Kiki's Midnight Bakery

Hello San Francisco!

2011-11-07T09:47:00.002+10:00

I baked this in my new kitchen. Yes, I have relocated. I contained my life in 2 suitcases more or less and I arrived in land of the free and home of the brave to receive further training in my scientific career!

Will post more soon. By the way, San Franciscans, you lots are really friendly and I'm loving the cheese selections in Bristol Farm!

Boeuf Bourguignon

2010-11-18T19:24:00.012+10:00

The Eiffel Tower right at 11 PM at night. The whole tower sparkled for 5 minutes

We were in Paris a few months ago and stayed at Arts et Metiers at the 3rd arrondisement. For 5 days we roamed the street of Paris, stuffed ourselves silly with Parisian bread and fell in love with jambon... at least during breakfast every morning.

View from across the Seine river

One night my sister and I wandered into a little cafe to get dinner where we were served our first boeuf bourguignon. Truly it was delicious; the beef was tender and oh it was just unforgettable. No where else did we encountered anything the surpassed that particular dinner. Ah Paris...

Inscription at the bottom of the Charles de Gaulle statue

Now after a few hard working months at the lab, I decided to reward myself by cooking my own boeuf bourguignon. I downloaded recipes from the internet and used my French recipe book for the first time (Merci Laurence). This is my revised version of many people's recipes, je vous presente boeuf bourguignon.

A beautiful mess of a lunch

Ingredients

Roughly 1 kg of beef. Don’t use expensive cuts. I don’t know what I used (to be honest I've only started eating meat) but mine was $9/kg. The idea is to use a tough meat and get it to become tender by the long cooking time
1 bottle of red wine. I used Penfold’s Koonunga 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon ($13)
2 big onions, roughly chopped
2-3 carrots. If they're fat, halve them lengthwise prior, but otherwise just cut into roughly 1.5 cm thickness
1 pack of Masterfood bouquet garni (find this in the dried herbs section, there are 4 sachets in each pack)
3-4 tablespoons of white flour
150g of butter (get the good stuff and that quantity is roughly half a block that you get in the supermarket), divide it into 4
Olive oil
Diced bacon, 100g (or use speck if you like)
3 cloves of garlic, remove skin and bash, but leave whole
10 shallots, skin removed and left as whole
3 tomatoes, quartered
2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
300g button mushroom
Fresh parsley (optional… I hate it)

A fresh loaf of bread to serve it with

First cut up the beef to bite size. Arrange onion, carrot and beef in a big bowl and add 2 sachets of the bouquet garni and add wine. Marinate overnight or 24 hours.

Bubble bubble bubble

Next day, drain the wine into another container. Separate the beef into another container and coat lightly with 3 tablespoon of white flour. Heat a deep bottomed pot and add 2 tablespoon of olive oil with ¼ of the butter. Add the diced bacon and fry until it’s crispy then drain on to a paper towel-lined plate. Now add another 2 tablespoon of olive oil and ½ of the butter. When it’s hot and sizzling add the flour coated beef and quickly brown them. At this stage you need to toss it around with a solid spatula, preferably wooden and none of those weak bendable gadgets, to try to prevent the flour from burning the bottom of your pot. When you have achieved even browning of the beef, drain them on another paper towel-lined plate. Heat another 2 tablespoon of the oil with the rest of the butter and when hot, add the garlic and shallots. Toss them around and then add the onion, the carrot and tomatoes. Stir that around. When your pot sound like it’s hissing excessively (meaning that it’s super hot and your veggies have ceased to seep out liquid), this is when you chuck in your red wine from the overnight marinate. Yeah take that! I always get a sense of satisfaction when I do this with whatever I cook.

First I plated it neatly (or tried to)...

Next, in goes the beef and the bacon. Add the balsamic vinegar and another 2 sachets of the bouquet garni and season with salt and black pepper (Note. the sauce will continue to reduce so don't over-salt at this point). Continue to stir from time to time to prevent the bottom of the pan from burning from sinking flour residues. If you have a decent size oven, you can bake this at 150 degree, otherwise stove top worked fine for me.

... but on second though, I think it looked and tasted better messy

While that’s going, heat a pan with butter (okay so you need a bit more than 150g, but trust me it’s worth it). When the butter sizzles and gets all frothy, add in your mushroom and just toss them around into they’re sort of brown and shiny on the outside. Add that to the pot of beef. Leave for at least another 30 minutes before serving it with parsley and fresh bread. Bon appétit and may your beef be as tender as mine and may your apartment be as pleasant smelling as mine.

Sambal cabe hijau

2010-07-11T20:25:00.006+10:00

Ground up steamed green chillies

I feel that this recipe may not be suitable for blogging, but I've decided to share it with you all anyway because I think chili is too too underrated. So, for the love of chili this is my recipe for sambel cabe hijau (green chilli sambal) which you could use simply as a chutney or accompaniment to raw vegetables (lalapan) or you could make it as a base to another dish like grilled fish, fried chicken or stewed beef. You will notice that I use the word "roughly" a lot in this recipe and I really think that the roughness of it imparts a free-spirited complexity that complete the identity of this sambal or any sambal for that matter. That said, it doesn't only make an awesome sidekick to another dish, but served on its own with steamed rice, it makes a kick-ass dish of its own. :D It certainly rocks my world.

Green chilies give out an aroma distinct from their ripe siblings, red chillies

To make the Midnight Bakery's Sambel Cabe Hijau, you'll need:

400 g of green chilli
150 g of shallots
a handful of dried Asian anchovies (available at supermarkets or Asian grocer)
juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon of sugar

Cut to the length of finger segments before grinding

First wash and remove stems from green chili and steam for roughly 15 minutes. Meanwhile, soak up the anchovies in hot boiling water and leave on the side. Chop up the shallots roughly and pound using a mortar and pestle. A food processor will not serve this purpose. You really need to bruise these guys and you don't need to grind them to pulp, you'll want some bits and pieces to stick out from them.

Shallow fry rehydrated anchovies

Once the 15 minutes are up, drain the chili and cut roughly to the size of the segments on your fingers. Grind in the mortar and pestle. Drain anchovies and heat about 1/3 cup of vegetable oil in a wok or pan. Shallow fry the anchovies and remove from pan. Next with the remaining oil, shallow fry the shallots until it's fragrant. Add the ground chilli and mix. Add the anchovies. Season with sugar and salt and lime juice. Simmer for another half an hour on low heat. It's best to allow the flavor to develop further overnight before serving.

Simmer the chilli for 30 minutes before serving

You can double the recipe by doubling up on all the ingredients. I like to make double the recipe so I have enough to keep myself happy for a week. If you like your chili hot, I suggest adding jalapeno that you find in jars in supermarkets. Grab a handful and rinse out the vinegar before adding to this happy family while simmering.

Vietnamese prawn rolls

2010-07-11T19:20:00.010+10:00

Vietnamese prawn rolls

Hello hello!! I hope you've all missed me very much, as much as I have missed blogging about my kitchen actions. This time I've been feeding myself with the very carb-conscious version of Vietnamese prawn rolls, omitting the vermicelli (which is already very healthy and low in fat) and substituting it with salads, tonnes of it! You don't only get the crunch from the bits and pieces of the dressing, the leaves, cucumber and carrots, but also prawns. You can use either freshly peeled prawns or like me, you could use frozen prawns which is of course very versatile and easy to source. This dish is super healthy and gives you a wholesome punch of goodness and it's so easy to make!

Lime juice as part of the awesome dressing

First and foremost, the soul of the dish is in the dressing. I promise you, this dressing is so delicious you're going to want to have it with anything and everything! I have in fact trialed this dish on my friends and I'm really glad to report that they devoured it. I'm not sure how close my recipe is to the authentic Vietnamese dressings but please if you have suggestions, I would be so happy if you could share it with me. Have a look at my recipe below! :)

Dressing

For the Midnight Bakery's Vietnamese prawn roll dressing, you'll need:

2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small shallots, finely chopped
the roots of a bunch of coriander, wash it clean, bash it and chop finely
1 teaspoon of sugar (even better if you have palm sugar)
the juice of 1 small lime
1/4 cup of fish sauce
2 bird eye chilli (chilli padi/cabe rawit)
2 tablespoons of peanuts, roasted and ground

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl. If you don't have a mortar and pestle to ground the peanuts, fret not. What I do is put the peanuts in the cup and crush it with the end of the rolling pin.

Easy and fun to assemble

For the Midnight Bakery's Vietnamese prawn roll, you'll need:

rice paper (available in supermarkets or Asian grocers)
prawns, boiled
cucumber, julienned
carrots, seeds (middle bit) discarded and julienned
mint
coriander
loose salad leaves

Alright, once you have everything on hand, you're well to the fun bits, assembling! Get a big bowl and fill it half with boiling water and half cool water. Test that it is not too hot that it'd burn your hand. A good rule for this is that if you can keep your index finger in there for 30 seconds comfortably, it's good to go. Next, take 1 rice paper sheet and dunk it in the warm water until it's all soft. Take it out and lay it on a plate, try to smooth it out as much as you can and avoid it folding over on itself.

Now, you can go nuts on laying your fillings on one part of the rice paper as illustrated above. Lay the prawns, salads, mint and coriander leaves, top it up with carrots and cucumber. Fold over the top bit of the rice paper and the sides. Then holding the roll with both hands, roll it as tightly as you can. Don't worry if it doesn't look too fantastic. It's the taste that matters and with practice, your rolls will look more and more attractive.

Serving/eating suggestion:
Take a small bite off the top, then top with a teaspoon of the dressing, take a bite, add dressing, take a bite, and so on until you bit your own fingers. Enjoy!

Tom Yum stuffed Calamari

2010-05-03T23:59:00.004+10:00

Tom Yum stuffed calamari

Alright folks, this is going to be a quick post to assure you that I am still alive and rocking in PhD land. So recently, Harris Farm Market opened up a store near me and upon checking it out one night I was overjoyed to find a fresh seafood market that featured awesome goodness like sashimi-grade fishes, sea urchin, lots of fresh whole fishes and all those yummy goodness that I could only dream of finding in the usual supermarkets.

This week I made Tom Yum Stuffed Calamari and it's dead easy to make! To make it you will need:

1 fresh calamari tubes, ask you fish monger to clean it
2 handfull of marinara mix, diced
1 shallots, diced
1 clove of garlic, diced
2 rashers of bacon, diced
10 kaffir lime leaves, cut into strips.
2 teaspoon of Tom Yum paste

Heat 2 teaspoons of oil on the pan and toss in the shallots and garlic. When the garlic goes lightly brown, add the bacon and fry until crispy. Next chuck in the Tom Yum paste and stir it around until fragrant. Chuck in the diced marinara mix and stir fry to mix everything around. Season with salt and pepper, fish sauce too if you like, and chuck in the kaffir lime leaves last. Leave to cool for a little.

Rinse the calamari tubes and stuff it with the Tom Yum marinara mixes. Pan fry the calamari tube, turning it around regularly so that it cooks evenly. Finally, cut and serve. :D Happy cooking!

PS. You could also chuck in some diced vegetables like bamboo shoots, carrot, or water chesnut into the marinara mix to add some crunch.

Prawn ravioli with green curry dressing

2010-03-30T20:52:00.019+10:00

Midnight Bakery original

In South-East Asia it is not uncommon to find a peaceful marriage between noodles with various versions of curry and raviolli is certainly not too distant a cousin from noodles. Dear friends, I present to you the dish that broke my mortar: Prawn ravioli with green curry dressing.

