Banana Butter Cake

There were some ripe bananas and nobody wants to ate it, so I use it to make a butter cake. I prefer to bake in disposable loaf tin, ate 1 loaf and can keep the other and not messy too. Recipe from Kevin Chai's book.



Ingredients:
250g butter
250g caster sugar (I reduce to 180g sugar)
¼ tsp salt
5 eggs
250g banana puree
¼ tsp banana essence
250g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:
1. Grease and line a 20cm baking pan. Preheat oven to 175°C.

2. Beat butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy.

3. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

4. Add in banana puree and essence, fold in sifted flour, baking powder and soda. Mix until well blended. Spread into prepared pan.

5. Decorate with banana slices. Bake in oven for 35-40min or until cooked.

Stew Pig Trotter

Last weekend, saw supermarket selling some pig trotter, the thought of trying this dish flash across my mind, so bought half a pig trotter and try. I did about half the recipe, but I added more water to prevent it from drying up and to make sure the skin will be cooked till soft, also added some mushrooms as I like braised mushrooms. Recipe from 'Sensational Braised and Stewed'.

Ingredients:
1 (600g) pig trotter,
10g old ginger (flatten)
30g garlic cloves
2 tbsp cooking oil
1200ml water

Spices:
4 star anises (八角)
1 piece tangerine peel (陈皮)
1 tsp szechuan pepper
5 pieces Licorice/”gan chao”(甘草)
10 cloves (丁香)
4 stalk “gui zhi” (桂枝) (Don’t have this so didn’t add)
1 inch cinnamon stick (桂皮)
6 cekurs/ “sha jiang” (沙姜) (Don’t have this so didn’t add)
2 “chao guo” (草果) (available at chinese medical hall or sengsiong)

Seasoning:
25g rock sugar
5 tbsp soya sauce paste
1tsp dark soy sauce
3 tbso shao xing wine
½ tbsp monosodium glutamate (I don’t use this at home)

Method:
1. Ask the butcher to cut the pig’s trotter into convenient pieces. Blanch into boiling water for a moment. Remove and drained. Praboil into hot oil for a while (I didn’t do this step). Dish up, rinse under cold water. Keep aside.

2. Cook the spices with water in a deep pot until boiling, simmer for about 20min. Add in pig trotter pieces, old ginger, garlic cloves and seasoning. Bring back to the boil, covered, and stew over low heat for approximately 1 hour until tender.

Focaccia Bead

I only did half recipe for this bread as I though that only Kenny and myself will appreciate such bread, to my surprise Trenyce like it so much that she at quite alot of it. Recipe from phoon huat demo class.

Ingredients:

400g Bread flour
100g Plain flour
10g Yeast
15g Caster sugar
5gm Mix herb
2tsp Black pepper
2tsp Garlic powder
280-300ml Water
3 tbsp Olive oil
2 tbsp Soften Unsalted Butter
1tsp Salt

Topping:
Rosemary
Sea salt
Coarse Black Pepper
Olive oil
Chopped Garlic

Method:
1. Put all ingredients into mixing bowl and stir well.

2. Beat dough until smooth and soft, rest for 30-40min.

3. Divide the dough into 4 piece (each about 220g), shape round and let it rest for about 15min. Roll into oval shape and place on grease baking tray proof till double size.

4. Brush with olive oil and use finger tip to make small indentations all over the dough.

5. Sprinkle the top with Rosemary, sea salt, coarse black pepper and chopped garlic.

6. Bake at 210°C for 15-20min till brown.

7. Remove bread from oven, apply a layer of olive oil.

Pandan Bread

Made this bread because there were lots of pandan leaves left in the fridge, and besides making bread using breadmaker I do not have the time to make other things. I make use of Alex Goh's recipe, I did adjust little of the recipe. The color is not so green because I didn't add pandan paste.



Ingredients:

10 pandan leaves
160ml water

30g egg
300g bread flour
45g sugar
½ tsp salt
½ tbsp milk powder
2tsp instant yeast

20g corn oil

Method:
1) Wash and cut the pandan leaves into small pieces. Blend the leaves with 160ml water. Strain and squeeze 160ml of pandan juice.
2) Place juice with the rest of the ingredients in Bread maker, set to Sweet bread function and start.

Chicken Pau

My friend told me about the link in Hugbear's blog so I tried it last weekend for breakfast, I hardly practise making pau so my pleated skill is lousy. I followed the chinese recipe linked in the blog and use filling in Agnes Chang's book. This pau is huge, was surprise to see the size of it the moment I open the steamer cover. The pau skin is very nice and soft.

