Nguing nguing nguing

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.

Red bean

Wholemeal bread with red bean paste filling

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

Shitake bread rolls

Shitake bread rolls

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

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

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

I heart dill

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

Midnight Bakery Easter bun in 10 easy to follow steps!

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

Method

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

Crisp Crosp

Midnight Bakery Easter bun

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

Green tea bun with bean paste filling & chocolate

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

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

Easter Bunny

Green-tea bunny bread with chocolate drizzle and glazed cherry

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

Green tea bunny twists

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

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

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

Twenty minute bruschetta

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

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


Parmesan grissini

Seniman roti yang bercita-cita menjadi dukun pastry

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

Fatty BoomBoom

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.

Sunday Bake-Fest

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

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.

Brioche au chocolat

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

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

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

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

Happy holidays!!

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

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

Midnight bakery bread dough

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

Direction

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

Bonne chance et Joyeaux Noel!!

Le pain, c'est la vie

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

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

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

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

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

Por el amor di pan!!

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

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

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

Falling asleep (in the middle of baking)

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

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

Beautiful dough

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

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

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

Egg Benedict

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.