Sweet and Sour Fish Tempura

This morning I went via the supermarket to stock up on supplies for my gliding trip tomorrow. On the way out I popped into the fishmonger and got some lovely little white fish fillets. (I wish I could remember what they were, but it was one of these Southern Hemisphere fish and I haven't memorised them all yet!) They were small anyway, and sweet and fresh. I was daydreaming about how to prepare them and had a strong craving for my sweet and sour sauce. So I figured we could follow the same recipe, but tempura the fish instead of stir-frying it, as it was so delicate and fragile.

Super-husband made all the sauce, set the deep-fryer up, egg-fried the rice and stir-fried the vegetables while I was out Zumba-ing, then I came home and whisked up this batter in a couple of minutes, dunked the fish, and they took just minutes in the fryer. On removal, the batter was crisp and light, and the fish tender and steaming hot, cooked to perfection. Some of the bottom ones did stick to the mesh, I need to work on that... but it did give us an excuse to eat some of the broken ones fresh out of the fryer, tossing them from hand to hand to cool them fast enough to eat. I tried out a new batter today, with a few more additions compared to my usual super-simple version. It was excellent - maybe a tad lighter and crisper!

Ingredients

• one egg white
• 1/4 cup of plain white flour
• 1/4 cup of white rice flour
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup of ice-cold water
• 300g fish fillets, descaled, deboned

Fill your deep fryer and set it to 180 C. If your fillets are thicker than 1cm, slice them widthwise into thinner pieces. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg white by hand until somewhere between frothy and just beginning to go white and form peaks. Put the flours and sugar in a large bowl, and pour in all of the water and the egg white. Stir everything together for maximum one minute, stopping as soon as you see no more visible powdery flour. Lumps are fine.

Lower the basket in the fryer into the oil. Dip each piece of fish into the batter, lift out, let drip of excess and then drop gently into the hot oil, using tongs if necessary. Close the lid and deep-fry for 4 minutes; lift the basket and check. The tempura should just be going a tiny bit gold, and the fish will be cooked through. Pop onto a plate with some paper towel; if you are making many batches, try to serve out as quickly as possible.

Hot and Sour Aubergine Curry

I came home from work with just an hour and a half before my regular telecon with my colleagues in Cambridge. I felt like making the absolute most of my time and really pushing my cooking to the limit. So I cooked rice, two vegan curries, a raita, and some carrot bhajis in just under an hour :) We had a relaxed twenty minutes to eat and enjoyed a lovely glass of the SO's delicious homebrew lager. And the curries were amazing!! This was particularly great, since I usually have trouble making aubergines interesting, but in this they were absolutely exquisite, soft and melting. I adapted the recipe from 2-3 different sources on the internet, melding them together to get the best of both worlds in terms of ease-of-cooking and taste. The heat contrasted the sourness and it was perfect with the plain white rice and sweet red lentils. The quantities here serve four; I made enough for two nights for two people.

Ingredients

• two large aubergines (eggplants)
• one small white onion or half a large white onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 thumb of ginger
• 1 generous tsp fennel seeds
• 1 generous tsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp black mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (or 1-2 tsp if you like it hot)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• half a tin of coconut milk
• 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses, or 2tbsp tamarind (1 tbsp tamarind concentrate)
• a generous handful of frozen peas

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Cut the aubergines into large-ish bitesize pieces, about 2cm on each side (they will shrink loads in the oven). Toss in vegetable oil and roast for 40 minutes, until singed at the edges and edibly soft, but not dry or overcooked. Meanwhile, finely chop the onion and gently fry for five minutes, then crush in the garlic and add the finely chopped ginger, and fry for a further three minutes. Pound the fennel and coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle (you can dry toast them first if you have time/pan space), then add them and the rest of the spices to the onions, frying again for a couple of minutes. Add in the cooked aubergine pieces, the coconut milk and pomegranate molasses, stir gently and bring to a simmer (you don't want to curdle the coconut milk). Add the peas and bring up to a simmer again. Cook for just a minute or two, until the peas are hot. Serve immediately, or cover and sit until needed.

Sweet and Sour Pork

Epic thunderstorm today as the front finally broke. At last it was cool enough to make something warm. Since I'm still using up the storecupboard, it was a modification of the sweet-and-sour chicken I made a few weeks ago. This time I sliced up some excellent pork tenderloin and lightly coated it in flour and chinese five-spice, then batch-fried it in a wok before returning it at the end with sauce and slightly different stir-fried vegetables. Yummy!

Sweet and Sour Chicken

When I did the shopping, it was bright and sunny, another glorious day in a long spring of unexpectedly warm and dry weather. Today, it is absolutely pouring down. So instead of using a classic Nigel June recipe of 'a little roast chicken and leaves' or 'oh it's so hot, let's have a glass of wine and some fruit' or 'oh another one of those dessert-only days', I get out the wok and make the rib-sticking tasty Chinese-British classic. Served with egg-fried rice and an episode of Day Break, it's a great antidote to the miserable weather and a nice treat after a day spent spring-cleaning. I used to make it with brown sugar but I find this method results in a more brightly-coloured sauce, with little detriment to flavour; you can get the umame from the soy sauce in the rice.

Ingredients:

• 1 large or 2 small chicken breasts
• 1 carrot, and/or 1 red pepper or some baby sweet corn or sugar snap peas, depending on what you have to hand
• 3 spring onions (you might want to omit them from the rice)
• 1 tin of pineapple rings
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
• juice of half a lemon
• 3 tbsp white sugar
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1/2 tsp salt

Drain some of the pineapple juice into a pyrex bowl or jug, and stir in the plain flour. When it is fully suspended with no lumps, add the rest of the pineapple juice, the vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, tomato puree and salt. Stir well, then microwave for 2-3 minutes, stirring halfway through; it should thicken slightly and become glossy.

Meanwhile, peel and finely slice the carrot into diagonal flat pieces, and do the same for the spring onion. Slice the fillet of the chicken into four diagonal pieces, then cut the rest of the breast in half across the fattest part, then slice all of it into further diagonal pieces.

Heat a little sunflower or vegetable oil in a wok until shimmering, then quickly stir fry the chicken, vegetables and spring onions together for a few minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and just beginning to colour. (If you are using a very large quantity of vegetables, you might want to do this in batches, with the chicken separate.) Add in the pineapple chunks and pour over the sauce, allowing it to bubble for one minute, so it slightly reduces. Serve over the rice with the oh-so-traditional fork :)