Midweek dinner – Vietnamese lemongrass chicken

I made this twice last week, one this week, and a colleague made it too, so it is thoroughly tried and tested.

The recipe says that it serves 3 or 4 as a part of a multi-course meal, so I served it to two of us with 125g of rice and no other courses, and it was plenty. I upped the vegetable content too. The most time-consuming part of the preparation is the chopping, which you need to do before you start cooking. It takes about 5 minutes to cook.

Vietnamese lemongrass chicken

2 tablespoons of fish sauce (I used up all the fish sauce the first night, so the second night I used soy sauce, which was still good, but not as good, I also used one tablespoon of mirrin and one of soy sauce)

2 tablespoons of chicken stock or water

a pinch of sugar

a tablespoon of a high-smoking point oil – olive oil is no good here, so use a specific wok oil

450g skinless, boneless chicken, a mix of breast and thigh meat, cut into slivers (I used one chicken breast; I think that salmon or prawns would work well too, or a bit of pork or beef – whatever you have really)

110g red onion, thinly sliced (I don’t put in the onion as I put loads of spring onion on top, so I used finely sliced leek and carrot instead)

2 minced garlic cloves (or 3) 

about 2 cm of grated ginger

20g lemongrass, finely chopped

1 red or green jalapeno chilli, thinly sliced on the diagonal into rings

2 tablespoons of rice wine

1 teaspoon of chilli paste (I used the Suzi Wan one)

2 spring onions, trimmed and sliced

fresh coriander

In a small bowl, whisk together the fish sauce, stock and sugar until the sugar has dissolved. 

Heat a wok over a high heat until hot. Add the oil and heat until shimmering, but not smoking. Add the chicken and the sliced vegetables, and cook, turning occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes, until lightly browned on all sides.

Add the garlic, lemongrass, ginger and jalapeño chilli and cook for 30 seconds longer. Add the wine and deglaze the pan, stirring to dislodge any browned bits.

Add the fish sauce mixture and the chilli paste to the pan and continue cooking for 1 minute more, until the chicken is cooked through.

Serve and garnish with the spring onions and coriander. 

Scallops and mashed potatoes

This is a simple, light dinner and a good way of sneaking some vegetables into your daily diet.

Scallops and mashed potatoes

For two people:

200g potatoes

a knob of butter and a dribble of milk

100g lardons

one leek, sliced into thin rounds

one chopped onion

100g scallops (fresh or frozen)

Peel and chop the potatoes into chunks, and boil them until they are tender enough to mash. In the meantime, fry the lardons, with the onions and the leeks over a medium heat, until the vegetables soften. The fat from the lardons should be enough to lubricate the pan, so you don't need to use oil. 

Once the potatoes are cooked, drain the water off them, add the butter and the dribble of milk and mash them. Add your vegetables and the lardons (keep the residual fat in the pan for cooking the scallops in a moment), with a little salt and pepper and mix them well.

In your frying pan again, fry the scallops for about 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second.

Switch your grill on. Put your cooked scallops into an individual, shallow dish and cover with the mashed potatoes. Pop these under the hot grill until the top crisps up, so about 3-4 minutes.

If you don’t have leeks, you could add some carrots or other vegetable to the potatoes. If you have some cheese lingering in the fridge you could also add that to the mash. 

Beef and Guinness stew

Happy New Year! Ohhhh, so many things to look forward to this year such as new dishes, new places, new experiences! I can’t wait!

I’m just back from a few days in Ireland, at home with me Mammy (hello Mammy!). Before I left, I made beef casserole for the family, something I haven’t eaten since Mammy made it every week or so when I was growing up.  I have to admit, I prefer mine to Mam’s (sorry Mam), and I’d no problem convincing SD to eat it. One thing puzzled me though. Mam’s beef casserole was pale brown while all the recipe’s I found included some tomato puree. I asked Mammy about this and she said that she simply dismissed the idea of putting tomato puree in! Anyway, it was yum, and it will be made again.

On my return to Belgium, I decided to make some beef and Guinness casserole, something that Mammy never made for us.

Beef and Guinness stew

I used another recipe from the RTE website for the casserole, and used some steak that was going for half nothing in the supermarket. There were only two of us for dinner last night, and we got two helping each, plus some left over for lunch for one today.

400g beef

1 tablespoon flour

a dribble of olive oil

2 carrots, chopped into rings

1 chopped onion

2 leeks, chopped into pieces about 2cm long

two cloves garlic, crushed

330ml Guinness (one bottle)

a dribble of water

1 teaspoon of Oxo/Bovril or beef stock

1 teaspoon of brown sugar

a few shakes of dried thyme, rosemary and savory (about a teaspoon of each)

170g lardons

2 small potatoes per person, or as many as you’d eat yourself

Chop the beef into bite-sized chunks and brown them in the olive oil in a hot, heavy-based pot. Once they’re all browned, remove them and cook the onion and crushed garlic for about five minutes in the remaining oil, then add the carrots and cook these for a few minutes.

Pop the meat back in and coat the whole lot in the tablespoon of flour, stirring well to coat the whole lot. Slowly pour in the bottle of Guinness and stir it through. I added a dribble of water, say about 30ml, and a teaspoon of Oxo together with a little salt and pepper and the herbs. Cover with a lid and simmer on a gentle heat for 40 minutes.

We both tested the sauce at this stage and thought it quite bitter, so we added a teaspoon of brown sugar to soften it. When you’re making yours, test it to see and season as you like.

Add the leeks and the potatoes, nestling them into sauce and scatter the lardons over the lot. Cover with the lid and cook until the potatoes are done – about another 20 minutes or so. The lardons really added to the dish, mellowing it out a lot.