Cardamom Shortbread Recipe

Cardamom Shortbread 

These cookies are divine, buttery, aromatic, delicate and warming.

Regular plain shortbread is fantastic, shortbread with cardamom is special. Having a pile of cardamom cookies is a good way to test your will power.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened

½ cup sugar

2 cups flour

¼ cup corn flour

6 cardamom pods, freshly ground or crushed (or use more, or less)

Directions

1.      Cream butter and sugar until the mixture is smooth

2.      Add flour, corn flour and cardamom and mix until well incorporated

3.      Roll out the dough between sheets of grease proof paper until the dough is ½ cm thick. Let it chill in a refrigerator for 20 minutes. Bake at 160°C/310°F until golden, about 15-20 minutes

Cardamom Shortbread 

Chicken Kelaguen Recipe

Chicken kelaguen

If you have not heard of chicken kelaguen, and cannot guess what it is and where it comes from, don’t be disappointed. I did not know also until I ‘ran into it’ by chance.

It happened in Hagåtña, the capital of Guam, in the Northern Pacific. I was on my way to see a famous monument called Latte of Freedom.

 

Source: The Guam Guide

The monument is in the shape of a very large cup. As you can see, you cannot really drink latte from it. Neither can you fill it up with latte and swim in it. But you can take pictures of it (which I didn't do). Anyway, on my way there I asked a girl for directions. She was not from the area so she did not know where the latte was. She was standing at the entrance to a building, selling local food. There were two piles of plastic containers, one contained chicken, the other contained shrimp. Both were finely diced, came with a tortilla and looked bland and boring. She was nice and friendly, so I bought the chicken version.

I then walked to Latte of Freedom but decided not to pay the entry fee required. Waste of money I thought since all you get is a view. I sat by the seawall to eat my chicken dish. To call it bland and boring would be an insult. It was the complete opposite, tasted fresh and packed with flavour. A really simple but delicious dish. The girl had left when I got back so I got this recipe from the internet.

Recipe source: http://www.usaguam.com/family-recipes.php

Ingredients

10 chicken thighs (boneless and skinless)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 green onion, finely chopped

5 hot pepper (donne' sali or thai peppers)

1 cup freshly grated coconut

Juice from six medium lemons

Lemon flavored powder (if you got it, I didn’t use it)

Salt and black pepper to taste

Method

1.   Cook the chicken (broil, pan fry, bake or cook any other way). No seasoning is needed.

2.   Once chicken is cooled, finely dice it.

3. Place in a bowl, add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly. Add more seasoning, lemon or peppers if you want

Chicken kelaguen

Souvas with Mushroom Sauce Recipe

Suovas with Mushroom Sauce

Suovas is the Sami word for "smoked". And Sami’s are people who live in the Artic region, in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia.

Souvas also refers to salted smoked reindeer meat. It is one of the most delicious meats I have eaten. The flavor is intense, gamey and smoky. Reindeer meat is quite lean but extremely tender when thinly sliced and cooked quickly.

Here is what the meat looks like (photo source:  Svantes)

Since the meat is gamey, mushrooms complement it very well. Generally Suovas is served with mashed potatoes but I opted for rice, because I was a bit lazy to make mashed potatoes. As you can imagine, Suovas and rice is not common in the Arctic.

Adopted from: Svantes

Ingredients

400 gram Suovas, thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped

120 gram mushrooms

1 tablespoon light soja

2 tablespoons cream

2 cloves garlic, minced

3-5 crushed juniper berries

Crushed black pepper

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 tablespoon butter

Salt

Method

1.      Heat butter in a pan over medium high heat

2.      Add onions, mushrooms and garlic and cook until onions start to brown. Set aside

3.      Add Suovas to the pan and cook until just done. This will take a few minutes only. Add more butter if necessary.

4.      Add onions, mushrooms and the rest of the ingredients to the pan and warm through. Add salt to taste

Suovas with Mushroom Sauce

West Ukrainian Kvarg Cheese Cake Recipe

West Ukrainian Cheese Cake

If there was a ‘worlds ugliest cake’ competition, this will win, hands down.  Photos like this shouldn't even be allowed on the internet. I guess you would never guess that this is a cheesecake. It looks more like something that came from outer space. But it tastes good.

The recipe uses quark instead of cream cheese. The quark I used had 0.3% fat, so it’s a relatively low fat dessert. It also uses semolina instead of regular flour. You can see the semolina grains in the photo below.

West Ukrainian Cheese Cake

Source: Enjoy Your Cooking

Ingredients

680 grams (1½ lb) quark (fresh farmers cheese)

4 eggs, separated

100 grams (3½ oz) of butter, melted

¾ cup of sugar

2 tablespoons semolina

Juice of half a small lemon

½ teaspoon of vanilla sugar

Ingredients

1.      Heat oven to 190°C/375°F

2.      Beat egg whites until it doubles in volume. Slowly add half of the sugar and keep beating the egg whites until sugar has dissolved.

3.      In a separate bowl mix together egg yolks and the rest of the sugar until the sugar has dissolved

4.      Add quark to the egg yolk mixture and mix well.

5.      Add the rest of the ingredients except the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture and mix well.

6.      Fold in the egg white mixture and add to a greased baking pan

7.      Bake at 190°C/375°F for 15 minutes

8.      Reduce the temperature to 175°C/350°F and bake for a further 45 minutes

9.      Turn the heat off and let cake cool down till room temperature inside the oven. Don’t open the oven. Once cooled, remove cake from the baking pan and refrigerate.

