Banana Pancake with Poached Pear in Cinnemon & Sherry, A Quick Greek Style Sausage Bake

Recap of the breakfast on Sunday... Our family tradition now as the children look forward to their pancakes....
So I made banana pancakes - big size ones yeah? Just good to have one each, although the 10 year old did ask for the second one! I normally make some syrup to go with pancakes, and the syrup I made was from half raw sugar, half white sugar, nashi quarters de-cored, added cinnemon and sherry.... Everyone loved it, the children even ate the pears... so hard to get them to eat fruits... Recap for last Saturday's dinner, a quick Greek Style bake dish with sourdough and home made hummus dip. Layered grilled egg plant, skinless beef sausages marinated in cumin, clover, nutmeg poweders, oregano, parsley and mint. add on sundried tomatos and fetta cheese, a quick & easy dish, and the only hard work was grilling the egg plants...



Anyway, this is the never fail on me Sourdough.... lovely hummus dips as well.

Cantonese Style Roast Duck and White Chocolate Macarons.

I did start the duck process the night before.


Even though I know I won't be able to replicate a proper roast duck due to the oven limitations, it's still nice to know if I can do a nice duck at home...
We only bought a small duck, small family, that's enough for us.

The night before, I rubbed the inner side of the duck with Hoisum sauce, placed inside some spring onion and sliced ginger and sealed it with a skewer.

Boiled in my wok, a mixture made up of white vinegar, 5 spice, bit of shaoxin, light soy and 2 tbsp of Maltose (well, could be more, it's really sticky and hard to count!)
And then I hold the duck over the wok with simmering sauce and bathed it with the sauce with a spoon, coat it again and again, for about 10 minutes (I did get sore arms doing that)

And then, I left it on the rack to dry, before I can hang it up on a hook in the kitchen - well the commerical kitchens will have more airy spots and won't take that long to dry out!
High heat before dinner, and this is what the bird looks like, roasted on rack though... so it has got the rack marks, even I did turn the bird...
Anyway, we had happy campers for dinner... and I had enough time to do the macarons...
This time, plain macarons....
With white chocolate & coconut ganache:
250g white chocolate
100ml thickened cream
25g butter
1/2 cup desiccated coconut...

And they look delicious.... and I guess, more macarons to come in the coming weeks?

Vanilla Slice... I did try hard...

Well, I did try hard, but I did make one big mistake. Overall, still a good dessert, but room for improvement.
First of all, the pastry. I never had much luck with shop bought frozen pastry so even when the recipe I used yelled for shop bought frozen pastry, I decided to make my own.

250G plain flour
125ml water
a few drops of lemon juice
40g of butter (more to come, I promise)
1 tsp of salt...
mix well into a soft dough, set. (I started this on Friday night, and I did set that dough with a cross on top over night in the fridge, usually only need an hour though)
Cut cross on top of dough, roll out and place the 100 g extra butter in there. cover like an envelop and roll out on a cool lightly floured surface. Fold, chill in fridge for 30 minutes, and roll out and fold and, chill, for another 30 minutes - repeat for 5-7 times (I did that on and off when I'm in and out of the house, so it's actually longer than 30 minutes in between.
After the final resting in the fridge, I rolled them out like so and cut into the shape to fit into loaf tins, 4 slices, as recipes specify 1 sheet for top and 1 sheet for bottom... and forgot the estimate the puffs...


and they came out of the oven (210C for 8-10 minutes) like so... I had to prick the pastry with a fork if it's home made! eh... I was in trouble, it's too fragile to be pushed back and too puffed to use 2 layers... so I end up splitting the pastry in the middle...

That only meant my fillings will be only half of the height, so here is the finaly slice (well, we do end up with at least 16 pieces like that! I didn't want to make the icing so just quickly dusted with icing sugar....

