Makan Jikan

PB&J Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

2009-06-25T22:48:00.005+09:00

peanut butter & jelly cupcakes with cream-cheese frosting!

RECIPE (+2 photos)

Serves: 20 cupcakes
Time: 30min prep (incl frosting), 20min bake

Ingredients
Butter, 60g
Flour, 1 cup
Vanilla extract, 1tsp
Brown sugar, 1 cup
Peanut butter, 150g
Buttermilk*, 0.4 cup
Baking powder, 1.5tsp
Eggs, 2
Strawberry jam
Frosting
Cream cheese, 200g room temp
Sugar, 1cup
Milk, 2tbsp
Butter, 100g

*substituted with milk + a dash of lemon juice

1. Mix butter, brown sugar and peanut butter till creamy
2. Add eggs, then vanilla extract
3. Add the flour, then buttermilk
4. Spoon into cupcake moulds with the strawberry jam as filling
5. Bake at 180C for about 17-20min
6. Mix together the filling and frost cooled cupcakes

(modified from original recipe here)

before frosting

sideways angle

The original recipe was followed veeeery lazily because Andrew and I were lazy / lacking in amount of ingredients lol. Also, we accidentally added almond extra first instead of vanilla extract. It didn't destroy the taste but I would definitely make it next time without the almon extract, lol. Other than that, it was a much simpler recipe than I thought looking at how complex the original recipe page looked.

It was pretty yummy, even though I felt that the flavours (peanut butter, strawberry, cream-cheese) kinda clash. Too many different flavours. I think if I used frosting in the future I would use peanut butter maybe? Or skip the strawberry jam...but anyway I was reminded of how much I love cream cheese frosting. I just want to make more cream cheese frosting vanilla cupcakes.

VERDICT: 7.5/10

Crunchy Choc-Chip Spiced Cookies v2

2009-06-17T16:58:00.004+09:00

allspice makes this crunchy cookie ever so nice

RECIPE

Serves:

Ingredients
All-purpose flour, 3 cups
Baking powder, 1 tsp
Salt, 1 tsp
Cinammon, 1 tsp
All spice, 2 tsp
Nutmeg, 1tsp
Sugar, 1 1/2 cups
Butter, 1 cup
Egg, 1
Vanilla extract, 1 tsp
Chocolate chips, 2 cups

1. Preheat oven to 200C
2. Cream butter and sugar, then mix in egg and vanilla
3. Mix in dry ingredients, then chocolate chips
4. Bake for about 10min or until golden brown

(modified from original recipe here)

Pretty much the same recipe as before, but with a change in the dosage of spices. Namely, doubling of allspice as I felt Famous Amos cookies weren't that sweet...if you remember this recipe was supposed to be the Famous Amos imitation recipe...its still not there yet, but the next time I think I'll reduce the sugar & play with the dosage of spcies again. Oh when I said I doubled the dosage of the allspice, it was actually in relation to the cinammon. I just realised after looking at the recipe I used tsp instead of tbsp as in the original. >.>

Anyway, as Famous Amos cookies, fail. As regular cookies, absolutely delicious. Tash said that tasted Christmassy because of all the spices. I really like spiced baked goods nowadays, I think it adds an extra dimension. (:

VERDICT: 7/10

Gratin

2009-06-17T16:29:00.006+09:00

simple to make potatoes, onion & pork gratin

JUNE 17, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 2
Time: 35min prep, 25min bake

Ingredients
Potatoes, 3 regular sized
Butter, 3 tbsp
Flour, 3 tbsp
Milk, 1 1/2 cups
Cheese, 100g grated (or cut into tiny pieces suffices too)
Onion, 1/2 large
Ground pork (or etc meat), 100g
Bread crumbs/tempura coating
Salt & pepper

1. Boil potatoes till soft & dice
2. Melt butter in pan, stir in flour*, add in milk, then cheese & stir till melted. Add salt & pepper
3. Layer a baking tray with half of the potatoes, then the pork, then the onion, then top with the rest of the potatoes. Sprinkle with salt & pepper
4. Cover entirely with the cheese/milk mixture and then sprinkle liberally with breadcrumbs
5. Bake covered for 15min & uncovered for 10min

*it might be a better idea to dissolve the flour in milk first or in room-temp-ish melted butter as what happened to me was the flour started clumping

(modified from original recipe here)

The taste was absolutely delicious (except for overconcentration of pepper/salt at some parts lol) but the only problem was that the gratin didnt quite solidify so it was just like eating creamy sauce lol. I'll reduce the milk next time (or maybe up the cheese dosage. Also since a lot of the flour clumped and I had to dispose of those maybe there was a lot less flour in the mixture than ought to have been). I initially was only going to use 1 cup but then I thought the cheese was too strong so I upped the flour.

