Mulled Wine
Posted on December 12, 2018
| 2 minutes
| 287 words
| Stephen
A robust mulled wine for cold winter evenings in the run up to Christmas. Make sure all your spices are fresh and remember to keep the pot covered as much as possible to avoid losing the nutritious alcohol. This recipe yields about 1.1 litres. Multiply the recipe up if required (Recommended.)
Ingredients 750 ml robust red wine, merlot, malbec, pinotage 37.5 ml vodka 37.5 ml gin 37.5 ml cointreau 5 ml orange bitters (10 splashes) 5 Oranges 5 (About 300 ml of juice) 0.
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Creating the Perfect Burger
Posted on August 17, 2018
| 11 minutes
| 2301 words
| Stephen
Meat To make perfect burgers your meat has to be right. It needs about 30% fat. If you are cooking sous vide as described below, you could get away with 20% because of the reduced cooking temperature.
Therein lies the problem though, any beef mince you buy in a supermarket is going to have a maximum of 10% fat, sometimes 5%, and may be labelled ‘Lean Mince’. This will work fine in a Bolognese sauce or chilli, but it won’t work for burgers.
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Classic Sweet and Sour Sauce
Posted on August 10, 2018
| 2 minutes
| 253 words
| Stephen
This wonderfully piquant sauce is a healthy version of the classic Chinese staple sweet and sour sauce. It is delicious with crispy baked chicken strips, rice and noodles. Alternatively chill and serve as a dipping sauce.
500/600 g tin of pineapple chunks or rings 400 ml vegetable stock 400 ml white wine vinegar 300 ml orange juice 100 ml soy sauce 200 g tomato purée 2 red or yellow peppers 1 tablespoon yeast extract (Optional source of glutamate) Half teaspoon five spice powder 3 tablespoons cornflour
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Home Carbonation Rig
Posted on August 5, 2018
| 11 minutes
| 2217 words
| Stephen
Carbonation in beverages happens by two major means. Champagne, Cava and other beverages using the name Champagne, such as Soviet Champagne and California Champagne undergo two fermentations. In the first fermentation in a vat the yeast present in the grape juice creates alcohol but the resulting CO2 byproduct is allowed to disperse into the air. Then the beverage is bottled and tightly corked and a second fermentation (Bottle fermentation) creates more CO2 that is now trapped in the bottle.
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Sweet Relish
Posted on July 6, 2018
| 3 minutes
| 441 words
| Stephen
This delicious relish has lots of apple and a medium-sweet flavour and a warm aroma of cloves. Serve it on fried bread, full Irish breakfast, over hash browns and fried eggs, on burgers with cheese and bacon, on toast with home cooked ham or with a cheeseboard and oat crackers. This recipe makes about 2 kilogrammes so you won’t be stuck for relish for some time. If you follow the pasteurisation step it will keep, frozen for a year or in the fridge for a few months until opened.
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Slow Cooker Creamed Rice
Posted on June 10, 2018
| 1 minutes
| 177 words
| Stephen
A delicious and economical dish of creamed rice you can make easily in your slow cooker.2 litres of milk 225 g long grain rice 20 g of Splenda (About 5 tablespoons) 30 g butter 1/2 teaspoon of Allspice and Cinnamon 2 tablespoons of vanilla essence 2 eggs
Mix all ingredients except the eggs together in a slow cooker (3.5 litre cooker or bigger is recommended.)
Cover and cook on high for 3 hours.
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Guinness Stew
Posted on June 2, 2018
| 6 minutes
| 1106 words
| Stephen
This stew is a modern take on the classic Dublin Guinness Stew with a few surprise ingredients to give it a punch.
Ingredients 1 Litre of Guinness (Draught or Stout) at room temperature 1.5 to 2 Kilogrammes of inexpensive stewing beef 4 Large Onions (1 kilogramme) 2 Stalks of Celery Entire Bulb of Garlic 500 g Whole Mushrooms 4 Large Carrots (600 - 700 grammes) 100 g Oyster Sauce (About 3 Tablespoons) 3 g Crushed Dried Chillies (1 Teaspoon); (Cayenne pepper could be substituted)
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Cheesecake Sousvide
Posted on May 19, 2018
| 5 minutes
| 1032 words
| Stephen
This cheesecake is delicious, light, delicately flavoured and almost certainly won’t break during cooking. Because the sousvide bath will not overheat any part of the cake there will be no Maillard reaction and no browning, drying or unwanted textures.
You can also get creative with toppings and because nothing will go over 80 degrees celsius there is lots of scope for adding chocolate or other ingredients into the batter.
The ingredients listed give a mild lemon flavour and a hint of vanilla, but this is also a great place to use a small amount of tincture of star anise or purée of passionfruit (Seeds removed.
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