Crazy Cooking

A new season of Masterchef marks the beginning of another year in Perth. This is the 3rd season we've watched since arriving in Perth. As with previous years, it inspires me to cook. I've never done any recipes from the chefs before. They're either too hard or they have ingredients you just can't get. The 1st pressure test of this season saw contestants cooking Shannon's Chocolate Peanut Bar, inspired by Sneakers. I had a look at the ingredients list & thought to myself, "I can do this." So I did.

There're many elements to the dessert. But unlike the contestants, I didn't have the time constraints they had. I took my time & the element I was most unhappy with was the tempered chocolate. It was tempered properly. But I didn't want to spend money buying the pallet knife & so I used a spatula to spread it instead. I didn't get it thin enough & had to pour more of the honey caramel sauce to melt it, causing the dessert to be overly sweet. 

I got all the other elements right. I omitted the tempered chocolate & honey caramel sauce on subsequent serves & they worked so well together. This is by far the craziest cook I've ever done. It's not very practical to do for own consumption as there was a lot of wastage. But it was a good experience & I got to temper chocolate for the 1st time. 

Element 1: Candied peanuts.

Element 2: Peanut caramel.
Element 3: Brown sugar crumble.
Element 4: Tempered chocolate.

Element 5: Honey nougat.

Element 6: Peanut ice cream.

Element 7: Chocolate parfait.
Element 8: Peanut crumble.
Element 9: Honey caramel.

Weekend = Cooking Storm

Weekends are for me to catch up on cooking. I enjoy doing it in leisure & I know I'll hate it if I have to do it for a living. So guess I'll stick to being a scrub nurse & if I ever have the extreme good fortune of winning big in lotto, I'll go to veterinary school, set up my own practice & use the profits to provide free services to animal shelters. Until then, I'll just continue dreaming. Lol.

Sourdough baguettes baked just before we left for New Norcia.

I wake up very early even during weekends, many a times before 6 am. That's when I do all my baking. So the night before I'm to bake a bread, I'll prep the sourdough for use the next morning. That way, we can have freshly baked bread in the morning. My 1st sourdough trial went to the baguette I baked before we left for New Norcia last Sunday. It turned out really well.

The failed half bread, half cake that turned out tasting like huat kueh.

Becoz I had success, sometime during the week, I decided to "invent" a half bread, half cake hybrid. I used the sourdough again but this time combining self raising flour, currants & sugar. This didn't turn out too well. It's not that it's bad. It's definitely edible. Just not fantastic. It tasted very much like huat kueh.

Another fail from yesterday morning. Over proofed wholemeal seeds & nut load.

Yesterday, I tried yet another invention. I took a pain de mie recipe, swapped out 40% of bread flour for wholemeal flour, added sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sunflower seeds & walnut to it. I suspected that it would have been perfect if I hadn't went out to sell Eba & the dough over proofed. Another failing factor was that the loaf pan was too big for the recipe. So I can either double the recipe or get a smaller pan. The taste is great. Just that it is not perfect.

Finally, a hit. Champagne sorbet with orange rosemary shortbread.

The hit came from dessert. I had so many bottles of champagne & hubs doesn't drink wine or champagne. If I open a bottle, it'll lose its carbonation if I don't finish it. So I had a glass & turned the rest into sorbet. It was icy & refreshing, just what I needed for the heat yesterday. I took a basic shortbread recipe & added orange zest to it, hoping the citrus flavour will complement the champagne sorbet. I still felt it was a bit too simple & I decided that by adding a herb, I can amp up the flavours & fragrance. I only have 3 herbs in my pot. Thyme, rosemary & chives. Chives is definitely out. Rosemary won only becoz I've never harvested it before since I started growing it.

Cooking is not difficult. I suppose as with anything in life, nothing is too difficult if your heart is in it. I especially enjoy creating from basic recipes based on what I have in my pantry. It's like a science experiment. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. But the process & experience is invaluable.