For the vanilla slice custard:

250 ml milk

750ml thickened cream

4 egg yolks

3/4 cup corn flour

1 tsp vanilla essense (will be nice if I have vanilla beans)

1/2 cup custard poweder

1 cup castor sugar

50g unsalted butter...

boil the milk and vanilla, cool for 10 minutes and sift it into the sugar custard powder and corn flour mixture, mix well. add in cream and return to heat, cook on low heat and stir till mixture is thickened (be careful of the corn flour!) add in butter and mix well, and then take it off the heat. Mix in yolks, one by one.

and then set the mixture in the lined tin (I used loaf tins but it can be really any square tin you can fit your pastries into), lined with alluminium foils first and then the bottom pastry, custart and top pastry and set over night.

It's not too hard to make icing on top at all, what's so hard to mix some icing sugar, butter and hot water? but because it's too puffy, not only my vanilla slices are much thinner, it's also not great for the icing... so next time, I will make sure the icing will go on top!

Slow Braised Pork Belly in Dark Soy, Almond & Coconut Short Bread with Plum Jam

I did watch a little bit of Poh's Kitchen yesterday and I thought, maybe, I should satisfy the big boy's appetite today and cook him his favourite pork belly - he hasn't really got a favourite recipe for it, he likes his pork belly in which ever way it's cooked, but this is one of the old family favourites, slow

braised pork belly in dark soy...

Cut pork in 1"x3" blocks, fill pot with water,
add 1 Knob of Ginger,
3 cloves of Garlic,
a pinch of salt,
1 tsp of whole black pepper corn,
1tsp of cloves,
water to cover the pork and simmer in low heat for an hour and half. Boil some small baby potatoes in a separate pot in water, drain water and peel off skin when cooked.

When Pork is almost ready, prepare for the marinate stock,
1 cup of soy sauce 1/2 dark, 1/2 light,
1/2 cup shaoxin,
1/2 cup of raw sugar (I did use yellow rock sugar instead),
2tsp five spice powder, in the wok.

Take pork out and rince under cold water. Return pork and potatos to the wok with marinate sauce, add some stock (from the pot pork cooked in), add the ginger back into the work, and start to reduce the sauce, to half, stir and coat the pork and the potatos. Once the sauce is thickened, pork is cooked....


And then I found some plum jam which was given to me by mother in law... and I decided to make some short bread sandwiches using the nice home made jam...


250g SR flour,
2tsp baking powder,
40g castor sugar,
75g cubed cold butter,
1 lightly whisked egg,
4 tbsp milk,
1/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup desiccated coconut...

sift flour and baking powder, mix well, add diced butter, rub in until it resembles bread crumbs, add the rest of the ingredients to form a soft dough, add a bit more milk if needed. Roll the doll into a stick 5cm in diameter, and cut each piece about 1cms thick, slightly shape it and place them on the cookie sheets (don't forget to grease your baking tray and paper.) They take about 12 minutes in a 200C oven, and then I sandwiched them together with the lovely plum jam....

Ricotta Creme Fraiche Scones, Ghostsword Fish Sweet Curry and My Almost Perfect Loaf

I thought this day will never come true - when mother in law mentioned the old school home cooks in the old days can just whisk up some batches of scones when unexpected guests arrive - they'd make the guests cups of tea, seat the guests, chatting away with a scone dough, and minutes later, the perfect afternoon tea with the perfect scones and jam and cream.

I made 2 batches of sourdough breads during the weekend, but all used up for lunches etc and we didn't have any to freeze for the coming week's brekky... Both hubby and I have brekky on the go, so basically, some yoghurts and some home baked goods. 10pm last Sunday night, I said to hubby, well, I have to make some scones.

I didn't know what to make - flavour? I do know I have some ricotta cheese, some creme fraiche, I have to use up, and yes, loads of bananas.

So, I mashed up 2 bananas, add the rest of the ricotta cheese about 150g and all the 250g creme fraiche into the 3.5 cup self raising flour, whisked in an egg, and rubbed in 25g butter. Must say the mixture was a bit too moist to my liking so I did add a bit more dry flour as I go. Ah, I added a bit of cinneman powder and all spice, 1/2 tsp Bi-carb soda to balance the acid, before the wet stuff went in, and put in quite a generous amount (1 cup?) of sultanas.

