Easy minced pork and egg curry noodles with leftover curry sauce

A little while ago I posted a recipe for my Easy Yellow Chicken Curry. That was delicious but we had a serve of leftovers and also a lot of leftover curry sauce. I was going to toss out the sauce but The Boy insisted I save it. He said the sauce was so good, we could have it over noodles or rice again. Listening to him, I kept the sauce. I finally decided to use the sauce and cooked up a delicious, simple noodle dish.It was definitely more-ish.

Easy pork belly stir fried noodles

I've been having a craving for noodles for a while recently since we've been having a lot of leftovers after a particularly large batch of fish curry. Who knew that the recipe would cook such a large batch of curry? Not me! Anyway, we've diligently made our way through all the fish curry leftovers and I was more than ready for something different. I always love noodles and really, I like to have noodles at least once a week or I go into withdrawals. I had pork belly in the fridge and decided to throw this together. We do have leftovers though but I've reduced the recipe so that it serves four instead of eight here.

Rainbow pasta salad

This dish started about a week ago when I had some leftover duck from a meal out and I was trying to figure out what to do with it. I decided on a simple pasta salad with some bow pasta I had. It turned out to be delicious. The bright colors from the spring onions and tomatoes make this dish not only tastes but bright and fun too. It's like eating the rainbow.

Kimchi and minced pork noodles

I've been experimenting with more Asian cooking recently and came across a video using kimchi to cook in noodles. I thought it sounded interesting and well, I like kimchi. Wasn't sure how The Boy was going to enjoy it since the kimchi flavor is pretty strong. Turns out he loved it.

Thai basil pork noodles

I love noodles. Doesn't really matter what kind of noodles, I love noodles. I especially love instant ramen noodles. They are a guilty pleasure of mine. These are not instant and they are delicious, but super easy to make. They really don't take more than 15 minutes to cook including prep.

Easy stir fried noodles

For years and years, I have said that I would not cook Asian food and if I wanted it I would go eat at my mum's house. Well, that's not exactly working right now with the quarantine and lockdown, is it? And recently, I've really gotten into watching Asian cooking videos on YouTube. I finally bit the bullet and started stocking Asian grocery staples in my pantry (don't even ask me about trying to find space in my pantry for it all!!) and started cooking my own Asian food. It's noodle and rice dishes mostly, but also some curries as well.

Spicy pork and apple salad

Greetings my foodie friends! I have another recipe for you today.

We've been home this last week and The Boy has been down with bronchitis. Each day he thinks he's going to be better and we'd head back into the city for him to go back to work. Each day he's still not better. 8 days and counting.

We've also been taking things day by day and meals have been planned on a day by day basis. I recently got an air fryer (more on it later!) and have been cooking up a storm with it. Best roast chicken ever!

Tonight, I was totally without inspiration. None! Nada! Zip! Nothing on Pinterest interested me (pun intended!), nothing on the Googlesphere and then I started randomly flipping through recipe books. I picked a salad one cos The Boy suggested a salad might be good since we'd been mostly doing veggies for the past week.

After a few cookbooks, I started on The Australian Women's Weekly Salad cookbook. (I'm sorry, I tried but could not find a link to it!). I found this salad which I thought sounded tasty and I'd try.

Pork dumplings with chili oil

I recently bought a cookbook called "Asian Wraps & Rolls" by Vicki Liley, which I've started using. The reason I bought this cookbook was also the reason for this post. These very yummy pork dumplings. I was browsing through the cookbook while at the store and when I saw the recipe for pork dumplings, it sealed the deal for me!

I have to say that I love dumplings. Well, both The Boy and I do and we've been buying ours from Chinese grocery stores frozen, which we would then steam for a snack or a light lunch.

