Papaya Soup with Dried Figs

I cannot stress how much I love soup, can I? I am always on the lookout for yummy soup recipes. Was flipping through one of my recipe book and saw this soup that looked healthy and good enough to give it a try.

Have you drank Papaya soup with dried fig before? This is a refreshing soup that nourishes the lungs and relieves phlegm, great for the humid weather here in Singapore where we get bad nose and throat so often. Okay, maybe that's just me. I get nose and throat inflammation quite often!

You gotta buy unripe papaya to make this soup. I love eating papaya, the fruit itself, but was not too sure if I could accept it when cooked in soup. I had doubts about whether the papaya will cause the soup to have that strong milky papaya smell, but fortunately no, the smell of papaya wasn't too overbearing. The soup will get to appear on my dining table again :)

Gonna keep this post short and sweet this time. Be back soon :)

 This post is linked to Cook-Your-Books #19 @ kitchen flavours

Papaya Soup with Dried Figs
Recipe by Patsie Cheong (Recipe book title - One Day One Dish | 365 Selected Home-Cooked Recipes)

Ingredients A
7 pieces dried fig (cut into pieces)
1/4 piece tangerine peel
2 tbp sweet almond
2 tbsp bitter almond

Ingredients B
500g spare rib
400g unripe papaya (peeled and remove seeds)

Seasoning
Sea salt

1. Put 3 1/2 litres of water in a pot and bring to a boil.
2. Add in Ingredients A. When it boils, turn to low heat and cook for 1 hour.
3. Add in Ingredients B to cook for 3 hours, stir in sea salt. Serve hot. (I blanched the pork ribs in a separate pot of boiling water to remove excess oil before adding it into main soup pot.)

Pandan Kaya Deco Roll Cake

In my previous post I made some Kaya jam in a spur of moment, and I knew what to pair the jam with! 

Pandan roll cake or swissroll as most would call it - I made it last night.  Used the Kaya jam for the filling and it was yummy!  Pandan and kaya never fail to please the palate. 

Can you make out Little Twin Stars' faces?

I'll do better next time!

Can you spot the broken portion of the cake?

Failed attempts never fail to make me feel bad for days lor...

I had wholeheartedly doodled Little Twin Stars as part of the deco for the roll cake, wanting to transform my roll cake into a piece of food art but I failed terribly this time.  Outline of the drawings came off together with the baking paper when I peeled it off the cake.  Had I not pipe it thick enough?  Or did I not bake the drawings long enough?  I definitely need much much more practice to get it right or I shall just stick to baking plain swiss roll cakes!

As if the deco part was not bad enough, my cake just had to crack when I rolled it!  How lucky.  Oh well, at least the softness and fragrance of the cake paired with the kaya jam filling  much made up for all the "mishaps".  I wasn't that unlucky afterall :)  Life already sucks, I need to learn to be more positive :) 

Pandan Kaya Swiss Roll

Recipe by Lirongs

80g plain flour

20g corn flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

4 egg yolks

50g castor sugar (I cut down sugar to 35g)

11/2 tbsp pandan juice

90g coconut milk (I used Kara brand coconut milk)

30g canola oil

1/4 tsp pandan paste (optional)

4 egg whites

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

50g castor sugar (I cut down sugar to 30g)

80-90g kaya (own preference)

1. Line all the side and bottom of the 35 x 27 x 3-cm tin with baking paper. (I sued a 10inch by 10inch tin)

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and add the salt. Set aside.

3. Whisk the egg yolks and castor sugar until sugar dissolve. Add oil, pandan paste, coconut milk and flour ingredients mix till smooth.

4. Whip egg whites until foamy and add in the cream of tartar, following by the sugar. Continue whipping until stiff peak. (I then spooned out 2 tbsp of yolk mixture and 4 tbsp of meringue into a separate bowl, add in 2 tbsp cocoa and mix well. Pour cocoa batter into piping bag, snipped off end of bag, and pipe desired pictures on lined tray. Put to bake at 200deg C for 2 minutes or till firmed.)

