Stroganoff (are you strong enough?)

 

I just love this dish, and over the years, I've stopped using any kind of written recipe and just make it to the flavours I like.  

You can balance the steak to mushroom ratio however you like - I used four quickcook/minute steaks and a whole punnet of mushrooms.

In my opinion, there are never enough mushrooms, in fact I have been known to make a veggie version without ANY steak - but I also add slowly cooked onions to that one.

Ingredients:

Quick cook steak (also minute steak/sandwich steak)

ghee/dripping/goose fat

chestnut mushrooms (chopped or sliced)

paprika

coarse black pepper

LOTS of garlic (sliced)

red wine

Marigold powder

Oxo cube

soured cream

pasta of choice - most people have tagliatelle, but we couldn't find any so we used linguine.  It would be fine with most shapes to be honest.

Method:

Cut up the steak and quick fry on a high heat with the ghee/dripping/schmalz in batches so they are quickly browned.  Remove with a slotted spoon.  

Lower the heat and add more fat if needed to the pan.
Add the mushrooms, garlic, coarse black pepper and paprika. Stir well, and leave to slowly reduce. Once the mushrooms are soft and reduced, add the steak back in and sprinkle in the Marigold and the Oxo cube, crushed.  Stir well and add the red wine, just a splash, you don't want this too wet.  Turn up the heat to boil off the alcohol, try not to stew the steak.

You can cook the pasta while the mushrooms are cooking down, and then just when the pasta is drained, stir some sounred cream (maybe 2 - 3 TBS) through the beef and mushroom mixture.

Serve together, and maybe with some salad leaves, or a green veg if liked.

Ideally the steak should not be fully cooked in the centre, but that is hard to achieve with such thin/small pieces of steak!

Grated paneer! A revelation for Meatless Monday! (includes yoghurt flatbread recipe also)

 

I recently spotted bags of grated paneer on the shelves in certain supermarkets and it occured to me that this would be a really quick and easy ingredient to cook for a Meatless Monday.

I figured I could use it either like mince, or just adapt a standard paneer recipe for a dish with a different texture experience.

Unfortunately, Amazon caused me a huge problem that evening, so I spent a lot of time on the phone trying to sort it out and so when I had to stop to cook dinner, I wasn't in a great frame of mind, and I hadn't had a chance to do the research I had intended for this meal, so I was somewhat cooking by the seat of my pants, as it were!  Anywway, it was a tasty and successful meal, but I recommend fiddling with the spices to suit your preferences if you would like to, or adding condiments like mango chutney or a spicy sour pickle to layer the flavours.

You can easily eat this with rice, but I had planned on a higher protein, longer lasting carb, so I made a quick yoghurt flatbread which I've seen all over social media and have been tending towards recently.  Both recipes are below.

I recommend making the dough for the bread first, then leaving it to rest and making the curry.  Then when the curry is simmering, divide, roll and cook the breads.

The curry is suitable for Jain Hindus as it is, but if you want a more traditional curry flavour, feel free to add chopped onion and garlic in at the beginning before cooking the spices.

Grated Paneer Curry

• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• half tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp salt
• half tsp coarsely ground black pepper
• half tsp chilli flakes/crushed chillies or 1 green chilli, chopped
• a bag of grated paneer from the chiller OR 1 block of paneer, grated by hand.
• a cupful of frozen peas
• half a tin of chopped tomatoes OR 2 fresh tomatoes, chopped. 
• Tamarind paste or sauce
• tomato puree (optional)
• 1 tsp ghee or veg oil

Method

Heat the ghee or oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds.  After about 30 seconds, when they are starting to fizz and become fragrant, add the turmeric, salt, pepper and chillies and stir fry briskly.

Add the grated paneer after about a minute and turn the heat up and stir and mix until all the paneer is declumped and well mixed.  There should be no pockets of white and it should be freely loose.  Continue to cook with less stirring so the paneer starts to get a little sizzly in places.

Add the tomatoes and the peas, and a splash of water if needed. Mix well, cover with a lid, lower the heat and leave to cook for 10 - 15 minutes or more.  The tomatoes should break down.

When that time is up, stir in some tamarind sauce and the tomato puree to taste.  You may wish to add a little more salt if necessary.

Social Media Yoghurt Flatbreads.

260g plain flour

1 tsp salt

1.5 tsp baking powder

2 TBS olive oil

200g plain yogurt.

Method

Add the flour, salt, baking powder and olive oil into a bowl, followed by the yoghurt and mix until you have a shaggy dough.

Turn the dough onto a board or surface and knead for 3-5 minutes until smooth.

Cover and rest the dough for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into 6 or 8 equal balls.

On a lightly floured surface or board, roll each ball out into a thin flatbread about 6 - 7 inches in diameter.

Heat a dry frying pan or tawa over a high heat and cook each flatbread until puffed up and lightly charred on one side.

Flip and continue cooking on the other side until done.  Butter if wished and stack in a tin or keepwarm dish until all the breads are done.  Serve warm.

Veggie Bean Chilli

 

Middle One (our determined bean-hater) has gone off to Uni so this old favourite of mine is back on the cards at last.
It occured to me that as it's such a store cupboard winner, I must write it up - I am amazed to look back on my years of blogging and see that my once tiny people are now big people who have moved away from home and actually request me to blog their favourite meals so they can recreate them for themselves!

It pleases me that their friends also discover mey recipes through my kids, and also get an insight into my family's history!

Bean Chilli

Ingredients:

• 1 onion, finely chopped
• some garlic, chopped (to your taste)
• 1 tsp mixed herbs
• 1 tsp chilli powder or crushed chillies
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tin white beans
• 1 tin mixed beans (not in vinaigrette)
• 1 tin kidney beans in chilli sauce
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes.
• Marigold stock
• optional splash of wine (any wine is fine)
• 1 tsp cocoa or a small piece of 90 - 100 % cocoa chocolate
• splash of cider vinegar
• salt to taste

To serve:

• Boil in the bag or microwave long grain rice
• soured cream
• plain tortilla chips
• cheese for grating on top (we use medium and mature cheddar)

Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil and butter until soft and no longer smelling raw.  Add the mixed herbs, cumin, and chilli.

Once those are well mixed in, add the tinned tomato and the kidney beans with their chilli sauce.  Add a little water to the tins and swish to get as much of the "juice" from the tins and add to the pan.  

Add the Marigold, and wine if using, as well as the cocoa/chocolate.

Mix well and simmer for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, drain and rinse the other 2 tins of beans, and then add to the pan when the sauce has thickened up a little.

Add salt to taste.

Allow this to simmer while you prepare the boil in the bag rice.  As you know I LOVE good rice, but this is one meal I MUST have with boil in the bag rice.  You don't have that preconception, so go ahead and save time with microwave rice, or just use whatever rice you have. Or skip the rice! It's all good.

Since there's nothing raw here, there's no real minumum time to cook this, so it's done when you are ready for it to be done.

When it's almost done, taste it, and add in more salt if you need to, as well as the splash of vinegar.  Taste again and see how you feel about it.  If you like it, great! If you don't then try and work out what's missing and add it.  It's most likely that it needs either more salt, more acid,  or more chilli.  If it needs more umami, try adding a tsp of Marmite (other yeast extract spreads are available) or dashi stock powder.  Tinkering with flavours is the best way to gain confidence with cooking.

Once the rice is done and you are happy with the flavour of the chilli, serve with a bag of plain tortilla chips, some grated cheese and some soured cream to dollop on (all optional, obviously - but you'll thank me if you do!)

All genuniely ready in under 30 minutes with mostly store cupboard things.