Shitake bread rolls

Shitake bread rolls

This is the latest experimental product to be born from my kitchen, shitake bread rolls, to mark my 26th birthday. They were initially inspired by senbei or Japanese rice cracker. Apart from capturing the shoyu/soy sauce flavour, I wanted to create a bread type that is still soft, with an additional ingredient that would set it apart from other bread although admittedly marrying bread and soy sauce is almost unspeakable. In the end, after rumaging through my kitchen cupboards, I emerged with sesame oil and shitake mushroom and proceeded to make the bread.

I ran a test on my colleagues, refusing to tell them what ingredients I have used until they finish the rolls and tell me what they thought. Most people couldn't figure out the flavour although they seemed to like it. Out of about 20 people, 2 people guessed shitake mushroom, 2 mentioned sesame oil. I think next time I try something weird, I should probably give everyone a ballot paper for votes so I could compile real statistics. Hahahaha.

I will post the recipe after I return from Vanuatu so watch this space. (^^)

New camera!

My new camera, taken by my Sony Ericsson P1i

Tonight I have bought my self a piece of happiness. Allow me to explain. Since the unfortunate death of my Dick Smith branded camera (my first ever digicam, mind you), I have had to live with posting photos of food taken by my mobile phone. It's a good camera for a phone-cam and as for the phone itself, it's a multi talented little dude. However, a phone cam is a phone cam. I'm not entirely satisfied with the quality of the pictures, the zoom sucks and 3 mega pixels is a bit tight to live with in today's high tech society. I get a little bit depressed when I see nice photos with killer macro in other blogs and in Flickr. At the same time, I don't feel qualified enough to hold an SLR in my little hands. There is the need to graduate from some light photography course to own one and let's face it, their cost (or worth) calls for a deeper pocket and a more serious enthusiasm. There seems to be a mountain of camera brands, each promising fine captures. Which one do I buy? What should I look out for? How do you decide if the camera and features offered are worthy of the price tag?

Armed and accompanied by my bossiest and most cam-savvy friend, I marched to Ted's in the city. We reviewed a Canon IXUS, an Olympus, and Nikkon Coolpix. After annoying the sales assistant long enough, I enquired about the possibility of getting a discount and was faced with firm rejection. Nevertheless, I cuddled a Nikkon Coolpix S220 home. It's light, it's silver, it has minimal number of buttons, it takes SD card. It's like buying a puppy.

Dear readers, I hope you are as excited as I am in anticipating my next food blog entry with photos taken by this new baby. For now, I am in search for a name for my new baby. Any suggestion?

Midnight Ramen

Don't do this at home, at least not at this time of the night. I was already in bed, tucked in and some animation playing in my computer right next to me when slowly but surely a craving for ramen that I have tried to suppressed for days crept up to me. So I googled for pictures of ramen, which made it worse! I gave up and got up, went searching in my kitchen cupboard for any ingredients that could be somehow incorporated into making a delicious bowl of emergency ramen.

I heart dill

I have a new favourite herb. It's dill!! I found this while walking around in a local grocery store. Just yesterday my sister bought dill aiolli at the Woolworth food dome at the Easter Show and it's fantastic!

Miele's 2009 guide for Asia's Top 20 restaurants

Please click on the picture for an enlarged version

As a passionate food blogger and food traveller (I'm being honest here, the main reason that I travel so far is food), I am only too pleased to be contacted by Miele to spread the word on public voting for Miele's 2009 guide for Asia's Top 20 restaurants.

I am especially proud of the rich variety and quality of food that Asia has to offer. So with this, I encourage every one of my reader who are in Asia to vote. From Kuala Lumpur to Seoul, Jakarta to Tokyo and Bangkok to Taipei... Bring it on folks!

Scallop Aladin

Black truffle scallops on crispy potato and prociutto - Batch 1

Scallop Aladin, can you please explain this? Why of course. If you look closely, you'll realize that the prosciutto resembles Aladin's flying carpet. Name out of the way, let's get down to the food itself.

