Thursday, July 24, 2008

Banoffee



Banana and Toffee Gives you Banoffee



This is a great pie to make in Korea the ingredients a rather cheap and available all year round . You can easily make this pie for under 8000 won. It was invented in England in the 70s. Although the original recipe called for a pastry pie base I feel the biscuit base is just as tasty and is so much easier to make .



Banoffee is hugely popular in Europe so much so that Cadburys made a banoffee pie flavoured chocolate bar . Wonderful for a birthday party or just looking to impress your friends.
No cooking involved, no oven needed.


Ingredients
1 Can of condensed milk
5 bananas
2 packets of digestive biscuits
1 cup of butter 2 cups of cream

To Make.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.
Add the unopened can of condensed milk to the water.
Reduce to a simmer .
Simmer for 3 hours ,always checking to see there is plenty of water.
Warning if the water boils dry the can will explode.
Smash the digestive biscuits and add melted butter.
Pack tightly into a pie tin. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Place a layer of chopped bananas on top of the biscuit layer.
Allow condensed milk to cool.
Spread condensed milk (toffee ) over bananas .
Whip cream (adding a drop of Tia Maria if you like )
Top the bananas and toffee with whipped cream.
Decorate with some chocolate shavings or chocolate syrup.

Watch your friends faces light up with joy as they eat.

Pork and Plum Sauce


Pork Tenderloin With Plum Sauce

Plum Sauce

1 garlic clove, minced fine
1 tablespoon of fresh ginger, minced
1/3 small onion, minced
1/3 cup brown sugar
3/4 cups water
2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
 2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 teaspoon crushed dried chili
5 plums, pitted & chopped
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1/3 tablespoon cornstarch



Thinking of having some friends round for dinner. Want to try
something other than pasta. Try this plum sauce it really is very
easy.  Now is the time to cook with plums they're now in season,   plentiful and
cheap. This is a wonderful fresh tangy sauce with a nice hint of Asia.
You could eat it with chicken, duck or tofu. To accompany it you may
like a nice crispy summer salad, maybe some fresh baby spinach.
An alternative is mashed potatoes and some steamed broccoli. This
really compliments it and is my personal favorite.

To start:

1 Place all 12 ingredients into a pot.
2 Bring to a boil then simmer for 30 minutes.
3 Blend it in a blender.
4 Simmer again until thickened to your liking.

For Pork tenderloin

Take a nice pork tenderloin and season generously with pepper. Roast it
in a preheated oven at 200c for 20 minutes or until cooked to your
liking. Be careful not to over cook or it will be very dry.
Alternatively pan fry in a small amount of oil at a medium heat for
15-20 minutes. Make sure to check it's cooked through at the largest
part of loin.
Drizzle with plum sauce and  enjoy.



Hommus with meat and pine nuts - حمص مع اللحمة والصنوبر


The recipe of preparing hommus is already listed among my previous recipe. Now for the meat and pine nuts topping you'll need:
- Lean minced meat (1 cup)
- Pine nuts (about 1/3 cup)
- Olive oil (or vegetabl oil, which ever you like, about 2 tablespoons
- Finely chopped onions, about 2 tablespoons
- Salt & pepper to taste, and a pinch of allspice (optional)
In a skillet on medium-high, add oil and pine nuts. when the pine nuts start to brown, add the onions, mix and cook for about a minute then add the minced meat and mix them all together and keep cooking until the meat is fully cooked. Serve over the hommus along with pita bread.

Speaking of Mexican food…

... but really otherwise à propos of nothing, I was talking to a friend the other day who had just had tacos from a place with a weird name he couldn’t remember that he assumed was a local New York joint trying to copy Chipotle.
I asked him if it was Qdoba.
“That's it!” he said.
So I broke the news to him that Qdoba is in fact a national chain just like Chipotle is. Indeed, both are based in Denver. I didn’t break down the differences in the concepts — that Chipotle has a much simpler menu, all developed by its founder and president, Steve Ells, and all of the restaurants are company-owned, whereas Qdoba is largely franchised and has an evolving menu under the stewardship of strategic product development director Ted Stoner.
Isn’t that a great name for someone who develops burritos?
“Dude! I totally need a queso burrito, dude. Can you put some ancho chile barbecue sauce on that, brah?”
Sorry Ted, I'm sure you’ve heard it all before.

