Daring Cooks October Challenge

A really yummy one from the Daring Cooks this month: Moo Shu, which is stirfry pork with Hoisin Sauce and Pancakes.

I'd never even heard of Moo Shu before this challenge was set, let alone cooked it, but I do generally love Chinese food so I was definitely up for trying it out. The brilliant thing about this recipe is that almost all of it can be made ahead. I made my hoisin sauce in the morning, chopped my vegetables ahead of time, and even made my pancakes earlier in the day. I knew that we'd be cooking late and in a hurry that night, so being able to have everything ready to go was great.

I made my pancakes several hours early and kept them under a damp cloth, just reheating them in the microwave for a few seconds when we were ready to eat. The pancakes weren't as soft as I would have liked. Maybe this is because I made them ahead, or maybe I rolled them too thin? I'm not sure of the reason, but they tasted good anyway.



For my stirfry I chose a mixture of thin sliced Sweetheart Cabbage, baby corn, mangetout, bamboo shoots and spring onions, with about 200g pork and 2 medium sized eggs for the 2 of us. I added a shake of Chinese 5 Spice powder to the recipe given by Daring Cooks but otherwise didn't meddle with it.



With a couple of spoonfuls of hoisin sauce on top of the stirfry, and everything folded into the slightly sesame flavoured pancakes, the flavours blended beautifully.



This is a very messy dinner to eat - even worse than fajitas - but really tasty. For nights when there isn't time for making pancakes I think the stirfry would go well with rice instead: And with that version you wouldn't end up with hoisin sauce dribbling down your arms!

We were having a very oriental week this week - ealier in the week we'd had spicy cured swordfish with noodle broth from the Wagamama cook book - a recipe which I highly recommend.



So the message of the week? Go forth and explore the Orient!

The October Daring Cooks' Challenge was hosted by Shelley of C Mom Cook and her sister Ruth of The Crafts of Mommyhood. They challenged us to bring a taste of the East into our home kitchens by making our own Moo Shu, including thin pancakes, stir fry and sauce.

Daring Cooks February Challenge

This month's Daring Cooks Challenge got me excited - it was a Japanese recipe. Perfect as I have a Japanese cook book which I rarely use, and that makes me feel a little guilty. The challenge was to make a cold soba noodle salad and some kind of tempura. Tempura has been on my wishlist for quite some time, so it was great to have the push to finally attempt it.

So as to assuage my cookbook guilt I tried a recipe from my own book rather than taking up one of the suggestions given by Daring Cooks, but I kept in the spirit of the challenge. I made soba noodles with a dipping sauce made from shoyu (japanese soy), mirin, water and bonito powder, and served them garnished with nori (crisp seaweed), with spring onions and wasabi paste on the side. For my tempura I chose a mix of green beans, prawns, and baby corn. It all made a fantastic lunch.



I had been confident that Dan would like the tempura (its deep fried - a no brainer!), but I was surprised and pleased by how much he enjoyed the noodle dish too. Definitely one to do again. Although, I made a massive mess in the kitchen!



The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com

Pad Thai

The BBC is a marvellous thing. I had half a pack of scallops and half a bag of prawns, as well as some red curry paste left over from a thai curry I made last week. Hmmmm...what to make? I didn't have any bright ideas. But then I typed those three ingredients into the BBC food website, and it delivered up Queen scallop Pad Thai.

Here's the work in progress:



It was the perfect quick dinner - I cooked the noodles and chopped most of the vegetables the night before and then it was a matter of 15 minutes to throw it altogether when I got back from my run. I did cheat my using bought curry paste, and I substituted beansprouts for green beans.

It was yummy. Here's the recipe.

Spiced sake soba

Today I had a day off work, for no reason other than that I felt like chilling out a bit. There was even a glint of sunshine here and there to brighten the day. And just for the hell of it I decided to throw in an extra recipe for this week - I was feeling in the need for something super-nutritious. Wagamama's Spiced Sake Soba seemed the perfect answer.

So what is Spiced sake soba? Well, I'm sorry to tell you that it has no saké in it!
This was it (phone photo!):


It was a stirfry of soba noodles (these are buckwheat noodles - hence the murky brown colour. They're tastier than they look!), mixed vegetables and egg, with a piece of seared wild salmon placed on top. The stirfry vegetables included mushrooms, beansprouts, courgette, peppers, onion, and a little chilli sauce. Garnished with a quarter of lime and a sprinkle of sesame seeds it was a filling, healthy dinner.



I thought it was the kind of meal that I would love but Dan would be less enthused by. How wrong I was - he loved it! A definite thumbs up for this one, with the added advantage that it banished all memories of the tofu stirfry which I served up from this recipe book a month or so ago.

what to do with Tofu?

When I was little my older sister went through a vegetarian phase. Given that the period of vegetarianism broadly coincided with her worst teenage behaviour I rather suspect that the whole thing was thought up just to be awkward. However, my mum did go to quite a lot of effort to accomodate her, and some tasty discoveries were made.

On the otherhand, there was also tofu.

