Tahu Isi ~ Stuffed Tofu

                                 

This is a traditional street food in Indonesia, crunchy on the outside and super moist on the inside, and tingly on the tongue if you eat it with chilli padi. 

It is actually kind of stuffed tofu and pretty easy to make for afternoon snack or party.

Basically you stir fried some vegetable such as carrots, long beans, cabbage, and etc or you may add some prawn or minced meat, and stuffed them inside a fried tofu which has been emptied inside or tau pok and finally cover with batter and deep fried until golden brown. And woolaaa... They are ready!!!

If you want some guideline, you can see the recipe below.

Ingredient (amount vary on the tofu size and the variance of vegetable you used)

Fried Toufu (slit on one side and scoop out the inner part to make a wallet to fill the stuffing)

~ I used Tao Pok for short cut so I don't need to dig out the tofu inside

~ you can choose to deep fried your own tofu using firmed tofu

Carrot, shredded

Bean Sprout 

Taoge

Long Beans, cut to 2 cm length

Cabbage, shredded

Prawn/Minced Meat (optional)

Spice Paste (this proportion is for approx. 12 tofu)

3 cloves small red onion

2 cloves garlic

1/2 tsp pepper

A pinch of salt

few bird eye chilli (optional)

~ grind/blend the spices into smooth paste and divide into 2/3 & 1/3

Batter (this proportion is for approx. 12 tofu)

1 cup Plain flour

2/3 cup Water (add more water if required to attain thin consistency)

1/3 of the spice paste above

1 egg

Directions

1. Heat 2 tbsp of oil and take 2/3 of spice paste and stir fry all the vegetable & meat until just about witted and add in 2 tbsp water and season to taste with sweet soy sauce, pepper and salt. Set aside to cool for stuffing.

2. Combine the flour, salt and 1/3 of spice paste in a bowl. Add water and stir until a thin consistency is attained. Add in egg and stir well. Set aside.

3. Using a small spoon and packed each tofu with the prepared stuffing. 

4. Heat oil in a deep fryer. Dip the tofu in batter until well coated and drop gently into the oil and fry until golden brown. 

5. Served immediately when its hot with bird eye chilli (if you dare) or on its own.

Read More

Turtle Melon Pan (Japanese Style Pineapple Bun)

When I started this project, I thought of doing the Cantonese pineapple bun, so I Google about it and the more I Google, my plan changed. I decided to make the cute turtle melon pan that I always see at the Japanese bakery, who doesn't love cute snacks right?. After my intensive study, I realised they are actually the same kind of thing, only one is called pineapple bun and the other is called melon pan and both has nothing to do with the fruit pineapple and melon beside the shape. I understand in Hong Kong, some of those old cafe had lard in their pineapple bun recipe, but seems like its kind of difficult for me to get lard so I moved to healthier Japanese version.

In short:

 Melon Pan/Pineapple Bun = Bread  Dough + Cookie Dough. 

So, if you know both recipe or had your own preferred recipe, you got yourself a melon pan recipe in hand.
And to make a turtle one, you just need to shape the bread dough and assemble it, just like how this lady (Hippomum) has done it here at step no.5. If you are unable to understand Chinese, let me explain to you how to assemble in the highlighted steps below. She had also done a Totoro version here.

Here is the recipe:
Serves: 10
(depend on whether you are making baby turtle or mommy turtle, if you are first time making bread I suggest you can half the recipe as assembling turtle takes time)

Ingredients

Bread Dough
200g bread flour
5g instant yeast
35g caster sugar
100ml warm water (not too hot for hand)
20g  beaten egg, room temperature
1/2 tsp. salt
20g butter, room temperature

Cookie Dough
50g butter, room temperature
50g beaten egg, room temperature
70g sugar
160g cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp of pandan flavouring/green food colouring (optional if you want a green turtle)

Direction

1. First, you need to make the cookie dough as it require time to set in the fridge.
2. In a stand mixer (optional), whisk the butter for awhile. Add sugar and continue to whisk until pale and creamy, approx 3 min. Add egg little by little and mix well. (Optional) Add the pandan flavouring/green food colouring and mix well.
3. Shift in cake flour and baking powder and mix well until everything comes together into a dough. 
4. Cover with plastic wrap and shape it into a log and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour.

