Spicy tomato and capsicum chutney

I always am inspired on a spur of the moment to cook a particular thing.  I would then happily spend the next couple of hours trying to research as much as possible on whatever I intend on making, deciding on a recipe and getting the relevant ingredients.  I love it, and sometimes I wish I could spend more days doing that, and having a kitchen and ingredients at my disposal. One morning I woke up, looked in my fridge and saw tomatoes.  I didn't want to eat them in a salad, nor cook it with pasta so I decided that I wanted to make a tomato chutney / relish.  The rest of my morning went to Googling recipes and poring with the few cookbooks that I had brought down from home.

A lot of the recipes I came across required the use of mustard seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds and a whole bunch of other spices that I didn't have, nor could I be motivated enough to go out and buy.  Thankfully, I came across a couple of recipes that received good reviews sans spices.  Sweet.  After reading through a dozen recipes, and getting some idea of the ratio of sweet, salty, tangy and spicy, I decided to just wing the rest of it.  To my surprise, it turned out relatively decent.  There's certainly much room for improvement, say actually going to the effort of peeling the tomatoes (I was simply lazy), and peeling the capsicums if I were to use them again.  I'm guessing it would help to get that more 'paste'-like texture that I had visualised in my mind.  Nonetheless, it was great on crackers and went well with poached eggs on toast.

Spicy tomato and capsicum chutney

Makes ~1.5 cup



Ingredients

• 3 vine-ripened tomatoes, diced
• 2 capsicums, diced
• 1 brown onion, finely diced
• 2 tbspn of olive oil
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1 tspn chilli flakes
• 1/3 cup red wine (I'm thinking red wine vinegar could be a substitute)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• salt and pepper to taste
• (sterilised jar for storage)

Method

1. Combine the red wine and brown sugar.  Set aside
2. Heat a non-stick pan on med-heat.  Pour in the oil to coat the pan.  Add in the brown onions and cook until transparent (3-5 minutes) and starts to caramelise.
3. Add the capsicums and cook for a few minutes.  Add the tomatoes and cook for a few more minutes.  Throw in the crushed garlic and chilli flakes, and give everything a good stir.
4. Turn the heat to medium / med-low, and add in the red wine and brown sugar mixture.  Allow to simmer for 30-40 minutes, whereby the mixture should start to thicken up.  If during cooking, it looks a bit dry, add a bit of water.  Season to taste.
5. When the mixture is reasonably thickened, turn off the heat and allow it to sit in the hot pan for 5-10 minutes.
6. Pour the mixture into sterilised air-tight jars, and store in the fridge (can be stored for up to 2 weeks).

Yellow split pea 'pudding' (馬豆糕)

Something inspired me while I was in HK to venture into attempting to make Chinese desserts.  Perhaps it was knowing that I wouldn't have an oven for a good chunk of the year in the new place, or that it was simply because the recipes seemed simple, homely and tasty.  One of the things that used to make me less inclined to make tasty Asian things was partly because of the effort needed to actually get the things that were specified in the recipe as it would take a couple of visits to different Asian grocers to find the thing I want, and even if they did, the quality would be questionnable (I once saw packets of red beans with mould on them and they were still on the shelves!).

Anyway, with this new found inspiration, and a trusty Asian grocer, I gave another hand at making a popular Hong Kong dessert.  I came across this wandering the streets in HK and in their display cabinet, there were a variety of 'slices' for what equated to A$0.60 for 1.   They looked too good not to try, and afterwards, I was hooked on all things with that agar-agar / firm gelatinous texture.  This was the easiest to make, out of of all the ones I want to try, and I love it -- it isn't too sweet, I get a lot from not very much, and it lasts quite well in the fridge for over a week.