Other than that it was a pretty yummy and successful culinary experiment. I won't repeat it too often though because milk + cheese + potatoes = crazy calories.

VERDICT: 8/10

Meatballs

2009-06-06T10:36:00.003+09:00

a quick and delicious meal

JUNE 2, 09

RECIPE (+2photos)

Serves: 20 meatballs
Prep time: 15 min to prepare, 25 min to bake

Ingredients
Ground pork/beef*, 1 lb
Breadcrumbs**, 1/2 tsp
Minced garlic, 1 tsp
Salt, 3/4 tsp
Soy sauce, 1 tsp
Tonkatsu sauce***, 1 tsp
Finely chopped onion, 1/4 cup
Parsley, 2 tbsp
Egg, 1 (slightly beaten)

*Original called for ground beef, but its cheaper to buy a pork/beef mix
**I didnt have breadcrumbs so I used the crunchy things used to coat for tempura, lol
***I didnt have the Worcestershire sauce called for in the original, but tonkatsu sauce is supposed to be similar

1. Preheat oven to 190C/385F
2. Mix all ingredients well
3. Shape into 1" balls
4. Bake for 15 min wrapped in tin foil, then another 8 min unwrapped

Sauce
Tomato paste
Garlic
Onion
Basil
Sugar
Salt

I don't know the exact proportion because the tomato juice I bought already had garlic and onion so I was supposed to be able to use it straight. I added a ton of basil though, because that's always good with tomato sauce

(modified from original recipe in my ex-boss' Trinidad & Tobago cookbook)

pre-baked

baked, pre-sauce
tastes good this way too!

Why have I never made meatballs before? It has to be one of the easiest recipes ever. It's just like, mix everything together, ball it up and stick in the oven (or deepfry, but I like to stay away from deepfrying). I got this recipe from my ex-boss' Trinidad cookbook. It's been so long since I used a recipe from there!

Anyway the meatballs were absolutely smashing, with and without the sauce. So salty and juicy and flavourful...mmm. Everyone who tried it said it tasted really good. But it probably doesnt have anything to do with me. Meatballs just always taste good. Like sausages. Heh.

I'm gonna try to make meatballs again but vary the spices I put inside. Maybe basil instead of parsley or some Indian spices...

VERDICT: 9/10

Chocolate Cardamon Brownie

2009-06-06T10:20:00.003+09:00

Chocolate spiced with a little cardamon

JUNE 1, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 9x4cm tin

Ingredients
Butter, 3/8 cup (I prob had in a little more)
Sugar, 3/4 cup
Vanilla extract, 1 tsp
Eggs, 2
Cocoa powder, 1/4 cup
Flour, 3/8 cup
Baking powder, 1/2 tsp
Cardamon, 1-2 tbsp (dont quite remember...)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
2. Melt the butter, and mix in all wet ingredients
3. Mix all dry ingredients, and combine with the wet
4. Bake for about 20 min or until pick inserted comes out clean

(modified from original recipe here)

The best thing about this brownie is the cardamon, which adds a whole new dimension of flavour to an otherwise plain ol' chocolate brownie. It also helped that for the first time in a long while (I'm finding this oven isn't really that awesome in making cakes after all -_-) the texture of the brownie was right. Possibly a little more cakey than a typical brownie would be as the proportion of eggs is a little higher than what was required, but at least not wet and dense inside like a lot of my cakes have been turning out... :( I halfed the original recipe (as best as I could) though, so if you want it closer to the texture it ought to be I say stick to the original recipe.

So the tale of the cardamon. I thought a chocolate brownie was too boring and was wondering if there was any spice I could add to make it more interesting. I remembered Jakob's cardamon buns (instead of cinammon buns) & figured I could try some cardamon. I added it pretty liberally but couldn't taste very much. However, once baked the taste became a lot stronger. Sooo yummy.

VERDICT: 8.5/10

Bento!

2009-06-06T00:44:00.003+09:00

bear-shaped onigiri (chicken-rice flavoured!), mini-wieners, tamago-yaki
heart-shaped onigiri (chicken-rice flavoured!), mini-cucumbers
mini-cucumbers + mini-tomatoes, mini-strawberries

you can actually see the mini-wieners and (sort-of) the shape of the bear onigiri

these mini-strawberries were seriously delicious

So I made bento on monday (and wednesday, but it looked pretty much the same). I feel so Japanesey. Yay! ^o^
It was kinda a cop-out though. Besides the tamago-yaki & onigiri (squishing the rice into cookie moulds was much more time-consuming that I thought...the rice kept falling apart if I didn't really squish it well) everything else I just bought from the supermarket and re-arranged nicely lol.

Bentos are pretty time-consuming and expensive to make though, because you need a lot of a little bit of everything. :\ Prettyness though!

