Seafood tofu has always been one of my favorite order at tze char place. Crunchy thin layer of skin encasing silky smooth tofu mix with fish paste, added with the fragrant from coriander leaves and some other chopped vegetable, making this dish irresistibly good! Just dip them in mayonnaise, chilli sauce or ketchup to suit your taste.

Not quite sure which type of tofu to use, so I went through many recipes and found that some using egg tofu while others tau kwa. We were curious so we tried both! Personally, I prefer the one using egg tofu as it is more flavourful, but it is harder to handle as it is quite soft. The one made with tau kwa has a firmer texture, hence it is able to maintain the shape pretty well. Perhaps next time I should try using silken tofu too!


Seafood Tofu

Ingredients
A
  • 300g (around 2 pieces) egg tofu / small size tau kwa, mashed
  • 100g fish paste
  • 1 small bunch coriander leaves, chopped
  • 1 tbsp spring onion (around 1/2 stalk), chopped
  • 1/4 carrot, chopped
  • 1 tbsp tapioca starch
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp oyster sauce
  • few dashes pepper
For coating before frying
  • some corn starch
Cooking Directions
  1. Mix ingredients A together and mix until well combined.
  2. Oil a 5 inch square mold, put in the mixture.
  3. Steam for 15 minutes, or bake at 180C for 30 minutes 
  4. Let cool in the fridge for 1 hour.
  5. Cut the tofu into square / rectangular shape, coat each of them with corn flour.
  6. Pan fry or deep fry the tofu cubes.


What do you do when you are craving for chiffon cake but have no chiffon mold? Aha! Make them into cupcake size (or just buy them, of course)!

Since I still have some strawberries that I ordered from Lazyfruits, I decided to purée them and add them into the cake. Thank goodness that they all turned up well, as I have no recipe to follow and just added them based on my agak-agak method!

Those strawberries were really good, plump and fresh. You may click here to read my experience engaging Lazyfruits service. In short, Lazyfruits is an online fruit shopping and delivery, which make buying fruits a much simpler chores. Aside from saving time and strength, the convenience that it brings - next day delivery, option for cash-on-delivery as well as credit card payment, able to order the fruits anytime/anywhere, replacing of damaged fruits at no cost etc., are the aspects that appeal to me most. In fact, all my fruits including fragile fruits arrived in a condition exceeding my expectation!

Now back to those little gems. I was really delighted to see them coming out of the oven with nice dome - no crack, no shrinkage! To prevent shrinkage, I actually tried a method which I learnt online - drop them carefully (try not to topple them over) from around 5-10cm height against the table for a couple of times. In order to make comparison, I dropped some while leaving others alone. Turned out, those that being dropped does seem to maintain the shape better, although the effect was not too obvious. Another trick that I learnt is to fill up the muffin cup until almost 90% full, in that way the cake seems less likely to shrink too. 


Strawberry Chiffon Cupcake

Ingredients
A
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 14g caster sugar
B
  • 25g corn oil
  • 30g strawberry, pureed
C
  • 42g cake flour
  • pinch of salt
D
  • 2 egg white
  • 30g caster sugar
Topping
  • 30g cream cheese
  • 30g butter
  • 24g icing sugar
Cooking Directions
  1. Beat A until bubbly.
  2. Add in B.
  3. Sift in C. Mix until just combined
  4. Beat egg whites while adding sugar in 3 stages. Beat until stiff.
  5. Take 1/3 of the meringue and mix with egg yolks mixture. Then fold in all the meringue until just combined.
  6. Pour batter into 6 muffin cup.
  7. Bake at 130C for 20 minutes, thereafter 150C for another 20 minutes.
  8. For the topping, mix all ingredients together and pipe on top of the cake.
  9. Decorate with more strawberries.

I saw some beautiful puff pastry fruit tarts at Four Leaves bakery few weeks ago and have been tempted to make it since. However, I don't usually buy much variety of fruits at a time so my fruit tarts usually ended up with single type of fruit. Needless to say, they looked rather boring and plain.

