Beef Semore (Thick Beef Stew)

From Robin’s Eurasian Recipes
Serves 4

Ingredients

4 tbsp oil
1 large onion, sliced
3 cm piece of ginger thinly sliced
1 stick cinnamon (5cm)
10 cloves
2 star anise
3 cardamon pods
10 peppercorns
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1 kg chuck tender beef, cut into 3cm cubes and marinated with 5 tbsp light soya sauce and 2 tbsp pepper for 20 mins
2 tbsp light soya sauce
2 tbsp dark soya sauce
50ml water
2 carrots, peeled and cut into 2 cm pieces
2 potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 tbsp vinegar

grind together
3 big onions
3 cm piece of ginger

Heat the oil in a pot, add the sliced onions, ginger, cinnamon stick, cloves, star anise, cardamon pods, peppercorns and nutmeg. When the onions start to brown, add the ground ingredients.

When the oil rises, add the marinated beef and soya sauces. Fry the beef for about 5 minutes, then add the water and boil for another 5 minutes. Add the carrots and potatoes and cook till soft.Add the vinegar.

Remove from heat and serve hot.

My first attempt at cooking a Eurasian dish for the Eurasian gf. I think I passed…

Anyway, it’s a nice contrast to the usual western beef stews I have cooked, the taste is a lot more complex because of the combination of spices.

Mussel, haddock and salmon stew

From BBC Saturday Kitchen
Serves 4
Ingredients

1litre/2 pints fish stock
1kg/2lb 3¾oz mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded
pinch saffron
¼ tsp curry powder
500ml/1pint double cream
For the stew
250g/9oz smoked haddock, cut into 1.5cm cubes
200g/7oz salmon, cut into 1.5cm cubes
4 carrots, cut into 1cm cubes and blanched
2 potatoes, cut into 1cm cubes and blanched
1 leek, cut into 1cm cubes
2 tbsp flatleaf parsley, roughly chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper
To serve
4 slices country bread, griddled

Bring the stock to the boil, then add the mussels and cook for 3-4 minutes until the mussels are open. Discard any mussels that do not open.
Strain the stock into a saucepan, reserving the mussels.
Pull the mussel shells in half, discarding the halves without the mussel meat, and keep to one side.
Place the pan with the stock back on the heat and reduce the temperature to a simmer.
Add the saffron, curry powder and cream, then bring it back to a simmer.
Add the fish, carrots, potatoes and leek and simmer for 2-3 minutes until tender.
Add the parsley and cooked mussels and stir through.
Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Serve with the griddled bread.

This is now my current favourite cream based fish stew. The addition of saffron and curry powder brings this stew to a completely new level!

Chinese style braised beef one-pot

From BBC GoodFood More one-pot recipes
Serves 4
Ingredients
3-4 tbsp olive oil
6 garlic cloves , thinly sliced
good thumb-size piece fresh root ginger , peeled and shredded
1 bunch spring onions , sliced
1 red chilli , deseeded and thinly sliced
1½ kg braising beef , cut into large pieces (I used beef brisket)
2 tbsp plain flour , well seasoned
1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
2 star anise
2 tsp light muscovado sugar
3 tbsp Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry
3 tbsp dark soy sauce , plus more to serve
500ml beef stock

Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a large, shallow casserole. Fry the garlic, ginger, onions and chilli for 3 mins until soft and fragrant. Tip onto a plate. Toss the beef in the flour, add 1 tbsp more oil to the pan, then brown the meat in batches, adding the final tbsp oil if you need to. It should take about 5 mins to brown each batch properly.

Add the five-spice and star anise (if using) to the pan, tip in the gingery mix, then fry for 1 min until the spices are fragrant. Add the sugar, then the beef and stir until combined. Keep the heat high, then splash in the wine or sherry, scraping up any meaty bits. Heat oven to 150C/fan 130C/gas 2.

Pour in the soy and stock (it won’t cover the meat completely), bring to a simmer, then tightly cover, transfer to the oven and cook for 1½-2 hrs, stirring the meat halfway through. The meat should be very soft, and any sinewy bits should have melted away. Season with more soy. This can now be chilled and frozen for up to 1 month.

Irish coddled pork with cider

From BBC More One-pot Recipes
Serves 2
Ingredients

small knob butter
2 pork loin chops
4 rashers smoked bacon , cut into pieces
2 potatoes , cut into chunks
1 carrot , cut into large chunks
1⁄2 small swede , cut into chunks
1⁄2 large cabbage , cut into smaller pieces
1 bay leaf
100ml Irish cider
100g chicken stock

Heat the butter in a casserole dish until sizzling, then fry the pork for 2-3 mins on each side until browned. Remove from the pan.

Tip the bacon, carrot, potatoes and swede into the pan, then gently fry until slightly coloured. Stir in the cabbage, sit the chops back on top, add the bay leaf, then pour over the cider and stock. Cover the pan, then leave everything to gently simmer for 20 mins until the pork is cooked through and the vegetables are tender.

