The Verdict: Korean Noodles

And now, we have THE verdict. The verdict to this interesting but crazy post from Babe in the City - KL. Check it out here.

The Korean drama series on tv seem to be the latest craze these days and apparently this dish/concoction was featured in one of the episodes.

The recipe called for Shin Ramyun noodles, a slice of cheddar cheese, one egg and potato crisps. Weird, isn't it? And if this wasn't weird enough, I had to add a little more weirdness to it.

Since I hadn't any Shin Ramyun noodles, but had some other brand of Korean Kimchi noodles, I used that, together with a lonely and neglected Thüringer Bratwurst (some fancy name for a pork sausage I bought from a gourmet deli) that was sitting in the fridge. I've never been able to eat instant noodles by itself without adding some kind of meat and vegetable, so this is a great opportunity to clear out my fridge. And since I also didn't have any cheese slices, I used the shredded cheddar that I was saving up for a pizza. Oh, I didn't have potato crisps either, but that's not a big deal coz I had some tortilla chips! Add the cheese just as the noodles are about done, stir in the egg, add a handful of shredded baby romaine, top with the tortillas.....

What's weird is...I actually thought it was quite nice! It's rich, creamy and robust with maybe just a tinge of too much saltiness due to the cheese and tortillas, which can be remedied by not putting all of the contents in the seasoning sachet that comes with the noodles. Otherwise, it's an interesting cocktail of flavors. I wouldn't have this too often tho....all that MSG and salt. Be ready with some glasses of water.

Oh...and my apologies for having no pic. I was really hungry.

Cut Out Cookies

Don't they look sweet?

Cut out cookies are such fun to make if you have a little bit of time on your hands...and then a little bit more after that to ice them. That's when you can let your imagination go and call a messed up design "creative" and your own. (Speaking from experience)

You wouldn't believe it but I actually found this very good recipe on the back of my cookie cutter packaging, tested it out and decided it's just too good not to share.

I am not posting the icing recipe here as I used store-bought ones for this particular post. There will be another post soon for homemade icing....with more cookies! Besides, it's the season for cookies and what better time than now to go wild with your creations. Deck the halls......lalala......

By the way, I used to get into the Christmassy mood in June! It's gotten later as each year goes by ........ too many distractions.

INGREDIENTS

120 g unsalted butter

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 whole egg

2 cups self raising flour, sifted

3 - 4 drops vanilla essence OR

1 tsp vanilla extract

METHOD

Preheat oven to 170˚C.

Line cookie sheets with baking parchment or baking mat.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add essence.

Add egg and beat well to combine.

Stir in sifted flour and knead gently into a ball. Divide into 2 - 3 portions (this is just to make it easier to roll out later), flatten slightly into discs, wrap with plastic and refrigerate for about 20 minutes.

Roll out each disc into 4 - 5 mm thickness on a floured surface or in between 2 plastic sheets.

Cut out with cookie cutters of your choice and bake for about 8 - 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown slightly.

Remove and cool cookies on a rack.

Cool completely before icing.

Just a Bit of Sunshine

A couple of weeks ago, I was just hanging around waiting for someone. We were on the outskirts of the city, on a pedestrian bridge, over some railway tracks .... don't ask, that's a whole other story. FYI: It doesn't include jumping, leaping or any attempts at defying gravity.

The foot bridge linked a kampung (a small village) to the fringes of the city. In the short time I stood waiting, and the kampung-folk passed by me on the bridge, I had received more genuine smiles, waves and "hellos" than I would have been able to scrape together from a year's worth of city-folk passing me on the average city street.

The rat-race, we city-dwelling urbanites sometimes feel so privileged to be a part of, can so consume us that we lose sight of the simple but really important things ... you know, good manners, civility .... just being friendly. Making a living in a tough, competitive arena that is the city, is a poor excuse for replacing these simple courtesies and values with the selfish, detached and ultimately the arrogant creatures that urban living seems to breed.

It is a poor excuse because we all must realize that rural folks have worries and problems just as relevant and demanding as ours are to us. They just haven't forgotten to, pause ... breathe ... and actually live a little with their fellow man.

It took just simple smiles to make my day. I hope, my smile in return, even if just for an instant, brightened theirs too.

Warning: Beware of crazy, smiling woman at a city near you!

