Because, like most ladies, I like to look good, yesterday after work I spent two hours in a hairdressers being primped, trimmed and preened and whilst I came home sporting a remarkably stylish new look, I wasn't particularly in the mood to be traipsing around the supermarket situated at the bottom of my road looking for something to cook. So, I decided to see what I had in my store cupboard. Unlike Nigel Slater-a man I worship as a God on earth-my store cupboard isn't filled with such exotic fancies as White Truffle Oil and Black Olive Paté. However, I do have a pack of risotto rice, some leftover tomato and garlic pureé from another cookery adventure, some Marigold Vegetable Bouillon, various delicious tasting liquids such as Tabasco and Worcester Sauce, and my housemates were kind enough to provide me with some delectable french goats cheese bought from a local farmers market and a fair amount of Absolut Vodka. So, what better to make than a Bloody Mary...and then transfer it into a Risotto? Which, fortified by Vodka and some exceedingly good music on the radio provided by my favourite music station Revolution 96.2 I duly did.
MISS CAY'S BLOODY MARY RISOTTO (serves 3-4 people)
Ingredients:
One Onion
1/2 jar of Passata
Two tablespoons of Tomato & Garlic Puree (Or just plain old tomato puree if you're not feeling too exotic)
One pint of Chicken/Vegetable Stock (You're best off using liquid stock or Marigold Bouillon for this as I feel they give a better flavour to the dish than just a plain old stock cube)
100ml of Vodka (roughly about four/five shots. I used Absolut Vodka here because we just had it in the freezer, but any brand should do, even Grants The Exciting Vodka)
One tablespoon of butter
One pack of risotto rice
A dash of Worcester Sauce
A dash of Tabasco (as much as personal taste dictates)
100g of Goats Cheese
Salt and Pepper
MAKE IT!
:: Chop the onion and sweat it in the butter until soft
:: Add the tomato & garlic pureé and cook with the onions for around five minutes
:: Add the risotto rice and cook until every grain is coated in the mixture.
:: Ladle the stock slowly into the saucepan. Wait until the liquid is soaked up by the rice and it starts to look "creamy" before adding more.
:: Once 3/4 of the stock has been added and the rice is almost cooked, add the passata and the vodka and allow to cook for five-six minutes. Add more stock if necessary to keep the rice from drying out.
:: When cooked, add the Worcester and Tabasco Sauce to taste and stir in the Goats Cheese until melted. Serve with Celery and more Vodka if avaliable.
This is a dish best served in good company when piping hot. Preferably in front of the TV when some crap show (e.g. Big Brother) is on. Although I'm sure it would taste just as good eaten in front of something like The Culture Show. Why don't you try both and let me know?
Thursday 19 June 2008
Tuesday 17 June 2008
Just like Mum made: Banh Xeo
At the weekend I was thrown into a haze of childhood nostalgia on the train when I stumbled upon a recipe for Banh Xeo (pronounced in my poor anglicised Cambodian as Ban Cheow - it's acutally a Vietnamese dish) in the Guardian.
This is one of the few things my mum cooked and I actually liked. It’s one of the few things that my mum cooked that wasn’t boiled rice (fair enough she gave me the deposit on my house but I did have a childhood of no toys, no holidays and 18 years of boiled rice for dinner EVERY DAY to pay for it).
Anyway, this dish reminds me of happy, simple times. Helping make the coconut milk (by painstakingly taking a rinder to the flesh and carving it out) drinking the juice (bizarrely I had a hatred of coconut for a long time – too many Bounty bars and bad frosting on Victoria sponges) and rushing home to stuff my face and going back for seconds.
Mum used to make us top and tail bean sprouts by hand, everything was very methodical when she cooked, rhythmic. It always took ages. I give her less credit as a cook then she deserved, but I put that down to 18 years of eating boiled rice.
The Guardian recipe for Banh Xeo was a vegetarian adaptation, but here’s my mum’s version, as I remember it.
