Chinese Chives and Dried Krill Fritters - Seafood Week #1

I am a teacher. Still am. I am just on leave. I have not resigned. I teach Living Skills in school, or Kemahiran Hidup as called locally. In Living Skills, there are 4 electives to be chosen, something like a minor thingy, namely home econs, technical studies, agriculture and accounts.

When I was teaching in PESS, I was given 1 class with home econs as an elective in the subject.
The class was split to 2 for the subject and the other teacher sharing the class with me was Meldylocks. Home Econs consist of sewing and cooking basically, but the school didn’t encourage cooking. Yes!!! You heard me. So, it was all talk and chalk. Both of us were like “Huh??”How can cooking class be just talk and chalk?

I have taught Home Science for 2 years in Selancar and there will be cooking lessons for every chapter. I have never encountered a situation like such. Our subject form supervisor in PESS told us, there was no budget, and that she was told by the subject supervisor that we just explain, no need to do practical work. Meldylocks and I just couldn’t bring ourselves to teach this way. In the end, we used our own money and bought some ingredients to teach our students about “Batter”. This is the recipe that I made with them to demo “thick batter”. It was a nice experience with the students and I left the school the next year and came to where I am now. Ex 1-Teratai of 2007, if you happen to read this, I was happy to conduct those lessons with you gals.

Jicama and Krill Fritters (cucur udang geragau)
Source: Wendyywy

1 cup all purpose flour
½ cup water
1 egg
1/3 tsp salt
¾ cup dried krill, 虾皮
½ cup chopped Chinese chives
½ cup grated jicama (sengkuang)

Pouring chilli sauce

Every 2 part of chilli sauce, mix with 1 part water.

Make as much as u need.

1. Put dried krill in a sieve and rinse under running water for few seconds. Drain.
2. Mix water, and egg together. Pour into flour and salt, and mix until well combined
3. Put in rinsed krill, grated jicama and chopped chives and mix.
4. Heat some oil for deep frying.
5. Put in ½ tablespoon of batter and deep fry until golden. Repeat until batter is finished.
6. Serve with pouring chilli sauce.

Lime and Longan Slush with Pomegranate - Fruit Week #6

It's crazily hot these few days right?
Last year December it was pretty chilly.. well, for Malaysia a night temperature of 22C is considered chilly. And after Chinese New Year, it turned so so so so hot. The sun stings the skin and it's a pain to go out, even in the shade.

Even Lyanne reduced her diaper use, it seems much much dryer now : ( All that she ever drank seem to have evaporated rather than passed out.

This is perfect for this stupid weather. After I downed one shot of this, I felt so much better. My MIL said it was good too.

Lime and Longan Slush with Pomegranate
Recipe source: Wendyywy

200gm ice (lightly crushed before use)
1 Tbsp lime juice
80ml longan syrup (from the can)
1 Tbsp sugar or more (I used 2 Tbsp of homemade sugar syrup cooked using 1:1 volume ratio)

Blitz everything in the blender until fine. Pour into serving glass, top with canned longan flesh and pomegranate

Next,

Seafood Week

I'll be cutting my posting days from Monday to Friday.

Let's make it a 5 day work week now, :p

See you on Monday

Fresh Black Forest Cake - Fruit Week #5

 

I'm so so happy that cherries are getting more affordable here each year. This season (southern hemisphere's), the lowest was RM8.99 for 250gm at Tesco.

I grabbed 4 punnets when I saw it at this price because my mother's birthday was coming up and I want to make her a Black Forest with fresh cherries.
Why use canned ones when fresh ones are available? No doubt it is far far more pricey, but fresh ones still have nutrients in them, it's worth it. And I never scrooge when it comes to baking birthday cakes for family members.

For the cake, I used Rose Levy Beranbaum's chocolate cake base for her Designer Chocolate Baby Grands that doesn't harden in the fridge. I've also used the same chocolate cake recipe for my Chocolate Hidden Banana Cake. And all the cakes turn out lovely and soft, direct from the fridge. I made 1.5 portion of the cake and baked in a 8 inch cake pan. Cut the cake into 3 layers and then I prepared the rest.

I pitted 2 punnets of cherries using a chopstick, as seen here in this post. Then I halved the pitted cherries.
Kept the cherries in the fridge while I whipped the cream. And I also froze a block of chocolate at this point.

As always, I try to use dairy cream, and then stabilized it by using gelatin. I filled each layer with cream and pitted cherries, generously : )
Made a crumb layer, and chilled it.
Then I covered the whole cake with cream.

