Thursday, June 17, 2010

Chinese Five Spice Rice

(This isn't actually my picture but for the sake of getting people's taste buds working I had to include one! I will take a photo of the below recipe and replace the photo ASAP!)

Cooking time ~ 40 minutes
Serves ~ 4 serves

This has a lot of ingredients and makes huge serves, but is perfect to keep for leftovers during the week, just reheat in the wok with a tiny amount of hot water stirred through while reheating if it dries out a little too much.

You will need:
1. large Wok with a lid or cover (I use an electric wok) or very large pan with lid.
2. medium saucepan

INGREDIENTS
  • 2 cups brown rice (brown rice is best for this dish as the nutty flavour is beautiful with the five spice)
  • 350g plain tofu - cubed or even crumbled if you prefer (Tempeh can be used too, or leave out tofu altogether is you like))
  • 3-4 cloves garlic - minced
  • 2cm piece ginger - peeled and minced or very finely diced
  • 4 shallots (scallions) - cut into 1cm lengths
  • 1 cup shredded red cabbage or wombok
  • 1 red onion - diced
  • 1 small zucchini - diced
  • 1 small carrot - diced
  • 1/2 small red capsicum - diced
  • 1 cup broccoli - in small florets
  • 1 cup cauliflower - in small florets
  • Sesame or peanut oil
  • Light soy sauce
  • Rice wine vinegar
  • Chinese Five Spice powder
  • 270ml tin coconut milk (low fat if you like)
  • 1x vegetable stock cube.
  • Fresh coriander

DIRECTIONS
1. Prepare tofu, garlic, ginger and red onion

2. Put rice on to cook for 20 minutes with 4 cups water and the stock cube.

3. While rice is cooking, in hot wok fry up tofu in 1 tablespoon on the oil (more if your wok is sticky) then when tofu nicely browned add onion, garlic and ginger.

4. Lower heat in wok and chop all veggies.

5. Heat wok to high heat again and add veggies (BUT NOT CABBAGE, add at step 9), stir fry using a little more oil if you need, then de-glaze the wok with a few splashes of the vinegar and soy sauce to lift any stuck bits from the wok. Don't over cook your veggies as they will soften when the rice is added and you don't want them soggy.

6. Give rice a stir and then pour in tin of coconut milk, mix well. Rice should now have been cooking about 20 minutes and be about 3/4 cooked.

7. Add rice and coconut milk mixture to the wok and mix well through the veggie and tofu mix. There should still be enough liquid in the rice to have the rice cook the remainder risotto style. If it's too dry add some hot water.

8. Add soy sauce and Chinese Five Spice to taste, I usually use about 3-4 table spoons soy sauce and 3 tablespoons of Five Spice, but always adjust to taste, as I don't like too much soy sauce, and the stock cube already makes this dish quite salty.

9. Add cabbage now, then cover and let rice finish cooking for 10 minutes approximately. If your rice is cooked and there is still liquid, increase heat and stir for a few minutes to evaporate excess liquid, it should be dryer than risotto, not too soggy, but not dry like fried rice. Garnish with fresh coriander.

Serve in large Asian-style bowls

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Banana Bread


This is an adjusted recipe from the recipe used for muffins, I've played with this bread recipe so that it has a little less liquid component, to help it not be soggy and cook well through, but it's still beautiful moist bread, and is almost cake like.

Depending on the size of the loaf you make (this is a big recipe!) and the oven you use, cooking times can vary greatly, err on the side of lower temp and longer bake time however, to get it evenly cooked.

Ingredients


DRY
3 cups wholemeal plain flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or dates

WET
4 large very ripe bananas, mashed well (or freeze ripe bananas, then when they thaw they turn very runny, perfect!)
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup soy milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 170 C.
Spray baking tin/s with some canola oil spray or line with baking sheet.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients.
Bananas should be pretty smooth but leave a couple of lumps.
Pour wet ingredients into dry and combine until dry ingredients are just moistened.
Pour in to large bread tin (or 2 small loaf tins) and bake for 90 minutes (bake time depends on oven so be sure to monitor)
Cool in tin for 10 minutes then on baking rack.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Tofu Scramble & Tempeh Crumble

Serve on grilled or toasted sourdough
Tempeh Crumble and tomato
Tofu Scramble on Sourdough






Scramble cooking





I really must post my own tofu scrambled recipe, once I get around to actually writing down how I make it!!

But here is a recipe to start from, then it's up to you what you include.....I add savoury yeast flakes, some light soy sauce and tahini or tomato sauce, the tahini gives it a nice creamy taste. Serve on your fave bread, toast or sourdough.

Scramble Tofu according to the PPK