Curry in a hurry

Here's one of my original creations. I like to call it "the mother of all curries."

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, diced into large chunks

1T garam masala curry paste

half an onion, diced

1 carrot, chopped

a few potatoes, chopped in big chunks

half an apple, grated

half a cup of frozen peas

dried corriander

a couple of bay leaves

half a can of coconut milk

about half a cup to one cup of chicken stock

2 tsp cornflour (optional)

Method:

In a little oil, fry the curry paste for one minute. Then, add the onions and cook for a few minutes.

Add the chicken. Keep cooking until the chicken is sealed.

Add the carrot, potato, coconut milk, apple, bay leaves and corriander. Also, add the chicken stock, but only enough so that all the ingredients are just covered.

Cover and simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. Then, remove the lid. Throw in the peas. Simmer for another five minutes with the lid off.

Check that the potatoes and carrots are tender. Once they are good to go, your curry is ready! Sometimes it's a bit runny, so if that's the case, I would add some cornflour made into a paste with a little cold water.

This serves 4-6 generously. Since there is only two of us, I always freeze half. It freezes and re-heats really well!

I recommend serving the curry with basmati rice and naan bread. It goes very well with a full bodied white wine, such as chardonnay, or a fruity medium bodied red wine.

Nacho nacho man... I've got to be a nacho man

This is the best "sitting in front of the telly watching sports" meal. And it's so simple to make.

First, I fry up some mince, chilli beans and capsicum in a pan with water and this little beauty:

Then, once the liquid has evaporated, I dump the whole lot on a pile of corn chips, add some salsa and cheese, and whack it all in the toaster oven.

Cheesarific!

Of course, this Mexican fiesta should be washed down with a couple of Mexico's best - Coronas.

A taste of Korea

While this is a cooking blog, and I mainly want to feature my kitchen experiments, I couldn't resist sharing some of the spicylicious food that I sampled during my recent trip to Korea. Who knows, maybe I can replicate them in the kitchen sometime, although I have no idea how to knock up a Korean concoction.

Moving right along, here is a meal that I enjoyed in a small sidewalk restaurant, run by a gruff but very kind old lady about half my height. You can see the main dish is some spicy fish. I'm not sure what kind of fish this is, or what it was flavoured with exactly, but it was very spicy and delicious! All Korean meals are served with plain steamed rice, which I found to be quite similar to that of Japan. Also, there is always a variety of condiments to go with the meal, a few of which you can see in this picture. The most common condiment is the ubiquitous Kimchi, which I can't say I'm a big fan of, but I was glad to try it.

This meal, and several meals thereafter, was served with "Hite" beer - a crisp and clean Korean beer which was refreshingly well paired with the food. In fact, I consumed far too many Hites on the first night, along with some Korean Soju, so I felt slightly unwell the next morning. This was my hangover solution:

I walked into the first traditional style restaurant that welcomely ushered me inside.

It was still breakfast time, but I sat down to a full meal. I was starving! The main dish was some kind of transparent noodle with shredded meat (beef, I think). It had just the right amount of kick to really kick my hangover in the butt. Served with rice and a variety of side dishes, it was a very satisfying and hearty meal.

Overall, I found Korean food to be very tasty, fresh, healthy and varied, and I'd love to go back there to try out more dishes and get to know the country a lot better.

Thai Pork Stir-Fry

I am absolutely crazy about Thai food. I think I must have been a Thai in a past life. I could probably eat it every day of the week! I love the spiciness, the mix of robust flavours, and the use of crunchy fresh vegetables.

Here is a recipe which I created myself, perfected by adapting it each time.

Ingredients:

about 300g lean pork (fillet is best, I think), thinly sliced

half an onion, thinly sliced

a clove of garlic, crushed

about an inch of grated ginger

mix of your fave vegies; I used snow peas, capsicum, baby corn, carrot, and bok choy

a quarter to half a cup of chicken stock

a handful of cashews, almonds, or both

Sauce:

half a cup of chicken stock

2 tsp cornstarch

3 tsp oyster sauce

1 tsp soy sauce

2 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp brown sugar

a splash of lime

1 chopped dried chilli (2 if you like more heat)

some dried lemongrass

about 2 shredded dried karrir lime leaves

Method:

First, heat a bit of canola oil in a wok or frying pan. Stir fry the onion, garlic and ginger for about a minute. Then, add the pork. Stir fry for about 2 minutes, or until the pork looks cooked. Remove all of this from the pan and set aside.

Then, throw in the chicken stock. Basically, you are going to steam your vegies. Add the vegies, starting with the hardest ones first, briefly covering the wok with a lid so that your vegies steam in there.

In the meantime, prepare the sauce. First, mix the cornstarch with a little of the chicken stock to form a paste. Now, add the rest of the chicken stock and all the other sauce ingredients.

Back to the vegies. Once they are just about done, all you do is throw it all together. Add to the pan the reserved pork, the sauce mixture and the nuts. Give it all a big stir and cook briefly until the sauce is thick and hot.

Serve over steamed jasmine rice, and add a garnish. This portion serves two!

Viola!

You should note that it might be nice to add some fresh corriander to this. Unfortunately, I can't buy fresh corriander at any supermarkets near me, hence my reliance on dried ingredients for the Thai flavour. But it works pretty well!