Yellow split pea 'pudding' (馬豆糕)

Makes 1 9 inch 'pudding'

 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup yellow split peas
• 1 cup cornflour
• 3/4-1 cup caster sugar (personal preference)
• 2/3 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 4 cups water

Method

1. Rinse the yellow split peas until the water runs clear.  Place them in a pot of cold water and bring to the boil.  Make sure you watch it at this stage as it can boil over really quickly!  Lower the heat so that its inbetween simmering and boiling and wont' boil over.  Cook for 15-20 minutes.  Pop on the lid, remove from heat and let it stand for 10 minutes.   Drain and set aside.
2. Mix the cornstarch with 1 cup of water -- it feels like it'll never dissolve at the start, but keep going and it'll dissolve.  Set aside.
3. Put the remaining 3 cups of the water into a saucepan and add the sugar.  Bring to the boil.   Add the coconut milk and evaporated milk.  Bring to the boil again.  Add the cornflour mixture and stir vigourously.  The mixture will thicken up considerably at this stage, so it's important to keep stirring.  Do so for about 2 minutes.
4. Remove pot from heat and add the drained yellow split peas.  Stir for another minute.
5. Pour the mixture into a dish or moulds, and place into the fridge for 4-5 hours until set.

Ricotta hotcakes

I can't remember when or how the hype for ricotta hotcakes started.  It was as if one moment the perfect pancake had only flour, butter, milk (or buttermilk) and eggs, and the next, to be perfect, it had to have ricotta and egg whites beaten to stiff peaks.  And quite rightly so, because ricotta hotcakes are just so damn delicious!   If I didn't find the process a bit too much for when I'm still blurry eyed and I had the foresight to have a tub of ricotta on hand, I would make ricotta hotcakes everytime I went to make pancakes.  Though, making them only once in a while has its appeal too.  I've only tried Bill Granger's recipe for it seeing as his hotcakes are just as famous as his scrambled eggs, and also because I love the guy's cooking.

The batter can be kept for 24 hours in the fridge (covered with plastic wrap).   Bill serves them with a honeycomb butter, though of course, it'll go well with maple syrup or lemon and sugar, a dollop of strawberry conserve... This time when I made them, I really did plan in advance as I had made some lemon curd the day before, and the pairing was absolutely sublime. 

Ricotta hotcakes

From one of Bill Granger's cookbooks (I forget which one, sorry!)
Serves 4-6





Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups ricotta
• 3/4 cup milk
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 cup plain (all-purpose) flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 50g butter

Method

1. Place ricotta, milk and egg yolks in a mixing bowl and mix to combine
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.  Add to the ricotta mixture and mix until just combined.
3. Place egg whites in a clean dry bowl and beat until stiff peaks form.  Fold egg whites through batter in 2 batches with a metal spoon
4. Lightly grease a large non-stick frying pan with a small portion of the butter and drop 2 tablespoons of batter per hotcake into the pan (avoid overcrowding!)
5. Cook over low-med heat for 2 minutes or until hotcakes are golden.
6. Turn onto other side and cook until golden and cooked through.

Stir-fried spicy green beans

The first time that I remember having really good green beans was at a Malaysian restaurant where they cooked them with sambal and prawns.  That was also when I fell in love with a good plate of green beans.  I'm always sold by green beans with minced pork, green beans with char-siu, green beans with chicken or green beans by itself.  Cooked well, they are beautifully tender, crunchy and with that delicious vegetable sweetness.  For an unassuming slender green thing, it is pretty impressive.  I have tried replicating versions of this dish at home, and have never been able to get it right.  Having bought a bag of green beans on impulsive because it was on special and then, quite coincidentally, coming across this recipe, I decided to try again, and I think I have found the recipe.

Stir-fried spicy green beans 

Slightly adapted from Baking Addiction who slightly adapted hers from The Paupered Chef
Serves 2 as a side dish



Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli oil (or you could use chilli flakes)
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 350 grams green beans, topped and halved lengthwise
  
• 2 spring onions, sliced however way you want
  
• 2 medium cloves of garlic, minced
  

Method

1. Make sure everything is all prepared and ready to go before throwing things in the pan as it'll only take a few minutes to cook everything.
2. Combine the soy sauce, white vinegar, sugar and chilli oil or red pepper flakes in a small bowl and mix well
3. Place a non-stick pan or wok over high heat until it is nearly smoking.
4. Coat the bottom of the pan with the oil and add the green beans.  Cook until they are tender (about 4 minutes) stirring every 30 seconds or so.  They will get black dots all over them, and look like they're going to shrivel up and burn but be patient, they will cook and they won't burn.
5. Add the spring onions and toss everything around for a minute or two
6. Add the garlic and cook just until it becomes fragrant (few seconds)
   
7. Add the soy sauce mixture.  Cook for another half minute, tossing and stirring while doing so, turn off the heat, and serve.

