Tag: sauces

• 

  PK’s Chicken Baste #1

  This is the second in my posts on dry rubs and basting sauces for use when roasting meat, it works great regardless of whether you are using a BBQ or an oven. I used it recently on an oven roast chicken along with this dry rub as inspired by http://noblepig.com/.

  Again, I take my hat off to the people over at Noble Pig and our own Growchow, you are indeed doing amazing work :).

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • 1/2 tsp ground rock salt
    • 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
    • 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (this stuff is amazing)
    • 1 Tbsp garlic infused olive oil
    • 1/4 tsp tumeric powder
    • 1/4 tsp beetroot powder (for colour, I make my own here)
    • 2 drops of liquid smoke (mostly because a second drop fell in accidently, yum)
  •  Equipment:
    • a small bowl for the sauce
    • a fork for mixing
    • a basting brush

  Steps:

  1. Bring all the ingredients together.
  2. Get distracted by how amazing it looks and smells.
  3. Mix everything together.
  4. Baste your chicken.

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  January 31, 2017

• 

  PK’s Sage and Thyme Butter

  A really simple sage, thyme and parmesan flavoured butter that goes well with anything, especially chicken and seafood. I suppose it would probably keep for a while in the fridge but I have only ever made enough to use straight away.

  Bring together your desired amount of butter or margarine or butter blend (perhaps 60 – 100g) and then add to taste:

  • sage
  • thyme
  • pepper
  • parmesan cheese (better yet Parmigiano-Reggiano)

  I bring the butter to room temperature, in Australia that will make it pretty soft and workable very quickly during summer.

  Finely chop the rest of the ingredients and fold them in.

  

  

  Once I had folded it in I went all Baskin-Robbins style on it by mixing it some more on a clean counter top.

  

  I then rolled it into a ball and chilled the whole lot again.

  

  My serving suggestion 🙂

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

   

  Related Links:

  • see more recipes using butter here
  • see more infused butter posts here
  • see more NoRecipe goodness here

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  November 13, 2016

• 

  The Easiest Guacamole

  I like anything with avocado in it so it is no surprise that I love my home made ‘guac’. If only because I use as much stuff from my kitchen garden as possible. I love anything that works well with ‘make your own combination’ meals like taco or nacho night.

  Every avocado lover probably has their own guacamole recipe (the first being invented by the Aztecs) and here is mine. In any other dish I tend to keep the spice factor low so that people can add their own heat factor during eating. Not this time family :).

  No spice and onion = no guac.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients (serves about 3 – 4 people):
    • chives to taste
    • 1 red shallot or half a brown onion
    • 1 jalapeno chili or 1 cayenne chili
    • a few drops of Tabasco pepper sauce (or your home made version)
    • a handful of coriander leaves and stems
    • 1 avocado
    • 3 cherry tomatoes or equivalent amount of your favourite type
    • the juice of half a lemon or lime (to bring the avocado alive)
    • cracked black peppercorns (to taste)
    • table salt (an optional extra to taste but I don’t use any)
  • Equipment
    • a chopping board
    • a sharp knife
    • a wet mixer
    • a serving bowl

  Make the paste

  

  Steps:

  1. Chuck into the wet mixer:
     • the chives (amount optional)
     • 1 red shallot (skin removed)
     • 1 jalapeno chili or 1 cayenne (de-seeded if you prefer)
     • a handful of coriander leaves and stems
     • a few drops of Tabasco pepper sauce
     • 1 avocado (skin and seed removed)
     • 3 cherry tomatoes
     • the juice of half a lemon
     • cracked black pepper to taste
  2. Pulse the ingredients in the wet mixer until you get your desired texture and consistency.
  3. Pulse it a bit more because your toddler got upset he didn’t have a turn :).

  

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  July 16, 2016

• 

  PK’s Slow Cooker Chicken Stock

  This was the first time I have made my own stock. Up until this point I had thought it wasn’t worth the time and effort required. I couldn’t have been more wrong :).

  After a quick bit of prep I left it to its own devices overnight. In the morning I recovered the left over ingredients, filtered the stock and froze it in 2 cup batches.

  I got so much joy and reward from making this stock because I:

  • got to be in the kitchen cooking :).
  • gave a second chance to some carrots at the back of the fridge.
  • picked fresh vegetables from the garden with my young son.
  • used parts of chickens that normally go to waste.
  • didn’t add any packaging to landfill.
  • recovered the cooked vegetables for my compost bin.
  • recovered the bones to make my own bone meal for soil improvement (post coming soon).
  • retained some rendered chicken fat for cooking (hey I never said this was a good health blog hehehehe).
  • got an amazingly tasty stock that is salt, sugar and preservative free.