Baked for 25 minutes whilst baking my son's school lunch (the weekly loaf) and they came out quite nicely - surprising fluffy... Finally, I can get a batch of scones out without any recipes, using whatever in my fridge... So, I'm an old school cook now? And really happy with my loaf this week.... I make my son a loaf of bread each week for his lunch box, and it hasn't worked all that well in the last week or so, but finally, I'm back on track. I just want to give him preservative free home baked goods, and I know he likes his white bread, but if I'm baking, I can just sneak in 3/4 cup of whole meal flour...

Alright, today's dinner, I have been wondering what to do. Week day nights, dinners are usually rushed. We didn't have time to do much in between music lessons, home works (for children of course) and other bits and pieces, and of course I only have 1 hour or so to put dinner on the table and can't prepare anything during the day.

I bought some ghostsword fish - wasn't quite sure about the fish, just some fillets from the supermarket, so I think, maybe a light sweet curry. Something warm, but not heavy, we had the bacon hock soup last night.

First of all, I cut the fish fillets into 2" squares, dusted with ginger powder, white pepper, bit of salt and some tapioca flour, and let it sit for half an hour or so, whilst getting the rice and veggies ready.

In the pot, I heated up some veggie oil, sauted 1 sliced red onion, 1 sliced ginger, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 sliced fresh red chillie with no seeds (I did say mild today), until slightly cooked, then I add 2 tsp of powders (a mixture tumeric, corriander, cummin, cardemon, nutmeg, cinnemon, bits and pieces I found in my spice box, I do use ground spice as it's easier for me) and no chillie powder - normally I'd add more but I wasn't sure if I would use the same sauce for the children, and I do know they can't handle the spices all that well.

I added a can of coconut milk, some white wine, 2tsp of fish sauce, 1 tsp of salt and 1tsp of raw sugar (if you have palm sugar, use that), added in some chopped lemon grass and 3 kaffir lime leaves, a small slice of lemon, and let it simmer.

Meanwhile in another non stick frying pan, I heated up some oil and shallow fried the fish pieces to almost cooked by themselves, and set aside. I chose to do the fish separately because they'd keep the shape better if I fried them by themselves first, and also I do have a choice to seperate kids and adult meals - as it turned out, the sauce (even I toned down) was still to spicey for the children, so I used another pot to tone down further for them with their fish pieces...

I added one tomato cut up in chunk to the pot, and added the fish pieces and a sprig of corriander for the adults.

after 15-20 minutes, the sauce became thicker, and I served up with steamed rice and veggies. Simple food, warm enough for winter and not to heavy.

My First Creme Brulee Tarte and My First Macarons

Saturday night I made my first creme brulee tarte, because I finally bought a blow torch... Well, it's not really that hard as I have made a lot of custard tartes before, the only thing left to be done is the caramelising of the sugar on top...

I followed Michael McCarty's recipe and this tarte is just beautiful.... Must say it is a big tarte, so we had half for dessert after Saturday dinner and the other half, for dessert after Sunday lunch... even the children loved it... This is the link to the recipe http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Creme-Brulee-Tart-350238



I made the creme brulee tarte because I wanted to make Macarons.... so I did it today. Egg whites were seperated 3 days ago, as instructed by Emmanuel Mollois...
Quantity wise, I actually used another recipe, because Emmanuel's recipe contains a lot of eggs, sugar, and I thought, there's no way, I can use up all that biscuits, where can I find an oven big enough to bake all these and I wasn't wrong... Even with that recipe, I think it's better for me to half it, because I found out quick enough, I don't have enough cookie sheets and silicon matts to bake all the biscuits, and if they are not on the right surface, they become sticky and I lost some of the biscuits because of that!