Strawberry Pilgrimage 2015

2nd year running. Perhaps it'll become something of a yearly pilgrimage. We're early this year, thanks to Jen's heads up. The strawberry fields had just been opened as of yesterday to the public. Immediately, I texted hubs, "Let's go tomorrow (today)!" Great minds think alike. Apparently, Nix had already asked hubs to join them today.

Happy man with the biggest strawberry we could find.

Based on last year's experience, I chose to wear slippers as I badly dirtied my track shoes & not to mention the discomfort of having sand in my shoes. I also brought a pair of scissors to cut the strawberries rather than using my nails to pinch the stems off. I had a hard time getting the dirt out from under my nails last year & it just won't do for a scrub nurse to have grubby nails.

We still paid $10 for the tray but it was evident that it had shrunk in size. Also, this year, we have to pay cover charge of $2 per head. It was explained to Nix that groups of people came in together & bought 1 tray. But along the way, they picked & ate so much strawberries that they decided to charge $2 for every person without a tray. Since the tray had shrunk, we decided to have a tray of our own.

Strawberry almond crumble with strawberry ice cream.

I had already sourced out a couple of recipes that utilises strawberries, 1 of which being strawberry ice cream. So last night, I stuck the ice cream tub into the freezer in preparation for today. Looks like there'll be plenty of desserts coming up.

Monday Roast

I finished work early yesterday. Early enough to think about making dinner as well as prepare some food for today's lunch. Everybody knows maple syrup & pecan nuts go well together. I had this crazy idea of combining these 2 ingredients with pork. My plan was to marinate the meat in maple syrup & make pecan crusted pork chop. A while back, the contestants on Masterchef had to recreate the Sunday roast. They had to choose between beef, chicken or pork. On the drive back, I thought, "I should recreate a roast instead." That was how my dish became a reality. I knew I wanted to coat the pork in maple syrup, spread pecan nuts on it & roll it into a roulade. But I definitely needed something else on the plate than just slabs of pork. It came to me to make pickled beetroot & a feta mousse to tie the dish together. 

The roulade was pan seared then finished off cooking in the oven for 1.5 hours. My thermometer recommends an internal temperature of 71°c for medium & 77°c for a well done pork. It was then rested before being cut up. While waiting for the roulade to cook, I pickled diced beetroot in equal parts sugar & vinegar. The feta was melted in cream, gelatine added & passed through a sieve before being refrigerated to set. Just before serving, I whisked the feta mousse & piped it onto the plate. 

This is the creation that I'm most satisfied with so far. It had a balance of flavours; subtle sweetness from the maple syrup, very slight bitterness from the pecans, acidity from the pickled beetroot & saltiness from the feta mousse. It also featured different textures, from the crunch of the pecans & beetroot to the creaminess of the feta mousse. 

My plating still needs a lot of work. 

Doing What I Love

The entire week has been just crazy. Hub's car broke down last Friday morning. I received a "Help! My car broke down!" call from him not 10 mins after he left the house. It was 5.10 am. I made a snap decision to just get ready for work so instead of ferrying him back home, I would send him to work before going to work myself. By 5.15 am, I was out of the house, having brushed my teeth & changed my clothes. He had managed to reverse his car into a parking lot outside someone else's house by putting the car on neutral with the handbrakes off. Off we went. We just passed the town centre when I asked him if he brought his work shoes. Alamak! I had to turn back the 4 km we came. By the time I got to his work place, he was already half an hour late. Even I myself took 50 mins to get to my work place. I chose to go by Frementle over Kwinana becoz of its notorious bad traffic. It was beautiful. I had views of the Swan River & the Indian Ocean. That was the start of a week long of waking up an hour earlier & driving to work from Bibra Lake, then from my work place to pick him up before heading home. For me, it's 2 extra journey but for hubs, it's a 4 hour wait from the time he knocks off to the time I do.

