Roast Chicken

Can't get turkey for last year's Christmas dinner, so did a roast chicken instead....

Ingredients:
1 no. chicken
6 tbsp butter
1tsp sugar
1tbsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1tbsp Dijon mustard
1tsp paprika
1tbsp oil

Stuffing:
½ a carrot }
1 stalk celery } diced into small pieces
½ onion }
1 tsp garlic
2tbsp raisin
¼ cup white wine
½ cup stock
1pc cinnamon
dash of salt and pepper
1 small potato – boiled and mashed
½ cup of diced toasted bread

Method:
1. Rinse the chicken thoroughly, dried it with kitchen towel. Mix salt, black pepper, Dijon mustard, paprika and oil in a bowl. Rub it all over chicken, set aside.

2. Stuffing: Fry carrot, celery, onion and garlic with 2 tbsp butter, add in raisin, white wine, stock, cinnamon stick, salt and pepper, simmer for 5-6 min, add in the mashed potato and diced toasted bread, mix well and turn off fire.

3. Fill the cavity of the chicken with the stuffing, use satay stick to close up the cavity tightly. Place chicken in preheated 160°C oven, baked for 1hour, turn oven to 180°C and baked chicken for a further 10min, brush butter on chicken at 15min interval. Remove chicken from oven and let it rest a while before carving it.

Merry Christmas To All!

Have not made logcake for a long time, the thought of making it have been lingering in my mind these few day. So finally did a simple chocolate logcake this afternoon for my family...

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 egg

2 egg yolk

50g icing sugar

2 egg white

40g caster sugar/fine sugar

40g cake flour

10g cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp corn oil

some chopped walnut

Cream:

50g chocolate coverture

200g whipping cream (whipped till peak)

Method:

Cream:

Melt chocolate coverture over double boil. Add melted chocolate into whipped whipping cream, mix till well combined. Place in fridge till later use.

Cake:

1. Sift icing sugar. Mix cocoa powder and cake flour, sift 2 to 3 times, set aside.

2. Beat whole egg, egg yolk and icing sugar till pale yellow color. Mix oil and vanilla essence, add into egg yolk mixture.

3. Beat egg white till form, add in caster sugar in 3 portion, beat till stiff peak form.

4. Mix flour mixture into egg yolk mixture, mix well.

5. Add half portion of egg white into 4) mix lightly till well combine, pour the mixture back into the balance portion of egg white and mix well.

6. Lined pan (24x28cm) with baking paper. Pour batter into pan and bake at 200 deg C for 12-15min.

7. Remove cake from oven, place it on a cooling rack and let it cool down completely.

8. Remove the baking paper, place the cake on another shit of baking paper larger than size of the cake. Spread some chocolate cream on it, sprinkle some chopped walnut. Roll the cake using the baking paper. Spread more cream on the cake, then use a fork to create the lines on the cake. Decorate as desired.

Rainbow Tangyuan

Sunday was dong zhi (冬至）, the kids had requested to make multi color tang yuan and Trenyce requested to add nutella into her tang yuan. Trenyce help me to form half of the tang yuan balls, I didn't teach her how to do and to my surprise her tang yuan was quite well done. I did 2 type of simple soup base, one was using canned peanut, the other was clear soup with brown sugar for the kids.

Ingredients (tang yuan):

400g glutinous rice flour

330ml warm water (approx.)

edible coloring (optional)

Method:

1) Place glutinous rice flour into a big mixing bowl, add water a little at a time till it form a dough, knead the dough for about 15min. Cover with dough with cling wrap or cloth for 15min.

2) Split the dough into portion and add a little color into each portion and knead the dough till the color is evenly distributed.

3) Roll the dough into a long rod, take a small portion and form into balls by rolling it between two palms.

4) Boil a pot of water, add sugar to taste, add in tang yuan into the boiling water. When the tang yuan floats, its done. Serve warm.

Rainbow Agar Agar

I made this agar agar for my mum's birthday, she didn't want a cake. This agar agar was quite popular among the family during the gathering.

Kuih Lapis

This recipe is nice but abit short, I followed the recipe recomendation used 7" square tray still it came out quite short, I think 1.5 times the recipe will get a nicer height. Recipe from fenying's blog.

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.