Horizon's Cookery Class

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  • Please help me to cook!

    I used to be quite good at cooking, nothing fancy mind you, but I was good at the basics. Not any more!

    If you have any cookery tips, recipes you would like to share, please post them here.

  • I had a Pork roast dinner yesterday and had some pork shoulder steaks left over. Frankly, I didn't know what I was doing, I think I wanted some kind of mixture to have with rice, but this is what I did instead!:

    I cut the pork steaks into little bits and fried them on the hob in a casserole dish until they were browned all over in a little bit of oil. I then added a onion and leek, already sliced and fried them with the meat. At this point, my mind was starting to wander....but I just continued regardless....

    I added two carrots, sliced, 1 celery, sliced, and added them to the mixture and gave it all a good stir. I bunged in a bit of Worcester sauce and soy sauce, I was looking at the ketchup bottle, but before I zeroed in on it, I got distracted and forgot all about it!

    Next, I added in a oxo cube, another oxo cube type thing, and a packet of those dry chicken flavoured soup things....you still with me?:p

    If I thought I was lost before, at this point I was completely clueless, but that doesn't stop me! I thought I needed more veg, didn't have any to hand, so added in what I though was some frozen peppers, but it turned out they were frozen mixed veg instead. Eventually found the peppers and bunged some of them into the mixture too. The mixture was very dry, so I had a almost full tin of tinned tomatoes in the fridge and they got bunged in, along with a almost full tin of baked beans. I added some water as well. I was probably thinking this is more like a stew now, so need potatoes, one problem, I didn't have any. Solution, frozen potatoes! I bunged some of them in, gave it all a good stir, took it off the hob and then shoved it in the oven on low for a few hours. Surprisingly, it's turned out very well!

    Ingredient list:

    3 shoulder pork steaks, cubed and fat cut off
    1 onion, sliced
    1 leek, sliced
    1 celery, sliced
    2 carrots, peeled and sliced
    dash of Worcester sauce
    dash of soy sauce
    tinned tomatoes - almost a full tin
    baked beans - almost a full tin
    packet of chicken flavoured soup
    1 beef oxo cube
    1 other oxo cube thing, can't remember its name
    a couple of handfuls of mixed frozen veg
    a handful of mixed peppers
    tin of water (probably a few hundred ml)
    and about 6 large frozen potatoes

    Now, what would you have done differently?...

    8):D

  • Garlic?

    From another post elsewhere, steak-in-ale individual pies:

    800g lean braising/stewing steak, 1 big onion chopped, 50g seasoned plain flour, level tsp of mixed herbs, 250g sliced closed cup mushrooms, beef stock cube made up with 50 mils hot water. 250 mils ale (Ideally John Smiths or Newcastle brown) 2-4 cloves crushed garlic, 2 tsp mushroom ketchup, 1 tsp dark soy, dash of Worcester sauce, 1 tbsp tomato puree, 2 bay leaves. 500g Shop puff pastry block. 6 #2 pie dishes for individuals.

    Cut steak into bite sized pieces, toss in flour and put in a large saucepan, ideally on a diffuser. Add remaining flour and all the rest of the ingredients. Bring to the boil stirring regularly. Cover with tight fitting lid, turn the heat down as far as it will go so it's only just bubbling and slow cook for 3-4 hours. Stir every 1/2 hour and make sure the gungy bits on the base of the pan get fully mixed in. Season to taste at the end of the cooking time.

    Remove the bay leaves, fill dishes and allow to cool. Each pie will need 1/6 of the pastry block rolled out to fit. Milk or beaten egg can be used to glaze the tops.

    Oven bake on a sheet at 200C for 25-30 mins until fully puffed and golden. Serve with chips, battered onion rings and peas for that pub grub experience. Tuck in! drool.gif

    The puff pastry can be frozen in individual ~80g pieces wrapped in cling film and the pies covered with film and also frozen in their dishes. Then you have them ready to defrost ( ~ 6 hours room temp) at a future date. Each pie with pastry is about 600 calories.

  • So glad you started a food thread. chef.gif

    I am a home cook, mostly. I use a lot of raisins, because we get them here by the bucket load, lemons, wine and spices. I hate onions and garlic and curry but will use them in mixed condiment form. Curry I use in mild variety, by the pinch for flavouring.

    I also bake. Cakes, bread, pastries, etc.

  • Heero, thanks for that mushroom ketchup link Heero.

    LW, I hate chillies and most spices too. But like ginger, cinnamon and a few others too. I've got used to over the years the taste of the takeaway shish chicken kebab being cooked in some kind of spiced marinade which I'd quite like to copy one day. Love onions, don't mind garlic in small doses.