5. Next, we can make the bread dough. Mix warm water, salt and beaten egg together.
6. In a stand mixer with dough-hook attachment, first mix together bread flour, instant yeast and sugar until even. (Kneading with hand will take at least 20 min)
7. Gradually mix in the warm water mixture and turn the speed to medium, and knead the dough until it's silky and elastic, appprox 5 min (the dough may seem slightly dry at first but should come together at the end, if not add 1 tsp more water).
8. Then add the softened butter in 3 additions. Only add the next addition when the previous one has been evenly kneaded into the dough for at least 7-8 min. The dough should be soft and moist, but pulls away cleanly from the bowl when the machine run and makes slapping sound against the side.
9. In a large bowl, form the dough into a ball and cover the bowl with plastic wrap (to keep the surface of the dough from drying out), and leave to proof in a warm place at 30C for 30-60 min or until it has doubled or tripled in size.
(You can use the proof function on your home oven by first preheat the oven to the lowest setting 30C/40C then turn it off 15 minutes before you put in the bowl of dough. Place 2 cups of recently boiled hot water into the oven, next to the dough to ensure the bread dough is not dry up. Ensure the oven door is closed during the whole proofing process.)
10. Once proofed, coat your finger in flour and poke the dough. If the hole stays, it's ready. If the dough springs back, it needs to proof more. If the dough shrinks, it is over proofed. 

11. Finally, assemble the melon pan, in a turtle shape if you want. I learn this from this blogger hippomum.
12. Place the dough onto a working surface and punch out the air with your palm. Divide it into 10 equal pieces using a knife. 
To make turtle shape:
For each piece, cut out 4g (head), 6g (divide into 4 legs and one tail) and the rest for body. Quickly form them into balls. Place them on a baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and rest for 15 minutes.
13. Take out the cookie dough and cut them into 10 pieces and shape them into balls. One at a time, roll out the cookie dough between two layers of plastic wrap, place the turtle body in the center and enclose it in the cookie dough. With a scraper or knife, cut the criss-cross pattern on the cookie dough. Finally glue the head, legs and tail onto the body (use a bit of water if necessary). 

Optional: You can sprinkle some sugar on the cookie dough for better flavour.
(The pastry crust softens very easily, so work with only 1 or 2 portions at a time, keeping the remaining pastry crust refrigerated.)

14. Place them on lined baking sheet and  cover with plastic wrap and leave to proof in a warm place at 30C for 20-30 min. (you can use the proof function on your home oven as above)

15. Bake at 180C for 10-12 minutes. (Depending on the heat of the oven, cooking time may differ). Place them on a wire rack to cool. Ready!!!

Enjoy the fun baking process!!! Its ok to fail, bread is always hard to make, you need lots of failure to be successful, or maybe you are baking genius.

I still want to study more on how to make bread extremely moist in the mouth, if you can teach me, please do share it on my facebook page. 

Sharing some illustration of my turtle toy and my turtle melon pan. 

Read More

Ice Pop ~ Green Bean Flavor

Is the weather too hot to bear? Especially when the ministry of environment keep warning us on the prolong hot weather for the next 4 months... Do you wish to have something cold to chew on?

First thing come into my mind are those ice pops/popsicles that we used to eat when we were young (of cos not referring  to those 90s when they only know ice cream).

Ice Pop is basically a popsicle made usually from anything like juice with fruits or any sweet dessert or anything you can think of like sweetened young coconut water with shreds of young coconut meat. I used to eat the kind with sour plum juice, they are especially refreshing.

In this post, I would like to share the green bean flavor. First of all you have to make the green bean soup, where you can find my recipe here. 

Instruction:

1. Fill up the mixture into a single ice pop plastic bag tube (a funnel would be), secure and tight up with rubber band.

If you are in Singapore, you can get these plastic bag from SKP. I believe in modern days now, you will use those pretty color popsicle mold instead of my traditional plastic bag tube. However, the plastic offers a little built in protection from sticky fingers, and they can be totted around for a picnic or backyard barbecue with little fuss. 

2. Freeze for about 3 hours/overnight or until sets.
*for the big batch definitely needs to freeze longer.

Enjoy!!! and Lets endure the heat together!!!!

Read More

Green Tea Soufflé

I was looking at this recipe from Just One Cookbook and inspired me to try doing this amazing green tea flavour soufflé. I actually planned for one week to do this, first I did research on many other recipe and of cos I found my favourite Michelin Chef Gordon Ramsay's video and boost my confidence to try it on. Then I plan to get the green tea powder which is not usually found at the local supermarket, so I have to get down to the Japanese supermarket in town like Isetan or Meidiya. Then I have to combine both the recipes and techniques from the 2 chefs above into one.

That's it for my long winded process....

Let's move on to the recipe which is adapted from Just One Cookbook and with my additional tips.

