Meatless Recipes | Fuss Free Cooking

I have done stir frying, baking, grilling, toasting and boiling on this blog. Can you guess what cooking method that has been missing from this blog?

Yep, that’s right, it is steaming. That is one thing I did not inherite from my family. My family enjoys making steamed fish, steamed chicken, soft and pillowy siu bao (buns), dumplings and all other wonderful steamed dishes. If you are familiar with Malaysian desserts, they mostly require steaming instead of baking in the oven.

Don’t get me wrong, I love eating all the above. Okay, maybe I can do without the steamed fish. I don’t know what’s up with me and steamed fish. It still does not appeal to me. I prefer deep fried fish. Hmmm…deep fried fish….

Oh wait a second, this post has nothing to do with Asian food. This post is dedicated to this fluffy and buttery mash with sweet potato and kale. Oh yes, it’s kale again! (I’m sorry.) But please bear with me, this combination is legit. In fact, it is called Colcannon. A complicated terminology for an Irish style mash potato with kale (or cabbage). So this is a Colcannon with a slight twist – with sweet potato. I love the natural sweetness in sweet potato (uhm, duh!) and I find it takes less time to cook. Perfect for an impatient human being like moi especially during week days.

In order to soften the kale, I steamed it. Alternatively, you can try boiling or microwaving it. But I have a new gadget that I wanted to use badly. Please say hello to my Chef Inox Multi-Fit Steamer (that came with a lid) courtesy of Grand Cucina. It fits 3 different sized pots: (i) 16cm (ii) 18cm and (iii) 20cm. One of my favourite items in the kitchen is a multi-fit lid for my pans which is very well-used. I have a feeling this multi-fit steamer will be joining the well-used club as well.

(Please stay tune to the giveaway after the following recipe.)

Sweet Potato Colcannon (Irish Style Mash with Kale)

(recipe inspired by Simply Recipe and Gourmet Traveller)

2 generous servings

What you’ll need:-

700g (1.5 pounds) sweet potato, peeled & cut into chunky pieces
Hot water
Baking paper, roughly 20cm in diameter
1 cup of kale, thinly sliced
1/8 cup milk (may defer depending how well the water is drained from the sweet potato)
50g butter (half goes into the mash and the other half to be melted & drizzle on top)
Black pepper & salt to taste
1/4 spring onion (scallion), thinly sliced

Note – I served the mash with 2 grilled salt and pepper porterhouse steaks.

Method:-

Boil a kettle full of water. In the meantime, peel and dice the sweet potato as well as trim and slice the kale fairly finely. Then add the sweet potato into a 20cm stockpot, pour in the hot water and place on the stove over medium flame. In the steamer, layer a piece of baking paper and place the kale on top of it. Place the steamer over the pot and cook for about 7 minutes, lid on. In the meantime, get a plate ready (to park the steamer when the cooking is done) as well as a large mixing bowl beside the stove.

Approximately, 7 minutes later, carefully remove the steamer with a kitchen towel or pot holders and set aside on a plate. Transfer the kale to the mixing bowl. And again carefully, drain the water in the pot through the steamer (treat as if it is a colander and please use a pot holder to hold the steamer as it’ll be still hot) or you can use an actual colander. Add the sweet potato and half of the butter into the mixing bowl. Use a fork to mash and mix the sweet potato, kale and butter, at the same, gradually adding milk until smooth and fluffy consistency is achieved (you may or may not need the whole 1/8 cup of milk depending how liquid is retained in the sweet potato). Season with salt and pepper. Just before serving, drizzle some melted butter (melt the butter in a microwave for a couple of seconds) and a scattering of sliced spring onion.

The Giveaway (Australian Entries only)

Courtesy of the Grand Cucina, we are giving away one Chef Inox Multi-Fit Steamer and a matching 4-litre Chef Inox Saucepot.

(total value $153)

Grand Cucina is no run-of-the-mill online shop as it brings the best professional-grade kitchen and dining products to your home. Consistent with its Italian namesake (Grand Cucina means “Chef Approved” in Italian), it home delivers 70 leading European & Australian brands in cutlery, cookware, kitchenware, table decor, dinnerwares, drinkware, bakeware, gifts that are used and trusted by the best chefs in their own restaurants, bars and cafes. Grand Cucina is bringing these Industry-favoured brands directly to you to use in your home at the same affordable industry rates. For more information, please visit www.grandcucina.com.

