Banana + Pear Muffins

These muffins are moist and super light texture.

Ingredients - 5 large muffins
2 over ripened bananas
2 small over ripened pears (skin off)
1 x-large egg
70g butter
2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp nutmeg powder
Pinch of seasalt
1/4 cup raw/castor sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 3/4 cup self raising flour
1/3 cup milk
1/2 lemon - juice

Preparation
Butter sides and line 5 ramekins/muffin baking tray with baking paper.
Preheat oven to 200deg C (fan force).
Cut butter into small squares and place on a heated plate - this will warm up butter and melt nicely.

Mash bananas and pears, and mix with the lemon juice, a bit of cinnamon and sugar (fruit mixture).
(The lemon juice keeps the fruits looking fresh in colour)
Mix all the flour, seasalt, remaining cinnamon, nutmeg powder, with most of sugar (dry mixture).
Make a well in the dry mixture. Pour melted butter, and using a fork, gently combine the ingredients, until crumbly breadcrumbs like texture.
Whisk egg till pale yellow, add milk, whisk till foamy, then add sugar and whisk (egg mixture).
Pour fruit mixture and milk mixture into the buttered dry mixture.
Slowly stir with large metal spoon until flour evenly moistened. Do not over stir or whisk, to prevent flour from "glutenising".
Pour mixture into the ramekins.
Bake for 17 minutes.
Remove from over, and cool on rack for 1 hour before eating.

Options: Stir in a dozen or so of dark chocolate chips into the middle, and have melted choc chip banana muffin!

Bon Appetite!

Orange Apricot Cranberry Muffins

 Lately, I have taken to baking muffins, and tried several techniques and recipes to get the texture I want - moist and fluffy. These are one of my favourites - super moist, tangy, tasty and fluffy! Simply love the texture.   

Ingredients - Makes 6 large muffins
4 fresh apricots stewed in sugar/honey - cut into chunks

2 tbsp of apricot juice

Juice and zest of 1 large orange

1/3 cup of cranberries

10ml of milk

1/3 cup of brown/castor sugar

1 3/4 cups of self raising flour

1/2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder

1 egg

90g of butter, just melted.

Prep work

Lightly coat muffin ramekins/pan with butter and dust with flour

Preheat oven to 200deg (fan force)

Cut butter into small squares and place onto a heated up plate - butter will melt itself.

Soak the dried cranberries into the apricot/orange juice.

Mix the dry ingredients ie flour, 2/3 of the sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon powder in a large mixing bowl.

Make a well into flour mixture, pour in melted butter, and mix - to like bread crumbs texture.

Mix the orange juice, zest, cranberries, apricots and juice together in a separate bowl.

Whisk the egg till frothy, add milk to become more frothy (ie creating air bubbles), then remaining sugar to stabilise the mixture.

Pour fruity mixture followed by egg mixture onto flour mixture and combine slowly till flour is evenly moisturised by the wet ingredients.

For fluffy muffins, DO NOT overmix. Minimum mixing is best.

Immediately cook in oven for 18 minutes.

Take out of oven, and place on top of a rack to cool for at least 40 minutes, before serving.

Bon Appetite!

Poached hainanese chicken with wine, served with chicken mushroom risotto

This technique creates super tender and moist chicken, even the breast is moist.

I make use of the stock from poaching the chicken to produce all the sides that complements this meal:-

- chicken mushroom risotto

- prawan chawan mushi (see recipe under "Label - Japanese").

Can be served with Asian salad of lebanese cucumber and mini roma tomatoes.

Ingredients for poaching the chicken

1 whole chicken

1 large onion - cut into small bits.

1 whole bulb of garlic  - which usually have about 12 cloves of garlic. Smashed the garlic.

300ml (cc) cups of chinese cooking wine

2 tablespoon of palm sugar OR 1 tablespoon of normal sugar

4 tablespoon of light soy sauce 

1 pot big enough to put the whole chicken in

About 2 litres of water (or enough just to cover slightly more than 1/2 of chicken).

Ingredients for making the risotto - 4 people

2 cups of arborio rice

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 big French shallot or a few small ones (the small red onions) - sliced finely, or chopped

2 large portobello mushrooms - cut into small 1cm cubes

30g butter

chicken stock made from poaching the chicken above (the usual amount that you would put for steaming rice)

chicken fat cut off the chicken

1/2 cup of chopped parsley

Ingredients for Salad

2 lebanese cucumber - each cut into half lenghtwise, then sliced up.

12 mini roma tomatoes - cut into 4 quarters

1 cup of fresh parsley chopped

Salad Dressing

1 tbsp sesame oil

1 tbsp Braggs soy protein (or light soy)

2 tbsp caramelised balsamic vinegar

Juice of 1/2 a lime

1 big tbsp palm sugar

Poaching Chicken

After washing the chicken, cut off the big lumps of fat near the chicken bottom and the neck. Keep the fat for making the rice.

Stuff 1/2 the garlic into the chicken stomach.

Pour cold water into the pot.

Put all the ingredients into the pot of water.

Put chicken into the cold water.

Turn on heat - slow simmer heat for 30 minutes. Do not put on high heat or boil. This way chicken will be very tender and soft. If on high heat, chicken become tough and dry.

After 30 minutes, turn the chicken upside down, and cook another 30 minutes. (As the chicken is only half in the water, we turn it at half time so that both sides get cooked in the water). Only half water is used, so that stock would have good chicken flavour and not too dilluted.

