Tagliatelle with pork, mushrooms and truffle oil

I went looking for this recipe yesterday, frantically searching through back copies of my cooking magazines, scanning the indexes, then reading them carefully with my finger trailing down the page, then finally reading each entry out loud, because I couldn't find it.  I'd cooked it fairly recently, I made it for our friends who had twins, because it freezes quite well, and because it isn't full of exotic and spicy ingredients, a good choice for people who have new twins and need the comfort of home cooking without the effort of making it themselves.    I thought I must be going slightly mad, because it had just vanished.  I finally located it by looking through the pages of the magazines, for some reason, it isn't in the recipe index, which is complete madness.  I figure if I put it in the blog, then at least I should be able to locate it again when I decide I need to make it again.

This is a recipe that is quick and delicious, two of my favourite things

Ingredients

20 g dried mushrooms - I used shitake, but porcini would be even better probably.
1/3 cup olive oil
1 onion
1 carrot
1 stick celery
40 g serrano ham
1 garlic clove
500g pork mince
1/2 cup red wine
400g tin chopped tomatos
70g tin tomato paste
1/2 cup basil leaves
truffle oil
parmesan

Soak the mushrooms in 1/2 cup of hot water, then chop finely.

Put carrot, celery, onion and garlic in thermo, chop at speed 5 for 5 seconds.  Scrape down, add 20 mls of olive oil, and cook on 100 degrees for 5 minutes, speed 1, reverse.

Add mince and cook for 8 minutes, speed 1 reverse at 100 degrees

Add red wine, tin tomatoes, tomato paste and basil leaves, cook for 8 minutes, speed 1 reverse, 100 degrees.

Serve over pasta of your choice.  Last night I used tagliatelle, but I have used bows or spirals.

Drizzle with truffle oil and top with parmesan

Chicken Pad Kee Mao

I'm rediscovering some old favourites at the moment, after quite a long time of not being particularly creative.  This was pretty yummy.

700g chicken breast fillets
1 tablespoon of sesame oil
2 tablespoons of peanut oil
3 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon of grated ginger
2 long red chillies, finely chopped
4 shallots finely chopped
a small head of broccoli, cut into pieces
125 grams baby corns, sliced lengthways
500g thick rice noodles
2 tbsp each soy sauce, oyster sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp brown sugar

Combine chicken and sesame oil, season with salt and pepper

Cook chicken in a wok in a tablespoon of peanut oil, until golden and then set aside

Add  garlic, ginger, chilli and shallots to pan and cook for 30 seconds, add broccoli and corn, and stir fry for a few minutes.

Cook rice noodles, then add to pan with chicken and vegetables.

Add the soy, oyster and fish sauces and sugar, 60 ml water and stir for a minute or so.

Serve topped with extra onion and chilli.

Bun Cha - or Vietnamese noodles with pork and herbs

I love pork mince.  It tastes better than beef, not as strong, yet not as insipid as chicken mince, or as fatty as lamb.  Thanks pigs, so many good things from one animal.

I made this one a while ago, and we all loved it.  The shop spring rolls on the side might seem like a weird addition, but they were great.  I just used Aldi ones, the vegetarian ones, because I don't like the paste-y texture of meat in springrolls.

No thermomix for this one, but it's reasonably quick anyway.  And then your thermo is free to make a nice custard or a sorbet for dessert.


Ingredients

200g rice noodles
500g pork mince
2 tbsp of kecap manis
1/2 bunch of spring onions - I always use shallots because I can never find spring onions, and for ages, I thought they were the same thing.  Apparently they aren't, who knew?
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp peanut oil
2 cups each coriander and basil leaves
100 g bean sprouts
store bought springrolls - we had 5 each, they weren't very big, and this seemed like the right number.

Chilli Peanut Dressing
2 tbsp peanut oil
2 long red chillies finely chopped
2 garlic cloves
1/3 cup peanuts, chopped
2 tbsps fish sauce
juice of 1 lime

What to do

Cook the noodles, I mostly don't read the packet instructions, just boil up some water, cook for a couple minutes then drain.  I taste a noodle to make sure it's cooked properly, that's about it.  Reserve 2 tbsp cooking liquid.  

