Beef and broccoli

Seeing Pioneer woman’s beef and broccoli made me crave this dish. I seriously doubt that there is such a dish in China, it’s probably an American or European invention, but it’s one of the most popular dishes in Chinese restaurants.
Back in the days when I used to live in Barrandov, me and mom used to go to a local Chinese place called Dlouhá Zed’. The food was good and it did not taste like the cheapo Čínský bufet stuff, and they also made delicious home made dumplings. We also often saw Chinese families eat there. That was until mom found a dead fly in her beef and broccoli about 2 years ago. I haven’t eaten this dish since then, it gave me the creeps. I decided to cook it myself rather than eat out, if there will be a fly in my beef and broccoli I will at least know who to blame :-)

My recipe is a combination of several recipes from my cookbooks and it differs slightly from the recipe Pioneer woman used.
* For stir frying I use Rumpsteak from Makro. It’s not too expensive (under 200czk for 1kg) and is quite tender. I once tried making steaks from it and they weren’t good, but it’s totally fine for stir frying. It's sold in green plastic boxes in the aisle with steaks and "fancy" meats.

Ingredients:
500gr of beef
500 gr of broccoli
light and dark soy sauce
starch - I use corn starch
oyster sauce - preferably without MSG (available in some stores selling organic food)
sesame oil – optional
Shao Xing wine – sold in bigger supermarkets and asian shops
sugar – preferably brown
1 large clove of garlic
just about the same amount of ginger

Cut the beef into very thin strips, the thinner the strips the softer the meat. Mix together 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce and 1 table spoon of the following each - dark soy sauce, sesame oil, Shao Xing wine, sugar and starch. Blend it all well together and pour over meat, mix well and leave to marinate. I usually marinate the meat overnight.
Cut the broccoli into small pieces and either steam it or boil it until almost done. Throw it into ice cold water so that it keeps its green color.
Chop up the garlic and ginger into tiny pieces.
Heat up a wok, preferably not non-stick, with a tablespoon of peanut oil (or other vegetable oil except olive). Throw in the garlic and ginger and stir fry until they become fragrant. The wok must be heated to the max! Add the meat and stir fry until it’s brown and soft. Pour in 2 tablespoons of oyster sauce, 3 tablespoons of Shao Xing wine and 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce. Let it come to a boil and add the broccoli. Mix well and serve with steamed rice or over noodles.

Beef tajine with raisins and apples

I am totally in love with my tajine and the fragrant dishes that come out of it! It’s made from some special ceramic that can be used to cook on the stove, not only in the oven. And this makes it a perfect piece of cookware. I often use the lower dish to sauté or even fry things, because it distributes and holds heat very well. I am thinking about buying an Asian pot from the same product line, if only it wasn't so darn expensive! So, for now I happily stick to my tajine.

Neoluxor stocked only 2 books on Moroccan cooking and so I bought both, one in Czech and one in English. The latter is somewhat more sophisticated and calls for more exotic ingredients, that are apparently irreplaceable but also fairly difficult to find.

The recipe for this tajine comes from this book. The result was very tender meat in an incredibly aromatic and thick sauce. It is best to serve this dish with cous-cous or rice and a refreshing crunchy salad.

Ingredients:

1 kg of beef cut into small pieces - I used hovězí zádní

1 onion - diced

125gr raisins - no need to soak them

3 sour apples

3 tablespoons of honey

4 sprigs of cilantro - tied together

1/4 teaspoon saffron

1/2 teaspoons of ground dried ginger

1,5 teaspoons of cinnamon

freshly ground black pepper
salt

olive oil

20 gr of butter

Heat up the tajine on the stove with some olive oil and butter and quickly fry the beef. Remove the meat from pan and turn down the heat a bit, add some more oil if needed and throw in the diced onion. Saute until translucent and soft.

Add the saffron, ginger and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and sauté for another minute until the spices are fragrant, add a generous portion of the freshly ground pepper and pour in approximately 375ml of water. You can always add more water if needed. Put the meat back into the tajine along with the cilantro and add some salt. Mix thoroughly, cover and let simmer on medium to low heat for about 1,5 hour.

Uncover the tajine and add the raisins, add some salt if needed. Cover again and let simmer for another 1/2 hour.

In the meantime cut the apples into quarters and remove the stalks. Heat up some butter in another pan and sauté the apples in the butter. Pout in the honey and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Let caramelise and set aside.

Serve the meat with the apples. You should sprinkle some sesame seeds on top, but I didn't have any.

*I used more cinnamon, ginger and raisins and less saffron, but you can always taste the sauce and add more if you desire. I also increased the cooking time by half an hour.

Terrine de porc et poulet

Terrines are very versatile. There are meat and fish terrines, vegetarian terrines are common too. They can be served warm as a main dish, or cold as an appetizer or simple dinner with a loaf of fresh bread. I often make this terrine when we invite someone over for dinner, but sometimes I cook it just for ourselves.

