Recipe corner.

Thought I'd start with my current veggie favourite.

EXOTIC BRINJAL(Curried Aubergine)


Ingredients

    2 tablespoons vegetable oil
    1 (1 1/4 pound) eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
    6 tablespoons vegetable oil
    1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
    1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds, crushed
    1/2 teaspoon kalonji (onion seed)
    1/2 teaspoon sesame seeds
    1 (1/2 inch) piece fresh ginger root, chopped
    5 cloves garlic, chopped
    2 onions, peeled and finely chopped
    1 green chile pepper, seeded and chopped
    1/4 cup tomato puree
    1/2 teaspoon chili powder
    1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
    1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
    3/4 teaspoon salt
    1/2 cup coconut milk
    1 tablespoon cilantro leaves

Directions

    Heat the 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet, and fry eggplant pieces until golden, about 5 minutes. Remove the eggplant from the skillet and set aside; wipe out the skillet with a paper towel.
    Heat the 6 tablespoons oil in the same skillet over medium heat. Stir in the cumin, fenugreek, kalonji, and sesame seeds, and cook until the cumin turns golden, about 2 minutes. Reduce the heat; stir in the ginger and garlic, and cook for a few seconds. Stir in the onions and green chile pepper, and continue to cook and stir until the onion is golden, about 10 minutes.
    Stir the tomato puree, chili powder, coriander, turmeric, and salt into the onions. Cook and stir over medium heat for 2 minutes, or until the oil separates. Stir in the cooked eggplant; cover and simmer until eggplant is tender, about 5 minutes. Pour in the coconut milk; stir until blended and heated through. Sprinkle with cilantro leaves.

used to buy belly pork of my butcher already sliced, not anymore

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pork-recipes/pork-belly-roast

got sea-bass for tea - any idea's??????

Thought courgette and broad beans myself.

I ran what was a very well supported thread on cooking a few years ago.

It was designed to show the Fray Bentos pie fraternity that they could cook delicious and nourishing food for very little money and all relatively simply.

Unfortunately it got a bit too elitist, as some well meaning foodies, cranked up the complicity
of the recipes and procedures and cost to beyond most members ability.

If you are posting recipes on here, you will quickly lose all interest if you talk about skillets and Egg Plants and Scallions and Cilantro leaves.

The recipe was "Curried Aubergines" but most will be wondering where they are in the list of ingredients!

Of course I meant to say "complexity"!

simple but memorable is the way to go imo (tho nothing wrong with being more adventurous obv)

the crab and coconut soup that i do never fails to impress (my mum and aunt both not that keen on fish and winced when i told them what i'd cooked for them but both loved it and regularly cook it for visitors now with 100% success rate)

find it on internet for exact measures but goes something like this:-

tblespn or 2 of oil in wok + 2 tspns thai red curry paste

add sliced red (bell) peppers and fry for minute

add tin of coconut milk, fish stock and tspn fish sauce

add tin of crab, chopped spring onions....bring to boil briefly then simmer

add chopped coriander and serve

5 mins prep + 10 mins cooking time= soup heaven!

Fantastic duncan....I've done something very similar, a few times, and I char grill the peppers first and skin them (last time I actually bought some in a jar).

My gosh, I'm salivating here and there isn't a crab in sight!

A gallon of petrol.

£10 for steak dinner at local restaurant.

No television, no washing up.

Sorted.

2 gallon of petrol
Drive round to Tmp's house
Skin + gut half a dozen of his guinea pigs
Season and pop on the barbie
VOILA
An Equadorian feast.

Take some roughly chopped red onions, red and green peppers, 3 cloves of garlic, a tin of tomatoes and cook it all down in some olive oil. Chuck in a little white wine and keep reducing the sauce. Check the seasoning. Add a couple of handfuls of mushrooms, sliced and a sprig of fresh oregano. Allow sauce to reduced a little further until you have a thick sauce.

Take a room temperature (the mistake everyone makes is to cook meat from the fridge) minimum inch thick steak, the best you can afford, season well and throw it on the oiled grill bars for a couple of minutes on each side. Leave to rest for 4 minutes.

Cover the steak in the sauce and serve it with potatoes fried in a little butter and olive oil flavoured with a crushed clove of garlic and tossed through with flat leaf parsley and sea salt.

