Baked curry vegetable

Instead of making curry vegetable on the stove, I tried to make this baked version. The beauty is you leave it in the oven to cook and no need to watch over and stir it. It tasted good with the vegetable having a slight roasted aroma.

 

Baked curry vegetable

Baked curry vegetable, before baking

Cut vegetables into pieces (cauliflower, carrot, purple sweet potato), season with salt, pepper, red curry paste, chili flake, soy sauce, brown sugar, coconut milk, mix well. Bake at 160˚C until soft, around 40 minutes, give it a stir half way.

Confit pork leg chop

It is very easy to overcook pork chop and end up with dry meat. Tried this lower temperature cooking and result is good, juicy meat and without using strong seasoning, can taste pork's real flavor. The garlic infused oil left behind can be used in future cooking.

Confit pork leg chop

Confit pork leg chop

1. Season pork chop with salt and pepper for at least half a day.

2. Place in a baking dish of the same size, put peeled garlic around to fill any empty spaces, add olive oil to cover meat.

3. Pre-heat oven to 180˚C, bake at 90˚C until cooked through, around an hour (1.5cm thick), turnover half way.

Baked mix vegetables with peanut butter

Adding peanut butter enriched the dish and adds a nice aroma, bake at lower temperature to avoid browning too early.

 

Baked mix vegetables with peanut butter

Cut vegetables into pieces (cauliflower, potato, leek, bell pepper), season with salt, pepper, olive oil and a heaped table spoon of peanut butter. Mix well, bake at 160˚ until golden, around 40 minutes.

Long steamed lamb shank with rosemary and cardamom

 

Long steamed lamb shank with rosemary and cardamom

 

I like this long steamed cooking method using the oven, and can fit 5 portions (different ingredients and seasonings) to be cooked at the same time, pretty efficient. Using rosemary ad cardamom together gives a more complex aroma instead of a dominating singular one.

 

1. Season lamb shank with salt and pepper for at least half a day.

2. Place a few sprigs of fresh rosemary at the bottom of dish, place lamb shank on top, add 6-10 cardamoms, rice wine, season the future sauce after steaming with soy sauce, brown sugar. Steam until soft, around 3 hours, turnover halfway.

First vegetable harvest

 

 

Even though I have been gardening for the last 20 years, I still feel the happiness of harvesting home grown vegetables, especially in spring when the season starts. This time is picked from the green house as the weather here in spring is too cold to plant anything outside yet. Small quantity of radish and chrysanthemum lettuce 茼蒿， turned into a small salad as appetizer to a alfresco barbecue dinner.

Sunny calm day is boating day

April turns out to be a fabulous month in Ireland, warmer, less rain, more days with clear sky, more sunshine than last summer, amazing.

 

Perfect to get out on the boat especially when there is little wind. The light reflected by the water is so bright and the scenery is surreal. 

 

 

 

 

Apple yogurt cake

 

Apple yogurt cake

Apple yogurt cake, fresh

Apple yogurt cake, seared

 

Last autumn during the apple harvest, I semi-dried a lot of apples in cubes for storage, it is time to use them now. This cake has a moist texture, nice to have fresh or seared the next day, so make a big portion.

 

 2 eggs

60gm sugar, pinch of salt

500gm yogurt

zest and juice of 2 lemons

200g flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups of semi-dried apple cubes

 

1. Whisk eggs with sugar and salt, add lemon juice and zest, yogurt, mix well, then add sieved flour and baking soda and finally apple cubes.

2. Pour into a buttered baking dish, bake at 180˚C until cooked through, around 40 minutes.

Smoked cod roe cream sauce noodle

 

Smoked cod roe cream sauce noodle

I tried to eat a variety of food, ordered fresh and smoked seafood from the on-line fishmonger, smoked items can keep and be easily used in lunch. This smoked cod roe is good to slice and dry seared as a snack for aperitif, or turn into a sauce for noodle.

1. Remove the skin of cod roe and breakup in cream, season with white pepper, mustard and add a handful of fresh chives.  

2. Cook ramen noodle (or pasta) and mix into this cream sauce.

Black bird

 

 

Spring is when birds raise their families, a lot of activities through out the day, especially for this black bird who has claim our front lawn as his territory. He can catch a few worms and hold them in the beak before going back to feed the babies. 

 

Trout in 2 dishes

 

baked trout

 

Got a fresh trout from the lake, beautiful pink flesh. Baked and ate half for dinner and the other half turned into a potato dish for lunch.

 

1. Season trout with salt for a couple hour.

2. Add a slice of butter in the cavity, bake at 180˚C for 10 minutes and rest for another 10.

 

Trout potato thick pancake

 

trout potato thick pancake

Mix cooked trout meat with mash potato, add an egg, fresh herbs, season with salt and pepper, cook in frying pan with the lid on until golden both sides.

Roasted potato mash

 

Roasted potato mash

Roasted potato

 

Roasting potato first before making mash gives a richer flavor and a more waxy texture, worth the little extra effort.

 

1. Peel and cut potato into cubes.

2. Place in shallow baking dish, add cream to 1 cm high in the dish, place slivers of butter on top, bake at 180˚C until slightly golden, around 30 minutes.

