Dinner

This recipe I took from Gordon Ramsay’s book “Fast food”. In the original recipe, they use a bought one Madras paste, but I couldn’t find one, so I rode out and decided to cook it myself, moreover, it’s quite simple.

Herbs and spices give a new start to the vegetables. Boring broccoli, cauliflower, and zucchini themselves will amaze even the most skeptic ones with new flavors and bright colors. But don’t forget that this dish is also very healthy: a minimum of fat, a lot of fresh vegetables, a delicate way of thermal processing.

This vegetable curry is a great option as a side dish for meat, and also it can be a separate dish, as well, served with rice as a side dish.

It’s quite spicy, but yogurt makes it more smooth and reduces the hotness. But if it’s still too spicy for you, prepare the additional glass of yogurt, and when there is a fire in your mouse, just make a few sips from the glass.

What You Need to Cook Gordon Ramsay’s Vegetable Curry

INGREDIENTS:

For Madras paste:

• 2,5 tbsp of coriander seeds
• 1 tbsp of cumin
• 1 tsp of mustard seeds
• ½ tsp of black pepper
• 1 tsp of turmeric
• 1 tsp of grounded chili pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 tbsp of white wine vinegar
• a thumb-sized piece of ginger

For curry:

• ½ sweet onion
• 1 clove of garlic (peel and chop)
• 1-2 long red chili peppers
• 1 stalk of celery
• 3 tbsp of hot curry paste Madras
• 1 sweet pepper
• ½ big head of cauliflower
• 400 g of chopped pickled tomatoes
• ½ head of broccoli
• 1 large zucchini (or squash)
• 250 ml of natural yogurt
• 3 boxes of cardamon
• Salt, pepper

EQUIPMENT:

• Nothing, that you wouldn’t have

How to Make Gordon Ramsay’s Vegetable Curry: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

Let’s cook the Madras paste. If you can buy it – super, then skip this step and use the ready one.

Fry 2,5 tbsp of coriander seeds on a dry frying pan for 2-3 minutes and put it to the mortar.

On the same frying pan fry 1 tbsp of cumin for a minute until the pleasant flavor and a slight smoke, then put to the mortar too.

Finely shred it until the powder.

Add 1 tsp of mustard and ½ tsp of black pepper. Shred again.

Squeeze 2 cloves of garlic to the mortar, add per 1 tsp of grounded chili pepper and turmeric, and also grate a thumb-sized piece of ginger and add there too. Work with pestle a bit more until it becomes like a paste.

Now add 3 tbsp of white wine vinegar and finely mix everything.

Put the paste aside and move on to the rest of the ingredients.

Cut half of the medium-sized onion into large squares. Finely chop 1 (or 2 if you like spicier) chili pepper and 1 clove of garlic. Put aside.

Chop 1 sweet pepper, remove the seeds and innards. Chop 1 celery stalk into less than 1 cm pieces.

Divide the half of broccoli and cauliflower head into small flowers and put aside: separate broccoli and cauliflower add to the sweet pepper. 1 zucchini or squash chop into squares.

Into large wide frying pan warm up 2 tbsp of vegetable oil. Add onion, garlic, chili, and fry stirring or a minute.

Add celery and salt. Fry for a couple of minutes.

Add 3 tbsp of curry paste, 3 boxes of cardamon (squash beforehand), sweet pepper, and cauliflower. Fry for 5 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Add 400 g of pickled tomatoes, then add water to the jar and pour it to the frying pan. Wait until boils, add broccoli and zucchini, cover, and cook on the low fire for 10 minutes.

Remove from the fire, add 250 ml of yogurt and mix. Taste, salt if needed.

Serve on the separate plates itself or with boiled rice.

Pasta on this recipe is cooking really fast and easy. I’d even say instantly.

All you need to do is to boil pasta, slice the garlic and cheese and fry them. It’s so easy and clear that there’s even no need for step by step instructions.

But the main feature of this pasta, except for simplicity is affordable ingredients. Personally I always have at home garlic, spaghetti, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

In case you don’t have any chili pepper at home, but it’s already dinner time, and there’s no shop nearby, replace with 0,5-1 tsp of chili flakes or with the same amount of ground one. But preferably use the chili pepper.

