Je Goûterai - I will taste

This evening’s dinner :) Soy Noodles with pak choi and spring onions, attempted seasoned egg and leek dumplings. I usually make my own dumplings but I’m trying out some of the frozen ones from a korean shop down the road. yumyumyum

No. 70: Boeuf Bourguignon avec des quenelles de baguettes – 21.10.12 (a.k.a Burgundy Beef with baguette dumplings)

This recipe is homage to my all time favourite film ‘Julie and Julia’. Every time I’m feeling down, when I feel like I’m losing my passion or just not it a cooking mood, I will put it on. I adore it. If you’ve seen it, one of the main recipes referred to and is cooked in the film is Julia Child’s Boeuf Bourguignon. However, my favourite French cuisine chef is Rachel Khoo so thought it would be fitting to use one of my favourite chef’s recipes just like Julie had. Oooo I’m getting all giddy thinking about that film! It’s so heart warming and just makes me so happy when I watch it, if you haven’t seen it, do it.
This recipe is taken from Rachel Khoo’s The Little Paris Kitchen when you see the amount of ingredients, don’t be alarmed! It is such an easy recipe and perfect for a nice day off or a Sunday afternoon!

Serves 4-6 and preheat the oven to 150oC

900g Beef shin or stewing beef cut into 6 large chunks
2 tbsp Plain Flour
2 tbsp Vegetable oil
150g Bacon Lardons
10 button onions or shallots peeled
2 cloves of garlic, crushed till flat with the back of a knife
1 bay leaf
a bunch of Parsley Stalks
1 sprig of Thyme
1 spring of Rosemary
3 Cloves
10 peppercorns, crushed
500ml Red Wine
300ml water
1 tbsp Tomato paste
a pinch of sugar
10 Chestnut Mushrooms
Chopped Parsley to garnish

For the Dumplings

200g stale baguette or any other bread (crusts included)
250ml Milk
a pinch of nutmeg
Salt and Pepper
a handful of chopped parsley
1 egg
1-2 tbsp plain flour
a knob of butter for frying

• Dust each piece of meat with flour and heat the oil in a large casserole dish over a high heat. Fry the meat in batches until browned and set aside.

• Fry the lardons, onions, garlic, herbs and spices in the same pan until golden brown. Return the meat to the pan and add the wine, water, tomato paste and sugar. Scrape the cramalised bits at the bottom as they will add flavour, cover and place in the oven to cook for 3 hours or until the meat is tender and falling apart.

• To make the baguette dumplings, cut the baguette/bread into cubes and place in a bowl. Bring the milk to the boil and pour over the cubes, stir is coat and absorb evenly then cover and leave for 15 minutes. Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper then stir in the chopped parsley, egg and mix in 1 tbsp of flour. If the mix is too wet add a second tablespoon of flour. Wet your hands a little to help stop the dough sticking and roll them into little balls, it should , make around 12-14 dumplings.

• About 20 minutes before the stew is ready, add the mushrooms and season to taste.

• Heat the butter in a large frying pan and fry the dumplings on a medium heat for 5 minutes or until golden brown and crisp then drain on some kitchen roll.

• Garnish the stew with parsley and serve with the dumplings.

This was soooo yummy! I’ve said before that I love cooking with wine and a stew like this reminds me why! Red wine makes such a deep rich sauce and slow cooking the meat makes it melt in your mouth scrumptious! The dumplings were a great twist to the dish and soaked up the sauce well however the bread I used wasn’t stale so went quite mushy so they didn’t turn out as well as I hoped! The house was filled with the fabulous aromas from the herbs and spices used in the dish and having the oven on for so long made a cosy little atmosphere in my house which I felt was wonderful for an autumn afternoon.

Dinner 12.7.12 :

Turkey and Leek Pot Sticker Dumplings with Soy sauce to dip and Green Beans drizzled with sesame oil

Turkey and Leek Pot Stickers / Dumplings

No. 46: Chicken and Leek Pot Stickers / Dumplings – 12.6.12

Since Gok Wan started his show ‘Gok Cooks Chinese’ I have been hooked. I couldn’t believe how well he cooked and how quick all of his dishes were! They all looked so delicious and simple to make. Coming home from the gym today I remembered a recipe which appeared on Monday’s episode of chicken and leek dumplings. I had dumpling cases in the freezer and thought I could buy some Turkey mince (very cheap and leaner than chicken) and try them out! I had to go back on 4OD to watch it again and try get the basic recipe for them but was mainly a lot of guess work so all of the ingredients I have wrote are what I did! If you want to check it out the episode is Series 1, Episode 4 – Gok Cooks Chinese.

Makes around 20 

200g Chicken/Turkey Mince
½ a medium sized leek, finely chopped
A thumb sized piece of Ginger, finely chopped
A pinch each of Salt and White Pepper
A splash of Chinese Rice Wine (we used Chinese cooking rice wine)
A splash of Sesame Oil
A little Egg White
20 Dumpling cases

• Using a largish knife, chop and smooth your mince so it is basically minced more finely then add the leek and ginger and using your knife, fold and smooth the mince to mix and combine the ingredients.

• When thoroughly combined season with the salt and white pepper, add the rice wine, sesame oil and egg white and using the same technique, combine these ingredients with the mince to create your dumpling filling.

