Pork Fillet with Mushrooms

For how easy this dish is, and the time it takes it's extremely tasty, and easily doable in a rushed evening!

Ingredients: 

500g Pork tenderloin fillet

300g Mushrooms

1 Lemon

300 ml Creme Fraiche

Green / Red / Yellow Peppers

Courgette

Onion

Couscous (Enough for however many people are eating, it will say on the packet) 

How to:

Vegetables for the Couscous

- Chop up the peppers, courgette and onion, and pop them in the frying pan to soften them all up.

- Slice the pork into 5mm slices, and in a heated frying pan brown on both sides, which should take about 3 minutes for each side. Remove from the pan and pop into a bowl for later. 

- Slice the mushrooms (I just chopped mine in half apart from the really large ones) and fry in the pan for about 3 minutes. Remove and put in with the pork in the bowl. 

- Slice the lemon and brown ever so slightly, and remove and put in a different bowl. 

- Boil your kettle, and add enough water just to cover the Couscous, and cover with a lid or a chopping board. This will take about 5 minutes for the Couscous to "cook". When it has add in the vegetables and a little oil or butter, and stir in nicely. Add seasoning to taste.

- Return the pork and the mushrooms to the frying pan, now on a low heat, and add in the creme fraiche and stir, reducing slightly.Add seasoning to taste.

Ready to add in the creme fraiche

- When reduced, pop the lemons back in and stir in very gently. Serve alongside your Couscous and enjoy!

The finished dish.

Marble Cake

Initial Mixture

Ingredients:

100g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
40g plain chocolate

125g caster sugar
2 eggs
1–2 tbsp milk
30g ground almonds (They make the mixture slightly richer)
125g  butter

How to:

- Heat oven to 180 degrees c, grease/line your loaf pan. Sift your flour, with your baking powder into a large bowl.

- Cream the butter until it's kind of fluffy, beat in the 1st egg, then half of the flour, then the 2nd egg, then the rest of the flour. Fold in the ground almonds, and add enough milk to give it a thick consistency so that it just drops off of the spoon.

This mixture stays as it is!

- Spilt the mixture into 2 bowls, evenly. Melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a boiling, adding a very slight amount of butter to help it. Mix the chocolate into one of the bowls

This is the chocolate mixture!

 - Spoon the mixture into the into your loaf tin, 1 large spoonful at a time.

On the next layer, spoon the light mixture over the dark mixture

- With a sharp knife, draw it through the mixture gently to swirl it, don't go too overboard else you will just get a medium-colour cake!

Swirled mixture ready to roll

- Bake it for 30-40 minutes, or until you can poke it with a skewer, and for it to come out clean.

Finished!

 If you want to ice it, melt 60g plain chocolate over a boiling pan like before, then stir in 30g unsalted butter and 1 tbsp double cream, then when the cake has cooled, spread it on, let it set. Then eat it!

Mozzarella Burgers

Burgers mid production!

Following on from my older post about burgers, these are a slight evolution of them! Same recipe for the burgers! Make the patties slightly smaller (and thinner) so you have 2 patties per burger, thinly slice a block of mozzarella cheese leaving approximately 1cm gap around the edges so you can seal it! Slightly oil your hands, then gently pinch the edges of the 2 patties over the cheese in the middle. 

I didn't manage to get any pictures of these after cooking as I was off to a friends for the BBQ, however here are some ready to rumble!

Burgers being put away for later!

 Serve in a bun as normal, a little sauce if you feel like it, and don't worry when the cheese starts to come out of the sides!

Vegetables!

Ok, this isn't a recipe but here are the first potatoes (and onion) I've ever grown!

Vegetables!

Peasant Girls in the Mist (Apple crumble and cream layered dessert)

This is something that myself and Sabi had when we were in Grebbestad, Sweden, and at the time of ordering we only knew it was a dessert!

Ingredients: Serves 4

- 2 cooking apples

- 3 TBSP Caster Sugar

- 100g Breadcrumbs

- 25g Butter

- 50g Brown Sugar

- 1/2 TSP Ground Cinnamon

- 300ml Double Cream

- 4 TBSP Icing Sugar

Method:

- Peel and core the apples, and put in a a saucepan with some cinnamon, the caster sugar and a couple of tablespoons full of water. Heat gently and cook until quite a mushy consistency. Leave to cool.

