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Tonight’s dinner recipe is taken from Periplus Mini Cookbooks ‘Fast Pasta’ edition. However, the ‘how-to’ bit follows Nigella’s tips in one of her cooking videos. Not only is this fast, but it’s also very yummy. (more…)
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:
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. 
One other thing I bought at the supermarket yesterday was a bottle of pasta sauce with meat flavour. Instead of settling with just the flavour of the meat, I added about 250 grams of minced meat with half bottle of the pasta sauce.
I know you must be thinking, bolognaise sauce is an easy enough sauce to make so why should I settle with a ready made one? I agree, the home made sauce will always beat any prepared bolognaise sauce, but being on my own at the moment, I didn’t really have the motivation to cook from scratch, for something that only myself will enjoy. That probably sounds weird to you, but for me, the enjoyment of cooking not only comes from the cooking itself but also from the fact that someone else is enjoying and loving the food.
Anyway, back to the ready made sauce from Ragu, it needed a wee bit more salt, and next time I would add on real tomatoes to give it a fresher taste. But other than that, I think this is good enough for a quickie single meal. Would definitely use it again sometime.
This week’s theme is going to be what I cook or buy to eat alone. My hubby is on one of his business trips, and this time he is going to India for a training. He’s been gone since last Sunday actually, which means my solo culinary adventures have started since then.
On Saturday, my friend who moved to Bogor from Yogya came to visit and stay over the weekend, so on Sunday we went to Sushi Groove (second time this week for me), but this time I didn’t take any pictures to post here. If you want to know what I think about this restaurant/sushi bar, click here.
On Monday, I tried out an Indonesian instant food from a box. I forgot what the brand is, but it comes in a box, and is available in Hero supermarket. I forgot to take a picture of it, and although I would not recommend it to you, the picture would have at least showed which brand you should avoid. It didn’t even earn its right to be posted on this blog. 
On Tuesday, I stopped by at Hero supermarket in Kemang to do some dinner shopping. Since I left late from the office, plus the bad traffic, I arrived at Hero quite late. I was determined not to have anything complicated for tonight, because I imagined that I would arrive at home at 7 or maybe later. So I took a box of ‘Quick & Tasty’ which was 
something like plane food, simple food that came in a box and that you only have to heat in the microwave for four minutes. I also took some other food that would be quick and easy to prepare, which I will review in later posts.
As suspected, I arrived home a little before seven. After putting the groceries in their places, I heated up my food in the microwave. I have actually tasted quite a few of this ‘Quick & Tasty’ food box, and I particularly liked the chicken terriyaki. They didn’t have that variant today so I picked up the black pepper beef. The beef itself was good and tender but the vegetables were not so good. Of course, what should I expect from such instant food right? Well, I was hoping, the instant food genre would not try to exceed its reputation once in a while. 
Plus, as I said, the chicken terriyaki was good, so I should probably stick to that one next time.
One of my favourite Indonesian dish (and it doesn’t take much for a dish to be my favourite) is opor ayam (chicken in coconut gravy). Unfortunately, I have yet to master the recipe for the real opor, but until that happens, I shall settle with the ready made spice mix from Indofood. Another plus from using the ready made spice mix is of course less preparation time, which nicely fits my daily schedule.
In goes some chopped onions, and not so long after, followed by small pieces of chicken (I cheated and took a shortcut, by using small cut chicken fillet instead of whole chicken). Once the chicken changed colour, the spice mix is stirred in and I also added a wee bit of coconut milk again (although the spice mix claims that it already includes coconut milk, but I always add some more). The make-believe opor was served with hardboiled eggs and glass noodles. It took less than 20 minutes to prepare, and even less to clean the bowl.
