Avigayil Damm

My mom makes a ‘mean’ oxtail soup. The oxtail is so tender and the soup is very tasty and rich, unlike the normal oxtail soup which is normally very clear and thin. Once, my hubby and I went to my parents and we were served with the oxtail soup. My hubby was so impressed with it that I just had to learn how to make it on my own. So I asked my mom for the recipe and one day I decided to try it myself.

The key to tender oxtail is the length of cooking time. If you have a pressure cooker then it’s even better because the length of cooking time would be reduced considerably.

(more…)

Lasagna is one of my favorite dish, and although I have often made it, I just realized that I have never posted about it, so here it is. The recipe is from my mom, so don’t ask me where she got it from. I love my mom’s cooking a lot, so I am going by her recipe for this one.

White (Bechamel) Sauce:

• 50 gr margarine/butter
• 50 gr all purpose flour
• 400 ml evaporated milk
• 1/4 tsp (or to taste) ground pepper
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
• 100 ml beef stock
• 125 gr grated cheddar cheese

Melt the butter and add flour, whisk vigorously until fragrant. Add milk and stock gradually and stir to mix. Add grated cheese, pepper and nutmeg powder. Let simmer, stirring constantly, until it slightly thickens.

Meat Sauce:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 large onion, minced
• 500 gr minced meat
• 400 gr tomatoes, peeled and minced or crushed
• 100 gr tomato sauce
• 100 ml beef stock
• 2 tsp dried oregano (or Italian seasoning)
• salt to taste
• sugar to taste if desired (or add one grated carrot)

Melt the butter, cook the onion and garlic until soft and fragrant. Add the minced meat, stir to mix, cook until slightly browned. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and beef stock. Cook and stir until the sauce has slightly reduced. Add oregano, salt and sugar to taste. If you use grated carrot, add it together with the crushed tomatoes.

The rest is just to stack them up in an oven dish (I used a 20×20 cm dish and had some leftover sauce). If you’re using instant lasagna plates, make sure you put some sauce on the bottom before you add the plates so it doesn’t dry in the oven. Otherwise, cook them as directed. Layer the lasagna plates alternately with the white and the meat sauce, with the meat sauce being the top layer. Add 125 gr of mozzarella (or more, depending on how much you like mozzarella) on top. Cook at 180 degrees (Celsius) for 35-40 minutes. Bon appétit!

Tonight’s dinner recipe was taken from Femina, an Indonesian women’s magazine. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 100 gr onion, chopped
• 300 gr minced meat
• 8 tbsp breadcrumbs
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 tsp dry thyme

Mix all ingredients, shape into burger patties and fry on pan. Stack with tomatoes, onion rings or whatever you like to have on your burger. Easy huh?

Unfortunately neither my hubby nor I were quite satisfied with this, honestly. To us, the taste of thyme gave it an unwanted earthy smell. So I guess next time we will skip the thyme altogether.

Have you got any successful burger patty recipe you’d like to share with us?

My boss invited me and my hubby over for dinner with her visiting mother and some friends/colleagues. I decided (and she totally agreed) to bring over some chocolate mousse a la Nigella Lawson. So, that I did. It was fun and easy to make and it tasted delicious! To view a video of her on this recipe, go here.

Ingredients:

• 150 gr mini marshmallow (it was difficult to get plain marshmallow at Hero supermarket but luckily enough there were chocolate filled marshmallows and I used them instead)
• 50 gr butter
• 250 gr chocolate chips/buttons (just to help melt it quicker, but you could also use normal cooking chocolate bars)
• 4 tbsp boiled water
• 284 ml whipped cream and 1 tsp vanilla extract (I didn’t have vanilla extract so used rum instead just for additional flavour)

Melt all first four ingredients together, set aside to cool. Whip the cream together with vanilla extract (or rum, whichever you choose) until it’s fluffy/firm. Fold the (cooled) chocolate mix into the cream.

It seemed to be a hit at dinner, although I thought it was a bit too sweet. I think the chocolate fill of the marshmallow may have something to do with it, so if I can’t find plain marshmallows, I will have to use partly unsweetened chocolate. However, it’s definitely a keeper! (And according to my hubby, it’s dangerously close to knocking off Brasserie’s chocolate mousse from the top).

Since I had to bring it over to my boss’ house, I spooned it into paper coffee cups, so it doesn’t really show the mousse itself. The picture above shows it garnished with (hand-)whipped cream.

Tonight’s recipe is taken from a recently purchased Periplus Mini Cookbooks ‘Favourite Everyday Dinners’. The obvious reason for purchasing this book was to compile as many recipes as possible which are easy to make and won’t take much time. This time, I chose one dish I really like but have never tried to cook myself before: beef stroganoff. I must confess that I don’t always follow the recipe to the letter. So this recipe is how I made it (not how it is specified in the book).

Ingredients:

• 400 gr. beef fillet, cut into thin stripes
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 50 gr butter
• 1 thinly sliced onion
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 250 gr button mushroom, sliced
• 50 ml brandy (I actually used cognac)
• 1 cup beef stock or 1 cup water with 1 beef stock cube
• 1 1/2 tbsp tomato paste
• 3/4 cup (185 gr) sour cream
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Dust the beef strips in flour and shake of any excess. Melt half the butter in a large frying pan and stir fry the onion and garlic over medium heat until they soften. Add the mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes, then pour in the brandy (or cognac, whichever you’re using) and simmer until liquid has evaporated. Add the beef and cook until browned, and then add the beef stock and tomato paste. Add the sour cream. Cook for a few minutes until the liquid is slightly reduced. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Originally the recipe suggests to stir fry the beef separately and then put aside. But I don’t think it made much difference in the end result that I actually fried the beef after the mushroom is cooked. I served it with mashed potato, which went very well with it. It was definitely a keeper, and we had some leftover which we took with us for lunch the day after next.