I’ve pondered long and hard what recipe or Asian food I shall blog about. After much thought, I decided to share with you the humble Egg Fried Rice.
Why the Egg Fried Rice, you might ask? Well, for starters, the very first dish I learnt to cook (after graduating from frying eggs) was Egg Fried Rice. I was only 11 years old then. It is a simple dish and sure fills the stomach. It is also popular in most chinese restaurants and take-aways.
This is my version of the no-frills Egg Fried Rice. Super simple and serves 2 persons.
Ingredients
* 2 cups / rice bowls cold cooked rice
* 2 eggs, lightly beaten
* 4 shallots (thinly sliced)
Seasoning :
* 1 ½ tsp light soy sauce
* salt and pepper to taste
Garnishing:
* Chopped spring onions, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes
Method
Heat one to two tablespoons oil in a wok and fry shallots till fragrant and light brown. Remove fried shallots.
Whilst oil is still hot, add the rice and stir-fry well. Pour in seasoning and continue to stir-fry for about 3 minutes. Pour in eggs and fry until properly cooked. The rice should be coated and yellowish-brown in colour.
Sprinkle the fried shallots over the rice. Dish out and serve with garnishing.
As Easter draws near, we’re often left scrambling trying to find the right ham recipe for easter dinner, or even the right demi-glaze to make for that ham. What about dessert? Surely you’re going to need a great dessert recipe, right?
Well, I’ve included a couple of my own for your own use. Please feel free to use these recipes for your next family gathering and enjoy the feast that is sure to come.
1) Cinnamon Pork Roast
Serves 6
Ingredients:
• 3-1/2 to 4 pounds boneless center-cut pork loin roast
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 onion (about 1/2 cup), finely grated
• 4 garlic cloves (about 2 tablespoons), minced
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
Recipe Properties:
Combine cinnamon, salt pepper, sugar, onion, and garlic. Blend in 1 tablespoon soy sauce. If not spreadable, add another tablespoon of soy sauce. Rub mixture into loin. Refrigerate 3 hours to overnight. Grill pork over medium-low indirect fire 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours or until the internal temperature is 155 degrees F. Allow to rest for 5 to 10 minutes before cutting into thin slices.
2) Raspberry Glazed Ham
Ingredients:
1 (4-5 lb.) fully cooked boneless smoked ham
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1/3 c. seedless red raspberry jam
1/4 c. dry white wine
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. butter
Recipe Properties:
Score ham in diamond pattern, if desired. Place on rack in a shallow roasting pan. Bake, uncovered, in 325 degree oven for 1-3/4 hours. Meanwhile, in small saucepan, blend wine and lemon juice into cornstarch. Add about half of the jam. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Stir in remaining jam and butter. Heat and stir until butter is melted. Brush ham with raspberry glaze. Bake 10 minutes more. Spoon remaining glaze over ham. Garnish with watercress, if desired.
3) Scalloped Zucchini
Ingredients:
• 2 small zucchini, cut up and peeled
• 1 egg, beaten with one fourth cup whole milk
• 1 ounce pepper cheese
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 to 2 slices white bread, torn in pieces
• 1-4 ounce can mushrooms or 4 ounces fresh, sliced if large
• 1 ounce smoked sausage
Recipe Properties:
Mix all ingredients in a buttered casserole dish. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. Easy dish to make, goes great as a side dish.
As you can see, there are some great recipes to make for Easter. Go ahead and stop by http://www.easterrecipes.org to find more recipes along with pictures and reviews of your favorites as well as ones you’ve never heard of. Good eating this holiday!
An article describing a Tandoor and whether you need one at home
Article Body:
Traditionally, tandoori dishes are cooked in a tandoor, an oval shaped clay oven with a small fire in the bottom. The heat rises gradually but ultimately reaches a much higher temperature than a barbeque.
A tandoor is normally used to cook naan bread, meats and kebabs (meat or paneer). The bread is stuck to the sides, the kebabs stood vertically and whole chickens rested on a grid over the fire.