Soft As Cotton Custard Bread

Fresh & Piping Hot!

≈ Give a man a loaf of bread,

and he eats for 2 days.

Teach him to bake,

and he eats forever ≈

Okaaay.... maybe that's not exactly how the saying goes but, hey, it means the same thing and so absolutely true.

This mission to massacre the English language, stems from my schooldays, the good ol' days when I made my English language teachers climb the walls. I loved mashing the proverbs, sayings and adages, for example: an apple a day, keeps the doctor away.... unless it has a worm in it :D Those were gooood times!

Fast forward.....

You know those times when you walk into a bakery and smell that unmistakeable aroma of freshly baked bread? Mmmmm...I wonder if anyone has ever thought of bottling that as an air freshener for kitchens. Or even the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Double mmmm....

Seriously back on earth....

I found this lovely recipe at "Do What I Like" ... interesting name, don't you think?

I haven't baked any other type of bread for a long while ever since I tried this. It's soooo soft and cottony and with the little hint of vanilla I added to the custard, it is very difficult to not go back for seconds.... and thirds. This is a small enough portion to finish quickly leaving little chance for it to go stale, which is a good thing as there are no preservatives added.

LOAF TIN SIZE : L 8" X W 4" X H 4"

Oil tin, line with parchment and oil parchment

or

just lightly oil a non-stick loaf tin

(I used grapeseed oil)

INGREDIENTS FOR CUSTARD

1 egg yolk

1 tbs sugar

2 tbs bread flour / high protein flour

65 ml fresh milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract / 1/4 tsp vanilla essence

METHOD

Put all custard ingredients (except vanilla) into a saucepan and whisk until smooth.

Cook mixture at medium heat, stirring continuously, until it thickens into a paste. Remove from heat.

Stir in vanilla.

Transfer custard into a small bowl, cover with cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

INGREDIENTS FOR DOUGH

250 g bread flour / high protein flour

2 1/2 tbs caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp quick active dry yeast

2 1/2 tbs milk powder

100 ml water

25 g unsalted butter

METHOD

Mix dough ingredients with the cooled custard until well combined.

Knead dough until smooth and elastic and no longer sticky.

Place dough in a lightly oiled mixing bowl and cover with cling film or a tea towel and leave for an hour, or until doubled in size.

Punch out the dough and knead a little to get rid of air bubbles.

Divide dough into 3 equal portions and shape them into neat little balls. (This part is optional. You can leave it as one big lump like the usual shaped loaf).

Place them side by side in the oiled loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap or tea towel and allow to rise for another hour or until dough rises up to about 3/4 of the loaf pan.

Bake in a preheated oven of 180˚C for 30 mins.

To prevent the top from over-browning, tent bread with aluminum foil after 20 mins into baking.

Unmold immediately when done.

Cool completely before storing.

PS: This is also great for bread pudding!

Chiffon Cake with Pandan Topping

This is a re-post and a long overdue pic of a previous recipe called Pandan Cake, which is a recipe contributed by the mum of one of my students. Thanks, Mrs H.

I thought I should change the name of the recipe (my apologies, Mrs H!) as the cake doesn't really have any pandan in it and neither is the pandan part, a cake. Although, you could use diluted pandan juice to substitute the 100g of water in the cake section of the recipe. Then, it would be definitely be called a pandan cake. I just like the dual-colored look to this dessert, so I've decided on a nice and simple vanilla chiffon....which was what the original recipe called for.

Now, don't make this lazy mistake I did ...... make sure the egg whites are whipped good and proper until every single bit gets to the hard peak stage ... with a proper whisk, electrical or otherwise. I just dumped mine into the food processor using the egg white paddle attachment (yeah, it was a paddle, not a whisk...should've known better) and didn't notice that the bottom bit was still a little runny even when the top was all nice and peaky. By the time I tipped the whole lot into the egg yolk mixture ..... AAaarrrggghhh!!!

It turned out ok but not as fluffy as I'd like it to be or when I was doing the non try-to-save-some-time way .... sigh.

It tastes good tho.

Anyway, I hope yours turn out better than mine did.