What You Need to Cook Fast and Easy Pasta with Garlic and Chili

INGREDIENTS:

• 250 g of spaghetti
• 2-4 cloves of garlic (depending on their size and how much do you like it at all)
• 1 chili pepper
• 50 g of parmesan (optionally)
• Olive oil
• Salt, pepper

EQUIPMENT:

• blender

How to Make Fast and Easy Pasta with Garlic and Chili: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

STEP 1. CASSEROLE WITH WATER ON THE FIRE.

For 250 g of pasta use 2,5 l of water, add 25 g of salt, and place on the fire. Make the high heat and wait until boiling.

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STEP 2. FINELY CHOP GARLIC AND CHILI

Take 4 cloves of garlic and finely chop.

1 chili pepper cut in half, remove seeds and chop.

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STEP 3. WARM-UP THE OLIVE OIL IN THE FRYING PAN . ADD GARLIC AND CHILI

In the middle-sized frying pan warm up 4 tbsp of olive oil. Then add garlic and chili. Fry until garlic is golden. Take off the fire.

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STEP 4. BOIL THE PASTA

Put 250 g of pasta into the boiling water, cook for 1-2 minutes less then it’s specified on the package on middle fire.

Try, if spaghetti is raw inside, cook for another 0,5-1 minutes. Try again. Repeat until they’re ready.

Leave for about 150-200 ml of boiling water in the separate glass, remove the rest.

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STEP 5. MIX PASTA WITH SAUCE

Mix pasta with sauce in the big bowl (if you’re planning to serve right away) or casserole (if you’re planning to serve in the separate plates).

Add 40-50 ml of boiling water and mix. If it looks like dry, add more.

Serve. Every serving sprinkle with olive oil, add a bit of salt and pepper.

Also you can add 50 g of parmesan if you want.

In addition, you can make a quick arugula salad:

Wash the arugula and dry with a paper towel or with a spin dryer. Put to the serving bowl. Salt and pepper to taste.

Make a few slices of parmesan using a vegetable peeler, add to the arugula. Dress with juice from half a lemon and 2-3 tbsp of olive oil. Mix.

Today we have Chop Suey, and no, that’s not a song of System of the Down.
Chop Suey is an American-Chinese dish, consisting of meat, eggs, and vegetables. Translation means “Chinese ragu”.

Despite the fact it’s already an American- Chinese dish, it has another, even more, American variation, it’s called American Chop Suey that is American Chinese ragu. This is exactly what we’ll talk about today.

Americans haven’t reinvented the wheel, they took macaroni, minced meat, some vegetables, tomato sauce, and cheese, cooked everything in one big casserole and added a few taste accents with Worcestershire sauce and spices. And here is what they’ve got.

The dish works out very hearty and rich for taste combinations. Here you have a fried until golden minced meat and tomato sauce with spices, melted cheese.

The cheese plays the almost main role here. It adds a specific pinch to the taste and texture when mixing with the rest of the ingredients and wraps each of them with delicacy and tenderness. I recommend to serve the dish in the crockery it was preparing. I do this just due to cheese too.

Imagine how delicious looks melted stretching cheese on the spoon, that is moving straight forward to your plate and in a second it is already there.

Also, you can add a few points for its size. Serving ragu as the main course, you’ll easily feed 8 people. And if you remember how easy it cooks, I really don’t get why aren’t you still in the kitchen?

What You Need to Cook American Chop Suey, Macaroni with a Tomato Sauce, Minced Meat, and Cheese

INGREDIENTS:

• 500 g of hollow pasta (penne/ziti/etc.)
• 80 g whole canned tomatoes
• 500 g of minced beef (its preferable to make it yourself from the part with meat/fat proportion 80/20 , for
• example, ribs)
• 1 large onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 tbsp of oregano
• 1 tsp of chili flakes
• A few stalks of parsley
• 2 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce
• 250 ml of chicken broth
• 500 g of mozzarella
• 75 g of parmesan
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 2 tbsp of unsalted butter
• Salt, pepper

EQUIPMENT:

• hand blender (not necessary)

How to Make American Chop Suey, Macaroni with a Tomato Sauce, Minced Meat, and Cheese: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

STEP 1. PREPARE THE INGREDIENTS.

