Sausage buns

This is my kind of simple light weekend lunch. Sauage laced with tomato sauce on super soft and fluffy bread. I did say light lunch but one is never enough and it's simple enough to tick all boxes for all in the house. Using the TZ bread method, the buns stay super soft till the next day. And there's something about baked mayonnaise the texture and taste changes to something yummy! I made some round ones topped with cheese and yummy...sinful? Yes, yummy? Double yes!!

The factory line

Stick to the TZ method if you want soft soft bread

 

 

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Pot baked crusty bread

This may change the way I bake bread from now onwards. A friend asked about baking bread in a cast iron pot and in doing so flicked the curiosity switch that is inherent in my nature. A quick google showed Great British Bakeoff finalist James Morton recommending baking bread in pots! I didn't need any further convincing, so together with my friend we embarked on a journey that may change us forever as we both love hand kneading bread! Did I neglect to mentioned that this particular recipe from JM does not require kneading the dough? Even more reason to test it out, right?

One of the comments on the JM blog also said the person was happy to hear cracking after removing the bread from the oven. Cracking ??? When I did mine, it did indeed produce cracking sounds after I removed it from the oven...in fact t it went on cracking for a good while! Just the sound, the bread did not actually crack as you can see from the picture.

I will have to leave you now while I wait for the bread to cool enough to cut into. Yes, I was so excited to see the baked bread in a pot that I started to blog before I even cut the bread! Stay tuned!

I only cut the loaf the next day, it was still soft on the inside and the crust due to the steaming action in the pot is really good!

 

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Koay teow th'ng

There is no easy way to spell this dish and the only way is what makes sense to me phonetically. This is basically flat rice noodles in tasty broth. I can't remember what it was now but something put this noodle soup dish in my mind and won't let me enjoy other food until I have satisfied the craving for this. It's a shame that it was an impromptu dish this time as I would have loved to have some fish balls and fish cakes in it. Instead what I made was rather authentic i.e. the soup base was made from duck stock instead or the 'cheat' chicken stock. It turned out to be quite tasty and more importantly close to the taste in my mind so craving satisfied!

 

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Pandan chiffon cupcakes

This afternoon there was a desperate request for 'green cake' or better known to the rest of the world as pandan chiffon cake. The conversation went something like this

'I really really want the green cake'

'no, it takes a long time to make, how about tomorrow'

'But I want it now, I'll help you make it' goes off into the kitchen and started to clear a space on the table

'You put the ingredients here' so as commanded I proceeded to 'put the ingredients on the table'

Now cakes that are prone to collapsing and little helpers are not a good combo but I have seen this cake made in cupcake form. So I decided to half the recipe and make chiffon cupcakes. As it turns out, the cupcakes did not colaspe and my little helper, true to her words did a lot of the work. There was a bit of a volcanic action going on 7 minutes into the bake but once the temperature was adjusted it calmed down giving the end result a bit of a rustic look. Little helper happily ate two cupcakes as soon as it was done and left me to do all the washing up.

Unlike the full sized cake, no need to invert and cool

 

 

Still as fully and soft

 

 

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Pork floss (bak huu)

I was speaking to my sis this morning and she mentioned bak huu and I thought it's been a long time since I had any and since I had a pork fillet in the fridge.....why not? I did happen to have a recipe for it, just never tried it so no surfing the net required and it only required 3 ingredients...pork, light soya and rock sugar! So easy, boil everything in the slow cooker till the meat starts to colaspe, shred then fry in the pan till dry. hmmm, need to run to the supermarket to buy bread now as I have nothing to eat it with!

 

Pandan kaya

I made 3 lots of kaya in the last 3 days! The first lot was the normal caramel kaya made the night before a friend's party for pulut tai tai. Since it was made late at night, I think I sort of lost concentration and probably stirred too long as though not burnt the kaya was of a weird texture but still edible. The next day when the pulut tai tai was ready, I had some spare time and so decided to whip up a new batch of kaya for my friend instead of using the one I made previously. This time, I made the pandan version, it turned out much better, in fact I liked it so much that I made more the next day for myself as I was dreaming of kaya toast!

Kaya toast... Best breakfast ever!

 

 

Croissants

This is a back post, I can't believe I forgot about this one. For a really long time I've been wanting to make croissants, am always fascinated with the folding of the dough to make the layers. I finally did get round to it using a recipe from the great British Bakeoff. To results was ok-ish, which means the hunt for a better recipe is on, however it will be a while before I will attempt it again...too much waiting in between steps!

Mini me having a go at the dough

 

 

Pandan chiffon cake

It's pot luck time again! What to bring for sharing....not wanting to have a manic morning cooking and too lazy to get in to town to the chinese supermarket for Asian ingredients, I decided to go for a store cupboard staple that I can make the night before. There's always pandan in the freezer, tinned coconut milk in the larder, no waiting for butter to get to room temperature what better choice could there be? So pandan cake it is, I've made this numerous times and my mantra while making this is ...be patient when whisking the eggs whites, be patient when whisking the egg whites, be patient when whisking the egg whites AND you will be rewarded!

So two hours later, cake is baked and ready! I can watch tv while waiting for it cool, sleep in tomorrow morning and turn up at the pot luck not looking harassed! I call that a WIN!

Cake cooling

 

 

Before de-tinning, less cracking on the top than usual, I must have been a patient whisker this time round

 

Hong Kong egg tarts

I keep looking up the recipe for these but never got round to making them. When the Great British Bakeoff had egg tarts as the technical challenge, I just had to make them. But I didn't want the 'ang mo' version, I wanted the Hong Kong version that we get at home. I was quite nervous when it came to making the custard as I've never made custard from scratch before and have have seen lots of disasters on tv where the custard becomes scrambled eggs. In my nervousness, I forgot to add the vanilla extract to the custard, luckily it still turned out right and was not too eggy. In fact, it was quite yummy if I say so myself!

