Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #65: Vegetable Curry

 I've got friends coming over so I want to do a BIG ONE, so im going to scale this recipe up as I see fit.

Peel!

Here we are mid way through the potatoes.

Slice up!

Slicing up 2 potatoes, 2 onions and a large aubergine all chunky style. Too big to fit on my cutting board together but you get the idea.

Saute!

An ambitious stir fry...

Measure and add!

Gonna do this whole packet, so 720(ish) ml of water.

Stew!

Roux goes in, nothing else needed just letting it stew for an hour.

Finish!

*****

I enjoyed this, and so did my guests! With a nice medium grain rice (like thai jasmine) and those chunky vegetables you won't be missing the meat. And for someone who wants to be sold on aubergine as something other than "the slimy part of a grill mix" I would strongly suggest this!

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #64: Seafood Spaghetti

 Its seafood. Its spaghetti. Whats not to love?

Boil some pasta!

I wish i could find some fancier long pasta at lidl but I didnt. Plain ol' dried spag

Remove the pasta!

Spag goes out the pan (pro tip you can do all the other stuff while this is cooking.)

Peel the shrimp!

No prep necessary, I saved these nice big ones for this recipe though.

Cut the squid!

Im just gonna use the leftover tentacles from the fried squid recipe. Same flavour different shape.

Chop up!

Whats this... mamas... using garlic..!? In her cooking!?!?

Saute!

Frying the seafood with the garlic. Lot of water in them prawns, but the spaghetti will absorb it. Not like there's any other sauce going on this.

Saute!

We add in the pasta and fry it a little more, and add some salt and pepper to season, but im gonna take a liberty here and use an orange/salt/pepper seasoning mix instead to add just a little tangyness. There's also no rules against serving it with a bit of parmesan, so....

Finish!

****

Honestly you get a lot of bang for your buck with garlic, olive oil and pasta. Maybe some white wine and cherry tomatoes would have made this a bit more exciting. I think scallops or mussels would have been a better choice than squid, since those tend to be more soft and juicy and absorb the flavours well, but eh, this works.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #63: Fried Squid

 While we've still got the deep fryer out, on to the next fried thing!

Cut the squid!

Got some proper squid fillets up in here. I guess we butterfly them and slice them into long strips. I'll save the tentacles for the next recipe.

Coat various foods!

Ill be so glad when i never have to do this properly ever again.

Roll in the coating!

Last of the tempura flakes, all battered up and ready.

Deep fry!

Man the oils really dirty from doing the pork croquettes, but i super dont care. 

Finish!

***

As far as frying things goes, squid strips are quite simple and convenient, and the outcome is... eh, just alright. It kind of feels like the squid is just a batter and dip delivery system if I think about it. Like an acceptable, but slightly worse chicken goujon. Or maybe I should have used lemon mayonnaise.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #62: Minced Pork Steak

 So this seems to be like, kind of a cross between a croquette and a deep fried hamburger? I've got a busy day today so we're going to see if we can deep fry a thing in less than 2 hours for a change.

Slice an onion!

Thought id mix it up and buy red onions last time I shopped. Probably not ideal for this but whatever.

Slice!

Sliced for the dicing

Chop up!

this is kind of a lot of onion actually... should i just use half...? nah ill use it all. Need all the veg i can get with all these brown foods.

Melt the butter!

Buttering up just to fry the onions.

Saute!

Feels so weird to fry the onions but not the mince..

Add the ingredients!

mixing together pork mince, the fried onions, breadcrumbs, an egg, and milk

Knead!

Ugh we're gonna have to get our hands SO MESSY arent we

Make shape!

Trying to make some sort of smallish, oval burgers. Still wonder if its better to stick onions in a blender or something. The thick onion chunks make these so fragile

Coat various foods!

Going well so far though. We roll them in flour and coat them in (another!) egg.

Roll in the coating!

Turns out I still have some leftover panko breadcrumbs in my cupboard. Score!

Deep fry!

Due to recent incidents, I will no longer be taking my chances with pork meat. I'm going to cook these as thoroughly as I can, black bits and all.

Finish!

