Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Thai red fish curry and tomato rice

There's a japanese tomato rice recipe going around. Basically the idea is toss veg, rice and meat into a rice cooker and cook. Embed a whole tomato in the rice and voila. But reduce the amount of water added by about ½ cup for each tomato added. I totally forgot about this so my rice was too soggy, but that will work out since I tend to make enough leftovers, where the rice can get pretty dry if the right amt of water was added initially. The trick with the meat was also to leave it in big enough pieces to cook during the time it takes to cook white rice. Not too small or it will over cook. Decided rice was boring so I switched up to Thai red curry.

Ingredients 
3 cups rice
4 basa fillets, sliced in half
8 white mushrooms, quartered 
3 tomatoes, uncut
1 can coconut milk (400ml)
600ml water
4 tbsp Thai red curry paste

Method
1) Place washed rice at the bottom of the rice cooker pot. Insert the fish pieces upright into the rice. Place tomatoes whole in between the fish slices. Do the same with vegs.
2) Dollop on tsps of the curry paste.
3) Pour in the coconut milk. I used the the rice measuring cup and topped up the rest with water. Since I used 3 tomatoes, I should reduce the total liquid volume by about a cup.
 
4) turn on the rice cooker and cook! Note that my cooker isn't the 'dumb' type so instead of 20 minutes to cook rice, it takes between 40 to 90 minutes! Not great for cooking rice but great fo these one pot meals!

Peanut soup for 冬至

This is ah balling, tang yuan in peanut soup for winter solstice. No brainer for tang yuan, comes out of a packet. But the peanut took lots of work. I read on the internet that no matter how long you slow cook peanuts, they remain hard. I came across this recipe and thought I'd give it a try:
http://lilyng2000.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/introductory-text-picture-goes-here.html

Problem is that despite following the instructions, I still lacked the pressure cooker, so it didn't work! So even though I soaked the peanuts overnight, soaked them in alkaline water, but without the pressure cooker, it's all useless. Nonetheless, it's a great accompaniment for the tang yuan for Dong Zhi, which was really the whole point of the exercise anyway.

Ingredients
300g peanuts
10 cups of water
1/2 cup of rock sugar (top up to taste)
1 tbsp baking powder (perhaps I should have used pure bicarb like the recipe?)


Method
1) Soak the peanuts overnight.
2) Soak the peanuts in the alkali solution for at least 4 hours. Rinse and soak for half hour to remove the alkali, then rinse and soak again. Repeat once more.
3) Here, I slow cooked with 6 hours. The recipe recommends pressure cooking for 30 to 40 minutes from pressurisation. Unfortunately the volume of my pressure cooking is quite small but next time I'll give it a try.
4) Serve with tang yuan!

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Milo raisin and Oreo frappe ice creams

I thought I would try a new ice cream recipe that I came across on Cooking with Dog called the milk gelato. The interesting thing was that it didn't use condensed milk but used milk. Really, would milk work? Wouldn't it freeze solid? The impetus for the idea came about because I had almost 4 or 5 litres of fresh milk in my fridge. I abhor milk. However, by the time I dilly dallied and wanted to use up the milk for this recipe, I had already finished drinking it with my coffee, milo, etc. So I ended up using UHT milk.

Maybe that's why this recipe crashed and bombed. First, I used my original recipe of condensed milk and cream, but I halved it and topped up with milk to make 2 portions instead of 1. Bad idea because the oreo frappe came out almost rock solid, very hard to 'dig' out with my ice cream scooper. My milo raisin however was ok (not soft serve but not rock hard), I wonder why? Maybe a higher amount of milk solids? I'm also wondering if the usage of UHT rather than fresh milk had any difference. UHT may have a lower fat content (and I used skimmed milk too!) and that makes it freeze more solidly, whereas the milo one has milk solids in it so it makes it creamier. I don't know, food science does my head in sometimes! So to be fair to Cooking with Dog's recipe, perhaps if I had followed it to the letter (i.e. not used condensed milk but used sugar, not used UHT but used fresh milk), perhaps, it wouldn't have frozen so hard.

Anyway here's the recipe. Taste-wise, it's ok so it's really food science wrecking havoc!

Ice cream ingredients (makes approx 1.75l of ice cream)
300 ml cream suitable for whipping, also called thickened cream
1 tin condensed milk
400 ml milk

For milo raisin: 1/2 cup raisins; 4 tbsp milo, dissolved in 3 tbsp of hot water. Let the mixture cool.
For oreo frappe: 6 oreo biscuits; 2 tbsp instant coffee dissolved in 3 tbsp of hot water. Let the coffee cool.

Method
1) Prepare the toppings by mixing the milo and coffee. Set aside to cool. 
2) In a sealed zip loc bag, break up the oreos with a rolling pin. Leave some big chunks for texture.
3) Using a hand or electric whisk, whisk the cream till soft peaks. Distribute into 2 bowls.
4) Distribute equal portions of condensed milk and milk into each of the 2 bowls. Gently fold in so that you don't knock the air out of the cream.
5) To one bowl, add the raisins and milo and gently fold in. To the other bowl, add the oreo chunks and coffee.
6) Pour each bowl into an ice cream container and put them in the freezer.
7) After 3 hours, using a electric whisk or fork, break up the chunks of ice. Repeat every hour subsequently. I did it till I went to bed, i.e. only a further 2 times at hourly intervals. It is especially important to bring up the solids (i.e. raisins and oreos) from the bottom as they tend to settle there.



