Washing up

Brioche au chocolat

If there's one thing I could forbid my parents from doing, it would be to ban them from buying bread outside. I tried the last time they visited Australia while I still lived in Brisbane and I failed. The first morning after I issued my ban, I saw commercial bread in the kitchen. After analysing the situation I am thoroughly convinced that great improvement must be made in my bread making skills to achieve such thing. My objection, thus, is to make bread so good that my parents not only keep quiet (silence is a sign of approval in my family) but they'd express some sort of positive emotion.

Typical Asian bread is soft and sweet. My grandmother particularly loves the soft pillowy buns that we buy from Kaisar Bakery at home (not to be mistaken with Kayser). There's not really a name for it but something generic. I've been looking through my bread book wondering what it is exactly. Is it brioche? Challah perhaps? Milk bread?

I saw the lemon curd brioche croissant in Knead for Bread and I decided to give it a go. Trouble is that I prefer my citrus uncomplicated, untouched... simply served wedged. So.... I made a chocolate brioche croissants instead. All you have to do is make a thick chocolate ganache for the filling. Knead for Bread had so kindly put up a step by step guide accompanied by pictures, however I went with my own little recipe for brioche, using fresh milk instead of water to further enrich the bread.

It makes a pretty neat breakfast bread or tea party snacks for those of you who, like me, never quite grown up. :P

Happy holidays!!

youI was home in Brisbane for a few days for my sister's birthday. For four days I made bread day in day out, night in night out and I got the nod of approval from them. It was blissful to feed your family and to be responded to with enthusiastic grunt that escaped speechless chewing mouths.

So I'm back now in Sydney and my appetite for cooking is numbed by the pressure from not knowing who exactly are coming for the party at my place tomorrow and if the cutlery will suffice. On top of that the champagnes I ordered didn't come, they ran out (how could they run out??!!). For tomorrow I will just make chocolate chip bread rolls and I'm posting my recipe for bread dough which you can also use for pizza base. The sugar is a bit excessive but I think it complements the savoury taste of the toppings very nicely.

Midnight bakery bread dough

Ingredients
250 g plain flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
250 ml H2O
25 g butter, cubed

Direction

1. Mix all dry ingredients together and make a well in the center.
   
2. Pour in the water and mix with hand until all ingredients are mostly lumped in together. At this stage the dough should be really sticky but fear not.
   
3. Add in the butter and knead. If the dough clings on your skin, feel free to dust some flour over, but don't over do it.
   
4. Keep kneading the dough until it's sort of elastic. There's one stage where you're able to push a hole in with your finger and the indentation will bounce back. When your dough reaches this stage, leave it to rest for about 3 hours. I prefer to use plastic container or bowl because plastic is a sucky conductor of heat so your dough won't be dry on the outside or form any "skin". Don't forget to cover the bowl with damp kitchen towel.
   
5. Now, your dough should be at least doubled in size. Push down and just knead the dough briefly.
   
6. Cut the dough into the size of half an adult fist (or a little fist) and just shape it anyway you like and leave to rest for about an hour.
7. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celcius for 10 minutes.
8. Bake and watch.
   

Bonne chance et Joyeaux Noel!!

Cookies & recipe

I decided to make cookies tonight. I started with my usual recipe mix for peanut butter, pecan and chocolate chip cookies but added a twist of red, green, yellow glazed cherries. Wait, that's not all. At my last batch of dough, I added the green tea that I got from Japan earlier this year. This is a mix of green tea leaves and green tea powder. I understand that much from the picture on the packaging. Please feel correct me if I'm wrong.
It's an experiment, a gamble if you like.The result is a different aroma in the air. There's definitely an infusion of green tea and how well does the marriage of peanut butter, pecan nuts, dark chocolate and green tea go? Let me put it this way, I thought that the peanut butter would overwhelm the green tea, but instead both distinct tastes blend into each other. I think I'll get some green tea powder the next time I do grocery shopping to experiment further.