Sago tongshui

This is one of the first Chinese desserts I learnt to make and which my Mum used to make on a regular basis while we were at school.  It's comfort food for me.  Its simple, quick and delicious hot or cold.  There are many variations to this and you can add sweet potato, mango, mung beans, taro, sweetened corn kernels.  I prefer mine with mung beans and lots and lots of sago.

Sago tong shui

Serves 4-6




Ingredients

• 100g sago
• 150-175g rock sugar (personal preference)
• 2.5 cups water
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 3/4 cup coconut milk

Method

1. Soak the sago in a saucepan of boiling water for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Drain the sago, return it to the saucepan and cover it with water.  Boil until it's almost cooked, stirring occasionally.  While cooking, the sago will go from white to clear.  Take it off the heat when there's only a small white dot in the sago, and drain while rinsing it under tap water -- this will complete the cooking process and make the sago completely clear.   Set sago aside.
3. Boil the 2.5 cups of water in a saucepan over high heat and add the rock sugar.  Cook until it dissolves.  Turn the heat down to medium and add the sago, stirring until it boils again
4. Remove from heat and stir in the evaporated milk and coconut milk.  Serve hot or refrigerate for 6 hours to serve it cold.

If you want to add mung beans, cook the beans or peas for about 15-20 minutes while the sago is soaking and then add it in at the same time as adding the sago in Step 3.

Slice and bake cookies

Afer seeing the recipe for refrigerator cookies on Smitten Kitchen (one of my favourite food blogs), I had an urge to try it myself.  Usually, I give away most of the stuff I make or leave it for someone else to finish, namely my brother, but sometimes there are no other people to give it to and I end up finishing it to avoid it going to waste.  That said, a slice of cake or a couple of cookies in the afternoon after getting back from the hospital can be heavenly.  So these refrigerator cookies, also known as slice and bake cookies are perfect.  It gets shaped into a log, put in the freezer and taken out on a rainy day.  After baking, they are supposed to last 5 days (if they do last that long).

The recipe is perfect and can be adapted in many ways.  I decided on poppyseeds and lemon zest this time but I've also tried adding dried cranberries and some orange zest, earl Grey tea leaves (quite nice!), and swapping some of the flour for almond meal (which made the cookies a bit more crumbly but nutty) or dessicated coconut.  I've also added some chopped pistachios and walnuts which I thought turned out quite well.  They really are a versatile type of cookie!

Slice and bake cookies (with lemon zest and poppyseeds)

Makes 40-50 cookies



Ingredients

• 230 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract
• 2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour
• Grated zest of 2 lemons
• 1/4 cup poppy seeds

Method

1. Put the butter in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat at medium speed until it is smooth.  Add the sifted confectioners’ sugar and beat again until the mixture is smooth and silky.
2. Beat in the egg yolks, followed by the salt and any dried fruits, zest, nuts or seeds.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, beating just until it disappears (better to underbeat than overbeat - just blend in whatever remaining flour needs blending with a spoon).
3. Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and divide it in half. Wrap each piece of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
4. Working on a smooth surface, form each piece of dough into a log that is about 2.5 to 3.5 cm thick (no need to worry about the length).  Wrap the logs in plastic and chill for 2 hours.  (The dough can be wrapped airtight and kept refrigerated for up to 3 days or stored in the freezer for up to 1 month.)
5. Preheat the oven 180oC.  Line cookie trays.
6. While the oven is preheating, slice each log into cookies about 1cm thick with a sharp knife.  Place the cookies on the lined baking sheets, leaving about 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) space between them.
7. Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes, or until they are set but not browned.  Cool on wire racks.

Tiramisu

Tiramisu possibly rates as one of my favourite desserts, though one that can only be eaten occasionally and in small amounts.  The best one I've tasted so far, in my opinion of course, is one at Starbucks in Hong Kong.  Funny that.  Even Greco here doesn't do it as well.  I've been having on and off cravings for tiramisu over the past couple of months, and I don't know why I've never actually tried to make it myself to cure those cravings -- preferring to just hold it out until it went away.

