Lazy Sunday Cooking - Baked Pasta

I have to confess.  I have been procrastinating.  I'm a lazy bugger.  And the best way to turn this lazy bugger around is to blog about my lazy Sunday afternoon.

The moment was right, the stars have aligned.  The daughter is at grandparent's house for the afternoon. and the wife's asleep.  Nothing good was on the tele, and the kitchen beckons to be dirtied.

A quick peek into the fridge and pantry brought some ideas to mind and I went ahead with it. Dear Reader, you are going to feast your eyes on a pictorial recipe for baked pasta, a la Lazy Me.

Sizzling hot pan, olive oil, grated carrot.  Cooked till soft.

1 large onion, diced. 3 cloves of garlic, rough chopped.

Once onion turns translucent, add in 300g of minced pork.  Continue stir frying.

Add in the minced beef, 300g. Mix well.

Lazy example 1: Add in half a can of sliced button mushroom.  (It's so convenient!)

Mix well all the ingredients and you should get something like this.  I forget to mention that all this while the fire is on medium to high heat.

Lazy Example 2: I use ready-to-use pasta sauce.

Rich and red.  Love the smell of tomatoes!  Don't forget to season with salt pepper. I usually would add a dash or two ( usually 3!) of Worcestershire sauce. 

Got some leftover pasta. Cook the usual way.  Pour contents into baking dish.  Mix with some olive oil,

 Pour the meat sauce in, mix well to ensure the sauce is incorporated.  If possible, avoid penne pasta  It's almost impossible to get the sauce into the tubes hence the taste will not be as oomph!
Taste as you mix!

I got too excited that i forgot to take the picture of the mozzarella topping the whole dish!  Since the whole dish is cooked and ready to eat.  You can keep it in the fridge overnight for the flavour in the sauce to develop further.  Or if you can't wait, just pop the whole dish into an oven, grill the cheese till piping hot and melting.  Yum!

- posted by Lim

The wonders of Photoshop

I went to a photoshop course recently and was able to play with some food pictures. If your pictures don't turn out great, there's always photoshop ;)  - Shared by Teh

Oxtail Stew - Before

Oxtail Stew - After

Fried rice - Before

Fried rice - After

My precious Cream Puffs!

This recipe is not by request but I felt that I want to help my friend when he mentioned he has éclairs craving. Hope he tries this recipe! You know who you are!

Cream Puffs - Final Product

Cream Puffs (Makes 20 mini cream puffs)

Choux Pastry:

70g all purpose flour

60g salted butter

120 ml water

2 eggs

Some salt (optional)

Pastry Cream:

