Lancashire black peas

I just wanted to share with you a local/regional discovery. In spite of having lived in Lancashire for 12 years+, I failed to realise one of the old traditional food of Lancashire is bl;ack peas. They were featured at Accrington food fair and I did not miss the sampling. They taste very much like mushy peas, slightly different, and they are to be sprinkled with salt and pepper. My opinion? I really liked them, and the pot they were in was way too small!

Chinese style steamed seabass

You must know it by now, my favorite fish is seabass, and yes, steamed with greens. Very healty, easy and no fuss. Extremely tasty.

So here's another recipe, chinese this time.
You won't need much:
- 1 fresh seabass, filleted
- 1 broccoli
- a handful of runner beans cut in strips

for the sauce (adjust vinegar and Soya to taste)
- 5 tblspn Soya sauce
- 2 tblspn white wine vinegar or chinese vinegar
- 1 tspn sesame oil
- 2tblspn water
- 1 bird eye chilly, sliced
- 1/2 thumb fresh ginger chopped finely
- 1 tblsp golden syrup

Cook the fish and the vegetables in the steamer in separate baskets for 12 minutes
Prepare the sauce by mixing the ingredients and adjusting.
Dish the fish and vegetables, pour the sauce on top (or serve the sauce separately if you prefer)

Enjoy!

Did I say it was quick and easy? Ah! I wasn't lying!...
This one definitely beats the take away.. (well, I don't do take aways anyway..)

Source: my own experimentation with various tastes

Express Asparagus starter

Here's a very simple yet gorgeous starter. It could not be easier.

You need for 2 people:
- fresh Asparagus tips
- 1 heaped tblspoon dijon mustard
- 1 spoon liquid honey
- 2 or 3 tblspoons of vegetable oil (I like to use grapeseed oil)
- 2 tblspoons of white wine vinegar
- salt and pepper

Steam the asparagus tips for 15 minutes

For the sauce: in a small bowl, mix well the mustard and honey, add the salt and pepper, then add the oil beating with a fork to form an emulsion, add the vinegar and beat with the fork to 'fix' what is an eggless mayonnaise in a permanent emulsion..

Serve on plate and pour the sauce over it.
Another quick starter: walnut endive salad for 2 people.
You need:
- 1 big endive
- 1 spoon honey vinegar (balsamic will do)
- 2 tblsp grapeseed oil
- a palmfull of fresh walnut
- salt and cracked black pepper

Wash the endive, cut in slices, pour the rest of the ingredients on top, mix well and it's ready.

I find that these starters add a fresh and green touch to the winter dishes that come as a main. They are no hassle to make and are very quick too when you have guests.

Hope you like it, bon apetit!

Haggis, neeps and tatties

....Or translate Haggis, turnips and potatoes!

Recently, in fact just a day before the Chinese New Year and Australia Day - too many celebrations in two days this year!- it was Burns night. This Scottish celebration involves haggis which you can't get so easily in England the rest of the year. .

I absolutely love haggis and last time I went to Scotland, I ate it every day (I know it's extreme..!). It is made with oats and offals, and is full of goodness, recommended to anybody lacking iron. Vegetarian variants exist, I am not a huge fan, but if you can't have the real McCoy, go for this one!

Anyway, I bought three at once at the farmers market, providing me with three easy and gorgeous meals. These haggis were cased in a proper sheep's stomach, as oppowed to the now more common plastic tube.
Its flavour was amazing, and I served it the traditionnal way: Steamed (for 40 minutes) with three different types of mash:- sweet potato mash,
- parsnips mash (steamed parsnips with a bit of salt and a bit of nutmeg), and
- potato mash (steamed potatoes mashed with single cream, butter, salt and ahint of mustard)
So remember, place in the steamer the haggis and the segregated vegetables (potatoes, parsnips and sweet potatoes) for 40 minutes, then prepare the mashes and serve, it's fast, tasty, and nutritious!

Enjoy!

Source: My own recipes

Bacon chichen wrap

This recipe is the fruit of an improvised collaboration of 2 people around a set of ingredients and hunger! it is easy and relatively quick. Most of all, it was very tasty! Only thing, I'll conceed, it looks very messy!
Ingredients:

- 6 thighs and drumsticks

- 6 slices of bacon (take the fat off)

- 1kg parsnips

- 1 big onion

- 1 apple
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds

- 2 tspn paprika
- 1/2tspn chili powder
- 1/2tsp chili flakes

- 1 ttsp ginger powder

- salt and pepper to taste

In a steamer, cook:

- the meat in the bottom tier (for 30 min) and

- the parsnips (reserve one) cut in quarters in the top tier (for 15 minutes)In a blender, placed the peeled and chopped onion, apple and parsnip. Blend to a fine chopped, but not mushy. Then add the ginger, tumeric, salt, pepper and 1 tsp paprikaPlace the cooked parsnip at the bottom of an oven dish.

