Spicy tomato and capsicum chutney

I always am inspired on a spur of the moment to cook a particular thing.  I would then happily spend the next couple of hours trying to research as much as possible on whatever I intend on making, deciding on a recipe and getting the relevant ingredients.  I love it, and sometimes I wish I could spend more days doing that, and having a kitchen and ingredients at my disposal. One morning I woke up, looked in my fridge and saw tomatoes.  I didn't want to eat them in a salad, nor cook it with pasta so I decided that I wanted to make a tomato chutney / relish.  The rest of my morning went to Googling recipes and poring with the few cookbooks that I had brought down from home.

A lot of the recipes I came across required the use of mustard seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and a whole bunch of other spices that I didn't have, nor could I be motivated enough to go out and buy.  Thankfully, I came across a couple of recipes that received good reviews sans spices.  Sweet.  After reading through a dozen recipes, and getting some idea of the ratio of sweet, salty, tangy and spicy, I decided to just wing the rest of it.  To my surprise, it turned out relatively decent.  There's certainly much room for improvement, say actually going to the effort of peeling the tomatoes (I was simply lazy), and peeling the capsicums if I were to use them again.  I'm guessing it would help to get that more 'paste'-like texture that I had visualised in my mind.  Nonetheless, it was great on crackers and went well with poached eggs on toast.

Spicy tomato and capsicum chutney

Makes ~1.5 cup



Ingredients

• 3 vine-ripened tomatoes, diced
• 2 capsicums, diced
• 1 brown onion, finely diced
• 2 tbspn of olive oil
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 tspn chilli flakes
• 1/3 cup red wine (I'm thinking red wine vinegar could be a substitute)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• salt and pepper to taste
• (sterilised jar for storage)

Method

1. Combine the red wine and brown sugar.  Set aside
2. Heat a non-stick pan on med-heat.  Pour in the oil to coat the pan.  Add in the brown onions and cook until transparent (3-5 minutes) and starts to caramelise.
3. Add the capsicums and cook for a few minutes.  Add the tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes.  Throw in the crushed garlic and chilli flakes, and give everything a good stir.
4. Turn the heat to medium / med-low, and add in the red wine and brown sugar mixture.  Allow to simmer for 30-40 minutes, whereby the mixture should start to thicken up.  If during cooking, it looks a bit dry, add a bit of water.  Season to taste.
5. When the mixture is reasonably thickened, turn off the heat and allow it to sit in the hot pan for 5-10 minutes.
6. Pour the mixture into sterilised air-tight jars, and store in the fridge (can be stored for up to 2 weeks).

Yellow split pea 'pudding' (馬豆糕)

Something inspired me while I was in HK to venture into attempting to make Chinese desserts.  Perhaps it was knowing that I wouldn't have an oven for a good chunk of the year in the new place, or that it was simply because the recipes seemed simple, homely and tasty.  One of the things that used to make me less inclined to make tasty Asian things was partly because of the effort needed to actually get the things that were specified in the recipe as it would take a couple of visits to different Asian grocers to find the thing I want, and even if they did, the quality would be questionnable (I once saw packets of red beans with mould on them and they were still on the shelves!).

Anyway, with this new found inspiration, and a trusty Asian grocer, I gave another hand at making a popular Hong Kong dessert.  I came across this wandering the streets in HK and in their display cabinet, there were a variety of 'slices' for what equated to A$0.60 for 1.   They looked too good not to try, and afterwards, I was hooked on all things with that agar-agar / firm gelatinous texture.  This was the easiest to make, out of of all the ones I want to try, and I love it -- it isn't too sweet, I get a lot from not very much, and it lasts quite well in the fridge for over a week.

