Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #41: Shrimp Tempura

The langoustines are back! well I only used half of them for the fried prawns recipe #32.

Peel the shrimp!

how i spend my afternoons, netflix & krill

Separate the yolk!

Mums here again! She's way better at separating the yolk. Look at that.

Make batter!

We don't have the specialty tempura batter for this one, we're using mamas proper recipe which is egg yolk, plain flour, and cold water.

Batter!

Here she is dipping the not-shrimp. What am i doing? slacking off? Nuh!!! I'm prepping the deep fryer!

Deep fry!

You didn't see recipe #50 in the corner... look into this device... (flash)

Finish!

***

Maybe I undercooked these a bit, or maybe it'd have been better with proper tempura flour.. but these weren't quite as crispy as I hoped. Or maybe the breadcrumb just works better with this type of meat. Still nice though!

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #40: Meat Pie

 Meat pies!!! I'm british so I should be able to nail this one no problem. easy as.. as a.. 

Slice an onion!

gonna do 2 onions because they're kinda small and i always have too many onions in my kitchen

Slice!

its your favourite! the ol' 3 parter.

Chop up!

on second thoughts maybe this is a lot of onion..

Saute!

We sautee some beef&pork mince, all them onions, and mix with tomato passata and white wine. Just enough to flavour it i guess without making it too saucy.

Pan fry some more!

No other seasonings!!! No salt, no pepper, no garlic... Mama why are you like this?

Add the ingredients!

Ok decided to look up the proportions because i'm not in the mood to ruin pastry. We're adding 200g flour, 100g butter, and just a splash of water.

Knead!

knead for speed: hot pocket pursuit

Roll out the dough!

surprisingly, its going alright

Cut shape!

this is the smallest circular cutty thing ive got... might be a bit too small really, do i really want to spend my whole evening making micropasties?

Fold the pie crust!

goddamn you know what these are too small to roll, so i went back and rolled them out even flatter/thinner to about 1.5x the size and im having more luck.

Set the timer!

Here they are ready for the oven, I guess these are more like... empanadas than british style pasties?

Finish!

****

Dare I say, for once, mine look even more like an actual shape than Mamas?? These came out well, the mixed meat and extra onions helped make up for a lack of seasoning. Even better with a tangy chilli sauce dip. Good cause i made like a billion of them again.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #39: Soba

The hell am i buying buckwheat when i already have packs of soba in my cupboard 

Add the ingredients!

sure ill add this already prepared SOBA NOODLES to my PAN

Mix!

mixing them with the air in the pan

Knead!

oops gotta remove the paper ribbon

Roll out the dough!

rollin it into some hot water

Chop up!

i didnt take enough pictures so heres an alpaca slime rider doing accounting

Boil some soba!

ok we are actually cooking now

Remove the soba!

wow mama ur so skilled tipping out the water but not the noodles but im from the future and i have a collander!! it also means i can rinse it with lots of cold water until it becomes cold soba for the recipe

Finish!

***
Made some soba sauce to go with! a bit of dashi stock, soy sauce, mirin and seaweed sprinkles. The soba sauce was really nice, you just end up sorta dropping them in the bowl of sauce and eating them out of there since they are hard to 'dip'. Not sure why i wouldn't just want to make hot soba noodles in a bowl with the sauce tbh.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #38: Stuffed Peppers

 Apparently in Japanese this is "piiman no nikuzume". Hehe piiman. Adorable.

Slice up!

From what I can tell, this recipe actually uses a Japanese variant of bell peppers that's a bit smaller. I cant get those but I thought for a bit of fun instead of buying bell peppers, I found some Spanish Padron peppers. They're a lot smaller but they're mild, bitter and good for frying.

Slice up!

But mama, i dont know if i CAN (*canned laughter*)

Slice!

Sliced them smaller

Chop up!

EVEN SMALLER

Chop up!

getting low on my supply of chopped frozen spring onion

Add the ingredients!

This didn't specify what kind of mince, so I bought a pork + beef mixed mince because its nice. Mixed everything together with cooking sake, soy sauce and salt.

Knead!

The frozen spring onions make my fimgers so colb

Stuff with meat!

stuffing the piiman! this might take a while.

Cook amount told!

Wait, we're frying these?? That threw me off. I really thought we'd grill them or something. We fry them with a pan lid on and hope they cook through. (spoiler: they did)

Finish!

***

Surprisingly moreish. The distinctive flavours of the meat and bamboo shoots go really nicely together and I don't mind the bitter aftertaste of the green peppers. They make for a fun finger food with these smaller peppers and would be great at a buffet or in a lunchbox with some rice. Next time I would still grill/oven cook them though, then you can do them all at once and they'd be less wet and oily.

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge #37: Shumai Wonton

 I've got store bought dumpling wrappers this time helle yeah.

Chop up!

Already chopped.

Slice an onion!

time for your favourite! the 3 part onion dice

Slice!

I could stick this in my blender or veg chopper but here i am

Chop up!

gotta do it for the gamer cred

Add the ingredients!

Spring onions (underneath) pork mince, regular onions, sesame oil, soy sauce, salt.

Knead!

Who kneads to know?

Wrap shumai wontons!

Woaew thats WON TON of wontons. They all get a single pea on top.

Steam!

Just doing half them now and freezing the rest.

Finish!

***

LMAOO OH NO the wrappers fell off in the steamer! like they all slid down the pork filling and flopped to the bottom. I have no idea how to prevent that. Did i use the wrong kind of wraps? should i have used egg? Should i have wrapped them in the steamer to prevent them getting too wet? Still most importantly, the pork mince cooked through and it all tasted nice. Even if it was more like... pork meatballs with a floppy pastry skirt.