• On a floured surface, lay out your dumpling cases and place about half a teaspoon of mixture onto the middle of each case. Use some beaten egg to wet the edges, fold over the mixture and crimp the edges together.

• Now heat about 1tbsp of Oil (Gok used groundnut oil, I think this would add to flavour but I used vegetable oil and it was fine) and place the dumplings onto the oil to fry on of the sides (if you make as many as me and the boyfriend did, you will have to make it in batches).

  You want one side to become nice and crispy and the other to be lovely and soft, so when the underneath side has become crisp, leave it, add a little water and cover with a large lid (I used a large saucepan lid or you can use a steamer basket lid or anything) and let it steam. Add a little more water if the pan becomes dry.

• When the top side of the dumplings become translucent they are done! Remove and continue to cook the rest of the dumplings in the same way.

• Serve with Soy sauce and to make it a meal, you could serve them with broccoli and green beans or rice :)

These were sooooo much better than I expected them to be! I thought they would be really bland and a bit stodgy and generally not too great but they were delicious! The flavours of the rice wine, sesame oil and ginger in the mince were very subtle and the turkey and leek tasted wonderful together (as expected, as chicken and leek are like married so Turkey would work well with it too). We had a little cup to dip them into soy sauce which just perfected the experience. This was a very cheap healthy meal which is perfect for after the gym!

Coq au Vin with Herby Dumplings

No. 34: Coq au Vin with Herby Dumplings – 21.4.12

Oh Gizzi how I’ve missed you!! I’m sorry I left you for Rachel Khoo but you know I’ll always love you!

My big sister bought me Gizzi Erskine’s Kitchen Magic for Christmas and after already loving Gizzi through her tv shows I fell in love with it. Then watching Rachel Khoo on tv made me instantly fall in love with her, making me buy her book as soon as I could. However I’ve been cooking a lot of Rachel Khoo recipes recently so I’m going back to Gizzi!

And yes, I know I’ve already had ‘Coq au Vin’ this week but I don’t care. I really wanted to try the traditional stew version of a Coq au Vin because I adored the flavours of the skewer version I had tried so felt I should give the traditional version a go. And yes, I know dumplings aren’t traditionally French and this is stated in the recipe but they work really well with the stew and add a lovely extra dimension of texture (they’re also really good at wiping up left over sauce at the end of the meal!). This recipe is from her book “Gizzi’s Kitchen Magic”.

Serves 4, preheat the oven to 180oC!

(This list is in the order you use the ingredients)

For the Stew

2 tbsp Olive Oil
8 free-range chicken thighs, boned, skinned and halved (if you’re not sure about removing bones or removing the skin, just ask your butcher to do it)
Pinch sea salt and ground black pepper
16 button mushrooms
4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, chopped into lardons
2 banana shallots, finely sliced
1 large carrot, peeled and finely diced
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp plain white flour
1 tbsp tomato puree
600ml red wine
300ml chicken stock
1 bouquet garni (This is a bundle of herbs tied together to flavour stews and soups which is removed at the end of cooking) Made of Bay leaves, fresh thyme and fresh parsley tied in a bundle.

For the Dumplings
100g Self raising flour
½ tsp salt
1 and ½ tsp olive oil
a small handful of fresh parsley, chopped
3 tsp snipped fresh chives
60ml semi-skimmed milk

• Heat1tbsp of the oil in a large heavy-based, lidded casserole dish. Season the chicken thighs with the salt and pepper and brown these in 2 batches. Cook for 4 minutes on each side and set aside. Throw in the mushrooms, cook in the oil and chicken juices for 5 minutes or until golden and set aside with the chicken. If the bottom of the pan seems dry, add a little boiling water to scrape the bottom of the pan.

• Add the remaining oil to the pan and cook the bacon on a high heat for 2 minutes. Reduce the heat and add the shallots and carrot. Cover with a lid and sweat these for 10 minutes on a low heat, throwing in the garlic at the last minute. Add the plain flour and tomato purée and stir to coat all the vegetables for a minute.

• Slowly pour in the wine, stirring continuously to emulsify the sauce (you’ll see it thicken up as you stir). Add the chicken stock, chicken thighs, mushrooms, bouquet garni and give it a good stir! Cover, place in the oven and cook for an hour, stirring it half way through cooking.

• To make the dumplings, add the the dumpling ingredients into a bowl and mix together. Then divide the mixture to make 8 small balls (these will double in size when they cook). When the stew has 20 minutes left add the dumplings and cover with the lid. Remove the lid for the last 5 minutes so they become golden brown on top.

Not tooting my own horn here, but I think this was one of the best meals I have ever made. It was absolutely amazing! The sauce was wonderfully rich from the wine and the chicken was so soft and tender from being cooked for so long. When you cut open the chicken thighs, they were a rich dark brown/red on the outside but a gorgeous white in the middle. I used Parsnip instead of carrot (due to my IBS) but my point is, is that the vegetables in the dish gave subtle little hints of flavours. There were a lot of different textures in the dish, the soft chicken, the silky sauce, the little pieces of bacon and the soft, chewy dumplings. The dumplings were a really nice addition! I’m not sure what it would usually be served with but they worked really well with the stew and soaked up some of the flavours whilst cooking. I loved this dish and it seems my boyfriend was pretty blown away by it as well!