For domestic cooking, a tandoor is not really convenient but the meat dishes can be reproduced on a barbeque or in the oven. The bright red appearance of tandoori meats which you may see in Indian restaurants is produced by a food dye which really isn’t necessary to enhance the look of your tandoori dishes.
I have a great fondness for tandoori style food. It has flavour, without being "hot" or high in calories or too filling. In fact it's an ideal dish summer or winter, if you fancy something a little different. As a bonus, it doesn't take hours to prepare. Of course you can take all the effort out of it and use a pre-prepared mix, but I think they have less flavour and you can’t use them for anything else, whereas if you use the individual spices, you can make other dishes as well.
You can easily make tandoori chicken (whole), tandoori lamb chops (pork would be more unusual, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t use it, if you prefer) and lamb tikka (kebabs) but my personal favourite is chicken tikka because it’s so quick so here’s my own recipe.
This recipe serves two people - multiply it for as many people as you want.
Ingredients
2 Chicken breasts
1 small tub Greek yogurt
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
½ tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp ginger powder
½ tsp chilli powder (or to taste)
1 small clove garlic, crushed
salt to taste
1 tbsp lemon juice
Cut the chicken breasts into 1 inch cubes and set aside.
Mix the spice powders and garlic into the yogurt. You can use low fat yogurt if you prefer. You can also use fresh ginger or ginger paste from a jar rather than ginger powder but go easy on the quantity as it can be quite over-powering.
At this point you can also mix in the salt and lemon juice but if you do so, don’t leave the chicken to marinade for more than about 20 minutes or it will become very dry when cooked. If you want to marinade it for a longer time, add the salt and lemon juice just before you cook the dish or sprinkle on to serve.
Thread the chicken onto skewers and either barbeque or cook under a grill using medium heat until the chicken is slightly browned and cooked through.
For a light meal, serve with salad, pitta or naan bread and lemon wedges or for something more substantial with rice and dahl.
This is the recipe that my grandmother brought with her when she and her family left Russia in the early 1900"s.
As a child around 1920's or so, while living on a farm in Pennsylvania which at that time there were a great amount of people who came from Europe, you needed to be able to do for yourself, she learned from her mother how to make a most delicious white fruit cake, a white fruitcake is a fruitcake that does not have any molasses, molasses which is very bitter, not having the molasses in the fruitcake gives it a lighter color, this gives it the name white fruitcake.
This fruitcake in the days in which my mother lived as a child with her parents this was only made during Christmas because the only time you could get walnuts, cherries, and some other ingredients was in the fall of the year, remember now they didn't go to the store to buy what they needed, they had to grow them, raisins were dried by the people themselves, they even had to shell their own walnuts, and candy their own cherries, and such the pineapple and coconut I do believe they must have purchased.
To keep with tradition the only time of the year that I make or sell this fruitcake is during the Christmas holidays, and In my mind you cannot get a better fruitcake. Here we go now gather up your ingredients and set them on your table, all ingredients need to be at room temperature.
1 pound butter
12 eggs
1 lb. sugar
1 pound flour
1 pound white raisins
1 pound walnut meats
1 lb. red and green candied cherries
1 lb. bakers flaked coconut
1 lb. candies pineapple
1 tablespoon of baking soda dissolved in ¼ cup warm water
2 cups brandy--any brand
Soak the raisins, walnuts, cherries, coconut and pineapple with 2 cups brandy overnight in a stainless steel bowl.
In a 5 quart mixing bowl cream butter and sugar, then add eggs slowly, then add your flour and blend well, add the baking soda and water and mix a minute more, add all other ingredients and mix until well blended.
Now you are going to bake it in a 2 pound pan, or in the pan of your choice, foil or hard pan, line the pan with wax paper or baking paper or better yet a pan liner the size of the pan. For a 2 pound pan, Place 1 pound 12 ounces of the mixture in the pan and level it with a spoon, don't bang it on the table. Bake it in a 350 degree preheated oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes, depends on your oven and how brown you want it.
It's done when a pick is placed in the center and it comes out clean. Let it cool on a rack for a while and then sprinkle it with 1 ounce of brandy and then another ounce when it is cool and then pack it away for about 3 days in your refrigerator and then “enjoy it”.
