Minced soy pork with noodles

MUNCH RATING: 5/5

 

In the April issue of BBC Good Food magazine there was a recipe by Ching-He Huang for this noodle dish. It looked really tasty, but what tempted me most was that it was quite healthy at around 500 calories and 12g fat per serving. I thought this would be the perfect dish to start our healthy eating plan as it’s quick and easy to prepare and cook.

 

I do make quite a few stir-fries so I already had most of the ingredients, but there are some ingredients that I had to get from the Chinese supermarket, such as the dried mushrooms. Steve was a little dubious about the dried mushrooms as he didn’t have very fond memories of them from dishes he’d eaten in restaurants. But once he saw that I’d chopped them up into small pieces he cheered up and after tasting them in the dish he declared that they were actually quite nice as he couldn’t really taste them, but they added a depth of flavour to the dish. He’s even suggested we try putting them in Bolognese and Massaman curry!

 

CHANGES TO THE RECIPE: 

I also used some chow mein noodles (Lion Brand) that I’d bought instead of the rice noodles that Ching used, as we prefer this type of noodle. Ching added noodles that were already cooked, whereas I added mine when they were just rehydrated as I preferred to finish cooking them in the pan so that they could absorb more flavour.  I used 2½ blocks of the dried noodles and this made quite a lot when rehydrated, so I added a bit more soy sauce than the recipe suggested and I also added some oyster sauce for extra flavour. Ching added dried shrimps, spring onions and coriander to her dish, but we ran out of spring onions and I can’t stand dried shrimps and coriander so I left them out. Instead I added some mange tout for some colour and one of our 5-a-day!

 

TASTE TEST:

I haven’t really used pork mince much before, which is funny because the Chinese love to use pork! But we both really liked the texture of the meat and it wasn’t greasy like lamb or beef mince. I will definitely be using more pork mince in future, especially as it was so nice in the Potsticker Dumplings we made!

 

• Serves: 2 generously

 

Ingredients:

• 2½ blocks dried chow mein noodles rehydrated (see notes below)
• 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 Tablespoon grated ginger
• 3 dried Chinese mushrooms, rehydrated and finely chopped (see notes below)
• 250g lean pork mince
• 1 Tablespoon Shaoshing rice wine
• 1 Tablespoon dark soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 Tablespoon oyster sauce
• 1 teaspoon chicken stock powder (I used Knorr granules)
• 100ml water
• 1 Tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 2 big handfuls of mange tout

 

Directions:

1. Heat a wok over a high heat and add the oil. When it’s really hot add the garlic, ginger and finely chopped mushrooms. Stir well for a few seconds, then add the mince and stir-fry. When the meat starts to turn brown, add the rice wine, both soy sauces, oyster sauce, stock powder and the water and bring to the boil.
2. Add the rehydrated noodles and mix thoroughly, allow to cook for 2 minutes, then add the mange tout and cook for another 2 minutes until they’re cooked but still a bit crunchy.
3. Add the sesame oil, mix well and serve immediately.

 

COOK’S NOTES:

• To rehydrate the noodles: place them in a deep bowl or saucepan and pour over enough boiling water to cover them. Allow them to soften for a couple of minutes and then loosen with a pair of chopsticks until they’re all separated. Drain and rinse with cold water.
• To rehydrate the mushrooms: place them in a bowl and pour over enough boiling water to cover them. Leave them to soak for 45 minutes, then drain.

Grow your own Herbs

August 11th 2009:

Inspired by using an abundance of fresh herbs during my cooking course, I decided to buy some Rosemary, Thyme and Parsley. I bought a bog standard Rosemary plant, a Common Thyme plant, a Lemon Thyme plant and a Curly Parsley.
The herbs I bought from garden centre were quite small at only 13cm (5ins) tall, but I decided to buy these because they were only £1.49 each. The bigger ones were more expensive and I didn’t think it was necessary because I’m quite confident the small plants will grow at a good rate.

Steve’s Mum found me a massive pot which is 37cm (14.5ins) in diameter at the top and 28cm (11ins) deep, but it is tapered so it didn’t take too much soil to fill.
I’d kept an article from a magazine about planting herbs and I found it really useful, so I thought I’d share it with you:

• Mediterranean plants such as sage, oregano, basil, tarragon, thyme and rosemary prefer lots of sun, whilst chives, mint, sorrel, parsley and fennel don’t mind a semi-shaded spot. Grow one plant per container or create combinations; mint is a monster though so grow on its own.
• Select a suitable pot – the wider the better, but at least 20cm deep. Make sure there are drainage holes in the bottom.
• Add a two-inch layer of terracotta chunks or coarse gravel to the bottom of the pot to aid drainage. For those gardening on balconies, use pieces of polystyrene.
• Now half-fill the pot with compost. For semi-permanent plantings like this, you can use 50:50 John Innes No.3 and peat-free multipurpose, as it holds onto water and nutrients, but drains well. Mix in a small handful of pelleted chicken manure or seaweed meal. You can also add Broadleaf P4 or SwellGel which are special gels that hold water like a sponge.
• Now take the plastic pots off your plants; check the roots and gently tease out those that have wound themselves around the rootball, then dunk them in a bucket of water.
• Arrange your plants in the pot so the top of the roots is about an inch below the rim; add more compost to the bottom if need be. Place tall herbs like bay, sorrel or garlic at the back and shorter ones at the front.
• Now fill in the gaps with compost. Only slightly cover the rootball, but ensure no roots are visible or the plant will dry out in double-quick time.
• Leave a 3cm gap between the top of the compost and the rim of the pot so water won’t gush off the top. Water well.
• Position your pots by the back door so you can grab fistfuls when you like. To keep herbs bushy, pick regularly and remove any flowers.