  STEPS:

  1. Get some chicken bones
  2. Gather/harvest and chop your vegetables
  3. Slow cooker time
  4. Straining
  5. Storing
  6. Recovery and resuse (optional)
  7. Defrosting

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • 2 onions
    • 4 carrots
    • 2 – 4 celery stalks (leaves on)
    • 1 Tbsp peppercorns
    • 1 handful of basil leaves
    • 2kg of chicken bones and/or carcasses
    • 2.5L of water
  • Equipment
    • a chopping board
    • a long sharp knife
    • a tablespoon
    • a 1 cup measuring cup
    • a strainer (like you would use for pasta)
    • a fine mesh sieve
    • a large pot
    • several deep dishes to hold the leftover vegetables and bones
    • a slow cooker
    • freezer containers or glass jars
    • a butter knife when it comes time to defrost the stock

  Get some chicken bones

  There must be tons of methods for doing this but I went to the butchers and bought 6 chicken carcasses. It cost me $5 AUD and they weighed approximately 2.2kgs. There was a little bit of meat on them too.

  

  Steps:

  1. I took each carcass and wrenched them in the middle to separate them into halves. I only did that to help them fit into the slow cooker though.
  2. Put them aside and turn your slow cooker on its lowest setting.

  Gather/harvest and chop your vegetables

  

  Steps:

  1. Take about 4 stalks of celery (leaves on and hopefully fresh from your garden) and give them a good wash. Tap dry and then rough chop.
  2. Rough chop the 4 carrots (skin on) and 2 onions.
  3. Rough chop a handful of basil leaves (not stems). I used some from my garden that I had previously frozen.
  4. Add all the vegetables to the now warmed up slow cooker along with 1 Tbsp of peppercorns.

  Slow cooker time

  

  Steps:

  1. Place the chicken carcasses on top of the vegetables and pour in enough boiling water to cover everything. In my case this was 2.5L.
  2. Don’t worry if the slow cooker is full to the brim and a bit squishy. By the end everything will have shrunk down and there will be plenty of room to stir everything.
  3. Let it simmer for as long as you can but at least 8 hours on low. I didn’t have to add any water the whole time but keep an eye on the water levels.
  4. As you notice a bit of space developing you can start to give it the odd stir.

  In this picture you can see how everything has reduced down:

  

  Straining

  The last few steps can be a little time consuming if you want to make the best use of the left over ingredients.

  Steps:

  1. Pour everything into a pasta colander (or a strainer that will catch most of the larger ingredients but still let the liquid through easily) over a large saucepan. I was worried that using a fine mesh sieve at this point would end with stock all over the place so I used this two part process.
  2. Now run the stock through the fine mesh sieve over the slow cooker and pour the stock in slowly.
  3. Clean the sieve under the tap and then run the stock through it again but into the original saucepan.
  4. Keep putting the vegetables and bones aside if you intend to recover them.
  5. Let the now filtered stock cool in the fridge slightly to get the skim of fat on the top.
  6. Spoon a tiny bit of the fat skim off but don’t be too fastidious as I have a tip for that later. We don’t want to lose any more of the precious stock than we have too :).

  Storing

  At this stage the stock should be super tasty but it will also be oily. I trialled two methods for dealing with this.

  Steps:

  1. Initially I placed a sheet of paper towel on the surface of the stock and let it slowly draw in the fat beads. I carefully removed the paper towel and disposed of it.
  2. I then used a 1 cup measuring cup to ladle the stock into several freezer containers.
  3. I then turned the containers upside down and froze them. This means that most of the fat beads will rise to the surface.

  In this picture you can see the beads of fat on the top and nice clean stock underneath:

  

  Recovery and Reuse

  I will expand on this in a later post but here are a few tips if you want to reuse the leftover ingredients. I had fun doing it but making the bone meal was a labour of love.

  1. Keep the bones for making your own bone meal.
  2. Chuck the vegetables into the compost bin.

  Defrosting

  I would like to show you now the advantage of freezing them upside down in a slightly concave shaped container.

  Steps:

  1. Pop the lid off the container and let it ever so slightly thaw.
  2. Turn the container upside down again and pop the stock out.
  3. Using a butter knife, scrape the fat off the top of the stock block.

  I got about 1 Tbsp of fat off two cups of stock, enough to fry up some potatoes I bet :).

  I would love to hear from you if you have any tips you want to share about making stock.