I don't quite know what made me decide to try cooking with it this week. Perhaps it was that my new cookbook (the Wagamama one) has loads of recipes which use it, but whatever the reason was, I decided it was time to cast aside some old prejudices and give tofu another chance.



I chose a flavoursome-sounding stirfry recipe in the Wagamama book, made an expedition to the chinese supermarket for tofu (a feat in itself given the icy state of the pavements!), and set to work on moyashi soba. And it was easy. Also the tofu was not bad - it took on the flavour of the other ingredients very well, and bumped up the meal so that it was filling. Definitely edible.

The failure in all of this was the fact that I had bought silken tofu rather than the firm tofu I should have used. This did mean that it disintegrated more than would have been ideal for a stirfry. Ah well, I'll do it right next time.

This left me with 200g silken tofu that I now knew would not be much use for stirfrying, but I do hate to throw food away. What to do with it?

A bit of googleing told me that silken tofu is often used in desserts, and is also quite a good egg-substitute, so I decided to make a mousse-ish pudding. My made-up recipe needs a bit of refinement, but we did both enjoy it as it was, so here it is (without final tweaks which may or may not come in time):

Dairy-free Chocolate Mousse with Apricots (for 2)
200g silken tofu
20g icing sugar
35-40g dark chocolate (I used a chocolate with orange and ginger, but any dark chocolate would work)
35g dried, ready-to-eat apricots

Mix the sugar into the tofu.
Melt the dark choclate in a bowl over gently simmering water. Once completely melted pour it into the tofu and mix through.
Divide the apricots between 2 ramekins. Spoon the chocolate-tofu mixture on top of the apricots. Refridgerate overnight. Serve.

NB: I like my choclate quite dark and slightly bitter, but if you prefer yours sweeter then add a little more sugar to the tofu.

PS I also made the smoked salmon salad from the Wagamama book this week. Seriously delicious. I wolfed it all down in about 5 minutes flat. Yum scrum! I would never have thought to put apricots, noodles and smoked salmon together, but it definitley works.

Daring Cooks Challenge No.1!

Ok, so I was rather excited to have a try at my first Daring Cooks challenge.
It was a great one to start on too - we both found it delicious and it was definitely something I wouldn't have thought of doing without it being suggested by someone else.

So, I am proud to present.......Asian Noodle Salad with Cashew Dressing



It was easy to do. I made the cashew butter and the sauce a couple of days ahead and it kept in the fridge perfectly well. The dinner was then the matter of about 15 minutes preparation - some light chopping and mixing and soaking of noodles. All quick and easy.

And here's the recipe if you fancy having a go yourself - I highly recommend it.

Yield: 4 servings

notes: You could add or substitute your favorite vegetables. Shredded cabbage, bean sprouts, and slivered carrots would make nice additions. The dressing is equally as good with peanut butter rather than cashew butter.

Ingredients:

Cashew Butter:
240 ml cashews

Cashew Dressing:
1 cm slice of fresh ginger, chopped
8 cloves garlic, more or less to taste, chopped
120 ml cashew butter
60 ml soy sauce
3 Tablespoons sugar
3 Tablespoons vinegar - I used rice vinegar
3 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil
75 ml water
Hot sauce to taste (optional) - I added a pinch of chilli flakes

Noodle Salad:
225g thin rice noodles
1 tablespoon olive oil
225g small or medium shrimp, peeled and deveined (I used large prawns as that was what they had in the village shop, so I actually used slighty more in weight)
1 large red bell pepper, cored and seeded, cut into thin strips
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, sliced
60 ml sliced spring onions
60 ml chopped fresh basil
1 tablespoon chopped cashews (optional garnish) - I omitted these
Lime wedges (optional)

Directions:

1.Make cashew butter: Grind cashews in food processor for about 2 minutes until smooth.
2.Prepare cashew dressing: Combine ginger, garlic, cashew butter, soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, sesame oil, and water in food processor or blender. Process/blend until smooth. Be sure to process long enough to puree the ginger and garlic. The dressing should be pourable, about the same thickness as cream. Adjust consistency – thinner or thicker -- to your liking by adding more water or cashew butter. Taste and add your favorite hot sauce if desired. (If the cashew butter was unsalted, you may want to add salt to taste.) Makes about 360 ml dressing. Store any leftover dressing in the refrigerator.
3.Prepare noodles according to package instructions in salted water. Rinse and drain noodles. Set aside.
4.Heat oil in large non-stick pan over medium heat. Add shrimp to the pan and sauté for about 3 to 4 minutes or until opaque throughout. Alternately, cook shrimp in boiling water for about 2 to 3 minutes or until done.
5.Slice basil into thin ribbons. Combine noodles, bell pepper, cucumber, onions, and basil in a large bowl. Add about 120 ml cashew dressing; toss gently to coat. Add more cashew dressing as desired, using as much or as little as you’d like. Scatter shrimp on top. Squeeze fresh lime juice over salad or serve with lime wedges. Sprinkle with chopped cashews if desired.

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.