275 grams pure icing sugar
140 grams fine almond meals
4 egg whites
25 grams dutched cocoa powder

and everything is sifted and sifted.... I whisked the egg whites to hard peak, fold in half of the icing sugar and whisk as I would do a French Menringue (of course I did use an electrical mixer, I can whisk by hand, but I think the machine can whisk it a bit firmer...) and then fold in the rest of sugar and cocoa powder and the almond meals.
and Then, I had trouble, we bought that big cupboard thingy for the kitchen and hubby was busy moving things in the kitchen whilst I was stressing out with the macarons... and I was never good with piping... The first bag busted, and then the second... finally got it lucky but after scrapping the batter from one bag to another, I did lose some air bubbles and the biscuits were a bit flatter than I thought it should be....
This is what they look like after 23 minutes in the 140C oven, I do think they could go for 2 or three more minutes, I used Emmanuel's instruction, but he must have got a much better oven than my old 70's very tired oven.
But, it's already exciting enough, after all that, I managed to get 10 reasonable looking macarons, which I only just made a simple ganache for the filling....

100g lindt's 70's cocoa chocolate
100g thickened cream
2 tbsp icing sugar
25g butter
Heat up cream and pour over chocolate (broken down to pieces) and stir to melt the chocolate. add in butter and make sure everything is smooth... add icing sugar, and mix well.
Make sure ganache is cooled down and not runny before you assemble....
I've heard that Macarons are best after chilled in freezer...
Surely they don't look too bad for a first timer? The family did ate the ones that didn't look too good, half stuck ones or the ones piped too close and stuck together, those factory seconds, and they thought the biscuits by itself were yummy enough...

Sourdough Wagyu Shiitake Burger with Riccotta & Mixed Seafood Gnorcchi with Homemade Mayonnaise

Did someone actually said our local super market has gone fancy? I think they have... I found some wagyu shiitake burger patties and thought, not bad, I wouldn't really buy wagye to make beef patties, might as well give it a try... but how...

Then Saturday morning, when I was baking my usual sourdough ciabattas, I had an idea... instead of having the bread rolls for brekky, I will leave them for lunch...

So here it is...

The bread, sourdough ricotta and banana bread (only one banana shared by 4 loaves so not really strong at all)
The pattie, Wagyu Shiitake - I didn't make the pattie so I can't claim the fame there.
The topping: Ricotta cheese with lemon zest, olive oil and minced kalamata and sundried tomatos; sun dried tomatoes, Italian parsley.

Something really simple, tasty, and not heavy...
Saturday dinner, we had "make yourself Sushi", little snack pack sushi sheets from Korean shops, and sushi ingredients, avacado, eggs, fish, cucumbers and sushi rice, the family pick up and roll up their own handrolls and had fun, and we also had this, Mixed Seafood Gnocchi with Home made Mayonnaise.

Seafood mix from the local fish monger wasn't really that hard to poach, a big of sea salt flakes, a bit of pepper and a bit of white wine and lemon juice is all what it needs, added a bit of gnocchi as I thought some one in the family might not like the idea of sushi handrolls, so this one can be a meal on itself...

The home made Mayonnaise is a must to make this whole thing alive... I must say I did use extra bit of Dijion, the rest, is just lemon juice, a bit of garlic, eggs and olive oil... The iceburg is the best to mop the plate clean...

Drunken Hock....

My first time to make the drunken hock... so far, happy with it, although there are mistakes.

I cooked the cleaned fresh pork hock in a brine made up from sichuan pepper corns, cinnamon, five spice, shaoxin, ginger, garlic and salt, for a little bit over an hour, enough for the pork to get some gelatine happenning.

Then took out the bone, wrap up with muslen cloth and wrap up with twine.

Soaked in a mix of shaoxin wine and Vodka (it's not really authentic isn't it, but I needed a strong acoholic kick)....

This is what it looks like after 2 nights, an easy dinner for Friday night when there was no time for cooking at all, just cut it up and plate it up...
But, I must admit this is not actually how it suppose to be done, I might do it again soon and post a proper one hehe...

Shanghai Style Appetisers, Soy Fish & Drunken Chicken

When we were watching Masterchef a couple of weeks ago and Alvin did his version of drunken chicken, hubby turned around and said to me, I haven't had drunken chicken for a long time now....

That's probably true considering I don't usually cook Shanghai style food. Most of my Chinese cooking skills were obtained from Cantonese home cooks and chefs, and very rarely I do mum's style of cooking. Whenever I cook Shanghai style food, mum always tells me, ah, you've done it wrong again, it's not Cantonese style!

