Around the World

This week was school holidays so Phoebe cooked a couple of nights. She made a great fettucine with ragu and later in the week Tex Mex chicken wraps. Always a great favourite at our table when the young people were younger. This was based on an Annabel Langbein recipe from Great Food, Busy Lives but in her latest edition she has tampered with it and we preferred the original. This is how I do it - feel free to correct me if it's not how you remember it. Brown thinly sliced chicken breast in batches and put aside. A note on quantities - I usually allow 120g meat per person, and adjust everything else in proportion. So I am giving quantities for about 500g. Soften a finely chopped onion in the pan with a squirt of tomato paste. Add chopped garlic (or grated for those of you who have a plate), & 1tbsp ground cumin. Mix in 1/4 cup sweet chilli sauce, 1 generous cup of tomato sauce (the one you made last week), a drained tin of kidney beans & return the chicken to the pan. Simmer 5 mins or so. Prepare your accompaniments & warm some corn tortillas according to the instructions on the packet. To serve lay a warmed tortilla on a plate, dollop on some of the chicken mixture - you don't want it too runny, aim for gloopy. Top with a selection of salad items such as shredded lettuce, grated carrot, finely sliced capsicum, then grate on a generous pile of cheese and a dollop of sour cream. To wrap, fold up from the bottom and then fold over from left & right. There was always a bit of a competition to eat the whole tortilla without dripping any sauce on the plate. To achieve this it was sometimes necessary to hold your own tortilla over someone else's plate and on one memorable occasion Harriet dripped in the dish of grated cheese. I believe she was disqualified by her siblings.

Still on the Mexican theme, we had my father's recipe for chilli on Friday. You can make a huge quantity & freeze the leftovers. This has a number of spices but is worth the effort.
In large heavy pot, soften 2 finely chopped onions & 4-5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped. Add 1 kg mince & brown. Then add all the spices:

1 tbsp [sic] chilli powder - adjust to taste, Dad liked his chilli hot

2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp cayenne

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp turmeric

1/4 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp cardamom

stir and cook for 1 minute.
Then add:

400g tin chopped tomatoes or equivalent of tomato sauce

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 tbsp treacle

2 cups beef stock

2 tbsp white vinegar

salt & pepper

and bring to the boil. Simmer slowly with lid off stirring occasionally for 1 1/2 hours until thick and soupy. Tip in 1-2 drained tins of kidney beans & squeeze in a little lemon juice at end to thicken. Serve on rice topped with grated cheese, and a dollop of sour cream. I like to add grated carrot too.

A couple of years ago I discovered some packaged spice mixes put out by a South African company called Nice 'n Spicy. It's basically cook by numbers & they are really interesting dishes - the original fusion cooking such as Nasi Goreng or Vindaloo. On Saturday I made Denningvleis which is a Cape Malay dish. These dishes are really easy to do & I would recommend if you don't keep a large range of spices in your cupboard, or you are going away for the weekend and don't want to take the contents of the spice cupboard. They are really delicious. This one may have been my favourite. We served with yellow rice, which I made by adding 1 tsp turmeric, a cinnamon stick & a bruised cardamom pod, and a selection of chutneys. I steamed carrots & broccoli from the garden in the top of the pot at the end.

And finally Ki Si Ming. Did you have this when you were growing up? Apparently you need to be my age to have heard of it. My mother used to make this on a Monday night and it was not my favourite. It really is very odd with its combination of both rice and noodles with mince. I haven't been able to discover its origins although I know who gave it to my mother. Apparently it occurs in many of those local ladies' group cook books from the 60's. But I am quite sure it has never been seen in China and it has been identified on a UK website as a dish from NZ. I'm intrigued by the addition of spaghetti and chips to the rice and noodles! I tried a modern take on the recipe sticking with the one pot method & this is what I came up with.

Saute 1 small onion and about 1 tsp grated ginger. Then brown 500g diced or coarsely ground pork. Add a good dollop of sweet chilli sauce and about 1/2 cup long grain rice with 2 sliced spring onions & 1/4 thinly sliced red capsicum. (I would have included finely sliced celery from the original if I had had it). Add 1 cup chicken stock, cover & simmer gently until rice is almost done. Then add about 1/3 of a small cabbage finely sliced in long shreds. Just sit on the top, season with salt & pepper and a few small knobs of butter dotted about. Cover again and simmer until the rice is cooked and the cabbage wilted how you like it. I like a bit of bite. Now this was nice - light, spicy and the kitchen didn't smell of cooked cabbage. And Phoebe approved. I am calling this Ki Si Ming for the 21st century. Let me know if you have any suggestions to improve. Or if you preferred the original....