Prawn ravioli with green curry dressing

Indeed, it was a risky adventure, nevertheless it promised a lot of fun and excitement to be had in the kitchen not to mention a great exercise opportunity. Those who have not yet made fresh pasta by hand (no pasta maker required), you should give it a go. This experiment threw my kitchen into an absolute painful state, what with a broken mortar and a new one too. Rest assured, the result makes this adventure well worth it!

Fresh hand-made pasta

To make the Midnight Bakery pasta, you will need:

3 large eggs
300 g of wheat flour
3 teaspoon of salt for flavour

Knead the pasta until elastic and rest for at least 30 minutes in room temperature. Meanwhile, you could start preparing the raviolli filling.

Crispy bacon and curry leaves as part of the ravioli filling

To make the Midnight Bakery prawn raviolli filling:

1 1/2 tablespoon of minced garlic in olive oil
500g of garlic prawns, roughly diced
200g of bacon, diced
2 stems of curry leaves, stem removed

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil and fry bacon and curry leaves until fragrant and the bacon crispy. Cool, mix with diced garlic prawns and keep in the fridge until required.

Step by step guid to making ravioli by hand

When you're ready to make the ravioli, dust the dough and the work surface with extra flour. With a rolling pin roll out pasta dough, flipping it and turning it around to ensure that you roll the dough evenly. Put a teaspoon-full of prawn stirfry on pasta dough roughly 4 cm apart. Top with pasta dough. Press down the edges gently so it looks like a little sombrero/Mexican hat. You could "stencil" it with a little tea cup if you have one. Cut out with knife and press again on the edges to ensure that the filling doesn't leak out during cooking. Keep them on a plate, generously dusted with flour to avoid them sticking to each other. Now on to that green curry dressing.

Green curry made from freshly hand ground ingredients
(the curry that killed my mortar)

To make the Midnight Bakery's green curry sauce, you will need:

1 bunch of basil
1 bunch of coriander (including roots)3 stems of curry leaves, stems removed
1 knob of tumeric
2 knobs of ginger
2 medium shallots, diced
2 large red chillis, sliced
2 teaspoons of belachan (fermented shrimp paste)
3 medium shallots, sliced
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
200 ml of coconut cream
1 handful of fresh kaffir lime leaves, scrunch until you could smell that beautiful citrusy scent
Lime juice and salt for seasoning

Pound the basil, coriander, curry leaves, tumeric, ginger, diced shallots, chilli and belachan paste. Heat a pan with oil and minced garlic and sliced shallots until translucent and the garlic slightly browning. Add pounded spices and stir fry until fragrant. Add coconut cream and lime leaves. Season with salt and lime juice to taste. Reduce heat and let to simmer.

A taste bud wonderland

Get a pot of salty water boiling and cook ravioli for 7-8 minutes then drain. Heat a pan with 1/2 teaspoon of oil and toss the ravioli with green curry sauce. For 5 ravioli, add 5 tablespoons of the curry sauce. The idea is not to have a soup (although you could), but just to have a glaze of the sauce over the surface of the raviolli. Serve with extra basil.

Mix and match dry and soupy dishes

Extra notes

You could make stir-fry out of the prawn filling by adding diced capsicums, basil leaves and coriander and combining them together in a quick hot toss in a wok.
You could combine the ravioli with a lot more green curry if you like. After cooking the ravioli in salty water, just serve in a bowl with curry sauce, or in this case, curry soup. Place the ravioli into the soup just before serving to avoid soggy pasta.
Make fettucinne with leftover pasta dough. Dust pasta sheet generously on both sides with flour and roll into a log. Cut 1 cm thickness, unroll and voila! Cook in salty boiling water for 7-8 minutes and dress with any sauce you like.

Assam Laksa

2010-03-20T19:59:00.014+10:00

Kiki's Assam Laksa

Hello all! It's been a while since my last post and believe me I have been brewing ideas for the next post, this post. I was inspired by an episode of Poh's show that featured Thai cuisine. In that show, a visiting chef made curry paste from scratch. That, combined with the increasingly limited space in my bar fridge (as a result of ever growing number of jars) pushes me to embark on my new experiment: Assam Laksa!

Assam laksa is not the same thing as laksa. As I understand it, assam laksa is one of many delicious Nyonya dishes originating from Penang island, Malaysia. This dish is FRESH!, flavorsome and fantastic served on a hot day with a glass of iced tea or chilled glass of white wine. Its main star ingredient is assam or tamarind, among a crew of many other spices: fresh tumeric root, galangal, lemon grass, mint leaves, shallots, garlic, belachan and chilli. Rest assured, all ingredients are not impossible to find in your local grocer in Sydney. Assam/tamarind paste is available in the supermarket in a jar; the rest can be found in your local vegetable and fruit store or farmer's markets in excellent fresh forms, at least I did.

It's worth it, I promise

This afternoon I found in a local farmer's market what I thought was ginger flower or a version of galangal and I excitedly brought it, among other fresh ingredients, home. On to my mortar and pestle and beyonnndddd!!! If like me you've never used mortar and pestle before, don't be afraid. It's really quite soothing to be pounding away mindlessly especially bearing in mind the promise of a delicious end product. Food processor is another option for those without said equipments and though I have been warned that the end product is not the same, I understand that these days it's more common to find food processors than the prehistoric mortar and pestle in most homes. So go ahead and press that button, bzzz bzzzzz. :D

Don't let the ingredients scare you, they're available in most grocery stores

To make my version of assam laksa, you will need the following ingredients.

Paste:

3 shallots
2 teaspoon if minced garlic
8 bird eye chillies
3 teaspoon of belachan (fermented prawn paste)
1thumb size of tumeric root
3 stalks of lemon grass, just the white bits
1 fist size of galangal

Broth and Soup:

3 tbsp of tamarind puree
1 bunch of pakchoy, washed thoroughly
a bunch of enoki mushrooms (straw mushroom), cleaned and remove roots
500g of white fish (I used Ling fillets)
2 large handfuls of fish tofu or marinara mix
Fish sauce
2 limes
1 ginger flower, sliced

Garnish:

1 shallots, sliced
1 lime, halved
mint leaves
2 chillies, chopped

Admittedly there are a lot of ingredients involved, even for the paste alone, so I have increased the super-sized this recipe to make the effort worth it for people like myself who don't have a lot of time on hand. Do this recipe on a weekend and you can freeze the leftovers for a week worth of lunch!

Pound the paste ingredients separately if you have a small mortar

Now let's get down to business. First and foremost, pound all the paste ingredients in a mortar and pestle and you want to do this nice and early. As I learned from TV, you want to chop the ingredients as finely as you could, because it would save you a lot of work in the pounding step.

Chop up the paste ingredients as this will make the pounding step a lot easier

Get a pot of water (about 3 liters) boiling with 2 pinches of salt & tamarind puree. Blanch bunches of pakchoy for 2 minutes, then drain and arrange on serving bowls. Boil fish and fish tofu/marinara mix for 10 minutes, remove the fishes while reserving the broth. Flake the fish fillets.

Bubble bubble...

Stir fry the paste in 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil until fragrant. Add the reserved fish broth plus 1 liter of boiling water, fish fillets, fish tofu/marinara mix, enoki mushroom, juice of 2 limes. Season with fish sauce and salt, adding the sliced ginger flower last. Simmer for an hour before serving in bowls with garnishes and steamed jasmine rice.

Not just a pretty face, garnish adds extra dimension in flavor

Some extra notes:

Tumeric is will stain anything and everything except porcelain in my personal observation. So before you chop/pound away, spread your kitchen counter top with old newspaper and be prepared to have yellow hands for the next few days. Oh, and wear an apron!

Warning: Tumeric stains!
Use a deep-welled mortar for pounding to avoid the paste ingredients on your shirt, face and every corner of your kitchen.

Potato & seafood curries

2010-01-02T16:23:00.008+10:00

Rice and two curries

One thing that I miss about Brisbane is the food. Sure it's not as deeply populated by little exotic food corners as Sydney or Melbourne but it is my second home. There's this great restaurant that serves Malaysian and Singaporean fares called Little Singapore. Little Singapore started off in a little shop in Sunnybank's Market Square (before the square burnt down a few years ago) but since the opening, business has been thriving and they now have a branch in the city. My absolute favourite from this place is the butter chicken, which is deep fried chicken chunks accompanied by... wait for it... crispy curry leaves. Yeah, those green goodness rocked my world. Anyway, so when I saw curry leaves in the market the other day, I knew I had to have them despite not having any real plan on what to make. I'm sure they taste great with anything.

Fried curry leaves, mmmm...

So today, I got my act together and decided to make 2 types of curries with them and some potatoes and seafood. The first curry is Japanese curry. What exactly is Japanese curry? " (Japanese) Curry sauce (カレーソース karē sōsu) is served on top of cooked rice to make curry rice. Curry sauce is made by frying together curry powder, flour and oil, along with other ingredients, to make roux (ルー rū); the roux is then added to stewed meat and vegetables, and then simmered until thickened" (Wikipedia).

Japanese curry

Like most people, I used a curry sauce mix that are readily available in the supermarkets and it cuts out most of the work. All I needed to do was cube the carrot and potato, caramelize some sliced onions and add in the mix and fresh seafood. In other words, follow the instruction on the packet. :P

The second is a dry potato and seafood curry and this one is a quick easy to make do-it-your-self curry.

Ingredients

a handful of curry leaves, rinsed and dried
1 teaspoon of dried chilli (you could increase the amount if you like your food spicy)
1 big potato, cubed
200 g of marinara mix
2 teaspoons of curry powder
salt and white pepper for seasoning
a handful of chopped spring onions
a handful of fresh coriander, torn

First, boil potatoes and drain. Then heat up your pan or wok on medium high heat and chuck in 2 tablespoons of oil and 2 teaspoons of butter. It will start to froth up. Chuck in the curry leaves and dried chilli and just fry them for about a minute or so, after which you can chuck in the marinara mix and curry powder. Stir fry until the fish is done (they become opaque when done), add potatoes. Continue to stir fry and season with salt and white pepper, making sure that the potatoes are well mixed. Add spring onion and turn off the fire after 1 minute. Serve hot and top with coriander.

Rice and two curries

I made a neat mango skin bowl to contain the dry curry. Aesthetic aside, I think it adds an extra flavour to the dish and they're in season. Here's how to make one. Slice off the cheeks of a mango, then score criss-cross pattern on the flesh and scoop out the flesh using a tablespoon. Next, slit one side of the mango skin and pierce a little hole on each side of the slit. Thread a curry leave through it to form a bowl. Voila!

Mango cheek bowl

Lobster chawan mushi

2010-01-01T18:13:00.009+10:00

A little side dish: chawan mushi (savoury steamed egg custard)

From my last lobster recipe, I had a little bit of leftover raw lobster meat which I decided to turn into savoury steamed egg otherwise known as chawan mushi. I think chawan mushi is quite healthy and low in fat. There is no added fat and you can toy with the salt/sodium content as you season the dish. It's virtually healthy whole protein and it's really quite easy to make and it tastes great. You can use any fish or prawns for this recipe. For my other version of chawan mushi, have a look at my previous post on steamed fritatta.