Alvin's drunken chicken was done in 1 hour and half - Masterchef challenges were never long enough for you to even blink. I'm not sure if the Shanghai Style flew over to Malaysia, but this is the drunken chicken I grew up with...

Drunken chicken and the Soy Fish that I did a couple of weeks ago, are strictly appetisers and are served as cold dishes in Shanghai style restaurants all over Melbourne... Something not pretentious at all... and not fancy at all.

First of all, the white cooked chicken, poached chicken.

I used a size 10 young chicken from the poultry shop, and the broth is just ginger and salt, nothing else.

Chicken was placed in the pot with water just cover for 15 minutes and then taken out and soaked in icy cold water (this is the process to get gelatine in the skin).

Scoop the oil of the broth away, and place the temporarily cooled down chicken back to the pot, simmer in medium heat for 10 minutes and turn and simmer for another 10 minutes. Take out to put on rack.




Rub in salt whilst still hot, and put salt (I doubt you can rub this time) in the bird's tummy. Quickly put it in the fridge, no covering is needed.
Once cooled in fridge, cut chicken in 4 quarters (you don't really need to cut if you have big enough close lid container and enough Shaoxin!) and stack in a container neatly and tightly...
and Pour in Shaoxin, to almost cover the chicken, this time I used 1 1/4 bottle of wine, lucky shaoxin is relatively cheap! There are other Chinese cooking wine, but Shaoxin is from the similar region to this dish.

Cover lid and put the chicken back into the fridge for at least 24 hours....
Cut in portion and eat. The meat should be pretty tight, and really gets the wine flavour.... Mum's strict instruction is for drunken chicken, nothing else is needed. But if you really insist, you could add a couple of szichuang pepper corns? ah... I'm polluting the Shanghai food again...
Usually the Soy Fish will also be offerred as a side dish or cold dish.... and usually a fresh water fish is to be used for this one. Because it's not the main course, normally a cheaper fish is used and my fish monger told me Shanghais usually buy a carp... By the time I got the carp home, mum was shaking her heads - it can be used, but not as good as the mullets (or maybe another river fish, I get confused... next time, I will shop with mum)
But anyway, we have to work with the carp this time. Fish is to be cleaned and dried - mum prepared the fish whilst I was at work, because it takes a while to dry the fish, and she used some paper towel to soak up the fish fluid...
Then we prepared the soaking sauce. The sauce contains: dark soy, shaoxin wine, star anise, cinnemon stick, ginger and pepper corn, and was carefully boiled to get the flavour out.

We prepared the oil in the wok for frying the fish - it's deep frying but strictly fish only, no batter. Fish was to be taken out straight away when ready and soak into the soy marinating sauce - that's the only way it will soak up flavour... How to tell the fish is ready, the bones are fried to crisp....

After that, we usually let the fish soak in sauce until we are ready to serve it, best leave them in the sauce over night.

Baked Doughnut with Ricotta Filling & Eggplant & Silver Beet Lasagne

hmm... nothing much happenning today, the sfogliatelles I made last night are almost gone, well, more than half, hubby and the daughter were having a go at them...

But I still have half of the ricotta fillings left... I used 2 different recipes for my sfogliatelles because I think the Food Safari recipe for the fillings are for a large large quantity... I was right even with 1/3 of the quantity (the second recipe yelled for double amount for the dough) I still have half left.

So I made some doughnut dough, but I was hesitating on deep frying them... It's the health issue and also I don't like the smoke from the deep fryer when cooking.

So this is my baked doughnuts with ricotta filling...

For the Dough:
400g strong bread flour.
100g hand warm water
100g hand warm milk
2 tsp dry yeast
1 egg - beaten
50g butter
75g white sugar + 1tsp.

Disolve yeast in liquid and 1tsp of sugar and give it 15 minutes to fluff.... mix well flour and sugar. Add egg in and mix well. add in yeast mix and the rest of sugar.
Knead into a soft dough until elastic.
Set to prove for 2 hours or so until the dough doubles (mine quartripled)
Devide into 12 small balls and fold in the ricotta filling.
Roll into vegetable oil to coat the outside of skin.
set on cookie sheet lined with grease proof baking paper.
Bake in 190C oven for 20-25 min....

