Dinner: Rice with chicken and coconut curry and bok choi

100% Wholemeal Man tou Chinese steamed buns

I'm set for a quick hot breakfast for the next fortnight. 

Admittedly, 100% doesn't work great. Too much fibre. Quite a 'rough' texture.  Appearance too brown, although maybe this might've been different if I had used all milk instead of water. Need to find an acceptable ratio of white to whole meal flour next time. I think maybe I should start with 50/50 and work my way up. 

Purple swirl supposed to represent yam but is actually just food dye. Now I know recipe works, can use yam powder knowing it won't go to waste. 

Dinner: Pumpkin & red lentil soup with toast

Simple

Yum

Reheated

This batch has lasted me 9 serves. Still not sick of it yet because its so yum. 

1/2 butternut pumpkin, 1/2 onion, 1/2 red lentils. Water soymilk cheese to thicken. Salt pepper. Could not be easier.

Pouring custard - light and simple

Ingredients

300 - 350 ml / 1 mug milk (cows light/soy)
1 egg
2 tsp sugar or more according to taste
1 tsp cornflour

Method

1. In a clean, room temp saucepan, pour milk in. Using the smallest gas top, use high heat to slowly warm milk. On a medium gas top, use medium - low heat. Aim is to slowly warm milk, rather than to scald milk quickly. Give milk a quick whisk very so often to make sure milks not burning.

2. Mean while, crack egg into bowl, add sugar and whisk as much as possible. Until frothy would be ideal.

3. When milk is starting to froth up/ small light bubbles on whisking, pour 2tb - 1/4 cup into egg mixture to temper the egg. Return pan to flame whilst quickly whisking egg mixture.

4. Pour the tempered egg mixture in with the rest of the milk in the pan. Keep on low/med heat. Aim is to heat slowly. Continuously whisk to ensure smoothness of sauce. Custard will thicken slightly. If happy with thickness turn off heat and pour out into a bowl immediately to stop it from getting thicker.

5. If need a thicker custard, take 1 tsp cornflour and mix with 1 tb water. Mix to to dissolve corn flour into a solution. Add to custard whilst still on gas flame, whisking the sauce whilst adding in. Corn flour will thicken sauces only in presence of heat. Do not add corn flour directly to hot liquid/sauce. Repeat with more cornflour if want it thicker. When ready, turn off heat and pour out into a bowl immediately to stop it from getting thicker.

Traffic light cookies

Traffic Light Cookies (White choc dipped coconut cookies)

Did these for the lovely students "LV" who've both just finished up for their final year placement at my work for uni.

Basically they're white choc dipped cookies (coconut cookies), where the white choc has been dyed the colours of a traffic light

They did this fantastic project for our organisation - all the groundwork for a nutrition policy. The policy is based on the traffic light system, ranking how frequently foods should be chosen for catered events at our organisation (with reference to health /nutrition)... Hence these traffic light cookies to wish them well on their way as new graduates.

Now, one of them really loves white choc. The other doesn't really like sweet things (and also can't tell the difference between a zucchini and cucumber... But thats beside the point. I do hope she does now after her placement though.)

So, I tried to compromise and only dip half the cookie in the sweet, white choc instead of dipping the whole cookie in chocolate... Although, at the end of the day, the cookie is still sweet. Life isn't perfect I guess. Maybe I should've brainstormed something hat involved white choc and zucchini or cucumber. Choc-dipped cucumber stick, anyone?


So, in the picture, top left corner was the trial run. Lucky I did it, it was too pale and choc didn't quite set until in fridge. Had a bit of difficulty getting them to be half dipped in a straight line, didn't foresee that the bulge on the cookie top would be such a problem. Definitely need a container/ bowl that's also quite deep but narrow so to not make excess melted choc (of any particular colour) that would be left over after the whole process too.

What I did

~40 Nestlé white choc melts.
1 tb extra virgin olive oil
Microwave on high for 1 min. Stir. Microwave again for 40 sec. Stir until all choc drops completely melted.
Poor ~ 50 ml to 3 different containers. Used a few small/nut boxes/ Decor Tupperware containers this time.
+ 2 drops colouring, of each colour
Dip cookies in the chocolate, let the choc drip off excess choc 
Lay on baking sheet that sitting on a baking tray (that was actually upside down).
Put whole tray into fridge for chocolate to set .
Distribute to zip lock bags and give away!!

