This weekend we were supposed to be heading to London for a picnic – however, bacon seemed to have picked up a horrendous cold from Malaysia…and as he was just recovering, picked up another cold here! So he’s been progressively sick for the past few weeks, and compounded with his busy travelling schedule this week, we had unfortunately had to cancel . Oh well….I had to find some other way to entertain myself this weekend, so baking it was!

I’ve always wanted to make biscuits – American-style, not jammie dodgers English-styled. American biscuits are more like scones, eaten with a main meal instead of dinner rolls. As per my previous post, I’m totally in love with the butter-drenched naughty Cheddar Bay biscuits from Red Lobster. So copy-cat baking it is then!

I googled like crazy for a good copycat recipe – to my dismay most of the recipes require the use of Bisquick, which is also not sold here in the UK. AAARGH. I eventually found one that seemed passable, and decided to use that recipe. I should have really used my brains instead of just following the recipe blindly – the biscuits, although delicious, are EXTREMELY salty. This is probably due to the 1tbs salt that the recipe called for, plus salted butter & cheese. However, the texture seemed to be very close to Red Lobsters’, so I’m going to share the recipe anyway – omitting the salt and replacing the butter for unsalted butter. You could also add some parsley flakes into the dough, and temper the garlic powder according to how garlicky you’d like it to be.

Copycat cheddar biscuits

2 cups/250g all-purpose flour (unbleached or regular)
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
75g unsalted butter, cold, cut into chunks
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
150g grated cheddar cheese
120-160ml milk

For brushing on top:

3 Tbsp. butter
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. dried parsley flakes

Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and garlic powder.

Add the cubed butter to the dry mixture; I used my fingers and rubbed the butter into the flour

Add oil and grated cheddar cheese.

Slowly add milk, little by little until the whole mixture holds together. Add milk until the dough is moistened and you can no longer see any raw flour.

Drop approximately 1/4 cup portions of the dough onto an un-greased cookie sheet or a Silpat using an ice cream scoop or large spoon.

Bake for 15-17 minutes in a preheated oven at 400F/200C

While biscuits are baking, melt 3 tablespoons butter is a small bowl with 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder and the parsley.

Brush the garlic-parsley-butter combination on top of the biscuits immediately after they are done – the more you add, the more utterly butterly it is! Yums…. Best served warm

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I love it because it’s buttery, cheesy and light – if it wasn’t so darned salty due to the crazy 1 tbs salt the recipe called for, it would’ve been perfect!

cross-posted from notabrownbag , my daily bento lunch blog!

Still feeling unwell, therefore today’s lunch was just a haphazard arrangement of frozen rice and some of my frozen bento stash that I accumulated over the weekend…I could show you, but you’d probably cry at the state of it . So I thought today would be a perfect time to catch up on my recipe post.

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Soboro can be made out of meat or fish – and is very similar to furikake (rice ball seasoning, usually dry to almost a chilli flakes texture) . The major difference is that whilst furikake lasts fairly long, a soboro made out of meat or fish(usually salmon?) is of course bound to go off sooner, and thus does not keep as long. The less moisture it has, the longer it lasts. My version of the tuna soboro came to be when I decided to have a bit of tuna with my instant noodles one night. What do I do with the rest of the tin?? The cat usually gets it, or it goes in a sandwich the day after. Seeing that I had kinda sworn off sandwiches, I thought I should turn it into some sort of stuffing for my onigiris or as an okazu (side dishes to go with rice).

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Inggredients

» 1 can tuna, drained
» 1 tbs mirin (I actually used proper sake)
» 2 tbs rice vineger
» 1 tsp sugar
» toasted sesame seeds – to taste
» soy sauce – to taste; I used about 1tsp
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First stir-fry the tuna on a wide non-stick pan rapidly, with no oil. Add mirin and rice vineger. Continue stirring rapidly, adding sugar and toasted sesame seeds. I love sesame seeds, so I put in quite alot for me but less for the hubs. When it looks fairly dry and floss-like (like chinese meat floss), stir in soy sauce and continue stirring so it doesn’t burn but still soaks up the goodness of the seasonings. This would be the time to mix in shredded nori if you’re using it – I didn’t this time as I was making it for both of us, but will be when I try this recipe out again next time.

