Thai Beef Basil&Chili

Okay people, the world has just become a better place today because I have just been able to recreate the dish I order the most at Thai restaurants. And it turns out it is very easy. The dish I am going to show is for 2 people. Oh and the original recipe is here. This guy deserves an award.

INGREDIENTS:
-300 grams of thin sliced beef.
-1 cup of basil leaves.
-2 tablespoons of soy sauce.
-1,5 tablespoons of fish sauce.
-2,5 tablespoons of oyster sauce.

-1 heaped teaspoon of brown sugar.
-3 garlic cloves.
-1 chilli pepper red.

-1 pinch of salt.

-sunflower oil.

STEPS:
1. In a mortar smash together the garlic and half the red chilli pepper that you have sliced previously with the pinch of salt.

2. Now in a wok, sautee them for a minute or two. 

3. Now add the beef at full fire and let it sizzle for 2 minutes. Stir around.

4. Now create the sauce in a separate bowl. For that, add the soy sauce, the  fish sauce, the oyster sauce and the brown sugar and stir well.

5. Add the sauce to the beef and stir, lower the fire. Now add the rest of the chilli pepper sliced and add the basil and stir.

5. Let it all come together and the sauce will thicken a bit. 

6. Serve with rice.

What a dish you all. AMAZING. The ingredient that makes this dish ecstatic is the basil, so be super generous with it, because it is a party in your mouth every time you taste it. That's it!

Breaded Fried Bananas

This is such a simple dessert and yet so delicious. Kenton and I have eaten in the last few days in a Peruvian restaurant, Venezuelan and a Cuban restaurant! Basically often we feel that we live in Latin American in Madrid, especially hanging around in the South.

Fried bananas are one of my favourite dishes in these restaurants, so I had to give it a go and then I found this recipe online that I had to try. I mean it is super simple. The real key to the desserts is one and only one: the bananas HAVE to be ripe. The riper it is is the sweeter it is, and the harder it is the less sweet it is. So for these recipes you ACTUALLY want the bananas that are on the edge of getting a little gross.

INGREDIENTS:
-5 ripe bananas. 
-1-2 big tablespoons of flour.

-1 egg.

-sunflower oil.

-caster sugar.

-caramel.

STEPS:

1. Peel the bananas and coat them in flour and then beated egg, 

2. Get a small frying pan going and heat up in high heat abundant sunflower oil.

3. Immediately turn down to medium heat, and then transfer them into the frying pan and let them cook for 1-2 minutes in each side. Do not let them sit there for more than 2 minutes or they will burn!!! They burn FAST. Also put heat in medium setting, cause high setting burns them.

4. After 4 minutes transfer them to a dish with kitchen paper to soak up the oil a bit.

5. Then put them on plate and sprinkle caster sugar and caramel.

So good! So easy. Really that was all there was to it. Again: the riper the better. Next time I will choose even riper bananas. 

Thai Bananas in Coconut Milk

 I love this Thai dessert. I have made it several times but it never made it to my blog! I would say most people would like it cause it is so soft and delicate. Amazingly I had all the ingredients at home, so I thought: it's the day.

INGREDIENTS:
-1 Can of coconut milk (400 ml).

-4 large bananas.

-2 tablespoons of super fine sugar (caster sugar).

-a pinch of salt.

-the juice of half an orange.

-about 6 or 7 leaves of mint chopped up.

-4 tablespoons of toasted nuts.

STEPS:

1. Slice up the bananas and place in a pot with coconut milk, sugar and the salt.

2. For 5 minutes heat up, stirring gently until it boils. Quickly remove from heat (or the bananas will get way too soggy).

3. Now add the orange juice and the mint leaves chopped up.

4. Decorate with the toasted nuts, that you have previously toasted for 3 minutes.

That's it. Very good and you can serve it cold or hot. It's a great natural dessert. I love the way Thai desserts are so natural.

            

Vietnamese Vegetable Rice Rolls with Peanut Sauce

 This is a great picnic dish, obviously it is a special one, but just a great way to eat vegetables and the sauce is really fantastic and original. This recipe is from Steamy Kitchen, and seriously I had been wanting to do this recipe since 2013! 

