Italian Steak & Sauce

Fillet Steak.

1 tin tomatoes

1 cup cooking wine

3 cloves garlic

1/2 jar roasted pepper antipasti

1/4 jar wild mushroom antipasti

10 green olives, chopped

5 pieces green jalapeno, chopped

Beef stock cube

Lea & Perrins

Dijon mustard

Ketchup

Mixed Herbs

1 handful of pasta (twists, etc)

Cornflour (if needed)

Double Cream

Add the wine to the tinned tomatoes, garlic, ketchup, lea & perrins and a good sprinkling of mixed herbs. Cook hard and fast (stirring often to stop it burning) until a thick sauce. Then add the mustard & beef oxo cube.

Chop all the bits of antipasti down to a small size, and add to the sauce with the rest of the vegetables. Cook over a medium heat.

Put the pasta on to boil and cook as per instructions. Add to the sauce once cooked.

Turn the sauce down to a minimum, but thicken as necessary. Don't overcook the pasta

Fry the steak as desired. Once half way through, add a little cream to the sauce, and keep warm.

Serve the steak over the sauce, accompanied with focacia bread.

Serves 2, or maybe 3.

Sweet and Sour (Chicken)

It's taken a few attempts to get this basic dish right, but I think I've nailed it this time. The meat & veg is less relevant than the sauce, but this is what I did.

Sauce

1/3 cup pineapple juice

1/3 cup white wine vinegar - I'm told that rice vinegar works better.

1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon (or so) ketchup

1 tablespoon rice wine

1 heaped teaspoon sugar

2 heaped teaspoons cornflour.

The Rest

1 chicken breast, diced (smaller than you might)

1 large onion, roughly chopped

1 yellow bell pepper, roughly chopped

Most of a pack of baby sweetcorn & asparagus - sweetcorn halved, asparagus chopped

2 handfulls mushrooms

small tin of pineapple chunks in juice (see above - this should be 1/3 cup)

Thai 7 spice

1/2 cup rice per person

(Apologies for the cup measures, I'm not going American, but they work well here)

First, fry up the chicken in a wok with a little oil & 7-spice. It's not going to get cooked much more after this, so make sure it's cooked all the way through. Should start or almost start to brown. Remove & set aside.

Add a little more oil to the wok and fry the onions slowly until they start to go translucent. Take off the heat once done if need be.

While that's going on, start the rice off. (As per pack).

Meanwhile, put all the sauce ingredients except the cornflour in a small sauce pan and mix well. Put it on the hob for a few minutes, until the vinegar is getting right up your nose. No need to boil!

Mix the cornflour in a little water until a thick liquid. If it's too watery it won't work, so be careful.

Mix the cornflour in with the sauce, stirring all the time. Should thicken quickly! I used a whisk here. You probably don't want to do this over the heat, although do return it to the heat for a little to ensure all the cornflour is cooked. Put to one side.

Once the rice is 5 mins from finishing, add all the veg and the chicken back into the wok. Stirfry over a high heat for three minutes, then add the sauce, stir thoroughly, turn the heat down and cook for another 2 minutes.

Serve with prawn crackers.

Will serve 3 or 4 probably. There was certainly more than 2 helpings!