Cottage Pie.

History.
according to Food Timeline's entry on Shepherd's Pie, this English dish has its origins in the late Middle Ages (i.e. mid-16th Century AD). what began as meat served in pastry "coffyns" (coffins?) was only very late in the 19th Century cooked with mashed potatoes; the latter was a New World produce. Supposedly popular in the Northern regions of England and Scotland where sheep were in abundance (hence cooked with mutton and the name Shepherd's Pie), the pie became the people's answer to asian fried rice i.e. a creative way to rehash leftovers.

Shepherd's Pie = cooked with mutton
Cottage Pie = cooked with beef
Fisherman's Pie = cooked with fish

thesedays, it is but a relatively fuss-free dish for if/when you need to feed either an army of people or a ryce.

Ingredients.
(for meat base)
500g beef mince
3-4 clove, garlic
5-6 cup mushrooms
2-3 sticks, celery
4-5 baby carrots
1 onion (using brown)
2-3 tomatoes (using roma)
1 can, cream of mushroom (not in pic; using campbell's)

(for mash)
3-4 potatoes (using brown)
4-5 bunch, parsley
2-3 tbsp, fresh milk
1-2 tbsp, butter

(for cheese topping)
Pizza Mix (cheddar, parmesan, mozzarella)

you will also need a baking pan of substantial depth, subject to how thick you want your pie to be.



Serves.
3-4.

Step 1: Preparing Meat Mix!
finely chop up all your vegetables, separating the garlic and onion individually from the rest.

oil and heat up a sizable pan over a medium flame. when hot, throw your onions and beef mince into the pot and keep stirring. depending on how strong you like your garlic, you can either throw it in at this stage, or together with the rest of the vegetables later.

let it cook for 4-5 minutes before you throw the rest of the chopped up vegetables into the pan. don't forget to stir! while the vegetables are still cooking, add the cream of mushroom into the mixture. turn the heat down to a smaller flame, let it slowly simmer to a boil, and continue to boil for a while (3-4 minutes).



when that's done, pour the mixture into your baking pan and set it aside to cool for 0.5-1 hour. if you don't let it cool properly, the mash isn't going to sit well on your meat mixture. at this point, some people are known to put the meat mix into either the fridge or freezer even.

Making Mash Potato.
skin the potato before you put them in a pot of water to boil. add some salt into the water and let the potato boil for about 10 minutes or until it feels soft enough to mash.

meanwhile, mince or finely chop the parsley up.

when done, remove the pot from the fire and drain the water away. you may begin mashing the potatoes in the pot, adding the parsley, milk and butter in at this stage. mash and blend well until you get a relatively consistent and smooth mash.



Baking the First Two Layers.
set your oven to preheat at 200 degree C.

apply the mash potato on top of the meat mix which by now should have cooled in the baking pan. when you have the meat mix nicely covered with mash, score the layer of mash with a fork.



when ready, put the whole baking pan into your oven and let it cook for 15-20 minutes. remove the pan from the oven after. apply the cheese on top of the mash, ensuring that you've got all the mash more or less covered.



return the pan into the oven for another 15-20 minutes, until your cheese turns a lovely golden brown!



Final Serve.



ryce and i both enjoyed it quite a bit. though this version of the cottage pie is a little shallow on the mash potato. so if you're a fan of mash potato, you might have to up the number of potatoes in your attempt.

also, i realised that the meat mixture was a bit too wet for me. but this is more of a problem if you're gunning for presentation points like i do. to ease the problem, you can always drain some gravy from the meat mix before you apply the mash on top.

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ETA: 25 1615 November 2006 Saturday.
my friend fiq made a mince beef mix last week by frying the mince beef with tomato ketchup, black pepper and i think a bit of soy sauce. it tasted great! so ketchup might be an easy and inexpensive substitute for the cream of mushroom.