Midnight Bakery Cookie
(Peanut butter, pecan & chocolate chip)

Ingredients

• 100g unsalted butter at room temperature
• 50g peanut butter
• 280g brown sugar
• 2 eggs (whole eggs)
• 100g flour
• 100g pecan (more if you like, I've used 200g of nuts before and they were great)
• 100g chocolate chips (or just chop blocked chocolate. Likewise... use the whole 250g block if you like)
  

Direction

1. Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar until light and fluffy. If your butter is too hard to mix... well, serves you right not to follow my direction properly. You can melt the butter slightly by microwaving it for 10 seconds. I recommend doing this step by hand (no machine) not because I'm cruel (ok, so I am a little), but because it's a great arm exercise.
2. Add the egg, one by one, mixing well at each addition.
3. (Optional) You could add in a tablespoon of vanilla essence or I recommend Franjelico liqueur, but keep this out if you're baking for friends whose religion forbids the consumption of alcohol.. not that the alcohol would stick around during baking but it's the principle that matters.
4. Sift the flour into the butter mixture and mix it.
5. Add pecan and chocolate chips and just make sure they're distributed evenly.
6. Use 2 spoons to roll cookie dough into balls and position them apart on the tray. Use teaspoons if you like your cookies small or tablespoons if you want giant size cookies, but make sure the opening of your cookie jar is big enough to fit the giant ones before you start getting excited about making super-sized cookies.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree Celsius.
8. Watch as they bake in the oven. The cookie dough balls should melt a little to resemble disks but you should start worrying if the whole thing just melt. This had happened to me twice using a craptastic oven that didn't reach the intended temperature. I didn't really time my baking, so just watch it until you think it looks like those that you get at your favourite cafe.
   

I'd love to hear feedback from anyone who tried this recipe. Happy baking and good luck! (^.^)

Comfort Food - Rice Ball/Onigiri

Although bread is something that fascinates and obsesses me, my love for it almost stops just right there at the making. I don't think I've ever really craved the taste of it like I do for rice. Is this due to my upbringing (environmental factor) or is it in my blood (genetic factor)? Who knows. If you have a toddler aged around 3 that you'd like to give up for the purpose of unravelling this mysterious phenomena, please get in touch with me. For now, while it remains a question, I shall indulge in my rice craving by making and eating onigiri day in day out until it is satisfied.


This is an onigiri with tuna salad filling. In all simplicity, it... it... it is divine... seriously.

Master Chef

Last week I received an email from Graeme de Vallance, a casting director from A Cast of Thousands about a reality show and I thought I'd post it up here. I think this is such a great idea and I encourage anyone who is a foodie or amateur/non-professional chef to go out there and battle it out. I'd do it myself if I'm not already committed for the next 2-3 years to my PhD.

The search is on to find Australia’s first true MasterChef. Network Ten wants every kitchen wannabe from amateur chefs to budding foodies to toss their chef’s hat in the ring…each hoping to become…Australia’s next super Chef.A real life drama will play out as the contestant’s kitchen courage is put to the ultimate test. From the lows of failure to the highs of success, our cast of characters will be catapulted from starters to mains then desserts and back again.IN 2009 WE ARE ABOUT TO SEE WHO CAN TAKE THE HEAT…AND WHO HAD BETTER GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!To apply, go to www.masterchef.com.au

Not just a pretty face

The institute's student club is having our Christmas party today. A whole range of activities had been organized and one of them is baking contest. I made this cake last night after browsing many wonderful blogs and recipe sites. The design is nothing new, but I did make some changes to the basic recipes mainly due to catastrophes like having the chocolate curdle. I'd like to acknowledge some blogs that I drew inspiration and ideas from: Happy Home Baking and Scent of Green Bananas.

So what exactly is this stuff then? The base of it is thick short crust pastry with crushed peanuts baked into it, topped with peanut butter chocolate mousse and strawberries and fenced with sponge finger biscuits that had been brushed very lightly with the syrup from canned mangostene.
This is my favourite entry, a butter cake shaped like a mouse and so well decorated. The icing was so impressive, it just melted in your mouth. This entry won most creative cake.

My cake won best taste. (^_^) The party was really fun. I'm so glad to be surrounded by such fun and great people.

Le pain, c'est la vie

This is probably going to make me an obsessive freak if I am not one already. Within 48 hours I have made 4 batches of 250 g of bread.

First batch went to my dinner guest.
Second batch burned to crispy blackness because I fell asleep while baking it.
Third batch was born out of boredom.
Fourth batch just came out of the oven.

I finally got this bread making business right, the consistency, the texture, the softness. They are like the stuff that you get from the bakeries back at home, but just.. dare I say (and forgive my arrogance) superior due to the longer resting time which allows the delicate flavour to develop further. I'm now in search of a good butter.

Ok... so for the last batch of bread of the weekend, I finished kneading at 21:15 and I thought what the heck, I'll let it rest overnight and see how it turns out. The problem that I anticipated with leaving it to rest for such a long time despite promise of better flavour is over fermentation where a side product of yeast digestion, namely alcohol, especially in large amount after a long fermentation time might kill this microorganism and instead of cuddling a of rock star a bread, you get a tough and inedible dough. I kept on coming back to this baby from last night at 00:15, at 1, at 3 and finally at 6 when it looked great and smelled even better! There was a scent that was not quite, yet bear some resemblances to sourdough.