For the ricotta filling:
280g water
90g semolina
Ricotta 300gr
Sugar 150gr
Eggs 100gr
Candied fruit in cube 100gr
Cinnamon, a pinch
Salt, a pinch

Bring the water, salt and vanilla to a boil
Add the semolina and boil 4-5 minutes.
Beat the eggs in room temperature and add to the above mixture




I think they will come out nicely deep fried and with nice glazes etc, but we are pretty sugared out lately!


I decided to make lasagne for dinner... actually I've got silver beets and egg plant that i have to use. I've been thinking... Spanakopita, Moussaka... but I've just done pork mince last night and I don't have any Feta.... but since I have a lot of ricotta cheese left, I can make my very own vegetarian (well, sort of, you will know what I mean) lasagne... I always make my own lasagne sheets, today, it's no difference

200g strong flour, 2 eggs and a pinch of salt, a drizzle of olive oil, and that's what I usually do...
Normally I make meat sauce lasagnes as the children love that, but today, boy's not home for dinner, daughter had chicken for dinner and I'm experimenting again... I'm not sure if an Italian will have a heart attack with this, but this is my lasagne.....

Bottom layer is the silver beet, I sauted some sliced onion and garlic, and then chucked in the sliced silver beets to sweat... just a pinch of salt and I drained the juice, added some lemon zest, a handful of fresh parsley and layed spread it on the bottom layer of lasagne sheets... spread around almost 250g of ricotta (I love ricotta) and sprinkled salt and pepper..

Lined with lasagne sheets again and some shredded mozerella cheese (not the baffalo type just the common ones from local supermarket) and I layed the chargrilled egg plants (I didn't go for the deep fried version, just the healthier chargrilled version) and in between I lined some salami slices (I had to put in some meats there, although I love vegetarian food, but hubby would love to taste a bit of meat)






It's a simple, pleasant (for me that is) dinner and is not too heavy at all, and hmmm still some room for trying out the doughnuts...

From Shanghai to SziChuang - Egg Crepe Pork Mince Rolls & Mapo Tofu... and the so Italian Sfogliatella Riccia

It's Saturday again...
After helping out with mum's duties, we went out for lunch and had some really yummy Cantonese Roast Duck, and Roast Pork - and awesome fishballs (well, the 3 year old had them)...
So tonight, I can't do Cantonese any more...

Something I learned from mum, a very fiddley Shanghai Dish or is it Hangchow... Sometimes I get it mixed up... but that region, most dishes are super fiddley and time consuming, this is the cheat version of egg dumplings - dumpling skin made by egg only, which means you will have to stand beside the stove, with a steel scoop, a bit of whisked egg in the scoop and making dumpling skins one by one, before the egg is cooked, you need to put the mince in, and close the egg crepe when it's still runny... I don't have the scoop, so I decided to make egg rolls instead... I don't have a proper crepe pan either, but, the $5 Ikea 20cm frying pan will just do the trick...

But first of all, I have to get the mince ready... and my mince, is not all that authentic, this is why...

The Fish Sauce.... something exciting I found after having Vietnamese food....

Ok, this is my 3 year old helping out with the mince, it's just pork mince, with fresh ginger mince, finely chopping spring onion, and finely chopped mushrooms, marinated with salt, light soy sauce, chicken dripping (I just happen to have them, normally I'd just use some vegetable oil) sugar (what is Shanghai food with no sugar and soy) Shaoxin wine, 5 spice and fish sauce.... I can't be bothered to wash the food processor and also I'd like to have a bit of bite in the meat... and a bit of Tapioca flour to bind.
And then, I whisked 5 large eggs, a pinch of salt, and made some thin crepes... no flour, or corn flour, potato starsh, tapioca starsh is allowed! Nothing else, just eggs and a pinch of salt, bit like very thin omelette, not that hard really.

