Tag: recipe

Pork_belly_sauerkraut_stew
Recipes

Pork belly and sauerkraut stew – a modern take on a traditional Chinese recipe

The pork belly and Chinese sour cabbage stew is one of my favourite dishes from China’s Dongbei cuisine, but sadly it’s extremely difficult to get hold of Dongbei-style sour cabbage outside China (the type from Southern China tastes very different). In order to make your own through my grandmother’s traditional recipe, you need to make a really massive batch, and I don’t cook with it enough to make that a realistic option.

Luckily, sauerkraut tastes a lot like it, and although it’s not 100% to the traditional taste, you can get the same balance of the refreshing sour taste of the sour cabbage and the rich and juicy pork belly from this recipe.

Also, to note, I’ve used the method where you cook the uncut pork belly first. You can also slice the pork belly into strips when the pork is raw (if it’s too soft to cut easily, just put it in the freezer briefly until it’s easier to cut). However, directly cooking the sliced pork belly gives you a greasier dish in the end, so I prefer cooking it the longer way.

Traditionally, you’d use a vermicelli made from yam for the stew (it has to be the thicker variety), but here, as pork belly is quite a fatty food, I’ve swapped it out for Shirataki noodles. These are super low calorie and are made from konjac yam, so taste identical to the traditional ones in the stew. If you can’t get hold of these, then you can replace it with a thick noodle or even leave it out completely.

shirataki_noodles

The recipe below serves 2-3, and takes roughly 40 mins to cook. As you’ll see below, the ingredients are also a bit rough for this, because in Chinese stews, you can vary the amount of meat or noodles and it will still come out well.

Ingredients
1 strip pork belly/pork belly joint (roughly 400-500g – I used 430g)
1/2 stick cinnamon
2 bay leaves (ideally fresh)
2 star anise
3 slices ginger
200g sauerkraut
1 bag shirataki noodles (mine was 170g)

You’ll also need olive oil to release the flavour from the spices, and will need to add some salt and water along the way.

Pork_belly_sauerkraut_stew Continue reading “Pork belly and sauerkraut stew – a modern take on a traditional Chinese recipe”

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Apple_Plum_Jam_4
First Time Making, Recipe Review, Recipes

First time making: homemade apple and plum jam with cardamom

Now that my two jars of strawberry jam are nearly empty, it’s time to make a new batch – with apples and plums. I wanted to try something less runny this time, and as it’s the pectin that makes jam set, I decided to try a recipe with plums (a fruit that features on the high pectin list). Then I found this delicious-looking plum and apple jam, as well as this beautiful French apple jam recipe, so decided to combine the two and make an apple and plum jam with cardamom.

For the apple variety, I picked Gala, as it’s generally good for apple sauces: it’s sweet, got a good texture and isn’t too “watery”.

PLEASE NOTE: I thought it’d make 2 x 500ml jars of jam, but it turned out that there was only enough for 1 jar, so in the future, I won’t be scaling down the recipe in this way.

Ingredients
250g flavouring plums (4 plums)
250g Gala apples (2 apples)
1 cardamom pod
300g jam sugar
100g cane sugar
150ml water

You’ll also need: a potato masher and 1 jam jar (500ml).

Apple_Plum_Jam_1 I scaled down the sugar slightly, as the apple and plum varieties already seemed quite sweet to me. By the original recipe, you should use 450g sugar. Also, just because I’m paranoid (and there was still some left over), I’m using a mix of jam sugar, which contains pectin, and normal sugar. In theory, the plum will provide enough natural pectin, so you can use normal white sugar here. Continue reading “First time making: homemade apple and plum jam with cardamom”

Unknown's avatarblenderandbasil4 Comments
Strawberry_Jam_1
First Time Making, Recipe Review, Recipes

First time making: homemade strawberry and vanilla jam

As it’s summer, and strawberry season, I thought I’d try out Jamie Oliver’s supposedly super easy way to make homemade strawberry jam. While I love strawberry jam, most store-bought versions taste a tad too sweet/artificial for me. The jam with the lowest sugar-to-jam ratio I’ve found is the Streamline Reduced Sugar Strawberry Jam, which is nice as well, but guess there’s nothing like making your own!

It’s my first time trying out this recipe, so I’ve scaled it down slightly (only very, as the strawberries were on offer). Also, I didn’t find any whole vanilla pods in the shops, so used ground vanilla beans instead.

This filled 2 x 500ml jam jars – not quite as expected from what the original recipe mentioned.

Strawberry_Jam_1I used…

Ingredients
800g strawberries
400g jam sugar
4g ground vanilla beans

You’ll also need: a potato masher and 2 jam jars (500ml).

Continue reading “First time making: homemade strawberry and vanilla jam”

Unknown's avatarblenderandbasil1 Comment
Recipes, Sunday Lunch

Dongbei Poussin and Mushroom Stew

Often called a chicken and mushroom stew, it’s traditionally prepared by the bride’s family on the wedding day, but is very much a popular and everyday dish. The actual preparation only takes 10-15 minutes – then you can just leave it to stew on low heat.  The chicken used in the stew is actually closer to a poussin (you can also use corn-fed chicken though), so that’s what I’ve used here. This was one of my favourite stews from childhood, and as it’s a Chinese dish from Dongbei/Manchuria (in the North East), it has quite strong flavours. Continue reading “Dongbei Poussin and Mushroom Stew”

Unknown's avatarblenderandbasil2 Comments
Recipes, Simple Recipes

Cod Fillet with Red and Green Pesto

After a long day’s work, this is one of my go-to fish recipes: it only takes 5 minutes of prep work and 20-25 minutes in the oven (during which you can either cook some greens and potatoes to go with the fish or just enjoy some quiet downtime). It’s also very healthy: a fillet of cod is less than 100 calories, and that’s mostly in protein. Continue reading “Cod Fillet with Red and Green Pesto”

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