Firstly, you need to fill the whole teapot with water and warm it up. Put the macaroni (500 g) in the clean casserole and when the water is boiled, add 1,5l to the macaroni. Cover and put aside.

While you’re preparing the rest of the ingredients, shake the pan a few times in the next 10 minutes.
Open two cans of tomatoes (400 g each) and, using hand blender mash them directly in the cans.

If you don’t have a blender, you can do it with a fork. If it’s not working out, put tomatoes in the deep bowl and mash with a potato masher.

Finely chop 1 large onion. Peel and chop 4 cloves of garlic. Take a few stalks of parsley, wash them, and chop.

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STEP 2. PREPARE THE VEGETABLES

Take a big pot, frying pan or casserole. It shouldn’t contain less than 3 l. Put on the fire.

Add 2 tbsp of olive oil and 2 tbsp of unsalted butter. When it melts, add chopped onion.

Lower the fire and cook for about 7 minutes until it’s mild and a bit golden.

Add chopped garlic, 1 tbsp of oregano, 1 tsp of chili flakes, and a half of chopped parsley.

Cook and stir for about a minute.

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STEP 3. PREPARE THE MINCED MEAT

Place the vegetables near the walls on the frying pan( casserole) using a spatula in order to free some space in the middle. Maximize the fire and add meat (500 g) in a minute.

Don’t rash to mix. Using the wooden spatula, split the pieces into smaller ones, but don’t mix.

In a few minutes, while splitting you can start turning it over. Cook until it is no longer pink, it’ll take you for about 4-5 minutes.

After that, add tomatoes that we’ve prepared in the first step. Mix everything and wait until boiling.

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STEP 4. ADD PASTA AND FINISH COOKING

As soon as minced meat with ingredients boils sieve the pasta. Add macaroni to the pan with minced meat and mix.

Add 2 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce and 250 ml of chicken broth. Mix until pasta and sauce is the whole one.

Cover and cook on the high-middle fire until pasta is almost ready. It’ll take approximately a half from a time specified on the package.

Meanwhile, dice 500 g of mozzarella into 1×1 pieces. Grate 80 g of parmesan.

When pasta is almost ready, take off the cover, finely mix everything and add a half of a diced mozzarella.

Constantly stirring, wait until mozzarella melts (for about 2-3 minutes).

Add remaining mozzarella and parmesan, cover, lower the fire and cook for three minutes.

Then take the pot/frying pan (or whatever you have) off the fire and leave covered for 5 minutes.

Take off the fire, add remaining parmesan and parsley, and serve right in what you’ve cooked it.

This is fast enough pasta recipe, but with rich taste and nice, smooth texture.
Spring onion and garlic will add light hotness and a bit of color to more neutral mushroom and milk taste.

The sauce by its nature reminds bechamel. But in contrast we won’t use another bowl to prepare it and add to pasta then. The key point is while the water is boiling, we prepare ingredients for the sauce and start cooking it.

Eventually, we’ll have it ready around the same time when the spaghetti, tagliatelle, or wherever you’ve chosen are ready.

That’s a perfect dish for people with a lack of free time. It needs minimum effort and time, but the result’s just great.

What You Need to Cook Pasta with Cream Mushroom Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

• 300 g of pasta (spaghetti, tagliatelle, linguini or anyone you like)
• 350 g of champignons
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 4 stakes of spring onion
• 2 tbsp of flour
• 400 ml of milk
• 20-30 g of parmesan
• Olive oil
• Greenstuff up to taste (for decorations, optionally)

EQUIPMENT:

• nothing, that you wouldn’t have (most likely)

How to Make Pasta with Cream Mushroom Sauce: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

STEP 1. PAN WITH WATER FOR PASTA ON FIRE. CHOP MUSHROOMS, ONION, AND GARLIC

Depending on how much pasta you want to cook, you’ll need different amounts of water and salt. There is pretty simple rule 1110, which says that for 100 g of pasta you’ll need 1l of water and 10 g of salt.

It’s better to choose a bigger casserole for pasta. Firstly, we need to fit the needed amount of water. Secondly, don’t forget, when we’ll add pasta it’ll increase. And there is chance water will split out.

