Sunday, July 26, 2009

Stewed beancurd in a King Oyster Mushroom Chicken Broth

I saw giant oyster mushrooms from Korea, considered a delicacy here. I was trying to recreate the toufu soup that I had in Korea and this is what I came up with.

The original stewed beancurd soup was vegetarian but my household are meat eaters, and would feel weird without meat, so I threw in chicken and chicken soup. In addition, being so huge, the mushroom slices had an almost abalone texture to them, very meaty and smooth. In addition, just because I'm too lazy too cook the rice separately, I put in brown rice to make it into a porridge. The result - a velvety creamy stock which reminds me of risotto texture.

In addition, I put in the beancurd whole at the beginning, and expected it to break up. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was still whole, and in fact, the taste of the stock had permeated into the beancurd, effectively 'marinating' it!


Ingredients
1 packet of king oyster mushrooms, sliced on the diagonal
1 tin of Swenson chicken stock
1 packet of silken toufu (suitable for soup)
1 cup brown rice
8 chicken wings
1 tbsp wine
1 tbsp light soya sauce
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 thumb sized ginger, thinly sliced
1 large red onion, diced
1 litre of water

Method
1) Marinate the wings with wine and soya sauce and set side to marinate for at least 1/2 hour.
2) Heat up a pot and fry the diced red onion and ginger.
3) Add the wings and briefly fry until the wings are lightly browned.
4) Briefly fry the mushroom slices.
5) Add the stock and water, and garlic.
6) Pour in the washed brown rice and stir.
7) Carefully place the toufu into the pot, making sure not to break it. Ensure its immersed in the stock.
8) Bring to a boil before turning it down to gently simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.
9) Serve immediately.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Taken from http://magdalenestc.multiply.com/journal/item/68

Did some adaptation of my own - I doubled the proportions (makes 55 cookies) so I neatly used up a 28 oz jar (medium sized) of peanut butter, and used 1 cup of choc chips. As such, I used 3 eggs instead of 2, and also because my eggs are quite small.

Very fudgey rather than crispy.


Saturday, July 11, 2009

Katherine Hepburn's Brownies

Source: http://www.survivingoz.com

Ingredients
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)
1/4 tsp salt
250g unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp ground instant coffee
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped
18 squares milk chocolate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C

2. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan and line the bottom and sides with wax paper

3. In a bowl, whisk the flour, cinnamon and salt together

4. In a heavy bottom saucepan placed over very low heat, put the butter in. When butter starts to melt, sift cocoa over it and add the instant coffee. Stir until mixture is well blended. Remove from heat and cool for about 3 minutes

5. Using a whisk, beat the eggs into the saucepan. Next, stir in the sugar and vanilla (don't beat anything too vigorously - you don't want to add air to the batter), followed by the dry ingredients, nuts and chopped chocolate. Scrap the batter into the baking pan

6. Bake for 35 minutes, at which point the brownies will still be gooey but the top will have a dry papery crust. Transfer pan to cooling rack and let it cool for 30 minutes. Turn the brownies out onto a rack, peel away the paper and transfer onto a cutting board. Cool completely before cutting into 16 squares.

Buchujeon (Garlic chives pancake)