Tamago-yaki

2009-06-06T00:20:00.003+09:00

Sweet & fishy, Japan's answer to scrambled eggs

JUNE 1, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 2-4

Ingredients
Eggs, 4
Dashi (fish stock), 1 tbsp
Sugar, 1 tbsp
Soy sauce, 1/2 tsp
Salt, 1/2 tsp

1. Beat all ingredients together
2. Oil a heated pan (low heat) well and pour 1/3 of the egg mixture till it covers the whole pan
3. When the underneath bubbles and sets a little start rolling the egg into itself, away from you
4. When the egg has been rolled up completely, move the egg towards you, oil the pan again and pour another 1/3
5. Repeat step 3, then do the same thing for the last 1/3 egg mixture
6. Remove from pan and cut into nice rectangles!

(modified from original recipe here)

These don't really taste like the tamago (egg) sushi I buy at sushi restaurants as they're sweeter and fishier (probably I should reduce the dashi & sugar), but bloody hell they're so delicious. Both times I made this for bento (lunch box) I ended up devouring like 70% of it and leaving only 30% for the actual bento, lol.

Making tamago-yaki sounds hard at first because of the whole rolling the egg thingy, but its actually easy once you get the hang of it. I recommend using two spatulas, one to hold the egg down and the other to roll. Another thing to note is to keep the heat low and oil the pan well to prevent the egg from getting burnt. It's hard though, because then I had to deal with undercooked eggs which were a little runny inside...

I'm gonna try making this again while varying the amount of ingredients. (: The first time I had mirin too, but I didn't find it made a lot of difference so I don't think I'll be including it anymore...

VERDICT: 9/10

Coconut Milk Chicken Curry

2009-05-23T15:50:00.004+09:00

lots of coconut milk in this easy and palatable dish

MAY 23, 09

RECIPE

Serves:

Ingredients
Chicken breasts: 300g (skinless and boneless)
Frying Oil: 3 tbsp
Onion: 1/2 (large)
Garlic: 1 clove
Coconut milk: 1 cup
Yogurt: 1/4 cup
Fresh ginger: 1/2 tbsp (grated)
Curry powder: 10 tsp
Salt: 3/4 tsp
Pepper: 1/8 tsp
Water: 3tbsp

1. Peel and chop the onion into whatever portions you feel like eating I guess lol. Dice the garlic and grate the ginger.
2. Add 2tbsp of oil to a pan and when hot, saute half the onion till tender
3. Add the chicken, already cut into 1" bite-sized pieces. Saute till lightly browned then remove the chicken
4. Add the remaining 1tbsp of oil and sautee the garlic and rest of the onion till tender, then drain the oil.
5. Add the yoghurt, coconut milk, salt, pepper, curry powder, water and grated ginger and bring to a simmer.
6. Add the chicken and let it simmer for about 10min
7. Serve with rice*

*Rice:
2 tbsp coconut milk
1 tsp coriander
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp cumin
2 cups (basmatic) rice
Add to rice cooker and cook!

(modified from original recipe here)

I messed around quite freely with the recipe. For one thing, I halfed the amount of yoghurt while doubling the coconut milk (and added a little water for good measure), because I didnt like the taste of the yoghurt & also there wasn't enough sauce. I didn't realise how delicious coconut milk actually makes curry! Mmm. I also added way more curry powder than in the original recipe in order to change the curry from its sickly yellow colour to something more palatable...no luck there. Its the ginger making it so yellow I guess. The taste is not too bad. Not awesome Indian curry spicy but spicy enough to pass off as Indian curry I guess. Ha. What I like about the dish is that the ingredients are simple and easy to find, unlike most of the (authentic I guess lol) curry recipes I've seen.

The coconut milk rice was random messing around on my part. It needs more coconut milk + spices, because other than the yellow colour and faint hint of coconut milk (not bad) it pretty much just tasted like plain ol' basmati rice.

VERDICT: 6/10

Snickerdoodles

2009-05-17T09:20:00.004+09:00

vanilla-flavoured cookies with a cinammon sugar crunch!

MAY 17, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 20 2.5cm cookies

Ingredients
1 3/8 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cups granulated white sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Coating
1/3 cup (66 grams) granulated white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Whisk together flour, salt and baking powder
2. Beat eggs and sugar till smooth, then add egg, then vanilla extract
3. Combine the wet and dry mixture and refrigerate till firm enough to roll into balls
4. Make 1inch balls and roll them in the cinammon sugar coating, then flatten and line on the baking tray*
5. Bake for about 9 minutes or till golden brown

*these cookies really spread so make sure to keep maybe 3cm space between cookies!

