How to make Chinese takeaway-style Crispy Chilli Beef

  I have been obsessing over perfecting this dish for a long time, partly because it's so good, and partly because I spend so much money buying it from a Chinese takeaway! I thought to myself, wouldn't it be amazing if I could make it exactly the same as a takeaway, and have it whenever I wanted?

  So after a long while of experimenting with what can only be described as really spice beef brittle, here's my foolproof recipe to get Chinese Crispy Chilli Beef perfect at home every time.

  Ingredients (serves 2);

1 Large sirloin steak
1 Large carrot
2 Large red chillies
3 Cloves of garlic
1 Thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled
Half of a large cup of white sugar
1 cup of cornflour
1 Large orange
A small saucepan half filled with oil
A third of a cup of light soy sauce
Half of a large cup of Chinese rice vinegar


  Firstly, lay the steak on a large chopping board and trim off the strip of fat that runs along one side of the steak. Now cover the meat with cling film and hit it with a heavy-bottomed saucepan until it is just under a centimetre thick.
  Now, cut the meat diagonally into half-centimetre thick slices and lay into a bowl with the cornflour, which has been seasoned generously with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and the zest of the orange. Coat the slices of steak thoroughly and set aside to absorb more of the cornflour.

  Now for the sauce, finely chop the garlic and ginger, and gently fry in a small amount of olive oil in a large saucepan, next slice the red chillies and add them straight to the pan, then add the soy sauce, rice vinegar and sugar, and the juice of half of the orange.

  While the sauce is slowly reducing, deep fry the steak slices in the hot oil, and once they are dark brown and crispy, drain them on a piece of kitchen paper while you cut the carrot into thin batons and deep fry them in the same oil that you used for the steak.

  Next, add everything to the sauce and coat until sticky. Serve and enjoy with egg-fried rice and some steamed pak-choi.

Stuffed Pork Chops with Celeriac Mash and Black Pudding Fritters

  This recipe is a twist on something I tried at a restaurant called The Red Barn, near to Lingfield Park Racecourse. They had served a roulade of pork belly with mashed potatoes and some of these small black pudding fritters which were amazing. The chef had somehow managed to whip up the black pudding to an almost mousse-like consistency, which after many attempts, I think I've finally cracked.

Ingredients (serves two generously);

2 Large pork chops
1 Whole small black pudding (or a third of a large one as I have used here)
1 Large onion
2 Cloves of garlic
1 Lemon
1 Large Bramley apple
Half of a celeriac
Half of a box of Panko breadcrumbs (these are a type of extra-crispy Japanese breadcrumbs that are perfect for making Katsu Curry)
One large sprig of lemon thyme
1 Large Maris Piper potato
1 Pint of chicken stock
1 Small 200ml bottle of red wine
100ml Semi-skimmed milk
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 Whole large eggs
150g Plain flour
The white of 1 large egg
A splash of cider or white wine vinegar

For the Gravy...

  Firstly finely chop the onion, one clove of garlic, two or three slices of the black pudding and 1 tsp of the lemon thyme and saute on a medium heat with a glug of olive oil until the onion starts to soften, then pour in the bottle of red wine, and reduce down by two thirds.
  Now add the chicken stock and reduce down by two thirds again. Once this is done, the gravy will have a lumpy and slightly watery consistency, so pass it through a fine sieve.
  Lastly, thicken the gravy with a roux. To do this, simply melt two teaspoons of butter in the saucepan, and once the butter gets hot, add 1 tsp of plain flour and cook until the flour goes slightly golden. This ensures that the raw, uncooked taste of the flour goes away. Once you have achieved this, simply whisk the strained gravy slowly back into the roux mixture, and you should be left with a smooth, silky, shiny gravy ready to be reheated later.


For the Celeriac Mash...

  To make the celeriac mash, just dice up the peeled potato into roughly 1 inch cubes, and dice the celeriac into roughly half an inch cubes (you do this as they cook at slightly different rates)
  Now boil everything together in boiling slightly salted water until tender (falling off of the fork), and drain. Once it has drained, mash the mixture all together with the milk and a small knob of butter, as well as a good pinch of sea salt and 1 tsp of freshly ground black pepper. Set aside to be reheated later.