Midnight Bakery Easter bun in 10 easy to follow steps!

Dough ingredients:
500 g plain flour
1 Tsp instant yeast
3 Tbsp green tea (either powder or leaves, or a mixture of both)
4 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
100 g good quality butter, cubed and thawed in room temperature
400 ml H2O or milk
extra plain flour
1 packet of red bean paste (you can get this in Chinese or Asian grocer, orrr you can make your own if you're really really bored or really really enthusiastic)

Method

1. Mix all dried ingredients together, that's the flour, yeast, tea, sugar and salt. Chuck in the cubed butter too.
2. Pour in liquid (milk or water) and mix all the ingredients together. At this stage, the dough is all sticky, but cast that doubt aside and keep kneading and rub in the butter into the rest of the dough. You could add extra flour if you like to reduce the stickiness but please don't overdo it. This process takes between 10-20 minutes.
   
3. Now the dough should hold itself and when you poke it with your finger, the indent springs back. Leave it to rest for about 3-4 hours.
4. Has it doubled in size? Good, now punch it down and knead gently very briefly (brief is like 1-2 minutes). Roll it out to a log and divide the dough to fist size. From this you'd get about 15 little fist-sized doughs if your hand is as big as mine.
5. Flatten the dough into disk. The practical way of doing this is just pressing down the dough with your palm until it's the size of your hand with your fingers spread out. On the centre of the disk, put a tablespoon of the red bean paste and then close it up by pinching the edge of the disk together. Turn it upside down so that the smooth side is up, round up the ball and put in on your baking tray or a cake mould if you prefer.
   
6. Rest them for 3-6 hours. I rested mine overnight.
   
7. Before you bake the buns, preheat your oven to 160 degree Celcius for 10 minutes and glaze your buns with milk. Be gentle at this stage.
   
8. Bake the dough for about 25 minutes. This is the part where you put up a wooden stool and watch it brown with a cup of coffee or tea. It's especially fantastic in winter or autumn! If you live in the Southern hemisphere, now is the time to do it.
9. You may want to decorate it with the traditional cross made of icing sugar and milk or chocolate like I did, but if I may suggest, the bread is great on it's own. The icing sugar crosses only adds extra sugar that you really don't need taste-wise.
10. Bon appétit!
    

Crisp Crosp

Midnight Bakery Easter bun

Come Easter season, I find hot cross buns everywhere and with all honesty, I'm not a big fan of spiced buns. It was great a few years ago when chocolate chip hot cross buns came into fashion and this year, a bakery chain started selling mocha flavoured buns. I twiddled my thumbs while brainstorming for a novel taste this Easter until last week when I found red bean paste in a Chinese grocer and thought "Aha, red bean pasted filled buns!"

Green tea bun with bean paste filling & chocolate

Back at home, it is more common to find red bean pasted filled steamed buns though the color of the paste is usually black, perhaps due to the sugar, bearing in mind that close to everything was home made and kitchen-savvy costumers (which is almost all of mothers in that time) don't approve of dyes.

My mom used to buy steamed buns from a home baker who has recently retired. She started selling every evening from about 6 on a busy street opposite Kaisar supermarket in Pontianak. About sundown, the sky in the city is black with swallows and they're especially concentrated in that area. The birds go back to their nests in people's balconies or rest on the electric cables and being there at the time is like trying your luck. Mom would usually go and buy some steamed buns while the rest of us wait in the car. One time I remember watching people in boredom until I heard my little sister squeaked in delight "Ada yang kena!" (Translation: It got someone) Yes, we were evil little brats. I wonder what kind of aunts and mothers we would become.

Easter Bunny

Green-tea bunny bread with chocolate drizzle and glazed cherry

You know Easter is around the corner when your neighbourhood bakeries start selling hot cross buns and display chocolate Easter bunnies in the windows. Here in the southern hemisphere autumn is starting to set upon us too. The air starts to get a bit chilly and it's a welcome change from the humid warmth of summer.

