Simple Sausage Casserole

A straight forward recipe to make a delicious sausage casserole using ingredients most of us have in the cupboard/fridge.

Ingredients
2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
1 green chilli (chopped)
6 pork sausages (ensure that the percentage of meat is at least 70%)
1 red pepper (sliced)
7 cherry tomatoes
a handful of mushrooms (sliced)
a heaped spoonful of wholegrain mustard
a splash of worcestershire sauce
an oxo cube
recently boiled water (about 2-3 cups)
1-2 tbsp olive oil

Step 1
In a cast iron casserole dish heat the olive oil on the stove. When the oil is hot fry the garlic and chilli until the garlic starts to change colour. Then add the sausages and fry until lightly browned.

Step 2
Add the pepper, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms to the casserole dish and continue to fry until softened. Turn the oven on at 180°C to heat up.

Step 3
Boil the kettle. Whilst the kettle is heating up stir in the mustard and sprinkle the oxo cube over the sausages. When the water has boiled pour over the sausages until it is about 1 to 1.5 inches deep. Splash the worcestershire sauce over everything and stir.

Step 4
Put the lid on the casserole dish and place the dish in the oven and cokk for 1 hour.

Serve with vegetables of your choice.

Tom Yum Tiger Prawns

Tom Yum paste is traditionally used as a base for a spicy, thin Thai soup. We found we had some left (about a teaspoon's worth) and decided to experiment with using it in a stir fry.

Ingredients
20 Tiger Prawns (with the skins but without heads)
1 carrot (thinly sliced)
1 leek (1 to 2cm chunks)
1 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 tsp finely chopped ginger
1 green chilli (chopped)
75g green beans (halved)
1 tsp Tom Yum paste
1/4 cup water
2 tsps dark soy sauce
2-3 portions of vermicelli
olive oil (splash of)

Step 1
Cook the vermicelli and set aside.

Step 2
Heat the olive oil in a large wok/frying pan. Fry the garlic, chilli and ginger until the garlic just starts to turn brown (less than 30 seconds). Then add the rest of the vegetables (green beans, carrots & leeks) and continue to fry for another 3-4 minutes.

Step 3
Add the prawns and 1/4 cup of water (if the prawns are frozen there is no need to add the extra water). Fry the prawns until they are pink all over and then add the Tom Yum paste. If the pan seems a little dry at this point add some more water, if not don't worry. Stir the paste in thoroughly.

Step 4
Once all ingredients are cooked through take the vermicelli noodles set aside earlier and add to the wok. Mix noodles in thoroughly and add the dark soy sauce.

Serve.

Spicy Stuffed Aubergines with Yakitori Pork Chops

Ingredients
2 pork chops
4 tbsp Yakitori sauce (Japanese)
1 aubergine (eggplant) - see Step 2 for preparations
1 courgette (diced)
a handful of (100g) mushrooms (chopped)
1 yellow pepper (diced)
1 green chilli (chopped)
1 clove of garlic (chopped)
Half a tin of chopped tomoatoes (200g)
1 tbsp chilli bean paste (optional)
olive oil
salt & pepper


Step 1
Marinate the pork chops in the Yakitori sauce. If you can't find Yakitori sauce the simply mix some dark soy with brown sugar and use that instead. Leave in the fridge to marinate for a while.


Step 2
Heat the oven to 180°C. Slice the aubergine in half longways. Scoop out the flesh to leave the skin. Set the flesh aside for step 3. Rub olive oil, salt and pepper into the skin of the aubergine. Place them on a baking tray and pop them in the oven for 15-20 minutes until soft.

Step 3
Dice the aubergine, mushrooms, courgette and pepper. In a large frying pan fry the garlic and chilli until the garlic starts to turn brown. Then add the vegetables, chopped tomatoes and chilli bean paste (optional) and continue to cook for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Step 4
Remove the aubergine skins from the over and spoon the vegetables into the skins. Place the stuffed skins back in the oven.

Step 5
Fry the marinated pork chops for 3-4 minutes each side. When they are done serve with the stuffed aubergines.

In Japan Yakitori sauce is traditionally used with poultry, in particular chicken. We stumbled upon the fact that it tastes great with pork simply because we didn't know that you're supposed to use it with chicken. Try it, you might like it.

How to make a professional latte with instant coffee granules.

Top recipe for a frothy latte coffee that you can make at home without any fancy percolator or whatnot. Unless you count one of those cheapy electric coffee whisks as fancy.

You will need;
A microwave
A Cheapy electric coffee whisk

Ingredients (for one mug);
1 tsp coffee granules (any will do)
1tsp sugar (optional)
1 part water
2 parts milk

Step 1
Boil the kettle

Step 2
Place in the mug which you will be drinking out of the sugar and coffee granules an sugar and a splash of milk. With a teaspoon mix until you have a dark brown paste.

Step 3
In another mug pour in the rest of the milk and microwave on full power for 1 minute 20 seconds (roughly).

Step 4
When the kettle boils fill the mug which you will be drinking out of 1/3 full. Stir.

