Basic Chocolate Sauce

It doesn't get much more basic than this, guys.

About half a cup of water. A tablespoon of castor sugar. And 50g of good dark chocolate.

Melt the sugar in the water. Add the chocolate, and stir till melted. Take off the heat and serve immediately over icecream or chocolate sponge cake.

It's not as thick as I like my chocolate sauce usually, but it does the trick.

Talk about basic.

Sambal Belacan

This is one of those recipes that makes me do this face: o.O

What do you DO with it? I assumed it was like a condiment, a side dish served with curry. So that's what I did. But now I think it would probably work best as a base for stir fry or curry or suchlike.

Basically, it's a chilli paste. Or at least that's the idea.

Okay, so here's the recipe.

Blend 12 large red chillis in a blender with 2 tablespoons of dried roasted shrimp paste (which I found in the "Asian" section of our local supermarket (All of Asia!)), 150ml water and 4 tablespoons of limejuice.

That's it.

A couple of observations: I think there was too much water. Maybe when they say "12 large red chillis" they mean dried ones? I dunno. The whole thing came out way runnier than I think it was meant to be.

Also, WOAH that shrimp paste is POTENT stuff. My whole house smelt of it for HOURS. It is strong. If you don't like fishy things, you're not going to be keen on this. It actually doesn't taste as strong as it smells, but the smell was enough to nearly put me off trying it.

I am glad I tried it though, because it tastes quite different to how it smells. I am still not wildly convinced, but I can see that it would make a good base, as I said. Anything you might use fish sauce for, I expect this would work too.

Anyway, we now have a big jar of it in our fridge. Which, you know, I guess we'll use up. Over many months.

Steak with Green Peppercorn Sauce

Oh. My. Gods. This was AMAZING.

I will admit I played fast and loose with the recipe though. It called for some store bought beef jus, whereas I went online and found a recipe and made my own. I was supposed to make it like hours in advance, but I hadn't, so I improvised. It also called for port, but we didn't have any, so I used red wine.

The jus is just a cup of red wine, half a cup of beef stock and half a cup of chicken stock. In a perfect world, you'd have this stock in your freezer or fridge, because you're such a culinary genius that you keep some handy at all times. Yeah, I am not such a beast. So, I used the cube stock thingies. Add some garlic and some rosemary, and leave it simmering. It's supposed to simmer for like an hour and a half all told, or something. Mine didn't.

While its simmering away, tie a string round the steaks (though I have no idea why or what purpose that serves. Then you season, them, push a teaspoon of butter into each one and brown them in a very hot pan, starting butter side down, and just a minute a side. Take 'em off quick.

I then added the jus to the pan juices, and threw in three tablespoons of peppercorns. Recipe said green ones, but we couldn't find any, so I used mixed peppercorns. I was so not going to sit there sorting the green ones out of the mix.

Then I just let it simmer away until we were ready. I'm not sure how long it cooked for, maybe half an hour all told? There was feeding of the baby and putting him to sleep. The steaks we threw on the barbeque, 3.5 mins a side. They could have been a little rarer for my taste, but I like mine practically mooing still.

Guys. This sauce. Was frikkin' incredible. Rich and tasty and gorgeous. The peppercorns are amazing with the steak. It was an unqualified success. Awesome.

NOM. I have actually written what I did so that you can make it too, it was SO good.

Ratings:

Me: Absolutely thumbs up. Great.

Appreciative Husband: Enthusiastic Thumbs up.

Fussy Teen: Thumbs up.

Salsa Vinagreta

Sounds fancy, huh? Yeaaaah, not so much.

This one came out of a Catalan book we have, and really just is a bog standard vinaigrette. Olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and white pepper. Mix. Pour. There.

But I did say I was doing every recipe, so I couldn't skip it.

I did make a pretty awesome salad to go with it. Home grown basil, coriander and rocket (very baby cos it's still growing), cherry tomatoes, boiled eggs, olives, green peppers. Full of yummy nutritious deliciousness.

Still, don't have a lot to say about this one. It was as you'd expect. Good, subtle, enhanced the salad without overblowing it. Standard vinaigrette stuff.

I honestly don't know why people buy these things pre-made from shops.

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Next week's is exciting though - I am looking forward to making this: Spinach and Goat's Cheese Stuffed Lamb Rack. NOM.