So don’t over pour to the edges, leave for about 5-6 cm of empty space from the water level to the top of casserole. But in fact, you better read the article on how to boil pasta. There I’ve examined all possible options in more detail.

Slice 350 g of champignons into 1 mm thick pieces, press 2 cloves of garlic with a knife (take the one with wide blade, put it on the cloves, parallel to the working surface and hit with a fist ), 4-5 stakes of spring onion slice into 0,5-1 cm pieces.

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STEP 2. FRYING PAN ON THE FIRE, WARM UP THE OLIVE OIL, ADD MUSHROOMS, ONION, GARLIC. FRY FOR 5 MINUTES.

Put the frying pan on the medium fire, add 2-3 tbsp of olive oil, wait until warmed-up, add sliced mushrooms, onion, and garlic. Fry for 4-5 minutes in total.

Don’t rush to stir, otherwise, mushrooms will release juice and start stewing, but we don’t need that. So, place the mushrooms on the frying pan, fry for a couple of minutes, then stir and fry for a couple of minutes more.

When the mushrooms are in a beautiful golden-brown color, move on to the next step.

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STEP 3. ADD A FLOUR TO THE FRYING PAN, MIX.

To the frying pan with mushrooms add 2 tbsp of wheat flour, and in case there is no liquid left ( the mushrooms absorbed all oil) add 1 tbsp of oil before adding flour.

After the flour is in the frying pan – cook for 1 minute, constantly stirring. Try to mix as good as you can in order to spread the flour evenly.

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STEP 4. ADD ⅓ OF MILK, FINELY MIX.

Add to the frying pan for about 150 ml of milk and finely mix. Try to smash all the bundles and split stuck mushrooms. Cook for 20-30 seconds.

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STEP 5. ADD THE REST IF MILK, MIX COOK FOR 5 MINUTES, SALT AND PEPPER TO TASTE. IF THE WATER IN tHE PAN IS BOILED, ADD PASTA AND MIX.

Place the pasta (300 g) into boiling water, pour water in the next pan (if it’s boiled) put a timer for the indicated on the package time, minus 1-2 minutes (when the timer is off, taste if done, if it’s still hard inside – cook more, if no – take out).

Meanwhile, add remaining 250 ml of milk into the frying pan, cook for about 5 minutes, constantly stirring, until sauce is heavy.

Add salt and pepper, mix and taste. Add more if needed.

Take off the fire.

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STEP 6. ADD PARMESAN TO THE FRYING PAN, MIX. CHECK IF THE PASTA IS READY.

Add 20-30 g of grated parmesan to the sauce.

Finely mix. If the sauce is too heavy – not a problem, we’ll fix it later.
Check if the pasta is ready. How? Read here.

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STEP 7. SERVING.

If the pasta is ready, put it on the serving plates or on one big plate. Add a few tbsp of boiling water to the pasta. Mix, the pasta will absorb it quickly enough. That’ll help us make it juicier and don’t stuck together. We need it to be a bit moist.

If the sauce is too heavy, also add a bit of boiling water.

Place the sauce on top of the pasta, slightly salt and pepper, add some greens (if you want), and a bit of olive oil. It’s ready to be served for hungry guests.

Today we have Chinese Carbonara variation. Except for the bacon, we’ll also add a bit of vegetable, fry the noodles and instead of yolks, we’ll make a Chinese sour-sweet sauce based on soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and sugar.

Actually, what we’ll have, as a result, reminds the Carbonara only because of bacon. But that’s okay- that’s even more interesting.

A specified amount of ingredients is good for a few adults.

What you Need to Cook Chinese Fried Noodles with Bacon

INGREDIENTS:

For sauce:

• 2 tbsp of light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 1 tbsp of rice vinegar
• ½ tbsp of sesame oil
• 1 tsp of sugar
• ¼ tsp of ground black pepper

For noodles:

• 140 g dry egg noodles (in case you don’t have one, use spaghetti, tagliatelle, or anything else you’ll find)
• 5 slices of bacon
• ½ of white onion
• 5 leaves of Chinese cabbage

EQUIPMENT:

• nothing, that you wouldn’t have

How to Make Chinese Fried Noodles with Bacon: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

Firstly, you need to pour some water into the pan and boil 140 g of egg noodles.