Step 5
When the microwave got ping take out the milks and whisk using the electric whisk for about a minute or so making sure that you slowly lift the whisk out of the mug, whilst on, to create a foam on top of the milk. Then pour the milk slowly into the other mug. Stir again and serve.

Deep Fried Aubergines and Noodles

This is the perfect vegetarian recipe to use with the homemade noodles below.

Ingredients
Large handful of homemade noodles
1 aubergine (eggplant) chopped into large (3cm square) chunks
water (enough to just cover the noodles.)
3 spring onions chopped
Vegetable oil for deep frying.

Seasoning:
Light soy sauce (3 tsp)
Dark soy sauce (3 tsp)
chinese vinegar (1 tsp)
sugar (1 tsp)
chicken powder (1 tsp)
salt & pepper (to taste)
chilli powder (1 tsp or less)
sesame oil (1 tsp)


Step 1
In a small pan (or deep fat fryer) heat the vegetable oil until hot. Then deep fry the aubergine chunks until lightly browned. Its best to do them in batches and setting them aside when done on some kitchen towel to soak up some of the oil.


Step 2
In a small bowl mix all the seasoning together and add the spring onions. Set aside to marinate for a short while.

Step 3
In a large pan or wok heat the water until boiling then add the noodles. Boil for 2 minutes. Then add the aubergine, boil for a further 3 minutes.


Step 4
When the noodles are cooked add in the marinade mix together and serve immediately.

Homemade Noodles

Here's a little recipe to help you make noodles from scratch. By just adding an egg in at the start you can use this same recipe to make pasta. But today we make noodles.
Ingredients
1kg plain flour
water
salt & pepper

Step 1
In a suitably large bowl put most of the bag of flour into it. Save some for dusting the table and dough later on. Season the flour with salt and pepper. Then start adding water bit by bit and mixing and kneading the flour and water together. Keep adding the water but stop just before it turns sticky then. Carry on kneading the dough in the bowl and add a sprinkle more flour. The ideal ball of dough will be quite dry.

Step 2
Dust a dry, flat table with flour and place the ball of dough on it. Carry on kneading the dough for another 3-5 minutes. When you are happy with the dough you can get your rolling pin out and start flattening it. As you are rolling the dough keep turning it over and changing your direction. When it starts getting thinner you can stretch the dough by hand making sure not to rip it. Your aim is to make a 'roughly' squarish flat dough about 1-2mm thick.

Step 3
Dust the dough again on BOTH sides with flour. This will help you later when you're separating the noodles. Then carefully lift the dough and fold it on top of each other in a concertina effect. Making each fold about 10-15cm wide. Carry on until the dough is stacked neatly.

Step 4
Take a sharp knife, place a chopping board underneath the dough and start cutting 1cm strips from the dough perpendicular to the fold. Every ten or so slices lift the noodles and shake them through your fingers to separate them. Its at this point that you will be glad of dusting both sides of the flat dough earlier. If you don't dust well enough its a complete nightmare separating the noodles - trust me. Anyway, carry on cutting noodles until they are all completely separated.

Voila. Homemade noodles ready for cooking. Recipe to follow. If you have too many to cook in one sitting don't worry. Simply spread the out on a plate and place freeze them. They'll keep for a while.

Saag Paneer

Great idea Anna, am jumping on the bandwagon of posting a recipe for Chris's birthday (although a day late!)

My additon to this ever increasing list of fabulous food-tasticness is a traditional punjabi dish with spinach (or Palak) and can be made with paneer and/or potatoes.

I have no idea of quantities I'm afraid so these are rough guidelines. I just normally wing it and taste and smell as I go along!!

This will feed about 4-6 people.

What you need:

Ghee (enough to coat the bottom of the pan and the cover the onions)
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 medium size onions finally chopped
Garlic
Fresh Ginger & Fresh green chilli (can be finely chopped with a hand blender)
Salt
Cumin seeds (jeera)
Whole corriandar seeds (Dhania - these will needs to be crushed in a pestle and mortar style)
Turmaric (haldi)
half tin of tinned tomotoes (pureed)
Loads of spinach chopped. If you're buying from the supermarket in bags then you'll need about 8 bags. If buying fresh then you'll need about 5 bunches if quite big.
Paneer - some supermarkets stock this now
or potatoes
Fresh corriander
Masala

And this is how you do it....

In a large pan, heat the ghee. Once hot add the mustard seeds, cumin, ground corriander and garlic. This will release the flavour of the spices. let them sizzle for a few seconds and then add in the finely chopped onions. The onions are the important bit. The onions need to slow cook for about 20 mins or until they're a red/brown in colour (but not burnt!)

Once they turned red/brown in colour, add the finely chopped ginger, chilli and salt and turmaric (haldi) and then the pureed tomotoes. Cook the tomatoes for about 10 mins on a low heat to cook through and once it's in a paste add the spinach. Cover and cook for about half an hour or until it breaks down nicely, and then add the paneer and/or potatoes then cook for a further 20 mins or unitl the potatoes are cooked.

At the end, add about 1/2 - 1 tspn of masala to taste and some fresh chopped corriandar.

Serve with chappatti (roti) and rice.

Yum yum.