(modified from original recipe here)

Ooh yummers. So easy to make (basically using just the key baking ingredients) and so delicious too. Crunchy at the sides and soft in the middle, with a slight tang of cinammon (I could do with more cinammon taste though). Its similar to some other vanilla-flavoured cookies I've made before, but what really makes this special is the cinammon coating. I didn't actually follow the recipe for the cinammon coating because I already had some cinammon sugar mixture leftover from my cinammon bun experiment, so I used that instead.

VERDICT: 8/10

Pandan Cupcakes 2

2009-05-17T08:50:00.006+09:00

delightfully spongy pandan cake

MAY 17, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 2 15x8cm pans?

Ingredients
7 eggs, separated
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup liquid vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup coconut milk
3 tsp. pandan extract
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon juice

1). Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

2). In a small bowl, combine coconut milk , pandan extract and ovalette (using ovalette is optional). Add the green food coloring to mixture if using. Set aside.

3). With an electric mixer OR by hand, beat the egg yolks, sugar, vegetable oil and vanilla until well combined. Beat in coconut milk/pandan extract mixture.

4). Combine flour, baking powder and salt (If using cake flour).

Sift the self-rising flour (or cake flour, baking powder and salt mixture, if using) three times into a large bowl. Make a well in the center of sifted dry ingredients, and whisk egg mixture into the flour mixture.

5). With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until firm peaks form. Fold the beaten egg whites into the flour/egg yolk mixture in two batches using a balloon whisk or rubber spatula.

6). Gently pour the batter into cupcake moulds and bake for about 9 minutes or until the cake feels spongy to the touch.

(modified from original recipe here)

the 7 egg yolks for the recipe!

So this one was definitely an improvement from the last! I think the taste is almost down pat...I have yet to let the Singaporeans try this though. The texture was also pretty good for the cupcakes (top pic). However, for the actual cake (2nd pic, cut into bite-sized pieces) which I baked for about 30min at 180C the top got badly burnt while the insides were still kinda soft and mushy...nowhere near as bad as the chocobanana cake though.

Main changes to the original recipe would be reducing the egg by 1, as I found it too eggy the last time. The next time I try this recipe I MIGHT go for 6 eggs to see if that improves the taste (I'm worried the egg balance in the recipe might be thrown off though). Also, as I didnt have cream of tartar I subsituted it for lemon juice as suggested here.

Now the main problem I have to worry about is to get the cake more spongy and less wet...also how to stop the cake from caving in hideously after removal from the oven (seriously, it caves right in!)

VERDICT: 7/10

tonkatsu

2009-05-13T15:01:00.003+09:00

deep-fried crispy chicken cutlet

MAY 13, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 2

Ingredients
Chicken, 1 breast
Egg, 1
Panko/bread crumbs, 1/2 cup
Salt & pepper

1. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper to taste
2. Sprinkle flour on chicken
3. Dip chicken in egg then roll on bread crumbs till fully covered
4. (Deep)fry in hot oil till golden-brown

(modified from original recipe here)

This is a super-easy recipe but I think I definitely failed here lol. First of all I haven't eaten tonkatsu in a long time (not such a big fan) that I don't quite remember what it tastes like anymore...except I do believe it was better than this. o_0 Second, because I hate deepfrying as usual I tried to just stirfry, and that never really works quite as well... Third, the chicken breast was kinda thick and I was lazy to cut it thinner... Fourth, the chicken had already been boiled before (my まかない food from work) so I don't know if that made any difference... probably it did because boiled chicken vs deep-fried chicken taste v different.

Whatever it was, it was really rather tasteless without the tonkatsu sauce and the wet crust that slipped right off the chicken when I tried to cut it into slices didn't add all that much flavour. It also did NOT help I ate it with basmati rice (finishing up my leftovers...), which doesnt exactly complement tonkatsu flavour...

I don't think I'm gonna try tonkatsu again though. I really don't like to deep-fry stuff. But for people who like it you should definitely try this recipe (well not mine but like google a good one) because it is supposed to be very easy. The original calls for pork but any meat works too I think...

VERDICT: 4/10

Pandan Cupcakes

2009-04-25T00:57:00.005+09:00

A deliciousness only to be enjoyed in South-east Asia

JULY 24, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 35 cupcakes

Ingredients
8 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup liquid vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup coconut milk
3 tsp. pandan extract
1/4 tsp. green food coloring (use if you don't have pandan paste) optional
1 cup self-rising flour OR 1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (add ONLY if using cake flour)
1/2 tsp. salt (add ONLY if using cake flour)

1). Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

2). In a small bowl, combine coconut milk , pandan extract and ovalette (using ovalette is optional). Add the green food coloring to mixture if using. Set aside.

3). With an electric mixer OR by hand, beat the egg yolks, sugar, vegetable oil and vanilla until well combined. Beat in coconut milk/pandan extract mixture.

4). Combine flour, baking powder and salt (If using cake flour).