I'm just gonna cram several weeks of cooks into 1 post. Surely by now you can tell I'm really very lazy. Lol. 20th June was 端午节 but I didn't make the "zhangs" until the 21st. Anything that's labour intensive is only worthwhile if you make them in huge amounts. Besides, they require 3 hours boiling time. 10 dumplings is 3 hours. 40 dumplings is also 3 hours. Let's not waste gas. I've made rice dumplings for 3 years consecutively only missing last year's. I've only made bazhang once in the 1st year as I prefer nyonya zhang & they're easier to make. This is the 4th time I'm making them & I'm doing it without my recipe coz my notebook is still in Sg. My 1st batch of nyonya zhang was not sweet enough but as I had a lot of filling left, I topped up the candied melon & made another batch.

The other thing that was labour intensive was the png kueh. I casually mentioned to hubs that I'll make it 1 day & the next thing I know, he had gone out to buy 甜酱 to go with it. See lah! No choice but to make it. We got the mould for it that very week & I made it just this Monday when I didn't have to work. I only have the ang moh steamer that could steam only 6 at 1 go. So it took a few batches before I was finally done. I also had to add 5 mins of steam time as the steam wasn't powerful enough to cook the skin. I followed the recipe but the skin was not ideal as it hardened tremendously once it cooled down. The only remedy was to pan fry it so the skin becomes crispy. Still, the recipe for the rice mixture is good enough on its own as lor mai fan if you don't want the added task of wrapping it up with the skin.

21st June 2015: Ingredients for bazhang. (Not in photo, nyonya zhang.)

27th June 2015: Profiteroles. Choux pastry is actually not difficult to make. But you have no control over how it'll puff up & most of the time you'll end up with only half that looks good. The other half just looks like pacman. 

28th June 2015: I saw it once at my local seafood shop but I didn't buy. I never saw it again. While touring a few cash & carrys along Bannister Road, I finally laid eyes on Monkfish once again. Needless to say, I bought it.

28th June 2015: Spiced monkfish with chives & hot smoked salmon mashed potato. The recipe for the monkfish is from Gordon Ramsay's cookbook. The side was a Mediterranean style potatoes. But my chives were growing so wildly that I decided to harvest it & made a mashed potato which I had craving for instead.

28th June 2015: Kahlua chocolate berry tart. I hate making pie or tart pastry but I know I must master something so basic somehow if I want to be a good cook. I feel that a good home cook must be able to utilise what you have available on hand. When I 1st started cooking/baking when I was 19 (Gosh, now I feel so old.), I used to follow recipes & buy so many ingredients that are used just once & subsequently kept till they expire. I had frozen mixed berries, I had kahlua from a previous tiramisu attempt & I had cocoa powder. So this is the tart I came up with to "clear some stock".

6th July 2015: Png kueh. Looks good but looks can be deceiving.

Chef Manu's Paella

I'm on half day today. Well, not quite as I finished at 2.15 pm. Actually, the cases finished at 11.15 am. But I had to clean the trolley I'm in charge of for the audit on Wednesday. We don't have a list tomorrow & Monday's a PH. I can't do it on Tuesday as we have a long list which will take us to at least 6 pm.

Hubs requested that I cook paella. Since I knocked off early, I decided to oblige. I used the food processor I bought few weeks ago for the 1st time. Nice. Like I said, I love my kitchen toys. I also used the Flavorstone pan I bought months ago but 舍不得用. It's alright flavour wise but I find that 料多过饭. Worse, I didn't manage to achieve a perfect crusty bottom. But we have leftovers & hubs get to bring it for lunch. He told me he need not envy his colleagues who brings rice to work (becoz they have someone cooking for them every night) tomorrow. 讲到很惨这样。Lol.

It bothers me a lot when I don't get a dish perfect. Not that I watch too much MasterChef or MKR. That's just me. In all aspects of my life, if I can't excel, I rather not start. But once I start, I will expect perfection of myself. So when it comes to cooking, I will keep at it until I achieve perfection. In Sg, I never had the time. Now, I shall make up for lost time. So tomorrow, I'll practice pasta making & use the excess sauce to toss pasta in.