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  July 6, 2016

• 

  The Easiest Nam Jim Dressing

  Wikipedia writes ‘Nam jim (น้ำจิ้ม) is Thai for “dipping sauce”. It can refer to a wide variety of dipping sauces in Thai cuisine, with many of them being a combination of salty, sweet, spicy and sour’.

  I use this dressing in my PK’s Thai Beef Salad.

  I use a blender (don’t tell anyone please) instead of a mortar and pestle because I am lazy. You will get a more visually appealing result if you use the former, though I hope the taste is similar. I primarily use this dressing on my Thai Beef Salads and they have a lot going on visually anyway.

  Edit: Last time I made this dressing I used a mortar and pestle and the results were worth it 🙂

  If you haven’t already, please go and have a read of my post PK’s Curry Paste Kit. It will show you just how off the charts bonkers I am about using whole spices and the freshest ingredients when making your own pastes etc. Actually maybe give that post a miss ;).

  STEPS:

  1. Gather the ingredients
  2. Mix in the wet blender
  3. Serving

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • 1 tsp powdered kashmiri chili
    • 5 coriander roots (cilantro)
    • 3 garlic cloves
    • 2.5cm piece fresh ginger root
    • 3 Tbsp fish sauce
    • 3 Tbsp lime juice
    • 1 Tbsp palm sugar
  • Equipment
    • a chopping board
    • a long sharp knife
    • a tablespoon
    • a teaspoon
    • a medium sized bowl
    • a wet blender with a small bowl
    • a dry mill (optional)
    • a small serving bowl for the middle of the table

  Gather the ingredients

  Steps:

  1. Dry mill your whole kashmiri chilis to get 1 tsb. Mostly I use store bought powder though.
  2. Wash the 5 coriander roots thoroughly if you have just harvested them. I have a stash in the freezer though of roots retained after using the rest of the plant. See my post Herbs – Coriander (Coriandrum sativum).
  3. Peel and rough chop the 3 garlic cloves.
  4. Peel and rough chop the 2.5cm ginger root.
  5. Bring the 3 Tbsp fish sauce, 3 Tbsp lime juice and 1 Tbsp palm sugar together.

  

  Mix in the wet blender

  Steps:

  1. Pop everything into your wet blender and pulse till you get the look you are after.
  2. Have a taste and add a bit more of anything you think is under represented. For example I normally add a bit more fish sauce for the saltiness factor.

  

  Serving

  Pop the lot in a serving bowl. I do this so that every one can build their own Thai salad at dinner. I haven’t tried storing this in the fridge for very long but the salt content of the fish sauce should let it keep for a while. You might just want to freshen up the citrus flavour by adding a bit of lime or lemon juice.

  I would love to hear about your favourite Thai salad dressing or dipping sauce.

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  June 12, 2016

• 

  The Easiest Coriander And Garlic Sauce

  Coriander based sauces provide a real flavour boost to your dishes. I love drizzling them in everthing from salads to steaks and potato side dishes,  If you give the  ingredients below a whizz in a blender (rather than a fine chopping) you will get an amazing dipping sauce for spring rolls and the like.

  

  I used this recipe originally from http://www.tarladalal.com (this site is amazing FYI)  and I am going to experiment a bit with the amount of garlic and sugar.

  You will need:

  • Ingredients:
    • 1 Tbsp brown sugar
    • 2 cloves garlic
    • 1 Tbsp coriander leaves (cilantro)
    • 1 Tbsp fresh green chilis
    • 0.5 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
    • 2 tsp white vinegar
    • 2 Tbsp water

  • Equipment
    • a chopping board
    • a long sharp knife
    • a medium sized bowl
    • a serving bowl
    • optional: a wet blender with a very small bowl

  Making the sauce

  

  Steps:

  1. Rough chop the 1 Tbsp of coriander leaves.
  2. Peel and finely chop the 2 garlic cloves. I use the knife to gently smash the garlic clove first to make it easier to peel.
  3. Finely chop the 1 Tbsp worth of green chilis.
  4. Pop those ingredients to a bowl.
  5. Squeeze about 0.5 Tbsp of lemon juice and add this to the bowl along with:
     • 1 Tbsp brown sugar
     • 2 tsp white vinegar
     • 2 Tbsp water

  Now you can either mix the sauce with a fork for a  a crunchier sauce or blend it in the wet mixer for a few pulses.

  

  Enjoy,

  PK

  Here are some more sauces, condiments and dips along with other cooking staples: 

  Written by

  PK

  ·

  May 8, 2016