Lamb and Stuffed Spuds

Well! Here we are again, a lovely new recipe for everyone to enjoy. I do apologise for not uploading as much, but hey, I have to try things out and get them -right- before subjecting you guys to their deliciousness. This recipe, for instance, is VERY nice. A teensy bit fattening, and bad for you, but, only a small amount. This is lamb chop and vegetable stuffed potatoes.

For this you will need:
1 lamb chop per person
1-1 1/2 potatoes per person (depends on the size of the potato. I was feeding two, so three spuds, two medium-small and one large)
1/2 cup finely diced zuccini
1/2 cup carrot (around half a carrot)
1/2 large brown onion (or 1 whole small brown onion)
1 1/2 tsp sour cream
1 tsp butter
1/4 cup of milk
1 spring onion
1 small tomato
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

First off, because I try to make things as easy as possible, grab yourself a bowl, and your potatoes. Stab your potatoes with a fork, once or twice for each side, working your way around the potato. Put them into the bowl (try to fit them all into one, to save on dishes) and fill it with water so that your potatoes are half-immersed. Put it into the microwave, and cook them on high for ten minutes, pull them out, turn them over so that the -other- half is immersed, and cook them for another ten. When your microwave dings, pull them out, drain off the water, and let the things cool for about five to ten minutes.

While your potatoes are cooking, you get to go mad with the knife! No seriously. I am having a 'millions of chops for teeny fiddly things is FUN' mood lately. So! What you'll need to do is top and tail the onion, shallow slice in the side through the first layer or so, and peel off the skin. Discard. Cut the onion in half, and carefully slice and dice it. Try to make each slice and piece of the onion as small as possible. Don't worry too much if you can't do this in the initial chopping, since you can pile them up into a neat line, rest one hand on the tip of your carving knife, (on the blunt side, not where you get poked and bleed) and chop/rock the knife to completely decimate your onion.

Same thing with the zuccini, you only need a couple thin slices, two to three millimetres thick at the -most-, slice vertically through the two rounds, then horizontally to make them into teeny tiny little cubes. Top and tail and peel your carrot, if you have a full sized one, you only want to use half. Slice the carrot into disks, and then go nuts with the knife on those disks. If you can cut them up the same way you did the zuccini great! If not, don't stress. Just make sure that you have tiny little bits of carrot, not lumps. You are going to be mixing this in with mashed potato, and you don't want to go from soft mashed potato to chewing on a chunk of carrot.



Spray a frying pan, put it on low heat and toss your onion in first. Cook it until it is starting to soften and go from opaque white of raw onion to the more transparent colour of cooked. Then you toss in the zuccini and carrot, and stir occasionally to fry them evenly without burning. Hopefully.

Your potatoes will be ready for their turning over now, so deal with that, and put on the lamb in another frying pan. You want the blood to rise to the surface and puddle slightly before turning over. Yes, I know, it doesn't -sound- particularly appetising but it's a way to tell how well cooked it is. Potatoes back in the microwave, the teeny pieces of vegetable are frying, and it is all wonderful. If you are especially skilled, or y'know, have the attention span of a gnat like me, wander off and do something else for a little while, just don't forget that you -do- have things cooking.

Microwave will ding a second time, take the potatoes out and drain them, as described above. Now they get to cool down! Why? Because you have to handle them! Cut each potato, once it is cool enough to touch (and providing that a testing prod with a fork has the tines sinking easily into soft flesh) cut each potato in half lengthways.



Using a dessert spoon, carefully scoop out the potato from the skins, you want to take as much as possible, without the skins losing their shape. Put the potato in a bowl, all in the same bowl, add in the butter, sour cream, and the fried bits of vegetables. Using a fork, mix and mash the potato and bits in together, adding milk about halfway through. Not too much, you want the mix to be firm, and feel more like dough, than mashed potato.



Once it is mixed through completely, and there is no milk, sour cream, or butter visible as a separate entity, carefully spoon the mash back into the skins and set them on plates.



Grate up your cheese and top and tail the tomato. Slice and dice the tomato, so that you have little tomato cubes. Push the cubes onto the potato, sprinkle the grated cheese and ...leave for a little while. Odds are your meat isn't finished cooking! Make sure the blood has risen to the surface to pool for a second time and then turn it over.



It may rise and have -slight- amounts for a third turning, to sear the juices back in. I know this may seem a little excessive, but I assure you, undercooked lamb is FOUL. Really really bleh. While beef can and apparently is eaten in all stages from raw and chasing the lettuce to old boot leather, lamb needs to be well done. Always. So, while you're waiting for the searing of the final turn to happen, pop your potatoes in the microwave, and zap on high for a minute to a minute and a half.

