Recipe of the Day

[Lalo]

Scotch Eggs! Love these! I can't wait for our trip to London next year so that I can try all of the real Brit food on my to-do list (black pudding, haggis, yorkshire pudding, fish & chips, bangers & mash, steak & kidney pie, kedgeree, fish pie, and trifle!)

[Lilitu]

I love onepotchef. This recipe looks lovely, I'm going to try it sometime. His recipes are all so maginificently simple, but they all look like they'd be wonderful and delicious for easy midweek dinner, they certainly give you ideas for meals that aren't just pasta or rice every day.

[Lilitu]

I had a new idea. I was baking a giant batch of biscuits for two school groups I'm in.

Instead of using plain chocolate for chocolate chips, I used a relatively hard truffle mixture that I spread out on a pan and then cut up into tiny tiny squares.

I'm hoping this will make the chocolate delicious and melty even though theyre not fresh from the oven.

I used that recipe for chilli salt chocolate I posted earlier on the same thread. Hope it turns out well, theyre looking splendid in the oven!

[MisterTinkles]

Jamie Oliver


Banoffee Sundae

Ingredients
6 medium bananas
200 g full-fat Greek yoghurt
1 good pinch ground cinnamon
2-3 tablespoons honey, depending on how ripe the bananas are
50 g raisins
3 tablespoons dark rum
50 g good-quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
50 g hazelnuts
4 tablespoons dulce de leche


Method
The night before, place a shallow dish and 6 dessert or sundae glasses in the freezer so they get nice and cold. While they're chilling, slice 4 of the 6 bananas and whiz them up in a food processor with the yoghurt, cinnamon, honey, raisins and rum until smooth. If you have time before you start blending, you can soak the raisins in the rum first to give them a chance to plump up. If not, don't worry, you can just whiz the rum up with the rest of the ingredients for some extra flavour. (If your bananas are ripe, you won't need quite as much honey. However, if they are still a little firm, you will need the full 3 tablespoons.)

Place the smooth banana mixture into the chilled dish from the freezer, and pop it back into the freezer alongside the serving glasses. The ice cream will need about five hours to freeze completely and will be perfect by the next evening.

On the day itself, just before you're ready to serve the sundaes, grate the chocolate and roughly chop the hazelnuts. Toast the nuts in a dry pan for a few minutes until they are golden. Heat the dulce de leche in a small saucepan until it's runny and, while it warms up, slice the remaining 2 bananas.

Remove the glasses from the freezer and start with a layer of the thinly sliced banana. Top with a scoop of banana ice cream, drizzle over the runny dulce de leche and finish off with the toasted hazelnuts and grated dark chocolate. Delicious

[MisterTinkles]

Huevos Rancheros
One of my favorite egg dishes

Ingredients

Olive oil
1/2 medium onion, chopped (about a half cup)
1 15-ounce can whole tomatoes, preferably fire-roasted, if you can get it (or 1 -2 large fresh vine-ripened tomatoes, when in season)
1/2 6-ounce can diced green Anaheim chiles
Chipotle chili powder, adobo sauce, or ground cumin to taste (optional)
4 corn tortillas
Butter
4 fresh eggs
2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped (optional)


Method

1 Make the sauce first by softening the onions in a little olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat. Once translucent, add the tomatoes and the juice the tomatoes are packed in. Break up the tomatoes with your fingers as you put them in the pan. If you are using fresh tomatoes, chop them first, then add. Note that fresh tomatoes will take longer to cook as canned tomatoes are already cooked to begin with. Add chopped green chilies. Add additional chili to taste, either chipotle chili powder, adobo sauce, regular chili powder, or even ground cumin. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low, and let simmer while you do the rest of the cooking, stirring occasionally. Reduce to warm after it has been simmering for 10 minutes. Add salt to taste if needed.



2 Prepare the tortillas. Heat the oven to a warm 150°F, place serving plates in the oven to keep warm. Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a large non-stick skillet on medium high, coating the pan with the oil. One by one (or more if your pan is big enough) heat the tortillas in the pan, a minute or two on each side, until they are heated through, softened, and pockets of air bubble up inside of them. Then remove them and stack them on one of the warming plates in the oven to keep warm while you continue cooking the rest of the tortillas and the eggs.



