Not a traditional paella of course, but the modified paella recipe is a very versatile vehicle for adding whatever it is that you have to hand. The origin of it is similar to the fried rice in Asian cuisine, or risotto in Italian cuisine – a rice dish with whatever you have or is in season.
Usually I make it with just chicken and chorizo, or just seafood. But I both meat and seafood to hand so decided to do a bit of a ‘surf and turf’ paella. As I have been doing recently, this recipe has no added salt so is toddler and children friendly. If someone is allergic to seafood or you simply don’t like some of the ingredients, just don’t add it. It is unlikely to make the recipe less tasty as long as you’ve got the paella rice in there!
This is a one pot recipe for the busy family. Making enough for leftovers and freezer friendly into portions or ice cube trays ready for your little ones. I’ve added pimenton (Spanish paprika) for taste and colour but feel free to miss it out if you don’t have any or don’t want to use it. Even though this recipe uses no stock or added salt, you’ll be surprised how flavourful it is, purely from the ingredients that you use.
I will confess that cooking Chinese food is not my strong suit. I therefore have to usually rely on cook books if I wanted to make anything slightly authentic. At least to give me an idea and guide to what I’m doing.
I was very excited to finally get my hands on my very good friend George Wong’s (Instagram) cookbook during my recent, long overdue trip to Hong Kong.
88 Dishes of George (王子的88道菜）
As the name suggests, it has a staggering 88 recipes in this treasure trove of authentic Cantonese and Chiu chow dishes that have been perfected by George over the years. Ranging from Chinese soups (broths), main dishes such as salted egg prawns, sauces, to his signature dish – Hainese Chicken 🐔.
On this occasion, I was lucky enough to get my hands on some fresh E-fu noodles from Hong Kong. E-fu noodles (伊麵 – yee mein) is a flat Cantonese egg noodles made of wheat floor that are sold in rounds in a stack. They frequently feature as part of Chinese banquets as well as the accompaniment to lobster dishes as they soak up sauces quite well whilst still retaining their texture.
So I had some E-fu noodles and needed to make a quick dinner midweek after putting the 👶 to bed which took quite a while that particular evening. I decided to look through George’s cookbook which had a recipe for Braised E-fu noodles (乾燒伊麵) as I had never cooked with yee mein before and didn’t even know you had to parboil it to soften it and get rid of the oil that coats the dried rounds of yee mein. So that was a really useful tip.
I decided to also raid my store cupboard and found some dried Chinese mushrooms (東菇) and dried scallops (also know as Conpoy or 瑤柱). These had to be soaked beforehand to rehydrate them. I kept the soaking liquids from the mushrooms and scallops to use in the recipe instead of water and stock as suggested by the recipe.
And then it’s just a case of getting all the ingredients chopped and ready before starting to cook which is a must for any Chinese recipes involving frying as you need a hot wok which cooks everything very quickly. So if you’re having to chop your mushrooms up whilst other ingredients are sauteing, the other ingredients will burn.
As usual, I deviated from the recipe a bit but kept to the spirit of it using mushrooms. It was also helpful to have a guide on the quantities for the sauce consisting of oyster sauce, sugar and soy sauce. But as mentioned earlier, rather than using stock and water, I used the flavoured soaking water from the Chinese mushrooms and dried scallops which added the layer of umami taste to the noodles.
When using dried scallops in this way, always make sure you fry it off with a little oil with your starter ingredients such as onion and garlic. You’ll be able to smell it once the scallops heat up. Same with the Chinese mushrooms before you add any other fresh mushrooms you might be using in your recipe.
The whole process including parboiling the yee mein took 15-20 minutes (Chinese mushrooms and scallops were soaked beforehand). Perfect midweek dinner.
Can’t wait to try another recipe from this cook book soon!
My cooking lately has been dominated by what I can make that the little one can enjoy too. I am also one for batch cooking to make the middle of week dinners a bit easier.
