Roasted garlic soup

Ingredients

1 large whole head of garlic
4 medium potatoes, diced
1.75 litres of vegetable stock
parsley to garnish

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Place the unpeeled garlic bulb in a small roasting pan and bake for 30 minutes until soft in the centre.

Parboil the potatoes in a large pan of boiling water for 10 minutes.

Simmer the stock in another pan for 5 minutes. Drain the potatoes and add them to the stock. Squeeze the garlic pulp into the soup, reserving a few whole cloves and stir. Simmer for 15 minutes and serve topped with whole garlic cloves and parsley.


I was watching this programme on Spanish cuisine and I remembered the Spanish guy adding an egg to each bowl of roasted garlic soup. It actually works quite well with the soup as it helps to balance the sharp taste of the garlic. If you look hard at the picture you can make out the yolk and the white patch on the soup isn't cream, its the whites of the egg.

Chinese roast pork belly

Ingredients

2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sichuan pepper
1 tbsp five spice
1 kg pork belly
2 tbsp good quality red wine vinegar

Fry salt, sichuan pepper and five spice without oil at low heat for a few minutes.

Put the pork belly on a chopping board and score the fat in a criss cross manner. Rub the meat all over with oil, then rub the marinate into the meat. Cover the pork up and put it to one side in a roasting tray (preferably, kept in the fridge for a day)



Preheat the oven to 220 degrees. Put the pork in the oven and roast for 10 minutes. Lower the heat to 160 degrees and roast for 1 hour. Bast the pork with the red wine vinegar and continue roasting for 20 minutes at 220 degrees or until the skin is nice and crispy.



Serve with a dollop of dijon mustard

Well the cooking method is exactly the same as the roast pork recipe below, as you can see, the difference is in the seasoning.
It's good that pork belly isn't readily accessible in London or else it may be a frequent item on my table which is not exactly that beneficial for my health...

Baked rosemary chicken with homemade croutons

From Jamie at Home

Ingredients
4 whole free-range or organic chicken legs, skin on
1 loaf ciabatta bread (about 9 ounces), torn into thumb-sized pieces
3 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves picked and roughly chopped
Olive oil
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
12 thin slices pancetta or bacon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place the chicken legs in a snug-fitting roasting pan with the pieces of torn-up bread. Sprinkle with the chopped rosemary, drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Mix with your hands to make sure everything is well coated, then lift the chicken legs up to the top, so they sit above the bread. This way, the bread will soak up all the lovely juices from the chicken, giving you the best croutons! Pop the pan into the preheated oven.

After 45 minutes the chicken should be nicely cooked. Take the pan out of the oven, drape the pancetta or bacon over the chicken and croutons, and put back for another 15 to 20 minutes for everything to crisp up.


When they're cooked, remove the pan from the oven and set it aside for the chicken to cool down slightly.

Serve with a salad on the side



This JO recipe is actually for a Caesar salad, the chicken was to be shredded and the croutons added to the salad but I thought that they were just too tasty to be mixed in with vegetables.

Pasta alla Norma

From Jamie's Italy

Ingredients:

2 large firm aubergines
extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon dried oregano
optional: 1 dried red chilli, crumbled
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
a large bunch of fresh basil, stalks finely chopped, leaves reserved
1 teaspoon good herb or white wine vinegar
2 x 400g tins of good-quality chopped plum tomatoes, or 565ml/1 pint passata
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
455g/1lb dried spaghetti
150g/5½oz salted ricotta, pecorino or Parmesan cheese, grated

1. First of all, get your nice firm aubergines and cut them into quarters lengthways. If they've got seedy fluffy centres, remove them and chuck them away. Then cut the aubergines across the length, into finger-sized pieces. Get a large non-stick pan nice and hot and add a little oil. Fry the aubergines in two batches, adding a little extra oil if you need to (but you don't want to make it too greasy). Give the aubergines a toss so the oil coats every single piece and then sprinkle with some of the dried oregano - this will make them taste fantastic. Using a pair of tongs, turn the pieces of aubergine until golden on all sides. Once you've done the first batch, remove to a plate and do the same with the second batch.