Apples cooking to a mushy consistency

- Melt the butter in a frying pan, and add in the breadcrumbs, brown sugar and a sprinkle of cinnamon and cook until they're browned. 

Browning the breadcrumbs

 - Whip up the cream and add the icing sugar, and then start to layer the apple mixture, crumbs, cream a couple of times in a glass.

The finished product!

A Swedishy Starter

This one is mega easy, the only bit of cooking is boiling some eggs!

Ingredients:

- Knäckebröd (You want about a pizza-slice size for each person you're making it for)

- 1 Egg per 2 people

- Cream Cheese

- Smoked Salmon

- Kalles Kaviar

Method:

- Boil the eggs until nearly hard boiled and then peel, and slice in half

- Break knäckebröd into pieces about the size of a slice of pizza and place on a plate

- Take off slices of Smoked Salmon, and put approximately a tablespoon of cream cheese on one end, then roll up, and place on knäckebröd

- Scoop the egg yolks out of your halved eggs, and place in a bowl. Add the Kalles Kaviar and mix together, and then replace in the yolk holes, and place on the knäckebröd.

Finished starter

Home made Burgers

Ingredients:

1kg Beef Mince
500g Pork Mince
10g Salt
1/2 Teaspoon of ground Nutmeg and ground Cloves
1 1/2 Teaspoon of ground Black Pepper
30g Breadcrumbs
Baps
Slices of cheese (Used emmentale)

Can either be cooked on the BBQ, or as done in this recipe on a grill pan! (Remember if doing it on a BBQ to let the charcoal turn white, then it is ready to cook)

- In a large bowl, mix together both the meats, cloves, nuitmeg, salt, pepper and breadcrumbs until it's completely mixed.

 The ingredients ready to rumble~

When you've mixed all the ingredients they should look something like the following picture:

Combined ingredients

After this, get a ball of the mixture, about the size that can fit in both your hands as if you were cupping both together, and turn this into a ball with the diameter around the size of your bap, and then flatten down to about 2cm thick.

The completed burgers - ready to cook

After you've done this, cook them on a griddle pan, frying pan or a BBQ, turning them over regularily until it has been cooked through, making sure there are no pink bits left! Pop a slice of the cheese over the top, pop under the grill then put them in your baps! Add sauce if you wish and enjoy! :)

 The burgers being cooked

Meatballs

Yesturday, myself and Sabi made meatballs, with a creamy sauce and mashed potato, so here is the recipe. 

This recipe will make enough for four people.

Meatballs:

500g Minced Meat (We used Beef)
1 Onion, finely diced, fried
1 Egg
250g White Breadcrumbs
Salt, Pepper, Parsley
250ml Milk
Knob of Butter

Combine your meat, egg, and breadcrumbs together and knead, adding milk to keep it moist, and to stop it falling apart. You then season this meaty mixture with your salt, pepper, and a sprinkling of parsley. It's up to you how much you season these, I guess it could also depend on which meat you use as to how much you season it.

The meaty mixture, ready to be rolled.

After you've combined all your ingredients thoroughly, its time to roll them into balls. With cold water, you can slightly dampen your hands, which I found helpful as sometimes the meat wanted to stick to my hands slightly before. The balls should be about the size of a walnut, and this mixture should roughly make 40 if you do it to this size.

Meatballs ready to be cooked

After they're all done, you can pop them into a large frying pan with a knob of butter (they can be fairly tightly packed in, how many you get in a pan just depends on the size of the pan and balls) on a fairly high heat.  After they have been cooked, you can put them into a large oven proof dish, so you can reheat them after they've all cooked. After a couple of minutes, one side will have been cooked, and will look dark brown. When this has happened, start turning the meatballs over, you might have to do this up to 4 times to allow them to cook through, and it will mean the majority of the meatball is dark brown.

Meatballs cooking

After this, you can serve them with mashed potato, or boiled new potatoes! The recipe for the creamy sauce is below, I forgot to take pictures of it however.

Creamy Sauce:
100-200ml Double Cream
200ml Beef Stock
Soy Sauce
Flour
Salt/Pepper

After your meatballs are all cooked and popped into an oven proof dish, turn the heat down slightly, and add in the beef stock, and add a splash of soy sauce. Cook for a little bit, and then add in your cream (add however much you want depending on how creamy you want it to be) Add a little flour in to thicken it slightly, again this is your preference here, and season with salt and pepper. Reheat your meatballs, mash up some potato and throw this in, and you're finished!