INGREDIENTS

PANDAN LAYER

400 ml coconut milk (I used 2 X 200ml ready packed coconut milk)

50 ml pandan juice (about 10 large leaves blended with 1/2 cup water, sieve and measure out)

300 ml light pandan juice (add water to remainder of the above juice to make amount)

150 g sugar

60 g cornflour

1 tbs agar agar powder

1/8 tsp salt

green coloring, optional

METHOD

Combine all of the above in a large pot and whisk until smooth. Heat over medium heat, whisking continuously until thickened to a starchy consistency. Pour into a 9" X 9" deep tray. Leave aside while you make the cake layer.

CAKE

3 egg yolks

4 tbs castor sugar

2 tbs corn oil (I used grapeseed oil)

1 tsp vanilla essence (I used 2 tsps homemade vanilla extract)

100 ml water

100 g self raising flour

5 egg whites

4 tbs caster sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180˚C.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the 3 egg yolks, 4 tbs sugar, oil, vanilla, water and self raising flour. Whisk until mixture is smooth.

In a separate mixing bowl, beat the 5 egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add the sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

Fold egg white mixture into egg yolk mixture until well combined.

Pour batter onto pandan layer.

Place cake pan into a water bath / bain marie and bake for about 45 minutes.

Remove from oven and water bath, cool and refrigerate before unmolding.

The Occasional Tip: Weatherproof Labels

This is just one of the many tips I've received from all the aunties, uncles, grandmas and grandpas, collected and stored in some dark recess of my cluttered brain. Every now and again, I find I need to dig some of this information out and use them....cobwebs and all. Some of them are quite the common knowledge and some can be just so simple. Take this one for example...

I like to label and date my raw or leftover foodstuff before keeping them in the refrigerator or freezer. And sometimes I run out of those waterproof felt pens and proper freezer labels.

So here's the tip : Just rub a white candle over the writing on your label. And that should prevent them from getting smeared.

Happy storing and freezing!

Sci-Fi Steak

The things that will get my husband into the kitchen to cook ...(eyes rolling). It's either a "MacGyver" dish or something like this... technical. Mr Extremes.

Maybe I shouldn't name it "Sci-Fi Steak" but "Scientific Steak". He watched a program called Kitchen Chemistry and the lightbulb on the top of his head lit up...and I could see the gears in his head start churning.

I'm not complaining, it turned out beautifully. If you like your steaks flavorful, juicy, tender and perfectly medium rare, this is the method to achieve it. This method creates the most evenly cooked steaks I've ever experienced....beautifully pink throughout. Not a graduation from fully cooked to the cold, raw centers we usually get when we ask for medium rare / rare "doneness". Is it only me or does anyone else have a problem with the term "doneness"?

UTENSILS

1 large pot

1 pair of long stainless steel tongs

1 chopstick / skewer

Elastic bands

Heatproof plastic bag / Baking bag

Cooking thermometer

Pan

INGREDIENTS

2 steaks of your choice

salt, pepper to taste

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 small onion, chopped

Clarified butter / Ghee

METHOD

Bring a pot of water to a steady 60˚C. Use cooking thermometer to accurately maintain temperature.

Season steaks.

Heat pan with a little clarified butter / ghee and quickly sear both sides of the steaks on high heat. Remove. Add the chopped garlic and onion into the hot pan and stir until aromas are released. Take care not to burn the garlic. Remove pan from heat. Return the steaks to the pan and stir to mix through.

Put pan contents into a heat proof plastic bag. Expell as much air as possible and seal with elastic bands. Be careful not to scald yourself.

- A sealed vacuum in the bag is ideal. But if a little care is taken and there are no obviously large pockets of air in the bag, the dish will work out fine.

This is where my husband went MacGyver on me and used a contraption made up of, a short length of stainless steel tube, elastic bands, a wine bottle stopper and its related vacuum pump to achieve a sealed vacuum without a commercial vacuum sealing device. -

Suspend the sealed bag in the pot of 60˚C water for a minimum of 2 hours.

Remove steaks from bag. Serve immediately, no resting needed.

Reserve liquid. Thicken and season to taste. Serve with steaks.

* Side dishes - roasted potatoes, vegetables etc.

Recommended read - see, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sous-vide. The method is apparently from the 1800's....where they found plastic bags, I wonder....hmmm. Searing the steaks first arguably has taste and food safety benefits. Keeping a 60˚C water bath sacrifices the last bit of tenderness but is above the recommended pasteurization temperature.