I had quite a bit of space around each plant and I thought this would be quite tempting for pesky squirrels to have a dig around, so I’ve put some defences in to deter them!

Steve’s Mum had a set of small pots that sit in a tray, so I decided to plant the Curly Parsley in one of these pots and the same with the Chives that I’ve been growing. This way I can easily take them indoors in the winter as they’re not as hardy as Rosemary and Thyme. I will probably put some basil in the third pot.
I bought the herbs today and I have already used the Parsley and Thyme in my cooking as part of a bouquet garni in a Beef Carbonnade recipe. The smell of fresh herbs is amazing!

September 5th 2009:

Well the herbs have really filled out the pot since I bought and planted them at the beginning of August. I removed the green plastic and chicken wire to give them more space, but I left the bamboo sticks in as they seem to be a very good deterrent for anything trying to dig up plants.
The Lemon Thyme (above) has a very different fragrance to the Common Thyme (below) which I would say has a stronger smell, but I’m not sure if I can really tell the difference in flavour. It’s still nice to have the choice and they are both growing really well. They look incredibly similar, but I think I could tell the difference if tested, just by the smell.

My Rosemary looks rather sad in this photo, but it has been growing very well and I’ve just chopped off a huge sprig to use in cooking!

September 27th 2009:

As you can see my rosemary hasn’t grown at all over the last couple of weeks and I’ve found out why. I was reading a book I borrowed from the library, ‘The Container Kitchen Garden’ by Antony Atha, and it says that rosemary will not regenerate if it is cut back into the hard wood. Well now I can plainly see that is the mistake I have made! There’s a detailed section in the book about taking cuttings to grow more plants, but to be honest it was so cheap to buy the rosemary plant that I will probably just get another one if this one doesn’t grow anymore!
It’s quite a good book as there are lots of detailed photos and instructions on how to grow things in containers. It doesn’t appear to be available to buy online, but even if it was I probably wouldn’t bother buying it and just borrow it from the library again.

November 3rd 2009:

I didn’t think the rosemary had grown at all, but comparing the picture taken in September it does look a little bigger (that’s real optimism for you!).
Both thyme plants are looking very sad indeed. Most of the leaves have all fallen off, but I’m guessing that is natural for this time of year.
I’m not going to do anything special to my herbs over the winter, like re-pot them to bring them indoors as it’s too much effort and I’ve not really got anywhere to put them (I don’t think Steve’s Mum will appreciate me clogging up the kitchen windowsill with all my herbs!). So I’m just going to put a large fleece over the whole pot and that should protect them from any frost.

March 17th 2010:

After a very cold winter I wasn’t expecting my herbs to be in any great shape. So when I took the fleece off my herb pot a couple of weeks ago I was surprised to see that the parsley was looking very healthy, probably even healthier than when I first planted it!
It looks a bit yellow in the picture, but it’s actually a very healthy green colour and looks like it will continue to grow quite steadily this year.
Likewise the chives are starting to come through again after a winter sleep. I have quite a few of these little clumps in the herb pot and they’re all about this size.
I wasn’t surprised that the rosemary hadn’t improved after I’d cut it too short. I’m hoping to replace this with a new plant if my seeds ever germinate!
  What I am surprised about is how awful both my thyme plants look. I thought they were supposed to be really hardy plants, but they both look dead. I’ve read that they don’t like too much water and it’s possible I did overwater them or they got too wet over the winter. I’m going to just leave them in the pot and hope that they make some sort of recovery!

Work experience at Delicious Magazine Website

 

Last week I had the pleasure of working on the Delicious Magazine website. I got to upload recipes from past issues of the magazine and this involved obtaining copy from InDesign files, re-sizing images using Photoshop and then uploading recipes using their bespoke CMS (content management system). I’d already spent a couple of weeks working on the new Tesco Real Food website so I had some idea of how to use CMS, but the Delicious one was fully working and much easier to use.

 

I really enjoyed writing the standfirsts (line of text after the headline that gives more information about the article)for the recipes as it allowed some creativity, but I had to keep in mind to use certain key words that would be picked up in search engines. I got praised for my standfirsts so I was really chuffed!

 

I got to work very closely with Debra the web editor and she showed me how the website worked and introduced me to Google analytics, which I will look into using for my own blog.

It was an absolutely brilliant experience and the people were so lovely I wish I could have stayed longer! But I have been given the opportunity to attend some cookery classes in the future in return for reviewing them, so I’m really looking forward to that.

 

I was also given the April issue of the magazine and there are loads of great recipes that I want to try. French macaroons/macarons (the kind made with almonds and not coconut) are the new cupcakes, so I’m going to give them a go very soon as I have loads of egg whites stashed in my freezer.

 

When I was uploading the recipes onto the website I had to classify recipes according to whether they were low calorie, low fat etc. for the metadata:

• low calorie = less than 400 calories
• low fat = less than 10g
• low carbs = less than 10g
• low salt = less than 0.5g

It made me more aware of what is considered healthy and since Steve is on a bit of a health kick at the moment, I will be trying out all the healthy recipes from the magazine – so watch this space!