Green tea bunny twists

Easter means a four day weekend and appetite in the form of my big sister is coming. It's true that food rates very highly in our family itinerary no matter where we go. I've been playing with a few ideas of menus in my head for her visit, but one thing is for sure... the theme is Easter.

Today I have made green tea bread, borrowing the idea from my green tea cookies. The base recipe for the bread itself is sort of similar to challah and brioche. It smells softly of milk even though it's not part of the recipe. I tried to work the dough into bunny shapes, adding glazed cheeries to replace dyed egg in traditional challah. I can't wait to feed her first thing when she arrives tomorrow!Green tea bunny dough

You might need a bit of imagination to see the bunny in this green tea twist, but I hope not as much imagination as it takes to find the rabbit on the moon.

Sourdough Saga

Plain onigiri/lemper/飯糰

If you are anticipating the product of my sourdough project, with utmost regret I must inform you that it had not turned out like I had hoped. I choose not to display its photo for its very sight evoke a deep heartache. Johnnie Jnr, as I have come to name my starter affectionately, was no doubt an active yeast culture, but sadly the dough was something else. The aroma was wonderful but the bread was crumbly and dense, nothing like the sourdough I bought at the market the morning following the death of my bread. This is not the end of my sourdough project. When time permits, I will start another batch of sourdough starter and hopefully, a successful sourdough loaf! For this week, I shall stick with rice to ail this heart ache.

Eat! 吃飯! Makan! Manger!

“There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home” sings Dorothy while she clicks her red heels together. I love fairy tales but I have to say that although I agree, there are some places that come close to it, food wise at least. I spent the weekend in a Sydney suburb that is healthily populated by Indonesian restaurants, Kingsford, and indulged in really homey food in Ayam Goreng 99 and Ratu Sari. Every so often, refreshment like this comes with inspiration.

Barramundi with cracked sea salt and sesame oil

I came away from this weekend with a pantry full of assortments of chili sauces (email me if you would like some recommendations) and a whole barramundi fish. I met a very nice Indonesian guy who works in a fish monger in East Garden and instead of selling me yesterday’s catch of ikan kembung (yellow tail) or mackerels (I wanted to make shio saba), he recommended a fresh barramundi fish. I love this kind of service where a vendor would explain his/her products. I came away with a bag of fish roe too. At home, my mom likes to cook a fish called “B-K” (which I deeply believe is mackerel) and often on the same meal she’d have deep fried fish roes from the same fish. They sort of look like sausage and it’s delicious. After I moved to Sydney, I discovered a Korean restaurant that does fish roe soup with tofu in the city and I love it so much I want to make it myself! And so I did, or attempted to.

Fish roe soup with miso and kochujang

Tonight I married Indonesian cuisine with Chinese with a touch of Korean. I’d credit Korean cuisine more but I’m afraid I might not do it justice with my lack of knowledge on how to cook proper Korean food. This will have to do for the moment.

Ikan bakar sambal terasi

For the love of chili, I’ve spread a healthy dose of sambal terasi on top of the grilled fish. Can I just say, it…. Is…. Divine…. As always, rice as our humble but delicious and nutritious staple stays in the background; nevertheless a meal is not and never can be defined as a meal without its presence.

Atap-seng, South-East Asian umeboshi

You may notice this pickled plum in the background as a garnish to my fish. This is sort of like the Japanese umeboshi. I was over the moon when I found this in a Thai grocery. Back in grade 6, my friends Elvinta, Elinda, Juliarosi and I used to make our ways to my aunt’s place before, in the middle of and after after-school tutorial to satisfy our thirst for a pickled we so fondly called “atap-seng” in the local Chinese dialect. I believe “atap” is the name of the fruit while “seng” means sour and over the years, the product had disappeared from the shelves of supermarkets, home stores and “warung”. You cannot imagine my joy when I found this stuff here in Sydney. Compared to umeboshi, it’s far more powerful in salt and the bite. If you pick it with your chopstick, the brine tracing the chopsticks is enough to make your whole face pucker.