I looked for my serrated comb....................but it's no where to be seen! Yikes! Comb, please don't treat me like this, please don't. In the end, I used my zigzag jelly knife to comb the cake. The effect was different. The grooves were wider. But then, sigh, had to make do.

Then I piped ugly dots of cream around the cake, top and bottom. Piped small mounds of cream to attach more cherries on the top
I then grated the half frozen chocolate and sprinkled them on the cake. And top each mound of cream with a cherry.

Phew, cake done, and now, in the fridge it goes until it's time for dinner.

Verdict:
Everybody except my eldest brother enjoyed the cake. My eldest brother said, he cake texture is different, like a choc moist cake, he prefers sponge. But the rest felt that this cake taste better than sponge. With a better mouthfeel. The cherries also made the cake very very moist. Cakes with fruits are best chilled for a few hours before serving so that the juices will soak the cake.

Braised Carrots with Orange and Rosemary - Fruit Week # 4

I had to do a veggie side dish for my main dish and I only have carrots in the fridge. I then remembered Bob Blumer making carrots with orange and I have 10 oranges in the fridge. This is it!!!

But how to do it? I’ve forgotten, so I googled and found this site . Read thru and used the recipe as a reference.

The taste was really good, and seeing Mike eating another piece of carrot after the other, I’ll definitely do this again some other time.

Braised Carrots with Orange and Rosemary
Inspired by Bob Blumer

Recipe refered from here

For 2 persons only

300gm carrots, peeled and cut into sticks
1 orange (you can either juice it or segment the flesh)
1 heaped teaspoon chopped rosemary
1 heaped tsp orange zest or julienned peel(no white parts) from ¼ of an orange
Salt and pepper
1 Tbsp butter (I used the renderings from my roasted chicken and skipped the butter)
1 tsp brown sugar (use only after tasting)

1. Put butter (renderings instead, if you have) into a heated pan.
2. Put in carrots and spread them around single layer.
3. Let the carrots cook for 1-2 minutes. Then flip the carrots and let it cook for another minute.
4. Put in orange zest/peel and chopped rosemary. Add 1/3 tsp salt and some pepper, and let it cook for another minute or so.
5. Put in segmented orange or orange juice and put in few tablespoons of water.
6. Cover and let it cook on low heat until the carrots reach desired softness, it may take 5-10 minutes.
7. Remove lid and taste the carrots, adjust with sugar if it is too sour.
8. Turn heat to high and reduce until no liquid is seen and carrots look shiny with a nice glaze.
9. Dish up and serve

Peach Chiffon Slice - Fruit Week #3

I have 2 pieces of canned peach left over from Lydia’s carousel cake (this cake was made in Aug 2010). I don’t feel like eating it just like that.

So, I used it to make this, a sudden idea.
The peach flavor was just so so but texture is very soft, as all chiffons are.
I wonder if fresh peaches will taste the same when used to make this.

Peach Chiffon Slice
Recipe Source: Wendyywy

2 pcs canned peach halves, pureed (about 80gm)
80gm cake flour
20gm sugar
4 egg yolks
50ml corn oil

4 egg whites
50gm sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar or 1 tsp lemon juice

Buttercream for filling

Method
1. Preheat oven at 160/180C. Fully line a 10 inch shallow square pan or a swiss roll pan
2. Combine egg yolks, 20gm sugar and peach puree. Mix until well combined.
3. Put in flour and combine, then oil and combine.
4. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until frothy.
5. Put in cream of tartar or lemon juice and continue to beat until soft peak.
6. Gradually add in 50gm sugar and beat until stiff
7. Fold ¼ of egg whites into yolk mixture. Repeat with another 1/4 of egg white.
8. Pour (7) into beaten egg whites and fold.
9. Pour batter into prepared pan. Level surface and bake for 30 minutes or until golden and springs back to touch.
10. Leave cake to cool in pan for 5 mins. Remove cake from pan and place on rack. Pull away baking paper from the sides and let cake cool completely on the rack
11. When cake has totally cooled down, cut into half and spread with butter cream. Top with the other half and slice to serve.

The peaches I used here as props weren't used to make the cake. They tasted YUCKS!!! They were peaches from China and I so so so so so regretted buying them. They totally didn't taste sweet and there is no fragrance at all. Maybe they were very very under ripe when they were picked for export. I don't know and I don't want to know. This is my first and last purchase ever. But somehow, China's nectarines are fine and fragrant. It's just the peaches. Ignore them if you ever see them.