Yellow split pea 'pudding' (馬豆糕)

Makes 1 9 inch 'pudding'

 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup yellow split peas
• 1 cup cornflour
• 3/4-1 cup caster sugar (personal preference)
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 4 cups water

Method

1. Rinse the yellow split peas until the water runs clear.  Place them in a pot of cold water and bring to the boil.  Make sure you watch it at this stage as it can boil over really quickly!  Lower the heat so that its inbetween simmering and boiling and wont' boil over.  Cook for 15-20 minutes.  Pop on the lid, remove from heat and let it stand for 10 minutes.   Drain and set aside.
2. Mix the cornstarch with 1 cup of water -- it feels like it'll never dissolve at the start, but keep going and it'll dissolve.  Set aside.
3. Put the remaining 3 cups of the water into a saucepan and add the sugar.  Bring to the boil.   Add the coconut milk and evaporated milk.  Bring to the boil again.  Add the cornflour mixture and stir vigourously.  The mixture will thicken up considerably at this stage, so it's important to keep stirring.  Do so for about 2 minutes.
4. Remove pot from heat and add the drained yellow split peas.  Stir for another minute.
5. Pour the mixture into a dish or moulds, and place into the fridge for 4-5 hours until set.

Ricotta hotcakes

I can't remember when or how the hype for ricotta hotcakes started.  It was as if one moment the perfect pancake had only flour, butter, milk (or buttermilk) and eggs, and the next, to be perfect, it had to have ricotta and egg whites beaten to stiff peaks.  And quite rightly so, because ricotta hotcakes are just so damn delicious!   If I didn't find the process a bit too much for when I'm still blurry eyed and I had the foresight to have a tub of ricotta on hand, I would make ricotta hotcakes everytime I went to make pancakes.  Though, making them only once in a while has its appeal too.  I've only tried Bill Granger's recipe for it seeing as his hotcakes are just as famous as his scrambled eggs, and also because I love the guy's cooking.

The batter can be kept for 24 hours in the fridge (covered with plastic wrap).   Bill serves them with a honeycomb butter, though of course, it'll go well with maple syrup or lemon and sugar, a dollop of strawberry conserve... This time when I made them, I really did plan in advance as I had made some lemon curd the day before, and the pairing was absolutely sublime. 

Ricotta hotcakes

From one of Bill Granger's cookbooks (I forget which one, sorry!)
Serves 4-6





Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups ricotta
• 3/4 cup milk
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 cup plain (all-purpose) flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 50g butter

Method

1. Place ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and mix to combine
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.  Add to the ricotta mixture and mix until just combined.
3. Place egg whites in a clean dry bowl and beat until stiff peaks form.  Fold egg whites through batter in 2 batches with a metal spoon
4. Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with a small portion of the butter and drop 2 tablespoons of batter per hotcake into the pan (avoid overcrowding!)
5. Cook over low-med heat for 2 minutes or until hotcakes are golden.
6. Turn onto other side and cook until golden and cooked through.

Stir-fried spicy green beans

The first time that I remember having really good green beans was at a Malaysian restaurant where they cooked them with sambal and prawns.  That was also when I fell in love with a good plate of green beans.  I'm always sold by green beans with minced pork, green beans with char-siu, green beans with chicken or green beans by itself.  Cooked well, they are beautifully tender, crunchy and with that delicious vegetable sweetness.  For an unassuming slender green thing, it is pretty impressive.  I have tried replicating versions of this dish at home, and have never been able to get it right.  Having bought a bag of green beans on impulsive because it was on special and then, quite coincidentally, coming across this recipe, I decided to try again, and I think I have found the recipe.

Stir-fried spicy green beans 

Slightly adapted from Baking Addiction who slightly adapted hers from The Paupered Chef
Serves 2 as a side dish



Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli oil (or you could use chilli flakes)
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 350 grams green beans, topped and halved lengthwise
  
• 2 spring onions, sliced however way you want
  
• 2 medium cloves of garlic, minced
  

Method

1. Make sure everything is all prepared and ready to go before throwing things in the pan as it'll only take a few minutes to cook everything.
2. Combine the soy sauce, white vinegar, sugar and chilli oil or red pepper flakes in a small bowl and mix well
3. Place a non-stick pan or wok over high heat until it is nearly smoking.
4. Coat the bottom of the pan with the oil and add the green beans.  Cook until they are tender (about 4 minutes) stirring every 30 seconds or so.  They will get black dots all over them, and look like they're going to shrivel up and burn but be patient, they will cook and they won't burn.
5. Add the spring onions and toss everything around for a minute or two
6. Add the garlic and cook just until it becomes fragrant (few seconds)
   
7. Add the soy sauce mixture.  Cook for another half minute, tossing and stirring while doing so, turn off the heat, and serve.