Stuff the onion mix in the skin of the chicken pieces, coat with the onion mix and hold in place by wrapping the bacon around it. deposit on the parsnips. put the rest of the mix around the pieces of chicken, and sprinkle the dish with the rest of the paprika. Place in the oven for 40 minutes then serve.

Source: collaboration on improvisation

Marinated pork noodles

Another improvisation on the Chinese theme... Easy, and effortless....However If you don't have the Asian ingredients at home, forget it, the marinade is balanced but quite complex.

Ingredients for 2:

- 1 1/2 pork loin slice per person

- 1 slab easy cook noodles per person

- 1 head of broccoli

- 7 mangetout

- 7 mini sweetcorns cut in thick slices

- 4 sliced spring onions

For the marinade:

- 2 dashes of ketchup

- 2 dashes of oyster sauce

- 1 dash dark soy sauce

- 1 dash light soy sauce

- 1 big dash Thai fish sauce

- 1 dash dry sherry

- juice of 1 small lime

- 2 big cloves of garlic finely chopped

- 1 big thumb of ginger finely chopped

- 1/2 small tsp of tamarind paste

- 1 tsp full of chilli oil

- 1 tblsp Chinese 5 spice powder

Place the pork in the marinade, and leave minimum 1/2 hour.

Cook broccoli in the steamer for 12 minutes. Add the mangetout and sweet corn 5 minutes before the end of the 12 minutes to blanch them.

Cook the noodles, pass them under cold water and drain, reserve.

Cook the meat in a hot wok with the marinade.
When cooked, add the vegetables
and the noodles,
stir well and make sure the noodles are hot by cooking it 1 or 2 more minutes. serve in bowl with chopsticks and sprinkle with spring onions!

This dish went down a treat, the meat absorbed the dark and sweet flavours of the marinade, whereas the noodles absorbed the tangy tastes, delicious and very light tasting!

Source: the inspiration of the day

Fluffy sweet potato mash

Yesterday evening I had to prepare my lunch for today, and I wanted something warm, comforting, light, tasty and minimum effort... Looked in the cupboards.. Ah!!
So there you are, I ended up with the idea of mash, but not tatties because it's too heavy.
Here's how I made the mash, fluffy, ligt healthy and flavoursome (have I sold it yet? - yes you gather, I loved it!)

For 1 person:
- 2 big sweet potatoes, cut in small bits
- 1 big shallot chopped
- 1 heaped tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tsp tumeric
- 1tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp chili flakes
- a little bit of saffron
- salt to taste (sea salt is best!)

Cook the sweet potatoes and the shallots in a steamer for 20 minutes.

Use a hand masher and mash roughly to keep the fluffy texture, add the spices, sprinkle a bit of paprika for the deco.

The hardest is probably to cut the potato in bits, all in all I'd say 10 minutes of preparation if you are really really slow at peeling the potatoes and cutting them. The steamer will do the rest for you...
This mash is very happy to be reheated - not like potato or carrot mash whose texture is changing.
And you'll notice: not one ounce of fat: it's super healthy!

Bon apetit!

Source: I was hungry, it decuples the thinking power to create food!!

Thai steamed seabass - my favorite

I must have mentioned by now how much I love Thai food.
Now this is a dish which is light, very delicate and delicious, incredibly healthy, simple and flavoursome, and beautiful too.

I prefer to buy fillets of sea bass (cut in front of me) rather than the whole fish, purely for taste, it also cooks faster and more evenly.

Anyway, for 2 you will need:
- 2 fillets of sea bass (in french 'loup', but buy the babies at a proper fishmonger's, not the big ones..)
- 1 lemongrass
- 1 and 1/2 juicy lime
- Thai fish sauce (beware: this is important, Vietnamese fish sauce tastes completely different)
- 4 medium tomatoes
- 1 big red pepper
- fresh coriander (fresh basil is OK if you're stuck for coriander)
- 3 fresh Kaffir lime leaves (dried if you can get hold of it)
- 1 clove of garlic finely chopped
- 1 nail worth of finely chopped ginger
- 1 Bird eye chili

In the photo you can see I see I also used a courgette, but you don't have to.