However, I wanted to make them myself (so much more control as we don't live near any Chinese grocery stores now) and this recipe made it a great opportunity for me to do so.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

• 150g ground minced pork
• 150g jumbo shrimp / king prawns, shelled and deveined (I use frozen ones that have been defrosted)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon peeled and freshly grated ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoons freshly chopped cilantro (fresh coriander)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh Vietnamese mint
• 16 wonton skins

For chili oil:

• 1 tablespoon chili oil
• 1 teaspoons kechap manis
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon Chinese red vinegar

Instructions:

• In a good processor, combine pork, shrimp, garlic, ginger and salt. Process for 20 seconds, or until well blended. Transfer to a bowl and add cilantro and mint. Using wet hands, mix until well combined.
• Place wonton skins on a work surface. Cover remaining skins with a clean damp cloth.
• Place 1 tablespoon of pork filling in centre of wonton skin and brush edges of skin with water. Gather edges around filling, forming a basket. Gently squeeze centre of dumpling so that the filling is exposed at top. Tap base of dumpling on work surface to flatten. Set aside on a tray and cover with plastic wrap. Repeat with remaining wonton skins and filling.
• Line a medium sized bamboo steamer with parchment (baking paper). Fill a medium sized wok about 1/3 full with water (steamer should not touch the water). Bring water to a boil. Arrange the dumplings in steamer. Cover with lid. Place steamer over boiling water. Steam for 12 minutes, adding more water to wok as necessary.
• Meanwhile, stir all chili oil ingredients together in a small bowl. Lift steamer off work and carefully remove dumplings from steamer. Serve hot, with chili oil for dipping.

I doubled the recipe as I wanted to make a bit more so that I would have some leftovers for lunch the next day as I made these for an afternoon snack and also perhaps, if there was enough, to freeze for another day. Alas, between us eating them (The Boy had seconds) and me giving some of them away to my neighbour, we didn't have much left. There's enough for me to have a small serve for lunch tomorrow. I'll need to make more next time.

I did do a few things differently, just because I had some ingredients (in different forms) already in the fridge and I wanted to use them. I used the same measurements (just doubled) for the substitutes.

Instead of freshly chopped coriander and ginger, I used a coriander paste and a ginger paste from Gourmet Garden. They do some lovely herb pastes that are excellent quality and taste wonderful.

I also used minced garlic from a jar rather than fresh garlic, again because I had some in the fridge and I was wanting something quick and easy with minimal chopping to get the snack made quickly.

The grocery store did not have Vietnamese mint, so I just used plain old mint. It was a fine substitute.

I put everything except the mint into the food processor (I used my Thermomix!) and mixed it for 10 seconds instead of 20, just because my Thermomix mixes faster. If you are using a regular food processor, try the 20 seconds but keep an eye on your mixture. You don't want to over process it. Then, I hand mixed the mint through the meat mixture, just so that the mint was still in little pieces rather than processed to mush.

When steaming, make sure that you allow quite a bit of space between the dumplings as they do expand in size when they are cooked. I made the mistake of not allowing enough room as I wanted to steam them all in one batch and they got pretty stuck together. Fortunately, I was able to remove them without damaging the wrapper.

These turned out SUPER tasty. We usually put soy and chili sauce over our dumplings, but in reality these did not need them, in particular it did not need the chili sauce.

I hope you try these out. If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
Cooking blog: http://dazinthekitchen.blogspot.com.au/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dazinthekitchen
Twitter: @langshipley https://twitter.com/langshipley
Instagram: @langshipley http://instagram.com/langshipley
Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/langshipley/
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/langshipley
Makeup and beauty blog: http://langshipley-deannasworld.blogspot.com.au/

Pork chops slow cooked with creamy gravy and mashed potatoes ... in the Thermomix

I'm sorry that there has not been as many posts the last couple of weeks. One week, we just had a lot of leftovers and this week, The Boy has been out a few nights so I have not cooked much. I also haven't been well and have not had much of an appetite. One night, I just had a banana for dinner.

I've been wanting to try slow cooking for ages and I've been seeing a ton of slow cooking / crock pot recipes being pinned on Pinterest.

In the past, when I've tried a slow cooker recipe, it has not been particularly tasty and The Boy has been all "don't ever cook that again!" That was mostly my fault due to the fact that back then I knew nothing about cooking and I didn't know how to adjust flavors to something that The Boy would enjoy. I'm hoping that this time, with a little bit more cooking experience, I am able to make a recipe taste good.

So, in trolling through Pinterest, this recipe for pork chops with dressing and creamy gravy caught my eye and I decided that it would be great for our Sunday night dinner.