One-Step Whitebread Pizza.

remember the loaf of bread that was lying in ryce's fridge? well, other than toasting your bread, or making french toast out of it, we can use it as base for your favourite pizza toppings!

Ingredients.
6 slice, whitebread
3 roma tomatoes
4, cup mushroom
3 piece, smoked ham (or your favourite meat, e.g. smoke salmon, left over chicken)
3 tbsp, sour cream (you can use other sauce base like bolognese)
some cheese (the usual suspects like mozzarella, parmesan, etc)



*missing: 1 capsicum (ryce doesn't do capsicums -sigh-)

Serves.
3

Step 1: All at Once!
dice the tomatoes, mushrooms and ham into fine pieces. coat the bread with a generous layer of sour cream, then apply the tomato, ham and mushroom on it. top that with a good cover of cheese.

preheat your oven to about 150 degrees, and pop your pizza in for 5-10 minutes. basically until your cheese melts and browns a little at the edges.

Viola!

Final Serve.
easy to prepare, tastes good, and helps rid of surplus without having to either dump them away or promote fungus growth!

French Toast Sandwich & Cheesed Cauliflower.

you know there's something special between food and i when the dreams that herald my waking up are of meal preparations. sunday morning, i woke to one of such dreams; in it, i saw myself in front of a nice steaming pot of cauliflower laced with parsley and cheese.

hhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

cheeeeeese with cauliflooooooower......

*rudemoans*

but of course, ryce being ryce--bless that girl bestowed a name meant to remind her constantly of food, she simply couldn't leave the first meal of the day limited to a single dish. instead, she asked to clear as much of the loaf of bread she's kept in the fridge as i can possibly muster before it turns into breeding ground for unpleasant culture. to put a cap on the number of ingredients involved for this meal, french toast seemed an easy option.

Ingredients.
(for steamed cauliflower with cheese)
1 quarter to 1 half, cauliflower
1 tbsp, black pepper
1 tbsp, butter
2-3 tbsp, cheese (i'm using cheddar)
3 bunch, coriander/ cilantro

(for french toast sandwich)
4 slice, white bread
2 eggs
1 tbsp, butter
2 tbsp, milk
2 pc, cheddar cheese
1 tbsp, oil (olive for me; meant for cooking)
(optional: deli ham, roast beef, smoked salmon, etc)

Serves.
2-3

Step 1: Preparing the cauliflower.
mince up the cheddar and coriander together or not, and put them aside for later. i kept them separate because i like to mix the cheddar with the cauliflower before the cheese comes in.

chop the cauliflower up into manageable pieces (aka you can fit it into your mouth without looking rude) and toss them into a bowl. steam those for about 10-15 minutes until cooked; i did it by placing the bowl on a stand in a covered pot of water--water should however not touch your bowl cause we want the vegetable cooked with steam, not latent heat from your bowling water.

Step 2: Prepare french toasts.
while your cauliflower is cooking, mix your eggs, butter and milk together, before soaking each slice of bread into the mixture. heat your pan over a small-medium flame. oil your pan with a bit of oil.

Step 3: Finishing with your cauliflower.
when ready, remove the cauliflower from the heat, and drain the excess juices from the bowl. before the vegetable cools, stir the coriander in, mix well, before you do the same for the cheese. add butter and pepper for taste.



Step 4: Finishing with your french toasts.
when the pan's hot enough, fry your french toast. cook one side till it browns nicely, before you flip it over to cook only for a quick second or two so that the egg more or less is sealed off.

remove from flame, and do the same for another piece. with the first piece that you cooked, place your cheese and--if you intend to add them--ham/ salmon/ beef on the nicely browned surface. when the second toast is ready, place its browner surface on top of the cheese-ham mix.

effectively, you'd have the lighter sides on the outside now. place that french toast sandwich back onto the pan to melt the cheese, as well as to cook the remaining two surfaces of your sandwich.

when both sides are browned, you're ready to serve!