Terrines are actually the baking dishes in which terrines are cooked. They are mostly rectangular or oval and have a lid. I don't have a proper terrine bowl, so I use a tall rectangular baking dish and alfoil.

Ingredients:

250gr of pork mince

250gr of mince from chicken thighs

150gr chicken liver

150gr of good quality bacon in long thin slices (pancetta is even better)

1 small onion, finely diced

2 tablespoons of finely sliced basil

3 tablespoons of olive oil

1 tablespoon of butter

1 tablespoon of chopped dried cranberries

1-2 tablespoons of cognac - optional

salt, pepper

1.Mix together the mince, basil, olive oil, dried cranberries and cognac (if it's available). Season with salt and pepper and let stand in the fridge for a couple of hours.

2. Sautee the finely diced onion with butter until soft, but not brown. Add to the mince and mix well.

3. Take your baking dish and line it with bacon. You should kind of wrap the bacon around the meat filling when you put it inside the baking dish. It is best to take two pieces of bacon and put one of their ends opposite one another on the bottom of the dish and let the other ends hang from the sides on top of the dish. It should cover the walls of the baking dish completely.

4. Put half of the meat mixture into the baking dish, kinda inside the "bacon basket". Cut the liver into pieces about the size of a cherry. Put on top of the meat and cover with the leftover meat. Devide evenly and cover with the slices of bacon hanging from the sides of the baking dish. Cover with a lid or alfoil, tightly seal.

5. Heat up the oven to 175C and put inside a big baking dish or tray with water. Place the terrine into the water, it should cover at least half of the terrine bowl. Cook for about 1,5 hour.

6. Take the terrine out of the oven and let stand for about 10 minutes. Uncover and remove, or pour out, ecxess fat. Cover again and let the terrine cool down before cutting.

This terrine tastes best with fresh, crusty bread and some vegetables, and maybe also a blob of cranberry jam.

Pork chops with orange juice, dijon mustard and honey

We are now in a very busy studying period and so I don’t do any complicated cooking. Just simple stuff. These pork chops take about 5 minutes to marinate and 15 minutes to cook, you can cook a side dish at the same time. This blend of flavors is quite traditional and fairly classic but I have never used it on pork, mostly on chicken. Interestingly, it worked out very well! The meat has a very delicate but zesty flavour and is incredibly tender.

Ingredients:
1kg of pork chops
Juice of 2 oranges
2 teaspoons of honey
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of Maille Provencale mustard – optional, I just happened to have it in house
Some rosemary and marjoram – or other herbs
2 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt, pepper

Blend together the juice, honey, mustard and oil, add salt, pepper and fresh herbs to taste. Pour over the pork chops and leave in the fridge overnight. Take them out of the fridge 1 hour prior to cooking so that the marinade liquidizes a bit and is not so thick. Heat up a pan with a some oil and cook the chops on medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how thick they are.
I served the chops with some sautéed kale (mangold) and grilled paprika.

Khinkali - Хинкали

Tortellini, pelmeni, xiao long bao, vareniki, gyoza, manty are all types of filled dumplings. So is khinkali, a famous Georgian dish. When I was a kid me and my mom lived in Georgia for 2 years and my mom learned to cook many Georgian dishes. Caucasian cuisines are not very known in Europe which a great pity because they are truly unique and very healthy. However many of the most famous dishes cannot be cooked outside their country of origin because Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani cuisines take great pride in local products that are rarely available outside these countries. Although these 3 countries are very small and located very close to each other their cuisines differ extremely.
This recipe is a combination of my mom's recipe and this one. The author of the latter, Milena from Tbilisi, is a great cook and a specialist on Georgian cuisine. Her recipes are always very well explained and she dedicates much oo her time on explaining the origins of the dishes and when and where they are eaten. She is also a great photographer and often takes her readers on trips around Georgia. Her recipe is probably more authentic but as my mom's recipe differs a bit, I decided to put together my "own" recipe. Khinkali can be also filled with cheese or vegetables or mushrooms. But I cooked the most traditional ones with meat.

Ingredients:

1 kg of mince - a combo of pork and beef. If you use lean meat the dish will be ruined!!!

finely chopped onion - Milena uses 300gr, I add much less about 50gr

salt, pepper

finely chopped coriander - Milena does not add coriander, but 1 teaspoons ground caraway seeds

hot paprika to taste

water

1 litre or more of warm water - the amount depends on the flour

flour

salt

Instructions:

1. Make filling from ingredients the meat and spices. It should not be lean!! Add some water to make it "juicy", about 100ml. The filling should be shiny, soft and "slimy". I don't know how to explain it better.

2. Make dough. Pour lukewarm water in a bowl, add a bit of salt and continuoulsy add flour to make a very stiff dough. I think you could do it in a good, strong stand mixer or breadmaker. I do it in a breadmaker. The dough shouldn't be soft, in fact it should be almost too hard to roll out. Let it stand covered for 30minutes.

