July 31, 2011

KY cooks – Beef Stew Recipe with Pressure Cooker

I’ve always love beef stew, a hearty dish with super tender beef in thick and flavorful broth, and with the various vegetable in it, a full and balanced meal all by itself.

ingredients for beef stew

I always thought making a pot of mean beef stew is an exercise in patience, but after doing a bit of research, I found out you can actually make a perfect bowl of beef stew in less than 30 minutes, including time for preparation – with the help of a pressure cooker.

pan fry the beef till brown, then add water and rosemary

The ingredients (this is good for 4 bowls)

• 4-500 gram beef (lower quality is fine, I love those with some tendon and fat attached)
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 4-5 sticks of celery
• 2 onions
• 3 carrots
• 2 potato
• 1 table spoon rosemary (dried is fine)
• 1.5 table spoon salt
• 1 tea spoon black pepper
• 2 table spoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 table spoon cooking oil
• 1 table spoon flour

chopped up vegetables and put in pressure cooker for another 8 minutes

Here’s the instructions, pressure cooker is used twice to ensure the beef gets to it’s super tender consistency while keeping the vegetable not overly cooked

• heat up some oil in the pressure cooker, then add garlic, and fry beef till all sides are brown
• add Worcestershire sauce, 3 cups of water, pepper, and rosemary
• bring to boil, cover the pressure cooker and cook for 15 minutes in high pressure
• in the mean time, chop up all vegetable and potato to bite size chunks
• release pressure (by running cold water over the pressure cooker in the sink), then add vegetable to the pot
• bring to boil and cook for another 8 minutes in high pressure
• add salt
• slowly add up to a table spoon of flour while stirring to make the broth thicker
• serve while hot

 

a bowl of hearty stew with super tender beef

The result is a pot of beef stew that is prepared in less than 30 minutes but with beef so tender it almost melt in your mouth. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, you’ll have to boil the stew for at least 3-4 hours to get the same result. Alternatively, use a slow cooker.

April 20, 2011

KY cooks – Lamb Chop with Asparagus & Baked Tomato

We bought some lamb chops from Jaya Grocer about a week back and really didn’t know what to do with it at first. A bit of research on the internet tells me that garlic, mustard, pepper and rosemary makes good marinate for lamb, so I decided to use them all for this recipe.

I added asparagus and tomato to serve as sides to compliment the savory taste of lamb with the freshness of asparagus and sweet/sour taste from tomato. As an added bonus, they make the dish looks better with added colors.

While many are not as familiar with lamb, this is a surprisingly simple dish to prepare, and takes only half an hour to serve.

lamb chop with tomato and asparagus on the side

This is a three part dish, the lamb, asparagus, and tomato. Luckily all three of them are very simple, and the only juggling act is to time each dish properly so you get to serve them all on the same time.

Lets start with the lamb.

Ingredients:

• lamb shoulder (I made 5 pieces), I got them frozen from Jaya Grocer
• 1 bulb of garlic, finely chopped
• 2 table spoon French mustard
• black pepper
• rosemary
• a teaspoon of butter, and a bit of cooking oil

marinate lamb chop with mustard, pepper, rosemary, and garlic

Instructions:

• marinate the lamb with all ingredients in a zip locked bag for at least an hour in the fridge, over night if possible
• preheat oven to 200 celcius
• pan fry each side of the lamb in medium heat for 1-2 minutes, use minimal cooking oil, or butter
• put the lamb in the oven for a further 10-15 minutes (depending on how well cooked you want the lamb to be, I also add a bit of butter to the aluminum foil)
• remove from oven and let the lamb chop rest for about 3-5 minutes before serving

Total time not including marinate takes not more than 20 minutes or so. If you don’t pan fry the lamb in advance, baking process should be between 30-40 minutes. Of course, you can also use a grill for this.

lamb chop and baked tomato

The lamb chop will not be complete without side dishes, so here’s how you do the tomato!

• remove the core of tomato
• add half a teaspoon of sugar (brown sugar if available), 1 clove, and a teaspoon of vinegar into the core
• bake in oven at 200 Celsius for 30 minutes

Haze, Vinn, and KY

Last but not least, the asparagus

• remove wooden end of asparagus, and shave off the bottom with a vegetable peeler if the skin’s a bit tough
• add a teaspoon of butter and salt to the water in you steamer
• steam asparagus for 7-8 minutes
• sprinkle some salt before serving

To get everything ready at the same time, the timeline for this should be something like this:

• 0 min: bake tomato
• 10 min: start pan frying lamb on both sides
• 15 min: put lamb in oven
• 22 min: start steaming asparagus
• 25 min: remove lamb from oven
• 30 min: serve everything!

Give it a try, this is really much easier than the dish suggests. For more cooking recipes on this blog, click here! Now what should I cook next.. ermmm.