Vegetable Thai Ratatouille

I have adapted this recipe to suit the vegetable I can purchase in my local market. you could add chilli if you liked.

[ra-tuh-TOO-ee; ra-tuh-TWEE] A popular dish from the French region of Provence that combines eggplant, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, zucchini, garlic and herbs-all simmered in olive oil. The vegetables can vary according to the cook. They can be cooked together, or cooked separately and then combined and heated briefly together. Ratatouille can be served hot, cold or at room temperature, either as a side dish or as an appetizer with bread or crackers.

Ingredients.

mix of any root vegetables,

1 carrot,
2 red onion,
1 red bell pepper,
6 small purple aubergine,
6 small apple aubergine,
4 cloves garlic,
2 tablespoon olive oil,
3 large red tomato.
cup of water,
salt to taste.
2 tablespoons tomato paste.
1 bunch fresh basil,
1 bunch celery leaves,

Recipe,
wash, peel and cut into large pieces all vegetables, add oil and garlic, onion to pan, fry till brown, add red pepper and aubergines,fry for 2 minutes, add tomatoes, carrot, water, paste, simmer till vegetables soft, add herbs, stir and serve.

Steak Sauce

This Simple quick steak sauce is ideal with beef or chicken.

Marinate meat for 2 hours.

1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon peppercorns

mix in pestle and mortar, add 1 teaspoon worchestshire sauce, 2 teaspoon tomato ketchup, 1 teaspoon honey and mix, spread over meat, fry the meat in non stick pan, when cooked add 1/2 cup water to de glaze pan, thicken with little corn flour.

I made this sauce with local steak, served with saute potatoes, and salad.

Missing Ingredients !!!!

We all get frustrated when we see a recipe picture, or find an exclusive recipe, but we cant find that secret ingredient.

I want to know what are the most sought after ingredients.

Where you are?

What about the recipes on TV or in books that are just that 1 step to far, because of Ingredients or cost.

Or the recipes that are just to far from the mark !

Or just tell me what your favourite ingredients are.

Thanks and remember cooking should be FUN.

Asian Osso Buco

Asian Beef Osso Buco served with mashed potatoes and snow peas.
I tried to find a good stew recipe, and thought about lamb shanks, which are so expensive here, so I decided to try this Italian classic with local ingredients. omitting the wine for grape juice for an Islamic dish.

Assemble the ingredients:
2 to 4 Beef shanks,
1 cup chicken broth,
1 red bell pepper,
1 cup red grape juice,
1 large onion,
1 large carrot,
5 large garlic cloves,4+1 for topping.
2 bay leaves,
2 medium celery sticks or celery leaf,
4 diced tomatoes.

Recipe
Finely dice the onion, celery, and carrots.
Mince the garlic cloves. Add olive oil 2 tablespoons and 1 knob of butter to a large pan or casserole dish. Raise the heat to medium and brown the beef shanks by setting them into the pan and not moving them for three to four minutes. Flip the shanks over and brown the other side for same amount of time.

Add the diced onions to the pot and stir until golden brown. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to help deglaze the pot.
After about five minutes of stirring, the onions should be golden brown. Add the carrots and celery, red pepper to the onions and stir until softened.
About five more minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook for one more minute.

Pour in the grape juice, and increase the heat to medium high. Bring the mixture up to a full simmer. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, scrape off any remaining bits of fond from the pot. Simmer until the wine has reduced by about half. Add the tomatoes, chicken broth, and bay leaves to the pot. Stir so it’s evenly mixed and let it come back up to a simmer. Add the browned veal shanks to the pot.
cook slowly for 1 or 3 hrs.
remove the shanks.
Boil the liquid in the pot to reduce it to a sauce. Stir in salt and pepper to taste. You can add a cornstarch slurry to help thicken the sauce (just mix 1 heaping teaspoon of cornstarch with a couple teaspoons of water and stir the mixture into the boiling liquid). The sauce should be thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon that is dipped into it. While the osso buco is braising, prepare the gremolata. Gather about ten sprigs of celery leaf, 1 clove of garlic, dice all and add to the mix or add on top of meal for decoration.