Sift the self-rising flour (or cake flour, baking powder and salt mixture, if using) three times into a large bowl. Make a well in the center of sifted dry ingredients, and whisk egg mixture into the flour mixture.

5). With an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until firm peaks form. Fold the beaten egg whites into the flour/egg yolk mixture in two batches using a balloon whisk or rubber spatula.

6). Gently pour the batter into cupcake moulds and bake for about 6-7 minutes or until the cake feels spongy to the touch.

(modified from original recipe here)

Pandan basically refers to the extract of the pandan leaf, which comes from the screwpine tree and is only found in several parts of the world, most significantly in South-east Asia, which is why this delicacy is not really known outside of it (to my knowledge). More details can be found at the website where the original recipe is from.

So when I used the original recipe, I found that the egg taste was wayyy too strong and the pandan taste almost non-existent, not to mention it wasnt sweet enough...so I added 1/4 cup sugar and 2 more tsp of pandan...the final product was better, but its still not quite like what I'm used to back in Singapore. The cakes also tasted more pandan-y and less eggy when cooled. But I did find it strange how I had to use so much more pandan extract than stated in the recipe though! Is the pandan extract I have really so diluted!?

Also, the tops of most of the pandan cupcakes (instead of making pandan cakes like is most commonly found in Singapore, I made cupcakes) caved in after being removed from the oven, which is something I need to work on finding the cause for...maybe it's because I skipped the cream of tartar?

As for the texture...the first batch had better texture I believe...it was more spongy. The next few batches were kinda moist...I'm not sure if this has to do with the mixture having to stand for a while while the first batch baked. Maybe I should have tried baking it for a longer period of time...but the tops were already brown and I didnt want it to fry.

Whatever it is, this is a recipe for me to Work On. I'm interested in tweaking stuff the next time I try it to make it perfect. I think I've almost got the taste down! Maybe I'll try to remove an egg, as well as slightly less sugar than the extra I added in...

VERDICT: 5/10

Fried Rice (reprise)

2009-04-25T00:54:00.004+09:00

If yummy but wet fried rice is your thing...

JULY 24, 09

I used the same recipe here) except I pretty much doubled everything, replaced mixed veges with my own diced carrots and lettuce (this was a bad idea - the lettuce just got soggy and gross-looking) and added the soy sauce liberally.

The result was a somewhat soggy fried rice that still tasted pretty good (thanks to the ham, lots of salt and soy sauce - really, to me the ham makes the fried rice) but really pales in comparison to the ones my dad/mum/ex-maid/everyone else but me makes. I really gotta learn from the pros...

Also, I really need to learn to work on how I cook the egg. Cooking the egg seperately and then cutting it and adding it to the fried rice turns out lovely, but when I use the pour the egg in the centre of the rice and start mixing when its solidified a little, the egg always just sticks to the rice and the taste of the egg becomes very weak.

VERDICT: 5.5/10

Chocolate Cinammon Sponge Cake

2009-04-21T22:00:00.003+09:00

Chocolate sponge cake with a cinammon bite

APRIL 17TH, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 12x5cm poundcake tray

Ingredients
3 eggs, separated
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup self-raising flour, sifted
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1.5 tsp cinammon

(modified from the amazing Never Fail Sponge Cake recipe I snitched from somewhere on webspace 4years ago, which was the first successful cake I made in my life...)

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Place egg whites in a clean, dry bowl. Beat until stiff peaks are form. Gradually add sugar and beat until thick and glossy.
2. Add egg yolks and beat well. Gently fold in flour, cocoa powder and cinammon powder.
3. Bake for about 10-15min or until cake springs back when touched.

I pretty much knew this cake wouldn't fail. It's called the never-fail sponge cake for a reason, and the only modifications I made were adding the cocoa powder and cinammon so as not to end up with a plain ol' sponge cake. The taste was not too bad but nothing to scream for. It needed something to match with to make it nicer, like cream, which I didn't have enough time to buy. I used strawberry jam instead as a glaze but I personally thought that was too sweet...Also, it wasn't really very spongy. I gotta work on that problem...

Tash the birthday girl liked it though. I'm glad (:

VERDICT: 6.5/10

Chou Tekitou Curry

2009-02-14T18:25:00.002+09:00

A random mishmash of Indian spices and chicken

RECIPE

Serves: 1

Ingredients
Chicken, 100g
Potato, 1 small
Water, 600ml
Consomme block, 1
Garlic, 3 cloves diced
Garam masala, 3tsp
Coriander, 3tsp
Turmeric, 1tsp
Paprika, 1tsp
Cardamon, 1tsp
Pepper, 1tsp
Salt, 1tsp
Butter, 1/4 cup
Ginger garlic paste, 1tbsp
Basmatic rice, 1cup

1. Cook the rice as per normal (rice cooker for me)
2. Boil the water with consomme block
3. Dice the garlic, add it in
4. Add all spices, paste, butter and stir
5. Cut the chicken into edible portions and add it in
6. Turn the heat down to low and simmer until rice is cooked

The Chou Tekitou Curry, also translated into Singlish as the Anyhow Mix Curry, is a new culinary creation born of a potent mix of myriad spices horded over the months with the intention of cooking Indian curry that never materialised, utter laziness and the need to finish up several perishable ingredients.