This time round, I ordered 2 boxes of fruits in variety from Lazyfruits, now I can finally start making my 'art piece'! You may click here to read my experience engaging their service. In short, Lazyfruits is an online fruit shopping and delivery, which make buying fruits a much simpler chores. Aside from saving time and strength, the convenience that it brings - next day delivery, option for cash-on-delivery as well as credit card payment, able to order the fruits anytime/anywhere, replacing of damaged fruits at no cost etc., are the aspects that appeal to me most. In fact, all my fruits including fragile fruits arrived in a condition exceeding my expectation. 

Now let's move on to the fruit tarts! I used frozen puff pastry with butter as the tart shell, top it with silky smooth homemade custard and then arrange the fruits on top. Crunchiness from the pastry, smoothness from the custard paired with those refreshing fruits... these fruit tarts are simply awesome, can't wait to make them again!


Puff Pastry Fruit Tart

Ingredients
Custard (prepare the night before)
A
  • 200g milk
B
  • egg yolks
  • 32g sugar
  • 32g butter
  • 13g corn starch
  • 13g plain flour
Puff Pastry Skin
  • 1 sheet puff pastry
  • egg for egg wash
  • cut fruits of your choice
Cooking Directions
Custard
  1. Heat up milk until bubbly.
  2. In a separate bowl mix B together.
  3. Add B into milk and cook over medium heat, keep stirring and cook until thicken.
  4. Keep in the fridge overnight.
Puff pastry skin
  1. Cut the puff pastry sheet into 4 square pieces that fit nicely into your muffin tin. Trim off the side if necessary (I trimmed off around 2 cm from 2 sides of the pastry).
  2. Lay puff pastry on the muffin tin as shown in picture below.
  3. Egg wash the side of the puff pastry.
  4. Poke holes on puff pastry at the bottom with fork to prevent it from puffing up.
  5. Bake at 200C for 15 minutes.
  6. Put a spoonful of custard into the puff pastry and arrange cut fruits on top.

With two toddlers at home, and one more baby to come, time (and strength especially) is really precious to me. I have long started ordering my groceries online. It is so convenient, with just a few clicks on my handphone, the groceries get delivered to me the next day. Searching for an item would simply means typing out the word and click 'search'. I can do it while lying on the bed, soothing my toddlers to sleep, instead of roaming around physically looking for the items. And of course, no more lugging the items back home after the purchase.

Now, buying fruits online is a new venture for me. Unlike groceries, I like to visually examine my fruits, touch them, and sometimes even smell them before I buy.


When I learnt about Lazyfruits- online fresh fruits shopping & delivery, I was skeptical at first but at the same time tempted to try it out. After all, despite my love for giant-sized fruits like watermelon and honeydew, I seldom buy them due to their size and weight. Now they can all be delivered to my doorstep, so why not?

LazyFruits

I find ordering fruits from Lazyfruits really simple, although there is no apps available, I have no problem placing my order using simply a mobile phone. In fact, I placed my order during a bus ride to a farmer's market. Payment-wise, I can choose to pay by cash or by credit card, really flexible. 

The fruits selection are great, with vast varieties ranging from seasonal/premium fruits like French melon, muskmelon, pomegranate, soursop and custard apple, to common fruits like apples, pears, oranges and bananas. There are also bundle deals and promotion available for selected fruits. Although not in wide selection, they do sell cut fruits for fruits like guava, pineapple and rose apple.

Now, look at all my loots! The fruits are packed neatly in a box with protection sleeves when delivered.


I purposely chose a few fragile fruits like blueberries, strawberries and Kiwiberies to see how it goes. Those are the fruits easily get moldy and squashed which I pay extra attention even when buying from high end supermarket. Now I must say I am impressed, because all of them are plump, fresh and really sweet. Those are one of the best blueberries that I have bought in fact. Turned out that they actually double checked the condition of the fruits before delivery to ensure that the customers receive their fruits at its best.


Although they might be relatively new in the online shopping platform, but do not mistaken them for a new player in fruits industry. Lazyfruits is in fact, a sister company of the more-than-30-years-old family-run fruit supply and retail businesses Chop Chin Yong and Lim Tean Lye.         


The minimum purchase is $40 and if you wish to get your fruits delivered for free, a minimum order of $68 is required. While it sounds like a lot of fruits, there are many creative ways to eat your fruits, e.g. juice them or make them into other delicacies like fruit tarts and Hokkaido cupcakes!



