Friday, February 27, 2015

カレーそば Curry soba

I love curry udon or soba. Heck, I love Japanese curry. I found this recipe from JOC and it's not what I'm used to but it's not bad. It's more soupy than the curry roux but there's the added flavour of a good broth. This is my adaptation.

Ingredients (serves 4)
4 carrots, cubed
600g chicket thigh fillet, cubed
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp light soya sauce
Dash of pepper
½ onion, chopped
1 packet dashi powder
8 cups water
½ box of curry roux (4 cubes)
1 packet (500g) preferred noodles. Being fresh out of udon or soba, I used Singapore yellow noodles which are skinnier than Hokkien mee, and wasn't a too bad a substitute.


Method
1) Marinate chicken in soya for between 15 mins to 6 hours.
2) Saute onions in a pot for about 10 minutes on low heat till aromatic but do not brown.
3) Dredge chicken pieces in flour and add to the pot. Brown of both sides.
4) Add carrots and mix, then add water and dashi powder.
5) Let it come to the boil and skim off any fat and scum. Cover and let it simmer on medium low high heat for 10 minutes or till chicken is cooked.
6) Meanwhile, prepare the noodles according to the packet instructions. My noodles only needed soaking in boiling water for 10 minutes, then drained and distributed to bowls.
7) Break up the roux cubes into the simmering liquid and simmer for another 5 minutes to thicken slightly.
8) Pour the curry gravy on top of the noodles and eat!

Monday, February 23, 2015

Nutella mug brownie

Been trying all these mug brownie recipes recently, in order to find the perfect receipe, and I think this recipe is it.

Got it from here: http://onepotchef.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/5-minute-nutella-mug-cake-recipe.html

The difference between this receipe and a previous failed recipe was that this recipe uses egg and milk. I found that not having egg and using water makes it dry, but adding egg alone with the water made it kueh like. Using both egg and milk produces the best result, and adding melted butter instead of oil was even better. The Nutella, surprisingly, makes all the difference, keeping the texture fudgey like.

It took me, on my microwave, 1 minute on high and 30 seconds on medium high to get a cake like texture. Probably reducing by 10 seconds on medium high would produce a more fudgey texture but I'm happy.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Japanese hotcake

I'm on a quest to search for the perfect hotcake recipe. Inspired by all the dorayaki, I've discovered the hotcake. I used to think pancakes were all the same and hotcakes were just glorified pancakes. How wrong I was! The pancakes that my mom used to make are essentially crepes, and I've found a perfect recipe for that, Jaime Oliver's 1-cup pancake recipe. Hotcakes however, are different. They're like little cakes which are hot and inside is very cake-like. Since I got dorayaki from Cooking with Dog, I decided to try out her hotcake recipe. Here's my version, where the method is highly adapted based on my dorayaki experiences.


Ingredients (makes 4 smallish hotcakes from 3/4 scoop batter)
1 egg
3 tbsp sugar
70 ml milk
2 tbsp veg oil
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
100 g cake flour (I substituted with 2/3 cup regular flour, removed 1.5 tbsp flour and replaced with 1.5 tbsp corn flour)
1 tsp baking power
pinch of salt

Method
1) Using a whisk, whisk the egg, vanilla essence and sugar till the sugar is combined. I whisked the mixture till it became slightly pale, but not that much.
2) Add the salt and the milk and incorporate well.
3) Sift the 2 flours together with the baking soda.
4) Sift in the flour and use the ballon whisk to slowly and carefully incorporate so that there aren't lumps, but don't beat or over-stir it, or that breaks the bubbles.
5) Let the batter rest for 15 to 30 minutes.
6) Pour a bit of oil onto a non-stick frying pan. Using a kitchen towel, coat the cooking surface but wipe off the oil so that there's a thin layer. *
7) Using a scoop, I scooped 3/4 scoop of the batter and poured it from a height get the round pancake shape. #
8) When the top is still moist but you see a few bubbles appear, quickly flip. Flipping while the top is still liquid ensures the first side isn't burnt and still allows the hotcake to be fluffy. Resist the temptation to press down the hotcake (a mistake I made till I watched some other video!) and press out all the fluffy air!
9) Serve immediately with your favourite toppings.

Cook's notes:
*At this point, CWD actually places the hot pan on a wet towel and you hear a sizzling sound, which she says will ensure that the hotcakes come out evenly browned. I did it because my first 2 dorayaki pancakes always burn till the pan adjusts, but I still burnt my 1st hotcake, so I guess this method didn't solve that problem.