Steak Pizzaiola a la Orioles

Very simple Chilli Omelette (serves 2) - almost everything is 'to taste'

3 Eggs
Salt
Pepper

Give them a proper mix.

Heat some oil in a pan, then fry

Spring Onions
Fresh Garlic
Chopped Chillis

for 3 min or so. Take them out put the egg/salt/pepper mix in the pan. Chuck the mix of spicy stuff in as soon as you think the the bottom of the omelette is thickening up, then turn it.

^^^re my chilli omelette, I use

no salt (I hate cooking with it unless necessary)
lots of freshly ground pepper
about half a bird's eye pepper (very finely chopped)
2 or 3 spring onions
1 clove of garlic

Brilliant orioles and a classic if done well.

Take some roughly chopped red onions, red and green peppers, 3 cloves of garlic, a tin of tomatoes and cook it all down in some olive oil. Chuck in a little white wine and keep reducing the sauce. Check the seasoning. Add a couple of handfuls of mushrooms, sliced and a sprig of fresh oregano. Allow sauce to reduced a little further until you have a thick sauce.

Take a room temperature (the mistake everyone makes is to cook meat from the fridge) minimum inch thick steak, the best you can afford, season well and throw it on the oiled grill bars for a couple of minutes on each side. Leave to rest for 4 minutes.

Cover the steak in the sauce and serve it with potatoes fried in a little butter and olive oil flavoured with a crushed clove of garlic and tossed through with flat leaf parsley and sea salt.

Steak Pizzaiola a la Orioles

Just need to show a bit more respect for the ingredients......

Good way to b*gger up good steak imo, but you're right re taking it out of the fridge early if cooking it whole.

If you're going to use it as part of a stir fry or summat like that, you should put it in the freezer about an hour before you tend to cook it. It slices far more nicely when you take it out and will still taste lovely.

Quick recipe sauce for salmon.

Cream cheese
Pesto
Single cream

Heat in a pan.Less than 5 mins

Thank you, AP. You're well known in these parts as a man of discernment and taste, so I'm not surprised you appreciate a delicious, classic Italian dish.

HM, on the other hand, appears to be an alcopop away from sheep worrying and donning socks with sandals.

Thanks Orioles, much appreciated.

That did actually make me laugh out loud.

Had three summer holidays in Italy as a teenager and on one of them we ran up to any non-conformists (etiquette wise) in Florence and Siena* and said, in a faux military accent, "Kindly pull your socks up sir" whenever we saw anyone in socks and sandals.

I shouldn't be proud of it, but we derived far more fun from it than is strictly rational.

*-We didn't dare f*ck with the locals in Livorno

Nice to see some good humoured banter, on here, as often it is misunderstood.

orioles.... I'm sure you must have spoilt your guests with a ladle of flaming brandy,
on this dish, and even on the most humble "Burger a l'Orioles".

I've lit the occasional servant for sport, AP, but never food.

Summers in Italy sound wonderful, HM, notwithstanding besocked (even I think I'm pushing my luck with that one!) sandal wearers

Time of our lives Orioles, and it was all the sweeter for the fact that we all knew it

It's all too easy to let those things pass you by, but for some reason we had the nous to realize even then that we were at our zenith, and that they were days that we'd talk about until we were old.

It was a slightly changing group of around twelve each year - I was one of six constants. We didn't pay a penny for the villa, it was one of the girls' parents. Her parents were there the whole time when we were 16, for the first 5 of 10 days when we were 17 and not at all when we'd left school.

Quite honestly brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it. Not in a bad way. Just nostalgia. I love nostalgia, some people think it's petty and twee, but really it's just putting a rose-tint on those moments of your past that make life worth living

I agree entirely, HM.

As life rushes past, I begin to understand more and more that basking in the glow of happy times is one of the greatest pleasures.

I must admit, I'm rather jealous of your memories of Italy, but thankfully, I've a few of my own too

Time of our lives Orioles, and it was all the sweeter for the fact that we all knew it


you lucky sod, mate.....still waiting for the innocence and carefreeness (?) of youth at 45

Aunty Post
It was designed to show the Fray Bentos pie fraternity that they could cook delicious and nourishing food for very little money and all relatively simply.