Some more photos of my loots. I was hoping to get soursop but too bad it was out of stock during the time of order. Bought custard apple instead. Sweet!



It has been a while since I last tasted a melon this sweet. The French melon (the honey dew look-alike fruit that has green stripes on it) tasted simply awesome, almost like the honeydew I had in Japan which I missed so much. And look, there is a giant heart shape watermelon!



Really love the yellowish-orange hue on the watermelon!








Gula Melaka (Palm Sugar) Agar-Agar 椰糖燕菜

I thought this look really interesting, single  mixture that separates into 2 layers after left standing, and that artistic looking pattern that appear naturally in the coconut (white) layer. So, I assume the kids will surely jump up and down in excitement when they see this. Well, too bad, could it be the brownish color? They doesn't seem to be excited at all!

Anyway, less for them means more agar-agar for me. It may not look appealing to young toddlers but it sure taste great, especially these were made using palm sugar bought all the way from Melaka. I find the palm sugar produced there has an irresistible fragrant. So far I haven't find a better source for palm sugar yet.

The agar-agar is refreshingly good, with two distinct flavours from the two layers. White layers tasted more 'milky', which I love, and the other one had more 'crunch' in it. The pandan leaves surely add a nice fragrant to the agar-agar!


Ingredients

A
  • 1 litre water
  • 200g gula Melaka (palm sugar)
  • 2 pandan leaves, tied into knots
B
  • 1 packet 10g agar-agar powder
C
  • 200ml thick coconut milk
  • 1 egg
  • pinch of salt
Cooking Directions

  1. In a pot, bring A to boil and cook for 15 minutes.
  2. Remove pandan leaves and sieve the mixture.
  3. Add B and stir until dissolve.
  4. In a bowl, gently mix together ingredients C with a fork.
  5. Pour in C to the pot, stir while pouring, let it simmer for another 5 minutes.
  6. Pour into 7" mould (or any jelly mould) and let it cool in the fridge until firmly set.
椰糖燕菜
配料

A
  • 1公升水
  • 200克椰糖
  • 2叶香兰叶,扎成结
B
  • 1包10克燕菜粉
C
  • 200毫升浓椰浆
  • 1个鸡蛋
  • 盐少许
做法
  1. 在一个锅里,烧开A,煮15分钟。
  2. 取出香兰叶,过筛混合物。
  3. 添加B,和搅拌至溶解。
  4. 在一个碗里,用叉子把材料C搅拌在一起。
  5. 把C倒入锅,一边倒一边搅拌,再煮5分钟。
  6. 倒入7“模(或果冻模),让它在冰箱冷却,直到凝固。
Spaghetti in Creamy Tomato Sauce


I was wondering if I should post this. 

I love sour food. When making this, I was expecting the creamy tomato sauce to be as sour as the tomato soup that I always have from The Soup Spoon. Well, it certainly fell below my expectation of sourness. I was a tad disappointed, but everyone else in the family seems to love it! DG even commented this was better than a similar spaghetti he just had in a restaurant during lunch time. 

So for the sake of others, I decided to share with you this simple spaghetti dish. It probably take less than 30 minutes to whip this up, perfect for a simple weeknight dinner.


Spaghetti in Creamy Tomato Sauce
Serves 2-3

Ingredients
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 300g prawn, deshelled, tail-on
  • 300ml cream
  • 150g tomato puree
  • 1 tbsp chopped parsley
  • 220g spaghetti
  • to taste salt, pepper
Cooking Directions
  1. Cook spaghetti as per instruction on the packaging.
  2. In a pan, heat oil and stir fry garlic till fragrant.
  3. Add prawn and sautee till just cooked, remove prawn from pan and set aside.
  4. Add in cream and tomato puree, salt and pepper.
  5. Add cooked pasta and prawn, stir to combine.

What is the usual dish on your breakfast table? DG love to eat porridge, serving alongside porridge are pork floss, fried egg with shallot, bak kwa and pickles. He always ask me to join him eating porridge but... bread remain my favorite breakfast choice. Egg sandwich, sardine sandwich, or simply white bread smeared with fruit jam, those are on my usual menu.

