Pork Chop

Use to eat this dish very often at MIL's place, so learn to cook this dish a few years ago and now try to modify it a little with different ingredient. This is a pretty easy dish. I didn't add gravy cos the family like it this way.

Ingredients:
500g pork (bak tau) - Cut into about 1 cm thick slices.

Sesaonings:
1tsp salt
1/2-1 tsp pepper
11/2 piece of preserved red beancurd
1tbsp of cooking wine
1tbsp sesame oil

For deep frying:
2 eggs - beaten
plain flour
japanese bread crumbs
oil

Method:
1. Pound the pork slice with a mallet or the back of a chopper. Marinate pork with the seasonings and place in fridge for a few hours.

2. Pat dry the meat with kitchen towel. Coat the meat with plain flour, shake off any excess, dip in beaten egg then coat with bread crumbs. Deep fry in medium hot oil till its golden brown color.

Meat floss bun and Mexican bun

Make use of the hot Saturday afternoon to practise making some bread. While proving the dough then realise that I forgot to add the bread improver...well...turn out the buns still stay soft till today. Was thinking that the kids may not like the coffee taste so didn't add coffee granules to the mexican topping batter, when Randal took the first bite of the mexican bun he could tell that its roti boy bread but with different taste, made meat floss bun for Trenyce per her request. Was happy that buns turn out nice and soft.

I use Alex Goh's 'World of Bread' recipe with a little change...

Ingredients:
(A)
480g bread flour
120g cake flour
110g sugar
10g salt
20g milk powder
4tsp instant yeast

(B)
1 egg
300ml cold water

(C)
60g butter

Method:
1) Mix (A) till well blended.

2) Add (B) and knead to form a dough.

3) Add (C), continue to knead to form a smooth and elastic dough.

4) Cover dough with clear film. Let it prove for 50-60min, or till double its size.

5) Use finger pressed into the dough. It should show a clear finger tip mark but the dough should not sink. Now its ready to use for making bread and bun.

- I use speed '1' on my kenwood mixer to knead the dough for about 30min to achieve the elastic dough.

Mexican topping

Ingredients:
A)
60g butter
50g sugar
Pinch of salt

B)
1 egg

C)
85g plain flour

Method:
1) Prepare Mexican topping: Cream A) till well blended. Add B) and cream till smooth. Lastly add C) and mix till well blended. Set aside.

2) Divide the sweet bun dough into 60g portions, shape into balls and let it rest for 15min. Flatten the individual dough to press out the air. Shape into balls and put them into a 10cm foil pie dish.

3) Leave the dough balls to prove for 45min or till they double in size.

4) Put the mexican topping into a piping bag. Pipe some mexican topping on the bun dough after it has risen.

5) Bake at 190°C in the middle of the oven for 12min. Serve.


Meat Floss Bun

Topping
Mayonnaise
Meat floss

Method:
1) Divide the basic sweet bun dough into 60g portions, shape into balls and leave them to rest for 15min.

2) Flatten the dough to press out the air. Roll out into long shape using a rolling pin, roll like a swiss roll and form into a long shape and put them on a greased baking tray. Leave to prove for 45mins.

3) Brush with egg wash and bake in middle of the oven at 190°C for 12min.

4) When cool, spread some mayonnaise on top of the buns.

5) Coat the top generously with meat floss. Serve.

Bread Pizza

Wanted to make pizza for breakfast but didn't have time to make the pizza base, so do a simple one using normal bread and place the ingredients...usually I will add canned tuna, ketcup or tomato paste, tomato, canned button mushroom and of cos mozzerella cheese...on it and bake it at 200 deg C for about 10 min or till the cheese melted and brown.

Hashbrown

Learn this dish a few weeks ago at chef yong's class, so attempt making it on Saturday, manage to yield 2 portions, so keep 1 for Sunday's breakfast. As the dish was easy to do, so I never follow chef yong's recipe exactly, due to availability of some ingredient, the recipe is based on what I have at that moment...

Ingredients:

4 Russet potato

200g streaky bacon

2 tsp parsley flake

dash of black pepper

oil for frying

Method:

1. Wash the potatoes, put in pot of water, boil till fully cooked, make sure skewer can go thru the potato when insert into it. Drain away the hot water, peel the potatoes when its still hot. Let it cool a little, grate it using a course grater. Set aside.

2. Cut streaky bacon into small pieces. Pan fry it till fragrant, remove it onto a strainer to filter the excess oil of the bacon.

3. Add the bacon to the potatoes, add parsley flake, mix with hand lightly.

4. Heat up pan with some oil, place desire portion of potatoes in pan, fry for about 5min then flip it over to the other side and fry, fry till both sides are brown.

Tau Huay

Its been a long time since the last time I made tau hauy for breakfast, since have bought a pack of organic soy bean on Saturday, use it to make some tau huay for Sunday morning breakfast. Recipe from Zu's blog :http://quickneasytreats.blogspot.com/2005/05/sweet-soya-bean-curd-dessert.html.

Crispy Prawn with Mayonnaise

Use the balance prawns in the fridge to cook this dish for Saturdays dinner. Mis-read the recipe so end up the prawn doesn't look crispy as the ones in the book. Recipe from one of Fu Pei Mei's book.

Ingredients:
10 small prawns
½ cup corn flour
1/3 cup water
½ cup mayonnaise
½ tbsp white sesame seeds
1 cup lettuce.

To marinate prawns:
1tsp wine
1/3 tsp salt
1tbsp egg white
1 tbsp corn flour
oil for deep fry

1. Remove the heads and shells, but keep the tails connected. De-vein the prawns. Rinse and pat dry. Marinate for 10mins or more.

2. Mix corn flour and water to a paste. Heat up oil in wok. Dip prawns in the cornstarch paste, deep-fry in hot oil until golden brown. Drain. Place in a large bowl.

3. Mix the prawns and mayonnaise. Place to platter on top of shredded lettuce. Sprinkle sesame seeds over the prawns. Serve.

Gingerbread

Trenyce kept requesting me to make gingerbread since Friday night after her teacher taught the class to make it. Was not feel well on Saturday so didn't intend to make the cookies but she kept mentioning it till I can't tahan, so use the 4 cookie cutters bought some time ago and Alex Goh's recipe to make these...

Ingredient:
(A)
60g Butter
100g Sugar
pinch of salt

(B)
1 Egg

(C)
170g Golden syrup

(D)
460g Flour
2 tsp Ginger powder
½ tsp Cinnamon powder
1tsp Baking soda

Method
1) Mix (A) till well combined and then add in (B). Cream till smooth.
2) Add in (C) then (D) and mix till well blended.
3) Let it rest for 15min. Then roll in to a 3mm thickness and cut it into the required shape.
4) Bake at 180°C for 15 min.

Brownie

Made this last weekend, Kenny and the kids like it very much, recipe from a periplus small book think the name is 'Slices'...

Ingredients:

125g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
150g dark chocolate
90g unsalted butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
185g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g milk choc chips

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to moderate 180°C. Lightly grease a shallow 20cm square cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper, leave the paper hanging over two opposite sides.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder together. Chop the chocolate and butter into small even sized pieces and put in a heatproof bowl. Bring a medium saucepan of water to the boil, then remove from the heat. Sit the bowl over the pan, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Allow to stand, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter have melted. Leave to cool slightly.

3. Place the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence in a bowl and beat with electric beater for 2 minutes, or until pale and thick. Add the melted chocolate and butter and stir to combine. Fold in the flour with a metal spoon until combined, then add the choc chips and mix well. Pour into the tin and bake for 20min, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10min then lift out onto a wire rack and cool completely. Cut into squares using sharp knife.