Final Serve.

this is a recipe of a reason to why gluttony is a sin. i usually don't have both dishes for a single meal, seeing as how it's an obvious cheese overload.

because of the butter and cheese in the cauliflower, this vegetable side is meant to balance whatever light entree you intend for your meal. to be quite honest, however, i normally take this dish alone--it's terribly filling!

the french toast sandwich is a simple solution to fancy-ing up your regular french toast. better for a brunch menu.

Beef Steak in Port & Camembert Cheese.

the other day at Safeway (Melbourne's answer to Woolworth's), ryce and i picked up--amongst other things--a bottle of Tawny Port, a pack of "special sale" camembert and some "special sale" beef steak. now using whatever's available to us, we thought it would be good to revisit one of my older steak recipes.

along with the steak, we're going to have a simple side of grilled vegetables and a few pieces of Woolworth's cheesy sausages. i'd also explain the vegetables, but not the sausages...

Ingredients.
(for the steak)
2 beef steaks (again i'm using scotch fillet)
1 cup, Port wine
3 tbsp, camembert (i usually use blue cheese)
1 tbsp, black pepper
4 bunch, coriander (i normally use parsley for this dish)
1 tbsp, olive oil (for the pan-fry)

(for the vegetable side)
2 tomatoes
1 carrot
4 asparagus
1 lime
1 tbsp, salt
2 tbsp, sesame oil

(optional)
6 sausages (abt 2" each)

Serves.
2

Step 1: Marinating the beef.
easy: place steaks in bowl, add port, black pepper and minced coriander. stir it about a bit to ensure you've got everything mixed well, and leave it to soak for at least half an hour.



cut the cheese up and mash it up a little so that it's nicely pasty.

Step 2: Prepare vegetables.

chop the carrot and asparagus up. (by the way, i hope everyone is familiar with the whole rid-the-bitter-end-of-your-asparagus routine.) add them to a bowl, and pour some boiling water into the bowl. add a tbsp of salt and leave everything to soak for about 5-10 minutes. drain water after.

while soaking, dice your tomatoes, and slice the lime into reasonable pieces for easy juicing later.



mix all your vegetables together in preparation for the grill. preheat your oven for about 10 minutes, then set it to about 200 degrees, before setting the vegetables in for about 20 minutes.

when it's done, add the sesame oil to the mixture, and we're more or less done.

Side: Something about sausages.
on today's Huey's Cooking Adventures, Huey brings up a tip on cooking sausages. apparently, before you set it in your pan to fry, you should braise the sausages with warm (not boiling) water for about 5 minutes. if the sausage skin breaks open, you know the water's too hot.



NOTE: i can't quite remember the exact type of sausages, or the rationale behind this move, but we got the gist and in Huey i trust.

Step 3: Cooking the steaks!
over a big flame, pour your oil into the pan and let the pan heat up. when it's hot, place your steaks into the pan and let it cook for about 2-3 minutes on both sides (if you're into medium-rare like me).

if you're particular about sealing the meat, you'd have to continuously flip your steaks every 20 seconds until both sides brown.

once cooked, move the steaks off the flame and place them on your serving plates. lower your flame to medium, and pour the rest of the marinade in. let it simmer until it's reduced to about half.

while waiting for the marinade, apply a generous amount of cheese on the top side of the steaks. try to even it out as much as you can.

when the marinade has been reduced, pour that onto the steaks.

Final Serve.
i've served the lime slices together with the vegetables to allow the guest (ryce) free reign in how sour she wants her vegetables to be. the sesame oil will provide some fragrance and taste, but what really gives the punch will be the lime juice.

as much as possible, the steaks should be served right after the marinade is poured. wait too long and you might only have a thin film of cheese left on your steaks since everything else melted away. don't worry that your steaks will be too sweet from all that port, with the cheese, parsley/ coriander and pepper, it will be a really interesting mouthful of beef.



enjoy!