How to cook it right – read here. We’ll just add one small change into the technique. When the noodles are done, you need to rinse it with cold water in order to stop the cooking process and wash off the extra starch.

While the water/pasta is boiling let’s move on to the rest of the ingredients.

For sauce mix 2 tbsp of light soy sauce, 2 tbsp of dark soy sauce, 1 tsp of sugar, ½ tbsp of sesame oil, ¼ tsp of black pepper, and 1 tbsp of wine vinegar.

Mix until smooth and leave.

Let’s talk about soy sauce in more detail. If you’re cooking Asian cuisine often, you probably know there are different kinds of soy sauce. Maybe you even have both light and dark. That’s just fine.

If the situation is different, and earlier you used only regular one, the one you can buy in any shop, that’s not a problem either, use it. Just lower the total amount to 1,5 tbsp (not 1,5+1,5, but just 1,5), another way there’s a risk to over salt.

Add 1 tbsp of oil to the frying pan and put there 5 slices of bacon. Make a low heat and cook until bacon is fried from one side, then turn over the slices and fry from the other.

Meanwhile, do the vegetables.

A half of an onion slice “from pole to pole” traditional Chinese and stir-fry technique.

Wash 5 leaves of Chinese cabbage (take off the extra leaves) and cut or tear it up on large pieces. You can remove the white part if you want in order to have more gentle texture.

Take the bacon off the fire and put on the plate to cool. You can also put it on the paper towels in order to absorb extra fat, but in this case, it’s not necessary.

When cooled down – chop it but do not shred.

Leave for about 1,5 tbsp of fat from the frying pan, pour the rest out. Clean the frying pan with a paper towel.

Add 1 tbsp of oil and finely heat it up (you need to catch a moment when the oil starts smoking) spread the noodles evenly on the frying pan. Stir from time to time (it’s more of the splitting of stuck noodles then stirring), fry for about 4-5 minutes until golden.

Then turn the noodles over, add 1 more tbsp of oil to the frying pan and fry from the other side. Put the noodles on the plate.

Split stuck noodles with 2 forks.

Add the remaining fat to the frying pan, put the onion there, and fry for a minute until mild. Add cabbage and cook for 30 seconds more.

Now place the noodles back to the frying pan, add the sauce and bacon.

Mix. Put on the serving plates and serve.

This recipe is from Antoni Carluccio’s book “Pasta”. I was attracted to sauce ingredients, to be more precise- with the main ingredient – celery. You’ll agree that you don’t run into the pasta with celery recipes too often, that’s what I bite for. And I’ll tell you, that was worth it.

This recipe has several advantages at the same time: time of cooking, minimum work, cheap ingredients, large outcome, which is good for 4-5 persons, and the main thing- amazing taste.

I’m neutral about celery, I’d say, more of a negative attitude. I don’t really like it very much. But here, in the taste combination with other ingredients it turns out pretty great.

The celery taste gets lost a bit compared to other ingredients but still remains and makes an interesting flavor. There is just enough of it, so if you’re such a “celery fan” as I am, you don’t need to worry at all.

Another advantage of this dish is the easy turning into a vegetarian. Just remove the sausages from the ingredient list, and here it is.

What you Need to Cook Penne Pasta with Celery Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

• 300 g of pennoni/penne/other macaroni hollow inside (the wider the better)
• 60 g of parmesan or 75 g of blue cheese
• 1 onion
• 1 celery root for about 600 g
• 100 g of smoked sausage
• 50 g of unsalted butter
• 50-150 ml of milk
• A few stalks of parsley
• Salt, black pepper

EQUIPMENT:

• nothing, that you wouldn’t have

How to Make Penne Pasta with Celery Sauce: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

Firstly, peel celery root (600 g) and dice into 1×1 pieces.

Bring a couple of liters of water to boil, add chopped celery and cook for about 10 minutes until gentle.

Pour out the water and put the celery aside.

Meanwhile, finely dice 1 small onion.

Put the casserole with 3 l of water on the fire, add 30 g of salt there and leave until boiled. How to boil pasta in more detail here.

Now take a large frying pan. Melt 50 g of unsalted butter there. Add onion and fry until golden for 5 minutes stirring from time to time.