2 eggs

40g of sugar

25g all purpose flour

15g corn flour

400ml milk

1tsp vanilla essence

Choux Pastry: 1. Sift the flour and salt together. Salt is optional. Some people like their pastry to be a little salty. 2.  Boil the water in a small pot. Throw in the butter to melt it. 3. When the butter is all melted and mixed with the water, on low heat, add in the sifted flour all at once. 4.  Stir the mixture quickly until it all comes together as a dough and leaves the sides of the pot. (refer to picture) It only takes a minute or slightly more. Cream Puffs - Water, Butter and Flour 5.  Turn off the fire. Let the dough cool slightly. 6.  Beat the 2 eggs. 7. Transfer the dough (doesn’t matter if it is still hot) to a mixing bowl. (I used my mixing bowl to boil the water. Hence, I didn’t need to wash extra things!) 8.  Use the cake mixer (low speed) on the dough for 20-30 seceonds. This will help disperse some heat. But don’t mix for too long as the steam (moisture) is crucial in the rising of the dough. 9.   Add in the beaten eggs bit by bit with the mixer on high. 10. When all the egg has been mixed in, the dough should look sticky. In the process of mixing the eggs half way, you may feel the dough looks ‘wrong’. But it’s ok. Carry on. It will turn out right after mixing in all the eggs. (refer to picture for an ideal of the desired sticky texture.) Cream Puffs - with eggs added 11. Now will be a good time to pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees celcius. 12.  Scope the dough into a piping bag (or I used those transparent plastic bag and cut a small hole at the corner to pipe the dough out) and pipe the dough on the baking tray. You can grease the tray, or use greased baking paper. For mini puffs, pipe a small dough around the size of a 50 cents coin. These dough will expand quite a lot. I have pictures to prove! Cream Puffs - before baking 13. Bake for 15 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180 degrees for another 15 mins. The little doughs should turn golden brown and very light. It is hollow inside if you do it correctly. Cream Puffs - Out from oven Pastry Cream 1.  Heat up the milk with vanilla essence till hot. 2.  Beat the eggs with sugar, plain flour and corn flour. 3.  Add the hot milk to the eggs mixture slowly and use a normal hand whisk to mix it constantly. 4.  When all the milk has been added, place the eggs and milk mixture back on the stove on low heat. Continue to stir with the hand whisk. (the whisk helps to prevent lumps from forming) 5.  Slowly, the mixture will start to thicken. Keep stirring! It will get burnt easily. 6.  You can stop when the mixture looks like cream texture. If you are worried it is not thick enough, the good news is it will continue to thicken while its cooling. Hence, switch off the heat before you get too thick a cream texture. 7.   Use a cling wrap to cover the cream immediately to prevent a layer of ‘skin’ from forming at the top. I literally put the wrap on the cream. It works like a charm. Assemble! 1.  Use anything (a small scissors, toothpick, back of a teaspoon) to make a small hole at the side of each puff. Pipe the cooled cream into it. Voila! Cream puffs! Side notes: 1.  It may be wise to make the pastry cream before hand and let it chill in the fridge. You can do it the night before if you like. 2.  When you pipe the puffs, you may end up with a sharp tip at the top of the puff. Wet your finger with some water and flatten the tip. The water will prevent the dough from sticking to your finger. 3.   Make sure the puffs are cooled before you pipe the pastry cream into it. 4.   While the puffs are ‘hard’ (a bit crispy!) when just out of the oven, it tends to soften after piping in the cream and leaving it overnight. I prefer the soft versions. But it doesn’t stop me from eating the ‘hard’ ones as well. 5.   If you want to make éclairs or you like some melted chocolate on the puffs, you know what to do. Heat up some milk or cream. Slowly add the milk/cream to small pieces of dark chocolate and stir. I do not have the exact measurement at the moment but I know you do not want the mixture to become too diluted. Hence, add the milk/cream slowly! Stir and gauge the thickness. It ought to be thicker than you think it should be. That’s the key. Dip the cream loaded puffs into the chocolate and let it cool. You can put it into the freezer to quicken the process. Based on my experience, the chocolate tends to melt very quick if you leave it back out in the open. 6.   Have fun!

Maybe next week we will do a food review ;)

Shared by Teh

Baby Food

This is my daughter.  Her name is Genevieve (aka Baby G).  She is 17 months old.  Sweet seventeen!

Now that we have gotten the formalities outta the way.  Let's get down to my very 1st post.  My daughter has been exploring and exposed to the world of solid foods for the past 9 months or so.  So far we have given her various fruits like bananas, apples, mangoes and recently, even durian! (she has to start somewhere!)  Rice, noodles, pasta, porridge, sausages, pork, fish, beef, chicken, corn, peas, carrot, potatoes, sweet potatoes, the list goes on.  Pretty much whatever my wife and i eat and drinks, she has sampled them.

So for today's post, i'm gonna focus on her daily staple food. Porridge.  My mother-in-law is her primary care-taker and cooks her daily porridge.  Her porridge has evolved over the months  as we discover Baby G's eating habits and preferences.  We had to be careful as infants/toddlers may have allergies that we still unaware of.  Both my wife and I don't have any allergies, but we still had to be careful when it comes to children.

So far we have cooked her porridge with anchovies, lean pork, carrot puree, cod fish, wolfberries, marmite etc.  We discover that Baby G is slightly allergic to dark soy sauce,  the area surrounding her lips tend to have patches of reddish rash, though it didn't appear to be itchy or causing her any discomfort, we were still concerned and have removed it from her diet.

I will just share with you what i usually cook when i'm on "duty" during weekends.

The following is NOT a standard recipe:

1 cup of rice

20g of pumpkin, diced

15g of wolfberries

30 grams of lean pork (today i'm using pork neck)

1 tbsp of chicken stock concentrate

1 tbsp of abalone stock

Cooked the rice first with at least 3 cups of water (same measuring cup as the rice) over low fire.  Normally i would use my induction cooker, but it broke down.  I find that the induction cooker cooks the rice more evenly as compare to the gas burner.  Using a gas burner tends to burn easier if you're not watching the pot.

Add in the pumpkin, and after 5 mins add in the wolfberries.  Stir the porridge occasionally to keep the heat evenly distributed.  Add in both the stock concentrate together and adjust the taste accordingly.  I do not add in salt nor pepper.  I do add in more water to gauge its consistency.

After 20 minutes, you should get a nice, starchy, risotto-like, consistency.  Add in the pork, stir for another 3 to 5 mins.  Turn off the heat and...Viola!

