Tempeh Goreng is a sweet and spicy Indonesian side dish. The first time I tried it was at a friend’s house at a dinner party. They had bought it ready made at an Asian shop. 2 weeks ago I had a dinner party with the usual suspects (including Miss TokoNom) in The Hague and we made our own Tempeh Goreng. Now I did chop some ingredients, but I didn’t remember all that went in. So along with a vague memory and some online inspiration I made my own.
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Related: indonesian, side dishes, spicy

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My friend P. and I made this pasta salad when I had to work in the Hague. We felt like making a pesto pasta salad. We got the good stuff, often ready made pesto’s contain ingredients that absolutely don’t belong in there like potato, cashew nuts and sometimes even spinach.

Cook the pasta and in the meantime cut up your vegetables. I cut the aubergine and courgette in in long slices and then into bite size pieces. In a pan with a little bit of oil I grilled the aubergine slices until nicely browned. The courgette was grilled until it still had a bit of bite. Cut the grilled peppers into bite size pieces. For extra ease we bought the grilled peppers in a jar.

Drain pasta and rinse with a bit of cold water. Mix with pesto, grilled vegetables, tomatoes, feta, smoked chicken and pine nuts and you’re done. Super easy and yummy taste . Make sure you make lots so you have some left for lunch the next day. If you don’t like smoked chicken, you could always leave it out or use regular panfried chicken.

Related: easy, Pasta, salad

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I wanted to try to make my own fried chicken. Plan was to fry the chicken pieces twice to make them extra crispy. As this was somewhat of an experiment I can’t give you exact measurements.

For the batter I used approximately 2:1 plain flour to corn starch to which I added cold water bit by bit to create a paste that would hold on to my chicken, but wasn’t too thick either. The flour mixture was seasoned with paprika powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. My first try was a bit too wet so while coating the chicken I added a bit of extra flour. For the chicken I used boneless chicken thighs, thigh meat it much more succulent than chicken breast.

In a frying pan I added about an inch of oil. The amount at which my chicken would be nicely fried on one side. I don’t have a thermometer, but the oil was hot enough for the battered chicken to fry nice and slowly. I cooked 3 pieced together in my pan at a time. My theory is not to turn the chicken too often or too much oil will be absorbed by the batter. Remove from the oil when the crust has been cooked and slightly colored and put onto kitchen towel. The chicken (if not too thick) will have been cooked enough by now.

In the same oil I fried of some parboiled jacket potatoes cut into wedged. As a side dish I deseeded a cucumber cut it into thin slices and put those in a vinegar, sugar and water mixture.

Time for the 2nd frying. The oil can be slightly hotter now. The pieces of chicken have probably gone a bit soft after the first frying. Frying them the second time with fry off excess moisture and will turn the chicken pieces lovely and crispy. Fry until nicely golden brown.

This was so lovely and I think better than KFC or any of those places. I had some left over and the batter was still a bit crispy the next day.

Related: Chicken, experiment

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I’ve been a subscriber to Maangchi’s Youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/Maangchi for some time now. And along came a recipe for which I didn’t need a lot of special ingredients that would just sit in my cupboard unused. Hoddeok, Korean stuffed pancakes. Normally with a sugary filling, but you can also make savory versions. I stuffed mine with a mixture of grated slightly aged cheese (Gouda for example) and chopped spring onion.

For the original recipe go to: http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/hoddeok. I could list the ingredients in here, but the video and photo’s she has posted there are so much more helpful.

I really liked these and are fairly easy to make. Slightly crispy outside, bready texture and gooey insides.

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I had a square brownie tin sitting in the cupboard for quite some time now and it was about time that it got used. We went grocery shopping before I really looked at any recipes. I only got cocao powder and no chocolate bars. Most of the recipes I found online used cocoa and chocolate bars, but I was lucky enough to find this recipe: http://www.cacaoweb.net/brownies3.html.

This is my first making brownies without using a mix and I will never go back to buying brownie mix ever. These came out perfect. I followed the recipe using the self raising flour option. The eggs I used were pretty big and I feared the mixture was too runny, but this wasn’t a problem at all. The amount of sugar might seem large, but these weren’t overly sweet. Because of our gasoven I did leave it in much longer and placed the tin on the highest shelf. You’ll have to experiment with your oven and check your brownie a couple of times after the first 20 minutes.

I added pecans, I still have loads left from making pecan pie. Never buy brownies or brownie mix again. Go for this recipe!

Related: baking, chocolate, sweets

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This recipe serves 2 people.
For the marinade I used Gomadare a Japanese sesame based dressing/marinade. Mix the marinade with the soy. Cut thin slices of the lean beef, stir into the mix and leave to marinade. I had marinated the beef for a couple of hours, but a shorter period of time should be fine. In the meantime steam your rice.

