Beef Chili Recipe (to make Chili Cheese Fries, Fully Loaded Nachos, etc)

Chili Cheese Fries and Fully Loaded Nachos are one of those dish that we order frequently when we're at Carl Jr, Tony Roma's, Morganfield's, Hard Rock Café, etc.

This is also known as a great super bowl or party snack. The Beef Chili can be made ahead of time and place in the freezer or fridge. When it's the day you want to enjoy it you can warm it up and it'll be ready for the final presentation touch up to make Chili Cheese Fries, and Fully Loaded Nachos.


Serves 4 pax
Beef Chili Ingredients
2 tablespoons Vegetable Oil
1 diced Yellow Onions
1 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Sugar
1 teaspoon White Pepper
500g Ground Beef
1 cup of Kidney Beans
1/2 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper Powder
1 teaspoon Cumin Powder
1 teaspoon Dried Oregano
1 tablespoons Garlic Powder
1.5 cups Beef Broth / Chicken Broth
1.5 cups of Tomato Paste / Pasta Paste
1.5 tablespoons Flour

1. Heat the pan with Vegetable Oil.
2. Saute the Yellow Onions with Salt, Sugar, Pepper until soft/transparent for approximately 2 mins.
3. Add Ground Beef, Cayenne Pepper Powder, Cumin Powder, Dried Oregano, Garlic Powder and cook until the beef is done and no pinkish beef can be spotted.
4. Combine Flour with Broth / Chicken Broth.
4. Add Kidney Beans, Broth mix, Tomato Paste / Pasta Paste and bring it to a boil.
5. Reduce heat to simmer for 30 to 40mins, occasionally stirring to blend, which will thicken the mixture.


Chili Cheese Fries
460g Frozen Fries (adjust to the volume to be consumed)
220g grated Cheddar Cheese / Monterey Jack Cheese (Optional)
1 cup Sour Cream
Pickled Jalapeno Pepper (Optional)

1. Deep fry Fries and season with Salt.
2. Heat oven to 200°C Top Broiler mode.
3. Place Fries in bottom of Glass Baking Dish, top with Beef Chili and sprinkle Cheese.
4. Bake for 5mins or until the top are slightly browned.
5. [Optional] Remove dish from oven, garnish with Pickled Jalapeno Pepper, Sour Cream and serve immediately.


Fully Loaded Nachos
500g Nachos (adjust to the volume to be consumed)
220g grated Cheddar Cheese / Monterey Jack Cheese (Optional)
1 cup Sour Cream
Pickled Jalapeno Pepper
Black Olives
Corn Kernels

1. Heat oven to 200°C Top Broiler mode.
2. Place Nachos in bottom of Glass Baking Dish, top with Beef Chili, Pickled Jalapeno Pepper, Black Olives, Corn Kernels and sprinkle Cheese.
4. Bake for 5mins or until the top are slightly browned.
5. Remove dish from oven, garnish with Sour Cream and serve immediately.


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Beef Stew Recipe

Been a little scared of cooking beef as it might turn out tough & dry. Until we did some research and found out this interesting article by Serious Eats, they mentioned that the best part of the beef to make beef stew is chuck. It has lot of connective tissue and fats. Also, it's affordable and preforms the best. Click here to read more.


Ingredients A
4 tablespoons Vegetable oil
400g Beef Chuck, cut into 2-inch cubes
100g Oxtail
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For searing, heat a large Dutch Oven or a Soup Pot with a tight-fitting lid with Vegetable Oil. Season the beef chunks and oxtail generously with salt and pepper, and add to the pan. Saute (uncovered) for about 8 minutes stirring occasionally, ensure all sides are well-browned. Transfer the beef to a plate and set aside. Rinse the Dutch Oven or a Soup Pot, wipe out the pan and return the pot to the stove.

