Pretty, Small

i was chopping up stuff for dinner a few days back when this came to being.
got me interested in representing micro stuff that are just lying around.



guess if we all look hard enough, coupled with a bit of luck and a great deal of imagination, pretty can come in small, if not very small packages. i will be putting up stuff i stumble upon here on my flickr page.

蒸雞蛋糕

My 3rd attempt at making this.
New recipe, and I did it in a proper steamer. Those with the 'pong pong' lid.

A lil sidetrack before the recipe....Been hinting to The Wife about getting a steamer so that i can carry on experimenting and getting this right. So she gave in and we headed down to Richmond to look for one. we found it at a shop called BaoBao Kitchenware. cost us $47 (28 cm wide, 3 tiered) but we got a traffic fine for $117 (for not understanding that it's clearway and we can't park beyond 4.30pm even tho we'd bought a ticket that shld've lasted us till 4.50pm. 4 mths here and we're still paying an average of 1 fine/mth to learn the aussie traffic rules) so that effectively made it the most expensive kitchenware we've ever bought. The Wife had the honour of using it for her steamed glutinous rice first. It was not until a month later that I'd gotten down to use it for the cake.

Adapted this from Fenying's Blog but i find it a tad bit too sweet. I still haven't quite gotten it to be fluffy. maybe it's due to the normal cake flour & raw sugar i'd used + me not quite sure i've gotten the 'folding in the flour' technique right.

ingredients:

• 3 egg (must let them thaw till room temperature before use, else they dun beat that well)
  
• 230 g sugar (i think you can reduce this to 200g)
• 230g Hong Kong flour (can't find it here. HK flour is a highly bleached flour that's used to make pau. i used cake flour so i figured thats why it ain't fluffy and was instead a bit crumbly)
• 75g 7-up (i used Fanta orange. I read somewhere that in my grandma's day, they used fanta orange. i suspect there aint any difference to the taste/ colour...hmmm maybe just a bit more yellowish.)
  

recipe:

• beat eggs at high speed till fluffy (it shld be about twice the volume you started off with. the colour will change from yolkish to creamy in the final fluffy state)
• add in sugar gradually and continue beating till well- blended. Remove processor
• sift and fold in the flour into the mix in 3 portions. each time ensure that you dun see flour lumps before you add in the next portion. the mixture turned out to be very sticky at this point
  
• add in the 7-up/fanta orange and mix well. this will give the mixture a smoother consistency. however i am not sure if when you shld stop mixing and if the fizziness has anything to do with the fluffiness of the cake
• pour mixture into a 20cm wide baking pan / steaming basket (i think you can go for muffin trays and make mini versions which will probably look better)
  
• sprinkle a handful of sugar such that it forms a cross on the surface of mixture. this will allow it to crack when it rises (發!) it worked for mine but cos my pan was tall, the mixture didn't 發 significantly to make a nice bloom. apparently you can use also create the lines using a spatula dipped in oil (i cant rem where i read this from)
  
• steam at high heat for half an hour
• DO NOT OPEN the lid immediately. keep the lid on for about another 10 minutes so that it won't collapse.

i'm happy that this turned out much better than the previous attempts, at least it cooked through and had not collapsed.

The Wife still cldn't understand why i persist on making this (ok, she's not a fan of this in the 1st place) but my take is that if you can't find it, try to learn how to make it. Think i'd probably be eating the cake all by myself.

Pan-fried Rockling Medallions with Ginger

ok there's nothing spectacular about this. cos if you have really fresh fish, you cld probably eat it on it on its own. my in laws r in town and the MIL bought a slab of rockling thinking that she'd want it steamed. well, i didn't catch the drift (ie dun suggest something contrary :p) and i suggested a pan fried dish instead. The Wife immediately gave the 'precautionary' look which again i missed. The Wife n her folks like stuff cooked in lots of ginger so here goes......

ingredients:

• rockling fillet cut into medallions (approx 1 finger thick)
  
• sliced ginger
• cooking oil
  
• salt
  
• pepper
• szechuan pepper
• parsley for garnish (I only had dried ones)
  
• lemon (optional..i wish i had some)

recipe:

• rub salt, pepper and szechuan powder onto medallions. set aside for min 5 minutes
  
• heat pan (medium heat) and fry the ginger until slightly brown (you dun want it to be too brown cos it has to stay in the pan with the fish still). set ginger aside (i just left it on side of the non stick pan)
  
• add in medallions and fry on pan, turning every 30 sec for about 4 minutes. rockling is firm and will hold its shape well.
• remove medallions and continue to fry the ginger till brown / some of you may like it crispy
• serve ginger on top of medallions and garnish with parsley
• serve with dash of lemon juice if you have

i dun think my MIL quite like it cooked this way but she did say it's pretty ok. oh well......

