Thai Beef Stir Fry

Thai Beef Stir Fry Portions: 6

Ingredients:

• 800g Beef Fillet tails
• 500g Baby Carrots
• 500g Beansprouts
• 500g Green Peppers
• 300g Shitaki or Enoki Mushrooms
• 1 Bunch of Spring Onions
• Corriander
• Cashew Nuts
• 1 Red Chilli
• 2 Star Anise
• 30ml Soy Sauce
• 3 Limes
• Tiriyaki Marinade

This recipe is my most recent creation, I made it at work for a special and seemed to have gone down well. I got the inspiration from working at my last job which was at a Thai restaurant. They served a similar which was one of my favourite dishes, the only thing was it was unbearably hot and spicy! So I have adapted it to make it even better than what I remember.

This is one of the easiest recipes I will ever put up, so if you are on the lazy side then try this one for sure!

The Beef

I have chosen Beef fillet tails to use as they are lean but not as expensive as a fillet. Its a hard one to toss up between how to cook the beef. I would choose either to cut it into small strips and flash fry it, however personally I would slow cook it in the marinade for at least 5 hours in a bag at about 80 degrees Celsius. Doing it this way means you will collect every bit of meat flavour that comes out along with the marinade and all of this will make the basis of your stir fry juices even more amazing! Once you have cooked the beef, cool it down and shred it into smaller pieces and separate from the juices

The Juice

Once you have separated the juices from the meat, to make the liqueur. Put it in a saucepan and heat up with star anise, lime juice, soy sauce, coriander stalks and half a chilli (but if you want it hotter, throw the whole chilli in) Bring this to the boil and then pass off through a sieve to remove all the big and small bits. Remember to taste it and add more of anything if you feels it needs it.

 

The Vegetables

 

 

The Vegetables are so simple, cut the baby carrots into small pieces lengthways, thinly slice the green peppers and fry in a hot pan or wok with the bean sprouts for a couple of minutes. Add the Enoki mushrooms, and if you cant get Enoki mushrooms then Shitaki Mushrooms will work just as well. Then add the spring onions and beef along with a drop of the liqueur make sure it heats up well.

And just to finish add some crushed cashew nuts and roughly chopped coriander and that is it!

If you really cant be bothered to make this recipe you should be ashamed! So wonderfully tasty as well as being simple the should be no reason not to do it, especially if you enjoy oriental foods!



Lamb Cutlets, minted mash and glazed baby onions

Lamb Cutlet Portions: 4

Ingredients:

• Lamb cutlets (3 each)
• 1kg King Edward Potatoes
• Bunch of mint
• 3 Garlic cloves
• 10g of Parmesan
• 10g of Pine nuts
• 50ml Olive oil
• Half a Lemon
• 200g Baby Onions
• 200g Carrots
• 100ml Double Cream
• 200g Butter
• 20g Sugar

This recipe was one of my first recipes that I served at the restaurant I am at, the Prism. The CEO of the company wanted to see how I was getting on with my progress and asked me to cook her a menu for her, as well as my head chef and the managers of the restaurant.


Lamb is probably one of favourite meats to eat, the flavour is like nothing else and is just as versatile as beef. Using cutlets or chops to some people is a real gift to work with, an expensive cut but cooked right and served well I think it is the most rewarding cut of lamb to use. It can also be cooked in so many different ways. Growing up, I can remember my dad marinading lamb chops in a tandoori mix and just grilling it, crisping up the fat and I can say to this day there is not a lot better to me. But it can be roasting whole, or pan frying as individuals pieces, as well as stewed.


The Lamb


For the purpose of this recipe I have prepared the chops for a restaurant standard, cleaning the bones, trimming and cleaning up the rack, and if you do spend the time to do this you can really impress your guests. However yo can ask your butcher to do it if you wish.


Take the full rack of lamb and cling film up the cleaned bones to prevent the bones from burning when in the oven. The first stage is to brown of the meat in a hot pan. Do not put any oil in the pan, placing the lamb fat side down first will provide enough oil to cook the meat. Render down the fat until golden and do this on all side and the place in the oven to finish cooking. Depending on the size, it should take about 10-15 minutes to cook to a medium rare, which is what I would recommend but if you like it cooked more then leave it in for another 5 minutes or so.

Once you take it out leave it to rest for 10 minutes, the lamb will be horrible to cut, as well as to eat. The fibres need to relax and release from the cooking making it softer and more tender to eat. You should do this for any meat, especially red meat or game.