Steamed Pork with Tung Chai 东菜蒸肉饼

However, there is an exception, that is when I am making this steamed pork with Tung Chai. This dish is on the salty side but somehow, it just complement the plain porridge perfectly! It is so appetising I ended up need to cook extra porridge. 

DG thought I made too much and wanted to keep for breakfast next day. Too late... I finished them in a gulp.

Steamed Pork with Tung Chai

Ingredients
  • 200g minced pork
  • 2 tbsp Tung Chai, washed 3 times
  • 1 tbsp sesame oil
  • 1/2 tbsp corn starch
  • 3 drops dark soy sauce
  • 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • few dashes pepper
Garnish
  • spring onion
  • fried shallot

Cooking Directions
  1. Mix all ingredients together, stir around until the texture of the meat turn sticky, let it marinate for at least 3 hours.
  2. Steam on high for 20 minutes.
  3. Garnish with fried shallot and spring onion.

东菜蒸肉饼
配料
  • 200克猪肉碎
  • 2汤匙东菜,洗3次
  • 1汤匙麻油
  • 1/2汤匙玉米淀粉
  • 3滴老抽
  • 1汤匙隐汁
  • 少许胡椒粉

装饰
  • 青葱
  • 炸葱
做法
  1. 将所有材料混合在一起,搅拌至起胶,腌至少3个小时。
  2. 大火蒸20分钟。
  3. 撒上炸葱和青葱做装饰。

 

Do you get excited trying out new technology? As for me, I certainly do!

Vending machine I had used many times, but this fresh food self-vending fridge from Cryowerx, hmm something I couldn't wait to get my itchy hands on. It is something totally different. You can't buy fragile food  from the usual vending machine, else they will break or look unappetising the moment it drops out, or when you are frantically trying to pull it out through the small rathole. 

This fridge, however, although looking just like the usual fridge you see in convenience shop like 7-eleven, it allows you to open the fridge, hand-pick your food, examine closely until you are totally satisfied; the moment you decides on it and remove it from the fridge (and close the door of course), the fridge automatically collects payment from you. 

What is the advantage of using it then? So, imagine buying your fragile dessert like macaron or cheesecake, glass-bottled fruit juice, or even salad, bento set or sushi from the fridge, without the need to queue or traveling to the restaurant itself. A sudden craving or hunger pang at late night? No problem, the fridge is still in operation (as long as your favorite food has not ran out of stock yet). Time-saving, convenience, 24-hour availability, just to name a few. 

The potential of the fridge is unlimited. From the point of view from a restaurant, this is a great opportunity to increase revenue and expanding business. Why open another branch while you can place your food selling in this fridge? Reach out to more people at lesser cost is the way to go!

I know you must be thinking right now 'the selection of cold food is limited!'. Fret not, with a microwave, all problems solved. With a microwave oven placing adjacent to the fridge, you can easily heat up bento, noodles or even soup! 

Now enough to of the introduction, let's find out how this fridge work shall we?

1. First of all, download the Cryowerx apps.

2. Launch the apps and click on 'Profile'.


3. You will need to add a credit card before you can unlock a fridge. Click the '+' button


4. Key in the details of your credit card then click submit.



5. Now with your credit card details added, you can decide if you want to manually top-up your account balance (it is optional, simply click the 'top-up' button should you decide to do so). However, regardless whether you manually top-up your account, you will also need to choose a 'payment mode', either as 'pay-as-you-go' (default) or 'auto-reload' (anytime when your purchases cost more than your account balance has, the excess amount will be charged with your selected 'payment mode'),


  • 'pay-as-you-go' (default)
    Pro  - You get charged only when you purchase something.
    Con - You get $0.5 transaction fee for purchases less than $20. 

    Tip: To avoid the transaction fee, just make sure you manually top up your account by selecting the 'top-up' button before purchasing (min top-up $10).
  • 'Auto-reload' (my preferred method)
    Pro  - G
    et bonus point(s) on every reload
    Con - None
    Notes: 
    Comes in $20, $35 and $50 amount

 

6. Now click the middle 'scan' button to unlock the fridge.


7. Point the middle rectangular box to the QR code on the fridge. 

8. Tadah! The fridge is unlocked and you can choose the food you like. You will only be charged if an item is removed from fridge at the moment you close the door.