For the pau skin and method, can follow hugbear's blog. The recipe yields 12 huge paus.

Filling:
300g chicken, cut into small pieces
1tsp ginger and shallot juice
½ tsp salt
1tsp Chinese cooking wine
2tbsp light soya sauce
1tsp sugar
¼ tsp pepper
1tsp chicken stock granules
3tbsp water
1tsp sesame oil
1tbps fried garlic oil
2tbsp diced spring onion (I didn't manage to get it at the time of marinating)
1tbsp corn flour
(original recipe also add some chopped yam bean (bang kuang))

Method:
Filling:
Mix all ingredients, stirring in one direction and chill for 3-4 hours before using.

For each pau skin, I added 1 tbsp plus a little bit more of filling then wrap it. Place it on a plate or steam tray lay with pau paper. Rest the pau for 15 min. Steam over medium heat for 15-20min. Serve warm.

Stir Fry Spicy Squid

I have not ate such squid before, I always feel its chewy and tough to bite from the outlook, Kenny mentioned that its nice if cook well. So I tried frying it with some bulgogi sauce, turn out quite good and not tough at all.

Ingredients:
1 pcs processed squid
1 medium onion – cut wedges
20g ginger – minced
2tbsp mince garlic
1 red chilli – cut wedges
1 stalk spring onion – cut into short strips

Seasoning:
4 tbsp pork bulgogi sauce
½ tsp sugar

Method:
1. Cross scale the inner wall if the squid and then cut into prism shape and blanch in boiling water until cooked.

2. Heat up 3 tbsp oil in wok and sauté ginger, garlic and onion until fragrant.

3. Pour in seasoning and squid stir fry in high heat.

4. Toss in spring onion. Dish and serve.

Blueberry Cheese Cake

I tried combine 2 recipes from Alex Goh's book plus abit of my own idea and created this simple cake for Kenny's birthday. Although it looks abit ugly but taste was quite good.



Ingredients:
200g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
100g melted butter

A)
250g cream cheese
90g castor sugar

B)
140g blueberry puree – I strain away canned blueberry syrup and blend it till puree
1tbsp canned blueberry

C)
1tbsp gelatine
40g water – I use the syrup from the canned blueberry

D)
160g whip topping cream

Method:
Digestive Biscuit base
Mix all the ingredients until well blended. Press onto bottom of cake ring(base wrap with foil). Refrigerate for 15min or until firm. (I use 7" cake ring so only use 3/4 of the biscuit base mixture)

1.) Whip (D) until soft peak form. Place in fridge.

2.) Cream (A) until light and smooth. Add (B) and mix until well blended.

3.) Bring the water in (C) to boil, pour into bowl with gelatine, stir until gelatine dissolves. Stir the resulting solution into cream cheese mixture and mix until well blended.

4.) Fold in (D) and mix until well combined.

5.) Pour the mixture into the cake ring and freeze for 3 hours until firm.

Sweet Potato Kuih Ku

Tried this recipe during the Deeparvali weekend. I like the skin texture, though had hard time while wrapping the filling. The skin were still soft till the next day.

Ingredients:
200g Sweet potatoes – peeled and steamed for 20min or until soft
1 tsp castor sugar
250g Glutinous rice flour
100ml hot water
120-150ml cooking oil

Banana leaves -- cut into 6cm squares or circles

Cooking oil for brushing

Kuih ku mould

Filling
200g skinned mung bean – soak in water for 4 hours

2-3 pcs Pandan leaves
120g castor sugar
¼ tsp salt
90-105ml cooking oil

Method:
1) Prepare filling. Steam pre-soaked mung bean and screwpine leaves for 20min or until soft. Discard screwpine leaves.

2) Combine hot mung beans, sugar, salt and oil in a food processor until smooth paste result.

3) Prepare kuih skin. Mash steamed sweet potatoes with sugar, then gradually mix in glutinous rice flour until mix resembles breadcrumbs.

4) Add hot water and oil, mix with a spatula until a soft dough forms.

5) Divide dough into balls large enough to snugly fit into the kuih mould.

6) To assemble, fit form a well in each portion of dough. Place a ball of filling inside, then wrap dough around it and reseal.

7) If dough is a little sticky, lightly dust the mould with some glutinous rice flour before pressing in the filled dough.

8) Knock mould gently against the work surface to dislodge the kuih and turn out onto a piece of greased banana leaf. Repeat until ingredients are used up.

9) Steam prepared kuih over medium heat for 8-10min.

10) Lightly grease cooked kuih with some oil and serve.