回鍋肉

How many ways can you cook pork belly? When you need to serve it fast and dun wanna spend hours braising or roasting it.....i think this would do just fine.

ingredients:

• 300-400g pork belly
• cooking oil
  
• diced garlic
• 1 x cubed green pepper
• 1 chopped red chilli (optional)
  
• 3 tbsp of sweet dark soy sauce
• 4 tbsp of cooking wine
• sugar to taste
• salt to taste
  
• 2-3 tbsp spicy black bean sauce
  

recipe:

• slice pork belly to 1 finger thickness
  
• scald sliced pork belly pieces with boiling water
• heat up oil and brown garlic, then add pork to wok
• fry till pork is about 80% cooked, set aside (i just moved it to the side of wok)
  
• add 2 tbsp of wine, black bean paste, dark soy sauce, sugar, salt to wok and fry with remaining oil n garlic in wok to form a thick gravy (keep at mid heat)
  
• then stir in the pepper and pork until all pieces are cooked and coated with gravy (that's why it' called 回鍋肉)
  
• add in remaining 2 tbsp of wine and chilli, quickly stir fry to evaporate the alcohol off the last dash of wine (add salt/sugar if required) and serve

the taste shld be sweet & salty. goes well with plain rice and shld make a nice n quick lunch. :)#

Assorted Luncheon Meat & Cheese Buns Redux

Again no bread left last nite...actually it's really an excuse to brush up on the previous attempt.
so The Wife and I had another go at it. This time i made minor changes to the preparation:

1. added slightly more yeast about 5 g more, resulting in more 'puffiness' (?, maybe just my eyes playing tricks)
   
2. had bigger pieces of spam (cos we love spam)
   
3. coiled thinner strips of dough round the spam, resulting in better bread to spam ratio and interesting bread texture when eaten (hmmm better described as eating a coil of bread rather than a whole bun)
   
4. did raisins and cinnamon 'bunlets' along with the cheese and spam ones
5. added speckle of dried parsley and szechuan powder on spam rolls' dough for better aesthetics before baking
6. did double brush of egg evenly across whole of dough surface before baking, resulting in nicer browning

Ok time for supper!

Penne with Monkfish in Tomato Cream Sauce

Had leftover monkfish from over 2 weeks back sitting in the freezer. Did grill a batch then but I found the flesh rather bland and texture firm. the grilling dried the fish so i thought i'd probably cook it in sauce this time round and see how it'd go. Surprisingly it does go down better cos the sauce lent its taste to the fish. The Wife didnt quite like it cos it's rather boney (i'd used 3 tail pieces, the bones were too firmly stuck in the flesh to be picked out), luckliy there're spam in the tomato sauce to keep her happy. Serves 2.

ingredients:

• 3 x approx 15 cm long monkfish tail fillets (pick out bones if u can)
• penne
• 2 tomatoes, diced
  
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  
• 2 chilli, finely cut
  
• ham / bacon / spam bits
• tomato paste / pasta sauce
  
• dried parsley
• salt
  
• pepper
• 3-4 tbsp cream
  
• olive oil
  

recipe:

• cut monkfish into approx 1 inch pieces, rub on some pepper and salt
  
• heat pan with olive oil and sear the fish quickly
  
• when cooked (flesh slightly browned), remove fish
• cook penne simultaneously
• with left over oil/sauce in pan, add garlic, tomato, tomato paste, chilli, pepper, bacon/spam, simmer to make a sauce. if it's dry, add about 1/3 cup water.
• reduce sauce to half, simmer gently, stir in cream and reduce sauce further
• toss fish into sauce and allow it to sit in there for about a minute to coat and soak up some flavour (i forgot about this step...so my fish is still rather bland and whitish :0)
• pour sauce with fish onto penne
• dash dried parsley ont pasta and serve