For the Stuffing...

  Finely chop four or five slices of the black pudding, the last garlic clove, the whole apple and 1 tsp of fennel seeds, and fry with a glug of olive oil, and a splash of cider or white wine vinegar. Cook until everything has softened nicely, and season with sea salt, black pepper and 1 tbsp of white sugar. Set aside for now.

For the Black Pudding Fritters...

  Place the rest of the black pudding into a large bowl, and season with sea salt and black pepper. Now, mash the black pudding up with a fork until it has a crumbly consistency. Now add the egg white and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.
  Next, it's time to make the fritters out of this mixture. You will need to set out your bowls of plain flour, beaten egg and Panko breadcrumbs as shown below:

  Now, using a large serving spoon, take one ball of the black pudding mixture, roll it gently in your hands, trying not to over work it, and then roll it first in the plain flour, and then in the beaten egg, and then finally in the Panko breadcrumbs. Then press the breadcrumbs firmly into the mixture, and repeat the process once more to obtain a much thicker coating. Chill in the fridge until needed.


Now, bringing it all together...

  To stuff the pork chops, you will need a very sharp boning or filleting knife. Slowly insert the knife's tip into the thicker end or the pork chop, and slide the length of the knife in, moving it from side to side, to open up a large pocket inside the eye of the meat, with a slightly narrower opening to stop all of the stuffing from falling out while cooking.
  Now stuff the pork chops both with as much of the stuffing mixture as you can fit inside, and rub all over with olive oil, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

  Now, fry the pork chops on a very high heat until browned on the outside, along with the black pudding fritters, which should only be cooked until slightly golden brown, and then place everything into the oven together at around 180C for approximately 10-15 minutes. Take out and rest for 5 minutes covered with foil.

  Serve the pork chops on a bed of the mash, with two of the black pudding fritters and the gravy, with some of the thyme tips sprinkled over for decoration.

How to make Spanish Roast Chicken

Spanish Roast Chicken and Parsley Smashed Potatoes

  This is a recipe inspired by the Roast Chicken cooked by Jamie Oliver which can be found here. It is however, my version which creates a much richer sauce and has a stronger Chorizo flavour.

To make this recipe, you will need:

For the chicken

• 1 whole chicken (approx. 1.2Kg)
• 1 medium sized chorizo
• 2 onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 handfuls of green olives (pitted)
• 1 small bottle of Spanish red wine
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 medium sized lemon
• Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

For the Potatoes

• Approx 20 baby new potatoes
• 1 small handful of coursely chopped parsley
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tbsp butter
• Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

  Firstly, place the chicken, the bay leaves and around 1 tablespoon of salt in a large bowl (don't worry, none of the salt goes in the end product!). Next, fill up the bowl with cold water until the chicken is completely submerged. This technique is called brining, and it uses a salt solution to tenderise the meat, and allow any flavours to penetrate much more deeply. Brining also keeps the meat nice and tender once it's cooked.

  Next, roughly slice the chorizo into around 1cm slices, and place into a non-stick saucepan over an extremely low heat with a generous glug of olive oil. Cook the chorizo this way for around 20 minutes. This method of slow cooking the chorizo over a low heat enables more of the spicy juices to be rendered out, meaning that the spices don't burn before you can use them to impart flavour to the chicken. After about 20 minutes you should see a marked difference in the colour of the olive oil.

  Once the chorizo has rendered out most of its incredible oils, add the onions and garlic, and sweat down until translucent. Then remove about two thirds of the onion, garlic and chorizo mixture and roughly chop with one handful of the green olives ready to stuff the chicken later.

  Now you can add the wine and the other handful of the olives, and simmer until the wine has reduced by half.

  It's now time to roast the chicken. Firstly, remove it from the brine, and pat dry with kitchen paper. Next, stuff with about a large handful of the chopped stuffing mixture, and seal the cavity with the lemon, which you have rolled on the sideboard to release the juices and oils, and pricked all over with a sharp knife.