Jardaloo ma Murghi (Chicken in Apricots) Recipe

 Jardaloo ma murghi

I tried to find the origin of jardaloo ma murghi (murgi) and for once the ever reliable Wiki does not have an entry. Based on what I read from a few sites, I guess this is a Persian dish but available in India, or an Indian dish with Persian origins. Adding curry to dried apricots sounds like fusion. 

Curried apricots sounds unappealing but the dish is really delicious. Apricots add slight sweetness, its not overly sweet.

The recipe below suggests making masala paste. I took a short cut and substituted with curry powder.

 Jardaloo ma murghi

Source: Good Food Channel

Ingredients

200 g dried apricots

250 ml water

4 tbsp vegetable oil

2 cinnamon sticks, 2.5cm long

2 medium onions, chopped

2 tbsp ginger- garlic paste

600 g chicken, boned and diced

1 pinches salt

4 medium tomatoes, chopped

2 tbsp coriander, chopped

For the masala paste (or skip this and use curry powder)

8 large dried chillies

1.5 tsp cumin seeds

1.5 tsp coriander seeds

2.5 cm cinnamon sticks

green cardamom

5 cloves

Directions

1.      Soak the apricots overnight in water until swollen and soft. Remove the stones if you like 

2.      To make the masala paste, grind all the masala paste ingredients with as little water as possible to make a thick paste.

3.      Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy-based pan and add the cinnamon sticks. When absorbed and puffed a bit, approximately one and a half minutes, add the onions and fry until browned, stirring often, around 5-10 minutes.

4.      When the onions are browned, add the garlic and ginger paste, masala and fry, stirring often, until the oil, which has been absorbed, is released slowly around the edges of the combined masala and onions.

5.      Add the chicken and salt, and fry for 4-5 minutes or until half done.

6.      Add the chopped tomatoes and the soaked apricots (together with any soaking water), mix well, cover and simmer until the chicken is done. If the sauce is too thin, uncover and cook until it reaches the desired consistency

7.      Blend in the chopped coriander and check the seasoning.

 Jardaloo ma murghi

Kung Pao Pork Recipe

Kung Pao Pork 

Traditionally chicken is used to make Kung Pao but there is nothing wrong in using pork. Pork is closer to chicken compared with other meats such as lamb, beef or dog. 

Little bit of history. According to Wikipedia Kung Pao chicken, also known as Gong Bao chicken, is believed to be named after Ding Baozhen, a late Qing Dynasty official, a one-time governor of Sichuan. His title was Gong Bao, hence Gong Bao chicken. 

Kung Pao pork may sound complex but it is quite easy to prepare. The list of ingredients includes ‘exotic’ items such as chinkiang vinegar. Don’t be alarmed, you can easily substitute with everyday ingredients to get the desired sweet, sour, salty and spicy combination. The most important ingredient is Sichuan peppercorns. There is no substitute that I am aware of. Of course you can make the dish without it but it will not be the same. The American version does not use Sichuan peppercorns since it was illegal to import it from 1968 until 2005. 

Don’t let the long list of ingredients discourage you. When I see recipes with many ingredients I usually try to avoid it. I try to stick with recipes that have single digit number of ingredients but this one has about 20 items, though some of them are repeated. When you take a closer look, it is not complex. You first mix all the marinade ingredients and that takes care of 5 items. You mix and set aside the sauce ingredients and that takes care of a further 7 items. You are then left with just a few items. Once you make the sauce and marinade mix, the rest of the dish is like preparing a simple stirfry. If you want you can exclude all the marinade ingredients and cook the pork without marinating it. I think the difference will not be much. It is probably best to deep fry the pork in this case.

Recipe adopted from With a Glass. The serving size is two.

Ingredients

About 160-200 grams pork, diced into 1½ cm cubes (or enough pork for two persons, any cut of pork will do)

5 spring onions (white parts) cut into 1½ cm pieces

3 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced

1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh ginger

2 tablespoons oil

Minimum 10 dried Sichuan chilies or any chili will do

1 teaspoon Sichuan peppercorns

2-3 tablespoons peanuts or cashew nuts, roasted (or preferably raw nuts deep fried in oil)

Marinade

2 teaspoons light soy sauce

1 teaspoon Shaoxing wine (or white wine)

1½ teaspoon corn starch

1 tablespoon water

Sauce

3 teaspoons sugar

¾ teaspoon corn starch

1 teaspoon dark soy sauce

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

3 teaspoons Chinkiang vinegar (substitute with other vinegars such as red wine/red rice/balsamic/apple cider)

1 teaspoon sesame oil

3 tablespoons chicken stock or water

Directions

1.      Mix all the marinade ingredients in a bowl, add pork and let it marinade for at least 30 minutes

2.      In a separate bowl mix all the sauce ingredients 

3.      Heat oil in a wok over high heat, add chilies and Sichuan peppercorns and cook until crispy and aromatic, but not burnt

4.      Add pork and cook until almost done, then add ginger, garlic and spring onions and cook until pork is done

5.      Add the sauce to the wok, stirring continuously.

6.      When sauce becomes thick, add the peanuts or cashew nuts and remove from heat. Kung Pao Pork is now ready to wok and roll

Kung Pao Pork