Serve at the table spooned straight from the dish.

At the end of the day, I still think soft cabbage with bacon and soup is the best comfort food you can get for winter.

Fisherman’s stew

From Gordon Ramsey’s Cooking for Friends
Serves 4
Ingredients

500g clams
500g mussels
100ml dry white wine or
Noilly Prat

1 bouquet garni (1 bay leaf, sprig of parsley and thyme and 2 blades of mace tied together)
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large leeks, finely sliced
1 medium fennel bulb, finely sliced
700ml fish stock
pinch of saffron strands
100ml double cream
200g king prawns
400g plaice fillet, with skin
on, in bite-size chunks 200g crabmeat
small handful of flat-leaf
parsley, leaves chopped

Wash the clams and mussels and discard any that do not shut tightly when gently tapped. Put the wine and bouquet garni in a large heavy-based pan (with a tight-fitting lid) and bring to the boil. As soon as it starts to boil, tip in the clams and mussels. Give the mixture a stir, then cover and steam for 2–3 minutes until the clams and mussels have opened.

Tip the shellfish into a colander set over a large bowl to collect the liquid. Discard the bouquet garni. Return the pan to the heat and add the olive oil, leek and fennel. Sauté for about 4–5 minutes, then pour in the liquid from the clams and mussels. Add the fish stock and saffron and bring to a simmer. Let it cook until reduced by a third, then pour in the cream.
Meanwhile, extract the flesh from most of the clams and mussels, discarding any that have not opened, and keeping back a few of each in their shells to use as garnish.

Five minutes before you are ready to serve, bring the stock back to a simmer. Add the prawns and cook for 2 minutes, then add the fish and crabmeat. Poach for another minute, just until the fish turns opaque. Return the clams and mussels to the pan to warm through. Remove the pan from the heat. Ladle the stew into warm bowls and garnish with a little chopped parsley.

So I cheated. Too much hassle for me since I am cooking for myself to use the actual clams and mussels to make the stock. It would obviously taste better but for reasons of economy and effort, I decided to skip that step instead.

So instead, I started straight with the sautéing of the vegetables. Instead of adding the mussel/clam stock, I just added white wine and the bouquet garni.

Well, the taste is decent, probably as decent as it gets when you are just using a fish stock cube to make it. But if you want to make a cream based fish soup, this is a decent recipe.

Prawn, chorizo and chickpea stew

From Ramsay’s Best Menus
Ingredients

3 tbsp olive oil
4 fresh piquillo peppers, cored, deseeded and cut into 2cm squares
1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
150g good-quality cooking chorizo sausage, sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
1 ½ tbsp sherry vinegar
3 tbsp dry sherry
600g drained cooked chickpeas (freshly cooked or tinned)
100ml chicken stock
70g baby spinach leaves, washed
20 good-quality raw tiger prawns, peeled, deveined and heads removed
Large handful of basil, leaves only, torn
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large, wide pan and add the peppers, red onion and chorizo. Cook for a few minutes, then add the garlic. Cook for a couple of minutes again, then add the sherry and vinegar and reduce down.

2. Add the chickpeas, stir and cook for a couple of minutes, then add the chicken stock and cook for 10 minutes on a medium heat.

3. In a separate pan, fry the tiger prawns in the remaining olive oil for about 30-45 seconds each side. Once cooked, add to the chickpea stew with the spinach. Let wilt slightly, then scatter over the basil, season and serve.

Couldn’t find any tiger prawns at Marks and Sparks and so I settled for Honduran raw prawns. This is one GR’s recipes from his Channel 4 show, Ramsay’s Best Restaurants, and this is the main course for his Spanish Summer menu. The starter for this is Chunky Gazpacho and his dessert is Lime Mousse… Ok just by writing all this, it’s tempting me to actually do this whole menu. May do it for the next lunch / dinner party I do or back home in Singapore.

Braised oxtail

From Cook with Jamie
Serves 6
Ingredients
1 oxtail, cut into 10cm chunks
1 stick of celery, finely chopped
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
1 leek, trimmed and finely chopped
1/2 bottle of white wine
1 tbsp of fennel seeds, crushed
1 tbsp juniper berries, crushed
1/2 a cinnamon stick
1 dried red chilli, crushed
sea salt and black pepper
1 large tbsp tomato puree
4 X 400g tins plum tomatoes
1 tbsp fresh oregano leaves
a handful of fresh sage leaves
a knob of butter
optional: Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees.

Get a large ovenproof saucepan hot and add a splash of olive oil. ear the oxtail until brown on all sides, then add the celery, onion, carrot and leek. Cook gently until golden brown and add the wine and your crushed spices, cinnamon, chilli, tomato puree and tins of tomatoes. Top up with a little water – you just need enough to make sure all the meat is covered- and put a lid on. Put the pan in the oven for 4 to 4 1/2 hours, until the meat is falling off the bone. Remove from the oven and lift the meat out of the stew. When cool enough to hand, shred all the meat off the bones. Pick through the meat with your fingers to make sure that no bony bits remain, then put the meat back in the pot. Add the oregano and simmer for 15 minutes and season to taste. Fry the sage leaves in the butter until crispy and dark green, then drain them on kitchen paper. Serve the stew with some fried sage leaves.