I made 3 shapes: petit bâtard, knot and three circles. My creativity is limited, I copied these from my first baking book. They look ok. Texture wise, they are not dissimilar to the batches with only 3 hour resting time. They're so soft and upon tasting, there's something there, something. I must titrate the starting ingredients to optimize the taste, but this is definately better than all the previous breads that I have ever made.
This has been a great start for the week. Happy Monday all and may our week be filled with many wonderful things!

Por el amor di pan!!

There are some things that make living alone and with a small fridge a bit inconvenient. Most herbs come in a huge bunches. With short fridge life, it is a guarantee that a good portion of them is going to be wasted.

I bought a bunch of spring onions/scallions because I wanted to make soup that called for 2 stalks of spring onions... but what to do with the rest of it? I thought of 蔥油餅 (Taiwanese spring onion pancake). Ivy's mother taught me how to make them a few years ago. She kept her own vegetable and herb garden and said that when there was an overflow of spring onion harvest, she'd make the pancakes. They were so wholesome and so simple to make.

Seen here is capicola wheels. I made a bread version of Mrs Hao's spring onion pancake, but on an impromptu round, I added coppa/capicola and parmesan.

Falling asleep (in the middle of baking)

After such a successful batch of bread yesterday, I decided to make another batch. Little known to me, my mother was also making bread at home in Indonesia. Papa joked about how she didn't ask him if he wanted any. After 30 something years of marriage you'd think that he'd just hack them away like usual the way he so kindly did in my early stage of baking when all my bread turned out so craptastic.

I swapped tips with Mama while I waiting for the 3 hour fermentation to be up and after a long conversation that hopped from recipes to travel plan and a various other completely unrelated topics, she told me to go to bed. I hung up the phone and if I had listened to her maybe this disaster wouldn't have taken place. A word of advice for all of you who are reading this: Listen to your parents and this applies and will apply regardless of how many jars of anti-wrikle cream you have stashed away in your bathroom and fridges.
I went on to shape the sweet-sweet beautiful pillow-like dough into beautiful knotted bread rolls and waited for a good hour by which time it was already 2 AM. I preheated my oven for 10 minutes, put the bread into the oven and FELL ASLEEP!!! I was woken by my nose, stimulated by the smell of something sweet, something buttery burning inside my oven. Realizing the catasthrope that was taking place, I took the bread out, turned my oven off and went straight to bed. I admit that I couldn't care less at that moment. Analysis of the damage would just have to wait until the morning came. The whole batch was black despite the lovely texture inside, the evenly distributed air pockets. How my heart aches.

Saturday Kitchen

The weather in Sydney has been really terrible for the last 2 weeks. It was alternating between rain and grey skies, slipped with misleading blue skies. Considering that December is fast approaching, the climate is nothing like the typical Australian summer. Grey skies make me want to cook and what better opportunity to experiment with a willing volunteer of an old friend from Brisbane.

Kormala and I met in first year Chemistry courses back in our undergraduate days in UQ . It was the first practical class where the task was to extract caffeine from instant coffee and the bond that we formed while sneezing on pure (to an extent) anhydrous caffeine lasted to now; she has since been a close confindant. It's so fantastic to have her close again in Sydney. She always complained that I never cooked for her and so I thought our Saturday afternoon meet up would be the perfect opportunity for her to sample and criticize my culinary obsession.
I made simple dinner rolls (and some other breads) and taking on the advice published in Dan Lepard's baking tips, in particular that from #16 from Eric Kayser, I let my dough ferment for a bit longer that I usually did. It worked so much wonder and I'm so pleased (as was dinner my guest).
I made a very simple and a never fail recipe of prosciutto wrapped asparagus spears, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and decorated with cracked sea salt, pepper and dried chilli. You only need to grill it for a good 10-15 minutes and voila, it's a simple crowd pleaser. You could substitute the prosciutto for beef products if pork product is against your dietary requirement.
As for the mains, I have made a very-very simple spaghetti dish with porcini mushroom that I got from the farmers market in my area. The porcini came in dried form and all you need to do is to soak them in boiling water until the mushroom is plump. I heated some olive oil in the pan with some chilli and organic purple garlic (also from the farmer's market) and in went the mushroom. Toss in the spaghetti (cooked in boiling salted water) and add some cracked sea salt and a generous sprinkle of pepper. This turned out really well too and I'm so pleased with it.
Last but not least is the repertoire-concluding dish of potato gratin with my new experimental sauce. Admitedly, it wasn't only the sauce that I experimented with. I added some left over carrot that threatened expiring within the next few days, finely sliced, following the tips published in Dan Lepard's site: "En cuisine on ne jette rien," which happens to be my mother's life philosophy (actually she never throws anything out whether in and out of the kitchen, she's a pathological recycler :P).