Extra trimmings of the lobster tail

The essential ingredient in chawan mushi is egg which needs to be beaten up lightly and mixed with broth. 1 egg will make 2 small servings of the dish. Remeber, chawan mushi is made and served in teacups so they're small. I used about 4:3 ratio of egg and broth to which I add 2 teaspoons of good white wine. Season with salt.

Place the chunks of lobster meat in a tea cup and steam it in the teacups for 5 minutes until you can see juice in the cup.

Beat the egg mixture again lightly and add it into the teacups. Steam a further few minutes until you see that the top of the savoury egg custard is starting to go puffy. Continue to steam the egg custard on low heat for another 1 minute or so, then serve with chopped spring onions on top. I happen to have spring onion mixed with miso paste in my fridge so I used that for mine and it tastes great. :) Happy cooking!

Pan-fried lobster tail in butter and black truffle infused oil

2010-01-01T17:34:00.009+10:00

Pan fried lobster tailon a bed of rice

Welcome to 2010! This holiday has given me a fresh chance to relax and just be. Yesterday, I took my little self to the Sydney Fish Market and I snooped all the shops. It was stinky, super crowded, wet and I loved it. What I also love is my little discovery: lobster tails. The holidays and Australians' love affair with seafood gave seafood vendors an excuse to skyrocket their prices, but even outside the holiday season lobsters are pricey. In one corner of a very crowded shop, near the entrace, I saw frozen lobster tails for $69.99 per kilo. The friendly shop attendant at Claudio's told me that one tail, depending on the weight varies between $15-17, which is a huge price gap away from whole lobster with the head attached. So I got her to grab me a small tail and oh what a beautiful tail.

My discovery of the last day of 2009

After a little bit of research on Google, I decided to make panfried lobster with butter and black truffle infused oil from Simon Johnson, the one that I'm too shy to use, but hey, it's New Year's Day. This cooking process is a lot of trial and error. I jabbed my hands plenty of times on the prickly shell and I learnt that you can't grab the meat out as a whole without first cooking it somewhat. I dunk it into hot boiling water for not more than 2 minutes before having another attempt at taking the meat out. The rest is a lot easier. Here is my recipe.

Ingredients

1 lobster tail, blanched and meat removed whole
1 teaspoon of butter
1 teaspoon of oil (black truffle infused oil)

Heat oil and butter in pan on medium high heat. Pan fry the lobster tail. Season with salt. Slice and top on a bed of hot freshly steamed white rice. :) Simple yet delicious, buon appetito and Happy new year!

Spring onion pancake

2009-12-27T12:49:00.010+10:00

What to do when all you need is a handfull of spring onions, but the smallest quantity on offer at the shops are fat bunches of leavey stalks of spring onions? Such is a question that often plaques society today but the Taiwanese have the perfect solution for that: spring onion pancakes! A few years ago, a mother of a friend of mine took me under her wings and showed me how to make these savoury pancakes from scratch and ever since then I've toyed and experimented with the recipes and today I believe that I have perfected the recipe to suit my taste buds and hopefully those of many others. I incorporated yeast in the dough to avoid tough texture and I use chicken broth to maximize the savoury flavour.

The basic flavour that dominates these pancakes are spring onion and sesame oil. Another great thing about it is that you really only need the green bits from that big fat bunch of spring onions, so you could reserve the white bits (my favourite bit of green onions) for soups. All the ingredients that you need are basic staples that can be found in most pantries and these are

Flour, 500 g
Salt, 5 tbsp
Sugar, 2 tbsp
Instant yeast, 1/2 tsp
Sesame oil
Chicken broth, 375 ml (could be replaced by water and stock powder)
Spring onions, chopped
Eggs

So here's what to do. First, we want to make a dough so mix the flour, salt, sugar, instant yeast together and make a little well in the middle to pour in the chicken stock. Mix and knead, slowly incorporate sesame oil. You could add any the amount as you like, depending on the dough. Mine was quite sticky (and I used about ~100 ml of sesame oil) unlike the texture of normal bread dough and I'm not quite sure why this is, but the end product turned out better than I expected. Rest the dough for at least 30 minutes (I rested mine overnight) and cover with wet tea towel.

Flatten dough

Punch down the raised dough and divide into half-fist portions. Roll out each individual portions and top with spring onions, again you could add as much or as little as you like. Roll up the spring onion topped dough into a log and twist into little snails as pictured and rest for another 30 minutes.

Top flattened dough with spring onions

Roll up the spring onion topped dough into a log...

... and twist into little snails

To cook, heat up your pan on medium high heat with a teaspoon of vegetable oil. Meanwhile, flatten the snail dough and try to maintain the circular shape. If you have a small pan like me, try to roll out the dough to fit the size of your pan. Decrease the heat to medium and pan fry the dough on both sides and watch the little air pockets rise and turn the flat dough into a puffy pancake. When the pancake is browned on both sides, put it aside and in the same pan, crack an egg and put the pancake on top. Serve hot with light soy sauce, bon apetit!

Flatten the snail dough and try to maintain the circular shape

Pan fry the dough and watch it turn into puffy pancake

Serve hot with light soy sauce, bon apetit!

Bakcang/肉粽

2009-11-29T19:31:00.010+10:00

Be careful when handling bamboo leaves
as they are quite sharp and may leave you with paper cuts, or bamboo cuts

It’s been a while dear readers. I have again been occupied by my beloved research project and after a long time, rather than finding the time, I made the time to make another attempt at making bakcang and thereby taking the chance to capture my mother’s recipe in photographs for anyone who happens to stumble into my cooking blog and intrigued enough to recreate this in their own kitchen. Come on, if i can do this in my miniscule kitchen you can too!

After gathering all the ingredients that I could recall from our last cooking session together, I decided to call my mom to confirm that I had indeed got all the right and necessary ingredients, but as it turns out daddy knows best. Mom was napping and the next best option was to ask my dad on how to prepare a few ingredients to these bamboo leaves wrapped goodies. He sounded surprised when I told him what I was about to do and I could just see him raising his eyebrows in amusement as he asked “妳會做粽子?” (You know how to make bakcang?) … Well, not exactly but practice makes perfect, no?

I’m okay at making the filling, the glutinous rice, preparing the bamboo leaves but assembling needs refining. :P so I will share with you my mom’s recipe for bakcang.

For glutinous rice
you will need to soak 3 cups of glutinous rice at least overnight, then steam it for roughly 45 minutes in medium fire.

For the filling
you will need:

1 ½ bulb of garlic, minced
Two handfuls of dried shitake mushroom, soak in hot water then squeeze as much as the water
A handful of dried prawns, soaked in hot water twice, drained
A handful of dried scallops, soaked in hot water twice, drained
Peanut, soaked in hot water, drained
A handful of dried chestnut, boiled, drained
100g chicken, diced (I prefer tenderloins but breast meat or thigh meat would also do)
3 teaspoon of five spice powder (which you can get in the herb section of your supermarket)
3 tbs of dark soy sauce
2 teaspoon of sugar
1 tbs of balsamic vinegar

First heat about ½ a cup of olive oil or vegetable oil in your wok until it’s smoking then stir fry the shitake mushroom until slightly browned. Add garlic, again stir and take care to decrease the heat so you don’t burn the garlic. Add the dried prawns, scallops, chestnut and peanut and stirfry again until fragrant. Add in diced chicken and continue to stir fry and season with five spice powder, dark soy sauce, sugar balsamic vinegar, Chinese cooking wine and salt and pepper to taste. Evaporate liquid and let cool before assembling.

So here’s the difficult part. Take two bamboo leaves that had been pre-boiled in water and a few droplets of oil, and overlap them longitudinally then fold as pictured. Fill with glutinous rice and fillings then top with rice. Now the folding bit is a bit too complicated to describe in words so the best I could do is to direct you to this youtube video. Unfortunately for non-Indonesian speakers, you will need to just watch, but really watching is all you really need to do. Good luck!

Prevention & Treatment

2009-10-26T21:47:00.007+10:00

Packed lunch for a day of work and research

Tuna with chili and mayonaise, white bait,
cucumber, rice and a flower of Japanese preserved radish and eggplant

Brunetti's chocolate mousse

Pahlawan tanpa tanda jasa... nasi

2009-09-28T19:41:00.008+10:00

Nasi adalah pemeran latar belakang utama di berjuta-juta makanan yang dihidangkan di meja keluarga terutama di Asia. Namun, tanpanya untaian rasa asin, manis, asem, pahit kehilangan jati diri mereka. Hampir mustahil bila kita mencari satu saja rumah moderen yang tidak dihiasi dengan rice cooker. Kehadirannya meringankan perkerjaan ibu-ibu dan, let's face it, pembatu rumah tangga di seantero nusantara. Tapi hari ini aku menolak untuk memakai rice cooker. Hari ini aku berhasil masak, eh salah, menanak nasi tanpa rice cooker. Ajaib? Tidak juga, hanya saja mukzizat seperti ini sampai saat ini bukan kejadian sehari-hari di dapur sekarang di mana waktu menjelma menjadi komoditas yang langka dan sangat mahal.

Eniwei.... ini bekal makanku besok. Semuanya aku usahakan serba sehat. Di tengah atas dan bawah adalah lemper nasi isi tuna dan mayones. Bedanya, yang hitam itu dibungkus dengan rumput laut yang biasanya digunakan di sushi. Di samping kiri terdapat potongan timun dan wortel segar dan di sebelah kanan, asinan lobak dan ikan teri saus tauco (botolan).

Nguing nguing nguing

2009-09-27T13:47:00.008+10:00

Chocolate rollie (pre-baking)

This is my new experiment. I placed a flat layer of chocolate dough on top of the soy milk dough I made last night and rolled them together into a log which I then cut into little wheels. I could almost shape them into little rose buds but I'll leave that to next time.

Chocolate rollie (post-baking)

The chocolate dough has almost 50-50 ratio of wheat flour and cocoa powder, to which I added a teaspoon of yeast (and a tonne of brown sugar). Overnight, it did little raising so I didn't want to bake it on its own. Surprisingly, despite the high content of sugar, it isn't too sweet or very sweet at all.

The panda bread, whose snout fell off during baking

I also made an attempt at making panda bread with the same doughs, unfortunately the snout fell off during baking. There are much optimization to be done but once done, I will post the recipe up together with some tips on assembling in anticipation of falling snouts. :)

Imagine me and you

2009-09-27T00:55:00.003+10:00

Croissant-shaped soy milk brioche

I couldn't wait until tomorrow to bake my little croissant wannabes (see previous post). I really should have just done one to see what time does to the dough. Anyhow, baking a soy bread really morphs the aroma that lurks around as a very welcome by product. The scent is dominated by a nutty tone which trully surprised me because I didn't think this one ingredient would make such a big difference.

Anyhoo, I'll leave the tasting to Sunday morning breakfast. Good night world. :)

月亮代表我的心

2009-09-26T20:49:00.007+10:00

Croissant shaped soy brioche

Hoooiiii, I am still alive and well (^^). I've been rather busy in the lab, thus the absence of new posts in my Midnight Bakery blog. Nevertheless, the Midnight bakery is still chugging some steam at (some) nights.

I'm currently experimenting with soy milk as an ingredient in my bread if not to substitute milk to counter my lactose intolerance , then for novelty's sake. Most of you would be familiar with milk bread, but have not heard of soy milk bread. Well, me neither. I've made the dough with butter and to contain quite a bit of sugar and I've shaped the dough into croissant style. The dough is currently rested and I'll bake it first thing tomorrow. Watch the next post for the final product.