*****

Oh these are so nice! Completely unseasoned, but with a spicy ketchup/chilli dip its just fine like that. Surprised these didn't fall apart at any point. And yes, the insides were nicely cooked. Am I just biased towards croquettes with my favourite dip? Perhaps. but hey, I didn't bungle them.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #61: Rice Gratin

 If the macaroni gratin is anything to go by this one should be alright. Ingredients are a bit weirder though...

Melt the butter!

I actually recommend doing the sautee parts before starting on the white sauce so that its not sat there solidifying for ages but once again TIME HAS NO MEANING HERE.

Mix!

Again, this part says add milk to the butter but im pretty sure its supposed to be flour, since more milk is added in the next step. Certainly worked out last time.

Stew!

Add milk, season with salt and pepper, and once the milk starts to get hella viscous our white sauce is done!

Cut!

Just gonna chop about 3 chicken thighs for this and freeze the rest. I also did the onions first. SAVES ON WASHING UP INNIT

Chop up!

No dicing needed! We just need to cut the onion into thin strips.

Saute!

Fry the chicken and onion and season with even more salt and pepper. I also used oil in the pan because i dont have a death wish.

Saute!

OK this took a turn. We add in the rice that we REMEMBERED TO COOK THIS MORNING BECAUSE WE ALWAYS CHECK THE RECIPE IN ADVANCE FOR BULLSHIT LIKE THIS. And then we add... yep... mamas favourite... just ketchup. Also I decided to GO HARD again and use japanese short-grain rice. Its a bit pricey for the ricey but i think the stickyness will really be worth it for a baked dish like this. If you want the same effect at a somewhat better value in europe though, I would imagine risotto rice works perfectly too.

Add toppings freely!

Situation report: the white sauce is dummy thick and its not really sinking down when poured on top of the rice, but thats probably fine. Mm ketchup and white sauce. Weird. And then the other toppings are bacon, mushrooms and shredded cheese. I just put raw strips of thin streaky bacon over the sauce and under the cheese, hopefully thats not too risky. Ill make sure the top is good and brown all over to be sure.

Set the timer!

Popping in for just 12 mins! ill give it longer if it needs.

Finish!

****

Very nice! A little weird, but nice. Not sure if the ketchup, white sauce and cheese combo is for everyone but definitely comfort food-y enough for me. The texture added by the chicken and onion strips I really liked and a good addition to this rice version. The bacon seems cooked through but i wish id crisped it up ahead of time anyway so itd break up more easily when portioning it out.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #60: Shrimp Wonton

After my last dumpling disaster here's hoping this one goes a lot better. Not only do I have THE CORRECT type of wonton pastry for these, but they also remain in the soup so hopefully i cant accidentally destroy them in my steamer. Hopefully.

Peel the shrimp!

FOILED AGAIN by already peeled shremps, jk i hate peeling prawns it takes ages and the micro ones are cheap

Chop up!

Im also going to FORGO the traditional use of a knife and try these in my veg chopper because we need them nice and minced anyway.

Add the ingredients!

Strangely, this seems to insist you also add a handful of "mince" to the recipe so im opting to add some pork mince, since dim sum seems to use pork mince a lot. We also add grated ginger, an egg white and some soy sauce.

Knead!

Just mixing it up a bit. With the raw pork in there we've got to make sure its boiled long enough to cook thoroughly! Raw prawns would have been a good idea then really but oh well.

Fold the wonton!

These are a nice simple folding that even I can manage! But oh god theres so many... and I already started this recipe late after work and shopping... ill just start cooking a batch of them while I finish making the rest and save a bunch for later... 

Stew!

Now we stew them in a clear broth made with chicken stock, soy sauce and salt. I feel like the salt is a bit overkill so I didnt put much in, both store bought chicken stock AND soy sauce are very salty already. I also added a cheeky half-sachet of dashi stock as well as a chicken oxo cube, to maybe bring in some umami and seafoody flavour. Going to make sure I boil this at a high temperature for a good while to make sure the pork is cooked!

Finish!

***

Yoo I did it! I made some dumplings that were good and held together for once! Despite the crinkly floppy appearance, it is basically just ravioli in texture. The flavours were very pleasant but a little simple for my tastes. Next time i would probably like to add some spring onions, herbs, and maybe something sweet and sour. And some crunchy side dishes.