Cross section of the tart, super smooth custard!

 

 

Curry mee (curry laksa)

This is curry mee made from scratch. I invited some friends over for lunch and offered to make curry laksa for them, thinking I had some ready made curry mee paste (I always do). I woke up in the morning to find the cupboard bare! No curry paste! Panic! I had 3 options, make something else, wait till the Chinese shop is open and get more paste ( risky option by the time I get there it will be close to noon and no guarantee there will be paste available), last option make the paste from scratch. First option sounded like the easiest but I had my heart set on eating curry mee. So after a quick flip through my hawker food recipe book, I convinced myself that I could do it and so I did! The homemade paste was great, it took a lot of effort so paste is still much easier. The lunch went well, I gave myself a pat on the back and made a note to go buy more paste!

 

Bee hoon soup

Bee Hoon soup is one of my go to comfort food when I'm feeling a little under the weather. My version is super simple with just 3 main ingredients, bee hoon, choi sum and pork mince... ala the ones you get at the hawker stall referred to in my family as "cook bowl by bowl" or rather we say it in Hokkien "jit uah jit uah chu" ..hahaha, still it's a little taste of home to perk me up when I'm feeling down.

 

Seeded loaf

It's back to baking bread again, I have loads of strong flour in the larder that needs using so bread it is. This time it's a seeded loaf filled with all the seedy goodness of wheat and barley flakes, kibbled rye, sunflower seeds, millet and linseed. I used my usual French loaf recipe but with half plain strong flour and half seed and grain flour. Because I was changing the recipe it was a bit touch and go but it will turned out well, fortunately for me it did but unfortunately for me, I did not take note of my changes so it will be another experiment to try to recreate this lovely loaf!

Freshly out of the oven

 

 

Banana Loaf

I found myself with a bunch of really ripe bananas this weekend... What to do to minimise waste? Banana loaf comes to mind, specifically the ones sold in the market or pasar malam by the Malay vendors. I love the fragrant banana loaf they sell, to call it a loaf I think does not do it any justice, it's a really long loaf, enough to feed a family of 12 or more I would say, I would not be exaggerating! Anyway, a quick rummage in the larder to hunt for the banana essence I was sure I had and with a little help from a pair of little hands to measure the ingredients, the loaf was baked and smelling lovely! The owner of the pair of little hands thought it was good and ate an entire adult size piece...so it must really be good!

 

Hong Kong Chee Cheong Fun

I've never really eaten Hong Kong Chee Cheong Fun till I got here and went for Dim Sum with friends. Turns out, I rather fancy them and after a Dim Sum making session with the cooking club, I was bitten by the Dim Sum bug and decided to try making this dish. I have made koay teow previously and this looked rather similar, only problem was previously I had trouble keeping the thickness even as I seem to own a rather lopsided steamer! After some research, which basically means watching Utube videos (And getting side tracked by the videos leading into other things) I found one method where foil baking dishes were used by 'floating' them on boiling water in a wok. It worked out really well, result below. The filling for this cheong fun is a simple mix of spiring onions and dried prawns (no lap cheong at the shop).

 

Vegetarian curry puffs

After a curry puff experiment as short while ago to find a pastry that I like, I  was armed and ready for the next call for fingerfood. It came in the form a farewell for 2 fellow Malaysians. These were made using a sort of hybrid between the spiral curry puff and the normal curry puff skin. As for the filling, on the recommendation of Keep learning keepsmiling, I used a mix of the Scotty brand baby potatoes and the normal potatoes. The result was light crispy and flaky skinned puffs with fluffy potato filling...yumm!

The hybrid skin was flaky and melt in the mouth

The fluffy filling, fragranced with curry leaves ... yum!

Blueberry pancakes

On weekends when I'm looking for something a bit special for a leisurely breakfast, this never fails. This is an american sytle pancake filled with juicy blueberries, ready to burst when cut open, served with maple syrup, it makes a really good start to the weekend.

Fluffy inside with the blueberry ready to burst!

Dhall Curry (with Roti)

We get really good frozen roti canai from the indian spice shop here so no need to make them ;-) They used to come with dhall curry but now you can only get the roti so I had to make my own dhall curry. Like most curry, dhall curry is never good if eaten freshly made, it requires some standing time before the taste develops. Note, no matter how hard I try, there is just no way to make dhall curry look appertizing in a photo, you just have to take my word for it, it was delicious!

Ban Jiang Kuih

Ban Jiang Kuih is yet another version of pancake with chopped peanuts and corn kernel filling, asian-sytle of course! The ones I've had are usually made by chinese vendors. It's facinating to watch the seller make them as he will have a number of small kuih moulds arranged in a square with their metal covers over individual fires. It is quite a feat managing the many pancakes cooking at the same time. There are some stalls who have one giant mould which produces a giant pancake which is then cut into smaller pieces. I personally prefer the individual sized ones!

Roasted peanut waiting to be shelled for the filling and the ban jian kuih cooking

Oat Cakes

If you are looking for something special for breakfast that is also good for you, these oat cakes are what you need. Similar to pancakes with oats added into the batter makes it a healthy choice, as for the topping, it's up to you. Keep it healthy with just a light drizzle of honey and lemon juice or indulge with butter and fresh fruit compote or peanut butter...really, anything goes!

Char Siew Pao

Finally I managed to get my hands on the right kind of flour, which my good friend has kindly brought over from Malaysia, to try making pao. I remember watching the pao man sat on his wooden stool in the kopitiam in Pulau Tikus shaping paos, the speed in which he can churn them out is unbelievable!




Dough resting, filling and the shaped paos waiting to be steamed