In the meanwhile, I thought I'd share with you some other breads that I had been baking all these while.

Cheese clogged heart

My attempt at brioche à tête

Savoury oat porridge with century egg and pickled eggplant

2009-08-17T21:24:00.008+10:00

I love the versatility of oats. You could incorporate it in cookies and muffins to which it adds a new dimension to the texture. Oats also offer many health benefits. It has been said that oats help lower cholesterol re-absorption and therefore promote cardiovascular well-being. Oats are rich source of both soluable and insoluable fibres, the stuff that keeps you regular and help make you feel full longer so that you don't overeat. In fact, oats fall into the category of low GI foods. In lay term this means that oats are more slowly digested, resulting in a gradual rise of blood glucose. This is good news for diabetics and all ye who are battling the waist line.

All those are really fantastic (and they make me sound like a salesperson), but they're not the real reason why I love oats. I love oats because I can whip up congee in 10% the amount of time needed if I was to make congee from rice. So what is this wonderful thing I refer to as congee? It's essentially porridge that is traditionally made from rice and served with anything from shredded chicken to exotic things like meat floss. Congee can be plain, it can be savoury but no, it may not be sweet. On the other hand, many of you are familiar with only the sweet forms of oats. This recipe will challenge your perception and hopefully introduce something delicious and interesting to your palate.

To make rice congee from start would take many hours as the rice needs to be broken down to gruel like consistency, but not with oats. It's so easy to make you'd think I'm lying. To make this savoury oat porridge you will need:

a cup of rolled oat
2 and a half cup of chicken stock
chopped spring onion/scallion
deep fried garlic & shallots (get these in the Asian isle of your supermarket)
century egg (these you'll need to find in an Asian grocer and read the label or you'd risk buying salted duck egg instead... although they're yummy too)
Japanese pickled eggplant

Boil the oat in stock until it's done, season with salt. Spoon into a bowl. Top with spring onion, garlic and shallots. Halve the century egg and arrange one half on the congee. Arrange pickled eggplant on the congee. Eat.

Dinner party

2009-08-02T10:49:00.011+10:00

I decided to throw a little dinner party with a few of my friends last night and what better opportunity to experiment. :P One little trouble, one of the boys is not a fan of seafood and fish to which I'm accustomed to cooking. I didn't feel ready to embark on cooking red meat, so I brought home two whole chicken to toy with. Admittedly, I'm a bit squirmish when it comes to touching raw meat especially when it still looks like a whole carcass, but I was deeply intrigued by the anatomy of a whole chicken since last week when I cooked a whole baked chicken encased in salt crust.

Prosciutto lemon parcels of chicken thighs

Prosciutto lemon parcels of chicken thighs
I borrowed Julie's idea (Masterchef Australia) of deboning chicken thighs, rolled and poaching them in its own broth (made using the bones) then baked wrapped with a slice of prosciutto and lemon. I tied mine up with a piece of string to keep them all together and of course adhering with the fancy idea of dinner party, it's always fun to cut off the string upon serving.

Truffled baked chicken breast

Truffled baked chicken breast
First I divided out the chicken into breast portions and thigh portions. I slipped truffle butter between the skin of the breast and baked it in my toaster sized oven. I sincerely do not recommend doing it with a small oven. There were some serious hissing and fire balls inside mine, festive yes but there might be more important safety issue. Anyway, this chicken goes well with aioli with just a touch of sesame oil, too much will overpower the delicate flavour of the truffle. The same sauce is also suitable for the thigh parcels.

Chocolate pot with grissini and fruit

Chocolate pot with grissini and fruit
For dessert, I made a lazy chocolate pot with strawberries and grissini made with some leftover from pizza dough. For the chocolate pot, I used about 200g of dark chocolate, finely chopped. Mix the chocolate with roughly 1 1/2 cup of cream and just heat while stirring with a balloon whisk until you get a smooth consistency. The chocolate will be between drinking chocolate and dipping chocolate thickness when warm but if you give it a little bit of time to cool it will be thicker. Serve with strawberries and banana.

Creme caramel for two

2009-07-20T21:22:00.007+10:00

Making creme caramel I believe is fueled by an unforgetable experience and may take a little dash of curiousity and a whole of courage. How could it not? I mean, who has the time (let alone patience) to sit there and ponder when the sugar solution looks like it's about the right color, and wait... did we know that caramel is essentially burnt sugar (to a degree)? I for one certainly didn't know this until my obsession with food pushed me to the culinary section of book stores and internet corners. So... if you had read my previous entry, you'd know that I had the intention of making smoked salmon roll, sharing one ingredient with creme caramel. No ready made creme caramel could emit that genuine caramel flavour of a home made and certainly no store bought could beat the satisfaction of making it yourself.

I did my research and found two base recipes that I think I could trust: one of Jamie Oliver and another of Neil Perry. I made some necessary adjustment to make precisely two pots of creme caramels and my ingredients are:

For the caramel

100 g caster sugar
80 g brown sugar
100 ml water

For the pudding

1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of cream
1 tablespoon of frangelico
180 g sugar
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks

Lining the bain marie with tea towel prevents the bottom from overheating

First off, the caramel. Combine the sugar and water in a pan on a medium heat and feel free to stir all you like until the sugar is all dissolved. Once that happens, I suggest hands off stirring and let it just bubble away. One of the recipes I read said to take it off the heat once it turns chestnut color, but I'm not quite sure what chestnut looks like so I went purely with feelings. Bear in mind that after you take the pan off the fire, the caramel will still continue to burn/color courtesy of residual heat. Divide the caramel into two ramekins. If you don't have them, use coffee mugs. Make sure they're oven proof or at least don't use your favourite mug.

Now the pudding. Beat egg and leave aside (preferably in the fridge). Combine sugar, milk, cream and Frangelico into a saucepan and heat until sugar is all dissolved then let it cool. My rule is that if you can dip you (clean) finger in the solution for 30 seconds comfortably without being burnt, it's good to go with the egg. Whisk just until combined and strain into the ramekins.

Preheat oven at 170 degree Celcius and in the meanwhile prepare a bain marie. Take a baking dish that would fit your two ramekins/mugs and line the bottom with a tea towel. Put in your two ramekins and fill the baking dish with boiling water until it reaches half the height of the ramekins/mugs and bake for about 45-50 minutes until the pudding sets. Once done, cool the pudding for about 3 hours. Now just before you serve it, immerse the ramekins/mugs in boiling water to warm the caramel. Slide a palette knife (I used a very fine fruit knife) around the edge of the ramekins/mugs to loosen up the pudding. Invert the ramekins/mugs on a plate and serve. :) Good luck!

Smoked salmon & dill roll

2009-07-20T20:17:00.005+10:00

I had inheritted a whole block of smoked salmon from Tassal at the Sydney good food and wine show. A block of salmon, can I say that? Smoked salmon is hardly a staple pantry ingredient but with this quantity around, I feel that I have the privillige to exhaust every known recipe without fear, but when it comes to naming names... what exactly could I do with smoked salmon apart from old bagel, cream cheese and smoked salmon? Or Salmon tossed around in salad, or pasta dish? For once, I put on my eye cover, resist the temptation of Google search and hey, what about an sushi like egg roll with salmon and its classic best friend dill and cream cheese? Alright so that took a little bit more than just voila, I meditated over lunch. It helps that I have a tonne of eggs that I want to get rid of and I'm attempting another go at making creme caramel.

I think this is as simple as it would get. You'll need

one whole egg
two egg whites (or you could just add a whole egg into this)
1 spring of dill, chopped
1 teaspoon of cream cheese

Mix the eggs together and season with salt and pepper. Heat an oiled frying pan and laddle about 2 tablespoons of the egg mixture, topping it with smoked salmon after carefully spreading the egg mixture evenly on the pan. After adding the salmon, add another 2 tablespoons of egg mixture and sprinkle dill. Fry the egg on one side for about 5 minutes on medium heat, then flip carefully and remove from fire after another 2 minutes or so. While still hot, spread cream cheese mixture on the omellete, roll up and sliced into four. Garnish with mayonaisse and dill sprig or you could also top it with caviar if your budget allows. Bon apetit!

Dumplings

2009-06-22T22:55:00.007+10:00

Fresh dumplings

My next holiday destination is China. Yes, it is indeed true and sad, I am a Chinese who has never stepped foot in China. I was invited to lunch by two of my colleagues who had passed their medical exam after only 8 weeks of preparation which if I may say is trully an exceptional achievement. The table was filled with happy dialogues and exchanges in Chinese in which I found my self lost after 15 minutes or so, unable to catch up with the conversations and jokes that were thrown around. Nevertheless, I was happy to have a place on the table amongst the esteemed senior scientists. A thought often tickles my mind, how about China after PhD or even after PostDoc? I do miss Asia, especially the food.

Dumpling dough, a love affair of water and wheat flour

Another colleague of mine had invited me to her home about a year ago and her mother and her had so kindly taught me of the art of 水餃 (shui jiao), which was the most amazing dumpling I had ever tasted. The texture of their home made dumpling skin turned me into a dumpling-skin snob so much that I would look down upon any ready made dumpling skins. I thought it would be appropriate to make some dumplings tonight.

Dumpling

Uglicious

2009-06-21T22:29:00.007+10:00

Pizza A la Midnight Bakery

They say pictures say a thousand words and in this particular case, it is terribly true. I spent the weekend cooking from Indonesian Nasi Tumpeng, to red bean filled bread, chocolate tart and... pizza. Pizza has evolved in its definition and meaning to me from Pizza Hut products which was the only pizza I was familiar with when I was FOB (fresh of the boat) to a respectful savoury Italian pie dish to a dish that I frequently violate. By violate, I don't mean to make a mockery of it, but like anything else that I make, I make it my own, my way.

I made the base with the bread dough that I had reserved, topped with a sauce that I concocted out of tomato paste, basil pesto, cracked pepper and chilli flakes. I blanketted the pizza with prosciutto which I had painfully carved myself, halved kalamata olives, mixed antipasto and finally mozzarella and a bit of parmesan.

It was uglicious.

Red bean

2009-06-21T22:05:00.003+10:00

Wholemeal bread with red bean paste filling

This recipe can be found in Midnight Bakery Easter Bun in 10 Easy to Follow Steps

Nasi Tumpeng Mini

2009-06-20T21:01:00.011+10:00

I thought I'd make a weekend of cooking Indonesian dishes, all to go around a mountain of nasi kuning (yellow rice), known as nasi tumpeng. Nasi tumpeng is the national celebratory dish of Indonesia that marks most birthdays, christenings, graduations, anniversaries, independence day celebrations, etc (you get the gist). It is essentially a conical shaped rice and can be made with plain rice, coconut flavoured rice or yellow rice (flavoured with tumeric and its other spices friends). The dish is often elaborately decorated and accompanied by a host of side dishes.

Nasi kuning and ikan teri
(made with nasi kuning paste from Kokita)

For my nasi tumpeng, I made side dishes of rendang ayam (chicken rendang), ayam bakar (grilled chicken), egg and salad with sambal terasi.

