We had a big lunch whilst out shopping yesterday, so last night's dinner, I decided to go light. After all, it has been a cold winter and we had a little too many stews and we need to shed a few pounds.
Got some beautiful Australian king prawns, so I decided to use it for dinner.
I must admit we usually have our prawns cooked with shells but this time, they are just too nice so i decided to clean the prawns, and use the heads and shells to do a nice little bisque.
Creamy Coconut Prawn Soup with Crusty Sour Dough Bread
For 4 serves, use 750-800g of fresh prawns.
For the bisque:
1/2 cup of white wine
6-7 black pepper corn
half of onion
1 clove of garlic
2 pieces orange peels
juice of half of a lemon
olive oil
salt
parsley stems
Heat oil in pan and brown the onion and garlic, add the prawn shells and heads, and let them heat through and press to release flavours. Add wine, lemon juice, salt, pepper corn and orange peels, and let it cook to relase more flavour. Add a bit of water.
Once it's done, pass through sieve and you get that golden thick liquid.
For the coconut veggie soup:
2 Large desiree potatos, peeled and diced
1 sweet potato, peeled and diced
2 carrots, peeled and diced
diced half of red onion
bit of olive oil
1 can of light coconut milk
Heat up the oil to sweat the onion a bit, add the veggies and cook them through a bit, but don't let them brown. Add coconut milk and prawn bisque, season the soup, and let the veggies cook through.
When soup is cooked, add the peeled and cleaned prawns to the pan. Stir a bit, as the prawns cook really quickly.
Serve with chopped parsley and lemon juice and a bit of zest, and toasted crusted bread.
This makes a nice entree, or a light meal.
My mother in law's favourite flavour, lemon and coconut.
I made this cake to bring over to her home during our last visit.
It's a bit more moist than the normal chiffon cake because of the butter cream icing.
I didn't do it the same way how I do the normal butter cream, but this one is a bit more runny.
Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Butter Sauce
For the Cake:
Zest of a small Lemon Myer
3 egg yolks
4 egg whites
100g SR flour
50g dessicated coconut
50ml canola oil
2 tbsp organic full cream yoghurt
150g castor sugar
For the icing:
80g butter
juce and zest of a small lemon
handful of dessicated coconut
100g sugar
Method
1. Beat room temperature egg whites till a bit ribbony and slowly add in 50g of sugar, whip until soft peaks.
2. Beat room temperature egg yolks with the rest of sugar, until pale and fluffy and slowly drip in the canola oil. It will be very creamy.
3. Sift in the flour to the yolk mixture and mix till smooth, then fold in the egg whites, half egg whites into the yolk mixture and mix well, and then spoon them back to the egg white bowl and mix well until really smooth, fold in the yoghurt and the lemon zest and dessicated coconut.
4. Put in a alliminum ring mould (I haven't got angel food cake mould, I would use one if I have one) and bake in preheated oven in 180C heat, for about 35-40 minutes.
5. Once cake is done, slowly using the knife to release the sides of the cake (I did oil the bottom as it's not the right tin) and let it cool on rack.
6. Make the lemon butter sauce. Put lemon juice in with the sugar in a small saucepan and bring it to boil, let it melt and wait until the soft boil stage - around 110C.
7. take the syrup off heat, stir in the butter, until it's a smooth butter sauce. Add in the rest of the zest and dessicated coconut...
8. Let sauce cool down a bit and spoon over the cake, let it drip with a more rustic look and make sure the sauce coat as much as you can - it makes the cake more moist than a normal chiffon cake.
MIL took it to her gathering with her friends and the cake got good review...
We've got some guests this week, and time for me to get baking again.
Apart from the baked cheese cake, the naughty snack, I had to bake some thing a bit healthier.
So here it is:
Lemon & Coconut Cake with Olive Oil and Fat Free Yoghurt
Ingredients:
200g Self Raising Flour
3 Large Eggs
100g white sugar + 30g for egg whites
80g Desicated Coconut
100ml Extra Virin Olive oil
1 Lemon, zest and juice
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
100g Fat free plain yoghurt
Icing sugar and some slivered almonds.
Method:
1. Seperate the eggs. Cream yolks and sugar, and until is pale and silky.
2. Add olive oil, whisk until it's silky.
3. Add lemon zest, vanilla extract and yoghurt, whisk well until mixture is silky.
4. Whisk egg whites till soft peak, gradually add sugar to form meringue.
5. Fold egg whites gradually with the egg yolk mixture, sift in flour, mix well till smooth and fold in coconut, add lemon juice, mix well.
6. Bake for 30-35 minutes in a pre-heated 190C oven (my oven is a big uneven and unpredictable, baked a bit over today!)
7. Dust with icing sugar and some lightly toasted slivered almonds.
Healthy cake for a some what guilt free treat!
I must be addicted to cook books... and cook magazines...
Whenever I get on hold of a famous chef's cook books, I'm usually over the moon, however, I do have some cook books which are more aiming for home cooks, little simple recipes, no fuss, but great to have in the kitchen when we need home baked or cooked goodies.
Some cook books from Hamlyn Books are like that. Again, this blog is not about promoting any books, just some recipes I tried, family liked the products and I'd like to share.
Baby Macaroons with Almonds (these are the macaroons, the very modest and fuss free Scottish cousin of the glossy French Macarons..)
These little cookies are great treat for some one who's allergic to gluten, there's no butter, and not as sweet and sugary as the French macarons, great to have as after school treats...
