Mongolian Beef with noodles

Its Chinese New Year so definitely time to try this Chinese-American dish. Like spicy food? Like stretching one fillet steak to make a meal for two? This recipe is great. And the best thing about it is that you can prepare it and leave it till when a friend arrives and 'Voila!' Ready in 5 minutes.

It looks like a lot of ingredients, but please don't be put off. Sake wine keeps for ages - as does Oyster sauce. If you don't want spicy, remove the seeds from the chilli. I didn't and it was perfect - but I like spicy food.

You make this dish in three stages - cook the meat and put in a bowl, make the sauce and put in a separate bowl. Cook the veg and leave to one side. Then its simply just pulling it all together in 5 minutes when you are ready for it. Garnished with sesame seeds and shredded spring onion it looks good and tastes great!

Ingredients:     (Serves 2)

For the beef:
1 beef fillet steak
1 tbsp. plain flour
1 tbsp. cornflour (corn starch)
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. white pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
oil for frying

For the sauce:
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
piece ginger, chopped
1 birds eye chill, sliced thinly (seeds removed if liked)
1/2 cup Sake (Chinese wine)
3 tbsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. oyster sauce
50ml chicken stock

For the vegetables:
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
piece ginger, chopped
1 birds eye chilli, thinly sliced (seeds removed if liked)
1 red pepper, sliced
1 onion, sliced

Method:

With a sharp knife, slice the beef as thinly as you can. (You can wrap the beef in foil and put in the freezer for about 45 mins if finding it hard to slice thinly). Put the sliced beef in a bowl and add the flours and spices. Mix thoroughly. Heat about 2 inches of vegetable oil in a pan or wok and fry for 2-3 minutes till crispy and drain on kitchen paper.

For the sauce, heat the oil in a wide pan and add the garlic, ginger and chilli. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then add the sake, soy, oyster sauce and stock. Cook on high for 7-8 minutes to reduce by half. Turn off the heat and put the sauce in a bowl.

In a little vegetable oil, fry all the vegetables together for about 10 minutes until caramelised and soft. Put to one side.

These can all be assembled now - or left for when you are ready. To assemble, put the vegetables and beef together in a hot pan or wok and stir fry until heated through. Add the sauce and stir to combine. And that's it. Place on top of a plate of egg noodles and garnish with sesame seeds and shredded spring onion. Filling and delicious!

Quick Apple Scones

Last weekend we had a cousin pop over with her new baby. They were only coming for a cup of tea and I knew they were going to be eating later - but I just couldn't do it. I HAD to have something to go with the tea - even if they didn't want it. Sunday 11am - what would be perfect? Apple scones. Easy to make from start to finish in under half an hour I served them with the tea...still warm. Talking about them has made me want to make more now..

Ingredients    (Makes 8)

225g self raising flour
50g butter, cold & cubed
60g caster sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 large eating apple, peeled, cored and chopped finely
125ml milk

Method:

Set oven to 200 C. Sieve the flour into a bowl and add the butter. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips until you have a texture like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, cinnamon and apple. Now pour in the milk stirring well to make a dough.

Tip the dough out onto a floured board and shape the pastry into a round at a height of approx. 1 inch deep. With a 2 inch cutter cut scones from the pastry. Keep pulling the leftovers together and gently make into a smaller round and keep cutting. The last bit of dough should make the 8th scone.

Brush the tops of the scones with a little milk, place on a lightly floured baking sheet and put in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove and cool on a wire rack.

Delicious simply buttered, or you can make a berry fruit compote. I personally like apple with blueberries so made a simple blueberry compote. Just put some blueberries in a small pan with some sugar to taste and 1-2 teaspoons of water. Cook on a low heat until the blueberries start to burst. Put into a bowl and chill. Then serve the scones with the chilled blueberry compote and some whipped cream!