Showing posts with label mushrooms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mushrooms. Show all posts
Mini Meatball Stuffed Mushrooms
Mushrooms and Beef are the perfect pairing and great to blend and extend your budget. This delicious appetizer is tasty and has an extreme wow factor. When I shop for mushrooms for this recipe, I never buy them pre packaged, instead I pick them by hand to ensure that they are the same size. A tiny block of cheese on top of each is optional and helps keep this together. Since mushrooms are super delicious and juicy, either provide your guests with tiny appetizer plates or stand them on some kitchen towel to absorb the juices before serving. This filling is enough to stuff a minimum of 48 mushrooms.
Ingredients
48 white button mushrooms (picking, storing and care)
1 lb medium ground beef
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp pepper
1/2 finely chopped red onion
1 tsp ground garlic paste
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
Coarse salt to taste
2 tbsps olive oil
48 small nuggets of cheese of your choice
Process
Heat your oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare a baking dish with 2 tbsps of olive oil brushed at the bottom and sprinkle with some salt
Remove the mushroom stalks and shave the bottoms so they are stand.
Chop all the removed bits of mushroom really fine and add to the beef.
Add the cumin, pepper, onion, garlic paste, parsley and salt to taste and mix vigorously.
For ease of preparation, take 3 - 4 golf size balls of the mixture and blend it in your food processor.
Add this to the rest of the meat.
Using a small melon baller with a release lever as a guide fill the meat mixture to the level.
Continue doing this till you have 48 mini meatballs.
Place the mushrooms on the baking tray.
Leaving the meatballs aside, stuff the cavity of the mushroom with the remaining meat mixture.
Roll the measured meatball into a perfect ball shape and top each mushroom.
Cook for 15 - 20 mins.
Remove from the oven and top with a nugget of cheese of your choice.
Return to the oven for another minute or so.
Garnish with more chopped parsley.
Hot & Sour Soup
I love Hot and Sour soup! Especially the Indian Chinese kind. Indian Chinese just means the food is cooked by Chinese immigrants that have lived in India for generations. The food they serve is a lot more (IMHO) flavorful and spicy than other Chinese food.
I've had this soup enough times in my lifetime to be able to reproduce this to restaurant perfection in the first try. And of course, I'm going to share this with you!
You can easily make this a vegetarian soup by using veggie stock and omitting the chicken and egg.
Stock
2 liters of chicken stock
If using stock cubes dissolve 2 cubes per liter. Even if you use the cubes, just boil the stock and add any leftover pieces of veggies from this soup or anything in your freezer to enhance the stock. I always freeze pieces of veggies before they go bad and it's ready at a moments notice to enhance any stock.
2 tbsps oil
12 spring onions - chopped bulbs only
4 tbsps finely minced fresh ginger
4 tbsps finely minced garlic
1/2 pound ground chicken
5 tbsps Sambal Oelek or chilli paste
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped while or brown fresh mushrooms
Sliced Shitake mushrooms - 300 ml can OR handful of dried mushrooms soaked in a cup of hot water
2 tbsps finely chopped coriander stems only
3 tbsps rice wine vinegar
3 tbsps dark soya sauce
4 tbsps canned bamboo shoots cut in julienne strips
1 carrot cut in thin julienne strips
2 tbsps firm tofu cut in julienne slices
2 tbsps cornstarch dissolved in a 1/2 cup of water
1/2 a beaten egg
1/4 cup chopped coriander leaves
1/2 cup chopped spring onion leaves
Heat a few tbsps of oil and saute the chopped spring onion bulbs. Add the chopped ginger and garlic. Saute for a minute and add the minced chicken and break it up so there are no lumps. Add the chilli paste and the fresh mushrooms. Add the boiling stock and quickly add the coriander stems, shitake mushrooms, black pepper, vinegar, soya, bamboo shoots, carrots and tofu. You must add everything really quickly so the carrots maintain their crunch. Add the cornstarch, stir in a beaten egg and stir with a fork to get ribbons of egg and finally add the coriander and spring onion leaves. Taste for salt - if making fresh stock you will need to add more than if using a cube or commercial stock. Enjoy!
Note: If you're planning to freeze this soup - don't add the egg, coriander or spring onions leaves. Add the egg and the fresh leaves after you thaw and reheat.
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