- posted by Lim

Pineapple Tarts

I know it is strange to be making pineapple tarts at this time of the year but hey, it doesn’t make sense to turn down good stuff! This pineapple tart recipe has been tested countless times. Everyone loves it! I hope you will try it out when you are free. It’s very simple to make. One thing I have to admit is I didn’t make my own pineapple filling. I did try once but it was just too much work for too little filling. Go buy Bake King’s pineapple paste. They work wonderfully. I think it cost $5 (more or less) for 400 or 500g of paste. One packet is enough to make 80 tarts. Throw in some TLC while doing this and you’ll never buy pineapple tarts from elsewhere!

Pineapple Tart Dough

(makes 40-50 tarts)

- 250g butter (unsalted or salted doesn’t seem to make much a difference), softened

- 170g Nestle UHT cream

Pineapple Tarts

- 75g caster sugar

- 400g plain flour

- 30g corn flour

- 50g cream cheese (I used Kraft Philadelphia), softened

- 3 egg yolks

- 1 egg for glazing

1. Sift plain flour and corn flour together.

2. Whisk (on medium speed) the cream, butter, cream cheese and sugar together till you get a creamy mixture.

3. Add the 3 egg yolks into the mixture. Mix. (egg whites can be frozen for up to 2 weeks. You can make pavlova! Or just make egg white omelette.)

4. Add in the sifted flour all at once. Using low speed, whisk till it becomes a smooth dough. It will feel oily and you will be wondering if the dough looks right. If some flour escaped, use your hands to gently combine the escaped flour and the dough. The dough will still not look right to you. I guarantee that. But go on to the next step. It’ll turn out ok!

5. Chill the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes or more. This is the magic step that will make the dough look and feel right. Hence, do not omit this step! However, you will not want the dough sit too long in the fridge and become too hard. It will be difficult to shape it.

6. Now is a good time to roll the pineapple paste into small balls. Depending on how big or small you want your tart to be, the pineapple paste balls should be 1/4 smaller. (You will not want too little paste or too little dough in a tart. Balance and your preferences are important.)

7. Shape the chilled dough into small balls. You may want to work on individual small batches and keep the rest in the fridge in case the dough gets warm (it won’t look right again!). Best if you do it with your family. Everyone gets the chance to make pineapple tarts!

8. Flatten the round dough in your palm. Wrap pineapple paste ball with the flatten dough and shape as you like.

9. Glaze with the tart with the egg wash.

10. Bake at 180 degrees celsius for 20 mins in a oven. (please preheat the oven while shaping your tarts)

11. The tarts are done when they are yellowish brown. Leave them to cool before storing in containers.

Side notes:

1. This is a closed tart recipe. If you want to make an open faced tart, you need to roll out the dough after it has been chilled then work with the cookie cutter. Roll till you acquired your desired thickness, cut it, place the rolled pineapple paste on it. Viola! Glaze only the dough and not the pineapple paste.

2. These tarts can keep quite a long time. According to a colleague (he bought a lot from me) they remained edible even after 3 weeks. While his other store bought tarts were mouldy a week after Chinese New Year, mine were mould-free even without preservatives. But I don’t think your tarts will last so long. They will probably be gone in a week ;)

3. Now you are wondering what to do with the left over pineapple paste. You can wrap and eat with bread. You can buy some frozen puff pastries and make Danish with pineapple paste filling. If you have other brilliant ways to use up the paste, please let me know!

- Shared by Teh 

Adventures with Ang gu kueh

2 weekends ago, I came across an “Ang gu kueh” recipe and decided to try it. I used the Japanese type of sweet potatoes (purple skin, yellow flesh). I did not use any coloring and hence my Ang gu kueh is more “Ng gu kueh”, yellowish in color. Surprisingly on my first attempt, the skin came out very soft (remained soft while covered for 3 days) and tasted like those sold outside. I was impressed with myself and this recipe. The only thing I wished for was for it to be more fragrant. On my 2^nd attempt, I decided to add coconut milk (instead of only water) to the kueh hoping it will taste like Bangawang Solo’s. It was a big mistake. Despite substituting 80% of the water with coconut milk, the coconut fragrance was not distinct. The skin was not as soft and it became hard very soon (like when its cold!).

Please see below for 2 pictures, sans photoshop. The 1st picture was from my first attempt, without mould. 2^nd picture was from my second attempt, with an agar agar ang gu kueh mould.

1st attempt without mould

2nd attempt with mould

Hope you’ll try this easy recipe and let us know how your’s turned out!

