Kerala Black Pepper Beef Short Ribs

 

Melbourne's CBD features some amazing laneways that are famous for iconic artwork, cozy bars, tempting dessert lounges and an array of restaurants that feature food from all over the world. One of them is called the Daughter-in-Law and they call themselves the "unauthentic Australian Indian cuisine." When our friend visited from India, we decided to check this place out.  I was pleasantly surprised to see all the "ghenda phool" garlands - and it immediately reminded us of the time when we had been to Delhi with this same friend to purchase these garlands for our daughter's wedding. How fitting that we selected a restaurant that reminded us of those days!  

We ordered the food and one of the items in the menu was the Kerala pepper beef short ribs. This dish was easily my favorite on the night - may be because I am biased towards Kerala cuisine, but that aside, I was determined to try it out at home.

It is surprisingly easy to make and I came very close to what was served that night, so I am very pleased with myself. It can be an easy dinner when you plan to study or work in the garden. It doesn't require constant monitoring and it can be served with store bought pita bread, naans or rice.  I served it with Kerala parotta.

Beef Ribs Chatpata

 India is full of road side eateries.  As you drive along, there are many food stalls with all sorts of delicious things being cooked on a open flame or on hot coals. When I was young, I had no qualms about walking up to these food stalls and picking up food - and eating straight off the banana leaf / news paper it was served on.  When I took my children back home, I did not really want to encourage them to do that as they were young and I did not want them to fall ill on our holidays.

But the road side food is very much part of my food make up - it is who I am and even now when I am there I pick up random goodies from road side eateries.

One of the things that I love is the beef chatpata - beef with the fat rendered and cooked in its own fat till it melts in the mouth. Hot, spicy and the original Indian "fast food".  Chatpata means fast as in quick; so here is my beef chatpata for you to try!

Handcrafted Sausage Rolls

Harmony Day is a workplace celebration of diversity in Australia and one that is often celebrated with food and other cultural events. Since the death of my mother I have organised many Harmony Day celebrations in various places that I worked. I dedicated the first one in 2009 to my beautiful mother as she was a wonderful cook.  Subsequent ones have been more about the team and team celebration.

 I used to work with a lady name Yvette who made amazing sausage rolls for Harmony Day one time and this recipe kind of flows on from what she told me as well as a slightly tweaked version of recipetineats.com.  Yvette liked to mix the pork and the beef mince, so that is what I have done. It is entirely up to you, though, to experiment and choose the flavours you like.

It is Grand Final Day tomorrow and most of the people I know - including the ones in my family will be glued to the TV for a couple of hours.  Sausage rolls and a nice Creme Caramel will go down nicely for after, I thought.  So here we are!

Beef Ularthiyathu - Pan Roasted Beef - Kerala Style

 Most of my Australian friends here in Melbourne think that Indians do not eat beef.  Not if you are from Kerala.  Keralites love their beef and there is a treasure trove of Kerala Beef recipes that I have tasted and enjoyed. Most of the beef dishes have an element of coconut and coconut oil which is very distinctive.  I have not used coconut oil, but you can use it to get a feel for what it tastes like.

This recipe is based on my mother's instructions.  She is long gone, but the taste of her food still lingers in the corners of my mind and heart.  This week my friends in Kerala have kicked off their Onam or harvest festival celebrations and I find that my heart is longing to go back home.

Though Onam is a vegetarian festival, this dish jogs my memories of home which is why I have cooked it today.  Hope you enjoy this as much as my family does.

Bitter Melon stuffed with Beef Mince

 With COVID restrictions in place in Melbourne, we have not been to the market in over two months.  Supermarkets do not have a good choice of fish so we have been managing with vegetables and meat.  Also, the designated shopper at home is my husband and whatever he can find is what we have.  Simple, right?  Well, today he brought back 3 bitter melons.  I had to find ways to use them up before they get spoilt. I had some left over mince from last week - so when I was hunting for recipes, this recipe from Food Delicacy by Celia Lim stood out. 

Link:  https://www.foodelicacy.com/steamed-bitter-gourd-stuffed-with-minced-pork/

I did not have all the ingredients mentioned by Celia, so I just improvised.  My husband and I enjoyed this dish with rice.  The kids are not great fans of bitter melon - it is an acquired taste!  If you can like it, though, it is very good for you.

