Gone walkabout...

Back in a while...

Simma lugnt!

Food and drink from Cuba

These are some pictures from Cuba that I have meant to post for quite some time. It's just pictures of various dinners etc from my holiday to Cuba.

Recipe - Japanese Inspired Pork Meatballs

This is what I cooked last night. The Japanese inspiration must be the soy sauce and the teriyaki marinade. Since I was going to use these in a bento just put them one and one on a tray. You could always put them on skewers to sex things up a bit.

Serve with rice and some kind of dipping sauce, Sweet Thai Chilli Sauce for example.

Japanese Inspired Pork Meatballs - makes about 20

Ingredients
250g pork mince
3 -5 garlic cloves, chopped
1 medium egg
A couple of splashes of soy sauce
A couple of splashes of teriyaki marinade
Bread crumbs

Method
Preheat the grill (or broiler for our American friends).

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl until well mixed. Roll the mince mix into small meatballs. It makes it easier if you wet your hands with water.

Put the meatballs onto a baking tray or similar and put it under the grill. Let the meatballs get a nice and brown colour and then turn them over to the other side and repeat.

Once nicely browned and cooked through they are ready to eat.

Enjoy!

Rice Cooker

No, I haven't bought a Japanese motorbike ; ) What I got is a proper 5 cup Zojirushi rice cooker from Mount Fuji. Complete with a very non-masculine flower decor. :) I used it for the first time last night and I must say that I'm well impressed with the result.

I followed all the rules and rinsed and re-rinsed the rice until the water was clear and then I put it in the rice cooker and let it do its magic.

Now I must learn (look up/find a demo of) how to stir in the sushi vinegar properly as well as get the fanning going.

I've got pictures of the rice cooker in action, as well as the dish I cooked last night. They'll be posted later tonight hopefully. There was a bit of turbulence last night including no sleep so things are lagging a bit.

But hey ho, onwards and upwards!

Swedish style Bento again

This time I went for some Janssons Temptation in the main box. The three smaller boxes contains of a deviled egg, carrot sticks and some Derby Sage cheese.

I also got a Activia Kiwi Yoghurt and a Yoggi Strawberry/Lime drink. Tomorrows treat is a lemon filled licorice stick.

Recipe - Janssons Temptation

This is a classic Swedish dish that can be enjoyed hot or cold. It's a given on any self respecting Christmas smorgasbord. Lots of people react to the anchovies but they 'disappear' in the dish and don't get noticed at all.

Janssons Temptation (serves 4 or so)

Ingredients
40g butter plus some extra for greasing
14 anchovy fillets
600 - 800g potatoes, grated or made into matchsticks
2 - 3 onions, sliced
2 - 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
Pepper
400 - 600 ml single cream

Method
Preheat the oven to 200c/400f/Gas Mark 6. Generously grease a ovensafe dish with butter. Cut each anchovy fillet into four or more pieces.

Layer the potatoes, onions, garlic and anchovies in the dish, ending with a layer of potatoes. Make sure to season each layer with pepper. Pour half of the cream over the top.

Bake in the preheated oven for 35 - 40 minutes, our until the potatoes are just colored. Then pour over the remaining cream and add the butter on top. Bake for a further 20 - 25 minutes, or until the topping is golden and tender.

Layering...

All done and ready to go in to the oven

Half way there, more cream and butter added

Fully cooked

Plated, together with some Swedish meatballs. Delicious!

Recipe for disaster

Recipe for disaster

1 televised footie match, Arsenal v Chelsea
1 pub serving Cold Guinness
1 good friend
1 recently single Mikey
1 good win from Arsenal

Mix all of this and you'll get a disaster. Hence no cooking last night and no bento to report.

Will better myself for tomorrow. I promise. :) I'm thinking of making a classic Swedish dish for dinner, as well as using the leftovers for a bento.

Another Bento 'rule'

The 4-3-2-1 rule: 4 parts rice, 3 parts protein, 2 parts vegetable, and 1 part "treat" (Usually either pickled vegetables or something sweet.)

Yet another rule to break at will! ;)

Japanese Beef and Green Bean Roll Bento

The top tier consists of some cut pieces of the Japanese Beef and Green Bean Rolls that I made earlier which you can find the recipe for below. There are also some silver skin onions and carrot sticks together with the beef.

The lower tier has some rice, which has a circle of dried Goji berries to make it look like a Japanese flag. Which it doesn't do very much. ;) The strange blob to the right is scrambled egg. The scrambled egg is flavoured with some soy sauce, ground pepper and Tabasco.

Japanese Beef and Green Bean Rolls

To make these beef and green bean rolls you need some thin steaks. Since I didn't have that I used some sandwich steaks. I put them between some sheets of cling film and beat the shit out of them with my meat mallet.

I steamed some green beans and then I cut the steaks into smaller pieces, put the green beans onto these and rolled them tightly together.

Once they all were done I marinated the rolls in Teriyaki marinade for about an hour.

Once marinated I fried them on a medium heat until browned and cooked through.

One thing I'll change for next time is that I'll use some kitchen string to tie them up with so they don't unroll when I fry them.

Being clubbered...

Marinating...

Frying away...

Together with some rice in a bowl - dinner!