While the onion is frying, slice 100 g of smoked sausage. Add to the onion, fry for about 1 minute while stirring, then take off the fire.

Add boiled celery to the pan with onion and sausage. Lightly squash with a pusher or a fork. Add 50-150 ml of milk to the sauce and mix.

How much milk you need to decide yourself: start with 50 ml and pour until you are satisfied with a sauce consistency.

I’ve added for about 120 ml. 50 ml as was stated in the recipe wasn’t enough. It was too dry.

When the water in the pan is ready, boil there pasta (300 g) until al dente. I used penne, but also you can use pennoni as in the original recipe (they are bigger then penne )or other hollow macaroni. I left the link above with the instruction on how to boil it.

After pasta is ready sieve it with a strainer, put to the frying pan, and mix with sauce.

Add 50 g of parmesan on top or replace with a blue cheese (75 g), as I did. Decorate with chopped parsley and finely spice with a black pepper.

I adore this combination: the most delicate white fish in a crispy breading, fried or baked potatoes and garlic mayonnaise – aioli sauce. All components complement each other so well that for a moment it seems as if nothing better could be thought out.

Why am I saying all this? Because today we are preparing fish and chips, or rather their variation baked in the oven.

What you Need to Cook Roasted Fish and Chips with Aioli

INGREDIENTS:

For aioli:

• 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 lemon

For fish and chips:

• 700 g potato
• 500 g white fish fillet (hake, cod, etc.)
• 150 g flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• 150 g breadcrumbs or 1/2 baguette
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• salt, black pepper
• 4 cloves of garlic

EQUIPMENT:

• nothing, that you wouldn’t have

How to Make Roasted Fish and Chips with Aioli: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

Wash 700 g of potatoes, cut it in long slices. Then put it in a bigger bowl and add a pinch of salt and a batch of freshly ground black pepper, add vegetable oil and mix all together.

Additionally, I add carrot and cut it the same way, but this is up to you.

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

Now let’s move on to the fish.

Bread crumbs (150 g) – you can buy them, but I prefer to do them myself. I take about half of the baguette and grind it in the food processor. If the bread is fresh, not stale, it would be hard to reach the right consistency, but we’ll try to fix it later.

Chop 4 cloves of garlic, heat a few tablespoons of oil in a big frying pan, fry until golden with 1 teaspoon of thyme, and add breadcrumbs there too.

Cook and stir once in a while until well done, for about 5-6 minutes. With store-bought bread crumbs do the same.

Put crumbs into a clean bowl. You can grind them in the food processor again, as I do.

Take 2 plates. I one whip two eggs with a tablespoon (upfront) of mustard.

In another one pour 150 g of flour.

Take a deep pan, cover with parchment, and put the grill on. Slightly butter the grill, we’ll put a breaded fish on it.

Cut the fish (500 g) into medium-sized pieces. I cooked hake and cut one filet into 3-4 parts.

It is not necessary to make them smaller, it certainly will not affect the taste, but it will add work. Roll in flour.

Now, each piece dip in a mustard-egg mixture, and after, dip in the breadcrumbs.

Put on the grill. Do the same with the remaining fish pieces.

At this point, you most likely already have the oven warmed up to the desired 250 degrees. We move the potatoes and carrots (if added) to the pan (on a different one ) and put in the oven to the lower level.

Cook for 15 minutes, stirring a couple of times in the process. After – reduce the temperature to 180 degrees and place fish on the upper tier. Cook for another 15 minutes.

While the fish and potatoes are baking, prepare aioli sauce. You can use this recipe or take a ready-made mayonnaise (about 1/2 cup), add 6 cloves of finely chopped garlic or squeezed through a garlic press into it, squeeze the juice of half a lemon and mix.

Decorate with dill if desired. By the way, right here I have a recipe of making mayonnaise with a hand blender.

After 15 minutes – remove the fish from the oven and check the potato is ready, if necessary, give it another 5-10 minutes.

Serve hot together.

When you’ll get tired of usual chicken, pork, potatoes and pasta and you’re out of ideas what to cook for dinner – try this dish. It’s very easy to prepare and almost doesn’t need any preparation beforehand.

The main thing is to unfreeze the squid in time if you’re buying it frozen. And more then likely you’re buying it exactly like this.