Apple Crumble

Ingredients -

300g White Flour
Pinch of Salt
200g Butter
Dash of Cinnamon
175g Brown Sugar

4 - 6 Bramley Apples (6-8 normal - Bramleys are large English cooking apples)
Brown Sugar (As much as you think is needed - Taste it!)
Cinnamon (Same as before!)

Weighing the sugar - we only had rather dark brown sugar, is best to use slightly lighter

Next, peel all of your apples, and then slice them up into smallish chunks, making sure to take out the core as you do so. Then wish a splash of water in a saucepan, gently boil / simmer the apples, bit of sugar and cinammon until it turns gooey (I like having a few small lumps of apple left in the apple mix, but its up to your preference here)

Sugar and Apples ready to be heated

Whilst this is happening, you can start to work on the crumble. Put the flour, sugar, dash of salt and cinnamon into a large bowl and mix. Then add your butter in cubes (room tempurature, not melted) in, and mix together with your fingers until all the butter has gone, and you're left with a crumbly mixture.

Crumbling together the dry ingredients

After this is done, hopefully your apples have all gooed up, if not don't worry and just wait till they have! After they have, put your apple mixture into a deep, large dish (similar to one shown below) and spread it so it's fairly even in the bottom. After this, put your crumble on top of the apple, I usually take a handful at a time, but I'm sure there are many other ways of doing this. Again, make this a nice even layer over the top, you can press it down slightly if you want a crunchier crumble, I prefere to leave it as it's fallen on top, which I feel is more crumbly!

Showing how the crumble and apple are in the dish.

After you've done this, put it in the oven (with most things its best to pre heat it) at about 180 degrees celcius, and bake in there until the crumble starts to turn a darker, slightly golden brown colour.

You can serve it hot or cold, with custard, or my personal favourite of cream.

Kanelbullar

Here are some Swedish "Cinnamon-buns"

Ingredients:
75g Butter250ml Milk
25g Yeast
100g Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon of Ground Cardamon, Salt
500g Flour
Sugar
Cinnamon / More Cardamon

Grinding the Cardamon.

Melt the butter, and add in the milk. When warm (if you put your finger in the mixture, it shouldn't be "hot"). Add in the yeast and dissolve. Move to a boul, stirring in the salt, sugar and cardamon. Mix in nearly all of the flour, finishing with as much flour is needed to make the dough. Knead after this for a little while, then leave it to rise for an hour or so.

Half rolled mixture, showing the scattering of ingredients.

After it has risen, knead it again gently, then pop it on a floured surface, and roll it into a large rectangle. After you've done this, spread butter over the surface, then sprinkle on sugar and cinnamon (With this it's just as much as you want!), then roll is up as shown below.

Slicing the rolled creation.

When it is fully rolled, you can then slice it (1-2cm width) along is legnth, then transfer it onto baking trays with baking parchment on. You can then leave them to rise in a warm place slightly longer (We have a 2 - section oven, and I put them in the section with no direct heat, just warmth)

Arranged Bullar

Bullar in the oven!

Cook in your oven at 220 Degrees Celcius for 6-8 minutes!

The finished product!

Potato Salad

We made a potato salad today, nice and easy yet tasty!


Ingredients:
New Potatoes
Mayonaisse
Onion
Peas

Boil the potatoes, still they're softish, then allow them to cool slightly. Then chop them up into thirds or quarters. Finely dice your onion, and then put your potatoes, onion and your peas into a bowl, then scoop in some mayonaisse, and mix it all up!

Sandwichosaurus

Not really a recipe, but something to amuse you all.

Today Sabi and myself travelled into Guildford to have a look around, and ended up looking in Lakeland Plastics, and one of the things we brought was a dino-cutter!

Dino Cutter Link

I guess a more productive use would be to make some Dinosaur shaped cookies, but it said we could do this too!
















And the reason why dinosaurs aren't around any more, they can't swim!

Oh - the "recipe"

2x Slice of Bread
Sliced Ham
Cheese
Mayonaisse
Butter
Sense of humour

The Kitchen

Welcome to my new blog! It will be detailing all the things I attempt to cook, with the recipes included!