Handmade pasta

Home-made Pot stickers / Jiaozi / Gyōza

I've halved the following recipe which yield 20 wrappers

Gyoza Wrapper Recipe

via http://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/gyoza-wrappers/

Author: Namiko Chen

Serves: 42-44 wrappers (thin wrappers)

Ingredients

240gm plain flour

½ tsp. salt

120 ml just-boiled water plus more if necessary (should be around 120 - 150 ml)

You will also need:

Potato starch (corn starch) for dusting
3" (8 cm) cookie cutter

While for the filling, I've just followed a rough guide from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8MBX-SXnmg

Spaetzle { Nokedli }

Spaetzle (Nokedli)
via for detail instructions check aprosef

For 1 serving (*I've doubled the recipe and it was good for 3-4 pax)

Ingredients

100gm Plain flour
1 large egg
60ml water
salt, to taste
a pot of boiling water

Method :-
1) Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil, don't forget to season water with salt.

2) In a bowl , place the flour, and the crack the egg in the middle. Add a little water, and with a wooden spoon combine by pushing the flour towards the egg. Add water as you go until a not too runny consistency.

3) When water boiling, place spaetzle maker over the pot (see link for instructions) and push the mixture over the hot water.

4) You should be doing in batches, and remove dumplings which have floated.

5) Rinse with cold water to get rid of some starch, drain and serve.

Quick Pork & Noodle soup

A rather quick noodle soup for when the days you want something really simple.

Quick Pork & Noodle soup
4 pax

Ingredients

Soup base
1 inch ginger, bashed
1 stalk spring onion, bashed
1 garlic, bashed
a little oil
Root vegetable (I used parsley root, celery root)
1.5 litre water
salt, to taste

Noodle
4 pkts x 60g pho instant noddle
2 sachets seasoning from instant noodle

Protein
200g Pork liver, sliced thinly
200g Minced pork, seasoned and form into meat balls

Garnish
toasted sesame
spring onion , chopped

Method
1) In a soup pot, saute bashed garlic, ginger and spring with a little oil for a few minutes. Peel and chop up root vegetable in small pieces for faster cooking. Add water to the soup pot and the root veg., Let it boil and simmer til root veg. is soften.

2) Prep. protein. When soup base is ready, throw in the meat balls to cook. When it is cook, start putting in the noodles. and liver. Be careful not to overcook the liver.

3) Serve immediately  sprinkle with toasted sesame and spring onion.

Chinese Style Angel Hair Pasta

Fried vermicelli rice noodles is comfort food for the Cantonese. We eat them in the morning, afternoon, night and sometimes even during parties as the noodles could be pair with endless flavours. Since it is harder to get vermicelli made of rice flour in my area, I have learned to substitute with angel hair pasta whenever I crave the Cantonese staple.

I will not be including a recipe in this post. What I do is I toast the pasta first either on a skillet or in the oven for maximum 10 mins. on medium heat or until pasta is browned. Next you simply cook the pasta per package's instructions, once cooked to al-dente, you toss it in Asian-inspired aromatics and you're good.

Tomata cream sauce

My search on google for "tomato cream sauce" yield me this recipe by The Pioneer Woman . I have made this sauce twice now since last week - of course it was good !

As usual I 've adapted the recipe to what I have in the pantry. So go to the link above if you want the exact ingredients and methods. Here are what I've cooked with...

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Tablespoons Butter
1 whole Medium Onion, Finely Diced
3 cloves Garlic, Minced
pinch of dried basil
4 medium very ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
Salt And Pepper, to taste
Brown sugar , to taste
1 cup cooking cream (22% fat)
Fresh parley, Chopped
250g pasta

"Carbonara" with spinach

Recipe adapted from TheKitchn

Ingredients
3 portions of (3x75gm) Fettuccini - or pasta of your choice
1 x 400g frozen bag of Spinach , drained
ewe's cheese, to taste
2 eggs
chilli flakes, to taste
3 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp olive oil
bacon, optional ( I didn't use)
salt & pepper , to taste

Method
1) Cook pasta as per packet's instruction. Set aside a few tablespoons of pasta cooking liquid.
2) Meanwhile, beat eggs together with ewe's cheese, add in a little of hot pasta cooking liquid and set aside.
3) When pasta is almost done, heat oil in a sauce pan, sauté garlic for a bit followed by chilli flakes, stir in the spinach, season with salt and pepper to taste and cook for a few minutes.
4) Drain pasta and toss together with egg-cheese mixture and finally stir into sauce pan with spinach. Use pasta cooking liquid to loosen if needed. Mix well and serve.