Peel off dead leaves, or 'crispy' bits of the spring onion, cut off the roots, and slice into round disks. Chop chop chop ding! The first lot are ready, pull them out of the microwave, put the second plate in (if you have a second plate) and do the same thing. This has the added bonus of reheating your potato mix, so you can prepare this earlier, and it doesn't -really- matter what time your potatoes are ready, because you're reheating them just before serving anyway, to melt the cheese!

Once cheese is melted, put the bits of spring onion ontop of your potatoes for garnish (and because it really brings out the onion flavour. So good) and add your lamb to the plate. Ready to serve! Yum.

You can also have some more sour cream ontop of your potatoes and underneath the spring onion, but you have some in the potato already, so it's slight overkill. Less is more, and subtlety is the key! You can, if you desire, eat lamb with mint. It goes rather well, actually. But, not necessary. Thus!

Deliciousness Delivered.

Christmas Feast Part 2 - Tuna Patties

Tuna patties! Or fish cakes, whichever you want to call it, these are only small little things though, and I remember them as being one of my first introductions to eating seafood, and to this day, they're one of my favourite ways to. I am not a fan of things that swim as being food, and eating five prawns (shrimp if you prefer, whichever) in one sitting is like, a LOT. So! This is fairly simple to make, just slightly fiddly and time consuming.

For this you will need;
500g tinned tuna (the largest tin available, basically, the more tuna you have the 'better' it tastes)
1 brown onion
2 cups plain flour
3 eggs (or so)
3 cups breadcrumbs
6-8 medium potatoes
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup of milk
1 Tbsp sour cream
Mixed herbs
garlic powder
dried parsley

First up, peel the potatoes, and slice them in half length wise, before slicing each half into thirds cross wise. So that each peeled potato is essentially cross-hatched into roughly equal parts. Put them in water for boiling. Once boiled, and cooked -- You stab a piece of potato, in the pot, with the tip of a knife. If it sinks in easily then the potato is cooked, if there is still firmness, or the potato feels 'crispy' then it is not completely done yet. Be mindful that boiling water has bubbles, and if there are bubbles under the piece of potato you are stabbing, it will provide resistance and 'pretend' that it is not cooked -- drain the water from the pot. Tilt the lid to set it in the edge of the pot, so that you hold the potatoes within and pour out the water. Mind the steam!

Put the butter in and the milk, and start mashing. Once it is smooth, add in the sour cream (this is taken from an earlier recipe I have already done, courtesy of someone online; OMG potatoes) and mash it some more. You want a very 'firm' potato mash, so less is more in this respect. It doesn't really matter if this cools down, which is why I haven't mentioned timing for when to do other things.

In any case, when your pot starts boiling, (if you wish) top, tail and peel the onion, a slice into the side to get through the first layer of the skin, and remove that and the brown paperyness, like this;



Use your thumb to slip into the slice made in the side, it doesn't matter if you haven't nails, and peel that outermost layer of flesh off of the onion. Cut the onion in half, slice and dice it. If you can't get them all the same size, it doesn't matter so long as it is small and finely chopped, how you get from a whole onion to little bits of onion is entirely up to you, but it is fun to feel clever doing the 'chef thing'. Tip of knife to cutting board, and slaughter the helpless onion with the base of the blade, keeping the tip on the board with your other hand.

Fry up the onion so that it is soft and no longer 'white' but transparant. Or, if you can't tell the difference, simply make sure that the onion is lightly brown on one side (shh, it's not because I slightly forgot about it, really) and tip the fried onion into the mash. Stir it around -- stir mind, not mash -- so that it is evenly stirred in.



Open the tin of tuna, drain the juice into a glass (if you want to drink it, mmm) or a container (instant tuna stock!) and tip the tuna flakes into the mix, break it up with a fork, and mix it through the potato, trying to get as even a mix as possible. Add a light seasoning with the herbs, two or so shakes from the jar will be plenty, which is perhaps, around half a teaspoon? Again, less is more, the herbs will make the mix exceedingly bitter if you use too much. As much garlic powder as you desire, one teaspoon of powder is roughly equal to one garlic clove, supposedly, I have just found that the powder is a lot more strongly flavoured.

Now we get to get messy!

Two bread and butter plates, one dinner plate, and one flat-bottomed bowl. The dinner plate is to hold the 'raw' patties, the bowl is for the eggs and the two dinner plates are for flour and breadcrumbs respectively. Put the eggs in the bowl, and using a fork, whisk them thoroughly together, yolk and white, so that it is one uniform colour, without patches of one part, or the other of the egg visible.