5. Mix the meringue with egg yolks mixture until well incorporated. - I folded in meringue into yolk mixture and pour batter into tray and over baked drawings)

6. Pour it into the lined tin and bake it in a preheated oven at 200C for 15 minutes. (I dropped tin on table top to get rid of excess air bubbles before putting it to bake)

7. Unmould it immediately when done. when it is cool spread the kaya on the cake and roll it up.

8. Leave it in the fridge for 1 hour. Remove from fridge slice and serve.

Homemade Kaya Jam

Egg prices have been on the rise recently but that is not deterring me from baking!  There are just so so SO many things in queue now that I want to bake and try to cook.  24 hours a day is never enough, for me!

Back home yesterday after work, I had no plan to cook, bake or make anything.  I just wanted to bathe, have dinner, laze on my comfy sofa and watch TV (and maybe read up food blogs and bookmark any interesting recipes).  I did kept to my plan until I came across this one recipe that jotted me up.  I had to do this - the kaya jam!  

The jam went right into a cleaned glass bottle.

I am sold. I could make these anytime when I feel like it.

No more jams with those unhealthy preservatives!

I had all the 5 ingredients that were called for in the recipe and I had no reasons to sit and wait till the next time to try this out.  All I need was just 30 minutes all-in-all?  I managed to convinced myself and I was back in my little kitchen in no time.  So much for planning to laze and rest.  I can only say that some things in life do not go according to plan :P 

Hubby came by into the kitchen and asked what was I doing.  Kaya jam was my answer to him and he gave the "Oh!  Wow!" answer and sink back into his sofa.

In merely 30 minutes' time, I showed Hubby what I had made and he was impressed.  Homemade Kaya jam, made at the comfort of my home. 

My dear Hubby asked me to make some plain white bread to go along with the homemade Kaya jam.  Okay, but his white bread has got to wait - I already have something that I wanna make to pair with those homemade Kaya jam!

Homemade Kaya Jam
Recipe by JewelPie

45g Palm sugar / gula melaka
200ml Coconut milk, undiluted (I used Kara brand coconut milk)
4 to 5 pieces of Pandan leaves
4 egg yolks
3 tbsp sugar (I used brown sugar)

1. Whisk egg yolks and set aside. 

2. In a small pot, pour in coconut milk and palm sugar. 

3. In a low heat, melt palm sugar. Stir throughout.
4. Add pandan leaves and another 3 tbsp sugar into the pot.  Cook in high heat.  Stir until sugar is melted and coconut milk bubbles.
5. When flavoured coconut milk is hot, turn down the heat.  With one hand, slowly pour it into egg yolks and another, whisk the egg yolks. 

I tied the pandan leaves and squashed it a little to bring out some of the pandan fragrance before adding it into the coconut milk solution.

How the jam solution got from watery state to the thickened jam form. This change took roughly 10 minutes.

6. Pour egg yolks back into the pot.  Let it simmer and stir throughout.  The solution will thicken.  It should take about 10 minutes.  If it's not sweet enough, you can add more sugar. (I did not have to add more sugar because the jam was sweet enough)
7. Discard pandan leaves with a pair of chopstick and tongs.  The kaya would be sticking on the leaves, remove them with chopsticks.
8. Transfer to a bottle.  Let cool, cover and refrigerate.  It should keep up to a week or longer.

Notes:
- Use fresh coconut milk if you can.  It tastes much better.
-  To ensure that it can be kept longer, sterilise bottle with hot water and use a clean spoon to scoop the jam.

Claypot Chicken Rice

It was a lazy weekend and I just needed all the rest I could have. Sometimes I just do not have the mood to do anything but just laze around. Because I am a wife to a man, I need to do my part and feed the hubby as well. I still need to cook to fill our stomach, right? Well, not that we cannot eat out, but we just prefer home cooked food so here you are, another lazy one-pot dish from me, the lazy wife.

