Tag: simple recipe

Recipes

Fish al Cartoccio

Chinese New Year is approaching and you can definitely feel a seafood fever in the air when you go to the local wet markets in Singapore. Far from boasting any authority on the matter – I’ll leave this to the Chinese household of Blender&Basil – I’ll limit myself to show you how I cook fish, which is a rather common method used in Italy. The method is called al cartoccio, and it consists of cooking a whole fish (a sea bass, a sea bream, or like in this case, a mackerel) with its own steam inside a parcel made of aluminium foil. Continue reading “Fish al Cartoccio”

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Recipes

Aubergine/Eggplant and Beans Stir-Fry (Qiezi Doujiao)

We’re starting January with a simple Chinese veggie recipe, as we’re probably all nursing some headaches and watching the scale. Aubergine and spice also makes a very warming combination, so it’s good for the winter months! The recipe does require oyster sauce, but if you can making a vegetarian version then you can get vegetarian oyster sauce made from mushrooms instead. Continue reading “Aubergine/Eggplant and Beans Stir-Fry (Qiezi Doujiao)”

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Recipes

Polenta Chips Recipe

For the busy time of the year when you will be hosting drinks and dinner parties before everyone leaves for the Christmas holidays, polenta chips is an easy recipe to enjoy with simple dips and other finger foods. Make a pesto dip, a baba ganoush, a veggie mayonnaise, or serve them sprinkled with rosemary and grated pecorino or parmesan cheese, like we did. Polenta is essentially a very nutritious corn flour, so you can rest assured that no one will be left hungry. We baked them in the oven, but for a golden finish fry them in sunflower oil and you’ll have a great result as well. Continue reading “Polenta Chips Recipe”

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Recipes

Five Minutes Chocolate Cake

Back in Italy, the best colazione (breakfast food) to have at home would be a homemade cake shared with the family. True to my origins, I often crave something sweet for breakfast and I get itchy for the next baking mission. This time, I quickly put together some very basic ingredients I had at home and the perfect homemade cake came out with only 5 minutes of preparation and 30 minutes in the oven. This simple chocolate cake will stay perfectly fluffy and spongy for a few days (even if you store it in the fridge). Savour it for breakfast with a cappuccino or with a glass of milk as a snack. Or bring it to that last minute dinner invite! Continue reading “Five Minutes Chocolate Cake”

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Recipes

Spanish Potato Salad – Papas Aliñás

When your partner is from Andalusia, you don’t just become familiar with Spanish habits, expressions and dishes. You soon learn that Andalusia is an entirely different ecosystem entailing different dishes, subculture and slang from the rest of Spain. This vegetarian potato salad recipe has the philosophy of an Andalusian summer built into its core. One of those perfect dishes to have ready in the fridge: fresh for the sultry weather, nutritious because you’ll probably have a freezing beer with it. The Andalusian passion is carried in its name, which instead of being the correct, extended version “patatas aliñadas” (try to ask for that at any Andalusian tapas bar and you’ll cause hilarity amongst diners and hosts!), is the condensed, coarse version “papas aliñás”. Continue reading “Spanish Potato Salad – Papas Aliñás”

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Recipes

Simple Kale Pasta with Cashew Nuts

We all love kale: with a boost of vitamins and antioxidants comes a great solution for a quick and easy meal. This simple recipe serves two, and a few of its ingredients are easily interchangeable. Use it as a base for one of those evenings when you think you don’t have anything to cook, and when you open the fridge and cupboard you realise it’s not so bad. All you need is one ingredient and a few complementary ones to make a delicious pasta dish. Continue reading “Simple Kale Pasta with Cashew Nuts”

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Recipes

Chinese Steamed Fish – a simple recipe using sea bream

Chinese New Year is just a week away, and fish is a must on the menu (年年有余), so we’d like to share this simple yet eye-catching steamed fish recipe. Fish cooks really quickly in the steamer, so once you’ve done all the prep work, it only takes 5-10 minutes before it’s done! Not only so, you won’t get all the oil splatters you’d get from stir-frying.

The “must” ingredients are fish (sea bream here, but you can also use other types of smaller fish with white meat such as halibut, pike, sunfish and carp), loads of ginger, spring onions and all the seasoning/sauce ingredients. The carrot, luncheon meat, shiitake mushroom and chillies are optional. However, if you decide to go without fresh chillies, then you can also add a little chilli sauce into the sauce at the end. The amount of chilli included here will make a very spicy version, so please tone if down as per your own taste!

We’re using seafood soy sauce here – you can usually find it with a green label. If you don’t have it, then use a light sauce sauce and add an extra teaspoon of oyster sauce, then 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. Continue reading “Chinese Steamed Fish – a simple recipe using sea bream”

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Baby Recipes, Recipes

Sugarless apple, cinnamon and veggie muffins – perfect for babies

To kick start our new category of recipes (due to one of us having a baby who’s now eating solids), we thought we’d share this apple, cinnamon, carrot and courgette muffin. It uses a flour and banana base – the banana’s there to add some extra sweetness. All our baby recipes will be sugar and salt free, and as our baby has cow’s milk allergy, we’re using margarine (Pure, to be specific, as recommended by the GP). This recipe is inspired by the courgette muffin recipe from BBC Good Food.

Also, with our baby recipes, as all mamas are probably running low on time, we’ve gone for the method with the least amount of prep work. In this case, we’re doing as much as possible in the blender. You’ll still get a nice and fluffy texture following these steps!

These make a nice batch of 12 muffins. The prep takes around 5-10 minutes, and it cooks in 25 minutes.

Continue reading “Sugarless apple, cinnamon and veggie muffins – perfect for babies”

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Guest Posts, Recipes

Carbonara delle isole

I made this Carbonara dish a while ago and I decided to call it Isle Carbonara because the two main ingredients I used come from the two big Italian islands. My Sicilian friend Martina brought me a Ricotta Salata, and in the fridge I had a piece of Mustela, a cured pork loin typical of Sardinia, which is used as an additional ingredient to basic soffritto for regional dishes. Continue reading “Carbonara delle isole”

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First Time Making, Meatless Monday, Recipes, Simple Recipes

First Time Making: Miso Aubergines

I often have lunch at a small Japanese restaurant on Brewer Street called Kulu Kulu. In one of their colourful bowls, they serve this delicious aubergine dish. I like it so much that even after the first bowl, every time another one comes around on the conveyer belt, it’s so tempting to go for seconds! This vegan friendly dish is rather simple, but getting the right combination of flavours is not as simple (I learned the hard way) as it seems. I will try and share the learnings gleaned from my first attempt, for which I took inspiration from this Japan Centre recipe. Continue reading “First Time Making: Miso Aubergines”

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