Foodies Blog

Sweet and Sour Pork

07/01/2011 19:28:00

Sweet and Sour Pork

This recipe is taken from Annabel Karmel's "You Can Cook" cookbook.

It's fairly representative of the main course meals in the book, in so far as it includes a significant amount of difficult chopping and hot hob work which are not suitable for a lot of young children, but also is a child friendly version of a more adult classic.

We have made this before in the chicken version from another of her books, and we were perplexed to find that the amount made served two adults or three or four kids, but not really enough for a family. It would probably be perfect for one adult and two kids! So this time we bulked up the ingredients a bit to feed all four of us.

Ingredients

We made this on a weekday after school and before football, with not a lot of time, so without the time available to supervise them learning to slice an onion today, I confess I chopped the onion and the two peppers.

The first item in the recipe is to stir fry the onion and pepper for about 3-4 minutes until they start to go soft. As the wok gets very hot and the peppers spit it's not a great task for wee ones. Ours stirred it a bit once the initial spitting had worn off.

Then we added the ginger. We used Very Lazy Ginger which I always have in the fridge, so to make the pieces small enough to be like grated, Anna chopped it with the rocker chopper.

Then you're supposed to add all the other sauce ingredients in to the pan. I found it easier and less nerve-wracking to get the kids to assemble all the ingredients into a jug, stir it round and then pour the whole sauce into the pan. We only used one tin of pineapple rather than doubling up because none of us loves loads of pineapple in sweet and sour. But if I had thought it through I might have added a little apple juice to replace the lost juice from the second can. Maybe 50ml.

Once you've added the sauce, you bring it to a simmer for a minute or so and then add the cornflour mixed with water. Jacob was surprised at how stiff the cornflour is to stir at first. Both of them were very impressed at how quickly it turned the sauce from a bubbling broth to a gloopy sauce - a matter of seconds. Then you simmer the thickened sauce for another minute or two and put on a very low heat to keep warm. We put the beansprouts in at this point to heat through.

Then you make a batter from the cornflour, egg yolk and milk. Jacob did very well separating the egg, although he hasn't yet learned how to move it from shell end to shell end without piercing the yolk a little, but it didn't matter for this recipe. Anna liked whisking the batter up and making it a bit fluffy.

Then the pork is stirred into the batter until it is all coated, and then fried in a little oil. Being pork it spat a lot so the kids watched but had to stand back a bit while I turned all the pieces to get them all browned.

Then you simply add the pork to the sauce and heat for a minute and serve. The recipe serves it with rice, but our kids think all sweet and sour roads lead to chopsticks, so we had ours with egg noodles, stirred into the sauce.

(The photo for the finished dish corrupted, so I will make it again next week and add a photo! Sorry)


The Verdicts

9/10 Jacob (9) "I love this. I had seconds and then finished what my sister couldn't eat."
7/10 Anna (7) "Tastes yummy but I wouldn't want it every day. I like using the chopsticks. The pork is crispy."
7/10 Dad "The pork itself was very very nice. The sauce is a bit dark (in taste as well as looks)."
7/10 Mom "Overall tasty but a bit salty. Pork itself is LOVELY.Would add more stir fry veg next time and tweak the sauce. Disappointing that there is so much frying, but making the batter is a good skill."

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Marble Cake

06/09/2010 14:32:00

This recipe was taken from the Dorling Kindersley's Children's Baking Book. Anna picked it because she liked the way it was swirly in the photo. And because there was some element of chocolate in there, obviously. I thought it would be fun to learn to swirl the colours together.

The Recipe 175g butter at room temperature 175g sugar 175g self raising flour 3 large eggs grated zest of an orange 2tbsp orange juice 2tbsp cocoa

The oven temperature for this one is 180 degrees C / 350 F / Gas Mark 4.

I decided as it was only Anna cooking today that it was a good opportunity to practice a couple of skills, so she had a go at drawing round the cake tin bottom on greaseproof paper, and cutting it out. Not a bad job. Then she greased the tin with some butter and kitchen paper.

I also normally help a little with the measuring of ingredients, especially when the recipe adds everything into one bowl. I usually hold the bag so that they can't tip the whole thing in and have to scrape bits of flour out of a buttery eggy mess. But this time I thought Anna could manage it so she did all the measuring. Granted the sugar bag was half empty so it wasn't too heavy. She was really careful though. I did bottle it on the egg, and got her to break it into a separate bowl first so we could pick the few inevitable bits of shell out.

The recipe asks you to put everything except the cocoa into the bowl together. No creaming of butter and sugar etc required, just lob it in and mix.

This marble cake has some orange flavour in it. Using some orange zest and juice. Anna did a lot of the grating but got a bit fed up when it got to the little bits of skin left, so I finished it off. Then she juiced the orange. It wasn't a very juicy one so we only got the 2 tbsp we needed plus an extra mouthful.

After mixing everything, you have to take half the mixture out and put it in the corners of the cake tin. Then add the cocoa to the other half and put that in the middle.

Then the fun bit. Using a normal dinner knife, drag bits of white mixture into the chocolate and vice versa, so that the mixture is marbled but not mixed all together.

The recipe says bake the cake for about 30 minutes. The recipe calls for a 20cm square tin, ours is 18cm square, but to say it was that close in size, the cooking time was a lot different, I had to cook it for more like 40-45 mins to get the middle to stop wobbling by which time the outside was a little crunchy. It also peaked a bit whereas in the picture it is a traybake style flat affair.So if I made it again I would make it in my 18cm by 25cm oblong tin. Never mind, it still tasted good.


The Verdict

7/10 Anna (6) "I like the orangey taste and I like where the chocolatey bit mixes with the yellow bit, but I don't like the orange skin very much."
9/10 Jacob (8) "I like the mixture of the two colours and flavours. It's really good having the orange flavour in it, it gives it a real tang."
7/10 Dad "I really liked it. The best is when you get a mouthful with a mixture of light and dark. When you just have light, or just have dark, it's not nearly as tasty as a good marbled piece. I actually liked the crunchy crust on the outside!"
7/10 Mom "This was fun to make, and easy, which almost makes me give it an 8 because the experience of making it is pleasant. The cake looks pretty and it's quite satisfying to cut a piece and see the marbling. The flavours are good."

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Cool Berry Smoothie With Tofu

06/07/2010 12:43:00

Cool Berry Smoothie With Tofu

This recipe was taken from the box of Kids Kitchen recipes sent by Fi Bird, the same one that the tomato tarts came from. The children picked this out straight away as they are berry fans and have been making smoothies at school and consider themselves aficionados! I liked the look of it because it had the twist of being creamed by tofu rather than milk. Which intrigued me.

Ingredients 3 oranges (to make 150ml juice) 1 large passion fruit (we couldn't find one so we bought a peach) 1 medium banana 125g tofu 300g frozen berries runny honey (optional)

The smoothie is quite thick when it comes out. You can of course water it down with juice, water or crushed ice. The recipe also suggests optional honey at the end. Anna liked it better without and Jacob better with.

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