Nuffnang Ads

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Freshly Made Pasta

I have always dreamed of making my own pasta as those who have tried it swears by it and never did turn back into buying them off the shelves. I never knew how easy it was to make until trying it myself.

All you need is just two ingredients to make pasta- flour and eggs. How easy is that? The only troublesome part is the kneading and rolling but hey, its worth it when the noodles has so much texture after cooking. In local terms, it is very QQ! (meaning great texture with bounce)

Ingredients (for 3 adults)
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour/ plain flour
- 3 eggs

Basically, my rule of thumb is that the number of eggs will state the number of people you are to cook for. And its about 3/4 to 1 cup of flour per person. Some recipes state 1/2 cup for one person but I found it the dough still too wet and so I increase the amount.

Steps
1) Place the flour on a big working surface or big deep bowl

2) Make a well and place the eggs inside. You can add a few drops of olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of salt if you want too. Its optional.


3) Take a fork and beat the eggs. Then slowly, mix with the flour bit by bit..



4) Then, after mixing it, put on a working surface to knead it until its smooth and soft. If you are not sure if its good, you take a paring knife and slice through, if you still see air bubbles, you continue kneading. It should look like the below picture after cutting through- smooth and no air bubbles.




5) Then you use a cling wrap and wrap it up for about 30 mins


6) After that, divide the dough and roll it out in individual portions. So if you have 4 people eating, you divide the dough into 4 pieces. As you cut out the first piece, you leave the rest of the dough wrapped if not the dough will harden up.

7) Keep your working table and dough well-floured. You flatten the dough with your hands and put it through the pasta maker. If you don't have one, don't fret. You are just one of all traditional Italian housewives who believe in everything by hand. You just need a rolling pin to roll it till its very thin and smooth. It should be very translucent. The picture below is still not good enough.





8) After that, you either use your machine or roll it up and cut by hand to the kind of noodles you want. As you can see, your children will enjoy making this as to them, its like playing with play dough.


9) Keep flouring your noodles so that it wont stick. I made different kinds of noodles to try it out. Finally, put your noodles in a pot of salted boiling water for only about 2-3 mins. Homemade pasta cooks much faster. So test it first before taking it out of the boiling water.



After making my own pasta twice, I concluded that the noodles I like best is still the thinnest one (picture below). From both attempts after making, and trying to make the dough as thin as possible, the top Fettuccini ones turned out still too thick for my liking.




Made beef bolognaise sauce topped with grated parmesan cheese and bacon


Have fun!!

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Heston Blumenthal's Perfect Roast Chicken

I have always been blown away by the works of Heston Blumenthal since watching Masterchef Australia. Heston is an English Celebrity Chef who owns a three Michelin-starred restaurant. It is always a multi-sensory experience when eating his dishes.

I was especially blown away when he created this Edible Garden in the last season of  Masterchef Australia and got the competitors to replicate his work.


Its not only a piece of art but everything in this garden is all edible!! Yes, believe it or not. What is amazing about Heston's work is that he plays with your mind. Your brain is telling you that you are eating dirt/soil which is actually made from black olives and the rocks are actually potatoes.


So anyway, I hope you are as blown away at this guy's talent as me now!

I found this video by Heston which I thought I would like to share with you in making the perfect, juicy roast chicken!

Enjoy! I will definitely be trying this soon!

 




Monday, October 14, 2013

Banana Crumb Muffins

This is a wonderful snack for your children or to bring for a party as its banana muffins with a twist! It has a good crunch at the top and moist inside.

Hope you will enjoy as much as my friends did.

Ingredients (makings about 10- 12 muffins)
- 3-4 ripe bananas mashed (the more ripe, the better)
- 1 1/2 cups of plain flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar ( I have already reduced it. If you a sweet tooth, then go for 3/4 cup)
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1/3 cup of melted butter (do in a pot low fire)
- 1/3 cup of brown sugar
- 1 TB of plain flour
- 1/8 tsp of cinnamon powder
- 1 TB of butter

Steps
1) Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius. Lightly grease the muffin cups and lay in the muffin baking tray
2) In a mixing bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups of flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat the bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter.


melted butter just added

3) Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened.
(Important point: Leave the batter to rest for about 1 hour) Spoon batter into the muffin cups laid in the tray. Put about 3/4 of the cup.




4) In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, 2 TB of flour and cinnamon. Cut the 1 TB of butter and mix it with your hands to resemble coarse sand. Sprinkle the toppings over muffins.