So, the recipe on the pack does say use butter, but I don't keep butter in my pantry. Olive oil, which I use regularly was gonna be the only fat/oil option.

There is a slight lingering of the olive oil taste which makes the cookie a bit strange as an overall food. Shame. I guess it'll be no short cuts and will be using butter next time.

Traffic light cookies, packed, in the fridge and ready to give away

Green bean pancakes

Basically instead of red bean pancakes , I used green beans ... Because I didn't have red beans at home !!!

So adapted from christines recipes again. And it was a real success. I just didn't do the deep fry bit at the end because I don't like deep frying.

Ingredients

Green bean paste

130 grams green bean paste made from
Dry/ raw Green beans 1 unit
Water 3 units + more for soaking

Pancake

1 cup plain flour (all purpose flour)
2 tablespoons glutinous rice flour
1 cup water
2 eggs
1tsp sugar optional
1/2 tsp salt optional

Caramel sauce
Oil spray
Oil for frying (liquid)
Sugar

apparently the glutinous rice flour makes it easier to roll. Not sure if true but I'll believe it.

Method:

1. a. Prepare green beans: Use a unit measure to determine amount of water to cook in later. Soak in a good amount of water for at least 4 hrs ie cover the beans at least I did it in the morning before going to work and 8 hrs later when i came home, it was ready. I guess it could be overnight. But then... It'll be soaking for 12 hrs.. Might make then super soft after cooking .

Rinse with tap water to get rid of any husks fallen off, grit and other dirt before cooking.

b. Cook green beans: ratio is 1:3 by volume raw green bean to water for cooking. I cooked in a rice cooker. I imagine you could do this in a pot like boiling rice the evaporative method until beans are soft and all water is evaporated.

When the rice cooker stopped cooking as per it's usual automatic turn off, i added some sugar to taste and roughly mashed up the beans into a lumpy paste with a wooden fork and spoon.. Wood so it didn't hurt the non stick coating of my rice cooker.

Set aside.

I actually thought the paste was a bit too thick and lumpy for my liking .even though the beans were just right and soft - mushy. Might add some milk or water to make it more paste ish, but might make it harder to wrap later ...


2. Make the pancakes: Whisk eggs with water first. Then add sifted plain flour and glutinous rice flour and whisk. Sprinkle optional salt and sugar. Mix well. Add more water if batter is not thin enough. Should be thin to nectar thick

3. Heat a nonstick frying pan over low heat. Use spray oil when pan is warm. If pan is too hot , you won't have enough time to swirl the batter so the batter covers the whole base of pan and make a nice thin, round pancake. .. Because the pancake would've cooked already.

Add a soup ladle of mixture near the edge/ the side of the pan and immediately swirl frying pan with a circle motion to spread the batter evenly on the pan.

Fry the batter on other side until done, but don’t fry until brown.

Remove from heat and place on a big flat plate or cooling rack.

Put red bean paste in the middle of the pancake and fold sides to form a rectangular roll .


4. Heat 1 tb olive oil, sprinkle with sugar to make a caramel sauce on high heat. Put red bean pancake rolls in caramel to soak up the sauce. Flip to cover the whole roll.

Dish up , slice into 1.5 cam widths and eat.


Next time I think I might just plain pan fry until brown then roll in a plate of white sugar... Or just eat as is without the 2nd pan fry

Hot Cross Buns (Tangzhong) SUCCESS

So after failing twice using Christine's recipes (sightly modified at times) for hot cross buns, I decided to go and create my own recipe like I usually do - of course, using what I've learnt in food chemistry and food science.

If only someone could research and publish in a proper scientific journal on the 65°C / Tangzhong / Water Roux. Anyhoo, putting away my scientific side...

So, started googling, found a few interesting articles about Tangzhong, which is apparently also called 'Water Roux'. Also some confusion about the origins of this method - supposed to have originated from Yvonne Chen, who some believe are Chinese, whilst others believe is Japanese. I wonder Yvonne would say. Or is this another great example of how people just can't tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese? *Sigh*. 'Chen' to me sounds like a pretty typical Chinese name, not sure how the Hiragana (Japanese) would work for 'Chen', there is just no sound for 'che'...unless its 'chi' + little 'e', I guess.