Tuesday, July 14, 2009

2 Tasty and Easy Starters

Super Onion Dip
We had some lovely friends around for a lunch on Saturday to catch up before they head off for what sounds like an awesome holiday. I was thinking about what starters to serve that were easy to prepare and remembered an onion dip that I had tried at our housewarming. I had tried this one to please Luke who given the choice from all sorts of lovely fresh dips or a Kraft French Onion Dip would sadly go for the latter. While I did not want to serve something like this to guests I did want to please the boy and prepare an onion dip to be all others. The recipe is more of a formula which makes it super easy to double or triple for big groups. I highly recommend you give it a go at your next gathering.

Ingredients:
50/50 Sour Cream & Greek or Natural Yogurt
( for 4 people I used roughly 1 cup of each )
2 onions finely chopped ( 1 for every cup of dip)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil ( 1 for each onion )
¼ packet French onion soup mix

Mix yogurt, sour cream and French onion soup mix together. Add more soup to taste if you wish.
Put mix back into the fridge.
Heat oil in a frypan. If you are increasing quantities you will need a saucepan than will allow onion to cover the base of the ban in a thin layer.
Add onions and coat all in the hot oil.
Reduce to a medium heat.
Cook onions until dark golden brown stirring frequently so they don’t catch. This can take roughly 30 minutes.
When onions are a nice rich colour ( you know they are ready when you start to see slightly black bits appear ) remove from heat.
Mix them into the yogurt/cream mix. When the hot onions hit the cold dip they go lovely and crunchy.

Serve with lovely toasted pieces of Turkish bread.

Thai Style Meatballs
The other starter I wanted to serve was Thai Style Meatballs. I had made these a few nights earlier and put them into a stir fry which was very tasty. When thet are cooking the sauces create a caramelised layer and they are super moist and tasty.

Ingredients:
400g Pork Mince
1tbsp Soy sauce
1tsbp Sweet soy sauce (Kapis Manis )
1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
2 tsp dried basil flakes (don’t worry if you don’t have any, It is for looks more than anything else)

Mix all ingredients well.
Roll into small balls and place on tray.
Once all are rolled place in the fridge for about an hour.
Cook on a BBQ at medium heat. They can also be done on a frypan but the BBQ adds a wonderful flavour.

Serve with various dipping sauces including soy or sweet chilli.

Makes around 25.

No comments:

Post a Comment