  Place the chicken in a roasting tray and pour over the sauce, topping with the rest of the stuffing mixture.

  Put the chicken into a preheated oven at 240C, and immediately reduce the heat to 200C, and roast for approximately 1 hour, or until the juices run clear.

  At this point, you may want to put the potatoes on. Simply rub the potatoes with olive oil, salt and freshly cracked black pepper, and place into the same oven as the chicken.

  While the potatoes are cooking, mix the butter, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper in a bowl and microwave for approximately 1 minute.

  Once the potatoes have been in the oven for approximately 45 minutes, remove from the oven, and roughly smash them up with a potato masher. Then mix in the parsley and garlic butter, and place back in the oven for the last 15 minutes, reducing the heat to 160C.

  Once the chicken and potatoes have finished cooking, remove from the oven, cover with foil, and rest the chicken for around 15 minutes, then carve, and serve with the potatoes and some steamed broccoli.

Enjoy.

Lamb Cutlets with Walnut Spiced Cous Cous

   The inspiration for this dish came from a meal that my Chef step-brother cooked for me a few months ago. He slow cooked lamb in a water bath to keep it moist, and served it with Moroccan spiced cous cous and dried apricots.

   My variation of this dish uses an apricot jus rather than whole dried apricots, and I also used toasted walnuts in my cous cous to give it a strong savoury flavour, which would contrast with the sweetness of the apricot.

   The first thing I did was what I always do, I had an idea for a dish, and straight away realised that I had absolutely NONE of the ingredients that I needed. So I went to Morrisons down the road and grabbed a load of stuff.

   I went with lamb cutlets, rather than neck fillet or a shank, because I find them a much more tender cut, and the fat is much more controlled, all in one place, which I just find much neater to work with.


   The first proper stage of making this dish was to make the dry mix to add to the cous cous. The ingredients for this were;

1/2 cup of walnuts, coarsely chopped and toasted until golden brown in a dry pan
3 tsp Lebanese 7 spice
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp fresh coriander, coarsely chopped

      To this mixture, I added approximately 100g of dried cous cous and mixed it well.

      Next it was time to prepare to apricot jus. The ingredients for this were;

20 dried apricot pieces
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold water

   First, put all of the ingredients apart from the water into a small blender or food processor, and blend until nearly smooth. Then transfer to a small saucepan and add the cold water, and heat slowly for around 15 minutes.

   Next, pass the sauce through a fine meshed sieve, making sure to press all of the juices through with the back of a wooden spoon. This should leave you with a smooth shiny sauce.

   Now it's time to cook the lamb. Drizzle some olive oil into a non-stick frying pan, and put it on a medium-high heat until it's smoking. This technique is called searing, it should literally sear the meat closed, keeping it nearly raw on the inside but making sure that it's still juicy when it's cooked in the oven. You're looking for a really dark brown colouration, due to a process called Maillard reactions, which create the colours and tastes of browned meats.

   Note that I also trimmed off all of the meat around the tips of the bones, I find that while this creates a more sophisticated looking end result, it also allows you to place the extra pieces on top of the lamb while it's in the oven, and tends to keep it moist during the cooking process.
   Once the pieces of meat have been seared, place them on a baking tray with the extra pieces of spare meat on top of them, and put them into a preheated oven at 170C for 10 minutes.


   Next, prepare the cous cous by adding around 200ml boiling water to the mixture, and a small knob of butter, stir, and cover for 10 minutes.

   Once the cous cous is finished, fork it through to give it a light airy texture, and place some in a small bowl or ramekin, upturning it onto the final serving plate, creating a very neat finish.

   Now, balance the three lamb cutlets around the cous cous pile, and place the three off cuts or meat in the spaces around them, finally drizzling with the reduced jus and garnishing with some fresh coriander, and enjoy!

   Once again, if you like anything in particular that you see here, don't forget to comment and leave me some feedback, or follow me on blogloving!

Thanks, Anthony

Our visit to Piazza Firenze

   Last weekend, my girlfriend and I went on a day trip to Godalming in Surrey, the focal point of which consisted of a high street through the town centre, sporting three kinds of shops; hairdressing salons, estate agents and restaurants. This being said, we did stumble across a small deli selling all kinds of fine wines and cheeses (which I went crazy for, I could live off of cheese).
   The spirit of the place was very old school, with plenty of olde Englishe touches.