After tasting, I was rewarded by a pleasant "Oui!"
Patience is indeed a virtue. :)

A glimpse into life in the lab

I believe that there are two driving forces behind scientific research. One is humanity, the wish to improve medical science and to better the quality of lives of those who are not so fortunately blessed with optimally functioning bodies. The other is curiosity, almost the same curiosity that pushes an explorer to travel to corners of the world ungrazed by travel catalogues.

Call me a geek, but little things like this assay haven't ceased to be less beautiful in my eyes no matter how many times I see it. Just imagine, there are infinite more other beautiful sights to observe that I am yet to encounter. This is one of the reasons why I get out of my bed in the morning (despite grudgingly). The anticipation of translating the intensities of colors into analytical digits often invades my sleep. Fingers crossed they will fall into places like hoped. Fingers crossed. How unscientific, but old habbits, especially harmless ones like this, die hard. Hehehe.

Beautiful dough

I think throughout the entire stage of the making, bread is the most beautiful as they are dough at proofing stage. That's not to say that they're not beautiful as final product.

The itch to bake really hit today. I don't know what triggered it but I'm glad to be actively baking again. My apartment smells so much better when I bake compared to when I cook fish or do some true South-East Asian stir fry.

Shown here are vegetarian sausage bread, a typical Asian bread. I try to make the dough a bit sweeter to complement the sausage but as it turns out the sausage itself is sort of sweet anyway. I'm happy with the outcome. :)

Attempt x to eat healthy

I think this is a pretty balanced meal. In the bottom box is rice, hot smoked trout salad, carrot and tomato and on the top box are blue berries, mandarin, grapes and dried cranberries. I can't decide if I should have this for lunch or dinner.

forgotten photo

blame it on the weather

retail therapy would have to wait for another day seeing as my motivation to shop was at a low and anyway, it's not like i deprived myself all these times. i bought a pink summer dress last night at the market at the rocks and a pair of mesmerizing earrings.

today i ended up just going to the market for a browse, picked up a bottle of vin rouge that had a lot of award stickers on it, the weekend paper that came with a "real (food) handbook" and a pineapple.

making cookies is definitely not the same without my mother's magic mix. to cream the butter and the sugar by hand/manually, first you have to get the butter soft enough by leaving it at room temperature. then before you use the whisk, you have to use a strong spoon to initiate the process of creaming until the mixture is light enough not to stick inside the wires of the whisk. tricks like this were re-discovered and re-learnt, further cementing the importance of continuous practice. of course like riding a bicycle, once you get it you'll always be able to do it, but it is a question of quality which has no equivalent in bike riding.

i can't wait until i go home to brisbane to feed my family again. :)

There's something soothing

I love it when it rains at night. It set the mood right for baking and it doesn’t matter what there is to bake be it cookies, brownies, bread or tarts. There’s something soothing about mixing flour and sugar together, kneading the dough. I’ve wanted to bake something for a few weeks now. I bought the ingredients, simple items on the list that make the staple of every pantry and it is only tonight when the time is right.

There’s something soothing about baking, an art that has been practiced and perfected and dare I say, invented by, women for centuries. I wonder. I wonder if it’s encoded in our chromosomes, like a biological clock that overrides self conviction of being something else. There’s something soothing about the scent of cookies in the air. I think that something soothing is a sense of home.
My aunt, 大姑媽 (Tua Kow), passed away suddenly one morning in July this year. She was a great woman, a kind person, how loving and giving she was. There was always a space for chance in her eyes to start over no matter how awkward a girl I was. It is through seeing conviction in others that one often finds the faith to believe and to achieve a better self. She upheld a wholesome and true sense of justice in her that neglected even herself. She was loving and warm, a great many things that I could only aspire to be. There’s a something soothing about baking, the memory of her words, “chip yi… chip yi kin khe” (knead it, keep kneading). There’s something soothing. There’s something soothing about baking and grieving.

Ravi the massive ravioli

my asian-fusion ravioli.
some people eat when they're jittery, i cook. there's something soothing about chopping, stirring, mixing, getting second degree burn on my finger. the feeling is simply grand (no, not the burn). i tried making a fusion ravioli (you'd never get the authentic stuff out of my kitchen) with prawns and vegetable filling and chinese dumpling wrapper that i found in the supermarket. may i just confirm store bought wraps are crap. repeat after me... store bought wraps are crap. store bought wraps are crap. amen.

butter chicken

Butter chicken that I made tonight. Despite how obviously wonderful the people I work with are in Sydney, I miss my Brisbane lab. I miss how we used to go to Punjabi Palace for nearly every celebration... and especially Rekha's Monday Indian lunch.

