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| Puffing up |
It was more than that before I take the photo.. They look too gorgeous to me, can you see they are winking at me? That's the reason I can't resist the seduction and pop few of them into my mouth. :D I like to make a petite cream puff, nice and cute, just need one bite and that's it. Good quality of cream is a must for cream puff, need to be silky smooth, rich and creamy enough BUT not too sweet. I would say puff is too easy to prepare, one of the easiest pastry apart from scones (I think). You will get so excited when you see them puffing up. Not just limited to round shape, how about a love shape for your loved one today?
Recipe for choux puff (14 round shaped)
Water 100cc
Butter 45gm
A pinch of salt
Low gluten flour 60gm
Eggs 2
Optional:
Ground almond
Caster sugar
Heat the water, butter and salt in the pot until it boiled. Turn of the heat and pour the flour into the mixture and start to stir them by using spatula until it becomes a dough.
Turn on minumum heat and cook the dough. This is to help to dry up the dough a bit. Cook until you can see a thin layer forms on the pot. It may takes about 1 to 2 min time. Remove the pot from heat and add in the eggs. If you want to know if the batter is ready, try to scoop by using spatula, when the batter flows down, it should be slowly forming a V shape. If it is too hard to flow down, no harm to add extra egg mixture.
*For this recipe, so far I never have to do so.
Use a piping bag to pipe out the round shaped on a non stick baking paper. Get some egg yolk and brush it on top of the puff. It's optional to put 1/8 tsp of sugar and 1/8 ground almond onto the puff. Spray some water on the puffs before they go in the oven.
Bake them at 200 degrees for around 30 min
Recipe for custard cream:
One egg yolk
Milk 200gm
Cream 80gm
Cornstarch 16gm
A pinch of salt
1/8 tsp of vanilla essence
Sugar 60gm
Butter 30gm
Whisk the egg yolk and cornstarch until well combined with no lumps. Heat up the salt, milk, cream and sugar until the sugar melted, it doesn't need to be boiled at this point.
Slowly pour the milk mixture into the egg mixture and stir vigorously. Put them back to the pot and continue to cook, avoid maximum heat. Stir well at this stage as it is very easily to get burnt. Cook until the right consistency (thicker) and small bubbles appear. Remove from heat and butter can be added in followed by vanilla essence.
* The custard will get thicker after you leave in the fridge.
To pipe the cream, simply cut of the top part of the puff and pipe in the cream.
I hope you can smell how fragrant is the rice, have a bite of the crunchy roast pork, and feel the tenderness of the chicken.. No worry, either you can have it somewhere for tomorrow lunch or cook it by following my attached recipe. See, I am not a mean person. :D
Asked my hubby today what he wants for dinner and he answers me"anything, anything fast and easy" After 5 seconds... "how about chicken rice?" Puzzled.. how can a chicken rice meal be easy? Anyway, I still came up with this for him, more than what he asked for.. plus the crispy roast pork. Actually I was the one who craved for the roast pork...
There is total 3 parts of this recipe..A. chicken B. chicken rice C. crispy roast pork
Recipe for the Chicken:
One whole chicken
An inch of ginger (sliced)
Few stalks of scallions
Salt to rub the chicken
First, rub the salt on the chicken and put it in the boiling water with the rest of the ingredients. Boil for 5 minutes and turn off the fire. Keep the chicken in the pot for 45 min and turn on the fire again and check if it's cooked. ( time may varied due to the size of the chicken) Submerge the chicken into the icy cold water for 10 min.
Keep the stock aside.
Recipe for the Chicken Rice for 2 person
Uncooked rice
Chicken Stock
Half inches of ginger (sliced)
A tsp of garlic
A tsp of shallots
3 Tbsp of butter
1/4 tsp of chicken stock powder
1/2 tsp of salt
Saute the shallots and garlic until fragant. Instead of normal water, use the chicken stock to cook the rice. Simply put all the ingredients into the rice cooker and follow the manual instructions.
Recipe for the Crispy Roast Pork for 2 person
Pork belly 300gm
Salt 10gm
Sugar 5gm
Small amount of bicarbonate of soda
Soya sauce 10 cc
Five spice powder 5gm
oil
Coarse salt
Preheat the oven. Dry the pork belly in the oven at 200 degrees for 5 min.
Mix the salt, sugar, soya sauce and five spice powder together and rub on the pork, avoid the skin area.
Cut the slit in between the flesh, but not cutting through. This is for easy marination process.