   While foraging through the undergrowth of salons and estate agents, we stumbled upon a gem of a place called Piazza Firenze.

   While the restaurant was laid out in a fairly modern and classy way, you could tell from a mile off that there was a major Italian influence there, simply from reading the menu.
   While in Rome, I have noticed many times that the key to good Italian cooking is 1. Good quality ingredients, and 2. Simplicity. A good Italian chef can create a masterpiece from three or maybe four ingredients, letting the food speak for itself, the chef only allows the good qualities of the food to show through, with minimal input, making the chef more of a facilitator of taste, not a creator.
    This was clear once my girlfriend had her starter served, a Portobello mushroom stuffed with wilted spinach and goat's cheese, topped with pesto. Four ingredients.

   The key to this dish was by a long way, the goat's cheese. It was very fresh tasting, but still managed to retain it's spicy but nutty taste, that comes from aging a fine quality cheese.
   My starter was a deep fried ball, similar to an Arancino, but instead of being filled with risotto, it was filled with a mixture of spinach and ricotta cheese.

   Now, usually I steer clear of any dish that boasts to made made using spinach and ricotta, mostly because I find it far too supermarket for me. Call me a ponce, but I prefer to experience new things, rather than something I could buy for a couple of pounds at the shops. Although this time, I had a good feeling about this restaurant, so I thought I would give it a go. Rightly so. The inside (I'm sorry I haven't got a picture of this, I was far too focused on eating it as quickly as possible!), was clearly made form scratch, and was mostly green, but with a delicate hint of ricotta, rather than the piped ricotta with green flecks in it that I have come to hate of recent years.
   Next, I decided to go with the pizza option, and chose the Quattro Staggioni, mostly due to my fond memories of eating pizza for breakfast at the roadside on Rome's Via Veneto. The bases were thin and crispy, and the mozzarella so fresh tasting that you could excuse eating a huge pizza at 10 o'clock in the morning!

   The flavours of this pizza were incredible, especially the tomato sauce, of which I am always very fond. I love how soft the artichokes were, and the pepperoni was picante and very delicious. The only issue I had with this pizza was that the base - lovely and fresh as it was - was slightly too thick, I have said before about how I'm a purist when it comes to food, and I believe that a good pizza should always have a wafer thin crust.
   Mr girlfriend ordered a chicken and bacon Caesar salad, an Italian classic, and very easy to do badly.

   This time though, the chef had done extremely well. He had avoided the classic pitfall of covering the entire dish in salad dressing. The croutons were large and freshly baked rather than tiny and impossibly hard, as is done so often, and there was a scattering of anchovies which are excellent for subtly seasoning a dish like this. They had used a good quality Parmesan, and hadn't opted for the finely grated option, which always creates a sludge when it mixes with the dressing.


   As well as the food, we both found the service to be of a good standard, the serving staff were very attentive and friendly, and on top of all of this, the price was very reasonably indeed. We only paid £38 for this entire meal, as well as a large beer and a small glass of wine.


   All in all, I would highly recommend a visit to Piazza Firenze if you are ever in the area of Godalming.




   If you enjoy any of my posts in particular as the weeks go on, please leave me a comment or two to tell me what you think, I am always open to suggestions and ideas!


Thanks, Anthony.

Stewed Aubergine and Tomato Crostinis

   The tomato sauce recipe that I stewed the aubergine in is my own recipe, that I have developed over the last few years. I believe that anyone who takes cooking seriously should be able to knock up a good, solid tomato sauce, as it is a basic ingredient in so many dishes, from a good homemade spaghetti bolognese to a pizza base sauce.
   I am a complete purist when it comes to making a tomato sauce, I don't add chilli, or pancetta as some people do, and most of the time I don't even add herbs or garlic (although I did this time, as they lent themselves to the type of dish I was making), and prefer to focus more on the taste of good quality tomatoes.