After the first set-up, any purchases subsequently will simply starts from Step 6. Buying from this smart fridge is a breeze and fuss free!

This is my lunch - Saba Teriyaki, made by Isetan.




The packaging is microwave-proof. Simply pop it into the microwave oven for one and a half minute.

Digging in!




CryoWerx at ACE Ideation Centre
79 Ayer Rajah Crescent
#01-13
Singapore 139951
Email address: contact@cryowerx.com
Contact no.: +65 6602-8084


Taiwanese Beef Noodle (Simplified from Chef Hou's Award Winning Taiwanese Beef Noodle)

I have been craving for Taiwanese beef noodle for a while. The slightly spicy dark coloured broth, covered by a layer of red chilli oil, so flavourful with the use of many herbs, that the taste linger in the mouth long after finishing the meal. 

And then I found this recipe, it is not just any recipe, but the recipe of the award winning Taiwanese beef noodle from Chef Hou. Initially, I was taken aback by the many steps and time taken to make the broth and sauce. Well, when you have a wish, you will find a way. Ends up, I managed to simplify Chef Hou's recipe and come out with this one. How should I put this? I would say this is the best Taiwanese beef noodle that I have tried! 

Taiwanese Beef Noodle (Simplified from Chef Hou's Award Winning Taiwanese Beef Noodle)

I have not tried following through all the original steps in Chef Hou's recipe so there is no way to compare the two. What I did was simply combining the making of the sauce and the broth together, while keeping all the ratio of ingredients intact. I believe the taste is close enough while the effort of making this delectable dish is significantly cut by half. If you are trying to have a glimpse of how this award winning noodle taste like, then wait no more, you will not regret making this!

Taiwanese Beef Noodle

Ingredients

A
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • green onions, cut into 3-inch pieces, reserve some and chopped finely for garnish
  • 5 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
  • 1-inch ginger, peeled and sliced lengthwise about 1/8 inch thickness
B
  • 2 tsp brown sugar
  • 4 tbsp Lee Kum Kee chilli black bean sauce
  • 6 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1.5 tbsp tau cu (soy bean paste)
  • 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
C Herb bag
  • 1 star anise
  • 1/3 tsp fennel seeds
  • 1g angelica roots
  • 1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
  • 6g cinnamon sticks (2 pieces of 3-inch sticks)
D
  • 1 kg beef shank / rib
  • 1 litre water
E
  • 1/6 cup spicy fermented bean curd, mashed
  • 1 tsp black peppercorns
  • 1 bay leaves
Others
  • noodle of your choice ( I used you mian from NTUC)
  • Xiao Bak Choy
  • spring onion for garnish

Cooking Directions
  1. In a pot, heat vegetable oil and saute A till fragrant.
  2. Add B, let it simmer for a minute 
  3. Place ingredients C in a herb bag 
  4. Add C &D into the pot. 
  5. Stir in E and bring to boil.
  6. Cook for 20 minutes in pressure cooker or cook until soft (around 4 hours without pressure cooker).
New Orleans Prawn 新奥尔良虾

New Orleans, I haven't been there, but I am fortunate to have tried this New Orleans prawns, because they are sooo finger-licking good! This is a strongly recommended dish, it is so simple, barely any skill required but it tasted like a whole lot of efforts had been poured in to make it! 

The weather is so hot recently that it had been a while since my last visit to the wet market. So... no fresh prawn, only frozen one. Somehow I find that frozen vannamei prawn had a slight crunchy texture. I read that some people actually soak their prawns in baking soda to achieve that kind of texture but with these frozen prawn, you don't need to do anything at all!



DG bought a bottle of super spicy hot sauce so we used one tablespoon of it together with one tablespoon of the Frank's hot sauce. The result is - shiok ah~~!