2. When the aubergines are all cooked, add the first batch back to the pan - at this point I sometimes add a sneaky dried red chilli, but that's my addiction coming through so feel free to ignore this! Turn the heat down to medium and add a little oil, the garlic and the basil stalks. Stir so everything gets evenly cooked, then add a swig of herb vinegar and the tins of tomatoes, which you can chop or whiz up so they're not too chunky. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, then taste and correct the seasoning with salt and pepper. Tear up half the basil leaves, add to the sauce and toss around.

3. Get your spaghetti into a pan of salted boiling water and cook according to the packet instructions. When it's al dente, drain it in a colander, reserving a little of the cooking water, and put it back into the pan. Add the Norma sauce and a little of the reserved cooking water and toss together back on the heat. Taste the pasta and adjust the seasoning, then divide between your plates by twizzling the pasta into a ladle for each portion. Any sauce left in the pan can be spooned over the top. Sprinkle with the remaining basil leaves and the grated cheese and drizzle with olive oil.

I used to hate aubergines especially after I had this piece of grilled aubergine at Rhodes Island, Greece; it was tasteless, gooey and just downright disgusting. However, through the years I realised that there is one way of cooking aubergines that I am alright with, which is to cook it with tomatoes until it has partially dissolved into the sauce. I first tried something like that in the Beeston Charcoal Grill. This recipe is something like that except that it's of course a pasta sauce.

Croque Monsieur/Madame

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/004393croque_monsieur_ham_and_cheese_sandwich.php

This recipe is taken from Elise.com so just go straight through the link for her recipe. I know it requires a bit of work for a "mere" sandwich but the result is fantastic.

Baked Mackerel with cherry tomatoes

Season mackerels generously with sea salt and pepper. Put on tin foil and add cherry tomatoes. Drizzle olive oil and bake for 30 minutes on 375 Fahrenheit.

Simple and delicious!

Roast pork

From Jamie's Italy

Ingredients

1 heaped tbsp fennel seeds
2 or 3 dried red chillies
1 kg pork belly
4 tbsp good quality red wine vinegar
bunch of rosemary, leaves picked

First, smash your fennel seeds up in a pestle and mortar and crumble and bash in your dried chilli.



Put the pork belly on a chopping board and score the fat in a criss cross manner. Rub the meat all over with a little olive oil, then sprinkle the fennel seeds and chilli all over the pork. Cover the pork up and put it to one side in a roasting tray (preferably, kept in the fridge for a day)



Preheat the oven to 220 degrees. Season the pork GENEROUSLY with salt and pepper. Put the pork in the oven and roast for 10 minutes. Lower the heat to 160 degrees and roast for 1 hour. Bast the pork with the red wine vinegar and rosemary and continue roasting for 20 minutes at 220 degrees or until the skin is nice and crispy.



Serve with the meat juices

Honestly, I was really worried about how this dish was going to turn out since it's the first time I am making it and my parents strangely decided to risk it at a pot luck dinner with my relatives. Thankfully, and I truly mean thankfully, it turned out pretty well. I think my cousin probably ate a quarter of it on his own...

Oh the pork tasted like Chinese roast pork and I am not too sure why even though the seasoning is completely different. My mom's theory is that it's all about the natural flavours of the pork

Carrot cake

Ingredients

3 eggs
150ml olive oil
150ml raw/brown sugar
1 tsp extra baking powder
125g self raising flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp mixed spice
100g chopped walnuts
100g sultanas
250g grated carrot

Grease and line a baking tin (18cm in diameter) with baking paper. Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg C.

Beat the eggs, oil and sugar together in a large bowl for several minutes.

Sift the flour, baking powder and spices together then stir into the egg mixture. Add the ground almonds, sultanas, grated carrots and walnuts and mix well.

If the mixture seems a little stiff, stir in several tablespoons of mil.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for around 50 minutes. Test with a knife and remove the cake from the oven only when it comes out clean.

Cool cake in the tin, then turn out and dust with icing sugar.



If you wish to add the traditional cream cheese topping, mix together 100g of non-fat cream cheese with 100g of icing sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice.


