Now I'm not sure where this recipe is really from, but I liked Luke Nguyen's mud crab in Sate Sauce and this is adapted from that...
1 Mud Crab
2 tbsp tapioca flour
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 knob of ginger
Karfir Lime Leaves
1 Lemon Grass
3 garlic cloves,
2 long red chillies,
2 shallots
1 big onion
1/3 cup dried anchovies & mussel, soaked in hot water
1 tbs raw sugar
2 tbs Shaoxing wine
2 tbs light soy sauce
Extra water*
Lemon juice and coriander leaves, to serve
Method:
1. Clean and cut mud crab in chunks – chill in freezer for half an hour.
2. toss in tapioca flour and fry in pan till half ready.
3. Blend onion, garlic, chillies, shallots, mussels and anchovies etc in blender to make paste.
4. Heat oil in wok, add paste.
5. add crab, wine and light soy. Extra water if needed. Add sugar.
6. add a bit of lemon juice, toss in coriander leaves and serve.
We all love vegemite on bread with cheese...
Why not, great Aussie tradition, yeah?
And Cheesy-mite rolls have always been a favourite from the shops, and I'm trying to make my own version using 100% hydrate sourdough starter, olive oil and half wholemeal flour, a rather healthy version.
Dough
80g 100% hydrate Sourdough starter
300g plain flour
50g SR flour
½ tsp Bi-carb soda
1.5 tsp salt
1/2 tsp raw sugar
50ml extra virgin olive oil
20g dry herbs
1 cup water
½ cup milk.
2tbsp Parmesan cheese
Fillings
80g Shredded Mozerella
Vegemite – enough to spread.
Mix dough the night before with starter, plain flour, bi-carb, salt, olive oil, milk, half of parmesan cheese, dry herbs and add extra water if needed. Make a very soft dough, knead till elastic. Add a bit of olive oil in container for the dough to prove.
In the morning, put dough on floured base (SR flour & rest of parmesan), knead well for 5 minutes (which is all what I can spare on every morning before I go to work), and set to prove again.
Once dough is proved – it’s not using a lot of starter, so it’s slow in proving, I usually make this bread in the afternoon after I come back from work, and the starter was reduced to delay the ferment of dough.
Spread out on the work bench and roll it into 1cm thick big squares, spread on vegemite and shredded cheese..
Set again to prove for 2 hours, brush on more olive oil, and bake in 190C oven for 15-20 minutes.
Saturday night... Of course the family would want desert..
But I was really not sure what to make, and after checking in the cupboards, and considering it's the pudding season, I come up with this:
Ingredients:
1 Can of 750ml Lychee in Syrup
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup raw sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
75g butter
200ml Greek yoghurt
200g SR flour
½ tsp Bi-carb soda
1 tsp all spice
¼ cup fine desiccated coconut
1/2 cup raisins
Method:
Line a 24cm round cake tin.
Drain the can of Lychee, put lychee on the bottom
Put syrup on stove, add ½ cup of brown sugar and simmer to reduce to ¾.
Cream butter and the rest of sugars.
Whisk eggs till pale.
Add yoghurt, butter and sugar mix and half of syrup.
Add spice, coconut and vanilla essence.
Sift in flour and bi-carb soda, mix well till no lumps.
Mix in raisins.
Pour in tin and Bake in pre-heat oven 190C for 1 hour.
Serve with cream and rest of syrup
I've decided to make a brioche loaf this week for the boy's school lunch....
• 500g Strong Bread flour
• pinch of salt
• 2 tsp instant dried yeast
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 3 egg yolks plus 4 whole eggs, lightly beaten
• 150g softened butter
Method
Mix flour, salt and yeast. Warm milk and sugar slightly, stirring, until sugar has dissolved, then allow to cool a little. Mix flour, salt and yeast in bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook. Combine egg yolks and warm milk mixture. Make a well in flour, then pour in liquid and mix to a dough. Work until dough forms a smooth ball, about 10 minutes. Continue beating while adding butter in two lots. The dough should be shiny and smooth and will come away cleanly from sides of bowl.
Cover bowl with a clean cloth and leave dough to double in size in a draught-free place for about two hours. Knock back dough, tip onto workbench and briefly knead by hand. Shape loaf shape in greased tin.
Allow to rise again, covered, for one hour, apply egg wash.
Bake at 180C for 30 minutes. Extra little loaf for the 3 year old.... 
Thanks for the support of yeastspotting!
Coffee scrolls have always been hubby's favourite for morning or afternoon tea...
So I decided to make some, only this time, I'm trying to use the sourdough starter... To save my self some work with the running caramel and I can get in as much as I can, I actually made the rolls into individual muffin tray lined with baking paper.
