Minced Beef Surprise

Sous Chef J has a problem with chewing and swallowing some textures of food.  Luckily, we have discovered that slow cooking seems to make meat far more palatable so we're researching different recipes and ingredient combinations.  Today's meat randomly selected from the freezer was some beef mince.

Having discussed the options with Sous Chef J, he decided to opt for a 'surprise' meal.  So we chopped a couple of onions and carrots quite finely.  The onions were then sweated in a little sunflower oil over a medium heat until they had started to turn translucent.  At this point a good squeeze of tomato puree was added, mixed through and cooked on a low heat for about ten minutes.  Next the beef mince was added to the pan and browned.  Then the chopped carrots and a carton of chopped tomatoes were added to the pan.  This was stirred thoroughly and heated through.  Finally, the whole lot was added to a pre-warmed slow cooker (on high).  It was covered and left to start the cooking process on high for about an hour, then it was turned down to low and left until it was time to be served.

The slow cooked Minced Beef Surprise was served with spicy potato wedges, steamed broccoli and cauliflower and peas.  Sous Chef J decided the surprise was that he liked it!

Indian Vegetable Fritters

   

 

 Having finally got around to looking through a cookery book that was a Christmas gift, we spotted a recipe that caught our eye. 

As usual, we gathered all the ingredients together - although we substituted frozen chopped parsley for the chopped coriander the recipe lists.

We used:-

150g Gram Flour
1 large carrot, grated
1 medium brown onion, sliced thinly
60g frozen peas
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon garam masala
⅛ teaspoon ground turmeric
¼ teaspoon baking powder (gluten free - we used Dove's Farm)
⅙ cup chopped parsley
30ml water
vegetable oil for frying

The gram flour was weighed into a medium bowl and the carrot was grated into it.  Then the sliced onion, spices, peas, parsley, crushed garlic, baking powder and water were added to the bowl.

During this time, some vegetable oil was being heated in a small frying pan ready to cook the fritters a little later.

It was then a case of getting the mixture to combine fully.  This is quite a messy, hands on job, which Sous Chef J was happy to leave to me.

Once the mix had been encouraged to combine,  small amounts (about dessertspoonfuls) were formed into a patty and added to the ready-heated frying oil.

Having fried the fritters until were browned and cooked through they were drained on some kitchen paper.












Finally the fritters were ready to serve.  We ate this batch with a chicken tikka curry, mini poppadums and mango chutney.