If not, just serve it with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream

I don't bake in London. It's hard to do it alone there and the problem with baking is that the measurements must be precise or else something/everything can go very badly. So normally when I am back in Singapore, I try to do some baking although the truth be told, i didn't think about it until my mom suggested it. So thats what we did together. I think it's fun to bake when you have a bunch of people doing it together.

Pan fried ham and vegetables with eggs

ingredients

1 onion, roughly chopped
175g cooked ham
1 red pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
1 yellow pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
2 tsp paprika
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp sun-dried tomato puree
4 large eggs
115g grated cheddar

Heat olive oil in deep frying pan. Add onion and garlic and cook for 4 minutes, stirring frequently

Meanwhile, cut the cooked ham into 5cm batons.

Add the peppers to the pan and cook over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes.

Stir in the paprika, tomatoes, tomato puree, ham and seasoning and cook gently for 15 minutes.

Reduce the heat to low. Make four wells in the tomato mixture, break an egg into each and season. Cook over a gentle heat until the white begins to set. Preheat the grill. Sprinkle the cheese over and grill for about 5 minutes until the eggs are set.


OK, I seem to be going on a culinary tour of eggs. The french baked eggs, the italian frittata and now this Spanish version where, the eggs are not beaten but are broken into the vegetable mixture directly and cooked whole. There's still the Spanish tortilla for me to experiment with. I am bringing a Spanish cookbook back to London, so I will be using it for the last couple of weeks at least.

Tomato, feta and bacon frittatas

For 6 servings

Ingredients

6 slices of bacon, chopped coarsely
100g feta cheese, crumbled
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh basil
6 eggs
2/3 cup cream
9 mini roma tomatoes, halved lengthways

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease six-hole Texas muffin pan; line bases with baking paper

Layer bacon, cheese and basil in pan holes, Whisk eggs and cream in a large bowl; pour into pan holes. Top each frittata with three tomato halves. Bake for about 25 minutes. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before turning out.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A frittata is a type of Italian omelette that frequently features fillings such as meats, cheeses, and vegetables. Like a traditional French omelette, a frittata is prepared in a skillet. However, whereas an omelette is cooked on a stovetop and served folded, a frittata is first partially cooked on a stovetop but then broiled (grilled) to finish and served open-faced.

This is quite an interesting contrast to the eggs I have been baking in my ramekins which if I am not wrong are french in technique. The cream and the eggs are separate and in layers whereas for the frittata, the cream is mixed well with the eggs.
Oh and I noticed that for the frittata, the mixture does rise a bit when the baking is done.

Roasted squash

From Jamie's Italy

Ingredients

1 large squash
1 dried red chilli
a large handful of fresh sage leaves
1 tsp of cinnamon
olive oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Cut the squash into slices or chunks. Using a pestle and mortar, bash up the dried red chilli with a good pinch of salt. Add the whole sage leaves, the cinnamon and enough olive oil to loosen the mixture and rub it all over the squash so they are well covered.

Place the squash in one layer in a roasting tray and season lightly with salt and pepper. Cover tightly with tin foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and cook for another 10 minutes until the squash is golden and crisp.


I normally can't stand cinnamon in my food but I believe I have located the one dish that I consider cinnamon to work wonderfully well with. It's amazing how sweet a vegetable dish can be without any sugar. I think it would be even better if i used fresh sage leaves but it's singapore after all and sage leaves are expensive here.

Seafood risotto with olive crusted red snapper

From Jamie's Italy

Ingredients
1.5 litres water
2 small carrots, roughly chopped
3 tomatoes, squashed
1 bay leaf
a small bunch of fresh parsley, one sprig left whole, remaining leaves picked and finely chopped
1.5kg mixed seafood (see above), scaled, cleaned, gutted, with heads and gills removed, mussels debearded
1 x basic risotto recipe
½ a bulb of fennel, finely chopped, herby tops reserved
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
a pinch of crumbled dried chilli
a pinch of saffron strands
extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon

This risotto is something very special. You will need a mixture of seafood – try red mullet, monkfish, bream, John Dory, cod, mussels, clams, prawns and a little sliced squid. You can either use bought fish stock to make this risotto or you can have a go at making your own, as I do here. (Ask your fishmonger for the fish heads to use in the stock – these usually go into the bin, so you shouldn’t be charged for them). I’m going to make it in a slightly different way to the normal method, where I would fillet the fish before adding the bones and fish-heads to the stock, so bear with me!

