Cooking recipes: sweet

Showing posts with label sweet. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin Medallions – Half the Fat All the Inauthenticity

Whenever you see those headlines like, "Worst Take-Out Food Choices Ever," on the various websites, you can be sure that sweet and sour pork will be near the top of the list.

Thats because its usually made from fatty pieces of pork shoulder, cut into cubes, dipped in a thick batter, deep-fried, and finally coated with a super-sugary, thick, starchy sauce.

Im no shrinking violet around high-calorie food, but classic Chinese-American take-out sweet and sour pork is basically deep-fried, sugar-coated, fatty pork chunks. And yes, once in a while, its pretty damn awesome (like twice a decade).

For a more reasonable way to enjoy the same basic flavors, I think this pork tenderloin version is a nice alternative. As I say in the video, pork tenderloin is lean, very easy to cook (as long as you can get past those ridiculous fears about slightly pink pork), and the sauce takes about two minutes to prep.

By the way, this is not simply fake Chinese food; its actually fake, fake Chinese food. The aforementioned death nuggets we call sweet and sour pork are not even remotely close to any kind of authentic sweet and sour preparation in real Chinese cuisine. Or at least that’s what I heard Anthony Bourdain say one time. Now thats research.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this plate of florescent food, and if youre a fan of the Chinese take-out version, I believe you will too. Also, I would suggest tossing in some green onions (the white parts) along with the garlic, and save the green tops to garnish with as I did with the chives. Enjoy!

Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin Ingredients:

For the sauce:

1/3 cup ketchup

1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar

reserved pineapple juice from can

2 tablespoons brown sugar

4 cloves minced garlic

1/4 cup chopped green onions, white parts, optional

2 teaspoons Asian hot chili sauce (sambal or sriracha), or to taste

1/4 cup water or chicken broth to thin sauce

1 teaspoon soy sauce, or to taste

For the pork medallions:

1 pork tenderloin, trimmed, cut, flattened into four medallions

salt and fresh ground black pepper as needed

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon butter

1 can (8-oz) pineapple chunks, drained, juice reserved

4 cups cooked white rice

2 tablespoon chopped green onion tops or chives to garnish

View the complete recipe

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Sweet Potato Casserole

I dont know if we can really call this a casserole, but thats the name my husbands family uses for this favorite Thanksgiving side dish. But lets be honest here people, we should really be calling this sweet potato "crumble", or "pie", or "crisp" - you get the idea. Mashed sweet potatoes are combined with eggs, milk, butter, and sugar and then topped with a delicious crumble topping (you know - brown sugar, pecans, more butter, etc.) and baked until browned and oh-so-sweet-smelling. Everyone Ive ever shared this with has fallen in love. Its sure to be a hit! Ill let you decide whether it should be served with the turkey or the pies...

Sweet Potato Casserole

3 c. sweet potatoes, mashed (about 2 large, or 3 medium)
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. milk
3 T. butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. flour
3 T. butter, diced
1 c. chopped pecans

Prepare sweet potatoes - peel and cube sweet potatoes and place in a large saucepan. Cover with water and boil until tender, about 15-20 minutes. Drain and mash. (This can be done ahead of time! Dont stress if it doesnt measure exactly 3 cups) Allow to cool slightly before continuing.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl (or in the pot/pan you used to cook the sweet potatoes), combine eggs, sweet potatoes, white sugar, salt, milk, 3 T. melted butter, and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly combined. Place in an 8x8 baking dish.

In a medium bowl, combine brown sugar, flour, and chopped pecans. Add remaining 3 T. butter and rub into mixture until only small pieces remain. Sprinkle over the sweet potato mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, until nicely browned.

Source: My mother-in-law, Debbie Nowland

Friday, February 28, 2014

Short and Sweet

There isnt enough time today to do a recap of yesterday and night, so Ive just posted my favorite picture from the festivities. This short, sweet, and spicy cocktail was from Chef Sammy D. at the restaurant First in the Venetian. Sammy was very cool, and in addition to serving up a bunch of delicious appetizers, he mixed up a batch of "spicy Vegas sunrises" - a blood orange and jalapeno vodka cocktail that I thoroughly enjoyed. Stay tuned for a proper recap soon.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Lemon Sweet Pepper Marinaded Chicken

I can highly recommend trying one of the Bart Smokehouse Barbeque Rubs, there are five marinade rubs which reflect the diverse flavours of barbecue traditions from around the world:

• Smokey Chipotle Marinade Rub: a classic Tex/Mex chipotle chilli gives a smokey flavour

• Mediterranean Marinade Rub: traditional Mediterranean herbs basil, oregano, parsley and rosemary – blended with tomato and a fresh lemon finish

• Lemon & Sweet Pepper Marinade Rub: inspired by Australia, red and green peppers give this rub a great colour and the lemon oil provides an intense taste

• New York Steak Marinade Rub: A classic deli blend of mustard, garlic and pepper

• Tandoori Marinade Rub: tamarind as a main ingredient adds depth of flavour which blends with chilli to create a traditional indian flavour

Plus, as marinades can be messy to apply, the rubs come with a special “marinade bag” to make the whole process cleaner, easier, quicker. No sticky fingers, no washing hands every five minutes. Just delicious authentic flavour.