INGREDIENTS 

For the rolls:
-Rice paper wrappers, like 16 or 20.
-About 10 lettuce leaves, soft ones.

-1 cup of sliced carrots.

-2 cucumbers julienned.

-1 avocado in slices.

-1 red pepper in slices.

-1 cup of cilantro leaves.

-1 cup of mint leaves.

-1 cup of basil leaves.

-3 sunny side up fried eggs.

For the peanut sauce:

-1/4 cup of water.

-4 tablespoons of lime juice.

- 5 tablespoons of orange juice.

-1/2 cup of peanut butter.

-1/2 teaspoon of minced ginger.

-1 teaspoon of honey.

-1/2 teaspoon of chopped garlic.

-1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce.

-1 teaspoon of sesame seeds.

-3 drops of almond extract.

STEPS:

1. Julianne the vegetables and have them all ready in bowls. Obviously all ingredients are optional, you just want crunchy vegetables.

2. Prepare the rice paper wrappers, basically you need to dip them in hot water. Dip them and they soften enough, do not dip them in boiling water, it ruins them and you can't work with them.

3. Simply wrap up the vegetables putting a little bit of everything.

4. Create the sauce. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and use hand mixer to blend, it is real good this sauce, peanuty, garlicky, gingery and almondy. It goes amazing.

And just enjoy! This recipe is laborious but worth it. 

Gingered Carrot Soup

I did not know one could make carrot soup, I mean: carrot soup/food for babies, okay, but for adults???

Well it turns out you can and it is actually amazing. I found these recipes that are pretty simple and pretty mind blowing with very few ingredients.

INGREDIENTS:

-10 medium carrots.

-1/2 onion.

-2 cloves of garlic. 

-3 slices of 1 cm sliced ginger.

-1 tablespoon of brown sugar.

-1/2 chicken stock cube.

-one litre of water.

-olive oil, salt and pepper.

STEPS:

1. Peel the carrots, cut in half and place in foil paper and place in oven for an hour at 200 degrees top and bottom. Drizzle them with olive oil and salt. Include the garlic cloves in the oven.

2. Roast them until they are tender and brown or charred. The sugars come out and caramelize. 

3. Now prepare in a pot the onion and ginger. Dice onion and ginger and cook for 5-10 minutes until it is all soft.

4. Now add the carrots and garlic cloves, that are mushy at this point. Of course take the tops of the carrots off and the skin of garlic cloves.

5. Now add a litre of water and a cup and the chicken stock cube. I added half but I am sure you can do a whole one.

6. Bring it to a boil and puree. It is soooooo good. It is a great flavour of ginger, carrots, the charred ingredients, a little garlicky...you can add a tablespoon of sugar and also a tiny bit of cream.

So so good. I mean roasting carrots it's not the most simple method I understand, but it is worth the effort. The main actor of this soup is the ginger with the carrots, not the garlic, therefore you need to add more ginger than garlic!

Caribbean Fish in Coconut Sauce

 So this recipe comes no more or less than from the cans of coconut of Goya Coconut milk. So everytime I bought a can I would see it and say to myself: I gotta do this one day. But the other day I did and I can see why they advertise it, cause it is so delicious.

INGREDIENTS:
-6 fillets of cod, sole or grouper.
-2 cans of coconut milk.

-1 lime.

-5 cloves of garlic finely chopped. 

-1/2 white onion.

-1 stick of celery.

-3 tablespoons of tomate frito,tomato sauce.

-2 chicken stock cubes.

-2 bay leaves.

-1 red tomato cut up in thin slices.

STEPS:

1. First of all, squeeze half a lime on the fish all over them and let them sink in the juice for a little while you prepare the sauce.

2. In hot oil, sautee the celery, the onion and the garlic until it golden and soft for 10 minutes.

3. Now add the tomato sauce and cook for 2 minutes.

4. Now add the coconut milk, the 2 chicken stock and the bay leaves and let it come to a boil and then simmer for 10 until the sauce reduces a bit.