Ingredients B
2 tablespoons Butter / Olive Oil
1 medium Brown Onions
3 cloves Garlic, crushed
1/2 cup Tomato Paste
1 tablespoon All-Purpose Flour (optional)
1 cup Water
1 cup Beef or Chicken Broth
1/2 cup Red Wine
2 sprigs Fresh Parsley / 1 teaspoon of Dry Parsley
2 sprigs Fresh Thyme / 1 teaspoon of Dry Thyme
2 sprigs Fresh Rosemary / 1 teaspoon of Dry Rosemary (optional)
2 Bay Leaves
200g medium Potatoes, quartered
2 medium Carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 Celery stalks, cut into 2-inch pieces (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste

If using the oven to cook for 1.5 hours, preheat the oven to 165°C.

Heat the large Dutch Oven or the Soup Pot with butter or Olive Oil. Add in Onion and cook for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute or until fragrant. Add the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute or until lightly browned. Add the seared beef chunks and oxtail. If you're adding flour mix it into the water, we omitted as we prefer our stew to be soupy base, however, if you like slightly thick soup you may add. Add Water, Broth, Red Wine and bring to a simmer. Place the Parsley, Thyme, Rosemary, and Bay Leaves in a soup-bag and add the bundle to the pot. Cover and transfer to the oven to cook for approximately 1.5 hours where the meat will be just tender. This can also be done on the stove at a low simmer, it will take approximately 1 hour.

Remove pot from the oven or stove, with a ladle skim as much fat off as possible. Add the Potatoes, Carrots, Celery and bring to a simmer on top of the stove for another 1 hour until the liquid slightly thickens and the vegetables are tender, not forgetting to stir occasionally. Remove and discard the herb soup bag. Stir in the vinegar. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Dish into bowls and serve hot with rice or mash potatoes.

Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

Pho Vietnamese Beef Rice Noodle Soup Recipe

Our very first Vietnamese recipe!

Prettier picture to share as we made this again on 30 Mar 2017! Give this recipe a try. We believe you'll love it too.

Pho Beef Noodles is what will come to our mind when we think of Vietnamese food. The richness of the beef broth but yet light enough to enjoy every slurp. The soft tender beef. It's one of the food you will think of when it's a cold rainy day.


Broth Ingredients
700g Oxtail
1.5" Ginger
1 Yellow Onion
50ml Fish Sauce
4 whole Star Anise
3 whole Cloves
2" Cinnamon Stick
0.5 teaspoon Fennel Seeds
2 Bay Leaves
3 litre of Beef Stock
Salt & Pepper to taste
3 Soup Stock Bags


Step 1 Place the oxtail in a large pot and add enough water to cover and let it boil for 10mins.
Step 2 Remove the oxtail and set aside while you pour away the water, rinse the pot.
Step 3 Slice the Yellow Onion and Ginger in half and place it on a aluminium foil and char them under the broiler until lightly browned.
Step 4 Using the same pot place the oxtail in along with the Beef Stock and bring it to a boil.
Step 5 Meanwhile, toast the Star Anise, Cloves, Cinnamon Stick in a small pan over a stove on medium heat. Turn the spices a couple of times, they are ready when you can smell. the aroma and it is slightly darken. This will take approximately 3 to 4 minutes.
Step 6 Pack up all the spices, charred Ginger and Onions in the Soup Stock Bags for easy retrieval.
Step 7 When you're done with Step 5 and 6, the broth would have just started boiling. Place in the packed Spice Bags and let the broth simmer for 4 hours.
Step 8 After 4 hours, discard all the packed spice Bags. Remove the oxtail from the pot and pull the meat from the bones.
Step 9 Return the bones to the broth and continue simmering uncovered for about an hour.
Step 10 Add salt and pepper to taste.