I bought chicken cheap from the supermarket yesterday and had leftover butter from failed baking, as well as ginger garlic paste my friend from Pakistan gave me, so I figured maybe it was time to finally try making that Indian curry I'd planned to do for so long. However, while googling recipes I realised I was missing ingredients here and there (like yoghurt, tomatoes, etc) so I figured I'd just use whatever Indian spices I had in my cupboard and see what happened.

The result was pretty good! I have no idea what kind of curry it tasted like but it was definitely curry-like, if extremely watery because I used up all my flour on my failed baking and didn't have anything else to thicken the curry with (I could have mashed potatoes, but that would have taken more effort than I was willing to expend). Boiling the chicken for about an hour also made the chicken deliciously tender and soaked through with yummy spices.

And mmmm, eating it with basmati rice made it seem so much more authentic! <3

VERDICT: 7/10

Egg Tarts

2009-02-14T12:47:00.004+09:00

Delicious Chinese-style delicacy of pie tarts with egg custard filling

RECIPE

Serves: 50

Ingredients
TART
1 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
6 cups all-purpose flour
2 cup butter
2 egg, beaten
2 dash vanilla extract

FILLING
2/3 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups water
9 eggs, beaten
1 dash vanilla extract
1 cup milk

(Preheat oven to 200C)
1. Mix sugar and flour, then mix in butter with a fork till it's in small crumbs
2. Stir in egg and vanilla till mixture becomes a dough (add flour if too wet, butter if too dry)
3. Shape dough in 1.5inch balls and press them into the tart moulds
4. Heat the water and sugar in a medium sauce pan until the sugar is fully dissolved, then whisk the eggs in and add vanilla and milk
5. Pour the egg custard filling into the tart moulds and bake for about 15-20min or until the crust is lightly brown

(modified from original recipe here)

Just like Pam said, egg tarts are actually surprisingly easy to make! The only problem is that it's extremely time consuming having to shape the pie tarts into the foil.

I took some tips from people who reviewed the original recipe and lessened the amount of sugar in the pie crust, and it turned out absolutely perfect! Exactly like those from the Chinese bakeries. I had to make two batches of pie dough though (already adjusted on my recipe), as the amount for the pie dough in the original recipe is no where near enough. Make sure the butter is sufficiently softened (not melted!) before mixing it in, or you'll have a problem achieving a good texture (not too wet and greasy or hard) for moulding.

I think it's also a good idea to keep watch on the oven for the first batch put in, because overbaking causes the egg custard to wrinkle up and develop burnt patches which do not look particularly delicious. Also, use aluminium foil moulds or anything that is stiff enough to retain its shape in the oven. For the first few batches I used normal cupcake cups (without a muffin pan too!) and had problems with egg custard spilling all over the place.

These egg tarts were a huge hit with most people, for being a delicacy that pretty much none of my friends here (from Japan to America to Europe) had heard of or even tried before. Hmm, I'm sensing a hole in the market! ^o^

VERDICT: 8/10

Bulgogi

2009-01-06T09:42:00.002+09:00

Jan 4, 09
Gyu-Syoku Dining (牛角食堂) in Shinjuku (famous yakiniku chain)

790yen

To eat this you crack the raw egg into the still-boiling sauce/meat mix, then eat as you please!

First time I tried bulgogi, and damn is it amaaazing. Tasted 1 part yakiniku and 3 parts sukiyaki to me, and you know how much I love sukiyaki. Apparently in Korea it tastes more like yakiniku and less like sukiyaki. I'm trying this again when I go to Seoul in March!

Japanese New Year Food

2009-01-06T01:28:00.004+09:00

On New Year's Eve, also known as omisoka (more info here, I ate toshi-koshi-soba. On New Year's Day (shougatsu), I visited Chizuru's house and got to ate osechi-ryouri and some sumptous home-cooked food. :D

Toshi-koshi-soba, year-end soba, is soba eaten on New Year's Eve, as the long noodles symbolise long life, or something like that. More info, including recipe found here. I took the recipe very loosely and just hazarded the amounts, constantly tasting the soup till I thought it was okay. In the end the soup was a little bland, as one of my friends agreed, but overall everyone liked it (including a Japanese!) and well, so did I actually haha.