3 Fry the eggs. Using the same skillet as was used for the tortillas, add a little butter to the pan, about two teaspoons for 4 eggs. Heat the pan on medium high heat. Crack 4 eggs into the skillet and cook for 3 to 4 minutes for runny yolks, more for firmer eggs.


To serve, spoon a little of the sauce onto a warmed plate. Top with a tortilla, then a fried egg. Top with more sauce, sprinkle with cilantro if desired.

[MisterTinkles]

Your food porn for the day....

[MisterTinkles]

This is one of my most FAVORITE Asian style appetizers!!!
Cant get enough of these!!!


Baked Crab Rangoons

16 ounces neufchatel cheese, softened (low fat cream cheese)
1 (6 ounce) can crabmeat, drained and flaked
4 -5 green onions, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 (48 count) package wonton skins
1/4-1/2 cup melted butter

Directions:
1In medium bowl, combine all ingredients except wonton skins and butter.
2Mix until well blended.
3Place 1 teaspoon filling in center of each wonton skin.
4Moisten edges with water.
5Fold in half to form triangle, pressing edges to seal.
6Pull bottom corners down and overlap slight; moisten one corner and press to seal. (Usually there is a diagram on the wonton package. I think they look like little kerchiefs.).
7Arrange on baking sheet that has been coated with vegetable spray.
8Brush with melted butter.
9Bake in 425º oven for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.
10Serve hot with desired sauce.

11NOTE: I like hoisin or plum sauce and sweet and sour -- even jalapeno pepper jelly!
12NOTE: These can also be fried, if prefer.

[Lilitu]

Mum and I had dinner at the new place called 'Young's Pancake Talk' and they're a family business that really does things well.

They're the first low price chinese restaurant that I've seen that does fancy things like make spun sugar toppings for desserts or arranges ingredients on a plate in a pattern.

Anyway they had this pancake that was shaped like a boerewors sausage, in a spiral shape. It was delicious and it was so pretty. I didn't get a recipe but It had a pork mince filling with cumin, spirng onion and garlic among other things I'm sure, and it was all wrapped in a paper thin dumpling skin and curled into a perfect spiral and shallow fried. It was the most tasty thing ever.

They also had candied kumara which was covered in fried vermicelli pieces and topped with the spun sugar, which was delicious because when you bit into it, you'd made little caramel strings with your teeth.

I've never seen a Northern Chinese restaurant be so fancy and pretty before.

If I figure out the spiral pancake, I'll post it here, but I doubt I can recreate it, it looks far too finicky, and yet the man who made it had an actual perfect circle. It was a little eerie.

[Lilitu]

I really wanted to cook something today so I made up a chilli chocolate souffle.

I don't have any measurements because I completely improvised this one I didn't measure anything...

but I'll give you a general idea of what I did.

serves 2

Okay so I got two small ramekins, and buttered and coated them with caster sugar. \

I got an egg, size 7.

i separated it and I whipped the yolk up (to ribbon stage) with about i dunno a tablespoon or so of brown sugar. then I added perhaps a (very) scant tablespoon of flour and mixed it in as well as like 3/4 of a teaspoon of cocoa powder.
Then I heated some milk in the microwave (i used lite milk) about 2/3rds of a rice bowl full and then dissolved four pieces of 72% chocolate in it, and added 3 shakes of ground up chillies and a pinch of sea salt.

I quickly whisked that into the egg yolk and then put the whole thing (btw this whole mixture filled up a rice bowl nicely) and I cooked it in a saucepan filled with water at medium high heat until it gets to a paste consistency.

Then I whipped up the egg white with some sugar (I have NO IDEA how much i used ._. because I just kept adding until I though it was enough. Random guess, maybe 2 1/2 tablespoons.)

Then I put some of the egg white into the cooled chocolate mixture and mixed it until it got lighter, and then folded everything together and chucked it into the ramekins and baked at 180degrees C until they were puffy and lovely.

They were really tasty. Soufflé is really simple to make, especially if you're only making a small batch, it's good for a little craving now and then.

[Lilitu]

I made mousse using Laura Vitale's recipe: http://www.laurainthekitchen.com/all/epi...number=312

I added much more chocolate than she did though, Mine was much more melty and rich-coloured, I found, just by the consistency of mine.

I don't think mine was as light, mine was more velvety than it was fluffy, but I certainly loved it xD.

My friend and I were at home today eating chocolate and watching judy garland, that was the gayest thing I've ever done.