Serving Ingredients
2 serving of Rice Noodles
1 cup of Mung Bean Sprouts
1 bunch of Scallions
1 hand full of Fresh Cilantro
1 hand full of Parsley
1 hand full of Basil
3 Limes
Chilli Paste
Thinly sliced Filet Mignon/ Brisket/ Flank or Beef Balls

Step 11 Soak the Rice Noodles in cold water for 20minutes.
Step 12 Arrange the sliced scallions, cilantro, parsley, basil, bean sprouts, lime wedges on a platter in separate piles.
Step 13 Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the drained rice noodles. Give the noodles a quick stir and cook for about a minute until tender but firm.
Step 14 Just before serving, return the broth to a full boil.
Step 15 Divide the Rice Noodles, arrange the Beef and Mung Bean Sprouts on top of the Rice Noodles.
Step 16 Carefully ladle the boiling broth over the raw beef or beef and Mung Bean Sprouts.
Step 17 Garnish with Scallions and serve immediately. Or serve the bowl of noodles immediately along with the platter of garnish.

Cooked these meal for deary and me only. The oxtail meat was sufficient portion for us, so we didn't add extra beef or beef balls. Also, as you notice from the picture we omitted Cilantro, Parsley, Basil as we don't fancy these herbs. This is the beauty of home cook food.


Enjoy~!!!

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Pasta Exploration I ::: Bolognese with Homemade Beef Meatballs with Fusilli

Offtopic: We are now on Twitter, so Follow Us on Twitter to get first-hand updates whenever we ... update!

Have you watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs? If you have not you better do! It rings a bell to make this dish......

Spaghetti Meatballs Bolognese is one of the most common popular dish. Our very first Pasta recipe sharing. Hope we can come up with more very soon.

Enjoy Cooking!



Beef Meatballs
500g of Minced Beef
Dash of Salt
Dash of Pepper
1 teaspoon of Corn flour
1/2 of Sesame Oil
Cooking oil

1. Mince Beef more to make it tender.
2. Place the minced beef in a bowl and add salt, pepper, corn flour and sesame oil.
3. Portion beef enough and roll it into balls about the size of 1.5cm round.
4. To stack up meatballs, sprinkle corn flour to make them not to stick them together too much.
5. Heat frying pan till hot and add cooking oil.
6. Place in beef balls and fry till brown, turn it to cook whole meatball.
7. Dish it to cool and absorb excess oil in kitchen tissue towel while you're cooking the rest of the beef meatballs.


Bolognese Sauce
1-2 cup of Bolognese Sauce from Prego Traditional Bottle

1. Heat pot and add in Bolognese sauce.
2. Let it boil, add in the cooked beef meatballs.
3. Simmer for another 2mins, and turn off the fire.


Pasta - Fusilli
5cups of Water
Salt
2 cups of Fusilli

1. Boil water with salt, and add in pasta.
2. Keep on boiling until pasta is Medium-Soft.
3. Use a big sifts to strain the water.
4. Add some Olive Oil so that it will be stick together.


TO SERVE:
1. Portion pasta in shallow plates.
2. Scoop Bolognese meatball sauce on top and it is ready to be served.
3. Top it with Cheddar Cheese.

Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

Home Cooked Delicious Medium-Rare Rib Eye Steak - Mark II

So anyway. A while ago I posted a short cooking class post about cooking your own rib-eye steak. If you don't remember the post (or if you didn't read it), it was a terrible failure. Live and learn, though, and so tonight the darling and I did our next attempt!

You can refer back to the previous post for the detailed step-by-step instructions, but in a nutshell the steps are:

1. Steaks at room temperature
2. Cook up some clarified butter
3. Pour clarified butter and rub into the steak, and then generously (but don't overdo it) sprinkle the dry rub ingredients onto both sides.
4. Grill on high heat, 2-3 minutes on each side depending on steak thickness and your preference for done-ness.
5. Put on a plate, cover with aluminium foil, let rest for 3-5 mins before serving.


As a general guide, we have three 300-ish gram grass fed rib eye steaks here, and we used the following amount of rub: 2 teasp. salt, 2 teasp. black pepper, 1 teasp onion powder, 1 teasp garlic powder, 1 teasp. paprika powder.

Doesn't this just look awesome?