Place the diced red pepper and diced tomatoes ( and diced courgettes if any) in the lower tier of your steamer.
Place the sea bass fillet in the top tier of the steamer, with on it one or two slices of lemongrass and the Kaffir lime leaves if dry. Set your steamer on 10 minutes

In the meantime, prepare the sauce:
Squeeze the juice of 1 lime, and mix with it a bit less than the same quantity of fish sauce.
Taste and adjust (it should not taste too salty nor too sour from the lime) with the juice of he 1/2 lime and the fish sauce.
When the taste is right, add the rest of the sliced lemongrass, the sliced bird's eye chili, the garlic and the ginger,kaffir lime leaves and fresh coriander chopped.

When the fish and vegges have finished cooking, dispose on a plate and add the sauce on top. Serve immediately, and sit down to enjoy the beautiful signals ALL your taste buds will send your overwhelmed brain.

Source: Chorchaba, who used to be my Thai cooking class master, the best ever Thai cook I ever hope to encounter..

Simple steamed salmon and broccolis

Here you go, no prep:
Lay the salmon in the first tier of the steamer with ginger slices or grated ginger on top , Florets of broccoli, set the timer to 15 min...
Result: Moist salmon and slightly crunchy broccoli...
A few droplets of roasted sesame oil on the salmon, and a filet of lime juice on the broccoli. You can use a few drops of oyster sauce on the broccoli as well.

Et voila! Total 3 min of preparation, 15 min reading emails whilst it's in the steamer...
Lots of iron and folic acid from the broccoli (and made more assimilable by the citrus juice), Fish oils, Proteins and vegetable and fibre Ah.
Light and very tasty too...! ;) No excuse then about not having time to eat properly!

I have not found a name for the dish, it's so simple...

The fastest soup on earth - 5min top chronos

For the lazy but healthy days (for 2):

Wash, cut, and put directly in your steamer:
- 1 small broccoli,
- 1 green pepper,
- a few Brussels sprouts,
- 1 stem of fresh lemongrass,
- 3 to 5 garlic cloves,

Steam until cooked (set 20 minutes, depending on your steamer)

Pour in blender and add
- wasabi
- salt,
- pepper,
- 1 spoon of Italian olive oil (the one that tastes like freshly cut grass)
- water (to your preferred consistency)

Blend it as much as you like,

Serve!

That's too easy really. Tasty and healthy and very green.

Chicken Gow Gees

These are the first Chinese dumplings I've made, and I am proud to say, they tasted Chinese! I found the recipe in one of my Australian Women's weekly booklet which I think are great (the same recipes on their website are not as good ;) and I have taken some liberties with it to improve time and taste:
Ingredients:
400g lean chicken
2 shitake mushrooms
5 chinese chive (or green onions if you don't have) 2 cloves garlic, crushed 1 Thumbed-sized piece fresh ginger, grated ¼ teaspoon five-spice powder 2 tablespoons hoi sin sauce 1 teaspoon sesame oil 1 egg Gyoza wrappers or Har Gau wrapper made from scratch if you fancy trying that (the recipe says wanton or spring rolls wrappers)

For the dipping sauce:
1 tablespoon of hoi sin (the recipe said char siu, but since you've already got some hoi sin there..)
1 tablespoon of light soy sauce
3 tablespoons of water (adjust to liking)
6 fresh birds eye chili slices (the recipe says 2 tablespoon of sweet chili sauce)
and I like to add one table spoon of oyster sauce + a small teaspoon of golden syrup or sugar).

Mince the chicken with a knife not toooo finely. Add the finely chopped shitake mushrooms (you will have soaked them for 20 min in boiling water, and discarded the stems), chives,garlic and ginger, then the hoi sin sauce, five spice, toasted sesame oil and and the egg. Mix well with your hands. (I scrapped the breadcrumbs from the recipe - breadcrumbs especially from a packet are evil!!)

Take the wrapper as shown in the photo below and fill the middle with the mixture, pushing so that the wrapper drops a bit between our fingers to create a well, then close the wrapper by pinching it at regular (and tactical) intervals. (There, the original recipe says to roll the mix in balls with a spoon and place the balls in the fridge, covered, for 30 minutes, to brush the wrapper with water and pleat it around the ball you will have placed in the middle)

Place the gow gees in your steamer - make sure to place them on one of these Teflon baking sheet that you will have cut to a round-ish shape, and leave them to cook for ten minutes.
In the meantime, prepare the sauce by mixing the ingredients mentioned above. There you are, your gow gees are gowgeous! ;) It was long for me to write the thing down, but it takes no time in the kitchen, and I think looks impressive enough - who actually MAKES dumplings huh? even my Chinese friends buy them ready made from the supermarket.... But you know what's in these and you know they are healthy!

Source: The Australian's women weekly's 'Chinese favorites' booklet. They also have a recipe on their website, there.

And here's what the gow gees looked like in the original recipe: