Marble Pinwheels

This recipe is from Joy of Making Cookies by Alex Goh. Haha… Thought this recipe was easy. Alas, when came to the part to stack the chocolate dough on the plain dough, it was a challenge for this butter-fingered Tazz. Some part of the chocolate dough broke off. After some manoeuvres, managed to mend the dough. *Phew!*

The name of these cookies is Marble Pinwheels. Look at the shapes of my cookies and you will see that I have not done a good job. Instead of round shapes like wheels, I have oval shapes and you can even see holes in the center of the cookies. Oh well, when I sulked over my poor skill, Gene said “Mummy, stop being a perfectionist!!!!”

Mmm…… @&#$!@#



Marble Pinwheels

Ingredients:
320g butter
170g icing sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
550g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
20g cocoa powder


Method:

1. Mix butter and icing sugar till well blended. Add in eggs and vanilla essence and cream lightly till smooth.

2. Add in sifted plain flour and baking powder and mix till well blended.

3. Divide the dough into two. Mix the cocoa powder to one part of the dough to form the chocolate dough.

4. Keep the doughs in the fridge for an hour. Roll both the chocolate and plain doughs in between sheets of plastic separately to a 5mm thickness.

5. Brush the plain dough with egg white and place the chocolate dough on top.

6. Roll it like Swiss Roll and wrap it with plastic sheet. Keep in the fridge overnight or till firm.

7. Slice it to a 3mm thickness. Place on greased pan.

8. Bake in preheated oven at 170 degree Celsius for 15-20 minutes.

Note: Do not overbake the first four ingredients. The cookies will be fragile and easily broken after baking.

Tazz’s Note: I baked for 20 minutes, the cookies were still quite pale, so I continued to bake until golden brown, like those in the book.

Hong Kong Style Chicken Rice

This easy Hong Kong Style Chicken Rice recipe is from Jingle's Kitchen. This recipe is good for Tazz on a lazy day when Tazz doesn't want to do too much cooking and cleaning. I deboned the chicken and also discarded the chicken skin and excess fats. I halved the recipe to serve three.



Hong Kong Style Chicken Rice

For the rice:
Ratio of rice to hot water is 1:1

Put the rice with hot water into a square or round pan measuring about 8 inches.


Ingredients for the rice topping:
abt 500g chicken
3 big mushrooms, soak to soften
1 chinese sausage, remove the transparent skin and slice thinly

Garnishing:
2 stalk of spring onion, chopped
1 fresh chillies, slice thinly
4 small shallots, fried and collect the shallot oil**

Serving Sauce (for the rice):
100 ml of water
1 tbsp black soya sauce
1 tbsp light soya sauce
3/4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp shallot oil**

Seasoning-1:
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp sugar
1/2 tbsp water
1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp ginger juice
1/2 tbsp wine
1/4 tbsp light soya sauce
1/4 tbsp black soya sauce

Seasoning-2:
3/4 tbsp cornflour
3/4 tbsp shallot oil
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1/2 tsp pepper


Method:

Cut the chicken and mushrooms into pieces and marinate with seasoning-1 for 1 hour or longer. The chicken will be tastier if you marinate longer, but do not marinate for more than 3 hours because the ginger juice will break the chicken skin. (I discarded the chicken skin)

Steam the rice with hot boiling water for 10 mins then off the fire.

Add seasoning 2 to the chicken and mushrooms.

Cut the sausage into thin slices then add to the seasoned chicken and mushroom.

Put all on top of the cooked rice then steam for another 10 to 15 mins.

Once everything is cooked, add the the garnishing on top.

Add 2 tbsp of serving sauce to the rice before serving.

Ready to serve.

Joy of Making Cookies

Went to Kinokuniya at Bugis last night and bought Joy of Making Cookies by Alex Goh. I had wanted to buy the same book somewhere before Chinese New Year, but there was blemishes on the cover page of the last copy available, so I did not buy it. When I saw this book, again the last copy there in English and Chinese, I was overjoyed.

Hmm... hope this book will be more useful to me, compared to the Fantastic Cheesecakes by the same author. There are many reasons for underutilizing that book:

1. My inability to resize some of the cakes from a 23cm square pan to a common 20cm or smaller round pans.

2. The large quantity of cream cheese calls for in some of the recipes which makes me shudder.

3. The egg calls for in the chilled cakes recipes which is unsafe in view of the rampant bird flu.

4. Unstated number of tarts the recipes yield which makes it hard to gauge the portion of each tart, so that I have neither balance of tart shells nor filling. (see Tazz is extremely fussy over such minor details? *hehe*)

5. still thinking.....