Claypot Rice 
(Serves 2)

1 cup rice
1 cup water
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp oyster / abalone sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp oil
a dash of pepper

Chicken marinate
1 tbsp oyster / abalone sauce
1/2 tsp ginger juice
1 tsp dark soy sauce
a dash of pepper

2 chicken thighs (deskinned, excess fats removed & chop into small pieces)
1 tsp salted fish (finely chopped) - you may add more if you prefer stronger salted fish taste
1/2 pc of a whole Chinese sausage (lup cheong), sliced thinly
4 pcs dried Chinese mushrooms (soaked till soft & halved) - reserve mushroom water for cooking with the rice
2 stalks of cai xin or xiao bai cai

Spring onions or Chinese parsley, for garnishing (optional)


1. Mix chicken with the marinate, cover with clingwrap and leave in fridge to marinate for 2 hours or overnight.
2. Soak rice in the one cup of water in a bowl for 30min to an hour.
3. Mix together light soy sauce, oyster/abalone sauce, dark soy and pepper in a bowl.  Set aside.
4. Heat a tbsp of oil in claypot and stir in salted fish bits and fry till fragrant and golden brown.  Remove just the salted fish and dish onto a small plate.
5. With the leftover oil from the salted fish in the claypot, pour in the soaked rice plus water and add in 2 tbsp of the mushroom water.  Put on claypot lid and let the rice come to a boil.
6. When rice has boiled,  place marinated chicken thighs on top sides of rice, chinese mushrooms, sausages, sprinkle salted fish all over , top with vege and cover.  Lower heat to small and let simmer for 8 to 10min.
7. Pour in prepared sauce all over top of rice and ingredients.  Cover and let it heat for 5min.  Serve immediately.  You may add more dark soy sauce if preferred.

Durian Roll Cake

There has been a swiss roll cake craze going on in one of the FB food group which I joined. Everyone is making roll cakes like every other day. I had some durian puree left from making the durian puffs and hence I decided to ride on this craze as well. I made a durian roll cake! An original flavour roll cake filled with thick thick durian filling - mainly durian puree thinned with some tablespoons of fresh milk. This is normally what I do to my durian filling as Hubby and I, both the durian lovers just love our durian fillings as original as possible, and we do not really fancy whip cream. So that's it! It was a good swiss roll cake with yummy filling.

Hubby had 3 slices in a sitting and said it was really a good swiss roll cake, if not, much better than store bought ones because my homemade cake has far thicker filling. Wah... I tell you ah, I was literally on cloud nine when he said that! I could feel how he enjoyed the cake when he went describing it. My hubby ah!

I used Junko's deco roll cake recipe but I skipped the deco part and did a plain cake. A soft and fluffy cake was achieved and I was super happy. I tried making swiss roll cakes many many times but ended up with either an overbaked cake that was dry and cracked when rolled, or an underbaked cake that had a sticky top. Boy, I almost gave up on swiss roll making. Glad I pressed on and tried again for the xxth time. Preseverance is indeed important!

Durian Roll Cake
(Roll cake recipe translated from Junko's Deco Roll Cake recipe book)

A
4 egg yolks
35g caster sugar
60ml water
40ml oil
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
80g plain flour


B 
4 egg whites
30g caster sugar
1 tsp corn flour

Durian filling
250g durian puree
3 tbsp fresh milk (or more if required to thin durian puree to desired consistency)

1. Prepare 10inch by 10inch baking tray line with baking paper.  You may lightly grease baking tray with some cooking oil and then line baking paper to prevent baked cake from having "wrinkles".  Preheat oven to 170deg C. Prepare 2 other pieces of baking paper (slightly bigger size than baking tray) or use later after cake is baked.