And I spreaded the mince all over the crepe, and rolled them up, 5 of them and stacked neatly in the plate, into the steamer.

There usually will be some sauce after the plate being steamed, and it's time to cut them up and drizzle that sauce all around to let the mince soak it in again... well, this is not one serving, this is for all of the family... There's usually no individual plating for Chinese - it's a culture of communal eating.

Then, with the left over pork mince, I decided to do my favourite Mapo Tofu... well, I'm not SziChuang - so this is as authentic as I can get apart from one thing....

The Chillies...

I've got too many red chillies in the garden, so I replaced the dry chillies with the fresh ones from the recipe I've got.

I think there was about 75-80g of mince left.

First of all, I sliced up some ginger, garlic and the red chillies - I know all too well how hot they are so I got rid of some of the seeds of one chilly, the other one, I used the whole lot.

Heat some vegetable oil in wok and in goes the ginger garlic and red chillies, and my generous 1big tbsp (maybe 1.5?) of Szichuang Peppercorn...

the Aroma...

Then I threw in the pork mince, Szichuang Chilly Bean Paste. Stir to coat, at this stage, the wok should be dry stri fry, no excess liquid.

Until the pork was almost cooked, I add in Soy and Shaoxin, and the sliced mushrooms (something that's optional) Cubed Tofu (not silky not firm, something in between) and some tapioca flour paste (tapioca flour with water, enough water for the sauce)

3-4 minutes later....

Finely chopped spring onions were the last to be added and this is my version of Mapo Tofu....

But today's big big project was Sfogliatella Riccia....

I know, I have been watching too much Italian Food Safari and was tempted to do this amazing Italain treat...

I set the dough for half a day rather than the half an hour suggested by recipe, and rolled out in pasta maker and stretched with clarified butter.....

And I found that when making indivisual shells, put the dough into the freezer or fridge temporarily will give me better results, otherwise the layers stick, and you just can't open them up!

However I did half the filling recipe, and still got some left, I think the chef was making pastry shop quantity? However, this is what they look like before they got into the oven....

It does take longer than the recipe suggested, even though I put oven on 200C rather than 180C suggested by recipe, and this is what they look like after 30 minutes:

Of course I dusted them with icing sugar after they came out!

I think hubby will order them again and again now.... it's so crispy, and the filling is light... you can hear the crunch, when you bite into these little parcels.... oh... all the work just is worth the trouble!

This is the link to the original Italian Food Safari recipe, if anyone is interested.....

http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/italianfoodsafari/recipes/detail/recipe/9562

Pizza Tonight.....

Pizza tonight...
I started to make pizza because family loves it... and I started to make them using bench top pizza ovens and pizza stones... but sometimes I do get lazy and just use the normal pizza trays... like today... and I can do 2 pizzas at the same time, one for children, one for the adults...

One day my dream will come true - a wood fire oven in the back yard baking pizzas, ciabattas and baguettes and roasting on the sides...
Anyway, I chose to use my sourdough starter again for the pizza dough, takes longer but hey, a bit of preparation is not too hard.

I've decided to make a bit thicker for the children because sourdough base, will taste nicer if it's a bit thicker, and not paper thin...
My pizza dough is a bit like the ciabattas I made yesterday, but only 1/3 of olive oil and more whole meal flour - I think I can hide the healthy fibre under the toppings and the children won't notice!
This is the base before the topping was added on....
This is the topping for the children, simple smooth tomato base, tasty cheese and honey leg ham...
The pizza for the parents are traditionally (our family tradition) a lot busier. Hubby loves a lot of toppings and I found some button mushrooms, semi sundried tomatos, some home grown capsicum and a red onion... I prefer to use salamis or other cured meats on my pizzas because they don't have so much juice to make the base soggy... ah, and the cheeses, mozerella at the bottom and little marinated bocconcini balls... some home grown basil, mint and oregano.....

I'm trying to make the oven as close to the pizza ovens as I can get, and I cranked oven to 230C....

After 10, 11 minutes, this is what the children's dinner look like

and the parents....

and I'm leaving the cutting of the pizzas to hubby....

