Estofado de ternera al vino tinto malbec

My take on an Argentinian beef stew using short ribs and Malbec wine. 

Ingredients

1 kilo beef short ribs, bone-in

2 carrots, diced

2 celery sticks, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic bulbs, smashed

3 sprigs fresh oregano, hand-crushed

3 large bay leaves

2 cups red wine (I used Argento Malbec 2016)

2 cups beef broth

knob of butter

olive oil

fennel seeds

peppercorn

ground black pepper

salt (I used Maldon Smoked Sea Salt)

1. Gently salt the beef. Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan. When it's smoking, sear both sides of the beef. Place beef inside the Instant Pot container. 

2. In the same pan, fry some fennel seeds and ground pepper until you can smell them. Then sauté the onions and garlic until fragrant. Add in the celery. Then add in the carrots. When they are nice and fragrant, put them in the Instant Pot container with the beef. 

3. Put 3/4 cup of the wine and 3/4 cup of the broth in the pan and deglaze any oily, buttery browned bits on the bottom. Place in the Instant Pot container. 

4. Pour the rest of the wine and broth. Add in the peppercorns, bay leaves, and sprigs of oregano. Slow Cook for 4 hours. This is to extract the most flavour from the ingredients. 

5. After the slow cook, check softness of the beef and taste of the sauce/broth. Season the broth as needed and, if beef is not yet fork-tender, Pressure Cook as needed (maybe 30 minutes on high pressure). Afterwards, on the Saute function reduce the sauce to desired level of thickness; season as needed.  

Serve with potato puree or, to be truly Argentine, pasta. Of course, we had it with rice. See the dish here.

Teriyaki Pork Ribs 1.0

Logging for notes. There are a few thinks I need to tweak-- texture is good (not too soft), but the meat's flavour apart from the sauce could be better. Not bad for a first try.

Ingredients

1 kilo baby back ribs

3/4 cup teriyaki sauce (I used Kikkoman Teriyaki Marinade)

3/4 cup hon mirin

knob of butter

salt and pepper

1. Season the ribs and marinate in teriyaki sauce and mirin, preferably overnight (I only did 2 hours, hence the lack of flavour). 

2. Place ribs and marinade in the Instant Pot. If you have a trivet, rub salt and pepper on the ribs and place on the trivet. Pressure cook on high for 40 minutes, natural release for 10 minutes, then quick release. 

3. Place ribs on a baking tray, keeping the now-watery marinade in the pot. Add a knob of butter and Saute on high to reduce the sauce until it can coat the back of a spoon. 

4. Bake ribs at 220C until desired brownness. 

Serve with rice (or course). 

Instant Pot Sanbeiji 三杯雞 (Three Cups Chicken)

Well, not exactly 3 cups as I've changed the proportions of rice wine, sesame oil, and soy sauce. And because we used the Instant Pot, it's more a stew and not the Maillard reaction-browned version you'd get from a claypot or a wok. 

Ingredients

1 kilo chicken (wings and drumettes)

1 garlic, peeled but not chopped

3-5 slices of ginger

1/2 cup Chinese rice wine (Shaoxing) 

1/4 cup sesame oil

1/4 cup dark soy sauce

1/2 cup water

salt and pepper

1. On Saute mode (high), sauté the garlic and ginger in sesame oil until the garlic starts to blister. 

2. Add in the chicken and fry a bit-- no need to brown at this stage, just to get the temperature up again. Add in the rice wine, sesame oil, and dark soy sauce and let it simmer for a minute or so. Press Cancel to turn off Saute mode. 

3. Place the pressure cooker lid on the instant pot and set Pressure Cook (or Poultry) for 25 minutes (high pressure). After pressure cooking, leave it on natural release for about 10 minutes then do a quick release to stop cooking. 

4. Go back on Saute mode to evaporate all the liquid until you are left with a thick sauce (this could  take a while on the Instant Pot; alternatively, transfer contents to a separate pan/wok and reduce sauce over a stove). Sauté/reduce until desired thickness. 

Serve with rice and some stir-fried greens. Pickled greens would be good too. 

