My lovely bathroommie, knowing I love to cook, bought me a 30 Minutes Cookbook as a moving out present :). So of course I've put it to good use! The recipes below are directly taken from the book and no copyright infringement intended.
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| Thai-Style Rare Beef and Mango Salade |
Prep: 2 mins; Cooking: 8 mins
Ingredients (Serves 4):
450kg/1lb sirloin steak
45ml/3tsbp garlic-infused olive oil (however, I just used regular olive oil and finely chopped garlic for this)
45ml/3tsbp soy sauce
2 mangoes, peeled, stoned, and finely sliced
ground black pepper
Methods:
1. Marinate steak with oil, soy sauce and coat it with pepper. Let it stand for 10 mins, but for best results, marinate for 2 hours covered, in the fridge.
2. Cook 3-5 min. on hot griddle for a rare steak. If you don't like rare, cook for 10-15 according to your preference.
3. Leave steak to cool for 2 mins and cut it into think slices. Meanwhile, cook the marinade along with the mangoes. Drizzle sauce over steak and may be served with salad leaves with blended lemon juice and olive oil.
Recipe Review/Possible Improvements:
The taste of the dish is very strong, however, the mangoes and the sauce worked very well together. Cooked mangoes actually tastes pretty good! I think eating with salad without the lemon juice and olive oil would harmonize the flavours and reduce its intensity.
The steak was really tough because domestic stoves are just not hot enough. If you cannot cook steaks like me, I would recommend just searing the steak and bake it in the oven. That way, most of the juice would be trapped in the steak, and even if you cook it well done, it would still be very tender.
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| Baked Cheese Zucchinis (Sorry for the terrible picture) |
Prep: 3 mins; Cooking: 20 mins (Appetizer)
Ingredients (serves 4):
4 zucchinis
30ml/2tbsp cheese of your preference (of course you could also change the amount according to your preference)
~25g/2tbsp butter
salt and ground black pepper
Methods:
1. Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF. Slice zucchinis in halves. Butter baking dish (or use baking paper), but the halved zucchinis side by side.
2. Sprinkle cheese on top of zucchinis and some butter.
3. Bake for ~20mins until cheeses is bubbling and golden brown. Serve immediately.
Recipe Review/Possible Improvements:
I didn't use butter since the cheese already had more oil than needed when you bake it. I would put the salt on the zucchinis before putting the cheese on, or else it would be tasteless. I would also sprinkle dried parsley on top of the cheese to give it a lighter and fresher taste (since the cheese may be too heavy for some people). I think parsley would be the best dry herb for it, but you could also try cilantro or rosemary.
This is SUPER easy to make if you're a beginner cook. If you're a cheese lover like me, then I'm pretty sure you'll like this! However, nothing can beat cheese on garlic bread :P
This is not from the book. I usually don't like using cake mixes since it's kinda like cheating, but I got a last minute call about a family friend's child's birthday party. With only 3 hours before the party starts, I got some cupcake mixes, sprinkles, princess cupcake holders and candles and some pre-made icing to make my life easier.
If you want something quick and easy and tasty (high in sugar and oil), this is your best choice. This is perfect for a kid's party, I mean, which kid doesn't like sugar? Other than the batch of pink cupcakes, I also made a purple batch. Just dirty ice the cupcakes when it cools, and sprinkle whatever toppings you like on it.
If you're just starting to bake, this is the best type of things to make at first. Making brownies out of brownies mixes was how I started :P
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