5) Bake in preheated oven for 15-18 mins. Insert a toothpick into the center of the muffin and see if it comes out clean to know its ready.


First batch of muffins


Final batch of muffins

As you can see the difference in the batches. The earliest batch came out quite flat. So from experience, it is very important to leave your batter to rest for about 45 mins to one hour so that the muffin can come out nicely shaped.


Enjoy!

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Spinach Pork Congee (Porridge)

This dish is perfect for those who are sick, for cold weathers or simply, just to cook a healthy meal for the family. For the record, my kids, including myself slurp this whole thing real fast as it is very sweet and tasty!

A nice, simple, economical and tasty meal for the family. How can you not try it?

Ingredients
- Spinach (chopped)
- Dried Anchovies/ Chicken bones of one chicken
- Minced pork to make pork balls/ sliced pork
- rice (I use only one cup of rice for 2 adults and 2 children)
- water
- salt and pepper to taste
- ginger (3-4 slices)
- sliced fish cake (optional)


Steps
1) Boil the dried anchovies/chicken bones in a pot of water (filled 3/4 of the pot) under medium high fire

2) Then let it cool down after about 30 mins of boiling and drain to use the stock.

3) Wash your rice and boil them in a pot with only the stock you use from Step 1. Add the ginger slices as well. If you did not boil enough stock, and you find that you need more liquid to make the rice soft, then use normal water and add it into the pot. Main thing is try to use as much of the stock as possible as that is the one that makes it sweet.

4) Boil using low fire till you are satisfied with the water to rice ratio (not too watery or not too thick) and you see if the rice is of the softness you want. (Check out the picture closely to see how the rice should be like) Keep stirring so that the bottom does not get burnt or to prevent the rice from sticking below.

5) During the last 15 mins or so, you add the chopped spinach and pork slices/pork balls.

6) Season with salt and white pepper to taste.

I added my favourite pickled cabbage for the crunch to the porridge. Another of my favourite compliment dish would be the fried dace canned food with black beans.

These are two pictures of the times I cooked this dish. One was pork balls, and the other was pork slices.

Look healthier as I was sick then

Had this bowl when I was craving for porridge. Not sick



Enjoy!

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Oven Baked Seabass

Recently, my friend, Cheryl invited me over to her house together with Dorcas and Adelyn to learn cooking from Shawn who used to work in an Italian Restaurant with an Italian Chef. We all knew each other as we are from the same church. So it was a good time of bonding in the kitchen as Shawn teaches us 3 dishes which he learnt from his restaurant.



This recipe is so easy that I am sure anyone can do this! Its a recipe definitely for all the fish-lovers!

Ingredients
- FRESH Sea bass (which costs only about $5.50-$6 per fish!)
- fresh rosemary (about 7-8 stalks)
- garlic (3-4 cloves)
- salt
- black pepper
- olive oil
- onion (1/4)

Steps

1) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius
2) Clean the sea bass especially the belly area
3) Put the parchment paper on the baking tray and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper


4) Place the cleaned Sea bass on top of the paper and put in about 2 cloves of garlic (chopped) and 2 stalks of rosemary each into the sea bass belly. Top the fish with diced onions and rosemary as shown in picture. Season with salt and pepper on the top as well


5) Place the fish in the oven for 15 mins. Don't worry about overcooking this fish. Sea Bass is a hardy fish. It wont be overcooked so easily. You can leave in there for extra 5 mins if you want the top part to be slightly crispy



This recipe is so easy. So give it a try!


Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Fried Prawn Begedil (Potato Patties)

This is a party hit when I invited my friends over to my place last week for lunch. Most stalls would cook begedil with beef but the prawn ones which my helper makes is so good that you would not want to eat the beef ones anymore.

Ingredients:
- potato
- vegetable oil for deep frying
- garlic powder
- flat leaf parsley (chopped finely)
- fried shallots (crushed finely)
- salt
- white pepper
- prawns (diced finely)
- egg yolk only

Steps:
1) Peel the potatoes and sliced them up to deep fry them till cook first
2) Mashed the potatoes very finely until soft thoroughly
3) Add the chopped flat leaf parsley, crushed fried shallots, garlic powder, salt and pepper, prawns in to the mashed potatoes
parsley and fried shallots in

The amount of garlic powder to add


Prawns added in
4) Mix well and finally, form them into balls and you can refrigerate it to store till you want to fry it. If not, just straight away rolls into balls and flatten them out with your palm to make a small patty.

5) Deep into egg yolk before deep frying them.

Fry till the colour is right!

Enjoy this wonderful snack!