Culinary Adventures

Been busying myself on my days off cooking up a storm. I was watching a program about Gordon Ramsay trying to save some restaurants from closing down on Tuesday after MasterChef. He threw away a whole stack of cookbooks that the owner who is also the chef of the restaurant, owns. He taught him to create a menu that is easy & fast to dish out. At the end of the show, he told the owner that he is no longer a cook but a chef now. It got me thinking. What's the difference between a cook & a chef? What criteria do you have to meet to call yourself a chef? Then it came to me. A chef creates while a cook reproduce. A chef is someone who looks at the ingredients on hand & creates a dish from nowhere. A cook follows a set recipe. So I feel that you don't have to be a professional to be a chef. I'm too far away to be a chef. 

Being fans of the MasterChef, the question of whether we will even consider taking part in the contest ourselves is inevitable. We both said no. I love cooking at my own pace & leisure. I cook what I love to eat. To have a time limit & have someone else dictate the ingredients I can use is just not for me. I have some ideas but I'm definitely not creative enough to be a chef. Besides, my plating sucks. I don't have the skills & ability to perform under that kind of pressure. Cooking is a hobby. Not something I want to do for a living.

My 3rd attempt at making gnocchi & this attempt turned out perfect. They look awful becoz I should have cooked them as I made them instead of making the entire batch at 1 go. Even though they were well floured, they stuck together & pulling them apart distorted their shape.

Blueberry rice pudding. A recipe from MasterChef Australia season 1. 

My fusion dish. Chorizo & ricotta ravioli with Bak Kut Teh nankotsu.

Rendang with tumeric glutinous rice & pandan wrap. Recipe by Poh, runner up of MasterChef season 1 during a recent episode. The wrap was supposed to be lattice in design but I didn't have a container with a narrow spout to create it. So it became a pancake instead.

Served with cucumber & coriander relish.

The contestants had to recreate Duck a l' orange in an invention test. I decided to do my own version of it. But I couldn't find duck breast. I have such terrible knife skills that I don't want to attempt deboning a whole duck. Duck breasts are available in markets but it was a last min decision to do this so I used a chicken instead. 1st, I cured the chicken in orange juice. I used an onion & sage stuffing (that came out of a box) & added orange zest. Instead of water, I used orange juice to moisten the stuffing. Next, I made candied orange slices. I then seasoned the chicken with salt & 5 spice powder (my own asian spin to it). I baked the chicken for 50 mins covered with foil. In the last 10 mins of the bake, I basted the chicken with the syrup from making candied orange & baked uncovered. Finally, I served it with the candied orange slices. No recipe, just something that I created from nowhere. Can I be a chef now? :P

Failed Tiramisu

Like all my days off, I woke up naturally at 7 am (if not awaken prematurely by Mr Ton) rather than to the blare of the alarm going off at 5 am. Hubs won't wake for several hours yet. I got started on my tiramisu. As I was prepping the mascarpone cheese, I already know this would be a flop. The cheese, instead of becoming soft & creamy, became stiff & curd-like. I went back to the recipe which received mostly 5 stars & discovered many comments that the same thing happened to them. Gosh, then why give the 5 stars? I still assembled the tiramisu anyway. The mascarpone was $8, the sponge fingers $5 & the Kahlua $33. No point wasting it.

I'm already thinking of solutions for the next trial. Perhaps half whipping cream & half mascarpone. Whipping cream withstands beating & as long as you don't overbeat, it'll not spilt. Then just gently mix the mascarpone in. Some recipes call for eggs but they use them raw. I'm not too comfortable with that. Masterchef US season 1 left a lasting impression on me.  A contestant used raw eggs & got told off by the judges. They didn't even touch the food he presented. Naturally, he was eliminated. Reason being, raw eggs can cause severe food poisoning.

On the other hand, the panna cotta came out perfect. Probably needed just that few extra hours of refrigeration. So no need for more gelatine. It set perfectly. So yey! Success!

