Apple Streusel Slices

Wanted to use up the green apples in the fridge, so use it to make apple streusel slices on Saturday nite, Kenny likes it very much he ate 4 pieces of pastry that nite, recipe from Alex Goh's cookie book...

Sweet Pastry
50g icing sugar
100g butter
1tbsp milk
170g flour

Filling
8 green apples cut into cubes
100g sugar
100g water

Topping
150g butter
100g icing sugar
150g flour
zest of 1 lemon, finely grated

Method:
Pastry
Mix the butter and icing sugar till well blended, Then add in milk and mix till well combined. Add in the sieved flour and mix well.

Filling
Cook all the ingredients till apples becomes soft. Let it cool and discard the water.

Topping
Cut the cold butter into small pieces. Mix with the remaining ingredients till it has crmbly texture.

1. Press the sweet pastry into base of a greased 25cm shallow square pan prick some holes with a fork.
2. Bake it at 180°C for 15minutes, then spread some apricot jam onto it while hot.
3. Place the apple filling into it. Then sprinkle the topping over the filling.
4. Place it at the lower rack of the oven. Bake at 180°C for 25-30min or till golden brown.
5. Let it cool for 10min and then remove it from the pan.
6. When cool, cut into slices.

Steam Prawn with Hua Tiao Wine

Cook this simple dish for Saturday's dinner...

-Rinse and trim the prawns, lay it on a plate.

- Sprinkle some salt and sugar on the prawns. Then lay some some ginger strips, chopped garlic and add some cooking wine on the prawns.

-Steam over high heat for about 3-4min. Sprinkle some black pepper on the prawn after remove from steamer.

Black Forest Cake

Attempt on traditional chocolate sponge cake last friday, have succeed in sponge cake with sponge gel before, so this time try without sponge gel, the sponge cake was successful.
Hardly practise icing a cake so this cake took me a long time to do a simple layer of icing.
Forgot to buy the bar chocolate for deco, so in the end the chocolate shaving wasn't sufficient to cover the whole cake....plus Trenyce keep pinching chocolate bits from the side of the cake to eat....in the end the cake looks a bit ugly...LOL

Traditional Chocolate Sponge Cake

Ingredients:
A) 5 eggs
150g sugar

B) 100g flour
2og cocoa powder

C) 80g melted butter

Method:
1) Put A) in the mixing bowl.
2) Whip A) till light and fluffy.
3) Sift B) together.
4) Fold in B) bit by bit into A) and mix till well blended.
5) Stir in C) little by little and mix until well incorporated. Pour batter into a 9” round cake tin. 6) Bake at 180°C for 30min. Remove it from the mould immediately once baked.

Steam Bean Curd with Silver fish & Scallops

Was not feel well last weekend, prefer to eat something less oily, read about this dish in the latest issue of Yum Yum, so attempt it with a little change, instead of dried shrimps I use mince meat cos I want to use up the leaf over mince meat in the fridge. Looks abit messy, the taste was surprisingly yummy really helps to improve my appetite.


Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp chopped garlic
30g silver fish – soaked in hot water for half hour to get rid to salty taste
½ tbsp small dried scallop (2 pieces of scallop-size of 20c coin) – soaked till soft
50g mince meat – seasoned with a little pepper and soy sauce
1 block of soft bean curd

Seasoning:
1 tsp oyster sauce
200ml water
1 tsp corn flour

Method:
1. Heat up oil and sauté chopped garlic until fragrant. Add in small silver fish, scallop, and mince meat and stir fry till fragrant. Add in seasoning and cook for 2 minutes. Pour over soft bean curd.

2. Steam at high heat for 10min or until cooked. Remove, sprinkle come coriander or spring onion on top and serve. Best to eat when bean curd is warm.

Teriyaki Chicken

First time doing this dish by making the terriyaki sauce from scratch cos I have all the wine and soy sauce at home, I adjust the recipe a little to make the meat tastier, perfer to pour the sauce over the meat so that the meat will get the flavour while waiting to be served. All like the dish very much especially the sauce...

Ingredient:
2 pieces boneless chicken thigh

Marinade:
1 tsp salt
dash of black pepper
1 tsp wine
1 tbsp ginger juice

Teriyaki sauce:
50ml Japanese soy sauce
50ml mirin
50ml sake (cooking wine)

Method:
1. Wash the chicken thigh, marinate with the marinade for about 2 hours. Cut a few slits on some part of the meat so that the meat is easier to cook thru.
2. Mix the teriyaki sauce and set aside.
3. Heat up wok, place the chicken meat with the skin face down, pan fry for about 7-8 min, till both sides are slightly brown, pour out any excess oil which is from the meat.
4. Add in the teriyaki sauce to the chicken meat and continue to simmer till teriyaki sauce thickens.
5. Remove the meat from wok place on plate and pour the sauce over, and serve.

