Easy recipes from Apple Tree

Category: General Tips

Awesome Jerk Seasoning Mix

This looks like a lot of ingredients but an active cook will have these to hand. Nothing too exotic! Simply mix together:

  • 1 tbs onion powder
  • 1 tbs garlic powder
  • 2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1-2 tsp dried thyme
  • 2 tsp golden caster sugar
  • 1 tsp ground allspice
  • 1 tsp dried parsley
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 0.5 tsp dried pepper flakes
  • 0.5 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 0.5 tsp ground cloves
  • 0.5 tsp ground cumin

Tip #1: I didn’t have any dried parsley. Turned out fine.

Tip #2: If you only have whole spices (black pepper, cloves, chilli pepper flakes) then put whole spices all together in a spice grinder. I have a cheap IKEA coffee grinder reserved for that purpose.

Fish Stock

Don’t throw away those trimmings, backbones and heads after you have filleted your catch. Make an amazing fish stock to add depth to any fish soup, pie or chowder.

  • Knob of butter or 1tbs oil
  • 1 onion chopped

Sweat in a deep pan until the onion is transluscent.

  • 1kg fish heads, bones and bits preferably from only white fish like bass, bream, pollack, whiting, plaice.
  • 1 litre water
  • 1 glass of white wine (or dry cider)
  • Bunch of herbs, e.g. 2 sprigs parsely, 2 sprigs thyme, a bay leaf.
  • pinch of salt
  • Pinch of white pepper

Bring to the boil and simmer 20 minutes. Then pass through a fine sieve into a container for use later. It will keep in the freezer until needed. Max three months for the best flavour, but I have used some a year old and it was still good. Use it for The best seafood chowder

Baharat Spice Mix

North African spice mix used as a rub for meat and fish, or for  our lamb flatbread recipe

  • 4 parts paprika
  • 4 parts ground black pepper
  • 1 part ground coriander
  • 1 part ground cloves
  • 1 part ground cardammom
  • 1 part ground cummin
  • 1 part ground cinammon
  • 1 part ground ginger
  • 0.5 part ground allspice
  • 1 part ground dried chilli (optional)

DIY Taco Seasoning Mix and Taco Mince

This makes enough for 1Kg mince. If you have a smaller quantity of mince just divide the taco mix in proportion and save in a jar for next time. It keeps fine.

  • 1 tsp chilli powder
  • 1.5 tsp cumin powder
  • 1.5 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp onion powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 0.5 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 0.5tsp salt

To make taco mince, dry fry the mince until it is no longer pink;  add the taco mix, fry a few minutes more; add 4 tbs tomato puree per kilo of mince and 250ml water, bubble away for 20 minutes. You may need to add a bit more water if you like it gloopy.

Great on tacos, filled wraps, on potato skins and in jacket potato with a combo of Jalapeno peppers, grated cheese, chopped tomato, chopped avacado, sour cream, salsa, fresh coriander leaves, shredded iceberg lettuce, chopped red onion. What’s not to like.

Tips to avoid poisoning yourself at Uni

Seriously.

Bad things can happen when you don’t quite realise the significance of food hygiene. Most of it is common sense but not everyone has had the good fortune to watch Mama in the kitchen for 18 years, this is the 21st century for goodness sake. So here are a few wise tips for keeping your dinner going the right way through you.

In food factories they have two zones: High Care for food that is not going to be cooked to kill bacteria before being eaten, and Low Care which is food that will be cooked to kill bacteria before eating. It is important that Low care stuff does not contaminate High Care stuff. For example:

Raw chicken and pork: Never let raw chicken and pork products come into contact with anything that is going into your mouth without further cooking, such as salads, forks and spoons etc. Even cutting salad on the same board that raw chicken has been on can cause contamination. Keep High Care and Low Care separate, and wash boards, utensils and your hands when moving from Low Care to High Care. The other way round doesn’t matter.

Eggs: Would you put your hands on a chicken’s bum? That is where the egg has come from and in the UK, eggs are not washed before sale. After touching an egg, maybe to break it into your recipe, wash your hands before touching anything else. In the UK, eggs last three weeks or more at room temperature before going off. In the USA where they are more squeamish about these things, eggs are washed. The down-side of this is the water actually washes bacteria into the pores of the shell so the shelf-life of US eggs is days, not weeks.

Messing with food: The more food is processed before cooking, the shorter the shelf-life. A whole meat carcass can last a month in the chiller. Once it is jointed, shelf-life reduces and highly processed cuts like cubed meat and mince has a very short shelf life – a few days only in the fridge, hours only at room temperature.

Gas: Packaged food is often “flooded” (industry term) with an inert gas like nitrogen to exclude other gases that allow bacteria to grow. This is fine and dandy, but the shelf-life on the packet assumes the gas is still in there. As soon as you puncture the packet by opening, or the gas leaks through a bad seal, bacteria will start to grow and the printed shelf life is no longer valid. Best to eat quickly once opened! This is particularly true for salad leaves (see Messed With above) and mince.