I'm going to serve this with mashed potatoes made in the Thermomix ... which is where the "Thermomix" part in the title comes from.

Here's the RECIPE for the pork chops:

Ingredients:

• 4 pork chops, 3/4-inch thick (I used bone-in chops)
• 1 onion, cut into rings about 1/4-inch thick
• 1 box stuffing or dressing mix (I used Stove-Top brand, pork flavored. Chicken flavored would also be great.)
• 2 cans cream of chicken soup (I used Campbell's Healthy Request Cream of chicken soup)
• 1 soup can water
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted (optional, but recommended if your pork chops are very lean)
• Salt and pepper, to taste or use seasoning salt, to taste

Instructions:

• Season each pork chop with salt and pepper. Place in the bottom of a slow cooker.
• Scatter the onion rings over the pork chops.
• Sprinkle the dry stuffing mix over the onions.
• In a bowl, mix together the cream of chicken soup, one soup can full of water, and the melted butter. Pour over the dry stuffing mix.
• Cover. Cook on high for 4 hours. Serve with mashed potatoes and a side salad.

I have to admit to being rather intimidated about the whole idea of slow cooking since my previous attempts have not been met with enthusiasm. That said, I was careful in what I did this time so that I could make sure that the dish was tasty.

I was generous with the salt and pepper when I seasoned the pork chops and I also browned them in a pan first. When I spoke to a chef friend of mine to ask him if it was possible for me to "crock pot" in the oven since I didn't have a crock pot, he told me yes, but he also said that I needed to brown the meat since that would bring out more flavor in the cooking.

We don't have the Stove Top brand stuffing mix mentioned in the recipe so I got the White Wings Stuffing Mix because it seemed to have the most spices in it compared to the other brand that was on offer. Even after that, since the recipe said pork or chicken flavored and this was just stuffing mix with herbs and spices, I added a teaspoon of chicken stock into the mix (just in case).

I did use the butter just because the butter just makes everything taste better. If you're extremely health conscious then you can skip it but it does make the meat cook a lot more tenderly.

I didn't use a crock pot (as I mentioned before, I don't have one!) but used a cast iron casserole pot instead. I put everything into the pot according to the recipe instructions, then put a sheet of baking paper on top of the opening of the pot and then put the lid on. My chef friend tells me that this seals in the moisture better and keeps the liquids from evaporating as much, though to be honest, my cast iron pots seal pretty well.

After a couple of hours the apartment started to smell pretty good. After 3 hours, I took the pot out of the oven to check on it (I also did a little taste test!). I poked the meat with the fork and it seemed like it was becoming quite tender. I also mixed some of the stuffing mix around that was sitting on top since it had not integrated entirely with the soup / gravy, then back in the oven it went for another hour before serving.

This turned out to be a really delicious and tasty meal. Very rich and creamy. There was a ton of gravy from the dish too.

Oh and by the way, this is my first time cooking pork chops. Since it's turned out well, I might do it again.

Of course, I was very remiss and did not update my blog post to talk about the wine that The Boy had picked out to drink with dinner tonight, so check out his blog post on what wine goes best with pork chops.

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Roast pork belly

We had a dinner party last night and I tell you what ... a mid-week dinner party when working full time is a killer! I don't recommend it.

Anyway, I served roast pork belly for the main and it turned out soooooo well.

The inside was juicy and tender. The skin crackled beautifully.

Yum!

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd

Easy is good ... and so is roasted pork belly

I think I went on a cooking overload when I did 3 dinner parties in 7 days - Wednesday night, Friday night and Tuesday night. I don't recommend it unless you are a professional chef and are used to the hours and the heat in the kitchen.

After planning the menus and cooking on Wednesday and Friday night, I was a little lost at what to cook for Tuesday night. Fortunately, I had suggested roasted pork belly at a different night and so the main was set. Then The Boy requested truffle mashed potatoes to go with the pork belly, and I threw in some green stuff just 'cos it's good for you.