If you’re planning to cook it for dinner, take the squid out of the freezer and put it to the fridge in 8-10 hours before cooking. But better to do it in a day, so it definitely has time to unfreeze in the most comfortable environment. Do the same with needle beans.

You’ll get a spicy dish, so if you’re not a “hot” fan, lower the amount of chili, but I don’t recommend removing it at all, this way you won’t get it quite right.

What you Need to Cook Squid in Tomato Sauce with Chili

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 small red onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• A few stalks of mint with leaves
• 0,5-1 chili peppers
• 0,5 tsp smoked paprika
• 400 g jar of chopped tomatoes in juices
• 200 g needle beans
• 300 g of squid carcasses
• Lemon for serving

EQUIPMENT:

• nothing, that you wouldn’t have

How to Make Squid in Tomato Sauce with Chili: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

STEP 1. PREPARE ALL THE INGREDIENTS

In a half-hour or hour take out unfrozen squid (300 g) and needle beans (200 g) from the fridge.

In case it’s already time to cook dinner but you’ve forgotten to take the squid out, do it now, and place into the big bowl with cold water right away. This way you’ll unfreeze it in 1-1,5 hours. Yeah, it’s still long, but who is to blame for what you forget.

The unfreezing in hot water, microwaving, or pouring with hot water is not the best idea, which is why I don’t recommend these methods.

Slice 1 onion in half-rings.

Finely slice 2 cloves of garlic.

Tear off the mint leaves, put aside, and finely chop the stalks. Clear 0,5-1 chili pepper from seeds and chop as you like.

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STEP 2. FRY THE VEGETABLES

Warm-up 2 tbsp of oil in the wide frying pan.

Add sliced onion, garlic, and mint stalks. Fry for a couple of minutes, until gentle.

Add sliced chili pepper and 0,5 tsp of smoked paprika. Cook for a minute.

Add 400 g chopped tomatoes in juices. If you’re using whole ones, you can chop them yourself with a knife or spatula directly in the frying pan. I used cherry tomatoes and just squashed them a bit with a spatula.

Bring to a boil, minimize fire, and leave for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, cut the squid in circles about 1 cm wide.

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STEP 3. ADD THE NEEDLE BEANS AND SQUID

Add unfrozen needle beans into the frying pan, salt, pepper.

Put there the squid in one layer evenly. Bring to the boil, cover, and cook for 5-7 minutes.

When it’s time, pick up the cover, taste the squid if ready and add salt if needed. If it’s still raw to your taste, cover again and cook for additional 3-5 minutes. But do not overdo, otherwise the squid becomes tough.

Serve with brown bread and lemon slices, decorate with mint leaves and add a bit of lemon zest on top.

Today we have another quick recipe. The most gentle rainbow trout with mindblowing herbs and baked tomatoes flavor. Leave alone the rosemary and garlic match but that’s not what we’ll talk about.

In my opinion, the key feature of this dish is that it’s cooking really fast. Everything is very fast and easy there. If you’ll speed up, it’s possible to do all the required manipulations with ingredients in 10-15 minutes.

This dish is perfectly suitable for unexpected guests, and at the same time, nobody won’t guess how quickly you’ve prepared it.

What you Need to Cook Rainbow Trout with Herbs and Tomatoes in the Foil

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 rainbow trouts (about 500 g each)
• A few twigs of thyme
• A few twigs of rosemary
• 200 g of cherry tomatoes (or 300-350 g of regular ones)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Salt, pepper, olive oil
• Lemon for serving

EQUIPMENT:

• Foil

How to Make Rainbow Trout with Herbs and Tomatoes in the Foil: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

Firstly, let’s make a filling. If you’re using the regular tomatoes (300-350 g) – take off the peel (in order to make it easier – make a cut and pour some hot water on them ), cut in half, and take off the seeds and inner part using a spoon. Remaining halves dice into 1×1 cm pieces and put it to the deep bowl.

Cherry tomatoes (200 g) just cut into quarters and also send in a bowl.

Finely chop 2 cloves of garlic and put it to the bowl with tomatoes.

Add salt, pepper, and a few tbsp of olive oil to the bowl with tomatoes and garlic, finely mix and put aside.