Sell-By/Eat-By and Best Before dates: by law all packaged food has to have one of these dates stamped on it. Perishable food that might cause you harm if eaten after too long has a Sell By and Eat By date. This is a date worked out in a laboratory and has a margin of safety built in. It also assumes the food is being kept at the recommended temperature. So already you can see it is not accurate! You still have to rely on your eyes and nose to tell is something is dodgy. If it looks bad it is bad. If it doesn’t look bad it is probably OK – for example yogurt kept in a fridge can last a couple of weeks past its Sell-By date.  Best Before dates are exactly that – better before and worse after but not deadly.  If you don’t mind the taste not being as good, or the colour fading or the texture not being quite right, you can eat food after the Best Before date but again, if it looks bad it is bad.

Dried beans: Some you have to soak, some not. Either way, when you cook them, boil like crazy for ten minutes then cook as the recipe requires for the rest of the time. This is because dried pulses carry toxins which need to be zapped by a hard boil and are not zapped by a long simmer, which is probably what you were planning to do.

The fridge! Yes, danger lurks within for the unwary. A fridge needs to operate at 5deg C or below to minimise the chance of bacteria growing and turning into toxins that will make you ill. Also, make sure  Low Care foods (see above) don’t contact High Care food. Here is a quick Tip List For The Fridge:

  • Buy a fridge thermometer and make sure the fridge thermostat dial is set so the inside temperature is below 5deg C
  • Make sure the door shuts properly and don’t leave it open too long – this allows the fridge to warm up.
  • Never put warm items of food into the cold fridge. Let them cool to room temperature first otherwise you will warm up the entire fridge
  • Never allow uncooked meat such as chicken and pork products to touch food that won’t be cooked before you eat it (High Care) such as salads and cheese.
  • Never put uncooked meat above High Care products because juices containing harmful bacteria can drip down.
  • Don’t put cucumber, lettuce and strawberries in a very cold fridge (0-2 deg C) because they will freeze and turn to mush when they thaw. Disgusting but won’t actually kill you.

Tips for when you go to Uni.

Before we start, here is a guide to quantities for those who don’t have a set of weighing scales. You are going to need a ruler and a measuring jug or set of American cup measuring sets instead. You can easily calculate the quantities you need with a bit of multiplication or division.
Spaghetti: a bunch of dry spaghetti 20mm diameter and 250mm long is one portion (3oz or 85 grams)
Pasta shapes: 250ml is one portion (3oz or 85 grams) but it depends on the shapes, some pack more densely than others. A large mug, heaped, is a good guide.
Rice: 70ml is one portion (2oz or 60 grams)
Couscous: 70ml is one portion (2oz or 60 grams)
Sugar: 50ml is 50grams
Flour: 50ml is 50grams
Butter: 1 cubic centimetre is about 1 gram
Cheese: 1 cubic centimetre is about 1.15 grams

Joke:
How to cook pasta:
1. Put what you think is enough pasta in a pan of boiling water
2. Boil until done
3. That was too much

Random tips for easier cooking

Tricks and tips in no particular order.

Fresh Ginger
Keep a root in your freezer compartment. You can grate it from frozen. Never run out!

Parmesan
Angela (of this Parish) says you can do the same with Parmesan. This could save our marriage because Olwyn sometimes catches me cutting the thick blue skin off a well “matured” parmesan that has been in our fridge far too long.

Knives
You only really need two: a large chef’s knife and a small paring knife. Get the best quality you can afford, and keep them ultra sharp. OK you could sneak in two more knives, a bread knife and a thin-bladed filleting knife.

Looking after knives
When you chop stuff and want to scrape it off the board into the pot, you use the knife blade – we all do. However, use the back of the knife blade, it is just as good and doesn’t dull the blade edge.

Garlic
Buy a tube of garlic puree and keep it in the fridge. A squeeze 2cm long is about the same as one clove. No need to mess about peeling garlic, losing cloves and having the thing start growing in your cupboard.

Cooking Oil
Trendies say use rape seed oil, which is usually in small bottles and very expensive. More fool them. Have a look at the ingredients of the cheap standard vegetable oil. It will probably say rape seed! Use that. If it doesn’t say rape seed oil, sunflower oil is a healthy alternative. Rape oil is best for cooking because it can go to higher temperatures without burning. Olive oil is more authentic for Mediterranean recipes but needs lower temperatures for frying.

Refilling small containers (like the pepper mill)
Take a sheet of paper. Fold in half, open up again. Pour your fill into the centre of the sheet (e.g. sugar, salt, spices ). Pick up the paper so the fill is in the “V”. You can now more easily pour into a small container from the bottom of the “V” as you tilt the paper.

 

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