Tazz will think of ways to cross the hurdles. Enough said! This is the photo of Joy of Making Cookies by Alex Goh:

Interesting quote behind the book:

Who can resist the temptation of delicious cookies?

Light, crispy, flaky - the feeling is unforgettable. Baking cookies is a kind of double enjoyment.

Baking gives a warm feeling as the room is filled with the fragrance of cookies. Eating gives a carefree feeling as every taste bud is flooded with the perfect taste - especially when served with a cup of hot tea.

Alex shares with us the secrets of making cookies in this book, Joy of Making Cookies. Inspired by Alex, readers can create unique cookies of your personal style using your own imagination.

Pai Gu Wang

Yesterday I tried another spare ribs recipe, tweaking the Pai Gu Wang recipe from Jingle's Blog. Spare ribs were used to substitute the pork chops in that recipe, hence, I added a tablespoon of ginger juice to tenderise the ribs. I also omitted the A1 Sauce called for in that recipe.

A very yummy dish, especially with the use of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce, which made the sauce extra tasty.



Pai Gu Wang
排骨王

Ingredients:
550g of spare ribs

Marinade:
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp custard powder
1 egg
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp ginger juice

Sauce:
2 tbsp tomato sauce
2 tbsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
2 tbsp HP sauce
3 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp water


Method:

Cut the spare ribs into about 2 inches long. Wash and pat dry. Marinate for about 2 hours.

Mix the sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Heat 2 bowls of oil, when you see tiny bubbles in the oil, put the marinated pork ribs and fry at high heat and reduce to medium heat until ribs are cooked (Use a wooden chopstick to poke the meat, if it is soft, the ribs are cooked). Dish and set aside.

Leave about 2 tbsp of oil in the wok, then pour in the gravy and bring to a boil, put in the fried spare ribs and stir to coat well. Once the sauce thickens, turn off the heat.

Serve hot.

Coffee Spare Ribs

Cooked this Coffee Spare Ribs for dinner. Recipe is from Jingle's Blog. If you ask me about the verdict for this dish, hmmm... how should I put it? Okay, lets be frank. Hubby and I shared the same view. We are used to drinking coffee and eating coffee desserts. As for having a meat dish with coffee, it doesn't suit our palate.

Gene and Ni on the other hand, enjoyed this dish very much. They even mixed lots of gravy into their rice. Well, I know that coffee is just like opium to this two naughty fellas, something on which they got hooked few years back, when they acquired their "coffee drinking licences" from Tazz. *lol* Oh my god, Tazz was requested to cook this regularly.



Coffee Spare Ribs

Ingredients:
400g spare ribs (small spare ribs)

Marinade:
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp 3-in-1 instant white coffee powder
3 tbsp water

Sauce:
5 tbsp 3-in-1 instant white coffee powder
2 tbsp tomato sauce
5 tbsp water


Method:

Cut the spare ribs to about 3 inches long. Marinate for about 1 hour.

Deep-fry the marinated spare ribs in hot oil over high heat for about 6 minutes or until golden brown. Drain and set aside.

Leave 2 tbsp of oil in the wok, pour in sauce mixture and bring to boil. Add in fried spare ribs, stir to coat the fried spare ribs with the sauce. Dish out, sprinkle with some coffee powder on top. Serve hot.

Tazz's Note: The spare ribs that I used were not cut into 3 inches long, butcher's fault! :(

DIY BBQ Pork

The craze of this 自製豬肉乾 DIY BBQ Pork, at Leisure Cat, has almost died down by now. Saw so many forummers made this last month. Out of curiosity, I also tried this. First trial was not very successful because I reduced the amount of sugar which was a great mistake. Eventhough I reduced the other seasoning ingredients as well, the taste was completely off the right track. On my second trial, I followed the amount of sugar called for in the recipe but reduced the other three ingredients further, namely dark soy sauce, light soy sauce and cooking wine.

Verdict? My three guinea-pigs and I agreed that there was a tinge of light soy sauce taste, so minute reduction of light soy sauce might be the solution. Nevertheless, they gave the thumbs up for this BBQ Pork. Not exactly like the BBQ Pork we used to eat but the taste and texture were very close, nice in its on way as compared to the store bought BBQ Pork.

If you are keen in this recipe, view the step by step photos here. She didn't use a baking tray although it was mentioned in her recipe. The recipe below has been tweaked, if you want the original recipe, view DIY BBQ Pork.