We've known that for many years, that's why we cook  Fray Bentos pies.

A very fair and valid point Nocash.

Also for those that like them they have to be good value, at the price of £1.00, which I have
seen at Morrison's on a couple of occasions (not so good at the usual £2.00 though)!

So the single mum can feed her three kids and herself for £1 (the pie) 17p (tin of beans)
and probably 30p for a handful of frozen chips.....total £1.47.

........and she can count the beans towards on of their "five-a-day".

Ok here's one ( tommy toes look away now)

Aubergine and tomato sauce with pasta

Cut one aubergine into half inch cubes coat generously with olive oil and season well.  Put in preheated oven, say 200c, for 30 mins.  Fry onions with garlic, for a fair time and add maybe two tins of tomatoes, also Tom purée and perhaps three sun dried toms all diced up small.  Add loads of fresh basil and black pepper.  Can also add peppers and courgette and or mushrooms too.  Cook down for say 30 mins then put the aubergine in, cook a little longer and serve with some good quality linguine.  It's fine with just adding loads of Italian dried herbs, but quite special with fresh basil. 

I like it cos it's cheap, healthy and tasty.  And relatively quick and easy to cook.

^ rob lots of ifs and buts in your recipe ?

One but, no ifs

I stand corrected

Quite a simple and cheap Minestrone Soup, I've gave this recipe before but as I've just made it, I'll give it again.

You can experiment with this:

Realised I'd no chicken for my regular vegetable broth so...

Cut soup Veg (I'm assuming you can buy this as a product on the mainland UK but it's Celery, Flat Leaf Parsley, Carrot and Leek)
Pasta
Tin Tomatoes
Tomato Puree
Veggie Stock Cubes

Just mix the lot in a big pot and fill it with water, stew for an hour, season and then serve. Delicious.

Celery is brilliant in stews, soups, casseroles etc.  But close to revolting as a salad type thing, never understood why so many people only ever eat it raw.

Agree about celery but it's only recently I've started adding pasta and rice to soups and stews to thicken them. They really work well and will turn a soup into something more substantial.

Ovalman. 10 Mar 12 16:35 
Quite a simple and cheap Minestrone Soup, I've gave this recipe before but as I've just made it, I'll give it again.

You can experiment with this:

Realised I'd no chicken for my regular vegetable broth so...

Cut soup Veg (I'm assuming you can buy this as a product on the mainland UK but it's Celery, Flat Leaf Parsley, Carrot and Leek)
Pasta
Tin Tomatoes
Tomato Puree
Veggie Stock Cubes

Just mix the lot in a big pot and fill it with water, stew for an hour, season and then serve. Delicious.



I add chopped up bacon whilst softening the vegies at the start and parmesan cheese with chopped parsley at the end and it really adds to it, imo.

I don't soften the veg because it doesn't add to the flavour imo. I like the bacon idea though .

For a fish stew just add a flaky fish, a firm fish and mussels.

Great thing about this is you can experiment and it will still generally turn out nice.

Tip....

If you like the flavour of celery, but not the crunch, try celery salt or celery hearts (tinned)
which are just yummy.

Great as a starter or light lunch, just on their own in a gratin dish, and topped with butter
and Parmesan Cheese.

It might sound silly, but celery sorbet is actually very refreshing.

Doesn't sound silly at al HM.

Just wondering where you spread it......

With minestrone try cooking the bacon until crispy in a seperate pan, then add bacon and fat to the onions, garlic and rest of the veg.

Not a recipe but a good tip is to rub pork chops with a sprinkling of veg stock granules before frying. It gives a really good crust and some extra flavour.

There have been several cookery threads, including my own, which was well supported.

Trying to recover it but I can't remember the title, but I came across this one.

cook chopped onion,garlic,smoked bacon lardons & chopped chilli in olive oil,when cooked add some flour mix well.gradually mix in chicken stock & bring to boil.seperate pan brown chicken thighs both sides.add chicken to sauce cover with a litre of good cider add some button mushrooms & sprigs of thyme.
go to pub while pot simmers for a couple of hours.
on return add a little single cream,serve with creamy mash & choice of greens,ive got a taste for samphire.
voila,perfect dish for a cold winter night.