General Tso's Chicken

There are several stories concerning the origin of the dish. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo states in her book The Chinese Kitchen that the dish originates from a simple Hunan chicken dish and that the reference to "Zongtang" was not a reference to Zuo Zongtang's given name, but rather a reference to the homonym "zongtang", meaning "ancestral meeting hall". Consistent with this interpretation, the dish name is sometimes found in Chinese as "Zuo ancestral hall chicken" (Chung tong gai is a transliteration of "ancestral meeting hall chicken" from Cantonese; Zuǒ Zōngtáng jī is the standard name of General Tso's chicken as transliterated from Mandarin).


Ingredients:

To marinade the chicken

• 1 kg chicken in cubes of 2 cm
• 2 tbsp of light soya sauce
• 1 tsp of freshly grounded black pepper
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3 tbps of corn starch
• 1 cup of flower

For the sauce

• 2 tbsp of dark soya sauce
• 2 tbsp of oyster sauce
• 1 tsp of sesame oil
• 2 tbsp of rice vinegar or balsemic vinegar
• 1 tbsp of rice wine
• 2 tbsp of caster sugar
• 1 cup of chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp of corn starch
• 1 tbsp of garlic (finely cut)
• 1 tbsp of ginger (finely cut)
• 1 tbsp of oil

For the stir fry basics

• 2 tbsp of oil
• 1 onion
• 5 dried red chilli peppers (crunched)

For the stir fry chicken

• 6 cups of oil

For the finishing touch

• sesame seeds
• spring onions

step 1:

Take a bowl and mix the soya sauce and the ground pepper with the chicken cubes.

Add the clutched egg and the corn starch.

Step 2:

Take another bowl and mix the ingredients for the sauce, except the garlic, ginger and onion.

Step 3:

Take a large wok and heat the oil. Take a large plate and add the flower. Cover the pieces of chicken and shake of the dust, Then fry the pieces in the heated oil untill light brown. Put them in a few pieces by a few pieces, so they can swim and float. Set them apart.

Step 3:

Put the 2/3 of the heated oil form the heated wok add the onion and stirr fry for one minute. Add the garlic and ginger and fry for 30 seconds. Add the sauce and cook it for a few minutes. Keep it at the syrupy constistancy, maybe you need to add some water.

Then cover the chicken pieces by mixing with the cooked sauce.

Step 4:

Serve on a plate with white rice and add some toasted sesameseeds and springonions. And ENJOY!

Beef Tongue with Mushrooms

Beef Tongue with Mushrooms, or in spanish: Lengua Con Seta. The tongue doesn't look pretty, bit this is a great, top dish. The delicious sweet meat and creamy sauce is superdelicious. I served it with mashed potatoes.

Picture of the dish will follow later (battery was empty).

What you need:

• 3 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 or 3 cloves of garlic (minced)
• 1 cup of carrots (chopped)
• 1/2 pound of beef tongue
• 2 cups small chestnut mushroom (whole)
• 3 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1 tbsp cornstarch mixed in cold water
• some parsley to serve
• salt and pepper to taste

How to prepare it:

1. Place the tongue(s) in a pan and cover with water or stock. Cook and cover until tender for about 2,5 hours. During cooking keep the tongue covered with water. 
2. Set apart the tongue for cooling down. 
3. When cooled down, take away the fat and skin and discard. Save the stock for other use. 
4. Cut the tongue into bite size pieces (1cm cubes).
5. Heat oil in a pan.
6. Saute onion, carrots and garlic for a few minutes.
7. When the onion is soft, add the beef tongue and cook for 3 minutes.
8. Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir and simmer for 1-2 minutes.
9. Add the mushrooms and water. Take it to the boil and simmer until the liquid reduces.
10. Add salt and pepper to taste.
11. Put-in the cornstarch and water mixture. Cook until the sauce thickens.
12. Put a portion a serving plate. Sprinkle with parsley.
13. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Jamaican Goat Curry

Jamaican Curry Goat – a wonderful slow cooked Jamaican Curry. Tender to the bone and full with tropical flavours. A Traditional dish that everybody loves. It is made all over the Caribbean and has a strong Indian influence. 