Before you start, I would advise you to watch these 2 youtube, then you will have a smooth sail during the whole process...

Serves: 4 (3 inch diameter ramekin)

Ingredients
For coating ramekins
unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
1 tsp green tea powder (optional)
Mix the sugar and green tea powder in a small bowl. Brush the ramekins with butter, using upward strokes. Put in the mix sugar and green tea in one ramekin and rotate the ramekin to dust the insides and pour the excess to the next ramekin and so on. Chill in refrigerator to set.

                       

Things to take note:

1. Make sure the ramekin is dry before you brush the butter over, this is to ensure the soufflé rise evenly.
2. Make sure you brush the butter using upward strokes, this technique will push the soufflé up during baking.

3. Make sure you coat the whole inside of the ramekin from the bottom to the top edge, so they can rise evenly.

For the Soufflé

150 ml milk
100 ml heavy whipping cream (double cream)
3 large yolks
22 g granulated sugar
15 g all-purpose flour + 10 g corn flour
1 Tbsp.green tea powder

3 egg whites
44g (4 Tbsp/1.6 oz) granulated sugar

For dusting
1 Tbsp. powder (icing) sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 200C.

2. Prepare the Ramekin.

3. Whisk egg yolk and sugar in a heatproof bowl until pale and thickened slightly.

4. Sift the flour into the egg mixture and mix well.

5. Heat the milk and heavy cream in a small saucepan until almost boiling.

6. Add a splash of hot milk mixture into the egg mixture and whisk well until the mixture is smooth. Then gradually whisk in the rest of the milk mixture.

7. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan. Whisk the mixture ALL TIMES over a medium-low heat for 2-3 mins until thickened and smooth. KEEP WHISKING during this process otherwise your custard will overcook and become clumpy.

8. When the custard has thickened, immediately transfer to a bowl (otherwise remaining heat from the saucepan will “overcook” the mixture). Cover with plastic wrap and cool to room temperature (you can put in the fridge to make this process faster).

9. Once the custard has cool down, sift green tea powder into the custard.

10. Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl till bubbles start to form (Kitchen Aid mixer Level 3 for 2 minutes). Start adding sugar gradually a spoonful at a time. Once you add all the sugar, increase the speed to Level 8 and whisk to make a firm, glossy meringue, about 3 minutes.

11. Whisk ⅓ of the meringue into the custard and mix until homogenous.

12. Very carefully fold in the rest of the meringue using a rubber spatula. Do not over mix.

13. Spoon the soufflé mix into ramekins until half filled. Tap them on the work surface so it filled the bottom of the ramekin well and it will rise nicely in the oven. Fill in the rest of the soufflé mix to the ramekin until it is fully covered. Finally run the thumb around the edge.
p.s if its difficult to understand, please look at the Gordon's video.

14. Place the ramekins on a baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes until well risen and slightly golden on top. The souffle should wobble gently in the middle when it’s ready. 

15. Finally dust with powder sugar and place on a plate and serve immediately.

This time round I managed to record how the sexy soufflé rise in the oven. So please do click on the youtube link below and enjoy....

Can you see the souffle were dancing in the oven near the end of baking time?
If you ask me what is the secret to making a successful soufflé, I would say that's because I were singing to them so they can feel my love and dance to the top and rise... :)

Read More

Bacon Egg Muffin with Mushroom Sauce

This is actually a pretty simple breakfast to do with many kind of varieties that you can try around, you can add sausage in it or use quail egg instead of egg and etc.

For my case, I think with some mushroom sauce will be perfect as it will not be too dry to eat on its own and its an addition of nutrition.

The following recipe is for a couple portion. However you can do one whole dozen of the muffin and and eat it as it is without the mushroom sauce or adjust to your liking.

Ingredients
2 slices of bread
4 slices of bacon
2 eggs
salt and pepper
dried parsley

MUSHROOM SAUCE
350g white button mushroom (or your choice of mushroom), thinly sliced
1 tbsp butter
250 ml chicken stock
1 tsp corn starch
1 tsp garlic powder/1 clove garlic

Direction
1. Cut circle (slightly bigger than the bottom of muffin cup) out of each piece of bread. Grease the muffin tin and press the bread in the muffin cups. Place in the oven and bake at 180 degree Celsius for 5 min and then remove from oven.

2. Slightly pan fried the bacon around 5 min or until slightly crisp. Place 2 slices of bacon on top of the bread so they wrap around the sides to form a cup.