Put the exact amount of water into a large pan with the carrots, tomatoes, bay leaf and whole parsley sprig and bring to the boil, adding your whole fish but not your shellfish. Simmer for 10 minutes, then remove each fish from the pan and flake the flesh away from the bones. (If you have a cod head, try to remove the cheeks as they’re the best bit!) Put the meat on a plate to one side; return any bones to the stock to simmer for another 15 minutes max, skimming any froth off the surface every so often. Meanwhile start your basic risotto, adding the fennel, fennel seeds, chilli and saffron to the pan at Stage 1.

Pass the stock through a colander into another pan and throw away the vegetables and bones. Add most of the fish stock to your risotto, keeping a little to finish the dish, and when the rice is nearly cooked towards the end of Stage 3, add your flaked fish and shellfish. After 3 or 4 minutes the shellfish will have opened (discard any that remain closed); then remove from the heat.

As you’re not supposed to mix cheese and fish in pasta or risotto dishes we’re not going to finish it with Parmesan. Instead, at Stage 4, when you add the butter, check the seasoning, drizzle with a lug of extra virgin olive oil and squeeze over the lemon juice. To serve, divide the risotto between your plates, and spoon over the remaining stock. Drizzle with some more extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle with the remaining parsley and the reserved fennel tops.

Ok, I didn't follow all the steps above; I didn't add any clams and most importantly, I didn't make the fish stock (it's from a stock cube although I did put it some prawn heads to give the fish stock an extra bite) But still it turned out pretty well. I think the standard of my risotto is right *there* now... I need to taste the risotto in really good italian restaurants to see how I can improve it.

Olive crusted red snapper

Ingredients

Extra virgin olive oil
1 large handful of basil
a good squeeze of lemon juice
10 kalamata olives , pitted and roughly chopped
85g fresh breadcrumbs
2 red snapper fillet

Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Mix the lemon juice, olives and basil together with a good swig of extra virgin olive oil, then stir in the breadcrumbs.

Lay the fish fillets on a baking tray, skinside down, then press the crumbs over the surface of each piece. Bake in the oven for 10-12 mins until the fish is cooked through and the crust is crisp and brown.

I think the fish should be grilled for a few minutes to make the crust crisp. Mine wasnt crisp enough. Still the combination works wonderfully well with the fish. I just need a few more tries to perfect this method of cooking fish.

Pork ragu

Ingredients

300g minced pork
1 large carrot, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
3 sticks of celery
1 glass of white wine
3 rashers of smoked bacon, finely sliced
2-3 small dried chillies
1 jar of passata

Fry the bacon and chili in a pan with a little olive oil until lightly golden and crisp. Add carrot, celery and onion to pan and cook slowly on medium heat for 10-15 minutes until the vegetables have softened. Add the pork to the pan. Cook until nearly all its natural liquid has evaporated, then add the white wine. Stir together and continue cooking until the liquid has nearly gone, then add the passata and a little water. Season well with salt and pepper, turn the heat down and simmer for around 1 hour until lovely and tender, adding a little more water if the sauce gets too thick. Season

Serve with spaghetti and freshly grated parmesan cheese

Prawns with curry sauce (Crevettes en Brochette a I'Indienne)

Ingredients:

16 large raw prawns, peeled
grated rind and juice of 1 orange
juice of 1 lemon
30ml olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground cumin

For the curry sauce

1 tbsp olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground cumin
4 tbsp fish stock
1 cup whipping cream
1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Put the prawns in a bowl with the orange rind and juice, lemon juice, oil, garlic, curry powder, ground coriander and cumin. Stir well, then cover and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.
To make the curry sauce, heat the oil in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Add the shallots and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring, until just softened. Stir in the garlic and curry powder, ground coriander and cumin and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly.

Add the fish stock and bring to the boil. Reduce by half, then add the cream and simmer for 8-10 minutes until slightly thickened. Stir in the fresh coriander. Reduce the heat to low and keep warm, stirring constantly.