DIY BBQ Pork
自製豬肉乾

Ingredients:
1 lb. minced meat, with some fats
1-1/2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp cooking wine
1/2 cup sugar


Method:

Put minced meat in a big bowl. Add in the seasoning. Use Chopsticks and stir in one direction until minced meat becomes gluey.

Put some gluey minced meat on a *parchment paper. Cover with a big cling wrap (I think plastic sheet is better) and use a roller to roll the minced meat to 2mm thick. (*Do not use aluminum foil as it will stick!)

Put the parchment paper with minced meat, on a baking tray.

Bake in preheated oven at 125 degree Celsius for 20 minutes. **After that, increase the temperature to 180 degree Celsius and bake for about 20-30 minutes. Keep a close watch, as it burns easily at this stage.

Cooled and cut into pieces.

Tazz’s Note: ** For the last part, I baked the meat for 20 minutes at 180 degree Celsius. Then I removed it from the oven. Left it to cool and flip over on a fresh piece of parchment paper, then baked for an extra 10 minutes at 180 degree Celsius.

I think the time used to bake the BBQ Pork depends on the thickness of the meat.

P.S. I did a third batch on 15th April '06 for the BBQ gathering with my cyber friends. Adjusted the light soy sauce to slightly lesser than 1 tbsp and added 1/4 tsp of cooking oil. Bingo!! :)

A Foodblogger's Meme Around The World

I have been tagged by Pusiva from Pusiva's Culinary Studio to write this Meme. Quite an easy task as compared to the previous two Meme(s) that I have done.

1. Please list three recipes you have recently bookmarked from foodblogs to try:
(a) Mango Pomelo Dessert at Jingle's Kitchen
(b) Kyoto Spare Ribs at Jingle's Kitchen
(c) Banana Pudding at Jingle's Kitchen

2. A foodblog in your vicinity:
(a) She bakes and she cooks by The Baker

3. A foodblog (or more) located far from you:
(a) Baking Sheet from LA, California, US
(b) Sweetnicks from New Jersey, US

4. A foodblog (or several) you have discovered recently (where did you find it?):
(a) If she can do it, so can you. by Rachel
(b) Jelly Jelly Jelly by wenyi198107
(c) Piggy's Cooking Journal by Piggy

5. Any people or bloggers you want to tag with this Meme?
(a) Angie's My Kitchen: My Laboratory
(b) Rachel's Tham Jiak

ABC Soup aka Luo Song Tang

This ABC Soup aka Luo Song Tang is different from the ABC Soup that I have been cooking at least once a week. This soup uses chicken breast meat instead of pork ribs. Other ingredients like tomatoes, tomato sauce, pepper and sugar are seldom included in my regular ABC Soup.

Recipe is from Jingle's Blog. We like the taste of the tomatoes in this soup. Yum!



ABC Soup aka Luo Song Tang
4-5 servings

Ingredients:
2 potatoes, quartered
1 carrot, sliced
3 tomatoes, quartered
2 yellow onions, sliced
300g chicken breast meat, parboil in boiling water and cut into cubes

2000ml water

Seasoning:
1 tsp salt,
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp tomato sauce
dash of pepper


Method:

Put all ingredients into a stock pot and bring to a rolling boil.

Once boiling, lower the heat and cook for another 45 mins.

Finally stir in the seasoning and turn of the heat.

Serve hot.

Slow and Steady...

I planned this Baked Chicken Wings Delight with Fried Bee Hoon for lunch today, because of my poor estimation of time and the small capacity of my 26 litre Tefal oven, we ended up eating Fried Bee Hoon without the chicken wings. Haha... by the time I finished baking all the chicken wings and the cleaning up, I had to serve the wings as snacks for our tea break.

Well, no regret for the hard work because this chicken wings tasted great with the special dipping sauce, which was actually the boiled marinade. Recipe was taken from Leisure Cat, the popular and friendly forum.



Baked Chicken Wings Delight

Ingredients:
3 lbs. Chicken wings

Marinade:
3 tbsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
4 tbsp honey
2 tbsp tomato sauce
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chopped onion
1/2 tbsp salt
3 tbsp black pepper powder (more if desired)

some honey for glazing


Method:

Wash the chicken wings and dab dry, set aside.

Marinade chicken wings for a few hours (or over night).

Bake chicken wings in pre-heated oven at 190 degree Celsius for 30 mins or until cooked.

Glaze with some honey and bake for a while.

Serve with dipping sauce.

Note: Do not discard the marinade, boil it and use as the dipping sauce.