From a little book - Cakes and Bakes by Hamlyn Books.
2 egg whites
125g/4oz caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
150g/5oz ground almonds
125g/4oz unsweetened dessicated coconut
about 24 whole unblanched almonds
1. Beat the egg whites until peaking and then gradually beat in the sugar, like making French meringue, until meringue is thick and glossy, add the vanilla paste with the last bit of sugar.
2. Gently fold in almond meal (ground almonds) with coconut, until combined (no sifting, it doesnt' matter if the ground almonds are not as refined, if you don't have almond meal or ground almonds, just use the food processer to ground some blanched almonds)
3. Place spoonful of mixture on a lined baking sheet, slightly apart from each other - the cookies will grow during baking, and press a whole almond on top of each cookie. Bake cookies in a preheated oven in 180C/350F, Gas Mark 4 for 20 minutes or until they are pale golden and just firm to touch, leave to cool.
The recipe book didn't say how long they will keep, but they don't get to stay around for too long in my house...
My children like jellies, I guess it's a children's thing.
The boy only likes the fruity ones, but the girls like everything sweet... It's an experiment anyway, because I finally bought some Agar Agar from the Asian grocery shop and was keen to try out the result...
Coconut Red Beans & Lemonade Jellies
Red Bean Layer:
½ cup red beans
350g water
½ cup brown sugar
1.5 tsp powder gelatin
Slow cook red beans with water till beans double in size and become pale and soft, add in sugar and cook to melt. Turn off heat, add in powder gelatin.
Wait till a bit cooler, put in mould, and put in fridge to set.
Coconut Layer:
1 x 400ml can coconut milk
100ml full cream
10g agar agar
1/3 cup white sugar
Slowly cook everything till all agar agar melt (instead of powder agar agar, I’m using leaf agar agar, taking a bit longer to melt).
Cool slightly – agar agar setting point is high, so have to work quickly before it sets – and add to the moulds where red bean paste is, back to fridge.
Lemonade Layer:
2 lemons
500ml water
200g white sugar
3 tsp powder gelatin
Juice lemons, add juice to water and sugar and boil to melt.
Sift into the jug where the gelatin is and stir well to mix.
Cool, and pour over coconut layer and back into the fridge to set over night.
I used silicon muffin tray as moulds, and this will give me 12 jellies.
One of our colleagues in the team will be going overseas for 6 weeks... A trip to Canada and the States, river cruise... Lucky him.
So we had a morning tea and we are bringing something to work. I made this because it's easier to cut into slices and bring just enough to the office, rather than the whole cake - cheese cakes are usually filling and we only have a small team, not even people to finish the whole cake. I used the lamington tray and that's just right for this recipe...
I normally make baked cheese cakes, not chilled, not sure why? I think I'm just used to the baked cheese cakes. I've made so many different cheese cakes in my baking life so I didn't use any recipes from the books, so it's just something I put up together, well, almost. I couldn't find the chocolate ripple biscuits I thought I had, so instead of the chocolate biscuit base I thought I'd use, I end up having to make a chocolate short crust pastry base, so I referred to my trust worthy Le Cordon Bleu pastry and tarts cook book, a simple book with all the pastries and basic techniques. A bit of alteration, of course.
Baked Lemon Coconut Cheesecake Slices with Chocolate Chips
Base:
200g Plain Flour
50g Icing sugar*
25g dark cocoa powder*
1 pinch of salt
1 egg
100g butter
Crumb cold butter into the mix of flour, cocoa, salt and icing sugar until it resembles bread crumbs, add in lightly whisked egg and form a rough dough.
Chill in fridge covered with glad wrap and set for half an hour to one hour.
Roll out into the rectangle shape of the lamington tray, in between baking paper (using enough to be able to fold over to cover) and blind bake with weights in 190C oven for 30 minutes(I use rice because I accidentally bought some very yukky rice, that will only be suitable for using as weights – bye bye Jasmine).
*Note, the original Le Cordon Bleu recipe specified white sugar with no specified amount, and cocoa powder was added by me to make sure it's a chocolate cookie base.
Fillings:
250g cream cheese
250g clotted cream
200g thick vanilla yoghurt
2 eggs
¾ cup shredded coconut
¼ cup dark chocolate chips.
1/3 cup fine almond meal
Zest of 1 lemon (I have lemon myer at home)
½ cup sugar
Beat cream cheese, clotted cream and thick vanilla yoghurt till creamy. Add in sugar and mix well. (use bench top mixer, it’s easier and I can still dance around getting rid of all the sugar I spilled on flour while it’s mixing everything quietly!)
Beat in the eggs, one at a time till creamy.
Add in coconut, and almond meal, mix well.
Zest the lemon (Thank God for the new Breville’s bench top mixer, I can zest the lemon whilst it’s mixing quietly, how wonderful…. It’s nice and smooth)
Finally, fold in the dark chocolate chips with spatular (hmm, it’s the time not to use the mixer, unless you don’t want chunky chocolate bits)
Bake in 190C oven for 40 minutes, cool (in the tray, don’t take out.. must always remind myself, I have had one cheese cake disaster during my baking life, forgot it was a cheese cake and stupid enough to do the skewer test, end up totally burning the whole thing, not any more. Cheese cakes, especially baked cheese cakes….. should be a walk in the park)
And chill in fridge for 4 hours or more before cutting into slices…