Pizza

Kenny and the kids kept request to have pizza for breakfast, so have to make the pizza base on the nite before. I prefer to make the pizza base from scratch than to buy the ready made ones, the texture is softer. We always like to add lots of fillings on the pizza plus lots of mozarrella cheese, the picture may not look nice but it does taste yummy. This recipe was from Phoon Huat baking class...
Pizza Dough:
300g Plain flour
100g Bread flour
240ml water
12g caster sugar
6g instant yeast
40g corn oil - original recipe uses 72g corn oil*
10g salt

Mushroom and Filament Stick filling:
10-12pcs Filament stick (diced)
100-200g button mushroom(sliced)
200g pineapple slices (cubes)
dash of mix herbs
250g Mozzarella cheese
Tomato Pizza Paste

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients except salt & oil.

2. Slowly add in salt and oil, mix into a dough (if dough is too wet add a bit of flour) and rest for 10-15min.

3. Divide into 3 pieces, each dough weighs about 230g. Proof for ½ hour to 45min.

4. Flatten the dough, put on pizza tray and proof for 1 hour.

5. Pre-bake for 10-15min (optional).

6. Spread the tomato pizza paste on top & sprinkle mixed herbs.

7. Arrange the straw mushroom, filament stick and desire ingredients on top.

8. Sprinkle Mozzarella Cheese on top of pizza.

9. Bake at 220°C for 10-15min.

* I feel the oil content is a bit too much, so I reduced a little, I did add a little more flour when forming the dough.

Prawn with Ma Po sauce

Wanted to cook 'Ma Po tofu with Prawn' but forgot to buy tofu on that day, so have to rename the dish, the original recipe didn't require any addition of water maybe due to tofu so I add a little water at the last step, recipe from Jimmy Chua's Feast for Guest.

Ingredient:
A.
½ kg prawn
1 tbsp cornflour

B.
200g minced pork
2 tbsp diced black mushrooms

C.
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp chopped chilli
1 tbsp sliced shallot
1 tbsp hot bean paste

Marinade:
Dash of pepper
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp corn flour

Seasoning
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
½ tsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp shaoxing wine or cooking wine
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp of water

Method:

1. Trim and shell the prawn (leaving tail intact). Devein the prawns, wash and drain. Dry the prawns with kitchen towel, mix with A.

2. Marinate minced pork with marinade for ½ hour.

3. Deep fry the prawn with hot oil. Drain and set aside.

4. Heat 2 tbsp of oil. Add ingredients (C) and stir fry until fragrant.

5. Add ingredient (B) and stir well. Stir in seasoning and prawns.

6. Simmer a while. Serve.

Tau Suan

I've only try this dessert once, and it wasn't done correctly because I throw in the bean and boil with the water which in the end was broken and dissolve in the soup. This time, after reading from some books finally understand the trick behind this simple dessert, should soak and steam the bean instead of boiling it.

Ingredient:
300g mung beans
3 pandan leaves
2.2 litres water
300g sugar
50g sweet potato flour
1 cup water
¼ tsp salt
4-6 dough fritters(yau char kuai) - cut into small pieces

Method:
1. Rinse mung beans then soak in water for 2-3 hours. Drain. Steam together with pandan leaves over high heat till mung beans are softened.

2. Boil water, sugar and steam pandan leaves in pot. Stir till sugar dissolves.

3. Dissolve sweet potato flour in 1 cup water. Lower heat. Stir in sweet potato flour solution and salt till syrup is thickened. Add steam mung beans and stir well.

4. Transfer tau suan into serving bowls. Serve with dough fritters.

Steam Ribs with Fermented Black Beans

Wanted to cook this dish long ago, finally got chance to cook it last weekend...

Ingredients:
500g pork ribs
20g mince ginger
2tsp mince garlic
2 chillies (chopped)
25gm fermented black beans

Marinade
1tbsp light soy sauce
a little sugar, salt
a little wine, pepper
1tbsp potato starch

Seasonings
2tsp oyster sauce
1tsp sugar
1tbsp vinegar
1tbsp sesame oil
1tbsp wine

Mehtod:
1. Wash pork ribs. Marinate pork for about 30minutes.

2. Heat oil and fry ginger, garlic, some chilli and fermented black beans till fragrant. Add seasonings and stir well. Add in the pork ribs and mix well. Remove on to a plate.

3. Transfer into the steamer and steam over high heat for about 20minutes.