The whole process would take about 10-20 minutes. Just remmeber to keep stirring to keep the tuna from burning. You can keep this in the fridge in an airtight container for a good week or two, using a few tablespoons when your food need a little Oomph!

Some of the bentos that I have used the sorboro on:

chirashi sushi style

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Stuffed in onigiris

We’re usually away for Christmas, so it was refreshing this year that we decided to stay home. This meant that the cat have the pleasure of our company (hehe), I was able to have an actual Christmas dinner on Christmas day, and got actual presents to open up! I got some speakers, a new sewing machine and other assorted knick knacks – Your Shape Wii game for one, chocolates, books ect ect…yay!

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Not to mention the magnificent snowfall! My first White Christmas – but thinking about it..I have not actually spent that many Christmases in countries that actually snow, so one in five is not too bad! Yep, I made the above on Christmas morning…

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And bacon made this, which is supposed to be a snow-cat

Unlike alot of people, I do not tend to get stressed out with making Christmas dinner. In fact, I quite enjoy it. It’s really not that difficult as well….and I do love making Christmas dinner with all the trimmings..

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My beautifully golden brown turkey. Yumm. My secret recipe is to brine it, let it swim in salt water for 24hours ; it makes the turkey wonderfully moist and flavourful. And NEVER follow the cooking time on the packaging. I cooked this for less than 2 hours (4.2kg bird), whilst the packaging reccomended about a 3 hour + cooking time. Of course, ALWAYS check the thickest part of the bird is not bloody before taking it out of the oven. To be honest, my bird could’ve done with only 1 hr & 30 mins, as I let it brown (without the bacon) for about 30 mins at 220deg before wrapping bacon all over the turkey for the remaining time at 180 deg. This browns up the turkey beautifully, whilst the bacon wrapping keeps it wonderfully moist. Lovely.

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I also made my fave festive red cabbage; with port, red wine vineger, cranberries, orange juice & rind, onions, cinnamon, nutmeg & star anise.

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And of course, the lovely trimmings – roast potatoes & parsnips, stuffing balls, pigs in blankets, sprouts with chipped bacon and assorted roast vegetables. I do love the trimmings.

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My piece de resistance – traditional American candied yam. This is the first time ever that I’m making it, but it is a very traditional American dish not to be missed with Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners. Fairly unknown outside of the US, this came from the 3 Thanksgiving that I spent in California. I have not had a full American Thanksgiving dinner for so long….and sorely missed the candied yams. Slightly misleading name – this is not a candy nor is it made out of what the rest of the world call yam. It is sweet potato, cooked in a lovely sauce of butter, maple syrup, spices and orange juice, it is then topped with marshmallows (yes, MARSHMALLOWS!) and baked till the marshmallows starts to toast – about 15 mins.

Serve immediately – the marshmallow crust looks deceptively hard, but its all soft and gooey inside, perfect mixed in with the sauce. I added some crushed walnuts to my sauce, and it tastes absolutely magnificent. Delicious. I like. Suprisingly enough, so did bacon – he had been apprehensive ever since I bought the sweet potato (sweet potato with my Christmas dinner??!! Never!!) . He was won over by this wonderful dish, the marshmallows just melting perfectly into the sauce. Bliss. Definately something that I will be repeating, with bacon’s seal of approval.

The whole spread – with homemade giblet gravy…. yummz.

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Until next year!!

Tonight saw me conjuring up a childhood favourite – my mom’s blend of not-so-secret delicious curry. I have only attempted this a handful of times, but tonight’s go probably turned out the best from the lot. With the outlaws saddled with a bumper crop of chillies (more than 1kg!) being way too caliente for them to handle, I was given the gift of spice. Mmm…this played a huge part in me conjuring up the curry – chillies here are ridiculliously expensive at about £0.70 for about three or four. Whenever I make this curry I tended to be very conservative with the expensive chillies = don’t taste the same. Tonight was different, I could add as many chillies as I like to my hearts’ content and have leftovers (about 1 kg!). So off I went shopping for the other ingredients, including a very large chicken (about 2.5 kg).