Poke as much holes as you can on the pork skin. This is the crucial part to determine the crunchy layer of the skin. Rub the skin with a small amount of soda. Keep the pork on the plate where the flesh is facing down touching the marinate sauce, put in the fridge for at least 2 hours
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Wrap the pork with alluminium foil and leave out the skin. Cover the skin with coarse salt, bake for 20 min. You should be seeing some scorching part on the skin by now.
Remove the coarse salt from the skin. Apply a layer of oil on top of the skin and continue to bake at 200 degrees for 15 min or until it's completely turn crispy on the skin.
Last thing on the list, season the chicken stock with salt and pepper. Garnish the rice with some spring onion. Chicken, roast pork, rice with a bowl of chicken soup, done! Hmm.. I can smell chicken rice again..
Chocolate never failed to please me. Well, I hardly see anyone who doesn't take chocolate, white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, at least one? Made a chocolate mousse cake to celebrate my hubby's birthday few months back, a 7inch cake finished by us the next day, have to emphasize, only in two sessions! He told me" I never have so much in my life". Haha... I wanted to tell him, there are more for you to eat. White chocolate is his most favourite, he likes everything sweeeet.. anything to do with coconut milk, the "lemak" kind of food. This dessert is specially make for him but.. I finished two tarts up to now. This white chocolate mousse has no exception with any kind of mousse which is having the "melt-in-mouth" feel. The silky texture of the mousse... muakss.. simply irresistible! Wonder if he is looking at this post, come back early today before the tarts gone. Let me try the dark chocolate mousse tart for the next round, all mine!
I normally go for sweet and sour combination for my dessert. Nothing much, just my own preference. I don't have a sweet tooth, that's including my own-baked desserts. Luckily I have someone at home who willing to sweep all my food without complaining! This is a simple almond tart shell with the lemon curd filling, decorate with pistachios, gold flakes and dragees. Looks like the egg tart though, only the colour the same. It definately tastes better after leave in the fridge for awhile.
Recipe for the Almond Tart Shell (12 tarts on 6cm mould)
Butter 180gm
Icing sugar 100gm
Eggs 3
Plain Flour 300gm
Ground Almound 70gm
A pinch of salt
Cream the butter and the sugar and salt until pale and yellow. Add in the eggs one by one until well combined. Add the flour slowly at low speed until it forms a dough. Wrap them in a cling film and chill for at least 30 min before we start to work on it.
Preheat the oven at 170degrees, press the dough into the tart mould and layer with small baking paper topped with some weight like beans. Bake take tart for 30 min or until golden brown. Removed from oven, cooled completely before add in the filling.
Lemon Curd:
Lemon juice 150cc
4 eggs
Sugar 165gm
Butter 165gm
Gelatine leaves 5gm (Bloom them in cold water)
A tsp of lemon zest
Heat the lemon juice and lemon zest in a pot. Mix the eggs and sugar in another pot. Pour the hot lemon juice into the eggs mixture, remember to stir while you pouring.
Cook the mixture until it turns thicker. Cut the butter into small pieces and whisk them into the mixture followed by the gelatine leaves. As the temperature goes down, the curd will turn thicker.
Cheesecake baked in the school today. A baked American cheesecake with a pastry base at the bottom. Came out so pretty due to the even heat distribution, the top is just perfect! Smooth, rich and sinful as it is using high amount of cream cheese. Almost 11pm at night, I have to admit that I had a mouth.. half piece to be honest. Those who stay closer to me, please come over and share my guilt.
:) Happy smile after I gulped down a bowl of ramen. It was already on my cooking list since the beginning of this month. Coincidently, saw the ramen sold at the Japanese Fair at Takashimaya last week and it came with the sauce. Two days of preparation even though I don't have to cook my own broth. For those who don't normally cook, might think this is a bit insane. For me who likes to cook, I think this ramen is insanely good. :)
Recipe for the Shoyu Ramen:
a pack of ramen comes with the sauce
egg
bamboo shoots
seaweed
spring onion (chopped)
pork belly about 4x4inches
twine
a cup of shoyu
half cup of sake
half cup mirin
3 cups of water
few dashes pepper
5 cloves garlic
half tsp of sugar
half tsp of salt
a stalk of spring onion
5 slices of ginger
Prepare the pork belly by rolling it tight and tie it up with twine. It's quite hard to estimate for one portion as it needs to be at least certain size to roll up. For the size of 4x4, it is enough for two shares.