Trixters, fajitas and a drink named mitch — oh, and the end of the world

July 24

Mercadito Cantina doesn’t have a full liquor license, just one for beer and wine, so drink consultants Tad Carducci and Paul Tanguay, the Tippling Bros., had to get clever.
I was early last night for my dinner there, so while I waited for my friend Andy Battaglia, Tad gave me the low-down on the tric-quila.
You know how tequila has sort of a spicy bite to it? Well, sake doesn’t, so they added chiles, white and black pepper and Sichuan peppercorns to it to simulate that bite. Tad poured me a taste. It’s pretty cool. Kind of tequila-like. It's used to make what the restaurant calls “Mentirosas,” which I think means liars or tricksters, because there’s not really any tequila in them.
I started with a Paper Daisy, which is made with lime, agave nector and orange flower essence (and tric-quila) and is meant to taste like a Margarita.
Andy was right on time and I asked him if his friends pretty much thought the world was going to end soon, maybe today or tomorrow (or the day after).
He said that indeed some of his friends were gloomy.
That’s going around a lot these days, and neither Andy nor I were able to determine exactly why people think things are so much worse now than over the past several thousand years (or past 500 million years, if you get right down to it). Remember how we were all going to die from avian flu a couple of years ago, and how Y2K was going to make planes fall out of the sky at the turn of the millennium? That's not to say the current dangers of economic collapse, environmental disaster, global political instability etc. aren’t legit, but those things are always around. Doesn’t anyone remember the Cold War? DDT? Thalidomide? The Second World War? The Great Depression? Hasn’t anyone read about the deaths of almost the entire population of North America from small pox in the 16th Century, the death of half of Europe from the Bubonic Plague in the 14th Century?
Can anyone in the developed world even imagine a cholera epidemic?
How about the asteroid that killed all the dinosaurs?
I’m truly sorry that the polar bears are in trouble. I really am. But that’s not going to keep me from enjoying my tacos and taquiza.
A taquiza is Mercadito Cantina’s version of a fajita. It’s served in corn tortillas rather than flour ones along with a choice of salsas, onions, cilantro and lime.
We had the chef pick the food for us (I’m not sure whether it was chef-owner Patricio Sandoval or chef de cuisine Ivan Garcia, because the place was packed and so he understandably didn’t come out to chat). He sent out the carne asada taquiza (grass-fed skirt steak, marinated with hoja santa) along with the salsa verde and the salsa de cacahuate (peanut).
He also sent out some head-on shrimp marinated in roasted garlic, and two types of tacos: estilo Baja, which had beer-battered shrimp, roasted habanero, avocado and cole slaw; and the pescado (tilapia in this case) with a poblano chile-tomato-garlic mojo.
We had three types of guacamoles: traditional, chipotle (also with pineapple, pico de gallo and mint), and sandia (watermelon with habanero peppers, epazote and pico de gallo).
And three salsas with crispy cornbread bites: Veracruzana (roasted tomato, capers, pickled jalapeños), habanero (with grilled tomato, garlic, lemon and crema fresca, as well as habanero chiles), and chipotle (with roasted tomatillo and garlic).
We also sampled another Mentirosa, the Papa Low, made from passion fruit, an herb called papalo, jalapeño, salt and pepper. And we had a couple of Miches (prounounced "mitches"), which are the Tipplong Bros. riff on the Michelada, a sort of Mexican Bloody Mary made with beer instead of vodka. It’s not nearly as gross as it sounds.
I had the ker~mich, made with cucumber, hoja santa, agave nectar, cumin and salt. Andy had the happy~mich, made with watermelon, lime, hot sauce (it says salsa picante on the menu, which sounds a lot better and means hot sauce), and hibiscus.

土用の丑/ hari unagi

24 july 2008, Kamis malem,

Hari ini menunya unagi....soalnya hari ini adalah hari unagi...unagi itu sejenis belut kalo di indo. Di semua supermaket uda dari kemarin2 pada lagi sale jualan unagi ini....byk macem, kecil gede, produksi dalam negri, produksi luar negri.
Herannya kalo produksi dalam negri itu mahal banget, cuman bisa menuhin 20 persen dari permintaan pasar....jadi import deh unagi luar negri, biasanya si dari China, harganya murah banyak dibanding yg dalam negri punya, n biasanya unaginya lebih gede...wah wah wah

Tapi banyak juga org jep sini yang lebih milih produksi dalam negri biarpun harganya bisa 2 kali lipet dari yg luar punya . Menghargai produksi dalam negri nih...hehehe...soalnya dari kemarin2 itu ada gosip2 tentang unagi dari china itu pake obat terlarang....ga tau deh apaan...jadi permintaan ama barang dalam negri lebih banyak ...lah mo gimana yak...kalo cuman bisa penuhin permintaan kurang dari separoh????
Di sini, produksi udang kebanyakan dari Indo lho.. Kenapa ga import unagi dari Indo aja yak? Btw, malam ini menu unagi don, enakkk....lezzzattt...

New blog

Recently I’ve been writing an increasing number of non-food related pieces, some of which have found there way onto this very blog. Whilst these have been well-received, I’ve decided that they have no place under the Just Cook It umbrella and so I’ve decided to start posting them here, on a brand spanking shiny new blog: www.alexrushmer.blogspot.com

There is no theme, no unifying factor and no agenda. They are simply my non-food related thoughts. So, please feel free to pop over and say hello. It would be great to see you over there.

NB – Facebook users, these posts won’t show up on the site so you’ll have to go here directly. Assuming you want to read them, of course.

きな粉ロールケーキ/kinako roll cake

24 july 2008, kamis sore,

Tadi siang ke mall, ngeliat loyang buat roll cake, wah jadi beli deh...hehehe...dulu2 bikin cuman ditatakin kertas, mgkin karena itu, jadi kuenya ga terlalu ngembang...so praktek deh sore2..mumpung lagi sempet...

Bahannya 3 bh telur, 70 gr gula, 60 gr tepung trigu, 10 gr mentega, 1 sdm susu. Semua bahan dicampur jadi satu buat adonan, trus oven 170 drajat selama 15 menit... Kalo uda jadi, tinggal diangkat, bubuhin topping trus digulung deh. Kali ini bikin pake kinako, kacang yg uda halus. ..

Malamnya, husband nyari makanan di kulkas, laper katanya, ya udah deh, dipotong tuh kue...dicobain, wah enak katanya...seneng...hehe. Wah ternyata pake loyang baru bisa ngembang yak. Tapi permukaannya masih pecah kalo digulung...gimana ya biar ga pecah?? ada info?