Osechi-ryouri, more info here. Let's see, in this set there is radish, carrot, chestnut paste/puree, beans, fried sweet egg...

Nori-wrapped mochi, seaweed-wrapped rice cakes on the left
Soup made by Chizuru's dad (some kind of meat broth)
Tako, or octopus, raw!

Clockwise from bottom right:
Boiled kani, boiled crab
Osechi-ryouri stuffs
Chinese meat/vege dish
Raw octopus and tuna
Charsiew!

Oishikatta. <3

Failed Chicken Rice

2009-01-06T01:12:00.002+09:00

Wtf is chicken rice so hard to make??

JAN 6, 09

RECIPE

Serves: 1

Ingredients
Rice, 1 cup
Garlic, 3 cloves
Chicken, 100g-ish
Salt, 1tsp

1. Boil water and add the garlic, salt and chicken. Turn the heat down to a simmer and leave the chicken to boil for about 20min
2. Remove the chicken, add the chicken fat, boil that for a bit then cook rice in the chicken broth (either in the same pot or transferring to a rice cooker)

(drastically modified and simplified from original recipe here)

Wow did I manage to simplify all that into a 2 step recipe!? I'm clearly much too lazy. >.> And the consequences show. The chicken broth itself tasted amazing and exactly like the soup that comes with the chicken rice, but I think in itself it's flavour is not thick enough to make the rice truly fragrant. The rice was really rather bland. :( However, it tasted better when eaten together with the chicken. Minako, who has never eaten chicken rice before, liked it. Still, this is not a success. I'll try again!

At least this is a major improvement from the last time when I super-shortcutted (it would have been a one-step recipe lol) and dumped everything into the rice cooker. The result was something like bland chicken porridge lol. I think I overdosed on the water there ha.

VERDICT: 5/10

Crunchy Choc-Chip Spiced Cookies

2008-12-31T19:13:00.006+09:00

Crunchy and choc-chippy and deliciously cinamonny/clovey

DEC 3, 08

RECIPE

Serves: 30-40 cookies?

Ingredients
All-purpose flour, 2 1/2 cups
Baking powder, 1 tsp
Salt, 1 tsp
Cinammon, 1 tbsp
All spice, 1/2 tbsp
Sugar, 1 1/2 cups
Butter, 1 cup
Egg, 1
Vanilla extract, 1 tsp
Chocolate chips, 2 cups

1. Preheat oven to 200C
2. Cream butter and sugar, then mix in egg and vanilla
3. Mix in dry ingredients, then chocolate chips
4. Bake for about 10min or until golden brown

(modified from original recipe here with input from Claire!)

they look so cute all rolled in balls!
pity they don't keep this shape :(

They may be crunchy and choc-chippy and deliciously cinamonny/clovey, but they're still failed Famous Amos cookies (again!). I think I ought to give up trying to imitate those delicious cookies...

As a random note, I think at least a quarter to half a cup more flour is needed on top of my already modified recipe for the cookie to keep its shape, because even though I balled them all nicely they flattened all entirely in the oven. ;_;

VERDICT: 7/10
(notice my verdict always seems to hover around the same grade ha)

Old-fashioned Strawberry Shortcake

2008-12-29T20:12:00.004+09:00

Salty scones-like shortbread with sweet strawberries and creammmm

DEC 2, 08

RECIPE

Serves: 12 pieces

Ingredients
All-purpose flour, 2 cups
Sugar, 2tsp
Baking powder, 4tsp
Salt, 1/2 tsp
Butter, 1/4 cup (cool but not hard)
Milk, 3/4 cup (full fat pref)
Topping:
Strawberries, as many as you wish
Sugar, 2 tbsp
Whipped cream

(Preheat oven to 400F/200C)
1. Mix strawberries with sugar and crush gently. Set aside
2. Add flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
3. Cut cool butter into the bowl and work into ingredients till it disappeared
4. Add milk and mix with fork till a rough ball of dough forms. Do not overwork dough.
5. Turn onto floured surface and roll till 3/4 inch thick
6. Cut into 3 by 1 inch rectangles or whatever size you wish really
7. Bake for 10-12min or until tops are golden
8. Split cakes while warm, add strawberries and whipped cream, and serve!

(modified from original recipe in the Toronto Star)

another shot where you can see the shortbread pieces better

This was really easy to make, and quite different from what I expected! Although I kinda got the idea I had the wrong impression of what kind of shortbread this was after realising it asked for only 2tsp of sugar, I was still surprised that this tasted very much like what I consider scones. It actually tasted really good on its own, but I also enjoyed the mixture of the salty shortbread and sweet strawberries and cream. Everyone who tried it seemed to enjoy it too.

The Toronto Star recipe actually came with instructions for making the cream sauce from cream, milk, sugar and vanilla, but I was lazy so I spent 350yen on a bottle of whipped cream I finished in one go. Oh wells, I saved tons of time and the possible trouble of failing in the cream sauce.