Telur goreng
(Shredded egg crepe)

It was quite fun. The fantastic thing about making this is that I would have tonnes of left over which is quite handy to a bento box, rich with color and tastes... well, as it turns out I don't have any leftover. (>"<)

Ayam bakar
(Grilled chicken with Nando marinate)

Ayam bakar bumbu Ayam Goreng Kokita

2009-06-09T00:10:00.005+10:00

Grilled chicken

You can get these packets of Indonesian chicken marinade in the supermarket or in the Asian grocer. You see, with 6 religions in the country, everyone is averse to consuming some sort of meat products. The Muslims don't eat pork products, the Hindus avoid beef products, and then you have minorities Buddhists who are vegans like my great aunts. Chicken, like the national anthem, unifies the country from Sabang to Merauke and I believe that it is for this reason that Indonesians develop such diverse ways of cooking chickens. I almost feel obligated to spell chicken with a capital C.

Bumbu Ayam Goreng is intended to be used as a marinade for fried chicken but considering the fuss of deep frying (and the calories), I opted for oven grilling and the result is just as good and healthier despite missing the crispy marinade that you'd get if you had deep fry the chicken.

Bumbu ayam goreng Kokita

I had made this a few times and if I may suggest to anyone out there who are thinking about doing this at home, it would be to cut the chicken into thicker chunks because you'd shrink the chicken while simmering and grilling (see pack for recipe detail).

Ayam bakar

I'd serve this with steamed rice, some Indonesian salad/lalapan of blanched cabbage (kol), cucumber (timun) and spicy sambal. Otherwise, you could pack it into a lunch as I'm doing with rice and just some side vegies. :)

My idea of a minestrone

2009-06-08T21:33:00.009+10:00

My idea of a minestrone with anchovy fillet and basil pesto

The university campus where I did my undergraduate had a great little pizza cafe at the edge of its campus, near the student union area. It's called the Pizza Cafe and as the name suggests, they make and sell pizza, fantastic wood fire oven pizzas with generous toppings from A-Z inspired by movie titles. What was perhaps not so well advertised was their amazing minestrone, which in my own personal experience was totally and completely out of this world.

The minestrone came in a warm (ginormous) bowl, filled to the brim with warm aromatic minestrone soup topped with parmesan cheese and red oil droplets gathering on the edge of the bowl. On the side, you'd find a rustic and almost shapeless bread stick, warm and freshly brought out of the same wood fire oven where they baked their pizza, full of life and powdered with flour. It was great as a summer dinner but the romantic cold air of winter intensifies the sensation of every spoonful that greeted my taste buds.

I'm going back to attend my sister's graduation this semester and I'll be sure to order a bucketfull of their minestrone, but for now, I gathered a few ingredients here and there, and proceeded to make my own.

To make My idea of a Minestrone, you'll need

2 tablespoon of minced garlic
1 shallots
bacon bone
4 rashers of bacon, diced
1 carrot, diced
1 zucchini, diced
a can of mixed beans
a can of tomatoes
basil and pine nut pesto
parmesan cheese
anchovies

Alright, first of all, breathe in deeply because you're about to embark on an amazing adventure. Put on that apron and grab a sharp knife and slice the shallots. Get the saucepan fired up with a healthy splash of olive oil. Once hot, add in the shallots and after they've softened, add in the garlic and the diced bacon. Stir them around until fragrant, add in the diced carrot and zucchini and sweat them around for a little bit before you add in the bacon bone, water and simmer away for roughly half an hour. Add the mixed beans and tomatoes and let sit for another 15 minutes or so. Serve in a bowl, topped with shaved parmesan cheese, anchovies, a teaspoon of basil pesto and freshly cracked pepper.

Feel free to add or substitute any vegetable or leave out the bacon and bacon bones with chicken. I think minestrone is one of the world's greatest soup because of its adjustability and of the rich flavours.

Egg with kecap manis

2009-06-06T12:16:00.003+10:00

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

This all is really just an excuse to play with my camera :P

Shio Saba

2009-06-04T21:26:00.006+10:00

Hi everyone, I am back from my PhD-induced blogger coma. All is well again for the time being, the sun is shining, although this scenery is far from the current reality of Sydney's winter rain. Yup, t'is the season of thick coat, funky winter boots, gorgeous scarfs and wintery food. I'm itching to make my own minestrone soup with some serious tomatoes and legumes, and depending on how chirpy I feel, maybe even celery (uggghhh).

Meanwhile, yesterday after catching a movie with my lab mates, I caught myself a bag of frozen Korean salted mackerel. Gosh I was the happiest girl in this city last night. It is, in my humble opinion, the most delicious fish especially growing up in a geographically remote location where the well-known tuna and salmon were almost unheard of. Despite this, we were and are blessed with mackerels. You know the species thrive when the locals make salted versions of the fish and steamed salted mackerel with young tumeric leaves and shallots is what I seek, I crave and I find when luck is beside me in my trip home. Here in Sydney, you can find mackerel in Japanese and Korean restaurants although theirs are much bigger than our pinky-to-thumb sized mackerels.
The Korean salted mackerel came in a pack of 3 fillets for $6.20. It was a relief because buying things there is sometimes a gamble. Firstly, I don't always know what I am buying because there's no English translation anywhere and every purchase is almost driven by pure curiousity and an adventurous spirit. Secondly, I can't always find the price. It's a bit of a pain because it takes me about 2 minutes to match one price tag on the shelve with the Korean writing on one packet. But anyway, I still go back there again and again like an addict.

All that I did to make a meal was to score the X on the fillet and grill the baby, press "cook" on my rice cooker, and shred some vegetables. Done.

Soto Ayam

2009-05-15T19:18:00.008+10:00

Soto ayam

Yup, still the same old story. I'm under a lot of pressure to produce a nice presentation to show of what I have done in my one and a half year of PhD. My supervisor told me not to stress, my colleagues said that I will be fine, yet I cannot help but feel anxious. When I started my PhD, I felt a little bit out of place but the feeling is accompanied by a strong hope that in time, I will develop all the skills to know, to do and more importantly, to be. Here I am, having done almost one and a half year of it. Having reached this stage, I have come to realise that it isn't enough to hope that I will acquire knowledge, but to actively and constantly seek out for more. I do wonder if anyone in this business ever feel satisfied with themselves, if the most confident of my colleagues and supervisors ever do, and if such exists, I wonder if I will ever reach that peace myself.

Espresso souffle of potato and bacon

2009-05-10T16:32:00.010+10:00

Espresso sized souffle with soy fish and salad
dressed with the reduction of the fish marinate

I bought a bag of baby potatoes from the neighbourhood fruit and vegetable store with the intention to make baked baby potatoes like the ones that I loved back in my days in the boarding school. But considering that that particular love (and many other things) turned me into a fat teenager I thought of a better idea: a shift towards exercising some inventive energy to churn these babies into something else that is more than ordinary.

Espresso sized potato and bacon souffle

I thought about souffle. Despite having no experience in making anything close to a souffle except for a few botched attempt at making mousse, I proceeded undetered. I think one shouldn't fear the unknown and I hope that I am able to practice this phillosophy in life outside the kitchen.

To make my improvised potato souffle, please gather from your surrounding:

4 baby potatoes
1 spring onion
1/4 cup of shredded cheese
3 bacon rasher
1 fresh egg
180 ml of milk
1/2 cup of self-raising flour

First, get some water boiling with salt and plonk in the skinned potatoes. Alternately, you could also steam the babes. Next slice the spring onions and dice the bacon. Separate out the white bits of the spring onion from the green. While the potatoes are cooking, fire up a frying pan and with a little bit of oil, cook the white bits of the spring onions until slightly brown. Then having taken that aside on a plate, fry up the bacon. At this point you don't need any extra oil. Set them aside in a big bowl. Once the potato is done, mash them well and mix with the spring onions and bacon. Beat the egg well with a fork and mix into the potato mixture, adding the cheese in the process. Add the self-raising flour and milk and continue to mix. Season with pepper. Divide into ramekins and bake in a preheated oven at 170 degree Celcius for about 30 minutes until the souffle is risen and golden brown on the top.

If you like, you could incorporate some finely diced carrots into the souffle. I think this is a great idea to get kids to eat their vegetables.

Pretty in pink

In my improvisation today I have learnt a few things:

One could use espresso cups in place of ramekins in baking
One could pull out this souffle from the cup without pre-oiling them
I still hate raw vegetable

Bubur Ikan Sudirman (Fish porridge a la Sudirman)

2009-05-07T23:23:00.008+10:00

Bubur ikan Sudirman

Winter has precipitated over the Southern hemisphere. It's cold, it's dry and the the sound that of the wind blowing through the thin opening of the window into my kitchen moans for something to soothe and bring home the warmth. In my family, there's no comfort food like porridge.

Essential sauce: sliced chilli in fish sauce

By blood, I belong to a Chinese subgroup called Chaozhou (潮州) who originated from Southern China, but is now widely spread out into South East Asia. The Chaozhou cuisine is best known for its porridge and what sets Chaozhou porridge apart from Cantonese style rice porridge, for instance, is that it is not cooked in broth so that it's plain as rice and is served with a number of side dishes like pickled mustard leaves, preserved tofu, meats, fishes and vegetables.

The base of the porridge: rice, dong-cai (冬菜) and sliced spring onions

Another type of porridge that I absolutely love are found in night stalls. The vendors set up their 'restaurants from about 6 or 7 in the evening and the restaurants consist of simple tables that wobble because they are set on broken asphalt, and plastic chairs. On the table there would be white pepper, chili and fish sauces in recycled Fanta or Coca-cola bottles and pepper. My favourite could be found on Jalan Sudirman.

Building the porridge: Fish, fried garlic and shallots

I'm making my own version of this fish porridge and I think the recipe is especially useful if you, like me, have a lot of left over rice and rice that sticks to the side of the rice cooker and become dry and inedible. All you need to do is soak it overnight then drain the water off as much as possible. The result is a re-plumped rice and it is just as good as freshly cooked rice for the making of this fish porridge.

Final product: tadah!

To make my fish porridge a la Sudirman you will need:

1 fish fillet (I used flake fillet)
rice
Fish broth (is preferable, but I used chicken broth)
a handful of fresh greens
1 spring onions
1 teaspoon of dong cai (冬菜)
1 teaspoon of fried garlic
1 teaspoon of fried shallots
1 tablespoon of fish sauce
1 bird eye chilli
white pepper

The star of the dish is of course the fish so once you have that poached in the broth, all there is left to do is assembly. First, get the broth boiling and prepare everything else like slicing the fish, chilli and spring onions. Spoon a portion of rice into a bowl and top with dong cai (冬菜) and spring onions. Once the broth is boiling, poached the fish for a few minutes then pick them out and arrange on top of the rice. Add a handful of the green vegetable and the garlic and shallots. Pour in the broth, season with white pepper and serve with chilli in fish sauce.

For me, all the ingredients that I listed here are essential because leaving out any of them would break the dish. Most of them you could find in the supermarket except for dong cai (冬菜) which you will find in Chinese grocer. I have added a picture link for those not familiar with this ingredient. Hopefully it will help you identify the item in the shops. As for the white pepper, the most aromatic of them are grown in Borneo which in Australia, you will be able to find in some good grocers and labelled as Sarawak pepper.

Nasi Goreng Laksa

2009-05-04T21:01:00.013+10:00

Nasi goreng Laksa

"Today's steamed rice is tomorrow's fried rice," so recites many forwarded joke emails on what defines an Asian. Another one of my favourite is "You know you're Indonesian when you carry a bottle of your own chilli wherever you go." Well, with the airline rules to strict these days, I can't do that but I was so delighted when I found a Nando stand selling any 3 sauces and marinates for $10 in the Kingscross festival.