Combine mince, kecap manis, onion and garlic and form into meatballs.  Flatten slightly and place on a a baking tray.  Chill for ten minutes to firm up.

Heat oil in fry pan and cook meatballs.

Transfer to a plate, reserve pan.

For the dressing, heat oil in reserved pan, add chilli and cook 2 - 3 minutes, then add garlic and cook for 1 minute or until fragrant.  Add peanuts and cook for 2 minutes, stir in fish sauce, lime juice and reserved noodle water.  Remove from heat

Divide noodles among bowls, top with meatballs, herbs, sprouts and springrolls.  Serve drizzled with dressing.

Amazing!

Truffle, Parsnip, Pork and Sage Risotto

This is one of my absolute favourite meals.  In fact, it's everyone in the houses favourite meal.  Everytime I cook risotto now, my 11 year old wants to know if it will be served with burnt sage butter.  It is divine.  And a great one for the thermomix.  Try it now, you will love it.

Ingredients

500g pork mince
2 tbsp olive oil
 8 small parsnips (or 4 medium sized ones)
1 L chicken stock
70 g butter
1 onion
400g arborio rice
80g white wine
60 g sour cream
80g parmesan grated
a bunch of sage leaves
truffle oil

In thermo, process mince for about 8 seconds on speed 7, I often add a bit if fennel in with it.  Roll the mince into balls and set aside on an oven tray.
Peel parsnips, and cut off the skinny bits at the top, toss these in olive oil and bake in the oven with the pork balls for 10 - 15 minutes.

Grate remaining parnsips and set aside

In thermo, chop onion, 5 seconds, speed 5.

Add 40g butter to thermo and cook with onion on 100 degrees, speed 1 (reverse) for 3 minutes.  Add grated parsnip, and cook for another 3 minutes at 90 degrees.

Add rice, cook for another 2 minutes 90 degrees, same speed and still reverse.

Add stock, put in the butterfly and cook for 17 minutes, speed 1 reverse at 90 degrees.

Add parmesan and sour cream, mix gently and let stand for 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a frypan, melt remaining butter, and fry sage leaves gently until they are crispy and the butter has turned a lovely light brown.

Serve risotto into bowls, top with parsnip, meatballs and a drizzle of truffle oil.

I try not to cook this too often, so we don't get sick of it, but it is truly wonderful, and I don't know how long it would take of having it every week for me to be bored with it.

I've been able to buy truffles in a jar from Aldi occasionally and have sliced these and cooked them through the risotto, also delicious.

Eggs Benedict

Last weekend we had Hospitality Weekend at church.  Usually we eat dinner together once a month, but this month, to mix it up, we went visiting one anothers houses.  You got to nominate if you would be a host or guest, and then organised a meal together.  We hosted, and our guests had very small children, and our schedule was a bit full over the weekend, so working out which meal to do was slightly problematic.  Until we hit on the brilliant idea of Brunch.  What an under appreciated meal time this is.  Brunch.  I don't think I've ever been anywhere for brunch.  Never hosted one before, but it truly is a winner.  Late enough that you sleep in, early enough that it doesn't eat up your whole day.  And so easy to cater.  Bacon, eggs, croissants, mushrooms, sour dough toast, good coffee and juice.  So simple.

To make it look like I'd made more effort, I made eggs benedict.  I've never made hollandaise before, but the thermo just makes it for me, so no drama there.  Here is the recipe I used for the hollandaise, so yummy.  And I love poached eggs.

Hollandaise

4 egg yolks
130g cubed butter
20g freshly squeezed lemon
sea salt and black pepper

Insert butterfly, put all the ingredients into the bowl, cook for 8 minutes at 90 degree on speed three.  Serve poured over poached eggs.

I had leftovers and decided to microwave it the next day with my eggs, but it separated and looked horrid.  Tasted great, but looked dreadful.  The recipe is in the Everyday Cookbook.  Some of the EDC recipes are a bit Womans Weekly circa 1980, however, there are a few gems in there, and this is one of them.