See how there's a fork in the eggs? This is for a very good reason. The patties are a pain in the butt to turn over, and coat in the egg, so if you plop them on the fork, all you have to do is pick up and turn over. So much easier. Ahem. I'm getting ahead of myself, however.

Get a tablespoon (or soup spoon, you know, the stuff you eat with) and use it to portion out the mix. One, to one and a half tablespoons per patty, heaped up, just so they are roughly the same size. Put it into your palm, roll and shape and toss it back and forth before putting it in the flour. Coat it on both sides with the flour, gently patting it in.

This gives the egg something to stick to. Remember that fork mentioned? Put the patty on the fork in the egg, swish it around a little (gently, remember, these things are slightly fragile and may fall apart on you) turn it over and do the same, just make sure that all the flour on the patty is eggified. Scoop it out of the egg with the fork, let it drain of excess egg, and put it in the breadcrumbs. Same deal as with the flour, pat the crumbs in, coat it evenly, and gently toss off the excess before placing the patty on the dinner plate.

Lather rinse repeat until you are out of the mix. Don't stress if you need more egg, flour or breadcrumbs, it's a bit hit and miss with the measurements of those, but hey, it doesn't exactly matter.

Heat up a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan, and put as many patties as you can fit (with room for flipping) in the hot oil. Now, you aren't cooking the mix again, you're just cooking the crumbing on the outside. Fry each patty until it is a light golden brown (or darker, just so long as it's not black) replenishing the oil between batches as necessary.

Serve hot or cold, they're equally delicious. A touch of tomato sauce (ketchup) can really compliment the flavour. They're easy (ish) to make, and you get to make a HUGE MESS with the crumbing proceedure.

Deliciousness Delivered.

Pork chops, beans, corn and OMG Mashed potato.

Just a prior warning before you read on, if you have issues with cholesterole, fat, or rich food, do -not- make the mashed potato as this recipe says to. It is very rich, and something for 'once in a blue moon' treat type thing, not daily, or even weekly consumption. Something special, not a staple for a balanced and healthy diet. In my opinion at least. I got the recipe from an acquaintence of mine online. I would say friend, but she is liable to smack me if I do.

For the mashed potato you will need:
2 medium- large potatoes
1 or 2 whole brown onions
1 tsp chicken stock (if you cook with salt, if you do not ignore this)
1 egg yolk (discard the white)
1 tsp sour cream
1 tsp mayonaise
1 tsp mustard (spicy or something that is not bland, I used French)
1-2 tsp of butter

Yeah, I know, that is a LOT of stuff for something as basic as 'mashed potato', but this is OMG Mashed potato. It couldn't be -simple- now could it? Peel and quarter the potatoes, or dice them as you want, put them in a pot. Peel an onion, chop off the ends, and put an X in the both ends, to let the juices of the onion to get out into the water. Those that cook with salt, add the chicken stock, or chicken soup powder, to the water now. I don't cook with salt, and so I didn't.

Once the potato and onion are boiling, put your meat on (I had pork chops) and leave it to cook and do it's thing. When the meat is ready for turning, turn it over, and fish out the onion from your potato water. Yes. Fish it out. Use a pair of tongs or whichever. You have a choice here, you can either throw away the boiled onion, dice a fresh onion for frying, or you can chop it up for frying later. I saved it -- I feel funny just throwing away food.

EDIT: I have since been informed that in this recipe the onion is a spice not a 'food' and so it -should- be discarded. Where's the fun in learning if you don't make mistakes? So you'll need an extra onion for dicing and frying later in the recipe. :D

At the same time, put the frozen vegetables on the heat (I had beans and corn) so that hopefully they will reach the boil just before you're ready to serve and you've finished faffing about with the potato. This way the frozen vegetables are thoroughly cooked, but not -over- cooked, retaining a bit of freshness crisp and more flavour.

So, carefully (it's hot!) dice the onion and pulverise it into little squares with the knife. It is soft and squishie, and slightly difficult. A few minutes before you serve, put the onion in to fry, and brown slightly, but do not expect much, most of the juice has gone into the water and the potato. While the onion is frying, drain the water out of the potato, put in the butter and mash it. Mash mash mash!

The sour cream, mustard and mayonaise are added now (clean the spoon off in between to avoid cross contamination, or use different spoons) stir them into the mashed potato. Turn the onion over, toss it so that it doesn't burn.

Crack the shell of the egg, keeping it together, very carefully strain the yolk from the white, and add the yolk ONLY to the mash. Discard the white, or use it for something else later. Stir the egg yolk through, mash the potato a second time to make sure everything is mixed in together. Serve!