2. Combine egg yolks and caster sugar in A and beat till egg yolk mixture turns white and pale, and air bubbles show up when beating stops.
3. Add in water, oil and vanilla essence and mix well.  Sift in plain flour and mix well.  Set aside.
4. Beat egg whites in a clean and dry bowl till frothy, add in corn flour and beat till combined.
5. In 3 separate additions, add caster sugar into egg white mixture and beat till stiff peaks form.
6. In 3 separate additions, spoon white eggs into yolk mixture and fold in carefully till a smooth batter forms (take care not to overfold and deflate the batter).

7. Pour batter onto lined baking tray and smooth out top with a scraper.  Put to bake at 170deg C for 14min or till done.  (Cake should spring back when pressed slightly, toothpick to come out dry when inserted into centre of cake, and when pressed gently there should be slight "sss" sound.  Overbaked cake will have cracks showing up when rolled.)
8. Remove tray from oven and overturn tray on 1 piece of baking paper atop a cooling rack. Remove the lined baking paper sticking on cake and cover cake with baking tray.  Let cool for about 10min or till cake is cool.  Remove baking tray.

9. Spread prepared durian filling all over cake, leaving about 1cm of far end clear of filling.

10. Roll up cake into a log shape with the help of bottom baking paper and twist sides of baking paper to hold the cake.  Rest rolled cake with the end at the bottom and leave cake in fridge for at least an hour before cutting.  Best served chilled.

Note:
You may lessen durian puree to 150g and add 100ml of whipping cream to durian filling if you do not like thick durian filling.

Brown Bear Mantou

I am kinda hooked on making mantou nowadays that I have put a temporary stop to bread making.  Seems like. Nah, I will get back to making bread soon I guess. Hubby will get sick of eating my cute creations too hahha!

Mantou. They are often being referred to as Chinese steamed bun or bread. They are so easy to do and somehow gives me a gratifying feel more so than bread. Not sure why too but I guess it is because I can make them and keep them away in the freezer, put them to steam and eat them rightaway when they are at their softest taste.

I took a pic of this along with some X'mas deco to give it some Christmasy feel.

This time, I made a dozen of cute brown bear mantou using 彭秋婷的创意受1作中式发面 book. I definitely had fun making them! Best of all, you need not have to own an oven to make these.  If you are in for some cute bun making, this should be it :)

Again, I did a simple translation of the original recipe by 彭秋婷

Brown Bear Mantou
Servings: 90g × 12 pcs

A. Dough
7g Instant yeast
270g fresh milk
50g caster sugar
500g plain flour
10g butter
24g cocoa powder

B. Dough
50g flour
5g caster sugar
1g yeast
25g water

1. Mix caster sugar with 3/4 of fresh milk and stir well to dissolve sugar. Mix instant yeast with remaining 1/4 fresh milk. Place all other dry ingredients in A into a mixing bowl, pour in the wet ingredients and mix well to form a rough dough. Knead dough till smooth and shiny. In a separate bowl, put all B ingredients and mix well to form a dough. Set aside.
2. Place kneaded dough in mixing bowl and cover with clingwrap or moist cloth to let proof for 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Roll put main door to rid air bubbles and roll till 1cm thick, and 40cm in length.
4. Cut rolled main dough into 12 equal pieces, about 80g each. Out of each 80g dough, I cut out 2 pcs of 6g dough for the bears' ears (68g will be used for bears' heads). Cut 10g of dough from B dough and add in charcoal powder to make bears' eyes and noses, while remain B white dough will be used for bears' mouths.

5. Roll bears' head into a round shape, place them on cut out baking paper and slightly flatten dough.
Shape bears' ears (6g dough) and stick it into bears' head - I used a chopstick to shape ears and stick it into bears' head.
Divide white dough into 12 pieces, flatten each piece of white dough into an oval shape and adhere it on bears' face. You can brush on some water and place on dough for them to 'stick' better. Place on eyes and noses.
6. Place all deco brown bear mantou into steamer and let proof for 20 to 30 minutes.