New Orleans Prawn

Ingredients

A
  • 30g butter (salted)
  • 3 clove garlic, chopped
  • 250g (around 9 pieces) prawn, deshelled, tail-on
B
  • 2 tbsp hot sauce
  • 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 3 tbsp white wine
  • 1 tbsp + 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1/4 tsp paprika
  • 1/10 tsp oregano (dried)
  • 1/10 tsp thyme (dried)
Garnish
  • coriander
  • yellow lemon wedges
Cooking Directions
  1. In a frying pan, melt butter and saute garlic till fragrant.
  2. Add in B and cook until sauce thicken.
  3. Add in prawn and cook for 2-3 minutes per side.
  4. Garnish with coriander and lemon wedges
新奥尔良虾
配料

A

  • 30克牛油(有盐)
  • 3瓣大蒜,切碎
  • 250克(约9个)虾,去壳,留着尾巴的壳
B

  • 2汤匙辣酱
  • 2汤匙隐汁
  • 3汤匙白酒
  • 1汤匙+1茶匙柠檬汁
  • 1/4茶灯笼椒粉
  • 1/10茶匙牛至(干)
  • 1/10茶匙百里香(干)
装饰

  • 香菜
  • 黄柠檬角

做法

  1. 在煎锅,融化牛油炒香蒜蓉。
  2. 加入B,煮至汁稍微浓稠。
  3. 加入虾,每边煮2-3分钟。
  4. 用香菜和柠檬角装饰。
Oreo Cheese Ogura Cake 奥利奥芝士蛋糕

I used to only love heavy cheesecake, the smooth and creamy type, thick enough to be decadent, with crunchy graham cracker crust at the bottom. I was always able to finish off a whole huge slice by myself, and I remember myself feeling so proud of it!

Nowadays I love my waistline ( yes I am glad that I can still find it, thanks to the occasional stomach crunch that I am doing) more, so I started to appreciate light cheesecake, so light and that you can only taste a hint of cheese when you bite down the airy cottony cake. Less guilt too, well at least for me.

Cake baked in water bath tend to be more moist, which I think is the optimal texture for cheesecake. Adding oreo in the cake allow more depth in the flavor and every bite into the oreo crumbs is a pleasant surprise!


Oreo Cheese Ogura Cake
Make on 8"x8"cake

Ingredients
A
  • 120g cream cheese
  • 100ml milk
  • 100g butter
B
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 100g cake flour
C
  • 6 egg whites
  • 100g caster sugar
D
  • 30g crumbled oreo
Cooking Directions
  1. Over gentle heat, melt ingredients A.
  2. Add in egg yolks and sift in cake flour. Mix until just combined.
  3. Whip egg whites while adding in caster sugar in 3 stages. Whip until stiff.
  4. Take 1/3 of the meringue and mix well with egg yolks mixture.
  5. Pour all the egg yolk mixture, together with oreo into meringue and mix until just combined.
  6. Bake at preheated oven, with water bath, at 160C for 60-80 minutes
奥利奥芝士蛋糕
做8“x 8”蛋糕
配料
A
  • 120克奶油奶酪
  • 100毫升奶
  • 100克牛油
B
  • 6个蛋黄
  • 100克蛋糕粉
C
  • 6个蛋清
  • 100克砂糖
D
  • 30克奥利奥,压碎
做法
  1. 用文火,熔材料A.
  2. 加入蛋黄,筛入低筋面粉。混合直到刚刚结合。
  3. 蛋清打到发泡,细砂糖分3次加入,打到硬性发泡。
  4. 拿1/3的蛋白霜,与蛋黄糊拌匀。
  5. 把所有的蛋黄糊倒入蛋白霜,再加上奥利奥,搅拌直到刚刚结合。
  6. 在已预热的烤箱,用水浴法,在160℃下烤60-80分钟。

Vegetable Tian

Have you watched the movie Ratatouille? If you have, surely you remember the idealistic and ambitious young rat Remy, who was gifted with impressive senses of taste and smell. The movie ended with a high note, when Remy impressed the food critic Ego with a plate of wonderfully made ratatouille.


Well, turned out that the food it served is more likely to be called vegetable Tian than ratatouille, due to the shape of the vegetables being cut, or more accurately, sliced. As quote from serioueat.com, 'Technically, a tian is any casserole cooked in an earthenware vessel by the same name, but these days it almost always refers to some kind of layered vegetable dish that's gratinéed (browned on top) in the oven.'