Books!

I joined the army of Sydney siders on their weekly ritual of late night shopping. Together with Ayse, we indulged in our sick little obsession with homewares and I found my new chopstick rest and a square plate. I thought about getting two but I'm slowly coming into terms with the fact that I live alone and I'd never cook for anyone else but my selfish-selfish self.

Last night's hunt is today presented here in dinner. I wouldn't call this low fat, but I do believe strongly that it is quite healthy. I've been so obsessed with making bento lately and contrary to my preconception, that was perhaps based on my inability to plan and shop smart, it doesn't have to cost more than usual. Instead of planning my plate beforehand, I'd plan it after I do my grocery shopping. That way, I could buy things that are on special that week (eg. tofu, strawberry) but also keeping in mind that I need variety in colors (ie. vegetables and fruit). It works out quite well, as things that are on special are often seasonal best.

This is rice porridge/congee, (Ingham's frozen) chicken steak, a salad of asian greens topped with seaweed salad and tofu (that threatens to go bad if it has to live another day in my fridge), strawberry and green grapes with a tablet of Lindt 70% chocolate. If my mother could witness my eating habbit, perhaps she'd stop worrying that I'm on an eternal diet and thus on my merry way to a lifetime of diseases and illness.

On the side are two books from two of my most favourite people who have both taught me much and inspired a passion for science. Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking by Harumi, Kurikara from Masa and Envie de grands classiques, brought over as a gift from Laurence's recent trip home to France. Thank you both so much. :)

In awe of the phantom

I went to watch The Phantom of the Opera last night with my friend, Silvia. When I heard last year about it coming to town I was enthusiastically determined that I would go and see it, but as time went, I decided against it especially with the ticket so expensive. I justified my decision by the thought that the show was overrated, until guilt got the better of me (of cancelling... again...).

As I entered into the dark theater, the stage was dull, dull and dark, but not for long. It began with an auction that I could barely recall from the movie and then the chandelier took flight and the stage was unmasked. I was terrified by the blasting organ music and horrified of the golden colored ornaments that framed the stage (strange inexplicable childhood phobia), but awe took over. Oh the music was wonderful and Anthony Warlow had played the phantom so so well that I couldn't help but feel disturbed by his eerie peculiarity, sympathize with his struggle, weep at the recognition of myself in his fallen quest. Amidst this collection of feelings, I realized that no one is made of just one substance. The phantom is not purely evil, just misunderstood... which led me to buy Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, a book on which the musical Wicked (currently playing in Melbourne) is based.

I'm obsessed with making bento these past couple of days and pictured is the ones I made today: grilled salmon marinated in my kecap manis mix, steamed bokchoy on a bed of steamed rice.

nyam nyam nyam

If there is a food that I hold dear to my heart, dearer than bacon, it would be salmon, simply grilled with a sprinkle of salt. You don’t even need oil for this fantastic source of protein for there between the threads of protein lies precious goodness of unsaturated fatty acids.

something fishy

this is called baramundi something something.

just kidding.

je vous présente "miso-lime sauce over garlic panfried baramundi with sides of lime potato and baconed green beans". i've been thinking about sauces a lot lately though it has very bad effect on my expanding waistline. i've been eating a lot since i came back from my trip. *sigh*

so what's in the sauce? i've given away my secret to a friend who inspired this recipe so i may as well give it out. in the sauce is mayonaisse, sesame oil, chinese cooking wine, whole grain mustard, lime juice and miso paste. i used it to cover the fish while reserving the rest for later. as for the potato, it's quite simply boiled briefly... in snobby term, it's blanche (hehe) then panfried with my favourite garlic infused oil with a dash of curry powder, finely chopped shallots and mild chilli and of course the main theme.. generous shower of lime juice. the bean is quite simple.. blanche, then toss quickly over heat with caramelized diced bacon and garlic. the fish is also panfried and later, while the pan is still hot and containing the juice from the fish, i poured the reserved sauce over quickly.. quickly... aw the sauce is breaking!!! stir-stir-stir and pour over the fish and potato.

cut 2 slices of thin sourdough bread (not shown here) to mop the sauce with as a finishing touch. cubes of cucumber (also not shown here) also does wonder to contrast the heavy taste of potato, fish and sauce. the lime is simply simply sublime. excuse me if i'm biased in judgement over my own food.