Kitchen Toy: Dehydrator

The dehydrator is 1 of the toys I brought back from Sg. I bought this many years ago when I 1st had Ton Ton. He's 9 this year so I think this must be around 8 years old. I bought the dehydrator specially for him. As the name suggests, it dehydrates food or if you want, flowers. Instead of buying commercially, I used it to dehydrate meat as snacks for him. It was used very infrequently & not once in recent years, having been stored deep at the back of the storeroom. In fact, I had to move tons of things out before I could even reach it. I carried the base in my hand carry while the trays went into check in. 

2 weeks ago, we went to the Asian supermarket's butcher & bought 1 kg of beef tendons for dehydration. In addition, I bought a slab of pork shoulder to make char siew. The pork shoulder came with skin which I trimmed off & dehydrated as well. The tendons came out nicely, good as a teeth cleaning chew for Ah Ton. I give him 2 pieces everyday & his breath is smelling much better. Most of the plaque on his teeth even came off. No preservatives, no unknown ingredients. 

Pork skin.

Dehydrated pork skin.

Beef tendons.

Rock hard dehydrated tendons.

Loving Soft Bones

The only thing I ever order at Ajisen is the nankotsu ramen in Sg. I simply love the flavourful gelatinous texture of the 软骨. I brought my set of AMC pots back to Perth from Sg when I went back late last month. A heating base that doubles up to turn the AMC pot into an oven, 2 pots (1 taller soup pot & 1 shorter pot) & a pressure lid. They're not cheap but I got them at a good price.

Before the lamb shanks, there was the soft bones. We were at the asian grocery shop & I bought a packet of herbal bakuteh. I intended to use ribs but when I got to the butcher, I saw soft bones selling for half the price of the ribs. I thought of my pressure lid & went with the soft bones.I didn't marinate the soft bones coz I know the pressure will force the flavours into the meat. I've been working late recently, sometimes arriving home at only 8 pm. So being able to chuck everything into a pot with no extra work is perfect for me. I set the timer for 1 hour & did my things. Shower, feed & let Ah Ton out, etc.

However, 1 hour wasn't enough for the soft bones to turn into the perfect texture (to me). It was not gelatinous enough. This is something I love so I'll definitely want to get the timing right. I'm just undecided putting it for 1 hr 15 mins or 1.5 hrs next time. I don't want to overdo it & have it disintegrate. But as I've predicted, the soft bones were flavoursome despite not being marinated.

5 pieces of soft bones cost $9. The herbal pack, $3. Still not too bad for 2 serves.

Braised Lamb Shanks

This is a dish so easy, even a noob can do it. I used my AMC pressure lid (that goes with my AMC pot) but I believe cooking it in a normal pot works as well. You just have to check the lamb shanks to ensure that they're "meat falling off the bone" tender & watch the liquid level.

I had bottles of wine (Christmas presents from surgeons last year) & I hardly drink. This is a great way to use them up. I didn't use a recipe but rather, went by "feel" so it may not to be everyone's taste. I prefer it to be soupy than having gravy. But if desired, mix plain flour to create gravy after removal of the shanks. Remaining broth can be placed in the fridge & fat skimmed off once solidified. I used the broth for another round of cooking the next day.

Prices are for required amounts only. For example, a pack of 2 chorizos cost $6.50 but as I've used only 1, I listed the price as $3.25. I used dried rosemary since I have it but nothing beats fresh herbs. The mushrooms were on reduced price & hence only $1.

Ingredients:
2 lamb shanks ($8.50)
500 ml beef stock ($1)
250 ml red wine (free)
250 ml water
2 stalks celery ($0.40)
1 tub white mushrooms ($1)
1 chorizo ($3.25)
Handful of rosemary ($0.10)
3 sprigs thyme (from my pot)
Black pepper
Salt

Steps:
1. Put all ingredients in pot.
2. Pressure cook for 1 hour.

It costs me $14.25 for this meal that serves 2. I don't know how much it'll cost to have this dish in a restaurant. Between $18-24 perhaps? Like Nix said, it's not really that expensive to cook.

Failed Otah

I received a bag of chilli from P&J's garden. As you know, I don't eat chilli in their original form. So the only way is to make chilli paste from them. I spent quite a while last evening working on it, staining my fingers orange from the tumeric. I made 2 batches, 1 from the fresh chilli & 1 from dried chilli. 