The most stereotypical Indonesian dish is Nasi Goreng, which literally translates to fried rice. I'm not sure if it if possible to find the original recipe even if you land in Indonesia and search all over. Indonesia is an archipelago made up of tens of thousands of islands and is a multi ethnic society. My mother has her own recipe as do my nanny, my aunts, my cousins and restaurants from those that reside within hotels to street side hawkers. Multiply that by the number of islands and you'll roughly get the number of variation available.

My nasi goreng nestled on a Japanese desert bowl that I received for my birthday

Nasi goreng is one of those great yet simple and nurturing food that employs, in its least elaborate form, humble ingredients such as rice, soy sauce and eggs. I made a version tonight using the jar of laksa paste (bumbu laksa) in my cupboard, some black bean anchovies (ikan teri bumbu tauco hitam), fresh eggs and steamed rice, still freshy steaming from my rice cooker. The great thing about this is that it's vegetarian and it calls for ingredients that you can very easily find in your pantry. If not, you could always take up my phillosophy in cooking: Improvise!

To make my Nasi Goreng Laksa, you'll need

2 fresh eggs
1 1/2 tablespoon of laksa paste (I used Asia at home which you could easily find in any Australian supermarket)
a soup bowl of rice
2 teaspoons of jarred Asian anchovies/ikan teri/ikan bilis (but if you don't have this, don't worry, just use a small can of tuna in oil or springwater).

Heat a wok or pan with 2 tablespoon of oil until it's smokey then pour in beaten eggs into the wok. This bit is fun, you get to see the eggs curdle. Fry the egg, quickly but don't over do it. Take it off the heat and rest the egg on a plate when it's still slightly runny. next put the laksa sauce and the anchovy or tuna into the wok and stir around. Add the rice and stir well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the eggs and mix around. At this stage the eggs would be broken off into little bits scattered around. Serve!

Grilled honey and miso salmon & steamed frittata

2009-05-03T19:49:00.009+10:00

Steamed spinach and baby tomato frittata

Back to Earth, back to Sydney and back to the reality that Australia is in the middle of a recession. Apart from that, I just got two lotus shaped sauce dishes from Japan city (on special!! :D) that look so pretty when teamed up with sake cups so I need an excuse to parade it.

Grilled honey and miso salmon & steamed frittata

One of the easiest and least expensive ingredients to toy with is egg. Pairing eggs with sake cups, I thought about chawan mushi, a savoury steamed egg custard dish, but I don't have anything pretty to go with like the little pink and white fish cakes or prawns. What I do have is frozen spinach and I thought about doing a version of frittata... steamed spinach frittata! And because I bought some baby tomatoes from the Farmers' Market yesterday, I decided to chuck that on the top. Like usual, this is an improvisation dish and dare I say that it would make a perfect breakfast item, but considering the time, it'd make a very late or a really early breakfast. I went with dinner and made miso and honey glazed salmon.

Grilled miso and honey salmon

Steamed spinach and baby tomato frittata recipe

You'll need:

2 cubes of frozen spinach (the ones I bought came in cubes in the box)
2 eggs
about half a cup (~125 ml) of fish or seafood stock or you could use water and stock powder

Now thaw the frozen spinach for a good hour or so, then beat the eggs in a bowl mixing it with the stock, pour in the thawed spinach and mix well. Season with salt and pepper. Pour or spoon the mixture into a cup and prepare a steamer. If you have a steamer, that's great, follow the manufacturer's instruction. If you don't have a steamer like me, that's okay. Get a sauce pan, a little round cooling rack and arrange the egg cups on the rack. Boil some water and pour it in carefully just below the bottom of the egg cups, cover and turn on the fire on medium heat. Let it steam for about 15-20 minutes and voila!

Honey and miso glazed salmon recipe

You'll need:

2 salmon steak, halved length way
2 teaspoons of white miso paste
1 tablespoon of honey
roughly 100 ml of sake (I swear by this to get rid of the fishy smell)
1 teaspoon of white sesame seeds

Marinating the salmon

Now the easy bit is to mix the miso, honey and the sake together until it forms a nice thin paste or a thick sauce. Add the sesame seeds and mix well before adding the salmon into the marinating sauce. Coat the salmon really well and refrigerate for 2 hours. Grill the salmon steak with the marinating sauce spooned over the top of the salmon until the steak goes brown on the top and the skin crispy. To serve, use a wide knife/cleaver or a palette knife to lift it off the baking tray and be gentle as the salmon is really fragile. Bon apetit!

Blancharu review

2009-05-03T15:33:00.012+10:00

Trout with roasted pepper on the top and prawn ravioli with basil sauce on the bottom

For my birthday this year, I went to Blancharu for dinner as a treat. Blancharu is a Franco-Japanese restaurant run by chef Harunobu and it serves Japanese cuisine with French influence. The ambiance is warm and welcoming while staff are friendly and seems to know their stuff well.

Beef steak on potato

My friend and I had the 8 course degustation and the kitchen had kindly accomodated to my fussy eating preference of no pork, although in the future and for more sensitive customers perhaps they'd note that the bacon in carbonara sauce is still a pork product. The meals were beautifully presented and tasted wonderful! They even let me indulge in (and encouraged) my photo taking obsession. We tried to keep it to a minimum so not to disturb the other guests.

Warm apple struddle with apple ice cream

The head chef and owner, Harunobu, came out a few times, chatting to guests and after a quick mention that it was my birthday by my friend, my desert of warm apple struddle came decorated with a birthday wish in chocolate. I thought it was very sweet gesture from the kitchen.

I'm one happy birthday girl

The food was delicious. The degustation started with sashimi of four fishes which was fresh and light with beautiful sauce. The cold chicken and peach terrine (steamed) with pear (and walnut?) didn't really sit well with me because I'm not so fond of mixing my fruit with meat and I don't like cold dishes, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't finish such a beautiful dish. The bread rolls on offer were sourdough and black sesame rolls. What interesting ingredients! After long contemplation, I resisted the black sesame and opted for the sourdough. In my amateuristic opinion, the bread roll was a bit tough, probably due to short second fermetation. Despite that, the gorgeous flavour of the sourdough really stood out. My personal favourite was the prawn ravioli, the handmade fetucinne carbonara and the miso glazed trout on a bed of spinach.

I'd recommend this restaurant and if you'd like to get an overall taste of what this restaurant has to offer, I suggest trying the degustation. For me personally, I'll definately come back again to try the a la carte.

Blancharu is located on Shop 1, 21 Elizabeth Bay Rd, Elizabeth Bay, NSW 2011. Other reviews of this restaurant can be found on Eatability.

Vanuatu 2009

2009-05-02T16:49:00.015+10:00

The sandy beach of Hideaway island

My skin colour set me apart from the locals and the usual tourists, but I couldn't feel more at home in Port Villa. It felt like I had taken a step into a time rich society nestled in paradise where all they need is supplied by Mother Nature. The water is clean; the earth is rich and the people honest and friendly.

Cultural show at one of the villages, ATTACK!!

Upon landing we walked on the tarmac into the international airport building and on our way to the custom officials, passed a number of men cuddling their instruments and singing local songs. This should have served as a warning that the adventure ahead would have captured our hearts.

Gorgeous starfish everywhere

Starfishes, corals and shells carpet the ground far into the horizon (careful where you step)

Customs was fast and efficient, but next came the sexy luggage search. I wasn't quite sure what the officials were looking for in my sad, bare and almost empty suitcase. There weren't many things that they could confiscate apart from my clothes and tripod. I would have taken some pictures but at this point the place was so foreign that I thought I'd better behave.

Au Peche Mignon, Port Villa

Almond biscuit from Au Peche Mignon

We were picked up by the kind people from Vanuatu Adventures and it was so funky. We all got into a minibus and the driver handed us each a bottle of water and wet towelette. The drive into town was eye opening and by the way, they drive on the right hand side. At first glace, you'd think "Oh my God, I have landed in the middle of nowhere" until you see the water, until you see the market and personally for me, until I had tasted the chicken pie from Au Peche Mignon, a little French cafe in town. I fell in love with this town, with how they sell fresh vegetables in the market, how the fishermen come in with an esky of freshly caught fish, holding them up for sale in bunches like bananas for Vt 400 each.

Grilled poulet fish on a bed of rice wrapped with bokchoy from Wild Ginger

We spent Sunday in the resort because nothing in town is open, or so we were informed. We swam in the beach, we swam in all the pools, we drank at the pool bar, we tried out the BBQ lunch, explored the beach, tried Wild Ginger restaurant in the resort, canoed over to the neighbouring island, but mostly we behaved like how Asian tourists are, we took what would have been a tonne of photos if not for digital camera and digital storage. I took more than 4 Gigabyte worth of photos and the amount spilled over to my back up memory card.

Ginormous seafood platter from Chill restaurant in town

Cosmopolitan and strawberry daiquiri from Sebel Hotel

Resting in the pool bar after a day of exhaustive exploration, I talked to the bar staff. I was curious about how they really live because despite having turned almost every rock and pebbles in the beach in search for shells, we had minimum contact with the locals. I wanted to know how they lived, how they perceived their young independence from the French and British colonization, what time they started working and if they have enough time with their family and I'm not convinced that life there is as easy I thought it was.

Local children at the beach

It is naive to think that this primary version of self-sustainability is sustainable in the long term. With time, the globalisation of multinational corporate giants will engulf this beautiful paradise as they have conquered many. It was a sad discovery when I was told that there is no compulsory education and schooling were charged at Vt 9000 a term. I thought it would be impolite for me to ask the average income, but our tour guide did mention that many children do not go to school because parents often cannot afford the school fees. How will the children of their children live without having the currency to exchange for education? Without education how will they have jobs that will provide proper nutrition, clothing, land to shelter and future for the next generation?

View from Cafe du Village

As for now, I am minimally assured by a simple question posed by my travel companion as our plane touched down on the autumnal Sydney soil "Do you realise that there is no MacDonald's in Port Villa?"

Shitake bread rolls

2009-04-24T11:56:00.009+10:00

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!

2009-04-23T18:55:00.005+10:00

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

2009-04-17T00:20:00.006+10:00

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.

This is the vegetarian chicken

I found a vacuum pack of vegetarian chicken breast (don't ask), a vacuum pack of pickled mustard vegetable, some dried konbu, fresh egg... (we're getting there) cucumber (okay, i think I can deal with cooked cucumber), dried Malaysian anchovies (maybe this could substitute Japanese fish stock), 3 jars of assorted chilli paste, miso paste and a pack of instant ramen, JACKPOT!

I heart dill

2009-04-12T22:15:00.009+10:00

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!
The only thing I know about dill is that it's one of the main ingredients for gravlax, which is a scandinavian dish of cured salmon. Funky little dish that is, but as for me, I don't like much of sugar in anything, prefering the savoury taste over sweet so I went home with the bunch of dills in my little hot hands and I marinated some salmon with salt, dill and sake. The sake gets rid of the fishy smell that often penetrates every space in your apartment when you cook fish. I let the fish marinate away in the fridge for a few hours while I twiddle my thumbs and watched "How to lose a guy in 10 days".
Come dinner time, all I had to do was to heat my grill and grill these babies. The sake will evaporate, leaving almost no trace. I'm yet to master the art of sake appreciation to be able to capture the taste of this delicate drink. Meanwhile, the dill marries into the salmon perfectly. I couldn't be more pleased. The real star of today's Easter dinner however, was the salad.
I packed in just 3 heads of endive/witlof, peeled off the bigger petals or leaves as "bowls" and diced off the rest with some carrots for the "fillings" dressed with dill-sesame mayonaisse. Unfortunately, I didn't buy any of those wonderful dill aiolli from the Easter show yesterday so I had to make my own. The trouble with buying herbs is that they last forever, and often goes into waste. Before buying a bunch of herb, I often have to brainstorm dishes that require the same herbs so to avoid the situation and most times, I end up coming home herbless.
So if you buy dill, make mayonaisse, marinate fish... make dill infused oil. Please tell me how it goes if you decide to take the last advice. The other option, which I find works and is super pracitcal, is to go shopping with your best friend and share the herbs. You don't need to make the same dish but if you do, you could probably learn off each other by tasting each other's versions the next day over lunch.