I twit-piced my chicken bubbling away on the stove, and @them_apples asked for a recipe, so here it is! A word of warning; if your chillies are anything like the outlaws’ crop, be very, very careful how many you put in and do not follow my suggestion! Basically, if you’re more of a korma person, this recipe’s probably not for you, or you could use 1-2 chillies instead of 15.

To blend:
6 shallots (large ones), diced
3 medium red onions, diced
10-15 very red chillies , de-seeded and de-plithed
1 stalk lemongrass, thinly sliced & leave off the hard bark-like bits

Be very CAREFUL de-seeding and de-plithing the chillies…use disposable gloves if you have any. I make sure I wash my hands at least 3 times throughly before I touch any other parts of my skin. Once the above is all blended to a very thick paste in a food processor (add a little oil or water if it’s too thick to blend), taste to make sure that it’s not too hot. Add more shallots if it’s too hot – alternatively, add chillies slowly towards the end, making sure that the heat is bearable before adding another one.

Incorporate the below once you’re happy with your chilli/onion level.

To add:
1 tbs tumeric powder, or 1in knob fresh
1 tsp salt – or to taste
I tbs curry powder

Incorporate the above ingredients until well mixed….I just pop this into the blender with the paste above. Make sure that there are no chunks of tumeric powder and everything is well-incorporated. Heat up your wok, with about 1-2 tbs vegetable oil. Do not use olive oil as it burns way too easily. Once the oil is heated , tip the blended mixture in. Over low to medium heat, slowly heat it up…your kitchen will start to smell wonderful with the fresh ingredients releasing their aromatic oils as it reacts with the heat. Your paste is now ready.

You will see now that this recipe makes quite a large portion of paste. Depending on how big your chicken is/how spicy you like it/if you’re adding potatoes/coconut cream, you may want to scoop some out to keep for another serving – it keeps at least a few days in the fridge. I must say, I have kept the fresh paste in the fridge in a tightly sealed container for a few weeks and it was still fine. Yeah, if it’s too spicy you can add coconut cream at the end to temper the heat down. This would also be a good time to conjure some rice up to soak up all the yummy curry later.

It is now time to tip your chicken in. I chop mine into about 8 -9 pieces, and took the skin off as well. Turn the chicken pieces around until well-coated with the paste – you may want to keep the wok going on a low heat so the paste does not burn. Once the chicken’s well coated, thin it out slightly with some water, about 150ml. Now leave it bubbling away uncovered for about 20mins if you’re cooking pieces of chicken on-bone, less if you’re cooking chicken fillets/breast cubes. After 20mins of cooking uncovered, the water should have reduced to reveal a thick-ish sauce. I would restir and recoat the chicken right about now, and leave it covered on low heat for a further 20 minutes. At this time, I also added about 4 tomatoes - because I had some growing on the vine – you don’t have to if you don’t have any, the juices from the tomatoes sweetens the curry slightly.

And voila. I was starving, so not much of a picture.Top it off with some coriander would be my preferred way of serving, but as usual, I didn’t have any on hand…hehe. It is also delicious cooked with potatoes (add diced potatoes in immediately after adding the chicken) and/or coconut cream added towards the end of the cooking time to make it silky smooth and temper the heat of the chillies slightly.

If only I cook like this every work night…..

This is starting to get scary, but I managed another recipe out of the book…this time the ham & mushroom muffins

They are so damn good. Its like cheesesticks with ham and mushrooms, and absolutely rocks! Could do with full-fat milk instead of the skinny milk that I had..definately not one for the faint-hearted dieter. Bet it’ll taste lovely as well with some dried herbs sprinkled into it, will try that next time. These muffins are great as I can bring them to work in my lunchbasket…not something that I can do with frosted cupcakes! I don’t believe that the recipes in the book really works – very impressed!

Cons? Instead of the 12 muffins that this was supposed to make, yield was 30. Probably in a large part due to me using normal cupcake cases instead of a large muffin case. Now I just gotta eat it all for my lunch..