3. Mash, season with salt and extra butter or cream to a thick consistency, work the mash more and the texture becomes waxy.

Kumquat pickle

 

Kumquat pickle

 

Raw kumquat is hard to eat, too sharp sour, this light short pickling is the best way to have it as snack.

Cut into quarters, remove seed, add a pinch of salt and a table spoon of sugar, mix well and rest for an hour before serving.

Dandelion beer

 

Dandelions

lawn full of dandelions

 

Dandelion beer

This is the time when the lawn is covered with dandelions, bright yellow flower heads, really a mood lifting view. They are good for pollinating insects to get spring nectar.

As there are so many, dandelion is good for cleansing the liver, and I just saw this beer recipe.... so I gathered some to try. In no time I picked a hundred flowers and the lawn is still full of them.

The beer is ready to drink in 5 days, fizzy and still mildly sweet, with the distinct mild bitterness of dandelion, like an ale. I used brown sugar and hence the dark colour and a rich flavor, quite similar to stout. White sugar will give light colour and milder taste.

 

1. Collect 100 flowers, simmer in 1.5L of water for 15 minutes.

2. Filter flowers out into a preserving jar, add 100gm of sugar.

3. When cool to around 30˚C, add a pinch of wine yeast, give it a stir, cover lightly with tissue paper, leave in a warm place for 5 days.

Coconut rice pudding and with custard

 

 

An Italian friend is a rice grower and she is testing traditional recipes of desserts using rice. I modified using coconut milk instead, far more fragrant than milk.

rice pudding with coconut milk

 

1. To make rice pudding, use 1 part rice with 4 part liquid (coconut milk, or if very thick dilute with water), season with a pinch of salt and sugar to your taste.

2. Bring to boil and simmer until rice cooked through, pour into baking dish and bake at 130˚C for an hour to swell up and sauce thicken.

 

rice pudding with custard made with coconut milk

rice pudding with custard made with coconut milk

 

I used the left behind portion to make the custard version, which is an old Tuscany recipe.

1. Whisk 2 eggs with pinch of salt and 30gm sugar, mix with 500ml of coconut milk, pour on top of rice pudding, bake at 130˚C until surface slightly golden, around an hour.

Wonderful Connemara scallop

 

Connemara scallop

 

Finally I managed to order on line live Connemara scallop on the shell. They smelled ozone, very alive and is hard to open.

Tried raw and baked, the flesh is dense, sweet, firm yet tender, have to say the texture is better than the French Brittany scallop, which is good already.

Connemara scallop raw

Connemara scallop baked

To bake, season with a little salt and olive oil, 180˚C for 8 minutes, for a translucent middle.

Slow cooked lamb shoulder

 

Slow cooked lamb shoulder

 

Lamb shoulder has some tough parts and better leave it to cook at low temperature in the oven, the meat becomes tender and infused with herb fragrance, minimum work.

1. Season lamb shoulder with salt, white pepper and olive oil for a few hours.

2. Rub a good bunch of fresh thyme all over and place at the bottom of baking dish, place lamb shoulder on top.

3. Bake at 130˚C for 1.5 hours.

Pizza evening

pizza ingredients

wood fired pizza oven

 

Blue sky sunny days continues, wonderful to work in the sun with cool wind blowing, still need to wear long sleeves. Grab the chance to have another pizza evening, for the taste and to enjoy evening colour.

 

 

1. Pizza bianca with rosemary salt and olive oil.

 

 

2. Pizza with garlic, sesame, salt and olive oil

 

 

3. Pizza with tomato sauce, eggplant, thyme and cheese.

 

 

4. Pizza with fennel, chive, herring and cheese.

 

 

5. Pizza triple red : tomato sauce, bell pepper, chorizo and cheese.

 

All the vegetables used, including garlic, need to be cut very thin, then season with salt and olive oil for an hour to soften, faster to cook in the pizza oven.

Steamed apricot almond cake

 

 

Steamed apricot almond cake

Steamed apricot almond cake

With the steam oven, I tried to make steamed pudding again, but use a shallow baking dish instead, faster cooking. The mix is spelt and almond, the result is quite stodgy, interesting in its own way, but probably not everyone like this texture.  

 

2 eggs

30gm sugar

pinch of salt

300ml coconut milk

juice and zest of 2 lemons

100gm spelt flour

100gm almond flour

1tsp baking soda

dry apricot, cut into pieces

 

1. Whisk eggs with sugar and salt, mix in coconut milk and lemon, then sieved flour and baking soda, and lastly apricot, mix well.

2. Pour into buttered baking dish, cover with metal tray to stop steam water dripping in. Steam for 1 hours.

Wild watercress soup

 

wild watercress

wild watercress

 

Went to the spring area with the plant identification app, and can confirm that what is growing there is indeed edible watercress. Like the information said, this plant is fast growing and can choke a waterway easily. Great, then I can harvest regularly.

 

Wild watercress

Wild watercress soup

 

Tasted a few leaves and is spicy, I prefer to cook it, first attempt is a quick soup, season with ginger, date and salt.

What a surprise that it is so tender, indeed the plant is small, only 3 inches long, compare with those I bought before in the market, at least 8 inches long hence tougher.