    I used to love to bake too and its something I want to relearn, as with everything else, it's almost like I'm starting from scratch again...

  • Go for it, H. :) I like baking bread. Something magical about bread.

    It's about the only baking that I do. Got my seeded semi- wholemeal loaf almost perfect. It's taken some time to get the knack of kneading right but the rise is spectacular, easily three times the volume both prooving and second rise.

    Today is chilli day: I'm having some spicy prawn noodles for lunch and a whole green chilli's complete with seeds is going in together with prawns, fish sauce, oyster sauce and some diced salad vegetables. Later I'm cooking a mixed bean beef chilli con carne for me and the OH to have in baked potatoes and that's getting some more green & red chillies, garlic, onions and spices and possibly some hot pepper sauce to adjust the heat. :D

  • You'd probably get on well with my brother, Heero. He makes a point of stuffing, on certain days, as much spiced food as he can down his gullet. And rightly pays the cost of it too later...

    Do you really like having your mouth and throat burning, Heero, just by eating food? It's one of the things I can't stomach about chillies.

  • It's about the only baking that I do. Got my seeded semi- wholemeal loaf almost perfect. It's taken some time to get the knack of kneading right but the rise is spectacular, easily three times the volume both prooving and second rise.

    Today is chilli day: I'm having some spicy prawn noodles for lunch and a whole green chilli's complete with seeds is going in together with prawns, fish sauce, oyster sauce and some diced salad vegetables. Later I'm cooking a mixed bean beef chilli con carne for me and the OH to have in baked potatoes and that's getting some more green & red chillies, garlic, onions and spices and possibly some hot pepper sauce to adjust the heat. :D

    :D Good luck!

    Your whole-meal loaf sounds splendid, though.

    (Your spicy stuff also sounds marvellous, but I would die if I had any. My system hates burning stuff. My mother could eat it. Used to laugh at my Dad, perspiring over a curry.)

  • :D Good luck!

    Your whole-meal loaf sounds splendid, though.

    (Your spicy stuff also sounds marvellous, but I would die if I had any. My system hates burning stuff. My mother could eat it. Used to laugh at my Dad, perspiring over a curry.)

    The green chillies I have in the fridge were too mild so I got some Jalepeno's from the supermarket. Real heat. :)

  • How are you feeling after yesterday's fireball Jalepenos? :D

    No ill effects. Chilli was warm rather than really hot. Trouble is sometimes the chillies you buy are rather mild and other times you can get real hot ones or even a mixture in the one pack!

  • When Little Wing was about four years old she was picking cherry tomatoes merrily in her Aunty's veg garden when she came across a red ripe chili on a bush. She picked it and instantly it went into Chili action on steroids. Little Wing came out in big red weals on her hands, face, everywhere she touched her skin after contact. Trauma by chili. She never forgot this. Later she found that chilies didn't like her in food either and so she avoids them like the plague. Out of respect, you understand. :D

  • When Little Wing was about four years old she was picking cherry tomatoes merrily in her Aunty's veg garden when she came across a red ripe chili on a bush. She picked it and instantly it went into Chili action on steroids. Little Wing came out in big red weals on her hands, face, everywhere she touched her skin after contact. Trauma by chili. She never forgot this. Later she found that chilies didn't like her in food either and so she avoids them like the plague. Out of respect, you understand. :D

    Absolutely!:)

    Along with chillies, nuts is another one for me. I'm actually allergic to them.

    I have some fat balls for the birds that contain nuts and whenever I pick the balls up, all my hands and arms start to tingle and go red. I'll have to get some latex gloves for my poor sensitive body.

  • Do you eat them Heero in the summer? How does that work out for you....? :D

    No proble, you just sweat a bit more.

    Quote

    Along with chillies, nuts is another one for me. I'm actually allergic to them.

    I have some fat balls for the birds that contain nuts and whenever I pick the balls up, all my hands and arms start to tingle and go red. I'll have to get some latex gloves for my poor sensitive body.

    Fortunately I don't have any food allergies. I used to get bad hay fever as a youngster but grew out of the worst of it. I do have a weigela shrub and I am very allergic to that, even brushing a leaf will start me itching.

  • No proble, you just sweat a bit more.

    I'll lend you some Lynx...;)^^

    Fortunately I don't have any food allergies. I used to get bad hay fever as a youngster but grew out of the worst of it. I do have a weigela shrub and I am very allergic to that, even brushing a leaf will start me itching.

    Oh, that's interesting. I have two Weigela shrubs in the my front and back gardens. I don't think I've ever had an issue with them, but, noted, just in case.

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