   Right, the absolute starting point or any tomato sauce is to find some good quality tomatoes. The better the quality, the better the final taste will be. Here are some tips when buying tomatoes for your sauce.

- In my opinion, the best tomatoes in the world are San Marzano tomatoes from Italy, you can find them in most supermarkets, and the ones in Waitrose are usually the best.

- Always use tomatoes that come packaged on the vine, this ensures that they remain full of flavour for as long as possible.

- Smell them. Most if not all packaged tomatoes have small holes in the packaging that you can use to smell them before buying, and to keep them from sweating in the plastic. They should smell fruity and deep, with a rich homegrown aroma, like your grandmother's greenhouse. I find that San Marzanos have an almost balsamic richness to them.

- Colour. They should be a deep, blood red. It's not a must, but I find that the colour tends to reflect the flavour, the deeper the colour, the deeper the flavour!


   The first stage of making your sauce, that is if you don't want your sauce to be full of tomato skins, is to blanch them in boiling salted water for one minute, and the straight away run them under cold water to make them easier to handle.

   Now peel off the skins, this should be a piece of cake as blanching the tomatoes makes the skin pretty much fall off.

   The next stage is not to chop the tomatoes, but to squeeze them with your bare hands into the saucepan, this will ensure that you extract lots of good flavour from them, rather than just slicing through them and keeping most of the juice still inside. You may want to be careful though, as the juices do tend to go absolutely everywhere!
   In this recipe, I added the squeezed tomatoes to a saucepan with some olive oil, garlic and roughly chopped sage leaves, but unless you are doing this recipe, I would just cook them on their own.

   A good piece of advice for this stage, is to put the vine stalks from the tomatoes into the pan, and cook them into the sauce until right at the last moment before serving, as this imparts a really meaty powerful tomato flavour to the sauce.
   You should also add a ladleful of water, 50ml of balsamic vinegar and one roughly chopped aubergine to the pan, and cook with the lid on for about 20-25 minutes.

   Once the sauce has thickened up nicely, spoon it generously onto slices of either toasted ciabatta or toasted rye bread like I did, and drizzle on some reduced balsamic vinegar. Smashed it.

Porcini Mushroom and Gorgonzola Stuffed Ravioli

   This was only the second time I had made pasta from scratch, and it turned out infinitely better than the first time. It turns out that the key is kneading, for a LONG time, and ensuring that when you rest the pasta dough in the fridge, it is completely covered in cling film, because you're never getting those crusty lumps of dried dough out!

  The first step is to measure out 300g or good quality type "00" pasta flour. This is a very fine grade flour that is suitable for making pasta a pizza bases as it can be rolled extra thin and can be worked very easily. Next, put the flour on the counter top and make a well in the centre, cracking in three large free range eggs.

   Now - using your fingertips - work the flour into the eggs until the dough starts to form, if it's too dry, add another egg, if it's too wet, add some more flour. Simple.

   Now the annoying bit, knead, knead and knead some more. The reason you do this is to develop the gluten in the flour, which is what gives the finished pasta it's elasticity. When you're done, in around 20 minutes, it should look like this...

   Now cover it WELL with cling film, and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

   In the meantime, roughly chop half a punnet of fresh Porcini mushrooms, and grate on approximately the same volume of Gorgonzola cheese. Mix well.

   Once your pasta dough has rested, roll it out to approximately 1mm thick, and arrange teaspoon sized balls of filling onto the dough, with enough spacing to allow for the edges of the ravioli.

   Now, using a wash of beaten egg (I always use free range, mostly because the taste of eggs from battery hens is almost non-existent, and also because it's unnecessarily cruel for the sake of an extra 50p), coat all of the gaps between the balls of stuffing.

   Now using some of the left over dough (of which I had lots), roll out another sheet to around the same thickness, and lay it on top, pressing down slowly between the stuffing balls to get rid of most of the air, and creating a good airtight seal with the egg wash.

Now using either a sharp knife or a pizza cutter, cut around the balls of filling to create your ravioli pieces.

Finally, boil them for 3-4 minutes, and serve with some balsamic vinegar reduction and a salad of dressed rocket and spinach leaves.