1 lb ground beef
1/2 cup cooked rice
1/4 tsp five-spice powder
2 tbsp peanut oil
1 medium yam
2 sqs. bean curd
6 fresh mushrooms
2 cup warm water
1/2 cup dark soy sauce
2 tbsp sherry
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced
1 cornstarch paste
Directions
This dish is almost a meal in itself. It is easy to prepare and a
dramatic addition at the table.
Preparation: Mix beef, rice & five-spice powder; form into firm 1"
balls.Peel yam; cut into chunks. Cut bean curd into 1" cubes. Wash
mushrooms; remove dried part of stem.
Cooking: Heat wok until smoking; add peanut oil. When oil is hot,
braise meatballs. Add warm water, soy sauce, sherry & ginger. Bring
to boil, transfer to clay pot, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add
yam chunks, bean curd & mushrooms. Cook uncovered another 20 minutes
until yams are done but still firm. Thicken sauce with cornstarch
paste; boil briefly. Turn off heat, cover to keep hot until ready to
serve.
Servings: 6 servings
Beef & Bean Curd Clay Pot Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Bean; Beef; Meat
The History of Recipes
It is quite possible to prove the history of recipes back into the distant past, at least as far into history as pharonic Egypt, and maybe further still. In practice though, mostly, these ancient records were just very simple pictorial instructions for preparing food.
Interestingly, the oldest recipe discovered, according to historians are some clay tablets in ancient Sumerian describing the making of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as having made anyone who tried it feel exhilarated. Progressing into Roman times around 25BC a roman called Apicius created a collection of scripts detailing recipes enjoyed by the Romans. In his scrolls, he tells us how the meals of wealthy Romans were split into hors d`oeuvres, main course and afters, a style of dining still practiced today. This early Roman chef tells us how the Roman cooks used many aromatic flavours, including a few that will be familiar to modern chefs like bay, fennel and asafoetida. Later on, there were a couple of recipe books which appeared in the fourteenth century ; a book published under the title `Forme of Cury`, and another entitled `Curye on Inglish`. Despite their titles, these books are not about the spicy food that is popular today, but rather accounts of the types of meals prepared by the cooks of the rich. Later on in the 1400s, people returning from the crusades brought us a variety of foods and herbs from middle-east cuisine, including spices like parsley and basil. The introduction of these new culinary ideas caused an increase in cookery books, many of which still exist in private libraries. For the centuries that followed, the upper classes competed to serve up the most exotic meals, and because of this the best chefs and their recipe collections increased in prestige. However, it wasn`t until the nineteenth century the formal cooking and recipe collections really came of age. The Famous Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the US, devoted their lives to collating, trying out, and publishing recipes to help cooks of their time. By the advent of the twentieth century, cookery books are highly popular mostly as a result of higher levels of literacy, people having increased free time and a general increase in wealth. The introduction of the TV gave us TV cooks and the recipe books that accompanied them. Which brings us neatly up to date and the invention of computers and the internet, permitting us all to access thousands of recipes like the ones you can find on sites such as the one you are reading now. |
We hope you enjoy this Beef & Bean Curd Clay Pot recipe.