To enter:

Just write “enter me” in the comment box below AND “Like” their Facebook page. I will select a winner randomly.

Guidelines:-

This giveaway is open to residents of Australia only
Prize can not be exchanged for money
One entry per person
Entry is open from 2nd May 2013 to 16th May 2013 (2 weeks).

========= THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED =========

Disclosure: This is neither a sponsored post nor I’m being paid to host a giveaway. However the steamer was provided to me for editorial consideration.

Italian food has gained a reputation being fresh, tasty and homemade with an emphasis on family style.

I know an Italian family here in Orange who, I must say has been really generous to me. They have been showering me with fresh produce from their garden and sweet treats such as homemade crostoli and cannoli. But today, I’m not going to talk about the famous Italian desserts. Instead, I’d like to share with you one of the important ingredients in the Italian kitchens – passata.

When I first featured passata on my blog, I have some of you asking me what passata is. I’ve explained to you in words with some links, but now I can do better – by showing you how it was made.

Just so you know, there’s no exact measurement to make passata for this post. Mrs C used a stockpot full of roma tomatoes from her garden, which yielded 6 x 500g bottles of passata. The tomatoes used to make passata have to be the fleshy type (i.e less seeds) like roma and oxheart tomatoes. She also explained to me that those that were harvested in late summer/early autumn will contain more seeds than the ones that were harvested in mid-summer.

What you’ll need:-

Roma/Oxheart tomatoes
Salt
Basil *optional*
Other equipment: 1 pillow case, 1 single old bed sheet (or quilt cover), passata machine*, sterilised bottles, funnel, a pot that is big enough to contain the bottles

* The passata machine on this blog is a mechanical version which is rich with family history but you can get the electric ones online or via eBay.

The Process & Mrs C Timeline as a guide:

9:00am: Fill the tomatoes into a pillow case. Then boil the tomatoes to loosen the skin in a large stockpot. Since we are talking about a large quantity here, the estimated duration is about 1 hour.

Drain the water. Place the pillow case filled tomatoes in a colander, sit them over the stockpot and set aside. This will allow the acid (the yellow liquid) to drain from the tomatoes which will result in a sweeter passata.

3:00pm: With the tomatoes are still in the pillow case and they were being cool over a period of time, squeeze the tomatoes gently to drain any excess acid.

{That’s how the acid looked like}

{That’s how the tomatoes looked after boiling, draining and ready to be passed through the passata machine}

Gradually remove the tomatoes from the pillow case and put them through the passata machine. Do the same with all the tomatoes. Tip: for the last batch of the tomatoes, you may find there are insufficient tomatoes to push through the machine. What you can do is take some of the tomato scraps (on the end of the machine) and put it back to funnel of the machine. This way you can ensure the all the fresh tomatoes will go through.

Salt the passata to taste. It’s better to under salt in this step as you can always add more later when using it in dishes.

Bottling: Ladle the passata through a funnel into a bottle. As an option, you can add a basil leaf half way through filling up the bottle. Repeat this step with all the passata.

Bottles of passata were then being sterilised by boiling them in a pot. Arrange the bottles in a large stockpot, making sure each bottle was cushioned by wrapping a bed linen around each bottle. This is to ensure the bottles do not knock against each other when the water has reached the boiling point. To give you an idea how long this would take, it took about an hour to reach the boiling point over high heat, then turn the flame to simmer and boil for 2 hours. Allow the bottles to cool in a pot overnight before storing them in the pantry.

This may seem like a lot of hard work and time for just a couple of bottles of passata. After all, a store bought passata is inexpensive. The cheapest I have seen was $1.50 for a 500g (17 oz) bottle in Harris Farm Markets. On the surface, you are better off buying from the supermarket. But if you look within the process of making food from scratch, it is about creating food memories with your next generation, quoting from Mrs C. The batch she made above was for me to share with you on the blog. Usually at the peak of tomato harvest, passata making was an even bigger production than the above which often times, involved family members. What better reason to have a family get together than creating food memories together that will be passed down to generations!

Thanks Mrs C for inviting me to your kitchen and share your knowledge with me.