What you need: 

• 1 pound of goat meat (at least) on the bone 
• 2 tbsp curry powder or sweet garam massala
• 2 diced onions
• 2 spring onions
• pepper
• 1/2 liter of chicken stock (from cubes)
• 1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 6 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 scotch bonnet
• 4 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 cup carrots, diced
• 6 waxy potatoes, quartered
• 6 eggs, semi hard boiled

How to prepare it:

1. Cut the meat in bite size cubes
2. Put the curry powder, onions, spring onions, pepper, garlic, ginger, thyme and half a cup of water in a blender. And mix well. If necessary add some more water.
3. Take a freezer bag and put in the meat and mixture. Mix well and leave overnight in the refrigerator.
4. Next day, remove the mixture from the meat thoroughly and reserve for later.
5. Brown the goat meat in a frying pan with butter.
6. When browned all over, add the marinade and chopped tomatoes and fry for a few minutes. Mix well
7. Then add the stock just to cover the meat and add the scotch bonnet.
8. Put the pan in the oven (150 degr. C) for 2 hours. Mix every half hour. Add some stock or water if needed.
9. Last half hour, put in the potatoes and carrots.
10. Last five minutes, add the eggs and mix well.
11. Serve with rice and ready or homemade warm roti's.
12. Eat it with your hands!

Chinese Dry Crispy Beef Tongue

Some people don't like the idea of eating beef tongue. But this meat is often served and delicious. It has to be cooked for a few hours to tenderise, but after that the taste is creamy and soft.  

 

 

 What you need:

• 1/2 beef tongue 
• water
• 5 tbsp vegetable oil
• 6 dried Chinese red chillies
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1 small onion, sliced roughly
• 1 tsp whole Sichuan peppercorns
• 1 tbsp Sichuan chili bean paste
• 1 tbsp Shaoxing rice win
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• salt to taste

 

 How to prepare it:

1. Place the tongue(s) in a pan and cover with water or stock. Cook and cover until tender for about 2,5 hours. During cooking keep the tongue covered with water. 
2. Set apart the tongue for cooling down. 
3. When cooled down, take away the fat and skin and discard. Save the stock for other use. 
4. Cut the tongue into 1/2 cm slices.
5. Add a 4 tbps of oil in a frying pan (or wok) and place over medium heat until shimmering. Working in batches, add the slices of tongue and cook until brown and crisp on one side, about 3 minutes. 
6. When browned place the pieces of tongue on paper towels.
7. Heat one tablespoon oil in the wok set on medium low heat. Add the chilis, onions, .... and Sichuan peppercorns, and stir-fry for 20 to 30 seconds.
8. Add the slices of tongue, the chili bean paste and stir-fry to coat the tongue for about 20 seconds longer. 
9. Add the rice wine and soy sauce. 
10. Add salt to taste. Keep stirring the tongue around in the wok.
11. Remove from the heat, stir in the sesame oil.
12. Serve immediately with rice.

Pasta Primavera with Pork

 In 1975, New York chef Sirio Maccioni flew to the Canadian summer home of Italian Baron Carlo Amato, called Shangri-La Ranch located on Robert's Island, Nova Scotia. Maccioni and his two top chefs began experimenting with game and fish, but eventually the baron and his guests wanted something different. Maccioni then mixed butter, cream and cheese, with vegetables and pasta and brought the recipe back to New York City. The fame of pasta primavera traces back to Maccioni's New York City restaurant Le Cirque, where it first appeared as an unlisted special before it was made famous through a 1977 article in the New York Times by Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey which included a recipe for the dish. The invention of the dish is contested; Le Cirque co-owner Sirio Macchioni claimed that his wife Egidiana threw it together from ingredients on hand during a trip to Nova Scotia; Ed Giobbi, an amateur cook himself, claims to have shown Macchioni and Jean Vergnes (then chef at Le Cirque) a similar dish which Vergnes then slightly modified, and chef Franco Brigandi claims to have invented it while the maitre d' at Il Gatto Pardo Ristorante in New York City and prepared it for Bob Lape on WABC television before his dish was requested to be cooked by other culinary practitioners^. All accounts agree that Vergnes refused to allow the dish to be prepared in the kitchen, so that the many requests for it had to be satisfied with a pot set up in a hallway. The combination of lightly cooked vegetables and pasta, which Claiborne and Franey hailed as "by far, the most talked-about dish in Manhattan", is widely recognized as one of the signature developments of American cuisine in the 1970s. (Wikipedia)

This is a twist on pasta primavera (with meet)

What you need

For the pork

• 2 x 200g pork chops,
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

and the marinade

• 3 tbsp tomato purée
• 1,5 tbsp soy sauce
• 1,5 tbsp honey
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar

For the pasta

• 25g unsalted butter
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 200g beans, blanched
• 100g fresh peas or frozen
• 200g spinach
• 300g cooked tagliatelle (reserve some cooking water)
• 1 lemon, juice and zest
• large handful fresh available herbs, for example mint, basil, dill and parsley, chopped
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 20g hazelnuts, toasted and lightly crushed
• parmesan
• olive oil, for drizzling

How to prepare it

For the pork

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Preheat a griddle pan until hot.
3. For the pork, rub one tablespoon of the olive oil over the pork chops, then season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4. Place the chops onto the griddle and cook for 1-2 minutes on either side, until golden-brown griddle marks appear on both sides.
5. Meanwhile, place all the marinade ingredients into a bowl and whisk to combine. Spoon the marinade over the pork chops and transfer to the oven for 6-7 minutes, or until completely cooked through.

For the pasta

1. Heat the butter in a pan, add the garlic and fry for one minute.
2. Add thevegetables and stir fry for 1-2 minutes.
3. Add the pasta and a little of the cooking water to the pan and stir to combine.
4. Stir in the lemon juice and zest and the herbs and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
5. To serve, sprinkle over the hazelnuts, the parmesan and drizzle with olive oil.

Cannelloni with spinach and ricotta

Cannelloni is Italian for "large reeds" are a cylindrical type of pasta generally served baked with a filling and covered by a sauce in Italian cuisine. Some types of cannelloni need to be boiled beforehand, while for others it is enough to use a more dilute sauce or filling. Popular stuffings include spinach and ricotta or minced beef. The sauces typically used are Napoletani underneath and besciamella sauce to cover the top. It is a typical dish of the Catalan cuisine, traditionally consumed on Christmas day. (Wikipedia)

What you need

• 300 g spinach
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 onion, chopped finely
• 1 clove of garlic, squashed
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes (400 gr)
• 1 bay leaf
• small handfull of basil leaves 
• 1/2 lemon, grated zest of lemon and juice
• 200 g ricotta
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 tsp grated parmesan
• About 10 tubes of cannelloni
• 125 g mozzarella ball, sliced

 How to prepare it

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Put a bit of olive oil and the spinach in a large pan over a low heat. Add the nutmeg, season with salt and pepper and cover. Stir occasionally. Place in a bowl and set to one side to cool enough to handle.
2. Heat some olive oil and gently cook the onion until soft. Add the garlic, tomatoes, bay leaf, a few basil leaves and lemon zest and let it gently simmer for 20 minutes until the sauce has thickened. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Squeeze the moisture out of the spinach into the bowl. Chop the spinach. Return the spinach to the liquid in the bowl. Stir in the ricotta, beaten egg and parmesan. Season to taste.
4. Fill the mixture into the cannelloni tubes and lay them in an oven dish.
5. Spread the tomato sauce over the cannelloni. Lay the mozzarella slices on top, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and season. 
6. Place in the oven and cook untill the top is golden (about 40 minutes).
7. Remove from the oven and let it rest for a few minutes before serving.
8. Enjoy!!!

Roasted Goose - tender and soft

Take a goose and keep the neck, heart and gizzard

What you need:

• 1 liter water
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1/4 nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp black pepper 
• salt to taste
• 1 small onion (chopped)
• 3 tbsp freshly chopped parsley
• 2 apples (peeled, cored and chopped)
• 250 grams wild rice (cooked)
• 70 grams roasted hazelnuts
• 1,5 tbsp flour

How to prepare it:

1. Mix the cooked rice, hazlenuts, apples, chopped onion, parsley, cinnamon, cumin, ginger, nutmeg, pepper and salt.
2. Wash the goose and pat it dry.
3. Fill the goose with the mixture.
4. Skewer the cavity and close it tightly.
5. Season the goose with salt and pepper on all sides.
6. Put the goose in a preheated oven on 170 degrees Celcius on a roasting tray above for 1,5 hours.
7. Meanwhile you cook the water and add the neck, heart and gizzard and cook for a few hours, or until half of the sauce is left.
8. Strain the sauce and add some salt to taste.
9. Periodically get rid of the fat while the goose roasts.
10. Turn the goose after 1,5 hour and roast for another 1,5 hour.
11. Then take the goose from the oven and let it rest.
12. Meanwhile take the oventray, get rid off most of the fat and add the flour.
13. Mix well and add the sauce and wishk with the brown crusts.
14. Remove the stuffing form the goose and put on the plates.
15. Serve the goose with the warm sauce and stuffings.

ENJOY the soft and tender goose!