So here I am presenting this healthy dish - vegetable tian!

One thing to note is that there will be water coming out from the vegetables after baked, it is absolutely normal. However, if you prefer it dry you can always take a step further by pan-frying the vegetable first before arranging them on the plate, and that should solve the problem. 




Vegetable Tian
Make one 8"round pan 

Ingredients
A
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, chopped
B
  • 1/2 green zucchini (medium small size),sliced
  • 1/2 yellow zucchini (medium small size),sliced
  • 4 tomatoes, sliced
C
  • 1/2 tsp dried basil
  • 1/2 tsp dried oregano
  • 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
  • 1/2 tsp dried thyme
  • salt and pepper
C
  • 1/2 cup grated parmesan (or mixture of parmesan & gouda, parmesan & mozarella)
Cooking Directions
  1. In a pan, stir fry A until fragrant.
  2. Lay A evenly over a pie pan.
  3. Arrange B nicely on top of A.
  4. Sprinkle C on top.
  5. Cover and bake at preheated oven at 190C for 30 minutes.
  6. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for another 25 minutes uncovered.
English Muffin

The first time I made this, I didn't have any cornmeal in my pantry, perhaps I should have substituted it with other type flour but well, I didn't do it too. Ended up, half of the dough stick on the pan while cooking and cut the height of my english muffin to half. Dwarf muffin it became...


Now I learnt, I dusted a lot of cornmeal and finally, I get to see my english muffin rising high and proud. Somehow, I am really addicted to that sandy touch of the muffin! It is not as chewy as those I have in MacDonald, and is softer in texture!


Place a slice of cheese with a sausage patty on top of the halved English Muffin, how does it look?


No more MacDonald Sausage McMuffin I guess?



English Muffin

Ingredients
  • 115g bread flour
  • 75g fresh milk
  • 8.5g butter
  • 5g sugar
  • 0.4 tsp instant yeast
  • 17g egg
Cooking Directions
  1. Combine all ingredients together and knead. The dough is soft, hence you may need a stand mixer to knead it.
  2. Leave the dough to rise for around 1.5 hours or until double in size.
  3. Heavily dust a pan with cornmeal.
  4. Divide the dough into 3 and shape each portion round. Use your palm to flatten the dough.
  5. Place the dough on the pan and let rise for another 1.5 hours.
  6. Cook the muffin on the pan for 15 minutes each side over medium heat. If the muffin browned before cooked through, pop them in preheated oven at 180C for another 5-10 minutes.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream


I love old-school cake, those decorated with strips of oily buttercream and some colourful piping gel, making shapes like cherry, flowers or just some random designs. Interestingly, I always thought I tasted peanut in the cream, I thought they might have added some peanuts to it but I didn't manage to bite any peanuts bits. So I never really understand where does the taste comes from.

The first buttercream I tried to make is the old school type, simply whisk together butter and sugar. Wow surely those are some oily cream! Can't bear to eat much of it, more for decoration than for consumption. Then I heard about making it lighter by using egg white, and cutting the risk of Salmonella contamination by heating the egg white to 71C. 

Surprisingly, I got that peanut fragrant in my cream! No way I am adding any peanut or peanut oil, so where does the fragrant comes from? That remains a mystery to me.

The cream, so smooth and silky, I am trying hard not to lick my balloon whisk when taking the photo. Adding the meringue certainly help with reducing the oiliness. I didn't have any luck making stabilised whipped cream, it always weep and not to mention piping it. Finally, I am glad I found some cream that I can use to decorate my cakes!




Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients
  • 2 egg white
  • 75g sugar
  • 100g butter, cut into cubes
Cooking Directions
  1. Heat up egg white and sugar (over gentle heat) until sugar melted or until 71C if you are concerned about Salmonella. Stir constantly.
  2. Whisk the mixture until thick and ribbon stage.
  3. Reduce the speed of whisking to low, then add in butter cube by cube.
p.s. If the cream separate/ curdled, simply take out 1/4 of it, gently warm it up, and add to the rest in a slow stream while whisking at low speed.
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