Winter Warmer Peasant Dishes - Goulash, Home made Baked Beans & Sausages and a Sticky Date Pudding with Praline...

I know, it's not authentic. When I made my first goulash, it was - at least I thought so, recipe was passed on to me by my Hungarian girl friend... Hope she's not having a heart attack with me changing her recipes....

I love it in cold winter nights and nowadays I'd do it in a slow cooker. The meats just belt, and the soup is thick enough to go with some char grilled hard crust bread that has brushed on some olive oil....

This is my Goulash...

INGREDIENTS

1kg beef (chuck steak, top side, gravy beef...)
4 tbsp sweet paprika – Hungarian paprika
2 tbsp hot paprika
2 tbsp Callaway seeds
1 tbsp crashed black pepper
½ cup red wine
1 red capsicum, 1 carrot, 1 celery stick cut in 1” pieces
2 big tomatoes cut in 1” pieces
1 onion cut in 1” pieces
2 cloves of garlic crushed
2 tbsp cooking oil
A pinch of salt & sugar
1 cup stock (chicken, beef, veal)
Fresh herbs Sprigs Oregano, thyme, Bay leaves, flat leaves parsley, rosemary
3 tbsp plain flour

METHOD

1. Coat beef in a little bit of salt and cracked pepper and plain flour, set aside.
2. Heat up cooking oil in frying pan, caramelise onion and garlic, add the paprika’s, Callaway seeds and cracked black pepper corn.
3. Once it fragrance, add beef till half cooked.
4. Add the vegetables, and then add wine.
5. Add stock & salt(or water), if using shop stock, use less salt.
6. Use kitchen twine to tie up fresh herbs and make bouquet garni, add to the pot / pan
7. Reduce heat to low and simmer till beef is tender and liquid is reduced to half, usually 1 hour. If liquid dries up during cooking and beef is still not tender, can top up with some stock or water.

Serving Options:

Serve hot with rice, pasta, polenta or grilled crusty bread and a salad. The traditional version usually go with Hungarian dumplings freshly made with a dough similar to pasta dough but more like Gnocchi shape…..

2 nights ago, I made this one for dinner and catering for the children especially. My son loves baked beans and I don't feel like giving him Heinz... so...
I soaked 100g cannellini beans overnight.
drizzle some olive oil in pan and add some chopped fine onion and garlic... to brown...
Added a can of peeled roma tomatos and 2 tbsp of tomato paste as well as some dry herbs, oregano, thyme, rosemary....
added the soaked cannellini and simmer for about an hour.
added the beef sausages and cooked for a further 30 min...
added some ricotta cheese chunks 5 minutes before I was ready to call the children for dinner, and some fresh parsley leaves...
And this is one of our favourite winner dessert now - Sticky Date pudding with butter scotch sauce and praline the product from Masterchef Season 1 recipe.....

Sourdough Whole Meal Ciabatta. simple baking

Dad was sick today so I had to take a day off to be available for children.
And in between tasks, I can't help start another 2 loaves....

This is my starter, 100% hydrate...
It was started with 100g white, 100g whole meal rye and 200g water... and then I realised maybe it's easier to just do white.. so gradually, I've been feeding white only... most of the time it is in the fridge lid closed. I will take it out the night before baking to let it get to room temperature and the culture start bubbling again...

And then I will make the dough,
This time, Ciabatta. basically, very similar to the white baguette, but I mixed in 2/3 cup of starter, 2tsp salt, 1/2 tsp sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 3.5 cup white strong bread flour and 1.5 cup fine whole meal. 1 cup water - give and take a few tbsps - I adjust it during kneading to get the as soft texture as I can.
I proved it for 2 hours and then I shaped the doughs - I got 2 small loaves out of it today and because I promised a girl friend one loaf, I had to get it done quick, and the cold weather in Melbourne doesn't help... so I cheated hehe, by warming up the oven to 30C and then turn it off... sit the doughs on the lightly floured tray and slide it into the oven.

after 3 hours I was ready to bake, 230C for the crusty top, and they looke beautiful after 20min...

Just hope I have a better camera to show the details!