Ang Gu Kueh

Ingredients: 22 small kuehs
Sweet Potato Skin:
260 g sweet potatoes 
300 g glutinous rice flour
2 tbsps oil
200 ml water (or slightly more. How to know if you used enough water? When in doubt, add more.)
Some red coloring (optional) (I did not use any)

Mung Bean Filling (for 22 kuehs):
200g yellow split mung beans (soaked until soft) (the one used to make “tao suan”)
80g castor sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tbsps oil
Water

OR

Ground Peanut Filing (for 22 kuehs):

200g of salted grounded peanuts

80g of sugar

Water

Method:

Sweet Potato Skin:
Steam the sweet potatoes until soft. Mash the sweet potatoes with a fork. I also sieved it on my 1st attempt to obtain a smooth paste. On my 2nd attempt, i put it into a food mixer and blended it. Saved the hassle of mashing it. I also sieved it just to be sure its smooth. Add glutinous rice flour, oil and water and mix well to obtain a smooth dough. Cover with a damp cloth and leave aside.

Mung Bean Filling:
Steam the yellow split mung beans until soft. Add in the sugar and mash with a fork. Mix salt,oil and enough water to form a soft dough. Shape into small balls. 

Ground Peanut Filling:

Ground any type of salted peanut you like. Mix in the sugar. Add water till it forms can be shaped into small balls. (doesn’t take much water)

Shaping the Ang gu kueh:
1. Brush the ang gu kueh mould with oil to ease removal of the kueh from the mould. (I used free hand to shape the kueh on my first attempt)
2. Take some dough, roll it, flatten it into a round shape
3. Take a mung bean or peanut ball and fill into the dough, seal it and roll it into a ball.
4. Press the ball into the mould firmly, to obtain the design and shape of the mould. Tap the mould gently on the table to remove the ang gu kueh from the mould. (If you are not using a mould, just shape it into a ball and gentle press it down in your palm to resemble an Ang gu kueh shape)
5. Place the ang gu kueh on a piece of oiled banana leaf slightly bigger than the kueh. Spread some oil all around the kueh.
6. Steam on high steam if you are not using the mould to shape the kueh. The skin will appear slightly translucent. If its soft when you poke it with something (I used the spoon), It’s done. I steamed it for 10 minutes just to be sure. 

7. Upon some research, I realized for moulded kuehs, you need to steam for 3 mins, open the cover to release the steam, then cover it again for 3 mins. This releasing of steam is to ensure the kueh doesn’t cook too fast. If the kueh expands too fast from the steam, it will lose some of the mould distinction. However, when I steamed the moulded kueh, I used medium heat. I did not open and close the steamer to release steam. Moulded kueh looks fine!

Notes:
1. I used about 30g pastry and 20g filling. 

2. Do not put the kueh too close to one another as they will expand when your steam them. If they stick together, gently separate them immediately after steaming. Yes, this happened to me!

3. Please add enough water to the mung bean dough before you try to shape it. Do not compress it too hard while shaping into a ball. If you press too hard, it will become very compact and hard when you bite into the kueh. Yes that was what happened to me too. Don’t do it.

4. I feel the peanut filling is easier to make and more hassle free. Plus, I prefer peanut to mung bean. But making mung bean paste from scratch gives one a sense of satisfaction. Try both filling!

If you are adventurous, create your own version of Ang gu kueh. 

That’s what I plan to do next.

Shared by Teh.

  

Date a girl who cooks

Date a girl who cooks. You’ll never have to feel hungry again. Let her introduce you to the gourmet world. It is filled with bright colours and comforting taste. Those are the things she wants to fill your life with. 
 
Date a girl who cooks. She wants to show you the different techniques she knows. Braising, steaming, grilling, deep frying. Creaming, whisking, rubbing in. Have you hear of a straight dough method, pre-ferment method, poolish and no time dough? No? It’s ok! She’ll teach you all she knows. She wants to impress you cos’ she longs for you to be her greatest fan.
 
If trying out a new recipe for the first time is like going out on the first date, then tasting the food from the first try is like having the first kiss. You’ll never know what you are going to get. Watch her try a new recipe. Watch her taste it for the first time. Feel her anticipation and excitement that she wants to share with you. Don’t rain on her parade if her food experiments come out soup. Cheer her up. She will need the courage to try again and again till she gets it right. And when she does, you’ll be the first person she wants to share it with. Flavour is the memory and taste of the food that linger in your mind long after the food is gone. How many flavours will she share with you? 
 
Date a girl who cooks. Be sure to exercise regularly. There’s no way you can keep your weight in check if you let her pamper you all the time. She’ll try to fool you by telling you her food are not sinful and not full of calories. Don’t believe her! She’ll sweet talk you, flatter you, seduce you and even turn a blind eye to your expanding tummy just to feed you one more bite. Give in to her. Eat for the joy of it. Eat for the love of watching her face light up when you moan satisfactorily with your mouth full of her food. There’s nothing she wants more than to be with the one who appreciates what she makes.
 
Marry a girl who cooks. Your kids will always be picky about their food. They will only eat food prepared with the freshest ingredients, brimming with flavor and love. Those are the food their mother will feed them with.