Finished articleServed with sweetcornfor the little one
Lasagne is a great dish to freeze as it can be portioned easily. I usually make it with more beef stock (usually use Bovril) and seasoning, including a dash of Worcestershire sauce in the beef but this time I have only used 1 beef stock for making 2 large trays of lasagne, so negligible really. As a consequence, the beef filling will not be as dark as you would normally expect and will be redder from the tomatoes. The first step of sauteeing the onions and garlic is crucial to allow caramelisation which gives a lot of the flavour. Browning the beef is also very important here. The beef browning process also evaporates some of the water that is in the beef as you don’t want the resulting beef mixture to be too wet.
A simple bit of pureeing to your desired consistency will be perfect for your little one. It certainly went down well in our household!
Great cut of meat for a roast if you are hosting family and friends in Spring or just want a lot of leftovers! Don’t be intimidated by haunch of lamb leg, it’s actually very easy to cook with – you just have to allow the extra time in the oven compared to eg. a rolled joint of lamb because of the thigh bone. If you have a deboned leg then it won’t need as long in the oven so adjust your cooking time appropriately.
I made this recently for Mothering Sunday and the feedback (although somewhat biased of course!) was very positive. As per all my recipes, I try and use as few pans as possible to minimise the washing up and this is a one roasting tray recipe that also makes its own gravy! The water that you add to the roasting tray actually creates steam within the oven making sure the leg remains as succulent as ever.
Prepped leg before going into the ovenLamb after the initial heat blast before water is added
Like all roasts, one of the most important steps is to allow time at the end for the meat to rest before you carve it. The meat continues cooking and the moisture is redistributed throughout resulting in moist meat. So it’s the same for this lamb.
Whilst the lamb is resting on a pre-heated tray tucked up under foil, you can finish off your gravy and the other trimmings to go with your roast. The usual trimmings will do – crispy roasted potatoes, veggies etc. as the lamb itself is already quite flavourful.
Oxtail stew fit for your baby! And you can have some too!
Oxtail stew with added veg for the little oneOxtail stew for youOxtail stew blended with cous cous for the little ones
Oxtail is probably not the most obvious thing to feed your little one. It is meltingly tender when stewed and full of collagen. Typical oxtail stew recipes use wine and stock in the cooking liquid which is the way I have always been cooking it. But I had some oxtail the other day and really wanted to share it with the little 👶 so I modified how I usually cooked oxtail but still making sure that it remains rich and tasty for us! Because oxtail is mainly bones, it creates its own stock when cooked so there really isn’t any need to add a stock cube which is, of course, high in salt.
Whilst adding a good red wine to your stewing liquid gives the stew another dimension, to be honest, I’d be more than happy to go without it in the recipe in the future. Except for the glass or two to go with the stew of course!
This recipe does take a long time to cook and the longer you cook it, the more tender the meat gets. So if you are able to plan ahead and cook it the day before as suggested, I would highly recommend it. Otherwise, if you are cooking on the day, give oxtail more time to stew if you can before eating. The cooking time in the oven can be extended as you prefer, just keep an eye on the stewing liquid although it shouldn’t dry out too much if you are using a heavy bottomed pot with a lid.
Using the approach of the trio of ‘humble beginnings‘ (aka mirepoix, holy trinity, soffrito, battuto, etc – a really good article explaining what these are at seriouseats.com) of garlic, onions and celery, the ‘beginnings’ of the stew flavours were set without the need for any salt at all.
Browning the oxtails first caramelises the meat, again adding an extra layer of flavour to the stewing liquid.
Browned oxtail ready to be used
Not to be too blasé about it, but the rest of the recipe is just about chucking all the rest of the ingredients into the cooking pot and let it stew. So it is actually quite an easy recipe. The vegetables you add to your stew can be any combination you like. A very versatile recipe.
Add all ingredients into the pot ready to bring to the boilAfter boiling and stewing in the oven‘Stewed’ overnightReheated ready to be servedServed with cous cous and green beans. Meat falls away from the bones
I served it with cous cous this time but you can serve it with rice, bread etc. anything that can soak/mop up the rich sauce. With no wine, no salt and lots of vegetables, it’s a perfect recipe to diversify your little ones’ taste adventure. There were certainly no leftovers from either the boss 👶 or the other minion 👨!
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