Dough
80g 100% hydrate Sourdough starter
300g plain flour
50g extra flour
½ tsp Bi-carb soda
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
30g butter - melted
1 cup milk
Extra water.
Extra olive oil
Caramel Walnut Coffee Mix
75g butter
75g brown sugar
50g crushed walnut
1 tsp instant espresso
1 tsp cinnamon and all spiceWash1tsp sugar
¼ cup boiling water
¼ tsp gelatine
Mix dough the night before with starter, plain flour, bi-carb, salt, butter, milk and add extra water if needed. Make a very soft dough, knead till elastic. Add a bit of olive oil in container so the dough won't stick to the sides, cover and wait for the dough to prove.
In the morning, put dough on floured base (extra flour & Sugar), knead well for 5 minutes (which is all what I can spare on every morning before I go to work), and set to prove again.
Once dough is proved – it’s not using a lot of starter, so it’s slow in proving and this is what I want when rushing in and out of home..
Spread out on the work bench and roll it into 1cm thick big squares, and cut into squares as you desire, make them bigger or smaller. Melt butter, mix with the coffee caramel walnut ingredients – the brown sugar, coffee, spices. Roll the filling with the dough squares and make a twist, you can spread the whole lot of walnut caramel mix on the big square before cutting and make into scrolls, however I found the twist will be easier if I don’t want to lose the filling.
Set again to prove for 2 hours, brush with wash, and bake in 190C oven for 15-20 minutes.
Top with coffee Icing when cooled down a bit:
1.5 cup icing sugar
2tbsp boiling water
30g melted butter
Mix well and drizzle over the rolls.
Thanks for the support of yeastspotting!
We all love Italian food in the family, and we do try to find as traditional dishes as possibly can...
This is my adaption of Veal Osso Bucco, a dish I saw on Italian Food Safari...
For the Gremolata:
Zest of 1 leomon
1.5 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
5 sprigs parsley
Pinch of sea salt flakes
Mince garlic and parsley, add salt and lemon zest, and olive oil, and stir well, serve with Osso Bucco.
For the Gnocchi:
450g Potato
80g plain flour
Pinch of salt.
Boil potato in skin, when ready, take them out and dry in colander, when still warm, use ricer to make mash, mix with flour, knead dough. Gently form a long stripe, shape gnocchi into shell shape at the back of fork, and cooked for 2-3 minutes in boiled water.
Drain well. Melt butter in pan, and gently toss gnocchi in pan.
For the Osso Bucco:
4 Pieces of Veal Osso Bucco
1 Can of Diced Italian Tomato
Dried Herbs – Oregano, Mint, Bay Leaves…
2 tbsp Tomato Paste
1/3 cup white wine
2 cloves garlic
1 onion
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp Greek Yoghurt
1 cup Veal Stock (or beef stock)
Fresh parsley, a handful
80g fresh mushroom slices.
Salt and Raw sugar to taste
Heat olive oil in pan, add in thinly sliced onion and crushed garlic, caramelise till bit fragrant, place veal osso bucco on top of caramelised onion.
Add dried herbs, sear both sides of osso bucco.
Add tomato paste and diced tomato, add salt.
Add white wine, sugar and mix well.
Add stock and place mushroom slices and chopped parsley loosely on top.
Simmer for 2 hours.
Add yoghurt and simmer mix well, simmer for further 30 minutes.
And, this is dinner..
My family will never be sick of chocolate...
This should be a chocolate fondant recipe, but since I changed the plain flour to self raising, the name should be a chocolate pudding now...
but just as nice and rich and gooey...
Ingredients:
1. 100g Butter
2. 100g Sugar (50g White, 50g Brown)
3. 60g plain flour
4. 3 egg yolks and 2 whole eggs (59g)
5. 100g 70% Dark chocolate
6. Zest of 1 Orange, 1 tbsp Orange juice
7. 10g almond flakes.
8. 10g Cocoa Powder
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200C or 180C fan forced, use soft butter to grease 4 x 1 cup moulds or ramekins, sift in cocoa powder and coat well.
2. Melt butter and chocolate together, add in sugar, almond flakes and orange zest and juice, mix well.
3. Whisk egg and yolks till light and fluffy.
4. sift in flour to chocolate mix and mix well till silky.
5. fold in eggs and mix well till silky.
6. Divide into moulds, baked in oven for 12-15 minutes.
Serve with cream...
And it's still gooey in the middle....
I love mud crab, especially the Darwin mud crabs.
They are in season now and very nice...
We always have it in the restaurant the very common ginger and spring onion version over noodles, so I made some today at home.
For noodles, just used the pasta method, 200g plain flour with 2 eggs, a pinch of salt and used my pasta maker....
