Video Recipes
Based on a recipe by Keith Floyd from his book Floyd’s China, “Chinese Beef and Carrots” is an ideal meal to cook in a thermal cooker.
Cuisine from Sichuan include a number of beef dishes as they are very popular amongst the Chinese Muslims and this was one of the areas Floyd visited during his TV series on China.
I have made a few alterations to the original recipe but it basically stays the same. Like all of my recipes they can be used in a slow cooker but you will not have the same energy saving as when cooking in a thermal cooker.
Happy thermal cooking,
Mr D
ingredients
- 2 tbsp rapeseed oil
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
- 2 slices of peeled fresh ginger root
- 5 spring onions, thinly sliced
- 750g stewing beef, cut into 1cm cubes
- 40ml dark soy sauce
- 1 beef stock pot or stock cube
- 1 tbsp light brown sugar
- 3 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine (Chinese cooking wine) or dry sherry
- 1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
- 450g carrots, cut into batons
- water
method
- Heat the oil in the inner pot over a medium heat.
- Add the garlic, ginger and spring onions and cook until golden brown.
- Add the beef and all the remaining ingredients except the water. Stir well.
- Pour over water to cover the meat and carrots.
- Bring to the boil and then simmer for 5 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and place the inner pot into the vacuum-insulated outer Thermal container, shut the lid. Leave while you start the rice in the top pot. If not using a top pot leave to cook for a minimum of 3 hours.
- Add the rice and water to the top pot and bring to the boil. Stir then turn down the heat and simmer for 1 minute.
- Turn off the heat, open the vacuum-insulated outer Thermal container and place the top pot into the inner pot.
- Put the lid on the top pot and shut the lid of the outer container.
- Leave to thermal cook without power for a minimum of 3 hours.
- Check the seasoning and adjust with salt and pepper if needed
- Serve with the rice and some stir fry vegetables
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This weeks recipe is to celebrate Dewali. Mr D’s curried lamb chops cooked in his Thermal Cooker have great depth of flavour created by the cloves, cardamoms and bay leaves.
If you like your curries slightly hotter add more chilli but not too much to overpower the other spices.
ingredients
- 2 Tbs ghee or vegetable oil
- 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 3 cm fresh ginger, finely grated
- 1 400g tin of chickpeas
- 4 bay leaves
- 4 green cardamom pods
- 7 cloves
- 1 medium onion, sliced
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 2 tsp garam masala
- 1 400g tin chopped plum tomatoes
- 8 small lamb chops
- 125 g baby spinach leaves
- Salt to taste
method
- 1. Heat the oil in the inner pot. Add the bay leaves, cardamoms and cloves. When they sizzle, add the onion and cook until translucent and soft.
- 2. Stir in the ginger and garlic and fry for two minutes.
- 3. Add the spices, tomatoes and lamb. Cover the lamb with hot water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 5 minutes.
- 4. Add the chickpeas and bring back to the boil and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes.
- 5. Turn off the heat and place the inner pot into the vacuum-insulated outer Thermal container, shut the lid. Leave while you start the rice in the top pot. If not using a top pot leave to cook for a minimum of 2 hours.
- Cooking the rice in the top pot.
- 1. Add the rice and water to the top pot and bring to the boil. Stir then turn down the heat and simmer for 1 minute.
- 2. Turn off the heat, open the vacuum-insulated outer Thermal container and place the top pot into the inner pot.
- 3. Put the lid on the top pot and shut the lid of the outer container.
- 4. Leave to thermal cook without power for a minimum of 2 hours.
- Before serving
- 1. Check the curry for seasoning and adjust with salt and pepper if needed.
- 2. Add the spinach, stirring the spinach leaves into the curry until they wilt.
- 3. Serve on a bed of rice that you either cooked in the top pot or a separate pan.
By cooking your Christmas Pudding in a Mr D’s Thermal Cooker you can save up to 5 hours of fuel used for cooking.
This Christmas Pudding is very easy to make and now if made now will be perfect for Christmas lunch.
ingredients
- . 115g self raising flour
- . 115 raisins
- . 115 sultanas
- . 115g breadcrumbs
- . 115g dark brown sugar
- . 115g vegetable shredded suet
- . 1 large apple peeled, cored and chopped
- . ½ tsp mixed spice
- . ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- . ½ tsp grated nutmeg
- . 2 eggs
- . juice of a lemon
- . rind of a lemon
- . 4 tbsp dark rum
- . 1 cup (250ml) milk
method
- 1. Grease a 2 pint/1 litre pudding basin
- 2. Put a trivet in the inner pot. Fill with enough water to come up to 5cms below the edge of the pudding basin when placed on the trivet.
- 3. Bring the water in the inner pot to the boil while you add all the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and mix.
- 4. Add the eggs, lemon juice, lemon rind, rum and milk. Mix with a wooden spoon.
- 5. Put the mixture into the greased pudding basin.
- 6. Place a piece of greased, greaseproof paper on top of the mixture.
- 7. Cover with aluminium foil and tie round the edge remembering to make a handle to lift the pudding out when hot.
- 8. Carefully place the basin in the inner pot of boiling water and bring back to the boil with the lid on.
- 9. Once boiling turn down the heat and simmer for 30 minutes with the lid on.
- 10. Place the inner pot into the vacuum-insulated outer Thermal Container, shut the lid and leave to slow cook without power for a minimum of 5 hours.
- 11. Once cooked remove the pudding and allow to cool before storing for Christmas.
- 12. Reheat before eating.
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In my Mr D’s Thermal Cooker this week I have cooked this truly great Bolognese in fact one of the best I have ever tasted. It is adapted for the Mr Ds thermal cooker by me from a recipe by Jo Pratt the author of three popular books (The Nation’s Favourite Food, In the Mood for Food and In the Mood for Entertaining). The bolognese could equally be cooked in a slow cooker if you didn’t have a thermal cooker.
The History of bolognese: (from Wikipedia)
The earliest documented recipe for a meat-based sauce (ragù) served with pasta comes from late 18th century Imola, near Bologna. Pellegrino Artusi first published a recipe for a meat sauce characterized as being bolognese in his cookbook published in 1891. Artusi’s recipe, Maccheroni alla bolognese, is thought to derive from the mid 19th century when he spent considerable time in Bologna. (In Artusi’s time, maccheroni was a generic term for pasta, both dried and fresh.)
Artusi’s sauce called for predominantly lean veal filet along with pancetta, butter, onion, and carrot. The meats and vegetables were to be finely minced, cooked with butter until the meats browned, then covered and cooked with broth. Artusi commented that the taste could be made even more pleasant by adding small pieces of dried mushroom, a few slices of truffle, or a chicken liver cooked with the meat and diced. As a final touch, he also suggested adding half a glass of cream to the sauce when it was completely done to make it taste even smoother. Artusi recommended serving the sauce with a medium size pasta (“horse teeth”) made from durum wheat. The pasta was to be made fresh, cooked until it was firm, and then flavored with the sauce and Parmigiano cheese.
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