Monday, December 15, 2014

Soju lime tonic

Drawing inspiration from Internet recipes that pair soju with fruit juices, I bought a bottle of tonic water and was pleasantly surprised. Since soju tastes like vodka, this would probably work too.

Ingredients
1 glass of tonic water
1 tsp lime juice
1 shot soju

Method
Mix and drink!

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Oven baked ちんかつ

I have theses 4 pre seasoned pork chops lurking in my freezer. The are meant for grilling but they're difficult to eat because they are way too salty, as if they've been soaked in brine. I was was wondering  what to do with them till I came across this recipe by JOC. For the longest time, I've been looking for a good oven baked cutlet recipe, to substitute deep fried. Nothing has ever worked but this recipe has finally cracked it. All those failed experiments included under/over cooked, pasty/pale looking and uneven cooking. But a few tricks I learnt from those failures include:
1) flat surfaces work best ie fillets, and not chicken wings and my worst experiment: chicken drumsticks
2) not too thick. 1/2 inch or 1.3 cm works best
3) fry the crumbs in oil first. I've tried dredging the crumbs in oil then pasting them on (Jaime's recipe), fell off in clumps
4) not bread crumbs (soggy, thanks Jaime) but panko works best
5) some recipes suggest placing in the fridge to let the flour, egg and breadcrumbs stick but I find the meat becomes cold, then when baking, the meat remains uncooked while the outside burns. Perhaps this works if u use the soggy egg laden wet breadcrumbs then everything dries out at the same rate.
6) place on a grilling or oven rack, over a roasting tin to catch crumbs. This might work for non fillets like chicken pieces, but not necessary for this surprisingly.

Ingredients
4 pork chops, hand sized. I dunno, that's 200g? Not more than 1.4cm thick
1 egg, beaten
⅓ cup corn starch
½ cup panko
1 tbsp oil
Salt and pepper

Method
1) In a flat bottomed pan, preferably non-stick, pour in the panko and oil. Turn on the flame and start stir frying gently to incorporate. Fry till golden brown and stir often so that it doesn't burn. Once done, set aside to cool.
2) At this point, JOC suggests using a meat pounder to tenderize but I don't bother. However, as she suggests, I do make snips between the fat and connective tissue so that the fillet doesn't curl up.
3) Salt and pepper both sides of the fillets. (I didn't do this step because mine were already pre seasoned)
4) Place the flour, egg, and panko in flat bottomed and plates that aren't too deep. In order, place pork chop in flour, pat off excess. Followed by egg, then place in the plate of panko and press on.
5) Place on a flat cookie sheet with a rim, on top of baking parchment.
6) Bake in a preheated 200 deg C oven for 15 to 20 minutes till the juices bubble out and run clear.



This one has garlic butter in the middle, so the centre is raised. I find it didn't make the cutlet any more juicy.

Monday, December 08, 2014

Hamburg steak

I don't why these are not called hamburgers, because that's clearly what they are, but nonetheless, I won't argue with the recipe writer.

Got this from Cooking with Dog, there are two variations: with cheese and without. The video is worth watching because Chef shows how massage the meat to get the patty to 'stick' together, and it's not just about the usual binding agents like egg and bread crumbs.

So here's my collation of both, except mine came without cheese.

Ingredients (makes 8 man sized patties)
1kg beef (Chef makes up half the volume with pork mince as well)
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Crack of black pepper
Crack of rock salt
1 tsp tomato sauce
2 slices of bread, finely chopped into breadcrumbs
Splash of milk
2 eggs, beaten
½ onion, chopped
2 tbsp water
Corn flour for dusting (optional)

Method
1) Chop up onions. If wanted, these can be fried off till translucent, but I'm lazy
2) Use hands to combine the mince till gluey.
3) Add all the sauces, pepper, salt, milk, egg and onion.
4) Massage till combined and it leaves the bowl.
5) Oil your hands. Divide up into 8 portions with your palm. Take one portion and toss between your palms to knock out the air. Form into a ball then flatten into a patty, and put an indentation in the centre with your finger to make it cook faster in the centre.
6) (optional) Dredge in flour and dust off the excess. Set aside.
7) Heat a skillet and add oil. Using medium flame, place the patties on top. When it has slightly solidified, shake the pan or rotate for more even cooking. This side takes about 5 minutes. When nicely browned, turn over.
8) After a further 5 minutes of browning, add 1 tbsp of water. Cover and turn down the flame, cooking for a further 5 to 7 minutes so the inside is cooked. Test with a skewer to see if the juices run clear. The water may not have fully evaporated, so you can remove the cooked patties and make a sauce (e,g 1 tsp soya sauce, fried onions)
9) Serve with bun and/or salad.


Buchujeon (Garlic chives pancake)