For the Crab:
2 cloves of garlic
2 Knobs of ginger, juvienned.
1 small bunch of spring onions – cut in 1” length stripes.
1 whole mud crab
Salt
Pepper
¼ cup Light soy sauce
1 tbsp Rice wine – Cantonese style, bit like sake.
Sugar to taste
2 tbsp Tapioca
Oil
Home made noodles – boiled, to serve
Freeze mud crab for 30 minutes to num it, cut open and clean.
Chop mud crab in chunks, lightly coat with 2/3 of tapioca flour and pepper. Set up wok with plenty of oil, to deep fry.
Take crabs out as soon as the colour slightly turn. Reduce amount of oil in wok.
Put ginger and garlic in the wok in high heat to brown slightly.
Add crab back to wok, stir well, add soy, salt and rice wine, use rest of tapioca and a bit of water to make a very thin paste, add to wok.
Add sugar and spring onion, and stir, cook for 2 minutes or till crab is just cooked.
Prepare in clay pot boiled noodles that have been drained.
Add crab on top of the noodles in the clay pot.
I know they sound a bit funny. Totally, I mean, sourdough - hmm, usually breads with gluten... scones... not so...
Well, I was actually trying to make a white sourdough loaf with ricotta, and a batch of pumpkin scones.
However, I wasn't feeling well and decided to mix them together, we do need brekky...
But surprisingly, they are quite nice....
450g Bread Flour
1.5 cup water
150g Ricotta Cheese
80g sourdough starter 100% Hydrate
300g steamed pumpkins, mashed.
200g SR flour
100g olive oil.
4tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon powder
1.5 tsp salt.
Make sourdough… with bread flour, water, ricotta cheese, starter and salt, half of the olive oil and knead till elastic, stand over night covered with a bit of olive oil. Fold using normal sourdough method.
20 hours later, mix with mashed pumpkin and SR flour and the rest of the olive oil and brown sugar and cinnamon, mix well, spread out (it will be very wet) and cut into scone shape using cutter or knife.
Stand in greased tray to prove for 3-4 hours and bake for 25 min in 190C oven.
Yippie..
And I did the flip....
Great feeling...
I flipped first but didn't dare to go as far as the pros and then stretched the dough...
Roti Canai.
450g plain flour
1 egg
150ml water
150mil milk
30g margarine
Olive oil
Put plain flour in a large bowl and make a well in the middle, add liquid and the whisked egg, and melted margarine, and mix well and make a soft dough.
Knead for 6-7 minutes or till elastic, and separate into small balls – the bigger the ball, the bigger the roti will be. I divided them into 12 small balls.
Fold them neatly into round shape and cover with olive oil (normal vegetable oil will do) and set in a bowl, the balls shouldn’t be on top of each other, you only need a bit of oil to cover bottom half of the balls, cover with glad wrap, set aside for 10-12 hours.
And…. Oil the bench you want to work on, use the back of hand to spread out the little ball flat and left hand hold down the edge of the flat dough at 8 o’clock, and use the right hand to flip… I can sort of do it now after watching Youtube demo and Poh’s kitchen.. again and again… still can’t get it fully right but mine did spread out quite big, and I just pulled the edges and made them bigger… brush on a bit of olive oil,
fold into envelops
and put on medium heat frying pan with tiny bit of oil, cook till golden brown both sides….
I can’t quite figure out how to clap them? Bit too hot….
and I made curry chicken with sweet potato to go with it...Curry Chicken:
2 Big Chicken Maryland – cut in chunks.
1 tbsp Cumin Powder
1 tbsp Tumaric powder
1 tbsp meat curry powder
1 tbsp fennel powder
3 red chillies with seeds
1 big onion
2 cloves garlic
2 knobs of ginger
Finely chopped lemon grass
Kaffir lime leaves
1 can coconut cream
3 large potatos peeled and cubed
1 small sweet potato peeled and cubed
½ cup chicken stock
Salt and Palm sugar
Oil
Ground ginger, garlic and onion and chilly till fine.
Heat oil in pot and sauté the ginger, garlic, onion and chilly mix till fragrant.
Add all the powders and sauté till fragrant.
Add chicken chunks and stir well with the spices and cook till half cooked.
Add Potato and Sweet Potato chucks and mix well.
Add coconut cream, stock and stir well, add salt and sugar.
Bring it to boil and then turn down to low heat, simmer for an hour till chicken is tender and falling apart when pork is in.
My family missed the sfogliatelles so I decided to make a new batch, it is a lot of work but then, I thought, how about chocolate fillings?