For the pancakes
Rice flour
Coconut milk (you can buy it tinned, or spend hours making your own)
Egg
Some people advocate adding tumeric, but I don’t ever remember my mother doing so
For the filling
Minced pork
Shrimps
Onion
Bean sprouts
Salad leaves
Cucumber
Thai mint
For the sauce
Fish sauce
Lemon juice
Crushed garlic
Crushed peanuts
Chili (optional)
It really makes a difference if you can make the sauce the night before. Simply mix the fish sauce, lemon juice, crushed garlic together, altering quantities to taste. Mum used to add warm water to dilute, the flavours are quite strong.
To make the pancake batter, beat the egg and add to the rice flour. Add the coconut milk slowly, stirring out any lumps. The mixture needs to bit a little thinner than a conventional pancake mix.
Set the batter aside a while to work on the filling.
Chop the onions and fry. Add the pork, then the shrimps at the last minute add the bean sprouts. Take off the heat and leave to one side while you cook the pancakes.
Heat some oil in a large wok. The oil needs to be hot, but not smoking, make sure the sides are coated and the oil doesn’t just sit in the base. Using a ladle, spoon in the pancake batter, swirling it around to make a big, thin pancake – it should have thin, crispy sides.
Spoon in the meat and bean sprouts into the middle of the pancake and fold it in half. Transfer onto a plate and garnish with the salad leaves, mint and cucumber. Spoon some sauce, it's like a sharp vinaigrette, over the top with some of the peanuts.
We always ate this with chopsticks. It’s a challenge.
This is one of the few things my mum cooked and I actually liked. It’s one of the few things that my mum cooked that wasn’t boiled rice (fair enough she gave me the deposit on my house but I did have a childhood of no toys, no holidays and 18 years of boiled rice for dinner EVERY DAY to pay for it).
Anyway, this dish reminds me of happy, simple times. Helping make the coconut milk (by painstakingly taking a rinder to the flesh and carving it out) drinking the juice (bizarrely I had a hatred of coconut for a long time – too many Bounty bars and bad frosting on Victoria sponges) and rushing home to stuff my face and going back for seconds.
Mum used to make us top and tail bean sprouts by hand, everything was very methodical when she cooked, rhythmic. It always took ages. I give her less credit as a cook then she deserved, but I put that down to 18 years of eating boiled rice.
The Guardian recipe for Banh Xeo was a vegetarian adaptation, but here’s my mum’s version, as I remember it.
For the pancakes
Rice flour
Coconut milk (you can buy it tinned, or spend hours making your own)
Egg
Some people advocate adding tumeric, but I don’t ever remember my mother doing so
For the filling
Minced pork
Shrimps
Onion
Bean sprouts
Salad leaves
Cucumber
Thai mint
For the sauce
Fish sauce
Lemon juice
Crushed garlic
Crushed peanuts
Chili (optional)
It really makes a difference if you can make the sauce the night before. Simply mix the fish sauce, lemon juice, crushed garlic together, altering quantities to taste. Mum used to add warm water to dilute, the flavours are quite strong.
To make the pancake batter, beat the egg and add to the rice flour. Add the coconut milk slowly, stirring out any lumps. The mixture needs to bit a little thinner than a conventional pancake mix.
Set the batter aside a while to work on the filling.
Chop the onions and fry. Add the pork, then the shrimps at the last minute add the bean sprouts. Take off the heat and leave to one side while you cook the pancakes.
Heat some oil in a large wok. The oil needs to be hot, but not smoking, make sure the sides are coated and the oil doesn’t just sit in the base. Using a ladle, spoon in the pancake batter, swirling it around to make a big, thin pancake – it should have thin, crispy sides.
Spoon in the meat and bean sprouts into the middle of the pancake and fold it in half. Transfer onto a plate and garnish with the salad leaves, mint and cucumber. Spoon some sauce, it's like a sharp vinaigrette, over the top with some of the peanuts.
We always ate this with chopsticks. It’s a challenge.
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