Colcannon

source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colcannon
Colcannon (Irish: cál ceannann, meaning “white headed cabbage”) is a traditional Irish dish made from mashed potatoes, kale or cabbage, butter, salt, and pepper. It can contain other ingredients such as milk, cream, leeks, onions, chives, garlic, boiled ham or Irish bacon. At one time it was a cheap, year-round staple food.[1]
An old Irish Halloween tradition was to serve colcannon with prizes of small coins concealed in it, as the English do with Christmas pudding. This is still done today and small amounts of money are placed in the potato.[2]
It is similar to the modern version of the English dish, bubble and squeak. In Atlantic Canada (especially Nova Scotia and Newfoundland), a local version of the dish is popular among those raised in rural communities. Brought to the provinces by Irish and Scottish settlers, the recipe consists of potatoes, milk, butter, diced carrots and turnip mashed together. This gives it a distinct orange and white colour (as opposed to the green of the Irish version). Some also add onions, garlic and even chopped up bacon. It is routinely served during large holiday meals like Christmas, New Years Eve, Robbie Burns night and Canadian Thanksgiving.
The Dutch also have a dish that is similar called stamppot boerenkool,[3] made from potatoes and kale mashed together with milk, butter, salt, and pepper, and often served or cooked with a large sausage. A condiment of pickled pearl onions is common.
The Welsh “cawl cennin”, pronounced vaguely like colcannon, means “leek soup”, literally “broth (of) leeks”, but this is just a coincidence of forms.[4] The full etymology goes back to Irish cál ceannfhionn (shortened to cál ceannann), literally “cabbage head-white”, as indicated above.[5] Welsh cawl also can mean cabbage, however the usual word is bresych. Irish cál ceannfhionn would be Welsh bresychen benwen.

My recipe uses left over roast potatoes or mash, I had half a cabbage left over, so I have boiled it and mashed in the left over potato with another onion, fry in frying pan with butter till brown. another way is to make the bubble and squeak and add a tin of corned beef and 1 onion makes a lovely corned beef hash.

Scouse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouse_(food)

Scouse is a type of lamb or beef stew. The word comes from the word Lobscouse (originally lob’s course), a meat based stew commonly eaten by sailors throughout Northern Europe, which became popular in seaports such as Liverpool.
Scouse is still a popular dish in Liverpool, where it is a staple of local pub and cafe menus, although recipes vary greatly and often include ingredients which are inconsistent with the thrifty roots of the dish.
In its short form Scouse, the name for this meat stew eventually came into common English usage to describe a resident of Liverpool.
The traditional recipe for Liverpool Scouse consists of a cheap cut of lamb, or in earlier days, mutton (such as breast, forequarter or “scrag end of neck”), removed from the bone and browned in a large saucepan, to which are added chopped onions, carrots, and water or meat stock, to which are added as many potatoes as possible. The sauce is not thickened, and it is usual to serve with preserved beetroot or red cabbage and white bread with butter. An even more impoverished variety of this dish is ‘blind Scouse’, which features no meat. Either recipe should more rightly be considered a potato stew.
A variant Lobscows or Lobsgows, is a traditional dish in North Wales, normally made with beef in the form of braising or stewing steak, potatoes, and any other vegetable available, this recipe was brought by the canal barges to Stoke-on-Trent where it is called “Lobby” the shortened version of “lobscouse”. The food was traditionally regarded as food for farmers and the working class people of North Wales, but is now popular as a dish throughout Wales.
In Norway, which had a long sea-trading association with the Northern English seaports, the dish (known locally as lapskaus) is virtually a national dish using the weekend’s remaining food, usually carrots, potatoes, pork sausages in slices or beef cut small and served with flatbrød (unleavened bread dating back to Viking days).
The name of the North German hash Labskaus is derived from the English word lobscouse[1]. Labskaus is traditional in the Lower Elbe region, especially in the port city Hamburg.