Combine the shoyu, water, mirin, sake, pepper, a stalk of spring onion and ginger into a pot. Put the pork belly into the sauce and keep it there for at least 40 minutes to an hour (minimum heat). Reserve the sauce for bamboo shoots and egg.
For the bamboo shoots, I just use the can one which easily available from supermarket. Cook them in the sauce for at least 15 minutes. Cool down the sauce and keep it aside
Get ready a pot of water and bring it to boil, put the egg(from fridge) into the boiling water and turn down the heat to minimum . Keep the eggs there for exactly 6.30 minutes, we don't want the yolk to be cooked. Put the egg into a pot of cold water once it's done. Soak the egg for at least 5 minutes.
Once the sauce is cooled down, put the pork belly, bamboo shoots and egg into the sauce and keep it in the fridge overnight or at least 4 hours.
Boil the water at high heat and once it boiled, put in the noodles for 1.30 minutes, put them into cold water, followed by hot water, drained and set aside.
Cook the broth following the instructions on packet. Bring the egg into room temperature before served. Heat up the sauce and put the pork belly and bamboo shoots in just for the purpose of heat them up. Sliced the pork and garnish the ramen with spring onions and seaweed.
*Amount of water that add into the sauce will depends on your pot. The water should be slightly cover up the pork belly or almost same level.
Today's dinner
Bought a big punnet of strawberries from Cold Storage last week for some cake decoration. Supposed a few strawberries will do but how can resist SGD9.90 for big punnet of strawberry?? Same story, I kept it there in a fridge for few days and wondering what can I do with them. Maybe strawberry shortcake, can b swiss roll.. strawberry moussecake? Very obvious.. ended up I came up with this since there is no more coconut ice cream left in my freezer.
Visited one restaurant in Toa Payoh for few times just for their signature crab noodles. For everytime I go, I can't stop thinking what are the ingredients that make up the tasty broth. Glad that I don't have to be headache cause I found the recipe from Rasa Malaysia! I do alter the recipe a bit to adjust to my tastebuds. Get a bit disappointed with the noodles that I got from the market here, would be perfect if I used the thick noodles for fish head bee hoon in Malaysia.Taste wise, trust me, this is real yummy.
Recipe for the Crab Noodles (2 serving):
2 servings of thick noodles
4 Tablespoon of butter
6 slices of ginger
3 cups of chicken broth
3/4 cup of evaporated milk
one big crab ( chopped big pieces)
bok choy
one stalk of scallions
salt and pepper to taste
one tablespoon of rice wine
Soak the thick noodles and boil them with hot water and set aside
Saute the ginger with the butter and pour in the chicken broth followed by the evaporated milk. Put in the crabs until they turn red and cooked. Season the broth with salt, pepper and rice wine. Add in the bok choy, noodles and scallion and bring them to a quick boil.
For the chicken broth, I used the chicken bones, it's up to you to use the chicken broth in a packet from supermarket. This crab noodles is best served in claypot.
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| Spiral Curry Puff |
This picture is taken in June when I go back to Penang. No plan in mind but it just happens when me and my mum don't know what to do with the leftover potatoes and here the curry puffs came up into mind. The hardest part is actually the roll out of grease dough and the water dough, once u have an idea, it's not a big problem. Still prefer the spiral kind of curry puff, love the flaky texture, it tastes good even it get cooled down. Bear with me, the recipe will be posted soon.
Got a new member in my kitchen, an ice cream maker back in April, something that I have been looking forward for long time. Whole milk... heavy cream... yea, right.. that's high calories in there but who cares when you get to churn a fresh creamy ice cream with any flavours that we wanted? At least I don't. :) Not a fans for milk but I take latte when it combines with green tea, weird right. I take ice cream, any flavours of ice cream, well, durian is definitely out of the picture. For this recipe, I used the green tea powder that I stocked up during my last flight to Seoul, highly recommended from some Korean friends. Anyway you can easily find the green tea powder in any Korean or Japanese Mart. Would love to have some red bean paste to go with this ice cream next time
Recipe for Green Tea Ice Cream adapted from THE PERFECT SCOOP by David Lebovitz:
1 cup(250ml) whole milk
3/4 cup(150g) sugar
Pinch of salt
2 cups (500ml) heavy cream
4 teaspoons green tea powder
6 large egg yolks
Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and whisk in the green tea powder. Set a mesh strainer on top.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
Stir the mixture constantly over the medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream, then whisk it vigorously until the custard is frothy to dissolve the green tea powder. Stir until cool over an ice bath.
Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.
When u get to see the beautifully churned ice cream, CALORIES? Forget it.