This is the fresh chilli version. It turned out yellow so I added smoked paprika powder to enhance the colour.

This is made with dried chilli & the colour is more reddish. But I think I added too much dried chilli & it was too spicy.

The otah on the left is made with the dried chilli paste & the 1 on the right is made with fresh chilli paste. But alas, the dried chilli paste was too spicy. While I love my spicy fix, some food are best spicy in moderation. The chilli had overpowered the taste of all other ingredients. It gave me gastric pain as well. 

I remember the only time I ordered a level 10 Bepu raman in Tiong Bahru Plaza. While I managed to finish it, I suffered severe gastric pain for several hours after that. Not a pleasant feeling at all. I walked bent over the entire time, hugging my tummy, unable to straighten my back. I won't have a chance to do it again coz they closed down & was replaced by MOF. Not that I'll want to experience that kind of discomfort again. I had a level 10 buffalo wing at Sunset Grill (if I didn't remember the name wrongly) in an ulu airbase. Just 1 bite (I haven't even started chewing) & I felt the heat spread up my face & down my neck. I couldn't talk for a few minutes & it was a miracle I finished the whole wing. Needless to say, that was the only piece I tried. Subsequent pieces I ate were level 6s. The buffalo wings didn't give me gastric pain. I can never work out why some spicy stuff gives me gastric pain & some doesn't.

Anyway, I declared both otahs as failed. The texture & taste is wrong. Edible but not good enough to give away. I was going to give some to P&J but sorry, I guess next time. The shallots here are much bigger than the ones we get in Sg & they cost $10 per kg. Tumeric costs $25 per kg but I only need a little. The only thing I couldn't get was blue ginger & banana leaves. I tried looking up otah recipes online but they basically use the same ingredients as I do. Hubs suggested adding 1 more egg. I'll just keep experimenting until I get it right. Or if anyone has a recipe that you've tried & deemed pass, please share with me.

Baked Aubergine With Lemon Infused Couscous

Blog has taken on a depressive tone & what better way to add some cheer than everybody's favourite? Food. I've recently ordered from Book Depository a vegan cookbook, Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin. I've got lots of cookbook in Sg & hubs always complain that I buy them but never cook from them. Over the years, I've learnt how to choose cookbooks that I know I'll cook from. Most importantly, an ingredients list that isn't super long & many of which you'll only need a little & never use again. Since I ordered this book online, I didn't know what it is like inside, whether it fulfills my requirement. Thankfully, when I flipped through it when it finally came in the mail, I noted the repeated ingredients in multiple recipes, which means I can safely buy them & not having to worry about wastage. She uses a lot of smoked paprika powder, agave nectar, maple syrup, Dijon mustard & balsamic vinegar (which I already have).

I chose baked aubergine with lemon infused couscous as I had 2 boxes of couscous which I bought when they were on half price at Coles 2 or 3 months back & it's about time for clearance. While the aubergine will probably be cheaper in the asian supermarket than Coles, it seemed unwise to drive 18 km to Altone Park when Coles is just 1 km away. The nearest to parsley would have been coriander which unfortunately due to my un-green thumb, didn't survive. So I substituted the parsley for basil & oregano from my pots. The most expensive ingredient has got to be the pine nuts ($12+ for 200g), followed by the aubergine which was going for $3 per piece. The recipe called for 1 aubergine to be split in half but I thought, "Sure won't be full lah!" so I bought 2 instead. Boy, was I wrong. After eating half an aubergine, I was so stuffed that the remaining 2 halves went into the fridge to be served at dinner.

So here's what I've whipped up for lunch today. Oh yeah, not forgetting that this is it for dinner too. I'm looking forward to trying out other recipes from my new cookbook.

Scallion Pancakes (葱油饼)

Got this recipe off my copy of Bread Making by Lauren Chattman. I decided to use chives instead of the traditional spring onion. They turned out pretty good. The recipe yielded 8 pancakes and they vanished within minutes.