My version is a mix between Scouse and Lancashire hotpot, As I am in Thailand this is great soul food, As it’s the rainy season, this is the closest to English weather we are going to get.!!
I have added extra ingredients such as, garlic, tomato and red bell pepper to give it that something extra.

Ingredients

1 kg stewing beef or lamb.
4 large potatoes.
1 carrot.
1 clove garlic.
3 bay leaf.
1/2 cabbage.
2 red onion.
1 white onion.
oil. 1 tablespoon.
1 red bell pepper.
salt and pepper to taste.
1 cup beef stock.
water.

Recipe

add oil to pan, chop garlic and onions, large pieces and add to pan, slowly brown, add the chopped bell pepper and beef (cubed) add bay leaf you can brown the beef or not, just letting it cook in the scouse will make it nice and soft. add chopped carrot, cabbage, top up with the beef stock and water. add salt and pepper. simmer to 1 or 2 hours, peel and slice the potatoes, place on top of pan and add more water to cover the potatoes,

if you add sliced potato on the top then this is hotpot, if you add whole potato to the stew then this is scouse. add lid and simmer for another 2 hrs, longer you simmer and cook it ,more flavour this will have, serve with crusty bread or pickled cabbage or beetroot.

Simple Fish Pie

This recipe will give you a simple, quick and tasty fish pie, add as many ingredients extra as you like!! You can top it with cheese, or mashed potato, or use a cheese sauce or a tomato sauce.
This recipe uses oyster and shiitake mushrooms as they are fresh and cheap here in Thailand.

Ingredients.

2 or 3 fish fillets, boned and skinned.
3 large potato.
100g oyster mushrooms.
100g shiitake mushrooms.
1 clove garlic.
salt to taste.
1 cup milk.
tablespoon cornflour.
oil for frying.
oregano or any fresh herb.
knob of butter.

Recipe

peel and slice the potato thinly, fry in the oil till opaque. or make into mash potato if you prefer. leave to one side. add the butter and garlic in a pan, add the chopped mushrooms and fry, add the fresh herb of your choice, add the milk, cook till milk boils, add the cornflour and stir till sauce thickens, season with salt. place the fish fillets in bottom of oven dish, top with the mushroom sauce, and layer the potatoes on top. bake in a hot oven till the potato are golden brown.

Thai Ragu Sauce

With so many recipes for Bolognese or Ragu Sauce around, I adapted this simple version using the Thai herbs from my garden. the secret is in the slow cooking process, and the fresh ingredients used. Any fresh herbs can be used that you can buy. If you want omit he beef and use the sauce for lasagne or add prawns to make a seafood pasta.
Other variations that I might post are -
Somali Meat Sauce – (suugo) That uses ingredients such as cardamom and ginger.
Or
Beef in Cumin Sauce -an African dish with chilli, lime and vinegar added.

Recipe

Ingredients for Ragu sauce

200g finely sliced beef. (use mince if you prefer)
2 tablespoons olive oil.
2 red onion. (finely diced)
3 cloves garlic.
6 fresh red tomatoes.(diced)
2 teaspoon dry oregano.
2 basil leaf.
1/2 teaspoon dried chilli flakes or 1 fresh chilli.
1/2 teaspoon sugar.
Salt to taste. butter.
Water as needed.

Method
Add oil to wok or deep frying pan, heat gently and add chopped garlic, when garlic starts to brown add beef,when beef is sealed add the red onions finely diced. and dry basil leaf, fry till onions are soft and brown. add the diced fresh tomato’s and 1 cup of water, gently simmer,add sugar and dried chilli, simmer for 2 hrs or more, keep topped up with water or stock, till tomatoes have dissolved.
you can serve this with any pasta, I prefer to cook pasta al dente then add it to the sauce to soak up the sauce.
when finished add butter and fresh basil leaves.
ideal with garlic bread.
Enjoy!

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Mattabar.