5. Now add the tomato sliced and then add the fish and let it cook for about 5 minutes until is all cooked.

6. Now let it all cook for another 5 minutes and that's it. Decorate with some dry green leaves like basil or coriander and that's it, serve with rice.

So good, a great combo this tomato sauce and coconut sauce and fish. You won't regret it.

A fantastic Idea for helping others with Meals

 Yesterday I got an email from my church with a great website that I wanted to post here. It is called: www.mealtrain.com. Basically it is a website in which you can organize a group of people for making meals for someone sick, or someone that has just had a baby or surgery etc.

They sent it in my church for someone sick with Covid who is a single mom. It was also super easy to register, nothing complex. How wonderful to be able to do things like this for others. I have loved this idea.

Borsch

This year I made for the first time Borsch, the famous purple soup from Ukraine, Russia, Hungary and Poland. It is a soup like no other because the color is so crazy insane rich, but the flavor too! a big wow. My recipe comes from my jewish book so I am not sure how I can copyright it. Sorry!

INGREDIENTS:

-1 kg of fresh beet.
-Salt and pepper.
-1 quick squirt of a lemon.

-1 leek.

-1 carrot.

-1 stick of celery.

-1 turnip.

-1 onion.

-1 clove of garlic.

-2 cubes of meat stock.

-2 litres of water.

-salt and pepper.

STEPS:

1. For this recipe you need to basically have 2 pots going and then mix them. So first we will start with the beet soup. Peel the beet and cut in pieces and place it in a big pot with 1 litre of cold water, salt and pepper. 

2. Bring it to a boil and then reduce fire and let it simmer for 30 mins. Let the vapor come out so it is more reduced. 

3. Now let it cool and then puree it with a hand mixer.

4. On the other pot prepare the meat stock. Now you can do this stock with meat, but honestly that just about too much for me! So I used stock, so sorry. So cut up the leek, the carrot, the celery, the onion, the garlic and the turnip and 1 litre of water.

5. When the vegetables are soften after 20-30 minutes turn off fire and liquify them with a hand mixer.

6. Now mix the 2 soups together and add boiled eggs cut in half if you want. 

It is so good, what a unique flavour. Be really careful though to not stain your clothes.

       

Dill & Lemon Chicken Soup

 This soup was really really really good. This combo of lemon and dill with chicken and rice is a winner I tell you. I found it at Baker by nature in Instagram and did it right away. It doesn't call for weird ingredients but you can substitute the fresh dill for dry.

INGREDIENTS:
-1 litre of chicken stock.

-1 or 2 carrot.

-1/2 onion.

-2 sticks of celery.

-1'5 cup of rice.

-1 chicken breast or chicken leftovers.

-1/2 lemon juice.

-1 cup of white rice already cooked.

-1/4 tspoon of garlic powder.

-1/4 tspoon of onion powder.
-1 stalk of green onion.

-some cilantro (optional).

-1/2 teaspoon of dill or a bunch of fresh dill.

STEPS:

1. Dice up celery, carrot and onion and sautee until it softens for 10 minutes.
2. Now add the chicken stock and the onion powder and garlic powder, and the green onions. let it cook for 1o minutes and bring to boil for a second.

3. Now reduce and add shredded chicken, cooked rice and add all herbs: the cilantro, the dill, and squeeze the lemon. Let it all come together for 5 minutes and serve!

It's so good this soup. I think it is also because the stock was actually made with real chicken and you just cannot beat that.

Chocolate Coconut Egg Nests for Easter

It's Easter again! and I wanted to make a fun recipe that was a little Pinteresty but not crazy laborious. I found this one and thought this is easy and fun.

INGREDIENTS:
-100 grams of dried coconut.
-100 grams of 70% chocolate.

-25 grams of brown sugar.

STEPS:

1. Melt the chocolate in a little pot.

2. Mix the melted chocolate with the coconut and coat it all really well.

3. Now scoop out and make little nests on baking paper.

4. Now place the eggs on top quickly while it is still hot and let it cool for a lot of hours, at least 12.

That's it. So good! My family loved it and they could tell they were nests. Spring is finally here you all.