Last tip on minimizing wastage, if you make pizza and have leftover dough, make cheese grissini. With many things in your fridge, you could possibly also whip up some minestrone soup the following day to go with the bread stick. I remember back in my uni days, the pizza cafe at UQ's St Lucia campus used to serve up their delicious minestrone soup with freshy baked grissini. I believe that they have a mean traditional pizza oven too because the smell, the taste and the texture of the crust is just something else. Hmmmm....
As for mine, I gave some to my dinner guests to take home. It can be easily heated up in the oven or microwave, but delicious as it is too.

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

2009-04-10T15:53:00.001+10:00

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

2009-04-10T12:55:00.008+10:00

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.

I think this is too messy for party finger food but it's great for home finger food. I peeled one medium sized potato, sliced it as thinly as I possibly could and pan fried it with a little bit of oil until it's brown and crispy on both sides. Next is the prosciutto but this time, without oil. Blot both potatoes and prosciutto on absorbent paper. Last but not least of the cooking steps is the scallops. Halve it lengthway and heat truffle butter on your pan until it's frothy, then chuck in the scallops taking care not to overcook them. Arrange on plate and serve as soon as you could and don't add anymore salt, the prosciutto has that taken care of.
You scoop it up with a spoon, adding some greens and in it goes. A note for anyone who is about to try this recipe at home: consider the size of each ingredient before getting over-excited about the cooking. You'd want to be able to eat this in one mouthfull without stretching those beautiful lips and chewing with your cheeks buldging out. Not only this is unsightly (but if you're eating alone, who cares), it also impairs your taste buds to experience the taste and the texture as a whole.

Black truffle scallops on crispy potato and prociutto - Batch2

For my second batch, I made gravy from the pan juice to go with the dish. Using beer to make the gravy brought out the flavour of the truffle, the fume filled my apartment and set off my fire alarm. It's fantastic fun! If you can think of a song or a piece fast enough you could hum along to the beat of the beeps.

Midnight Bakery Easter bun in 10 easy to follow steps!

2009-04-10T10:23:00.008+10:00

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

Mix all dried ingredients together, that's the flour, yeast, tea, sugar and salt. Chuck in the cubed butter too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rest them for 3-6 hours. I rested mine overnight.
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.
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.
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.
Bon appétit!

Crisp Crosp

2009-04-10T08:27:00.008+10:00

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

2009-04-09T20:06:00.010+10:00

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

2009-04-06T22:52:00.005+10:00

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!

2009-04-06T20:13:00.004+10:00

“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.

Sourdough project - Day 5

2009-03-31T08:26:00.002+10:00

The starter started to emit a strong smell. I can't say it's yeasty or alcoholic but it's something. I discarded half of it last night and fed it more plain flour and water. According to the direction, it will be ready to be used to make bread in 2-5 days.

Sourdough project - Day 4

2009-03-30T10:29:00.003+10:00

Yup... it's alive alright. Overnight the starter had overgrown its container.

The sourdough project

2009-03-29T12:38:00.006+10:00

It is decided, I am stepping up to the challenge of making sourdough. Armed with my amateur expertise and experience in baking bread from scratch and instant yeast package, this midnight baker is making her own starter from plain flour, honey, water and drumrolls please... no instant yeast in sight.

Today is day 2 and I am begining to see bubbles forming and yellow spots on the surface of this starter. No yeasty alcoholic smell detected just yet and admitedly the temptation to scatter half a teaspoon of instant yeast has tickled my mind. But I shall persist with my original recipe until the end.. or day 5. :P

Twenty minute bruschetta

2009-03-25T17:47:00.007+10:00

I made this colorful bruscetta from a bread I made over 2 days. That's right, two days. I made oregano bread from the dough that I fermented for at least 24 hours because I believe that time along with quality ingredients make the best bread. The shape of the bread wasn't the best as it turned out, but like many things in life you just summon all your might and all your will to make the best out of imperfect things and situations.

If I call this dinner in 5, it would be a lie. It took me a while to slice the bread, open up the container of the semi-dried tomatoes, spread the tapenade, take the parmesan cheese from the fridge, cure the salami... just kidding. But 20 minutes will do and you have a healthy, easy and delicious dinner. Bon appétit!

Le rêve du Cordon Bleu

2009-03-22T16:16:00.008+10:00

Wholemeal bread in the form of a loaf and pain de champagne

Parmesan grissini

Double chocolate pecan biscotti

2009-03-22T10:30:00.008+10:00

I have been humbled to have been asked by a foodie magazine in my homeland to contribute in their publications but alas, with my oven as my witness, I cannot at this time. Experiments call and I see in a distance stretched out beyond the excitement of significant differences, funny GTT and ITT curves and RNA extraction... a time when my science and my love of food will meet and marry.

For now, reperforming a nostalgic recipe will do. I made double chocolate pecan biscotti last night for two reasons. First, I hope that it will gain me some forgiveness for a mishap with someone close and secondly, I haven't made biscotti for soooo long. It's one of those recipes that I'm a bit intimidated by. A number of times I made this, it always came out tasting very chemical-ee which I believe comes from the baking soda. So this time, armed with a bag of self raising flour that has twice the fibre of normal flour (and it's not wholemeal), I proceeded.

I tested two at breakf... I mean, brunch, with coffee and I think it's okay. I love the chocolate surprises that comes in every bite (I had chopped the chocolate to very fine pieces) and the texture of baked pecans. The crunch and aroma of baked pecan is something else that surpasses peanut, hazelnut and walnut. Overall, I personally thing that this is a pass.

Seniman roti yang bercita-cita menjadi dukun pastry

2009-02-28T15:51:00.006+10:00

Hasil karya roti tawar seperti yang dijual di toko-toko roti Eropa, tentu saja dengan sentuhan lembut dan manisnya Asia.

Fatty BoomBoom

2009-02-28T14:23:00.007+10:00

My sister, Henny, and her boyfriend, Fatty Boom-Boom, are visitting Sydney this week and it gives me a fantastic chance to stuff them silly like the making of foie gras. Last night on the way home we bought some bacon flavoured mini vegetarian sausages, making me the most armed and dangerous sistah in Sydney. I made some mini hotdogs with them, topped with a good heap of scallions/spring onions and mozzarella.

Time of birth: 11:32
Time of death: 15:50
Number of alledged perpetrators: 3 (with Fatty Boom-Boom committing most of the crime)

Henny & BoomBoom doing the Shaolin pose in Darling Harbour

Note. Calling someone Fatty Boom-Boom is only funny because the "fat" bit is not true. It would of course be rude and unfunny if it was otherwise.

Salt-rubbed ocean trout

2009-01-19T07:38:00.007+10:00

I was inspired by the salmon posted in Curiously Ravenous. The other night I came home from work with an almost-obsessive-like determination to cook up a storm. The bread from my previous post were the result of the cooking fever as were the potato salad and a turnip and carrot stew in dashi stock (not shown). God forgive me for I skinned my vegetables, threw away the water in which I boiled them, mashed them and mixed them with copious amount of mayonaise and sodium.

In the picture is salt rubbed ocean trout that I left overnight before grilling, seaweed salad, potato salad and shredded eggs, which usually comes as a obligatory side dish in nasi kuning, nasi uduk, nasi tumpeng and all sorts of nasi dishes (nasi means rice in Indonesian). It was a delicious satisfying meal that was just right. (^-^)

Sunday Bake-Fest

2009-01-18T19:22:00.006+10:00

I made some chocolate pull-aparts in my favorite cake tin. The chocolate bread is bread dough mixed in with roughly a gazillion shreds of finely chopped dark chocolate. I fermented the dough overnight and after shaping, I left the dough to proof for about 6 hours. It's Sunday after all when time is a luxury that one needs no justification to savour.
The rest of the dough was converted into crusty plain bread rolls and salami batons. I think I finally got it. This morning I made just one bread bun from the lot of dough. I left it in the oven for a bit longer than I usually would and without my usual egg wash. A thick layer of crust formed and it was delicious. There was no need to add pats of butter for the smell evaporating from the roll was enough.

As for the salami batons, I topped the dough with tomato paste (instead of tomato sauce) after egg wash. I've been feeding my colleagues with previously made vegetarian sausage bread and one of them commented that the tomato sauce was too sweet. Having replaced vegetarian sausage which consisted of Asian flavouring and spices with Mediteranian style cured sausage, I thought this bread would capture the essence of pizza if I used tomato paste together with the rest of my usual ingredients: oregano, mayonaisse (not so pizza-like but I simply cannot live without this ingredient) and parmesan cheese.
I broke my pastry brush...

Just for Gina

2009-01-12T00:31:00.007+10:00

Just for Gina, sepupu favoritku yang setiap malam nemenin aku masak di rumah (sambil nonton tv). Tapi eniwei, yang penting si Bohlam selalu dengan setia mengincipi masakanku, ngasih komentar, mengkritik tanpa malu-malu dengan kamera yang selalu siap memotret. Oh ai mis yu.
Wahai sepupu, pandangilah roti-rotiku yang akhirnya sukses setelah dirimu pergi mengembara dunia... mengilerlah sebanyak-banyaknya dan jangan lupa ngecesnya dilap ya. Kakakakaka.

Washing up

2008-12-29T15:33:00.001+10:00

Brioche au chocolat

2008-12-28T21:32:00.008+10:00

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!!

2008-12-24T17:47:00.005+10:00

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

Mix all dry ingredients together and make a well in the center.
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.
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.
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.
Now, your dough should be at least doubled in size. Push down and just knead the dough briefly.
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.
Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celcius for 10 minutes.
Bake and watch.

Bonne chance et Joyeaux Noel!!

Cookies & recipe

2008-12-10T15:25:00.013+10:00

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

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.
Add the egg, one by one, mixing well at each addition.
(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.
Sift the flour into the butter mixture and mix it.
Add pecan and chocolate chips and just make sure they're distributed evenly.
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.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree Celsius.
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

2008-12-10T10:29:00.004+10:00

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

2008-12-07T09:46:00.003+10:00

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

2008-12-04T09:17:00.009+10:00

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

2008-12-01T07:17:00.008+10:00

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!!

2008-11-30T16:44:00.005+10:00

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)

2008-11-30T10:53:00.010+10:00

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

2008-11-29T21:09:00.013+10:00

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

2008-11-20T07:28:00.004+10:00

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

2008-11-17T23:14:00.005+10:00

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

2008-11-17T19:06:00.006+10:00

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

2008-11-17T12:53:00.001+10:00

blame it on the weather

2008-11-16T13:45:00.003+10:00

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

2008-10-20T21:40:00.013+10:00

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

2008-10-13T20:37:00.003+10:00

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

2008-10-04T12:17:00.001+10:00

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!