Crispy Fried Asian Beef Mince with Brown Rice

Thank you to Sugar Salt Magic https://www.sugarsaltmagic.com/ for this recipe that I have improvised and made into a quick lunch for the family.  I love Asian food and flavours and every now and again have a craving to eat Asian food.

I love Asian food for the ease of cooking, the variety of vegetables used and how healthy it feels and the vibrancy and colour of the food itself.

It is all in the prep for this recipe - once you have your ingredients prepped and ready, it is very quick.

This dish serves 4.

Tortillas

 It is always lovely when the children tell me they want to cook dinner.  I sit back and relax - and only get tense if they delay - ha ha!!!Tonight was one of those nights, I sat back, made a long phone call to a girlfriend and the children covered dinner.  We had tortillas - and a mix of store bought and home made accompaniments.  A satisfying meal - I was even happy to wash the dishes afterwards!

Tortillas are unleavened flat breads like chappaties, made from plain flour.  However the children preferred to get the ready made ones from the store. What makes this interesting and fun are the colorful accompaniments and the fact you make them up as you go along.  So you take one piece of bread, fill it with all the things you like ( and I forgot to show the sour cream in the picture) - wrap it up and eat it. These are perfect for an easy mid week dinner when you do not feel like cooking.

Once again, we thank Jamie Oliver for his easy recipe!

 

Beef Lasanga

 The family got together and cleaned the house yesterday.  By house I mean mostly the kitchen - the oven, the rangehood, the flue, the floor ....oh, it was hard work scrubbing and washing.  Lucky I didn't have to cook as we had plenty of left over pasta from the previous day.  While we were cleaning the kids said, amma, we haven't made Lasagna in ages.  So today, in the clean kitchen that was my first dish.

When the kids were little, Lasagna was a staple dish as it was easy to cook, easy to store in the fridge and easy to re-heat if needed.  The kids are all grown up now and I realised I hadn't made this in a few years - so here is a nice recipe for a weekly staple for time pressed mothers!

Recipe adapted from Mama's Best Lasagna.  Thank you for a great recipe!

Beef Stir Fry

Middle of the week and you are after a quick meal to get your family satisfied - and Beef Stir Fry fits the requirement perfectly.  The cooking itself took about 10 minutes and prep the previous night took 10 minutes.  Nothing like having a meal ready in 10 minutes, huh?  :-)

Of course I made fried rice to go with the beef the previous night so I didn't have to spend too much time cooking tonight.

Recipe for fried rice: http://kitchenanugraha.blogspot.com/2020/06/chinese-fried-rice.html

Meatball Curry

This dish is best made with lamb mince. Today I have made it with beef mince - and it still tastes good, jut that I prefer lamb just for this dish.  I had a very tasty version of this in my friend Munavar's house in Chennai once.  That is when I realized that you didn't need to cook the meatballs before dropping them in the gravy.  Until then I used to deep fry the meat balls and then drop them in the gravy.

This is why it is good fun to cook with friends and watch others cooking because you learn new things all the time.

My children love this dish and so I make it a fair bit.

Beef and Snow Peas Stir Fry

I love our local Chinese restaurant called Angie's Dumplings.  One of my favourite dishes from Angie's is their Beef with Snow Peas stir fry.  I managed to source a recipe from the Coles recipe book - and tweaked it a little to give it the "Angie's" twist:

Curried Kransky

Amma used to make curried cocktail frankfurts that she got in my hometown and serve them with chappaties.  The cocktail frankfurts we got were made in a farm run by catholic priests, I think and they were the best.  I am not a huge fan of the cocktail frankfurts we get in the supermarket - but the kranskys taste really nice and very close to what I remember from back home.

Appam and Stew

Christmas time is a time of eating and making merry in our culture like a lot of cultures. In particular a lot of my compatriots will remember getting up early for the Christmas morning service and coming home with tummy rumbling to a delightful breakfast of appam and stew.  Today I recreate the magic for you with all locally available ingredients in Melbourne.  You will have to create the magic yourself, though! Both these recipes are gluten free with the option of making the stew vegetarian. 

Rajam's Beef Cutlets

This was something my mother learnt to make in Kerala after her wedding.  She made them so well that everyone referred to them as the bench mark for cutlets. Being a Virgo, my amma had to have everything the right shape, same size and same consistency.  I have never been able to copy her exacting standards.