Thai Basil Minced Chicken and Quinoa Stuffed Mushrooms

I love stuffed mushrooms. It really is one of my favourite ways of eating mushrooms and it's a great way to add protein to your diet. And a great dish to make if you're on a protein diet. In this dish instance I used portobello mushrooms but you can of course just use button mushrooms or even shiitakes.  And if you don't like chicken you can use beef or pork.

My secret ingredient is Quinoa.  I just love love Quinoa! Sorry so lame for getting excited about Quinoa right? :) This is a great way to add healthy food to your diet. I cook my quinoa on the stovetop. After you rinse the raw quinoa in a fine mesh strainer, put into a pot and add water to the ratio of 1:2. So 1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water. Cook on medium to high heat for about 8-10minutes until all the liquid has been absorbed. For a tastier quinoa you can cook it in some stock.

I don't have exact measurements as usual so you can just play around with the taste to your liking. 

Ingredients:

Minced Meat - Chicken/Pork/Beef

Thai Basil, shredded

Red Chilli, chopped coarsest or finely.  Deseed if you wish.  

Fish Sauce

Sugar, small amount

Crushed Garlic

Cooked Quinoa

Mushrooms

⚫️ Mix all ingredients in a bowl except for the mushrooms.  Mix the meat by hand (use disposable gloves if you want), until the meat is kind of sticky.  

⚫️ Take a mushroom and turn it over so that the stem is facing up. Fill the mushroom cups with the meat mixture. It's not necessary to remove the stems.  

⚫️ I usually cook this in the Airfryer at 180C for around 7-8 minutes. Then turn it up to 200C to brown the tops for another 2-3 minutes.

⚫️ Serve hot or warm at room temperature. Great with a side salad served with a Thai dressing.  

Airfried Crabsticks Round 2!

We just can't get enough of Airfried Crabsticks, they're so tasty and you can even eat it with rice!

So I did some experimenting, this time made one with Nestum Cereal and Curry Leaves, kind of like Cereal Prawn. The cereal didn't quite stick to the crabsticks, I don't know why eventhough I've put a spoonful of oil. I could smell the cereal and the curry leaves though so it was nice and fragrant. 

The other flavour was a Hot and Spicy Seaweed flavour. I used the Big Bang brand, ripped the sheets in small pieces and used a hand blender to crush them up, then added them to the shredded crabsticks. It's also important to add a spoonful of oil so that the seaweed will stick. You will get some seaweed dropping off in the airfryer but it's ok.  

After the seaweed has been mixed in.

Towards the end of cooking it's better to cover the crabsticks as they'll fly up into the coil as they dry up. Make sure you stir every few minutes.

 

Yummy Yummy! 

From reading the airfrying groups people mentioned apart from Dodo brand crabsticks, Li Chuan one also airfries well. So I gave it a go. Straight away as I was shredding the crabstick I realised I didn't like it. It just wouldn't unroll and shred into wide strips like Dodo does. Instead it was more like matchsticks size. The taste isn't that great either compared to Dodo one. But it does crisp up faster and I noticed that they don't curl either as they crisp up. So I guess it's a matter of personal choice, in future for me, I will stick to Dodo frozen one.

The extra brown one is Dodo Brand, the Lichuan one on the bottom you can see doesn't curl up.

Airfried Crab Sticks

Since Chinese New Year is just around the corner, the airfrying groups on facebook are filled with pictures of Airfried Crab Sticks made by different people.

I have tried it a couple of times before but always they wouldn't end up very crispy or the crispiness was uneven, meaning some would be brown and some would still be kind of white and chewy. Actually my little one prefers it chewy rather than crispy!

From trial and error, I realised I had been cooking it at too high of a temperature at 200C. I'm lazy and most times just keep the temperature at 200C. But now I realised that when you lower the temperature to 160-180 degrees, it slowly dries out the crabsticks giving you a more even crunch and colour. You do have to keep on opening every few minutes or so and stir the contents around to loosen them because they do stick together when you first put it in. I also think that adding a drop of oil to coat the crab sticks before you cook them helps in maintaining their crunch, so I added a drop of Coconut Oil, hey anyway it's an oil that's actually good for you!

This time I used Dodo Brand of Crabsticks, and really I must say, they are the best ones I've made so far (don't know if the brand made a difference). Perhaps I should make more and share around to the in laws (and suck up a little) :)

After finished cooking.

During Cooking. 

Potato Skins cooked in the Airfryer (Recipe)

Sometimes I make shapes with vegetables...in the hopes that it would mean little princess would eat it...or maybe I should say more of it. But when you make shapes (hello kitty, what nots) there's always wastage. And I hate wasting food. One day I suddenly realised I could turn them into airfried potato skins! And these were so good, and made them even better was a drizzle of truffle oil and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. Yum yum! Little Princess ate that whole portion there in the pic. It's not much, but it's a great start.

Before you airfry the skins, drizzle some olive oil over it and season with salt and pepper. Cook for about 10mins or less or until your desired doneness, and stir it or turn it over halfway through.

Pasta Bake using Airfyer

The airfryer makes it simple to cook pasta bakes, since there's no need to warm up the oven. The oven is pretty much used to heat up the whole pasta and to brown the cheese. The Airfryer can do it this and do it in a shorter amount of time than the oven. The only downside is if you're making individual portions of Pasta Bake like I did here for lots of people, using the airfryer isn't really an advantage because you have to airfyer them one by one and that might take too long. You could perhaps make it in advance and then you just reheat it again for a few mins before serving.

The recipe for the pasta bake itself is simple, just use any shaped pasta you want, cook it till al dente or even shy of al dente, then mix it with some precooked meat, veges like peas, chopped spinach, mushrooms, and mix in some cheddar and mozzarella mix. I bought individual ramekins from Daiso and they fit perfectly in the basket. It's actually better to place it on top of the Grill Pan, because it's easier to take out once it's cooked. Once you've spooned them into the ramekins, top with more cheese and some breadcrumbs or crushed biscuits for extra crunch and cook in the airfryer for about 7minutes on 200degrees (I pretty much cook everything on 200degrees).