Before you’re ready to serve. Clean the lettuce and cut the big outer leaved into strips, I kept the small inner leaves whole. My carrot was ready bought, but you could cut the carrots into thin strips yourself. Cut the cucumber into thin strips as well as the spring onion.

Salad dressing: mix a small squirt of wasabi paste, I used about 3/4 of an inch with a little bit of water to loosen the paste. Then add about a 1.5 tbs of mayonaise. I used Kewpie mayonaise, but “regular” mayo should be fine.

Time to plate up. Put a bit of steamed rice into a bowl. Top with julienne carrot and cucumber to taste. Drizzle with a small amount of wasabi/mayo dressing. Top with the salad and onion and drizzle with a bit more of the dressing. In the meantime heat up a frying pan with a thin layer of vegetable oil on a high heat. Throw in the marinated beef and seperate the beef a bit with a spatula. Don’t move the beef around too much at this stage so it has a bit of time to catch and brown. Then start stirring the beef so it’s browned on all sides. The whole proces shouldn’t take more than 2 to 3 minutes so the beef stays nice and tender. Towards the end throw in some sesame seeds and put the beef on top of the salad. For extra sesame flavor I drizzled a tiny bit of extra Gomadare on top of the beef.

Absolutely lovely and very fast dish. You could prepare everything in advance except for cooking the beef. You could reheat the rice in a microwave, top the rice and then stir fry the beef. Which is exactly what I did for the BF, because he was home very late from work.

Related: beef, Rice, salad

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I had some more puff pastry sitting in the fridge and thought I wanted to try making some custard tarts. I searched online for some recipes which involved me not having to run off to the store to get more ingredients.

For the custard I used this recipe and replaced the full cream milk with semi-skimmed milk. As I haven’t been able to find vanilla extract I used a little bag of vanilla sugar instead.

Grease a muffin tray, place on disks of puff pastry and pour on the cooled custard mix. Don’t overfill because the custard will puff up in the oven. Then I baked them for about 20 minutes at 200°C (400°F). They could have had a bit more cooking time to color the pastry, but as I use a gasoven I feared the pastry might get too dark. The pastry was fully cooked though.

These were just great. I love how I can make wonderful things with a roll of puff pastry . When I tasted the custard it was pretty sweet, as a tart it wasn’t too sweet. I might use a little less sugar next time.

Related: baking, puff pasty, sweets

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Cut the courgette into 3 pieces, then cut into thin narrow strips. Pan fry the courgette into a bit of oil. Add seasoning and garlic powder to taste. Cook until softened. Turn off heat and let it cool.

Now make the batter. I did this all by eye so just experiment a bit. I used about a cup of flour, season the flour. Break the egg into the flour and mix. Add little bits of milk until you have a thick paste, stir well. Making a thick paste first, prevents lumps later on. Keep adding little bits of milk until you have a thick batter. Don’t add too much milk because the courgette adds extra moisture.
Stir in the grated parmesan and the somewhat cooled courgette.

In a medium hot pan fry your little pancakes, don’t make them too big or they’ll break up when flipping over. I used a fork to “spoon” bits into the pan, 2 to 3 forks full to create 1 pancake. There, you’re done!

I never was a big fan of courgette, but wanted to try more vegetables. These were an instant hit. I absolutely love them. The flavors come out best when eaten warm. The little bit of parmesan also makes a big difference. We had these yesterday with a bit of potato salad and my soy/sesame eggplant.

Related: courgette, vegetable

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Cut out approximately 3″ diameter rounds, place rounds in a greased muffin tray. For the filling, dice up your mushrooms fairly small and fry these in some butter. Add galic powder, pepper and oregano to taste. Stir in Gorgonzola. I had some left over from my simple pasta. Melt gorgonzola through your mushroom mix until you have a creamy mixture. Pour this on top of your little puff pastry cups and bake in the oven at 190C/374C for about 15 minutes.

Lovely when eaten warm, the tops go lightly crispy on top and nicely gooey in the middle. Simple 2 bite snacks.

Related: baking, puff pastry, snack

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With my roasted potatoes I had this eggplant dish.

To serve 2 all you need is 1 eggplant, a bit of oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds.

Cut fairly thick slices of eggplant, if the slices are too thin they will break up. I cut mine at an angle and then again through the middle so I had long strips. Pan fry the slices in a bit of oil until they are cooked trough and are nicely browned. Remove from pan.

Wipe the pan clean and pour in your sesame seeds, make sure your heat isn’t too high or they’ll pop out of your pan. Pour in a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce and optionally a little bit of water. Put the eggplant slices back in to the pan and coat with the sasame seeds and sauce. Reduce down slightly so the sauce sticks to the eggplant. Done!

I absolutely love eggplant. I usually have some pan fried slices through a tabouleh salad, but as a side dish like this, it’s absolutely lovely. Very good when eaten cold.

Related: eggplant

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