4oz or 1 packet) dry active yeast
180ml (2/3 cups + 3 tbsp) warm water
40ml (2 tbsp) olive oil
1/2-1 tsp salt (to taste)

Recipe makes enough for two 30cm (about 12 inches?) thin crust bases, or smaller bulkier ones. My baking tray is 30cm by 20cm to give you some idea of picture scale.

1) Stir the yeast and 40ml lukewarm water (not hot or boiling) in a small bowl and leave for 10-15 minutes until it's bubbling. My supermarket sells yeast in packs of 6g so I used that instead of measuring exactly and no harm done.

2)Add oil and remaining water to bowl and stir

3)In another bowl, stir salt and flour together

4) Make a well in the centre and pour in your yeast mixture. Combine using a spoon and/or your hands until the dough just comes together. It will feel and look a little rough/lumpy at this point, but don't worry, kneading will sort that out.

5) Dump out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.

6) Either wash out the bowl you made the dough in or grab a clean one, and film the inside with oil. Place your ball of dough in it, turning to coat it's entire surface with the oil. Cover the bowl with cling-film/saran-wrap/a clean tea-towel and leave it in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size (approx 1-1 1/2 hours).

While the dough is rising you can take the time to make your own tomato sauce for topping, or you can use a store bought one and have some valuable TV time. I whizzed some fresh tomatoes I had that needed using up, some garlic, oregano, and sauteed onions, but I made the mixture too thin so I added a can of chopped tomatoes for a little bulk and reduced it down in a pan.

7) Check your dough to see if it's the right size. If it is, switch on your oven to preheat to 250C/480F, or 230C/450F for fan assisted ovens. My microwave oven has an odd feature where you can only jump from 210 to 250 with nothing in between, so I went for a higher temp and it was fine, just keep an eye on it when your baking. If you're fancy and have a pizza stone, put it in to heat.

8) Remove the dough from the bowl onto a surface, gently deflating (this deflated itself as I removed it). If you're cooking for one as I was, now is the time to half the dough and put one half covered in the fridge for use another day.

9) Carefully stretch or push out the dough until it's roughly the size and shape you want it. If it's too springy and keeps going back into it's original size, leave it to rest for a few minutes before trying again.

10) I'm often told to scatter cornmeal on my pan to stop the dough from sticking. Not having cornmeal available to me, I oiled and floured my baking tray and it was fine. Put your dough on the tray, brush it with olive oil (to help stop it going soggy from the sauce) and add your toppings. I used tomato sauce and mozzarella, try not to go too heavy with the toppings.

11) Bake for 13-16 minutes (adjust depending on crust thickness/toppings) until the cheese is melted and golden brown.

Enjoy!

Welcome

2009-08-05T14:44:00.009+09:00

Here we are in my new little section of cyberspace, now what's the big idea?

I was reading an article by Michael Pollan a few days ago, in which he quoted Harry Balzer as saying "I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want — just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself".

Shockingly simple but the idea has stuck with me since, unwilling to stop gnawing at me.

A host of different reasons immediately start springing up as to why this is a bad idea. The time involved, the effort, the expense (I'm assuming, but would it be that much more expensive really? Once you factor in the things you're not spending on?), and indeed my own all-encompassing laziness. And yet, I can't stop thinking about it. I love food and cooking. I love the satisfaction I get from gathering up the raw ingredients and turning them into something (hopefully) delicious.

But oh, how I envy other food bloggers! I read of your trips to farmers markets, bags of seasonal fresh produce, organic delivery boxes, ingredients from specialty stores, and your cute yet functional kitchen appliances. I drool over the truly spectacular photography with a deep burning jealousy banked low in the pit of my stomach. If that what you're expecting from this blog, dear reader, then we should probably take this moment to guide you gentle closer to reality.

Aside from the reasons I mentioned above, I have one big challenge to face in my quest for culinary paradise that can be summarized in one word: Location.

I am currently working as an ALT in Japan. And I'm not talking the center of Tokyo here. I live on the edge of a middling-rural city. My closest farmers market is in the next town over and is nowhere near a train station; as I don't drive, it's not an option. I have one supermarket I shop from, it's of reasonable size and is a few minutes from my house. Being a Japanese supermarket, all but basic ingredients come in small (50-70g) packets (this is especially true of things like baking ingredients!). Flour (while available in quantity) comes in two main types: plain white and bread white. On special occasions I may be lucky enough to head to Nagoya and hit up the foreign food store, or to pass by a Brazilian store, but neither of those options are easily accessible so they're rare. As I came over here with a 20kg limit to my suitcase and will have the same limit when I eventually return home, I've had to forgo cookbooks in favour of the Internet. I find a recipe I like the look of, I then see what ingredients I can get, what I can substitute (it's not just a name, it's a way of life) and what I can forget altogether.

Inside my place, as with many apartments in Japan, space is very much a premium (I prefer to think of my home as 'smaller and more efficient') and as with many apartments in Japan, I lack both counter space, and an oven. It's enough to bring a small tear to an apprentice chef's eye. I've done what I can to make it more workable though.

Here is my kitchen (click to enlarge):

It contains a two burner gas stove top, a sink, a microwave oven, and a refrigerator. It does not contain counter space, the day after I moved in I put that table in there so I'd have somewhere to chop food that didn't involve balancing the board on the corner of the sink.

Until recently my refrigerator was a sad old green thing. It was missing a shelf so the person who lived here before me moved the only remaining shelf to cover the produce drawer, in order to have somewhere to pile the food (and it did end up being a squished pile of anything we could cram in). I couldn't prepare anything that might need space in the fridge because there was none, and the freezer was at the top not the bottom, so I had to crouch to the floor to get into it (a habit I hated and that never quite struck me as sanitary having the food so close to the lino). But last week - after two years of making do and the single remaining shelf beginning to crack - my BOE bought me the shiny new grey one you see in the picture.

It has the fridge at the top. It has a pull out freezer. It has two shelves. With a fridge like that I can do anything.

With a fridge like that I can take on the culinary world!

So there you have it. Just me with half a kitchen and a crazy idea to do what generations before me did without thinking twice about; be totally responsible for preparing (rather than simply acquiring/assembling) my own food.

The Substitute Chef: No oven, no counters, no ingredients, and no real clue. No problem.