#CWD just pours the batter on then uses the back of the scoop to spread it out into a circle. I guess the hotcake would be more evenly flat using her method but it didn't really bother me. At this point, she covered the pan, which I don't. On retrospect, that might have helped cook the thick hotcake through without burning it, as I had 1 slightly undercooked hotcake.

Recipe feedback
This was the perfect recipe. It was really cake-like and fluffy and my dorayaki experiences really helped. It was also not to sweet, which I was a bit worried about since CWG's dorayaki was way sweeter than JOC's.



Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Oyster sauce chicken

Adapted from this recipe, I decided to serve up this dish together with auspicious CNY veg for a CNY feast at the neighbour's. Apparently this is a traditional dish, and i think the additions if bamboo shoot, straw mushroom, shiitake mushroom and black fungus aren't incomsistent with CNY food. Perhaps boxthorn isn't traditional but hey, I needed more red to balance out the black! I was even going to add honey dates but i think that would be going too untraditional.

Ingredients
Marinade
1.2 kg chicken wings. I separated the drumlettes from the mid wings
2 tbsp light soya sauce
2 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp sesame seed oil
2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
2 tbsp corn flour

Vegs etc
2 carrots, sliced
½ can straw mushrooms, drained. Sliced in half if preferred. I like to leave it whole for the little explosion of mushroom juice when you bite down
½ can bamboo shoot, drained and sliced
1 handful black fungus, soaked for 15 to 20 mins till soft, then stems removed and cut into bite sized chunks
Handful of shiitake mushrooms (how many depends on the size), rehydrated in warm water for 20 to 30 minutes. Drain and remove the stems and slice up if too big, but don't throw away the soaking liquid
1 tbsp boxthorn
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 small onion, chopped
Water

Method
1) Marinate the chicken with all the marinade ingredients. Marinate for ½ hr, up to at least 6 hours.
2) Prepare the vegs.
3) In a bit sesame oil, saute the onion, garlic and ginger till aromatic. Add the wings in 1 layer and brown on both sides. 
4) Add the carrots and enough water to cover. Cover and bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for 10 minutes. 
5) Add the rest of the vegs and simmer for another 10 mins or till cooked. You can even add the bamboo and fungus in the last 5 minutes if u want them more crunchy.
6) Serve immediately.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Grill pan belgian waffles

Recipe from BHG: https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/better-homes-gardens/tv-and-video/video/watch/26289007/fast-ed-valentine-s-day-breakfast-cherry-studded-waffles-ep-2-13-02-15/

I don't know how long the link will stay so here's a write up based on my adaptation:

Ingredients (makes 9 waffles of ¾ scoop each)
3 eggs
1 tbsp sugar
300 ml milk (310ml = 1 ¼ aust cup)
Pinch salt
225g self raising flour (1 ½ aust cup all purpose flour + 3 tsp baking powder; ie every ½ cup flour to 1 tsp baking powder)
1 tsp baking powder
75 g melted butter.

Method
1) Whisk eggs, sugar, milk and salt.
2) Adf butter.
3) Fold in flour and baking powder.
3) Rest at room temp for ½ hr or 15 mins in the fridge.
4) Dollop on Belgian waffle sized waffles on an oiled grill pan. Flip halfway when the top still looks runny.


Notes: 
1) Considerably less baking soda tasting than Jaime's version, and more manageable in terms of cooking time. Unfortunately, less crispy too because the ridges on my pan aren't deep enough. So this actually tasted like Japanese pancakes but less spongy. 
2) When cooking, resist the tempation to cook 4 in the pan, because then there's no space to flip and batter goes everywhere. The best and most efficient arrangement seems to be start at 1 corner, flip, then start a new one at the diagonal corner because once the first is ready, it can be removed to flip the second. Then there's ample space to flip.

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Braised soya sauce chicken

I used the same recipe that I used for belly pork but used chicken drumsticks instead.

Ingredients
1.2kg of chicken drumsticks (about 10)
7 tbsp light soya sauce
2 tbsp dark soya sauce
2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
1 tbsp ginger
1 tbsp garlic
1 tbsp 5 spice powder
5 cloves
4 star anise
1 cinnamon stick (i cheated using 1 tbsp cinnamon powder since I didn't have the stick version)
3 tbsp sugar
1 tau kwa, cubed
1 packet tau pok
6 eggs