These are about 1-inch thick slabs of meat, which were cooked on high heat for about 2 minutes on each side, which gives a medium-rare bordering on rare done-ness. Adjust your cooking time as you like, but try not to go above 3.5 or 4 minutes a side as fully cooked steaks are dry and disgusting.


Verdict? Utterly awesome, and full of juicy flavour.

The most important part about cooking your own steak at home is that you have to get a good source of meat. We bought ours at the butcher at the supermarket in Jaya 33 - their grass fed rib-eyes were rm8/100gm which is really cheap, but if you feel like splurging they've got Black Angus and AACo Wagyu meats on stock too.

Do give it a try! Once you've got a couple of attempts under your belt you'll marvel just how easy it is to whip up a delicious steak that can honestly rival many of the steakhouses out there - and at much, much lower cost!

Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~

Home Cooked Delicious Medium-Rare Rib Eye Steak

update: we've got a second try that was much more successful than this one. Click here for the full post!

Look See Eat is now on Facebook! Yeah I know right? Like "whaaaaaaaaat?!?" But anyway if you at all enjoy any of the posts that Joyce (the darling) and myself write, please do head over to our FaceBook page here and click the "Like!" button!

Anyway since the darling has been trying to fatten me up with lots of her cooking, I thought I'd try to repay the favor. And since I had a hankering for steak, but didn't want to pay $150 for a meal at a steakhouse, here's my first attempt at cooking a delicious rib-eye steak!

Step 1: Buy the steaks and get a hot kitchen assistant.
You should ideally choose steaks that are at 1" to 1-1/2" thick. We were on a last minute rush job though so the best we could find were these 3/4"-ers for $15.00 each. The kitchen assistant needs to be attractive so that even if you royally screw up your cooking, well, at least you had the company of a pretty girl/handsome guy.


Step 2: Mix the dry rub.
These are top secret ingredients and so I'm not at liberty to say what they are.

(I'll tell you the *real* reason at the end of the post ^_^)


Step 3: Season the Steaks.
Make sure your steak is at room temperature before you attempt to cook it. Pour clarified butter (basically butter oil) and then the dry rub ingredients on both sides of the steak.


Step 4: Eat your appetizers and drink your soups.
In a restaurant, the kitchen prepares & cooks your steak while you're happily eating bread, or drinking soup, or eating your caesar salad. But at home you don't have that luxury, and since you need to eat your steak a couple of minutes after it's done, you'll also need to eat your appetizers first.


Step 5: Grill your steaks.
As long as your steaks are under 1-1/2" thick, you'll want to grill them on high heat. For these 3/4"-ers, we grilled 1'10s on each side, for a total cooking time of only 2 minutes and 20 seconds. Thicker steaks need a slightly longer cooking time. For 1-1/2" thick steaks, cook about 3-4 minutes each side depending on how you like your meat.

If you didn't clarify your butter properly they'll let off a huge amount of smoke though, so close the kitchen door.


Step 6: Garnish and serve.
Oh oh, before serving, make sure you let your steaks rest! Rest meaning, transfer the meat from the grill pan to a (preferably warm) plate and cover loosely with aluminium foil and leave it there for a few minutes.

Then garnish, serve, and eat immediately! In our pic below you'll see that we added a round slab of that fancy herb butter thing Angus Steakhouse style.


Step 7: Slurp the juices.
Yummy!


So how was the steak? Texture and done-ness of the meat was spot on, and it's surprising how easy it really is to cook a steak. I have to admit, however, that I kind of made a slight mistake on the dry rub ingredients. Slight as in, I accidentally sort of doubled everything, and so the steaks turned out extremely salty - so salty that if you had this steak served to you in a restaurant you would immediately send it back to the kitchen.

I'll definitely try again with the correct dry rub ingredients, and when berjaya then only I'll share the ingredients with you!

Detailed measurements of our successful recipe (will be updated here as we post):
Home Cooked Delicious Medium-Rare Rib Eye Steak - Mark II

Click here for our blog page Cooking Classes for more recipes. Hope you will be inspired~