Chicken Sukhaar

I've already shared my beef sukhaar recipe here. My chicken sukhaar recipe is exactly the same except I use small bite size chicken pieces. I normally add more spinach but ran out so that's why there isn't too much in the above photo. Follow the recipe here!

Enjoy :)

Cheesy? Yum!!

One of the easiest dish to prepare, and one of the easiest to make ahead and freeze for lazy cooking days, or for hectic days for that matter! I present, the Cheesy Yum. The name..ahh, the name was borne out of three active young minds; my children.

I no longer make this because I can't take cheese, so I have been depriving the family of this dish the kids particularly love. Bad mother? Nahh...just being practical. A Cheesy Yum at the expense of an exhausted mother who no longer wants to cook anything because she has to cook two separate meals, one for her and another for the family, because of the allergies, is simply not worth it. Either they put up with it for a while, or forgo her cooking forever.

This dish is very versatile. I love the fact that it can be prepped ahead of time, refrigerated, and baked the next day. Or, it can also be baked, cooled, cut up into generous squares, wrapped up, frozen, and voila! You got yourself a homemade frozen dinner!

Cheesy Yum

1 1 lb. 9 oz. jar spaghetti sauce
1 box/ packet of spaghetti
2-4 cups grated cheese (mozzarella and cheddar) enough to generously sprinkle over the dish
1 medium-sized onion, minced
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
dash of chilli powder (can be omitted)
2 Tsb oil
1 lbs ground beef

Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit
1. Cook the spaghetti , drain, set aside
2. Heat oil and saute the minced onion and garlic till fragrant
3. add ground beef and stir for about 3-4 minutes
4. Dump in the spaghetti sauce
5. Cook till beef is done
6. In a large bowl or in pot (if it's big enough) combine the cooked spaghetti with the cooked sauce
7. In a 9 x 13 casserole/pyrex dish, pour this mixed spaghetti combo
8. sprinkle grated cheese over it, and bake in the oven until the cheese melts and browns a little bit
9. Cut immediately into serving size pieces, and dig in while the cheese are still gooey and soft!

Cook's Notes:

• You can also prepare up to step 7 and put it in the refrigerator to bake the next day
• You can also cool it completely after it's done, then cut into serving size pieces, wrap each piece with plastic wrap/ aluminum foil, and freeze them. You can then have these as your homemade frozen dinners. (Good for large families, or for mothers who have to plan ahead for some occasions/events that require them to cook ahead and store so the family would not be without homemade food)
• You can also make your own spaghetti sauce as below:

1. Saute the minced onions and garlic till frgrant
2. Add 2 Tbs tomato paste
3. Add 1 lb. ground beef
4. Add 1 can tomato sauce
5. Add salt, pepper, oregano, and any other additions you like in your spaghetti sauce
6. Cook till beef is done

Grated cheese; check.
Spaghetti; check.
Spaghetti sauce; check.
Onion, garlic; check.
Ground beef; check.
Oil; check.

What are you waiting for? Cheesy? Yum!!

Beef Sukhaar

Beef sukhaar, or tender beef chunks is a staple Somali dish. It can be eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It can be sauteed with vegetables of your choice and can be served with anjeero, malawah, or pita bread. I serve it with store bought pita bread or naan when I'm running low on time- like I did today :)

This takes about 1 hr-1hr and 15 min total, I leave it on the low heat longer because the meat and veggies become nice and tender.

What you'll need

- half pound of beef sukhaar (small chunks of beef)
- veggies of your choice (I use red & green bell pepper, one whole onion, chopped parsley, minced garlic, 2 tomatos chopped, 4 potatos chopped, 2-3 cups of fresh baby spinach)
- 1 maggi chicken cube
- 1 teaspoon of xawaaji (A somali spice, if you do not have xawaagi, use spices of your choice)
- 2 teaspoons of olive oil
- 5-6 cups of water



Recipe:

1. Boil a half pound of beef sukhaar in water until desired tenderness is achieved. Use more water if you want more of a stew... otherwise use less.
2. After boiling for 25 minutes on medium-high heat, add your tomatos first (before the rest of the veggies) and 1 cube of maggi chicken
3. 10 minutes later, add your small potato chunks
4. 15 minutes after that, add the rest of your veggies (save the spinach for last)
5. Leave on medium-low heat for at least 15-20 minutes, you can add your spinach 5 minutes before you plan to serve it. (I was told if you cook spinach too long, you lose the nutrients...)

Serve with either anjeero, malawah, or any roti type of your choice :)

Impromptu

I was trying to will the Chicken Ginger to come to life so I wouldn't have to cook this morning, but alas! I still had to cook. So cook I did, albeit with sighs and groans. I had thawed some boneless beef chunks right after Fajr, intending to make Rendang when my Friday visitor comes over, but she couldn't make it, so my menu changed because Rendang takes forever to make!