Simply place the meat or fish in the bag with your chosen Bart® marinade, hold the bag closed and shake gently to spread the ingredients around. For depth of flavour, leave in the fridge for an hour or more before grilling. And, just in case it’s raining, the bag can also be used in the oven for slow cooking, retaining the moisture. As I dont do barbeques, I chose the alternative slow cooking.

I loved the fact that all you need to do is rub the spice mix on your meat, although I brushed my chicken with olive oil first, the pop it the roasting bag which is provided in the box and leave it to marinade. You can then either remove the meat from the bag and barbeque or cook as you would normally roast your meat or you can do what I did, and roast it in the bag.

It was so simple, the roasting tin didnt need soaking and scrubbing and I used my Oxo Good Grips Gravy Separator to separate the fat from the juices then turned them into delicious gravy. The chicken was cooked with the Lemon and Sweet Pepper Rub and had a lovely light lemony flavour. The roasting bag made sure the meat was kept moist and it was very tender. The left over meat was also really good with salad the next day.

See another review and recipe with Lemon and Sweet Pepper Marinade at Lavender and Lovage

I also tried the Smoky Chipotle Rub on some lamb steaks.

I cooked this in the roasting bag after marinading for about two hours, the meat was very tender and although the rub is quite spicy it didnt overwhelm the flavour of the lamb.

The full range is available at Ocado from the end of June and a selection of the rubs will be instore at all Waitrose branches from 2nd June. They will also be available through independents, and delicatessens around the country. Or buy online at www.bart-ingredients.co.uk

from July. The rubs are priced at £1.49, there are alos sauces at £2.99 and spice mills at £3.99.

I was provided with the Barbeque Rubs, I was not paid for this review and all opinions are my own.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Custard Buns Sweet Buns

When I was baking Pizza was left with some yeast mixture. Then I thought to experiment with it.

Immediately I remembered Deepas (Hamaree Rasoi) Dry fenugreek buns and bumped into her blog to find the basic recipe for buns. Her recipe was the best. I took the basic ingredients form it and prepared these buns they turned out superb. Here comes the recipe for custard Buns/ Sweet Buns.

Ingredients:

All purpose flour/Maida- 3cups

Custard Powder-3ts

Sugar-3ts

Salt-1/4ts

Butter-1/4cup

Dry active Yeast- 1ts

Olive oil-1ts

Milk -3/4cup

Sesame seeds-few

Directions:

Take all purpose flour in a mixing bowl and add sugar + Custard Powder + Salt and mix well.
Now heat the milk to luke-warm( when you dip, it should not hurt your finger), add dry active yeast and wait for 20min.
Pour this yeast mixture and butter onto the flour and mix them till they blend very well. Now knead to form a soft dough.

Transfer this dough to a greased bowl and spread some oil on the top of the dough.

Rest this dough for about 1hr by covering with damp cloth.
Now you will see the dough doubles in size. Punch the dough and knead it.
Rest this dough for an another 10min.
Mean while pre-heat the oven to 350F or 180C.
Now knead the dough again, and divide the dough into 8 equal parts.
Transfer them on to a greased baking tray, press some sesame seeds on top of each dough-let and brush with some olive oil.
Bake them for about 10-15min or until they turn golden brown.
After removing the buns from the oven, brush them with butter/ olive oil for extra shine.
Serve them with tea.
Here deepa also suggested one wonderful tip to keep the buns soft & just like you find in restaurants cover them with damp cloth.

I would like to thank Deepa for the basic recipe. Hope you all like my recipe. Keep visiting my blog for more recipes :)

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Sweet Potato Cornbread A Gluten Free Favorite

Scrumptious sweet potato cornbread- and it's gluten-free.

It's all about taste. Good taste and bad taste. You want the good first? This recipe for sweet potato cornbread. It rocks. Seriously. The bad? Yesterday we decided to go to the movies with Joey and Will (those two totally fab rockin' guacamole styling hunks). We chose The Departed, Scorsese's new flick (it's been garnering rave reviews); and met at the theater.

Well, Babycakes, in all gut wrenching honesty (I won’t speak for the three men who apparently liked it more than I did) I could barely sit through it. I felt as if I was being beat up. Run over by a Zamboni. I mean how much misogyny and homophobia and execution-style murders can a tenderhearted sensory sensitive girl like me take?

Not this much it turns out.

Read more + get the recipe >>