The Mash


Use King Edward potatoes to make your mash as there is no better! Place them to boil on and once boiling, turn down the heat and cook slowly and more gently. Once cooked, mash up and pass through a drum sieve for the ultimate smoothness to your mash. At the same time warm up some butter and cream on the stove to be added to the mash, AND DONT BE SHY! You may think that adding all this butter and cream to your mash is bad but for the best mash it is essential. I think it was Marco Pierre White that said 'The potatoes is there to stop the Butter from splitting' and who’s to argue with him?

Once your mash is made the mint pesto needs to be added to it. Place in a blender with your mint leaves, a sprinkling of roasted pine nuts, grated parmesan, chopped garlic. As well as a drop of lemon juice and a good helping of olive oil. And blitz it, but not for too long. Blitz it until you have a paste and that is it, the longer you blitz it the more brown the mint will go. Season and add it to your cream smooth mash.


The Vegetables


To be honest I would say serve this dish with whatever vegetables you are comfortable with and that you love. Personally I would glaze some baby onions and some carrots and no more. Glazing is a simple but effective process that I don't think is used enough in house holds, and it works for nearly every vegetable but works best with root and ground growing veg.


Put the vegetables in a pan with some melted butter, sugar and salt. Season the vegetables a little and pour in a drop of water. Just enough to cover the ingredients and no more. This water needs to have evaporated once finished, leaving you with some deliciously sweet and caramelized vegetables. It is important to place what kitchens call a 'cartouche' which is simply a piece of baking paper that is cut in to a circle to cover the vegetables. We use this instead of a lid because where as a lid will allow for know evaporation, a cartouche will steam as well as allow for evaporation which is essential for this process

Finish this dish of with a jus or a home-made gravy and you wont feel let down!

The Ultimate Chicken Curry

The Ultimate Curry Protions: 6

This recipe comes from the days of kitchen work when I have to make food for the staff. It is an important time when working in hospitality because its hard to get time to sit down and eat a proper meal. It also means that you and your work mates can sit down and catch up and bond building the relationships between each other

The most important thing to remember is to play around with the recipe that suits you and that there is no right or wrong
After making different food for everyone for what feels like a hundred times, I feel like I have perfected it some what and need to pass on the recipe now!

Ingredients:

• 1kg of diced chicken thigh
• 1 Aubergine
• 1 Medium spanish onion
• 6 Garlic cloves
• 1 Tin coconut milk
• Ground cumin
• Ground Chilli
• Ground Corriander
• Ground Turmeric
• Ground Fenegreek
• 2 Lemons
• Fresh corriander
• 50ml Double cream

Yoghurt Raita:

• Yoghurt
• Lemon juice
• Fresh coriander
• Ground Cumin

To Marinade the chicken

I chose to use diced chicken thigh because I believe its more moist, soft and flavoursome than chicken breast however you could use chicken breast or legs for the same dish.

It is important to marinade your chicken if you have the time to do it because it can be a bland meat to use and cook with but if you could it properly and in the right ways, then it can be just as good as any other.

Start off by preparing the marinade. Place all the dry spices in a dry pan to cook off a little bit otherwise you might find you will get a grainy texture to your curry which you can feel the spices. Don’t be shy with the spices because these are the only spices you will be adding to your dish. Add roughly equal amounts of all the spices except the chilli which I will leave to you how spicy you want it, but usually only a drop will do. This will only take a minute on a medium heat, then add some sunflower oil and and the lemon juice of 2 lemons to make a paste, bring to the oil and take off to cool. Once cool, pour over the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Place this into the fridge for at least 24 hours to marinade.

To cook the chicken

You can cook this dish in two different ways, which I find both are just as good as each other. One is frying in a pan but the way I prefer is roasting in the oven. Roast the chicken in the oven, evenly spread out on a roasting tray and roast for about 20 minutes at 190 Celsius, but depending on the size of the pieces it could be longer or shorter.

Once cooked, take the tray out and take the chicken pieces out leaving all the roasting juices and spices in the pan.

To make the sauce

Using this pan, place it back on the hob on a lower heat and place your thinly sliced onion and garlic and cook them off slowly until soft. Remember to season onions at the start of cooking! Dice up the aubergine and cook them as well. If you wanted to add pre cooked potatoes then now would be the time to do so. Make sure you are not burning anything, especially the garlic as this will give you a bitter flavour to the curry.

Finish it by adding the coconut milk and a drop of cream as well until you have a nice silky consistency. Finish it by adding chopped fresh coriander and checking the seasoning. Add the chicken back and bring back up to temperature.

To serve......

Personally I would serve it with some basmati rice, with chickpeas or garden peas. I would also serve it with a yoghurt raita, made with mixing yoghurt, lemon juice, chopped coriander and a drop of ground cumin. But again remember to experiment and I hope you enjoy!