The menu turned out like this:

Starter was a Morrocan Vegetable Soup (I'll write about this another time), followed by Roasted Pork Belly, Truffle Mashed Potatoes and Garlic Sautéed Broccoli for main. Dessert was courtesy of Angelo, so all I had to do was provide homemade ice cream as an accompaniment - Vanilla and Caramel.

Angelo, one of the boys, is a particular fan of pork belly. In fact, he told us this story (I do not recommend anyone do this!) of how he found a pâtisserie that served a pork belly and brie baguette that was delicious, in fact so delicious that he ate it twice a day, everyday for 3 weeks straight. At the end of the 3 weeks, his blood pressure was through the roof. The moral of this story? Too much of a good thing can be bad for you!!

Anyway, Angelo asked if the pork belly was easy to make and could he do it himself. I told him that yes, it was super easy to make and explained it to him at the dining table while we ate. He was surprised at how easy the whole thing was.

Here's the RECIPE for roasted pork belly:

Ingredients

• 1 slab of pork belly according to number of people to be served (200g per person)
• Olive oil
• Salt
• 6 – 8 large onions

Instructions:

Preparing the pan:

• Oil a roasting pan with spray oil
• Cut up onions into quarters and place in centre of pan

Preparing the pork belly:

• Defrost pork belly and let sit to room temperature. Dry the skin of the pork belly with some paper towels and then gently rub a little bit of vinegar onto it. Any vinegar will do, since this is just to make sure that the skin is very, very dry
• Score the skin of the pork belly in a crosshatch pattern using a knife – the cuts to be deep enough to penetrate to the fat layer below the skin
• Pour a generous amount of olive oil to cover pork belly surface
• Sprinkle a generous amount of salt on top of olive oil
• Massage oil and salt thoroughly into skin

Cooking the pork belly:

• Heat oven to 180 degrees C
• Heat a saucepan with some olive oil and sear all sides of the pork belly (including crackling) until golden brown, remove from pan
• Place pork belly on top of onions and roast in oven for 30 minutes
• After 30 minutes check temp in middle of pork belly (should be 70 degrees C)
• If it is not up to 70 degrees C, put back into oven to continue roasting
• After 15 minutes, repeat step 4 until middle of pork belly reaches 70 degrees C
• When at right temp, take out of oven and stand pork belly for 10 – 20 minutes
• Remove crackling, slice and serve with hot gravy and red cabbage relish

Since I was feeding the boys and I wanted enough to have some for them to take away for leftovers, I ordered a 2kg slab of pork belly. That was a mistake because the slab of pork belly was wider than my oven. It's just a good idea to make sure that the piece of meat is going to fit into the oven. I know I could have halved it and put it into two trays, but I have a stupid, small oven and I needed the second shelf for the mashed potatoes. On top of that, I did not have enough onions (stupid me, I didn't check my onion supply, which I had exhausted after cooking so much) and only had 4 onions instead of 8 to rest the pork belly in. That was not too much of a problem, but I'm a perfectionist and that did not make me happy.

In spite of all that, the pork belly turned out well and the boys loved it. I would have preferred that it was a little bit better, but then I'm much more exacting on myself and The Boy and everyone else did say it was a superb dinner.

Oh, to do with the pork belly, I made red cabbage relish. Here's the RECIPE:

Ingredients for Relish:

• ½ red cabbage
• 2 cups of red wine vinegar (or enough to cover the cabbage in a small pot
• 2 tablespoons of raw / brown sugar

Ingredients for apple sauce:

• 2 small red apples, skinned and cored, diced
• 2 tablespoons of raw/ brown sugar

Instructions for Relish:

• Cut up red cabbage into thin 1 inch slices
• Put in small pot
• Cover with red wine vinegar and put in sugar
• Put over low flame and cook, checking regularly it does not get too dry for 1 hour
• Cover and cook over low flame for another hour
• Put in oven and braise slowly in 80 degrees C heat for another 2 hours

Instructions for apple sauce:

• Put apples into small pot
• Put in sugar and cover with water
• Cook gently until soft ( can put in oven if preferred)

Final step:

• When relish and apple sauce is ready, combine and serve

Note: the cabbage can be made a few days ahead and just put in the fridge and served when you are ready to eat.