This is the way how I adapted the original Italian version and made this modified version with modified fillings:
Ingredients
Dough
500g plain flour
50g sugar
1 tsp salt
80g water
80g milk
1 egg
Filling
75g thickened cream
75g milk
60g brown sugar
50g semolina
150g Ricotta
3 egg yolks
100g Lindt’s 70% dark chocolate
50g candied orange peel, grounded
½ tsp cinnamon powder
Preparation
Dough:
Place all ingredients into the bowl of a mixer and combine with a dough hook until a firm dough has formed.
Remove from the bowl and wrap in cling wrap. Leave to rest for about 3 hours.
Using a pasta machine, roll out dough.
To do this, cut the dough into pieces the same size of a slice of bread.
Pass each piece through the pasta machine on number 1. Fold the dough into itself giving it three layers. Continue doing this until the dough becomes smooth. This should take about 4 folds through the machine.
On the final fold, pass the dough through gradually, while making the dough thinner by increasing the numbers on the dial finishing at number 1.
Leave the dough to rest on a bench with a think layer of olive oil spread over it.
Continue with the remainder of the dough.
Once you have all sheets rolled out and covered in lard, start to assemble the roll.
Start by rolling up one sheet of dough as you would a cigar. Roll the next sheet around the first and so on until you have formed a thick roll.
Wrap in cling wrap and place in the fridge for a minimum of 1hr.
Remove from the fridge and cut the roll in 1cm thick disks.
Cover the outside of the disk with a little olive oil.
Filling:
In a large saucepan bring to boil the cream and milk.
As the liquid starts boiling add the semolina and sugar and stir, Continue cooking until the filling thickens, break up Lindts chocolate pieces and add in to melt. Remove from the heat, add the egg yolks and mix well.
Add ricotta and orange peel and mix for a further 3 minutes.
To fill the sfogliatelle :
Spread the sfogliatelle gently, pushing out the centre and using your fingertips to gently separate the layers, creating a shell shape. Scoop the filling into the centre. Fill the shell to the top and fold over to close.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180’c for 25-30 minutes.
Dusted with icing sugar, voila!
Last day of the Kinder, Monique had a picnic with her teddy bear.... and she was suppose to bring a special treat to share with teddy, the the night before, I made these, used SR flour so it's not as hard for the little teeth...
Ingredients:
190g SR Flour
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
Zest of half a lemon
60g dark chocolate chips (more if desired, or just use chopped dark chocolate)
1 egg – lightly whisked
2 tbsp milk
80g butter
5 tbsp castor sugar
Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 190C, line a cookie tray.
2. Sift flour into a big bowl add sugar and mix well.
3. Melt butter and add to flour mixture, and mix well
4. Add Lemon Zest, egg, dark chocolate chips and milk and form a soft dough
5. Shape into 1.5cms in diameter small round pieces, and place evenly on cookie tray, leave enough space as they will become bigger.
6. Bake for 15-18 minutes until golden. Cool on rack.
Hubby really loves the fish fragrant sauce... It's one of the 8 Sichuan flavours, and I must admit, I haven't done so many Sichuan dishes. Since it's not a strong flavour and rather pleasant, and fish fragrant egg plant is always a favourite, I decided to dig out the real fish fragrant flavour and adapted it to mine, traditionally, the Sichuan fish fragrant sauce is sweet and sour with gingery flavour.
1 sliced red chillie (big ones, meat only)
2 small knobs of younger ginger, juvienned
2 egg plants, corsely chopped in big chucks.
75g pork mince
1/2 cup light soy sauce
1/2 cup red vinegar
1 tbsp shaoxin wine
1 onion - chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 sprigs of spring onion
3 tbsp raw sugar
Oil.
1. prepare the egg plants - soak them in cold water with plenty of salt for an hour (you can do it with the dry method which is salt only to get rid of the bitterness of eggplant, but the wet method will ensure egg plant chunks are not dry and won't soak too much oil whilst cooking - strictly home cook method).
2. Heat up oil in wok, stir in the chopped onion and ginger and let it fragrant.
3. fry up the mince, and wait for it to brown a bit.
4. add in egg plant, and stir well, might need more oil, egg plants do take quite a bit of oil.
5. add in soy sauce and vinegar and wine and stir well.
6. add sugar when egg plants are half cooked, and add a bit of stock (chicken, beef or just water if needed.) and stir well.
7. until almost ready, add in chopped spring onion.
This is just a simple fried home style tofu with Enoki mushroom and crab frakes, in oyster sauce, back to Cantonese, simple comfort food.
The beef stroganoff was done on a different night, and it's strictly Margaret Fulton version, beef rump steak stripes tossed in white pepper and flour, fried up in butter and added sour cream and 1 tbsp of tomato paste, added sauted mushroom and onions ... I did add some chopped parsley on top...