Heat the oven up to 225.

Clean the fish – 2 rainbow trouts (about 500 g each) – from the innards. Cut off the head, cut alongside the spine and open it. Do not cut the skin on the back, we just need to open it as a “butterfly” but not to cut in half.

Of course, you can go further and remove the bones, but in this way, the dish will be no longer an easy and fast one but the opposite. So let’s leave it to the chefs and go the easy way.

Take a long piece of foil, fold in half (to make it thicker, but you don’t need to do that if you already have the thick one) and place on the working space. The piece of foil should be for a few cms longer from each side then the fish.

Make another piece in the same way and put it aside. Rub the skin of fish with a good pinch of salt. Place the trout opened on the foil (skin down) on the working space.

Put a half of tomatoes on top, a few thyme twigs and a rosemary twig.

And close.

Now cover with a second piece of foil. Wrap up all the edges for 0,5-1 cm from each side one by one. Then wrap the edges one more time.

Repeat all actions with a second fish. Now place the “envelopes” on the baking sheet and put to the heated oven for 20 minutes.

Take out the fish and let it rest for a bit. Make a cut on the top, but be careful, the steam can sharply get out. Open the “envelope” put the fish on the serving plate, add a bit of juice from the bottom, add a few slices of lemon and serve.

Also, don’t forget to take out the thyme and rosemary, hardly someone’s gonna eat it.

Want to cook really fast, light, and healthy dinner for 4? No problem, today I’ll share with you a recipe of gratin with tuna and white beans.

Actually, graten is more like cooking technique, then a separate dish as people think. But, if consider it as a dish, it’s simply that very cheese crust on top.

Therefore we can call graten (graten/gratin) any dish that at the end of cooking is baking in the oven until a golden crust (yes, there are specific ingredients for this crust, but we’ll talk about it later).

In this recipe, you’ll get so gentle and sweet beans and tuna filling under the cheese flavored crust. This mix we’ll add a bit of hotness and spiciness with chili pepper. And this way lighten up the gentleness and smoothness overall.

This dish is quite self-sufficient and hearty itself, but if you serve it with fried toast and green salad it would great as well. Also, it perfectly matches with fresh cucumber and other vegetables too.

What you Need to Cook Graten with Tuna and White Beans

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 onion
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 2 cans of pickled white beans (400 g each)
• 1 can of tuna in olive oil (160-200 g)
• 2 tbsp of milk
• 2 tbsp of fat cream
• 1 dry chili
• 100 g of fine cheese
• 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
• A few slices of butter (20 g)
• Vegetable oil
• Salt, pepper

EQUIPMENT:

• Food processor/blender/hand blender

How to Make Graten with Tuna and White Beans: Step-by-Step Instructions🔪

Turn on the oven on the top-bottom mode, 180 degrees.

6 cloves of garlic peel and chop with a knife. 1 middle-sized onion finely dice.

Heat up on the middle fire a few tbsp of oil in the big frying pan.

Add onion and cook until mild for 5-7 minutes, stirring once in a while.

Add garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes more.

Now add 1 can of beans (400 g) to the frying pan, but drain the water beforehand. The second can (400 g) add with juice.

Mix, salt, and pepper. Minimize the fire and cook for 5 minutes while stirring from time to time.

Meanwhile, grate 100 g of hard cheese.

Put everything from the frying pan into the food processor/blender (if you have a hand one – put everything into the bowl) and mash.

Finely chop 1 dry chili pepper. If you don’t have one, use the regular one.

Add 2 tbsp of fat cream, 2 tbsp of milk, a can of tuna (160-200 g depending which one do you have), half of the grated cheese and chopped pepper into the food processor or bowl.

Mix with a spatula. Don’t save on tuna, it should be high quality in olive oil (preferably, virgin one). Taste and salt more if needed.

Put the mass into the baking form. The 24×12 is a suitable size for this amount of ingredients. But that’s not a problem if it’s a bit bigger or smaller.

Make a crumb coat –2 tbsp– (you can use bought breadcrumbs as well as take stale bread, put into the food processor/blender, and let it work for a minute) also add the second half of cheese.

Put a few slices of unsalted butter (20 g) on top.

Put to the heated oven for 30-35 minutes or until a golden crust.