The relish is a fantastic accompaniment to the pork belly. In fact, it is so yummy, I was eating the stuff on it's own. It's got a lovely, slighty salty, slightly sweet, slightly sour flavor that's very more-ish. You can't quite figure out the flavor but you just want to keep eating more of it. The Boy said it smelled like sauerkraut when cooking but it really does not taste anything that like because to me sauerkraut just tastes like sour boiled cabbage.

Remember! Everything in moderation!!! Or do what The Father did when I invited him and The Mother to dinner and cooked the same dish - eat half the slab of pork belly as a compliment to the cook.

Do you have any meat that is a favorite? Any meat you don't eat? For health, personal or religious reasons? Any meat you love and will eat all the time? What will you only eat occasionally? What's your "everyday" meat? What do you think of pork?

© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd

Burmese Red Pork Curry

It's not often that I cook Sunday dinner since Sunday usually tends to be a lazy day, but I've decided that I'm going to make an effort to cook more regularly, even if it's just for the two of us.

This Sunday's attempt is Burmese Red Pork Curry.

I served the curry with steamed broccoli and brown rice. That picture above is my very own. That's what our dinner actually looked like. *happy smile* Verdict? It turned out delish! The Boy even had seconds.

I'll post the recipe for this as well, which I got out of the book called "Slow Cooker Curry by Sunil Vijayakar. (As an aside: I used to have a tailor called Sunil. I remember him fondly from my days of living in Qatar - totally irrelevant, I know *grin*).

Here is what I did different from the recipe:

• I doubled the tomato puree and soy sauce amount that was listed in the recipe
• I added an extra 1 teaspoon of curry powder
• I also added an extra 1/2 teaspoon of chili powder mix (my own concoction - I'll add the mix ingredients below) for extra kick.
• The curry was still quite liquidy (I checked) after 5 hours, so I took off the lid of the cast iron casserole pot that I was cooking it in and just covered it lightly with foil for the last hour at 120 degrees C (instead of the original 90 degrees C). I think, it being cast iron, it was sealing really well and the liquid was not evaporating.
• After it came out of the oven at hour 6, the curry was still quite liquid so I put it on the stove and set it to boil. I then mixed up some magic powder (okay, corn flour - 3 teaspoons with 2 tablespoons of cold water) and added it to the curry and then let it simmer for a minute, stirring gently until it thickened.

Here's the RECIPE: (I used the oven, not a slow cooker, so the recipe's been modified accordingly).

Ingredients:

• 100ml (3 ½ fl oz) light soy sauce
• 100ml (3 ½ fl oz) tomato puree
• 875g ( 1 ¾ lb) boneless pork loin
• 2 tablespoons groundnut oil
• 1 tablespoon soft brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 2 garlic cloves, finely slices
• 1 tablespoon peeled and finely grated root ginger

Instructions:

• In a small bowl, mix together the soy sauce and tomato puree. Put the pork in a non-reactive dish, pour over the soy mixture and toss to coat evenly. Cover and leave to marinate in the refrigerator for 6 – 8 hours or overnight.
• Heat oil in a heavy saucepan (or a casserole pot) over a medium heat. Add sugar and stir for a few minutes until sugar has dissolved and is starting to caramelize. Add the curry powder, garlic and ginger and stir fry for 2 minutes.
• Add the maninated pork (including any marinade) and stir to mix well. Remove from heat. Add just enough water to cover the meat, cover with the lid and put into oven at 90 degrees C. Cook in oven for 6 – 8 hours or until pork is tender and liquid is almost evaporated.

Note: if have a slow cooker, transfer mixture into slow cooker and cook on low for 6 – 8 hours per above.

And here's the ingredients for the chili concoction:

Mixed in an indeterminate amount:

• Hot chili powder
• Dried chili flakes
• Paprika (I can't remember if it was hot or mild that I used)
• Hot cayenne pepper ground

I have to admit that this is the first slow cooking recipe that I've done seriously and the first curry that I've ever cooked. I had a few anxious moments when I was not sure if the pork would be tender enough (I really should not have worried, after all the darn thing was cooking for 6 blinking hours) and when there was still a lot of liquid left in the pot.





© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny’s Fortunes Pty Ltd