3. Devide the dough into....parts and form sticks out of each part. Cut the sticks into round pieces. Milena says they should be the size of a walnut, my mom makes them bigger. So I decided to do somethin in between, let's say the size of a plum. Roll them out one by one and fill with filling, about 1 tablespoon of filling per each parcel. Now, there should be some unfilled space inside the dumplings because a tasty soup will form inside, so do not fill them completely! Milena has beautiful pictures on how to form them, my mom does it the same way but when she assembles them she leaves a big "tail" on top of them. Milena's is not so profound. Khinkali are eaten grabbed by this tail and the tail is thrown away when the dumpling is eaten.

4. Boil some water in a big pot. Boil the khinkali for about 5-10 minutes, depending on the size. Smear a thin layer of oil on a plate and serve the khinkali on it. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper.

Be careful when eating, they are filled with a very hot soup.

Maiale in Latte

The holidays are over and I'm back in the kitchen. We wanted a hearty homestyle meal after all the restaurants and seafood. I decided to try one recipe from one of my Italian cook books. It's called pork in milk (Maiale in latte) and we liked it, even though it's more like a winter meal...

Ingredients:

1.5 kg whole piece of pork chops with bones (I couldn't find a whole piece so I used 2 smaller pieces)

1 litre of whole milk

4-6 cloves of garlic (I prefer Czech garlic to Chinese, it's got much more flavour)

1-2 rosemary stems (sage should be added as well, but I didn't have any)

juice of one lemon

zest of one lemon

some olive oil

Instructions:

Heat up oven to 200C.

Preferably use a cast iron pan or skillet with a lid, or at least a heavy one made of other metal (I hate thin walled cook ware). Heat up some olive oil and sear the meat until it has a brown crust. Remove some of the fat and put the halved garlic cloves and rosemary on the bottom of the pan, put the meat on top.

Pour the milk over meat and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Bring to boil, remove from fire and add lemon juice and zest, stir, cover and put into the heated oven. Bake covered for half an hour, uncover and cook another hour until the liquid reduces to form a sauce. I also added some rosemary infused olive oil, but I don't think it actually made a difference.

Milk and lemon sound weird together because milk products naturally clot when mixed with acid. This sauce is supposed to clot. You can reduce the clotting effect by adding the lemon much later or even just before serving, but the taste will not be the same in my opinion. You might also strain the sauce through a strainer.

I served the meat with pommes fondantes, which are coming up in the next recipe.

Lamb shank with rosemary potatoes and grilled vegetables

I cooked this as the main course for dinner on my birthday. The Husband wanted me to cook these lamb shanks for a long time already and now we had the occasion. Lamb shanks are not easy to find in Prague, I bought these frozen in Makro and they came from New Zealand. Shanks are the less expensive pieces of lamb but they are very juicy and tender when cooked properly and they look very impressive on the plate. Serve one shank per person, they are about 300-400gr each including the bone.

Ingredients for 5 people:

5 lamb shanks

150gr of each, diced roughly - carrots, celery, parsley, onions

1 tbl spoon of honey or cranberry jam or apricot jam (I prefer apricot jam, but you can use anything that's sweet and sticky except sugar)

olive oil

herbs - optional

1 whole garlic bulb

salt pepper

1.5 kg potatoes

2 tbl spoons of fresh rosemary leaves

3 peppers

3 pieces zuchinni

balsamic vinegar

Instructions:

Skrape the skin and tissue from the upper end of the shank bone, this will make the bone stick out when cooked. Drizzle generously with salt and pepper, leave to marinate for a couple of hours.

Heat up some olive oil in the pot/dutch oven that you will use for baking the shanks. Roast the root vegetables on medium heat until they become soft, turn up the heat and add the jam or honey, let caramelise until the vegetables are slightly brown. Place the shanks along with the whole garlic bulb and herbs onto vegetables, pour some more olive oil on top, add more salt and pepper if needed, cover and place in the oven. Cook for 2.5-3 hours. Remove lid, turn up the grill onto highest temperature and let a crust form (optional).

In the mean time wash some potatoes, wash them well as we will not peel them, and cut them into same size pieces, place in a baking dish. Remove some liquid/fat/juice from the pot in which the lamb is cooking, 5-6 tablespoons is enough, pour over potatoes. Add fresh rosemary leaves and salt, toss, cover with alfoil and place in the oven along with the lamb one hour prior serving time.

Cut the peppers and zucchini into same size squares and fry in some olive oil on high heat until soft but still with a crunch. Add salt, pepper and finish off with some honey and balsamico to balance out the taste.

Serve the lamb and the potatoes hot and the vegetables cold. We like it like this, but the vegetables are just as good when served warm. The root vegetables that were cooked along with the lamb should not be served, they have already given all they had to the meat and moreover they don't look good.

This makes a very filling main course, so if you are serving many appetizers then some diners will may want to split one shank between themselves. Between 5 people we had 2 whole pieces left untouched because there were many appetizers.

The recipe comes from the Chef Gurman magazine.