Last week was when the tiramisu desire hit, and hit hard.  I set about looking up recipes (probably well over a dozen), I compared them, I read about the difference between using Marsala and Kahlua (which is none - the former is cheaper), how much espresso is good, watched videos of it being made, then settled on one that had gotten some pretty good reviews.  I bought all the stuff - sponge fingers, eggs, mascarpone, cocoa powder, cream and marsala and did everything to the dot.  There was no instant gratification from it as I had to wait the next morning.  When I took off the foil on my dish, it was evident that I'd failed miserably.  For some reason, my mascarpone mixture didn't hold up and the next morning I ended up with a mascarpone, cream and egg yolk slurry with partially saturated lady fingers floating in it.  It looked pretty gross.

I still had half a packet of sponge fingers left, so I went out to get more mascarpone and decided to try again, and with a different recipe.  (Usually when I'm cooking, if one recipe doesn't work out right, I try something else -- I'm a bit impatient with trying to go through it again and figuring out what went wrong.)  And this time it was a success!  The sponge fingers were adequately saturated with the coffee, the mascarpone mixture held up, it had just the right amount of sweet to coffee and best of all, it satisifed my cravings.  Have included the recipe below (credits to Lisa) - it's not the 'traditional' recipe per se but what the heck!  It tasted good!

Tiramisu
Serves 6-8



Ingredients

• 3 eggs, separated
• 250 g mascarpone cheese at room temperature
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 3/4 cup cold strong black coffee -- I brewed mine in a plunger
• 1/4 cup Kahlua / Marsala.
• 9-12 Italian sponge fingers
• Sifted cocoa powder and grated bittersweet chocolate to decorate.

Method

1. Brew coffee.
2. In a bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar until the yolks turn more pale and the mixture is fluffy (aim for it to double in size, and it will).  Mix in the mascarpone and beat until evenly combined (2-3 minutes).
3. In a separate bowl (and also after cleaning your beaters), beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.  Fold in the egg whites into the mascarpone mixture
4. Spread a spoonful of the mixture in the bottom of a serving dish / bowl evenly.
5. Mix together the coffee and Kahlua/Marsala in a shallow dish. Dip one sponge fingers into the mixture, turn it quickly so that it's saturated but does not disintegrate.  Place on top of the mascarpone mixture in the bowl.  Add additional sponge fingers this way placing side by side.
6. (Optional) Sift cocoa powder on top of sponge finger layer
7. Spoon about half of the remaining mixture on top of the sponge fingers and spread it out evenly.  Make another layer with sponge fingers, and then another with mascarpone (it doesn't really matter how many layers you make as long as you finish up with mascarpone.
8. Level surface and sift the cocoa powder on top.
9. Cover with foil and chill overnight.
10. Sift more cooca powder and sprinkle grated chocolate on top before serving the next day.

Carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting

I read a number of food blogs, and when all of them post up a recipe, there is always a story behind the creation - let it be a memory that particular recipe reminds them of, or it's the first recipe they've been successful at, what inspired them to make it that day ... etc.  Unfortunately, if I were to do that - it would be very boring indeed.  I bake for a couple of reasons - because I'm bored, stressed, wanting to try out a new recipe, have things to use up in my pantry ... and at any one time it would be all of them, or just one of them.

For the carrot muffins I made the other day, I really wanted to test out a much-raved about recipe, and the half jar of applesauce sitting in the fridge needed to be used up before mould started growing.  They turned out amazing!  I got a lot of comments about how delicious they were from unexpected people, and even person telling me that I had gotten into the wrong career.  In case this blog somehow finds its way in the prying eyes of my parents, I assure you (and them) I have no intentions of quitting med as yet - to bake on a commercial scale seems to defeat the purpose of home-based baking.

Carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting

Makes 18 muffins or 1 cake




Ingredients

Carrot muffins

• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup unsweetend applesauce
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 cups shredded carrots (3-4 medium carrots)
• 1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans, and extra to top

Cream cheese frosting

• 115g unsalted butter, softened
• 225g light cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 cups icing sugar, sifted

Method

For the carrot muffins

1. Preheat oven to 175oC.  Grease and flour muffin pan and line with muffin papers (if preferred)
   
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, applesauce, brown and white sugars and vanilla until well combined.
   
3. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon in another bowl.  Stir in carrots and pecans.  All the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Pour into muffin tins - filling them to about 3/4 full.
   