De Re Coquinaria of Apicius

 Saving for reference: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/home.html

Might try Roman dishes some day. 

Instant Pot 40(ish)-clove garlic chicken

Got the recipe from here, with some embellishments. Items in parentheses are what I actually used. 

Ingredients

1.2 kg chicken (wings and drumettes) 

2 whole garlic bulbs, peeled

1 stick of butter (Paysan Breton demi-sel)

200 mL chicken broth (1/3 bouillon cube dissolved in hot water)

100 mL white wine (Ruffino Orvieto Classico)

bay leaves

herbs: thyme and rosemary

spices: paprika, garlic powder, black pepper 

salt

1. Season chicken wings with salt and spices. Set aside. 

2. Turn Instant Pot to sauté and brown chicken in butter. Set aside. 

3. Add butter if needed and sauté the garlic until they're a bit browned and/or blistered. Add back the browned chicken. Add bay leaves, herbs, wine, and broth and bring the temperature back up. 

4. Turn Instant Pot to poultry and pressure cook on high, set for 22 minutes. When done, do a natural release. 

Garnish with chopped parsley. Serve with rice or toast and white wine. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIfs8zkHa4c/

Pão de ló de Alfeizerão

This is a traditional Portuguese cake, which is basically a collapsed and eggy sponge cake. Legend says it was a failed sponge cake by nuns who suddenly found themselves hosting the King, but somehow the King loved the mistake more than the original and a new conventual sweet was born. My first attempt was a failure, but by the second attempt I think I nailed it. This is the recipe I used based mainly on the recipe and video by Clara de Sousa.

Ingredients
8 eggs (6 yolks, 2 whole), room temperature
100 grammes (1/2 cup) sugar
50 grammes (2/5 cup) self-raising flour, sifted

1. Line a 20-centimetre (8-inch) round cake tray with parchment paper. Pre-heat the oven at 220C.

2. Whisk eggs and sugar until mixture is more than double the volume and pale in colour. This usually takes about 10 minutes or so.

3. Fold in the flour until incorporated, careful not into overwork the batter.

4. Bake for 7-10 minutes (this one baked for precisely 9 minutes). The cake will be jiggly when you take it out-- bang it onto a surface to help it collapse (which is what this particular pao de lo is all about).

Don't eat it right out of the oven. Wait for it to cool down or, better yet, put it in the fridge and eat after a few hours or overnight. The texture and flavour will have matured better by then.

Here is what it looks like: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBFq93cHPob/ 

Next in the Galley: Yema

Yema is one of those Filipino conventual sweets, to use a term I recently picked up from Portugal. The name means egg yolk in Spanish and is the main ingredient in this dessert. Other Filipino conventual sweets are brazo de Mercedes, pianono, and leche flan: eggy and sugary desserts that were created to use leftover egg yolks after the whites have been used to make a cathedral or two. This recipe is how my Dad used to do it. 

Ingredients
4 egg yolks
1 can condensed milk
1/2 bar of butter
orange or lemon zest

Constantly stir egg yolks, condensed milk, and butter over low heat. Add zest towards the end.

Some recipes online call for 10 egg yolks for the same amount of condensed milk, but I'll try this tested recipe first.

It's suggested to let the resulting paste cool down, form them into balls (or other shapes) and roll them on sugar so they don't stick. But whenever my Dad made these we'd just take spoons and eat them straight from the pot.

Update (21/05/2020): It's been three months since I said I was gonna make yema but I haven't done it yet. Since then the world has gone upside down and we're just 2 weeks away from the end of a 2-month circuit breaker (SG's term for lockdown). But despite my lack of progress on yema, I am now setting my sights on the rather more challenging pão de ló de Alfeizerão. I see a fairly feasible recipe here: https://www.notquitenigella.com/2019/06/03/pao-de-lo-authentic-portuguese-sponge-cake/ and https://claradesousa.pt/receita/pao-de-lo-de-alfeizerao/ and http://portuguesediner.com/tiamaria/pao-de-lo-de-alfeizerao/

Let's see what the next update will bring.