2008-08-22T20:08:00.005+10:00

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

2008-08-20T21:19:00.007+10:00

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

2008-08-18T22:58:00.007+10:00

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

2008-03-24T16:00:00.005+10:00

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.

bento magique

2007-12-09T22:19:00.002+10:00

my bento 1: black sesame & brown rice onigiri (rice ball) topped with umeboshi (pickled japanese plum), braised lotus root marinated in sweet soy sauce, all on a bed of shredded cabbage.

my bento 2: omelette bed, tuna salad, Korean pickled raw squid and vegetarian sausage.

24 on the 24th

2007-05-02T21:55:00.000+10:00

又再過了一年了...
我今年已經畢業, 工作. 希望明年可以順利繼續念PhD... 再三年, 年級已經大了. 就是要專心得鑽錢照顧爸媽. 恩, 就這樣.

今年的生日過得很開心. 謝謝大家. (^_^)

Egg Benedict

2007-01-11T08:00:00.001+10:00

Happy new year! Insomnia has striked again and I find my self reading recipe books and watching cooking shows on YouTube. Things on my mind at the moment are 1. worrying about the never arriving contracts from the new lab. 2. wanting so desperately to plan my getaway from Brisbane and 3. a little drama in my private life. I tried jogging, cooking and gardening to calm my mind a little but they don't seem to help. Last night I managed to sleep a bit after midnight but I ended up having this unpleasant dream about making egg benedict on my bed and ruining my beautiful white sheets. I used to get these unpleasant sleeps when I worried about my experiments or about a month before piano recital or exams.

Anyway, so why egg benedict? A few days ago I was unable to sleep until about 6AM; I Googgled "breakfast" and landed my self on Breakfast Blogger. My favourite entry is Room Service at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan: NYC breakfast #3. I love staying at hotels though sometimes I get a bit scared and sometimes paranoid. There are so many entries which feature eggs (naturally) and the author(s) kindly inserted a Youtube video on how to make Truffled Egg Benedict. I'd heard of this name before and I think I even have the recipe somewhere in one or two of my books but I never really paid attention to it or knew what it is exactly.

After the nightmarish dream, I decided that I MUST make egg benedict, but first I need bread. I had left bread out of my shopping last night because I'm such a bread snob. Well, not really. It's just that, why buy commercially made bread with preservatives and funny chemical in it when I can make my own fresh loaf the way I like it (with tons of salt, chilli and garlic). So first thing was making bread. It was a good loaf, unlike the one I made 2 nights ago that ended up being like a really massive cracker (>"<).

Egg benedict as I understand it is essentially poached egg presented on a tower of toasted bread or English muffin and bacon, topped with a generous dollop (or whatever it is supposed to be called) of Hollandaise sauce; while the asparagus serves as a garnish and nutritional booster.

This is my first time making Hollandaise sauce; it's a bit like mayonaise except the egg is whisked with some heat involved. I didn't use clarified butter of course and the egg was fried sunny side up instead of poached. Maybe I'll follow things more religiously when I start cooking as a career. Hehehe. On the side is tomato, quickly pan fried (Yes, it looks soggy. It was soggy. I'll try better next time) and some potato cubes that I boiled for about 30 minutes then pan-fried with some curry powder and lemon grass. 30 minutes sounds a bit excessive and I had never done it before but they were soooooo soft with slightly crunchy exterior. It sort of just melted in my mouth after I broke the crunch. I should eat more potatoes (or maybe I should stick with my low calorie vegetable soup for a while, considering my escalating weight).

I tied my sister to the dining chair and made her eat it. Just kidding. She is, as always, my voluntary guinea pig, my sweet sweet kitchen test rat. She liked it. I'm happy. Let's hope tonight I could sleep in peace. Amen.

knottin' noodle

2007-01-02T02:58:00.001+10:00

自己做麵條真好玩. 今天晚上我又再做. 照片上的是香菇味跟Bonito 味的.

剛剛 YouTube 上有看到一個 CHEF 做麵條. 看起來好像在看人家表演功夫. Click here to watch the noodle 師傅.太利害了!!! 現在會了自己做, 希望不會再吃泡麵... 但我還是做不到泡麵的湯那麼 yummy. (>"<)

Aku sedih, nga jadi ke Korea.

fresh new year, fresh noodle

2007-01-01T20:08:00.001+10:00

Happy new year!! (^o^) I hope everyone has had a great 2006 and a fantastic holiday. My parents came over for my graduation and left on Christmas day. I got miserably ill that day and couldn't stomach anything solid for a few miserable days. I recovered just in time to welcome the new years with my cousins and their cousins, one of whom came from Adelaide for the Christmas break. I went along with them to the city and on our stop at Borders I found a recipe book for pasta. I knew I shouldn't buy another recipe book so after hugging it for about an hour, I let go, keeping in my memory the basic recipe to make fresh pasta.

I've always wanted to make my own fresh noodle. I have this Korean DVD and its opening scene is of a guy making noodle in a really peaceful and homey kitchen. Today I made my first batch of noodle/pasta (call it whatever you like). I flavoured it with dried chilli. It turned out well except I think I needed fresher eggs and I should have rolled out the noodle a bit thinner (I don't have pasta maker, so I rolled it out with baking pin).

I quickly tossed the final product in my garlic infused olive oil, lemon juice, freshly cracked black pepper, dried chilli and flat parsley and topped it with a bit of shaved parmesan.

Hanyeong Haseo

2006-11-26T01:00:00.001+10:00

I'm leaving for Korea in about a month time and after reviewing my pantry, I realise that I've got a lot of cooking. Tonight I made chilli and black sesame onigiri, chawan mushi and straw mushroom udon with chilli-wine sauce.

Honours year

2006-11-26T00:36:00.000+10:00

(Back: James, Norelle & David. Front: Kiki, Prascilla & Masa)
2006 has been a great year. I completed my Honours in Biochemistry and Structural Biology. With the tremendous help and support of everyone in the lab, I achieved a First class Honours. Thank you to everyone in the Craik group especially Masa, my supervisor. I've learnt more than peptide science from her. She is my role model and a friend. I couldn't have survived this year without her constant guidance and support. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you also to Jonas for his faantasteek jokes and Richard for his never ending patience and answers to my silly questions, Crystal for her life advices and friendship and Prascilla, my best friend in the lab. Also to David Craik who has given me this opportunity to join his lab first as a student and then as an research assistant (RA). Thank you to Norelle, my first supervisor in this lab whose guidance never stops. Thank you to Sunithi, Kathryn, Conan, Ivana, Justine, Maria Felizmenio-Quimio, Michelle Colgrave, Rekha, Shane, J Lo my little brother, Christian Gruber, Phillip, David Ireland, Josh, Chia-Chia, Ray and Cameron for advices, words of encouragement and friendship.

It has been one great year.

birthday & engagement party

2006-10-15T00:02:00.000+10:00

Congratulations to Masa and Miguel.

kopi coklat

2006-09-16T13:17:00.001+10:00

kopi coklat
Originally uploaded by kiki.yulyaningsih.

冬菜包

2006-09-10T20:17:00.001+10:00

This is Kiki's 冬菜包. Initially, I wanted to make Chinese style garlic bread, but because the 冬菜 flavour is much more persistent I decided that I should try harder to make it next time. For the dough, I had mixed in a little bit of 五香粉 (5 spice powder) and lots of garlic. I think it's fantastic and it definately will feature in my (future) cafe.

冬菜 (dong cai) is Chinese preserved cabbage. It's brown and salty.

paradis bleu

2006-08-27T16:44:00.001+10:00

gina's 23rd

2006-08-23T23:41:00.001+10:00

tomorrow gina (the nem) turns 23. above is the nem and her cake( blackberry cheesecake, topped/garnished with strawberries)

hating charsiew

2006-08-19T15:10:00.001+10:00

It's Saturday and I wanted nasi goreng. I have this vegetarian charsiew meat in my fridge that I bought a while ago from the local Taiwanese grocer. I still don't like the taste, I think I just don't like charsiew flavour. So I tried masking the flavour with tom yum paste.

Result: very faint hint of the charsiew flavour. i wouldn't put that much tom yum paste in next time and perhaps green peas would help the color and nutritional content a bit more.

sang merah putih

2006-08-18T14:35:00.001+10:00

Can't really celebrate this year. Gina is out with fever all week, I have a tonne of thing to do.

moshi moshi bento

2006-08-12T21:19:00.001+10:00

Chawan mushi with prawns, onigiri, tuna salad, prawns & smoked trout, cucumber

bekal monster

2006-08-06T23:36:00.001+10:00

I love japanese animation, but my cooking mood seems to always emerge when I'm watching them. Last night I made pandan bread after watching Yakitate Japan from episode one again. Anyway, I let my dough rise twice in hope that I'd achieve that snowy softness, it came out very cakey, soft nevertheless. The pandan essence smells nothing like pandan. Yuen's market sells frozen pandan but that won't do. I dream of being able to cook with real pandan again.

Tonight I'm watching Ichigo Mashimaro. I had to pause it every now and then to try to read the Chinese subtitle that seems to flash by. The itch to cook took over and then off I went to the kicthen. My ingredients are limitted, I'd like to have some cucumber, that would go well with the tuna salad. For more details, please click on the picture. That will take you to my Flickr page and you'd be able to see little notes.

我在想。。。台灣便當跟日本的 bento 有什麽分別呢?

chocobomb

2006-08-03T01:08:00.002+10:00

Lagi ngantuk pas selesai bikin kue ini. menurut rencana tadi maunya mocha mousse cake, tapi akhirnya error mulu. moussenya nga jadi karena tadi coklatnya kiki masukin ke microwave (karena males dipanesin pelan-pelan). begitu kuning telur dimasukin kok coklatnya tiba-tiba jadi keras...! nothing ever goes according to plan. telur yg udah disiapin buat mousse akhirnya buat quiche bawang. kemudian, kue ini jadi mocha cake bersandwich whipped cream dan dilapisi hazelnut ganache. yg bulat diatas itu hasil coklat yg dimicrowave tadi, dihiasin biji kopi.

pizza

2006-07-03T12:39:00.001+10:00

I like to be a rebel when it comes to create traditional dishes. Far back is pizza al funghi with aiolli sauce base. The one on the front has prawn topping marinated with morrocan seasoning that i found in my spice cupboard. I hadn't made my own mayonaise for quite a while now and i really enjoyed it. I love the feeling of dough sticking to my hands, it's like a clingy puppy that you need to treat with love.

I'm graduating again in December, this time from my Biochemistry Honours degree and I'm going to move to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia for 2 years. My parents are going to be really upset (I haven't told them, thank god they don't believe in internet). I still really want to do a phd, but not straight away.

I visited KL twice this year and I absolultely love the city, the environment, the pace. Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia are really similar culturally; Indonesia is slightly different. Singapore is a bit fast even though it's the perfect city for biotech. Indonesia is out of the question; I'd have no freedom. Malaysia is just right. :)

The most delicious thing I had while I was there in June was the deep fried oyster mushroom in Jalan Alor. I stayed at the Royale Bintang (previously known as Novotel) and the place is just a 5 minute walk away from the hotel.

l'ennui

2006-04-17T01:57:00.001+10:00

i decided to bake, at 8.58 tonight. it's peanut butter cream sandwiched between layers of mocha sacher. i accidentally added too much ground coffee... happy birthday, chére blier.