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into comes out clean.  Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.  Alternatively bake in a cake tin for 50-55 minutes. 

For the cream cheese frosting

1. Beat butter and cream cheese on low speed for 5-7 minutes or until there are no lumps.  With mixer still running, slowly add sifted icing sugar and beat until mixture is light and creamy.  
2. Pipe or spread onto cooled muffins and top with the extra chopped toasted pecans.

One bowl chocolate chip cookies

While every chocolate chip recipe that I come across, it is always prefaced with 'perfect', or 'the best', regardless whether it's the Toll House , the NY Times, The Neiman Marcus, The Martha Stewart, David Lebowitz's, the ones on the back of packets of choc-chip pieces, America's Test Kitchen, Alton Brown's, and the list goes on.  It seems, therefore, that every chocolate chip recipe is the perfect one.  I can't disagree, after all, everyone has their own preferences when it comes to their perfect choc-chip cookie.  I, for instance, like mine soft, chewy, not too flat nor too thick, without an overpowering sweetness, and with discernible chocolate chunks or chips in them.  I've tried many recipes from cookbooks, magazine cutouts, and some of the aforementioned places.  Soon, when I can remember to make the cookie dough 36 hours before I want to bake, I might try the NY times cookie.

On my hunt to find my perfect chocolate-chip cookie, I came across this one.  I've made them twice already and both times I have made them (for other people), I have returned with an empty box.  So I guess it is also a (very) good chocolate-chip cookie.  It fits everything that I want as I have listed above -- my only gripe with it is that it's slightly a bit too sweet for my Asian tastebuds (but nothing that can't be solved).  What's more, there's only one bowl (and a wooden spoon) to wash afterwards.  I don't know whether it can get any better than this.

A one-bowl chocolate chip cookie

Makes 25-30

Ingredients

• 120g unsalted butter, softened
  
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups good quality chocolate chunks (I would suggest nothing more than 70% cocoa)

Method

1. Melt butter in a large mixing bowl.  Beat both sugars into melted butter.  Let the mixture cool to room temp and then beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk.
2. When mixture is well blended, beat in baking soda and salt making sure that the baking soda is evenly distributed.
3. Add flour and stir just until it is mixed in. Add chocolate chips.
4. Chill dough for 1 hour or until pretty firm.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment.
6. Scoop up tablespoonfuls of dough and drop onto a lined baking tray or cookie sheets spacing them about 5cm apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until cookies appear done and lightly browned around edges.  To get that chewy cookie, do not overbake!  It's hard to say how long they should be in the oven for, it depends on the oven -- in one oven, these were done in 10 minutes, in another it was 13.  My general rule of thumb is that they are 'done' when they get a bit golden brown on the outside.
7. Cool on sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling. 
   

Blueberry muffins

I love finding long lost items in the freezer.  Not that my freezer is big enough to harbour the frozen piece of steak from last year, an odd slice of quiche or a bag of unidentified things -- it is more so I hardly look into my freezer for anything.  And on the occasions that I did look, I've always been pleasantly surprised.  Like that time when I remembered there was a frozen filo (filled with lamb and sweet potato) that ended up being the perfect post work snack, a slice of banana bread to cure a sudden sugar craving and this time, frozen blueberries.

So what else to do with them ...?

Muffins of course!  The web is full of blueberry muffins recipe and I finally decided on a fuss-free, streusel topping free, spice free muffin.  I think that these taste better the next day, but is still very good warm and oozing with berry juices!  Just remember not to thaw the frozen berries, just chuck them straight in otherwise you'll end up with a purple tinge to your batter.

Blueberry muffins

Makes 10-12  




Ingredients

• 300g (2 cups) self-raising flour
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 300g (1 1/2 cups) frozen blueberries (or raspberries), do not thaw
  
• 250 ml milk 
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg, lightly whisked

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190°C.  Line muffin pans with paper squares.  
2. Combine flour and sugar in a large bowl. Add blueberries (or other berries), and stir lightly to coat the berries.  In a separate bowl, whisk the milk, oil and egg together. 
3. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and add the wet ingredients.  Fold with a metal spoon until just combined (do not overmix).  Divide the mixture into pans and bake for 25 minutes or until done.  Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes and turn onto a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.