Cha han

A simple but tasty rice dish. This is for chicken and prawn, but you can substitute all sorts of ingredients to your taste.

Preparation:

Finely chop some chicken and marinade for an hour in a few spoonfuls of soy sauce, grated ginger, salt and pepper.

Cook a pan of rice.

Cooking - this is very quick:

Heat oil in a wok. Add the chicken, a handful of quartered shitake and button mushrooms, some shelled prawns, snow peas, sweetcorn, chopped scallions, and the rice. Stir in a whisked egg.

Crab and sweetcorn soup

This has always been one of our favourites when we've gone for a full sit-down meal at a Chinese restaurant. But it is also amazingly easy to cook at home. We are always on the lookout for new soup ideas, so I'm surprised it's taken us this long to try this for ourselves.

Make up a pan of stock - either bouillon paste, or we often use home-made turkey stock as a soup base - and season it to taste. 

Bring the stock to the boil, then stir in some flaked crab meat (either fresh, or processed) and a drained can of corn. Thicken with a little cornstarch. Add some veggies if wanted - we used some small bok choy, or you could add green onions. Stir in several beaten eggs to finish off the dish, and serve.

Creamy pepper pork

A new and delicious twist on pan fried pork steaks.

Pat the steaks dry then dry-rub them with a mixture of salt, pepper, and paprika. Fry them until browned. De-glaze the pan with a splash of apple cider vinegar, a small amount of chicken stock and a dash of lemon juice. Stir in cream and a squirt of mild mustard (e.g. French or honey mustard). Simmer until the pork is cooked.

Dauphinoise potatoes

A remarkably quick & easy version if you want a slightly different (and tasty) way to serve potatoes.

Put thinly-sliced potatoes into a baking dish that can go on the stove top as well as in the oven. Add a layer of thinly-sliced red onion, garlic, salt and pepper, and grated Parmesan. Pour on a good slosh of cream and some water. Stir everything together, bring to the boil on the stove top, cover, and cook for 5 or 6 minutes.

Sprinkle on another generous handful of grated Parmesan and put in the oven, uncovered, for about 1/2 hour. It should be brown and bubbling. If necessary, brown it off under the grill

Vegetable soup

An impromptu recipe that turned out well, resulting in a tasty and hearty winter warmer.

In a large pan fry a chopped onion until soft and golden. Add garlic and diced celery and saute for a few minutes. Stir in a couple of chopped tomatoes.

Stir in a spoonful of flour to soak up the juices, then slowly add a jug of stock, mixing well to remove any lumps. Add seasoning - oregano, pepper, salt, and garlic salt - then a load of finely-chopped vegetables - carrots, potatoes, beans, sweetcorn etc. I used a bag of frozen mixed veg for variety.

Add enough liquid to cover. Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour or so, stirring occasionally to stop the mixture catching on the pan. Some of the vegetables may start to mash and disintegrate, but that's not a problem as they add body to the broth.

Penne and chicken

This has been such a staple of ours for so long I can't believe I haven't posted it here yet!

In a large pan of salted water, cook the penne.

In a separate pan, fry some diced chicken and bacon pieces - I like to make both of them small bite size - until cooked. Stir in some cream and bring to the boil to thicken. Serve over the pasta.

So simple!

Goulash soup

A tasty and hearty dish that we tried for the first time last night. When we were camping this summer we stopped for lunch at a tiny cafe while taking shelter from a sudden downpour. We had goulash soup, and decided to hunt down a recipe. I'm happy to say it worked out well, something to do again.

In a large saucepan fry a few rashers of finely-chopped bacon until crispy. We usually get lean bacon, but for purposes like this Canadian (or "streaky" as we knew it in Britain) is perfect.

Set aside the bacon and fry some finely-cubed steak until browned. Scoop that out and set it aside with the bacon. I find this also produces a fair amount of liquid, which I drained off for later use too.

Now fry a couple of finely-chopped onions and cloves of garlic until golden. Stir in a generous spoonful of paprika, and a couple of heaped tablespoons of flour. Stir for a couple of minutes, then stir in a generous spoonful of tomato paste and a good slosh of red wine vinegar. The result should be a sticky paste.

After a minute or so, stir in a good jug of beef stock (including the liquid set aside from cooking the steak), salt, a chopped red pepper, and the bacon and steak. There should be enough liquid to cover everything. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 45 minutes.

Add a few finely-cubed potatoes - there should be at least as much by volume as meat - and continue to simmer until the potatoes are tender.

If necessary, add a bit of liquid to cover the ingredients, but the result should be a rich and thick soup. Stir occasionally to stop it catching on the bottom of the pan. Season with salt and pepper, and serve.