Preheat the grill and line a grill pan with foil. Thread the prawns on to damp wooden skewers. Place the skewers on the grill pan and grill for 3-4 minutes, turning once. Serve with the sauce.

I really really like this curry cream sauce. I am thinking of making large batches of it, freezing it, and having it with some pan fried chicken breast fillet when i get home from work for an easy dinner.

Salmon with tomatoes, peas and olives

Ingredients

2 salmon fillets
peas
olives

2 cans of plum tomatoes
1 onion, finely diced
1 garlic cloves, finely diced
2 celery sticks, finely diced
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar
tabasco sauce

Saute the garlic, celery, bay leaf and onion till soft. Add the 2 cans of plum tomatoes, the balsamic vinegar and the tabasco sauce. Do not break up the plum tomatoes. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Break up the plum tomatoes.

Preheat the oven 190 degrees. Lay the salmon fillets on a baking dish, season with sea salt and pepper. Scatter peas and olives around the fish. Pour the tomato sauce over the fish and bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Serve with warm bread.

The tomato sauce is from one of Jamie Oliver's cookbook. It's really a very convenient recipe for tomato sauce which you can use for many different dishes. This combination, well it was supposed to be a Jewish Italian dish, from my four ingredients cookbook but i balked at the price of a tuna steak so I decided to replace it with salmon fillets.

Crispy salad leaves with feta cheese, capers and balsamic vinaigrette

Ingredients

Mixture of salad leaves
Feta cheese

Dressing

1 tbsp of capers
5 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
a handful of chopped parsley leaves
8 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Put all the dressing ingredients into a jam jar. Shake, taste and season again if needed until your dressing is perfect. You may need to add a little more vinegar or oil to balance it.

Dress the salad and crumble the feta cheese over it

The problem of using feta cheese is that you usually end up with a lot of it and not knowing what to do with it. After using half of it for my chicken with feta, olives and tomatoes, the other half went to this salad (three portions, three meals)

Classic minestrone soup

I have always thought that the distinctive taste of minestrone soup is from beef stock. I only realised that it is actually the bacon that gives it that wonderful flavour when I cooked it yesterday. First chop up 3 bacon rashers and fry it in butter and olive oil for 3-4 minutes. Leave the juices in the pan and add 1 large onion finely chopped, 1 garlic clove finely chopped, 1 celery stick finely chopped and 2 carrots finely chopped. Add one ingredient at a time, stirring well after each addition. Cover and cook gently for 8-10 minutes until the vegetables are softened. Add 1 can of chopped tomatoes, 1.1 litre of stock,bring to the boil, cover the saucepan, reduce the heat and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Stir in 175g of finely shredded green cabbage, 50 g of french beans, trimmed and halved, 50g of peas and 50 g of spaghetti pieces. Cover and simmer for another 20 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Return the bacon to the soup, bring it the boil and serve with crusty bread.

Spaghetti with anchovies and capers

Ingredients

450g spaghetti
8 anchovy fillets, drained
2 tbsp salted capers, thoroughly rinsed and drained
5 tbsp garlic-infused olive oil

Cook the spaghetti in plenty of salted, boiling water according to the instructions on the packet.

Meanwhile, finely chop the anchovy fillets and place in a small pan with the oil and some black pepper. Heat very gently for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the anchovies start to disintegrate.

Drain the pasta thoroughly and toss with the anchovies start to disintegrate. Season with a little salt and plenty of black pepper to taste. Divide between warmed bowls and serve immediately.

This is the ultimate store cupboard dish, if you are like me and there's always anchovies and capers in your larder

Baked eggs with creamy leeks

Ingredients:

225g small leeks, thinly sliced
5-6 tbsp cream
4 small eggs
1 tbsp butter

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Generously butter the base and sides of four ramekins

Melt the butter in a frying pan and cook the leeks over a medium heat, stirring frequent, for 3-5 minutes, until softened and translucent, but now browned

Add 3 tbsp of the cream and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes, until the leeks are soft and the cream has thickened a little. Season to taste.

Place the ramekins in a small roasting pan and divide the leeks among them. Break an egg into each, spoon over the remaining cream and season.

Pour boiling water into the roasting pan to come about halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, until just set. Serve piping hot.