bill’s everyday asian

As I mentioned in my last post I am back on the cooking bandwagon and last night I tried my first recipe out of one of Christmas presents – bills’s everyday asian. The cookbook looks really promising in terms of how many recipes I have bookmarked to try – but my first go was with his Classic stir-fried chicken with basil: 

It was supposed to be served with rice, however eating for one I didn’t really want to extend the servings by adding rice to the meal, so I ate it alone. The flavour was the perfect balance of spicy and salty, however I think next time I will make an extra effort to get the thai basil, rather than ordinary basil – I think that could make all the difference.

first dinner back to the stove

Tonight was my first meal officially back in the kitchen – I had managed to avoid cooking the whole of last week, and the week before I was in Japan. For my first dinner back I picked a meal from the recently arrived March issue of Delicious – sizzling beef with capsicum and broccolini – yum!



Ingredients

650g rump steak, trimmed thinly sliced (I only used about 400g and didn’t notice the difference)

1/4 cup of kecap manis

300g broccolini, ends trimmed

1 tbs sunflower oil

1 red onion, thinly sliced

1 each red & yellow capsicum, sliced (I used red and green)

1 long red chilli, seeds removed, sliced

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

1/4 cup oyster sauce

1 tbs soy sauce

Coriander and steamed rice, to serve (I only used rice as Phil as an aversion to coriander)

Place the steak in a bowl and toss with 2 tbs kecap manis. (I mis-read and put the whole lot in, a little bit of extra flavour never hurt anyone) Stand for 15 minutes.

Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the broccolini and cook for 1-2 minutes until just tender. Drain and arrange the broccolini in a serving dish. Keep warm. (I just placed it in my oven on 70 degrees)

Place a large frypan or wok over high heat, add oil and heat until smoking. In 2 batches, stir-fry beef for 1-2 minutes until just cooked, then set aside. Add a little more oil to the pan if necessary, then stir-fry onion and capsicum for 1-2 minutes until they begin to soften.

Sprinkle over the chilli and garlic, then quickly toss together. Return the steak to the pan with the oyster sauce, soy, remaining 1 tbs kecap manis and 2 tbs water, then cook for a further minute until warmed through.

Spoon the contents of the pan over the broccolini, including all the pan juices, scatter with coriander and serve immediately with rice.

The finished product!

Delicious – nice and light stir-fry, doesn’t even need rice if you aren’t too hungry. Another win for the Delicious magazine.