Cioppino (Italian Seafood Stew)

Cioppino served with a sourdough toast

Cioppino (Adapted from Giada de Laurentiis’s recipe)
Ingredients
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped
3 large shallots, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
3/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper flakes, plus more to taste
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
5 cups fish stock
1 bay leaf
1 pound manila clams, scrubbed
1 pound mussels, scrubbed, debearded
1 pound uncooked large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 1/2 pounds assorted firm-fleshed fish fillets such as halibut or salmon, cut into 2-inch chunks
Directions
Heat the oil in a very large pot over medium heat. Add the fennel, onion, shallots, and salt and saute until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and 3/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, and saute 2 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste. Add tomatoes with their juices, wine, fish stock and bay leaf. Cover and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer until the flavors blend, about 30 minutes.

 

Add the clams and mussels to the cooking liquid. Cover and cook until the clams and mussels begin to open, about 5 minutes. Add the shrimp and fish. Simmer gently until the fish and shrimp are just cooked through, and the clams are completely open, stirring gently, about 5 minutes longer (discard any clams and mussels that do not open). Season the soup, to taste, with more salt and red pepper flakes.

Ladle the soup into bowls and serve.

Ever since I had a very lovely lobster Cioppino at our wedding anniversary dinner last year, I’ve not stopped thinking about the dish. I tried ordering it again at a pub a few months ago, and boy, was it a disappointment. After a really stressful day at work, I really wanted to eat the dish again and decided to make it myself. Because it was a after-work decision, I had to take some liberties with the recipe. I didn’t use any mussels, or fish stock, and I used fresh tomatoes instead of canned ones (it’s tomato season, y’all!). Instead of white wine, I used masala wine. To get a “fishier” taste, I threw in a slice of dried abalone (every Chinese kitchen has that) and I think it made it better, but nothing beats lobster, prawn stock.

It turned out pretty good, hearty and perfect for a cool late summer evening. The husband gave it 7/10. Perhaps next time I will add prawn or lobster stock.

But I’ll definitely be making this dish quite often, especially when it gets colder.

Marmitako

From Spanish – the cookbook
Ingredients

4 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 green bell peppers seeded and chopped
4 light tuna steaks
400g can tomatoes with juice
2 tsp paprika
3 potatoes, diced
350ml dry cider
salt and ground pepper
chopped fresh parsley to garnish

Heat half the oil in a shallow flameproof casserole big enough to take the fish. Fry the onion gently until softened, then add the garlic. Add the peppers and chilli and stir fry gently.

Season the fish steaks. Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and fry the fish steaks for 2 minutes on each side over a high heat. Add the tomatoes to the casserole and stir-fry gently. Add the paprika, then salt and pepper to taste.

Slip the fish steaks into the sauce, moving the peppers into the spaces between them. Cover with the potatoes, pushing them as flat as possible. Add the cider and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook very gently for about 45 minutes, or until the potatoes are done.

Check the seasoning, sprinkle with the chopped parsley and serve immediately, straight from the casserole.

According to the cookbook, this is a traditional fisherman’s stew, often made at sea, with meaty tuna steaks. I like the addition of paprika which gives it a distinct spicy, smokey taste which distinguishes it from the other fish stews I have made.

Btw I forgot to buy a can of tomatoes for the soup, so instead I used fresh tomatoes and some fish stock to replace. I think it should work just as well.

Boeuf Bourguignon (Ginette Mathiot’s version)

Time: About 3 hours

1 tablespoon oil
3 ounces onions or shallots, chopped
3 1/2 ounces thick-cut bacon, diced
1 1/2 pounds stewing beef, cut into 1 1/2 -inch pieces, patted dry
Scant 1/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cups any type of stock, hot
1 1/4 cups red wine
1 bouquet garni (1 bay leaf, 3 sprigs fresh thyme and 3 sprigs parsley, tied together)
Black pepper
3 1/2 ounces mushrooms, diced
Salt.
1. In a heavy pan over medium heat, heat oil. Add onions and bacon and cook, stirring, until browned. Remove them and set aside; leave fat in pan.

2. Add beef and brown on all sides (work in two batches if needed to avoid crowding).

3. Sprinkle browned beef with flour, stir until browned and add stock. Stir, scraping bottom of pan, then add reserved bacon and onions, the wine and bouquet garni. Season with pepper.

4. Simmer very gently for 2 hours.

5. Add mushrooms and cook 30 minutes more. Season with salt and serve. Or, even better, reheat and serve the next day.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings.

This is way less complicated than Julia Child’s version and of course, not as delicious. However, it is still good, just not as good. But given the work that went into it, it was well worth it. I’d say, use this recipe for regular meals and JC’s version for very special dinners, like when a head of state is coming for dinner. LOL