Mac and cheese

Adapted from this recipe, I didn't really follow the recipe very closely but just the gist of it. I think my measurements are really and agar-ration but here goes. My contribution is hiding the vegetables inside.

Ingredients (serves 4 as a side dish)
1.5 cups cooked macaroni pasta (I don't know, about 1 cup dried pasta?)
5 sliced mushrooms
1 thinly sliced and quartered tomato
½ cup milk
4 tbsp panko
Salt and pepper to taste
Knob of butter
1 cup grated cheese

Method
1) Spray a casserole pot with oil and coat evenly. A see through casserole definitely helps, note pt 3.
2) Layer on half the pasta, and top with sliced vegs in a thin layer. Sprinkle on a thick coat of cheese, about half a cup.
3) Spread on remaining pasta. Pour in the milk slowly till it reaches ⅓ up the side. This way, it keeps the pasta moist without over flowing.
4) Cover with the remaining cheese and finally panko. Dot with butter.
5) Bake uncovered, at 200 (30 minutes) or 220 (20 minutes) deg c. I usually put it in with whatever else I'm baking, so temperature is variable.
6) At the end, it should be blipping away. If the top isn't brown enough, use the broiler function on the over, about 5 minutes on 230 deg c but watch like a hawk. It can burn all too easily.

Baked prawn paste chicken

Air fried food is all the rage and quite a few bloggers have come up with a recipe for har jeong gai that is air fried. Not having an air fryer, I decided to go back to what I knew best - baking chicken. Here's a recipe that was tailored for air frying by Domestic Goddess Wannabe but has instructions for baking. I've adapted the recipe after my taste test.

Several commonalities from other recipes
1) Although she used flour, I noticed that other bloggers used tapioca flour or rice flour. I wonder what the difference is.  When coating it, I tried both, aka tapoica flour then ran out of that and used flour, and I felt that flour was a lot 'heavier'. This might impact the crunch factor.
2) She left it to 'air dry' in the fridge on a rack, but used a normal baking sheet when baking. Hmm. Other bloggers didn't bother air drying and used a cookie sheet lined with baking parchment for baking. One blogger didn't air dry and even used just a cookie sheet lined with baking parchment, which is my preferred method for clean up. However, from past experience, the oil sits on the skin and that makes it soggy so this time I tried the air dry and baking on a rack method.
3) The magic ingredient is baking powder and baking soda, but I didn't have baking soda so omitted that, which I noticed another blogger did too.
4) She spritzed the surface with oil and then halfway over, turned over and sprayed with oil again. Since I'm putting every thing on a baking, it's a bit harder to turn, so I won't bother with turning over but I will spray the surface with oil.

Ingredients
Marinade
1kg chicken wings, dejointed
2 tbsp prawn paste
2 tsbp cooking Shaoxing wine (some bloggers discourage this)
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp white pepper

Coating
1 cup tapioca flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (I omitted this because I didn't have it)

Method
1) Combine the marinade and marinade the wings for between 2 hours to overnight in the fridge.
2) Prepare the coating, and dredge the chicken in it. Place on a wire rack and refrigerate to dry out for an hour.
3) After removing from the fridge, recoat any 'wet' bits with left over flour.
4) Spritz the skin with oil. Bake on a flat baking rack (sitting in a baking tin to catch the oil) in a preheated oven 200 deg C for 25 to 30 minutes. Turn half way and spritz the other surface with oil.
5) Serve immediately.

Feedback on recipe
I was right about two things. Spritzing oil is important in avoiding the raw flour look. I was somewhat haphazard and u can see the raw flour look. Second, the parts that were coated in tapioca flour came out less gluggy floury tasting than those dredged in flour.

And a third point surprised me, that wings baked more evenly than the drumlettes. A fourth thing: the recipe was a bit strong, too sweet and perhaps too much oyster. I think halving both might be useful.

So perhaps the lesson is 1) use mid wings 2) no need to use a wire rack if mid wings are used but then turning is essential 3) spritzing oil on both sides is essential.

Update: New recipe http://simmetra.blogspot.com/2018/02/oven-fried-har-cheong-gai.html

Oksusuppang (Corn bread)

Been wanting to try corn bread for the longest time and then Maangchi came out with this receipe. The only problem is that we don't have corn meal here in Australia, and she used ground corn meal which looks very fine. I searched the Internet and found that polenta is the equivalent in Australia but it is not as finely ground as what I saw Maangchi used. But no matter, first attempt, I'll try 'as is' and see how things turn out. If it's wrong, then next time I might have to finely grind the polenta myself using a coffee grinder!

After trialling the recipe with polenta, I found that I needed to add more liquid and steep longer and increasing the baking time, so the recipe has been updated to reflect this.

Ingredients
1 large egg
1 ¾ cup milk
2 cups corn meal/polenta
2 tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Method
1) In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients (except for the baking powder), then the wet.
2) Let everything sit for 30 minutes.
3) After sitting, the mixture has separated. Stir to recombine, then add the baking powder.
4) Pour into a baking tin, either lined with parchment or Maangchi buttered it. She used a 8*8 inch square pan but my pan was 10*6 inch so technically, the volume should be the same :P
5) Bake immediately after adding the baking powder, otherwise it loses its efficacy. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200 deg C for between 35 to 45 minutes. You guessed right, I started pre-heating my oven during the 20 minute waiting time.
6) Check for doneness with a skewer, it should come out clean. Let it cool slightly before turning it out on a cutting board and cutting into squares or rectangles or whatever takes your fancy.

Feedback on recipe: perhaps because I used polenta, it didn't turn out as fluffy as Maangchi's.