Leftover pumpkin soup used as pasta sauce

Horrible photo; but the sauce and pasta combination was so moreish, I had to restraint myself !

The recipe is as per the title, it starts from cooking a batch of pumpkin soup (recipe below) spiced with dashes of curry powder for extra kick. Then use the leftover as pasta sauce for next day's main - just cook and mix in your favourite pasta, some grated cheese, pieces of fried chorizo, and finally sprinkle with chopped parsley - seriously good!

Pumpkin soup

Taste.com.au

Ingredients (serves 6)

2 tbs olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 leek, white part only, finely sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 tsp ground coriander (omitted - didn't have any in the pantry)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1kg peeled pumpkin, diced
1 large potato, peeled, diced
1L chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 cup (125ml) thin cream (omitted)
*added
curry powder, to taste

Method

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over low heat, add onion and leek and cook for 2-3 minutes, until softened but not coloured. Add garlic and spices and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add pumpkin, potato and stock and bring to the boil. Turn heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes. Allow to cool slightly, then blend in batches.
2. Return soup to pan, stir through cream and reheat gently. Season and add a little more nutmeg if desired.

Peas and Bacon Tarhonya

I had planned to make risotto one day , then changed my mind due to shortage of time. Since I still wanted to use peas and bacon as the complimentary ingredients, I thought that Tarhonya (a type of Hungarian granulated pasta ... almost similar to couscous) would make a very good substitute for risotto.

This dish can not be easier while the result is so satisfying!! - I just LOVE the nuttiness from the oven-toasted tarhonya :)

Tarhonya with bacon and peas

Ingredients
Oil , for sauteing
Bacon, about 2.5cm cube - sliced
1 onion, sliced into half ring
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp smoked paprika
Tahonya pasta , I didn't measure ... it was enough for 3-4 servings
peas, 2 handfuls
chicken / vege stock - double the measure of pasta (or according to liquid required per package's instructions)
salt, pepper - to taste
Ewe's cheese

Method
1) Brown tahonya pasta in pre-heated oven at medium heat for about 10 mins or until brown. Set aside.

2) Heat oil in pan , sauté bacon until slightly brown. Add in onion and cook until translucent. Lower heat and put in the minced garlic and smoked paprika. Stir until fragrant.

3) Pour in chicken / vege stock and bring it to a boil. Once stock is boiling, pour in the pasta and stir it couple of time while it is cooking. Cook until pasta is ready.

4) When pasta is ready, adjust seasoning at this point. Next pour in the peas, stir and switch off the heat, put on the lid and let it rest for a bit. Check for readiness of peas before serving with sprinkle of ewe's cheese.

Velvety broccoli and feta pasta

This has to be one of the best new recipes I'Ve tested in a long time. So simple yet surprisingly pleasing :)

Here I've used Hungarian curly pasta and halved the lemon instead of whole and it works fine :)

Read recipe here

Chow Mein 炒麵

I think every chinese household has a different version of chow mein. This kyliekwong 's version (as seen on Tv Paprika) uses ginger, which I've never included in my version before this. Also, her soy base sauce was much more straight forward to prepare than mine. Anyway, here's how I tweaked her recipe based on what is available in my kitchen .

Chow Mein 炒麵

Serves : 1

Ingredients :-

One serving of spaghetti pasta (kw's recipe uses flat rice noodles)

few slices of ginger

2 cloves of garlic

half of red onion

cabbage (kw's uses chinese cabbage)

spring onions

white pepper to taste

thick soya sauce

light soya sauce

oil for stir-frying

* sesame seeds omitted (totally forgotten about it!)

* bean sprout was omitted (not available in my kitchen)

* You may also add any kind of meat / seafood of your choice.

Preparation :-

1) Cook spaghatti pasta according to your brand's instruction.

2) In the mean time, prepare sliced ginger, chopped onion , garlic, spring onions.