I wouldn't make this again for myself because I prefer my sweets sweet, but if someone liked it I would definitely make it again and save some for myself. ^_^

VERDICT: 6/10

Total Fail

2008-12-29T19:54:00.004+09:00

NOV 27, 08

These were the most failed cakes I have ever made in my life, along with the castella. After this experience, I finally realised that it was impossible to make normal cakes with the oven toaster here and I should stop bothering to even try. As I mentioned before, the cakes do not rise and remain strangely wet/dense/seemingly uncooked.

The chocolate cake was the grossest thing I'd ever seen when first removed from the oven. After the overbaked crust fell right off the inside was revealed to be an extremely lumpy thing reminiscent of the failed castella, but even worse because for some reason it was incredibly, incredibly oily. I should have taken a picture of it for remembrance's sake ha. At least the swiss roll just looked typically dense (you can see so even in the picture right), but it definitely was not helped by the over-runny cream which refused to cream up (well this one is not the oven's fault at least).

The chocolate cake was saved by coating it in lots of melted chocolate which kinda masked the grotesque-ness of the cake and made it seem like eating some kind of mud cake with the cake part purposedly wet. Andrew (it was his birthday present) seemed to like it, and I must admit it wasn't too obviously a failure. However, no matter how much I dolled up the swiss roll it was a doomed failure (let me just add the cream itself tasted good though). Byeong-uk couldn't finish bear to finish it and had to throw it out. >.> In fact after this horrible baking experience when I was trying to teach him how to bake he lost faith in my baking abilities for quite some time...

Soba Noodles

2008-12-29T19:29:00.004+09:00

Nov 28, 08
Soba house in Shirakawa-shi, Fukushima-ku

We made soba noodles on the first day of the Shirakawa trip. :D If you asked me to replicate this right now I would have no idea how to do it, nor would I have all the utensils/ingredients required, so all I can share with you are the memories and this internet link on how to make soba. It's almost exactly the same as what we did!

The beginning steps! Buckwheat flour & the big bowl for mixing it all. :]

The soba master teaches us how to flatten out the dough into a nice rectangular shape. (I skipped a lot of steps in between; this is already near the end ha)

He then demonstrates how to cut the soba noodles into well, soba noodle strips.

The finished product! Proudly presented by Tash, Caroline and I. Please note the scary soba knife next to the soba noodles, which we all agree ought to feature more in horror movies.

The truly finished product! With delicious tempura cooked by the ladies there; the usual prawn, sweet potato, mix of vegetables and carrots with yuzu, a citrus fruit Japanese like to put in their food for its flavour...which I don't like, sadly. Also, our soba noodles were a little tough. :( I have no idea how they make them softer. It must be something to do with the soba-making process I am unaware of...

Shirakawa Trip Food

2008-12-29T18:42:00.003+09:00

Nov 28 - Nov 30, 08
various locations in Shirakawa

On my trip to the inaka-machi/rural town Shirakawa City in Fukushima Prefecture (about a 4hrs drive from where I live in Tokyo) I ate tons of cool Japanesey food that was actually really different from the gyuudon (beef bowls) and curry rice fare (which is pretty Japanese to me already) that I'm more used to in Waseda.

The one on top is dinner and below is breakfast the next day at the ryokan (traditional Japanese inn). This is teishoku, or set meal, which is a tray filled with many little bowls with small portions of different kinds of food. The portions look tiny, but eating them all fills you up! In all honesty I'm not a huge fan of teishoku, because a lot of the food is cold, or cools down really fast due to being so tiny. There are tons of good parts in a teishoku though, like the karaage (fried chicken), or miso soup, or tofu...for breakfast there was freeze-dried tofu, which has a very unusual dense texture that I love!

Some really sweet snack that we ate as part of 茶道/sadou, tea ceremony.

This was definitely one of my favourite meals on the Shirakawa trip. Mmm, hot meals! It tasted somewhat like sukiyaki.

My very first buffet in Japan! They had the usual normal international buffet food but also some interesting stuff like the salmon & etc stuffed in the leaves as seen in the picture.

Okayu, Japanese rice porridge. I was really excited for this because I love my grandma's chicken porridge (or congee, whatever you call it), but it was suuuch a letdown. The rice porridge itself was bland, and the dried seaweed and pickles we got to eat it with weren't really my thing.

The last meal of the trip, and what a great way to end it off! The ramen was great (think it was soy-sauce-based?) and so was the rice side dish it came with. Love the egg, mmm.

Cookie Cutters!

2008-12-29T18:36:00.002+09:00

Showing off the new cookie cutters I bought from Yokohama. ♥ Yokohama! Land of cheap shopping and pretty harbour sights!