I wanted to make Pengek Daging (an Indonesian meat dish I have come to love), and I started working on the onions and garlic. I realized I didn't have ginger, fresh ginger, I mean. I dumped the onion chunks and garlic cloves in the blender, and as I looked up, I spied the new plastic jar of Madras curry powder I recently bought from the New Asia Super Market on 161. Hubby had said it was quite expensive, but I had made meatball curry using that curry powder and it was a hit! So I bought it anyway.

Normally, when I make curry, I would mince the onions, garlic, and ginger and then make a wet paste out of that and the curry powder, but today, I was feeling unmotivated, so I pounded the onions and garlic, forgoing the missing ginger, and sauteed them, with a spoon nonetheless, which reminded me of a friend who remarked that my kitchen was high tech because I had cutting boards, cooking utensils, and blenders *chuckle*. When she demonstrated how to make sukhaar to me, she simply stirred the ingredients in the pan with a humble spoon, whereas I would have gone for one of the cooking utensils. So I guess I decided to go 'low tech' this morning and save myself some dish washing labor.

I dumped the Madras curry powder in the sizzling oil that was nicely extracting the aromatic fragrance of cooking onion and garlic, and lo and behold, we had a 'curry mass'. Then I tossed in the whole spices as my oldest daughter watched on, with my tot on her hips. He was cranky because he didn't take his morning nap, which I had tried to make him take but he refused, oh so there you have it, one more thing that drove (or should I make that present tense) me to the depths of demotivation.

Realizing that I hadn't yet prepared the meat, I beckoned my son to stir it for me. So he did, while I scrambled and fumbled with half frozen beef chunks that threatened to give my fingers frostbite as I hastily cut them into haphazard small pieces, so as to speed up the cooking process, so we could eat lunch ASAP.

I have to admit, that while I thought of making beef curry, I thought of this blog.

Hmm...one more recipe to put up, and a few more food photography practice to indulge in!

However, the 'mass' in the pot was on the verge of burning as my son stirred it dutifully, so I grabbed a bowl, filled it with tap water and dumped it in the pot. I had intended to dump in the beef pieces first, but ahhh...there goes my 'orderly' recipe for the blog. I continued to deal with the cold beef chunks, struggling with some fat that stubbornly belied my dull knife, which immediately set off these thoughts in my head,

We need to get a set of new sharp knives, but oh...we can't because we don't know where we're going yet.

And those thoughts my dear Watson, are catalysts for other more depressing thoughts, so I will stop right there.

I added more water and tossed in all the beef pieces, and as my son stirred it, I looked on. It actually looked good.

"Does it look good?" I asked him.

"Yeah."

I skipped adding coconut milk, just because I was lazy and also because we have been consuming a lot of coconut milk as of late, and I just don't want to drive my bad cholesterol up the roof. About half an hour or more later, or maybe less, I don't know, I didn't look at the time, and if I did, it was to help my daughter give my allergic tot his first taste of rice milk at measured amounts and spaced intervals. With all the physical and mental multitasking I was doing, it was a wonder I even had lunch ready by the time we were ready to have it.

Such a simply and haphazardly made dish has managed to elicit such joy in my children, such that my son offered to cook more rice because he wanted to eat again after Jumuah prayer. As for me, despite my sighs and groans, I managed also to prepare the beef chunks for Satay Padang and Dendeng, which I hope will be blogworthy enough to be put up here in the very near future inshaallah.

Impromptu Madras Beef Curry

1/2 - 1 lb. boneless beef, cut into small bitesize pieces
1 onion, roughly pounded (or minced)
3-4 cloves of garlic, roughly pounded (or minced)
2 whole cloves
1 star anise
2-3 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick, broken
1/2 - 1/3 cup Madras Curry Powder
1/3 cup oil
lemon juice

1. Heat oil and saute onion and garlic till fragrant
2. Add in the whole spices
3. Add in curry powder and stir the resulting wet oily paste
4. Turn down heat to medium low, and continue stirring until the oil breaks the surface
5. Add beef slices, and stir to coat beef with paste
6. Add water enough to cover beef pieces
7. Cover and bring to boil
8. Turn down heat and bring to simmer until beef pieces are tender
9. Squeeze some lemon juice to taste, and salt to taste
10. Serve hot with white Jasmine rice and accompanying greens

Cook's Notes:

• You can also mix the minced onions, garlic, whole spices, and curry powder and add enough water to make a wet paste and saute this in the oil instead of step 1 through 3 above
• You can keep the beef pieces big too if you want, but the cooking time might be longer to cook them till they are tender
• You can also garnish it with fresh curry leaves if you have any on hand
• You can also toss in peeled potato chunks and sliced carrots while at the simmering step (Step 8)