3) Heat oil in a wok, sauté ginger, onion and garlic until fragrant. Next in the same wok, put the dark soya sauce (enough to cover the pasta) , simmer it for a bit. Then toss-in the cooked pasta and stir-fry until soya sauce colour pasta fully. Next , toss-in cabbage, spring onion and neam sprout and continue to stir-fry for a bit. Add light soya sauce and white pepper to taste. Stir-fry for a about 3 minutes and it's ready.

4) Serve with toasted sesame seeds.

Rice noodle roll 猪腸粉

I finally did it! I'm mostly happy with the taste despite that the recipe was actually for making Vietnamese version of rice noodle roll, Bánh cuốn .

As you can see, the texture wasn't smooth at all .. in fact it was disastrous :p I'll need to improve on the tecnique and I'm looking forward to practice making it again :)

Thanks Lily'sWaiSekHong for posting the Step-by-step tutorial in her fabulous blog !

Read more about Rice noodle roll

Pasta with Tuna and hot pepper

One of my best discoveries recently is this recipe from SimplyRecipes. It's so simple that I've been cooking it for the past few Mondays..in fact just ate it for lunch again today ...ah very satisfying!

You can check out the original recipe here which uses arugula. Nowadays since preparing it for few occasions, I didn't bother with the quantity as stated and been doing it my own style.

Ingredients
Pasta (any type)
Canned tuna in oil, drained from oil
Chilli flakes, to taste
a clove of garlic, mince
salt and pepper, to taste
olive or canola oil

Mehtod :
1) cook pasta, al dente
2) heat oil in pan on medium heat. Add garlic and chilli flakes, fry til fragrant. Next, add tuna and shred tuna with a fork, continue to cook for a min. or 2.
3) Pour in the pasta, add salt and pepper to taste. Stir-fry a little more and ready to serve.

From the Hungarian kitchen

Eating out for us means fast food, pizzas, burgers, chinese, Indonesian, Indian*,etc. We hardly try-out Hungarian food in restaurants. Reason being, we get to eat home-made Hungarian dishes cooked by B's (my partner) parents. Most of them are quite tasty and suit to my taste. I do have my favourites and today's recipe is one of them.



Hungarian Mushroom Chicken (Gombás Csirke)

Ingredients (serves 4)
12pcs chicken wings (small-sized) or 8 pcs. pork chop
500gm of mushrooms
2 medium-sized Onions
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
3/4 soup bowl of flour
1 1/2 small wooden ladle spoon of paprika
1 small wooden ladle of vegeta (seasoning)
500ml of water
lots of parsley, chop finely
dash of cumin

Method
1) coat meat with flour, pan fry with some oil for about 10 mins. Set aside.

2) Use remaining oil from the pan to sweat onions. Followed by adding mushrooms and a dash of cumin, stir fry for some minutes. In the same pan, make a hole in the middle and pour in the flour and mix well. Next put in the paprika, pour in about 300ml of water, seasoning and garlic continue to stir for awhile, pour remaining of water.

3) Finally put in the meat and let it simmer. Before serving sprikle the parsley into the dish

This dish is great with pasta, and of course best eaten with some sour cream..I guarantee you'll like it :)

*only in Budapest

Cooking Rice Noodles

Finding asian cooking ingredients here hasn't been easy. Fortunately, Tesco has a section of shelves that fulfil my needs. Though the supplies are limited, they do stocked general ingredients i.e. the soya sauce, curry powder, various instant sauces, etc. One of the best finds is rice noodle. This rice noodle is not quite like the fine rice vermicelli but some what similar to kway teow.

On the packing, it suggested to pour any flavour of hot soup over the rice noodle. However, for my taste, I prefer dry version instead. The following recipe was inspired whilst watching Nigella 's cooking programme with minor additions.

As you can see, I've prepared a small portion of each ingredients as we're going to toss these ingredients with the ready noodles. Clockwise - stir fried mince pork, toasted sesame seeds, stir fried button mushrooms, fried onions in oil, finally spring onions.

Usually, the tossing is done for one portion of noodle. In an empty bowl, first put the fried onions in oil, mushrooms, mince pork, dash of soya sauce and pepper to taste, mix the ingredient, then put in the rice noodles, toss til consistent, finished off with a sprinkle of spring onions and sesame seeds. Repeat the same for 2nd portion. This way, the unfinished ingredients can be kept in the fridge and heated up until the next meal :)

Verdict : the rice noodle were smooth and firm. Slurping was very easy! Give it a try :)