3. Crack an egg into each muffin cup. Remove some egg whites if its too excessive.

4. Bake in the oven at 180 degree Celsius around 15-18 min until the eggs are set.

5. Heat up a pan and melt the butter. Add the sliced mushroom and garlic powder and cook until fragrant. Dissolve corn starch in a small amount of water and add to chicken stock. Gradually add chicken stock and continue to stir and cook until the sauce is thickened. Add pepper and parsley to taste.

6. Place the bacon egg muffin on a plate and sprinkle some dried parsley on the egg and season with salt and pepper. Pour the mushroom sauce over it and ready to be served.

Read More

Mini Napoleon Strawberry with Lemon Curd

I have always thought of making puff pastry desserts at home, however the thought of making the pastry has deterred me from starting one, until I found this frozen puff pastry sheet at the local supermarket and they turn out to be pretty fluffy. I was so happy with the outcome and I have started to try out a series of pastries and this time round I am sharing with you a Mini Napoleon Strawberry with Lemon Curd.

Ingredients
1 packet of pastry sheet
Icing sugar
1 box of strawberries (~500g depending on the size) you can always replace with raspberry or blueberries

LEMON CURD
4 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
2 tsp lemon rind
4 tbsp lemon juice
120g cold unsalted butter, chopped to small pieces

Direction
1. First of all you need to take out the frozen pastry from the freezer and let it thaw at room temperature for 2 hours.

2. In the meanwhile, lets prepare the lemon curd so it has time to cool down and in time to use (you can prepare one day in advance too).
   -> Whisk egg yolk and sugar in a heatproof bowl until pale and thickened slightly.
   -> Whisk in rind and juice.
   -> Stir with spatula over simmering water about 10 min or until it coats your spatula.
   -> Remove from heat and gradually whisk in butter piece by piece until well combined.
   -> Set aside to cool and refrigerate.

3. Preheat the oven to 220 degree Celsius.

4. Roll out the sheet into 3mm thickness and cut into 4cm x 12cm. Place on the baking tray with baking paper and dust the top of each pastry with sifted icing sugar. Refrigerate for 10 min and bake pastry for about 15min or until it brown slightly. Leave to cool.
Note: You can always cut the pastry into your desired shape and you may want to follow the instruction of the frozen pastry puff you bought.

5.  Using a serrated knife, carefully split each piece in half horizontally. Spread a thin layer of lemon curd on the bottom pastry and then place 2 strawberries at two ends. Squeeze more lemon curd in between the strawberries and spread a thin layer on top of the strawberries so the top pastry can stick to the strawberries. Dust some icing sugar on top of the puff. 

The following video can help to explain better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=besqto20y5s

6. Ready to be served or you can keep in refrigerator to be served later.

Bon Appétit!!!!

Read More

Pomelo Mango Sago

This is a very famous HK dessert that you usually wont miss every time you visit the place. Luckily the famous dessert stall 满记甜品 came in to Singapore few years ago to relieve our cravings.

But how about we can actually make this at home especially for us who live in the tropical countries which has abundant of good quality of mangoes around. As you know this dessert success depend on the most important ingredient MANGOOOOO.

So let me have the honour to show you how can you do it... of cos you can improvise to suit your taste from here...

Servings: 6

Ingrediets
400ml mango juice (you can use those marigold mango juices that you can get from supermarket)
200ml coconut milk
80-100g sago pearl (depending on how much you love this)
4-5 cups of water to cook the sago
1 to 2 cup of Pomelo arils
3 large ripe mango (sliced and cubed)
sugar syrup (2tbsp sugar + hot water)

Directions
1. Cook the sago:
    - Boil the water.
    - Add in sago pearl and bring to boil and stir well to prevent them from sticking together.
    - Once it boils,  turn off the heat and cover with lid for 20min.
    - Turn on the heat and bring to boil again and stir well to prevent them from sticking together.
    - Once it boils, turn off the heat and cover with lid for 10 min.
    - Drain the sago and rinse to remove the excessive starch. Soak in cold water and drain when completely        cool. Set aside and keep in refrigerator.

2. Cut the mango while cooking the sago. If you want to know how to cubed the sago, this youtuber show you how... Separate 2 mango for blending and 1 mango for garnishing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&gl=SG&v=lvLdPjpELyU

3. Bring coconut milk to boil and set aside to cool.

4. Blend the 2 mango and cool coconut milk till smooth. Add some sugar syrup if its not sweet enough else you can skip this. Add the sago and stir well. Set aside and keep really chill in the fridge, the cooler it is the more yummy it is. At this stage, your dessert is almost done until serving time.

5. To serve, in a bowl add mango juice and then the mango mixture and garnish with mango cube and some pomelo. Enjoy...

Read More