After cooking total of 1 hour, immediately take the chicken out of the stock, put into a big bowl ( I used a steel mixing bowl), cover with clingwrap, and put into fridge freezer! Leave in freezer for 45 minutes. This is to remove heat from the chicken and stop the cooking process.  

After that, carve chicken and serve with some stock, garnish with coriander leaves.

Chicken Risotto

Sautee the chicken fat in a little bit of oil - to release the chicken flavour into the oil. When chicken fat turns golden, remove from pan.

Slightly fry garlic and shallots in the chicken fat oil.

Add mushrooms.

Add butter.

Add rice.

Fry for about 5 minutes to fragrant the rice.

Add about 2 cups of chicken stock into rice, or enough to just cover rice with stock. Stir. Cover for about 5 minutes on low heat, or until stock is mostly absorped into rice. Stir. Add stock to cover rice again. Cover for 5 minutes. Repeat process another time. (ie about 20 minutes process in total).  

Leave rice cover with lid for another 10 minutes. Stir in parsley, and serve.

For time management, I would prepare the chawan mushi while cooking the risotto. Chawan mushi is ready to be steamed when I start serving the guests with the rice and chicken and salad. Guest get chawan mushi piping hot halfway through their meal.

Bon Appetite!

Braised pork belly with vinegar

INGREDIENTS (serve 3 persons or 2 with some left over)
1 piece pork belly - about 6x6 inch (the size we bought from you).
1 bunch of bok choy - boil for 3 minutes.
2 stalks of coriander - pick out the leaves, wash and set aside for garnishing/fresh herb flavour.

Stock
1 large onion - remove skin, chopped.
1/2 bulb garlic - ie about 6 cloves - remove skin, lightly crushed, no need to chop.
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp light soy sauce or tamari
2 tbsp malt vinegar 
1 chilli - cut of stalk only.
About 1.5 litres water - or just enough water to cover all the pork belly throughout 3 hour slow cooking.

Meat marinate juice
2 tsp dark soy
2 tsp light soy
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp palm sugar (or raw sugar as substitute)
1 clove garlic chopped
1 tsp sesame oil

Sauce thickener
2 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp water to dilute the corn starch

PREP WORK
Wash the pork belly well, pat dry. Cut into 6 large pieces of equal size ie roughly 2x2 inch square.
Marinate the pork belly with the meat marinate sauce - for at least 30 minutes or overnight is fine too.

COOKING
Pour water into a cast iron pot/heavy stew pot (like a Le Creuset etc).
Put all stock ingredients into the water and heat till boiling.
Switch heat off and open lid - let stock cool off for about 10 minutes.
Gently place marinated pork pieces into the stock and simmer with pot lid on, on low heat for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Pork does NOT need searing.
Check water level every hour, to make sure pork belly is just covered with stock. At very low heat, the stock should not dry up below pork belly level, if not, add a bit of water, or turn heat down further. 
Stir once or twice to ensure pork is not stuck to pot.

SERVING
When ready to serve, skim off layer of oil/fat. (We keep the fat stored in a tupperware, refridgerated for use in cooking other dishes another day!)
Then heat up on low to medium heat.
Remove pork belly onto serving dish.
Mix sauce thickener into stock and stir in heat till it thickens slightly.
Pour sauce over the pork belly.
Garnish with coriander leaves on top of pork belly and boiled bok choy on the sides of the plate.

TIP: The slow cooking makes the pork belly really soft and melts in the mouth.
If you love lots of chilli, you can have as dipping sauce for the pork, soy with chopped chili.
You can add an extra tbsp more vinegar while boiling stock if you like the vinegarish taste.  Can add more 1 tsp of sugar if you like it sweeter.

Bon Appetite!

Cucumber Raita

Yoghurt usually helps to "cool" down the stomach when one has some spicy food. Today I made some dhal which turned up more spicy than I had planned to, and decided to make some Indian raita to go with it.

1 huge bowl for 4 people
1 lebanese cucumber chopped into small squares.
4 tablespoon of vanilla bean yoghurt (Vaalia brand is good)
1 teaspoon of sumec.

Mix the ingredients up and serve. I tend to prepare this just as we are ready to eat so that the yoghurt and cucumber tastes fresh.

Bon Appetite!

Oatmeal raisin currant cranberry cookies

Today I suddenly felt like trying to bake cookies. I took a recipe out of the Baking Pan website, modified it, baked it, and it turned out delicious!

I am so pleased with this first attempt!

Chewy, soft and very light on the inside. Crunchy on the outside.

Bake 12 cookies - 1 oven size tray

1 egg and 1 egg white
Slightly less than 1/2 cup self raising wholemeal flour (or self raising plain flour will do too)
Slighly less than 1/2 cup almond meal
80g butter
1/4 compact cup of brown sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup cranberry, raisins and currants mix
1 cup of brokened walnuts
1/2 tsp of salt

Preheat oven to 170 deg Celcius for fan force oven.
Lay alumininium foil on baking tray shiny side down.
Overlay with baking paper.

Dough
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, salt and whisk till airy and light.
Fold in flour and almond meal, oats, dry berries and nuts.

Baking
Using a tablespoon, scoop a large scoop of dough. Drop on to baking tray.
Keep at least 1 1/2inch space between cookies.
Bake for 14 minutes in fan forced oven, or till golden brown.
Take cookies out, remove entire baking paper (with the cookies on it) and place on a rack.
Let cookies cool for at least 1/2 hour.

Bon Appetite!

Food That I Love: Orange lemon lime cake

Food That I Love: Orange lemon lime cake

Bon Appetite!