Vegetable Stew

It's one of those recipes where you can put all the ingredients you have prepared and leave it cooked. Well, not literally put all the ingredients in one time, but in order. :P It's very easy and everyone can make it. :)

Ingredients:

• Carrots, chopped
• Broccoli, cut and then boiled for a few minutes
• Cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• Mushrooms, chopped and then boiled for about 5 minutes (basically to get rid of the water used for boiling the mushrooms which usually turns dark afterwards)
• Spring onions, sliced
• 1/4 onion, sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, pressed then sliced
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 chicken stock
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp salt and 1/6 tsp sugar, which means only a little bit of sugar :D

Note: The quantity of all the ingredients above depend on how big the portion you'd like to cook is.

Method:

1. Heat butter in a pan, fry onion and garlic until smells good.
2. Put approximately 1L of water (again, depend on how much you want to make), chicken stock, and fish sauce. Stir well.
3. Put carrots into the pan. Leave it for about 5 minutes.
4. Put pepper, nutmeg, salt, and sugar, stir well.
5. Put mushrooms, broccoli, tomatoes, spring onions. Stir well.
6. Leave it until all the vegetables are cooked.

Happy cooking!

The Indonesian version: http://dapurdara.blogspot.ie/2013/01/sayur-sup-bening.html.

Beef Soup

This recipe is easy and fits to enjoy during the cold weather, like the weather in Dublin that is cold most of the time. Without further due, check out the recipe below. :)

~ The picture on the right shows the soup served with steamed rice and an egg. :)

Ingredients:

• 300 gr beef, chopped in small dices
• Vegetables:
  • carrots
  • potatoes
  • broccoli
  • etc, up to your preference
  All of the vegetables are chopped in small pieces or whatever form you like.. :D
  
• 1/4 onion, minced
• 3-4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp nutmeg powder
• 2 cm ginger, chopped
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• salt and sugar
• 1 lime or lemon
• 1 beef stock
• 2-3 tbsp vegetable oil or butter
• fried shallot (optional)

Method:

1. Heat the vegetable oil (or butter), and then add the onion and garlic, stir until it smells good.
2. Add the beef, stir for about 1 minute, and then put some water into the pan (around 1/2 L).
3. Once it's boiling, add ginger, nutmeg, and pepper, stir well.
4. Once the beef is well cooked, get rid of the fat scum from the surface.
5. Add the beef stock, cook for around 30 minutes with low heat, stir occasionally.
6. Once the beef is tender, add the vegetables, start from the ones that take a long time to cook. For example, start from potatoes, then carrots, and finally broccoli.
7. Put some salt and sugar. Done.
8. Remove from the heat and serve in a bowl, squeeze a slice of lime/lemon, garnished with fried shallot, if you like.

Enjoy! :)

The Indonesian version: http://dapurdara.blogspot.com/2012/01/sup-daging.html.