Method
1) Marinade pork, preferably overnight, in 2 tbsp each of light soya, dark soya, 1 tbsp sugar and rice wine.
2) Transfer to a pot and put in another 5 tbsp light soya, 10 tbsp dark soya, 2 tbsp sugar, then all the other ingredients. Additional rice wine is optional. Add water, enough to submerge.
3) Bring to a boil then simmer and skim off the fat and impurities. Simmer till cooked, approx 20 mins (my AMC pot needs only 10). Add in the tau pok and tau kwa in the last 5 minutes if using. Turn off the flame and let steep for about 45 minutes to absorb the flavours.
4) In another pot, boil the eggs. I bring the eggs up from cold water, eggs out of the fridge, then bring to a boil and turn off. The eggs steep for approx 6 minutes to get the shoyu squidgy egg consistency, but this needs to be peeled very very carefully. Otherwise, hard boiled eggs take about 10 minutes if steeping time, depending on your pot. (Yes, i used AMC again)
5) Add the carefully peeled eggs into the main pot at the same time as the toufu products. If using shoyu egg, only serve it but don't steep it in the sauce, otherwise the salt draws out the moisture and u end up with hard boiled egg, which kinda defeats the purpose and wastes your efforts. If adding in hard boiled eggs, you may need to periodically rotate the egg to get an even coloring.
6) Serve with warm rice.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Yang gaeng

This is a highly simplified version of Maangchi's yanggaeng. Most importantly of all, she begins from scratch to make the anko and even makes koshian ie removing the skins from the tsubuan anko. It even has sugar in it already. I'm sure they have a similar Korean canned version. I had a leftover half can of tsubuan (ie about 260g), so that's all I used. The amount of gelatine in Maangchi's recipe (7g in 1/4 cup cold water than 1/2 cup hot water) was enough.

Ingredients (makes 9 muffin tin sized jellies)
1/2 can of Okura brand anko, ie about 260 g of つぶあんあんこ
7 g gelatine powder (2 tsp + 1/4 tsp)
1/4 cup cold water
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 small can water chestnuts (I think her recipe used horse chestnuts but again, this was my leftover 1/2 can of water chestnuts, about 10 water chestnuts)

Method
1) Rehydrate the gelatine in the cold water.
2) Once incorporated, dissolve in the hot (but not boiling) water.
3) Wet whatever mould you want to pour the jelly into. Drain the water but do not wipe dry. This will help the jellies to slide out easily later on.
4) Pour the jelly into the mould(s).
5) Place a water chestnut in the centre. I pushed it all the way in so that it becomes the centre of my jelly, but u can decide where u want it. Eg if u want it at the top of your jelly, u can put it at the bottom of the mould before pouring the red bean liquid on top, and serve by inverting the jelly; or alternatively, place it on top of the jelly, then this becomes the top of the jelly when u serve it.
6) Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, best if overnight.


1) Never boil gelatine
2) Gelatine takes double the setting time with milk and cream
3) Sugar prevents solidifying. When using, mix sugar and gelatine first before dissolving.
4) Gelatine will not set raw pineapples, guava, figs, kiwi, ginger and papaya.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Dorayaki JOC どらやき

This is the JOC version of the same thing. http://www.justonecookbook.com/recipes/dorayaki-japanese-red-bean-pancake/

I finally located anko so decided to make this again since the first one was such a success. The difference between this recipe and COD's is that this one uses a lot less water. Instead, it is a more cake-like recipe, since it requires the beating of egg and sugar till pale. Also, unlike COD who used cake flour, this one uses regular flour.

Ingredients (1 scoop makes 6 regular dorayaki sized pancakes and 2 mini dorayaki)
1 1/3 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 can 520g anko
1 tsp vanilla extract (my addition)
1/2 cup sugar

Method
1) Pour the sugar and eggs into a bowl and whisk till pale and fluffy. Add vanilla extract.
2) Sift in the flour and baking powder, a little at a time and use the whisk to gently fold in the flour till there are no lumps. Do not over beat. 
3) Let the mixture rest for 1/2 hour at room temperature, or 15 minutes in the fridge.
4) Heat up a non-stick pan. Coat it with oil and wipe off the excess.
5) Thin the batter with 1 tbsp of water. Incorporate well. The consistency should be thicker than pancake and more like cake batter.
6) Using a ladle, pour the batter from a height to made perfect rounds. When you see some bubbles, gently ease around the pancake and flip.
7) In between 2 pancakes, spread the anko, putting more filling at the centre. Shape by flattening and using hands to cup it.


Recipe feedback: The pancakes are a lot less sweet than COD and taste more like real dorayaki. However, the pancakes feel heavier than COD and not so fully. Maybe adding 1 more tbsp of water may have helped. As the batter is really thick, its quite hard to work with and even hardened towards the end. Also, I omitted the honey and I found the sweetness just right. I only used ½ of the 520g can of okura anko.  

Buchujeon (Garlic chives pancake)