7. Steam mantou on medium high heat for 8 minutes. Make sure water is boiling before placing in mantou. Place lid cover sideway for about 1 minute. Remove steamer with lid covered slideways away from stove and let cool for further 2 minutes or so to cool - this is done to prevent mantou skin from crinkling up with the sudden temperature change. Serve warm!

After the steamed mantou have cooled, I packed them into a ziplock bag and freeze them. Put the mantou to steam rightaway without the need to defrost them and you can enjoy piping hot buns with a good cuppa coffee in no time!

熊大创意馒头
(Recipe by 彭秋婷的创意手作中式發面)

分量  90g x 12个 

A   面团
速溶酵母 --- 7g
鲜奶 --- 270g
细砂糖 --- 50g
中筋面粉 --- 500g
奶油 --- 10g
可可粉 --- 24g

B   面团
中筋面粉 --- 50g
细砂糖 --- 5g
酵母 --- 1g
水1 --- 25g

1   搅拌 
a 先将细砂糖与配方中 3/4 的鲜奶充分搅拌均匀， 酵母与配方中 1/4 的鲜奶拌均匀， 将其他材料 A 放入盆中， 再倒入液状材料揉至呈光滑面团。
b 另将面团材料B 全部搅拌均匀备用。

2   松弛
盖上湿布或保鲜膜， 让面团基本发酵 5-10 分钟。

3   延压
取出面团用杆面棍或压面机将面团气泡压出，成厚约1cm约40cm的长条状光滑面皮。

4  分割
A 面团分割80g 12个，B面团切取10g 加入竹灰粉做眼睛，其予白面团做嘴巴。

5   整形
a 面团整形成圆的馒头形状再压扁执上烘焙纸。
b 在头部1压出耳朵位置，用 A 面团以圆的花嘴模压出耳朵，一端捏尖后压扁以工具按压固定在脸部。
c 鼻子用白面团整形后固定在脸部，以竹灰粉面团整形出眼睛及鼻上装饰固定好。

6  发酵
间隔排入蒸笼層中，最后发酵 20-30 分钟。

6   蒸製
移入热水蒸锅， 以大火蒸 12 分钟，时间到后将蓋子打开一个小缝 1 分钟， 移出蒸锅再放置 2 分钟后掀蓋。

Beef Stew

My younger brother stayed over at our place last weekend and I made a pizza and cooked a beef stew. I used the same pizza recipe as the last round as I really like how time saving this recipe was, and I could have nice tasty pizza in no time! I guess it will take me quite awhile before I get willing to move on in search for another thin crust pizza recipe...! Hehe!

Now for the beef stew, I tested and came up with a simple and yummy beef stew that hubby and brother commented "delicious!"

I love how easy and forgiving stews are. You can just dump all the ingredients into the one pot and let it simmer on low heat till meat turns tender, vegetables turn soft and the gravy gets thick and tasty. It goes so, so well with rice, and not forgetting bread too, for some stews!

Beef Stew 

(Serves 2 to 3) 

300g beef cubes 

1 brown onion (diced) 

2 carrot (cubed) 

4 brastagi potatoes (quartered) 

250ml beef broth (I used Campbell's Real Beef Stock) 

3 tbsp vinegar 

100ml water 

125ml red wine 

5 pcs garlic (flattened with a knife/ chopper) 

1 tsp of dried thyme leaves 

1 tsp dried parsley 

Olive oil 

Fresh ground black pepper 

Salt 

Cornflour + water mixture (if required) [1 tsp cornflour + 2 tsp water] 

1. Heat a casserole dish with 2 tbsp of olive oil and add in add in beef cubes to brown them.  Do it over 2 batches if your casserole dish or crockpot is not big enough to brown all beef cubes.

Season beef with some fresh ground black pepper and salt. 

2. Once beef has browned on the bottom side, use a tong and turn all beef cubes top side down.  Again, sprinkle black pepper and salt all over beef. 

3. Remove beef cubes.

4. Pour in vinegar into pot and mix with wooden spoon to "release" browned bottom of pan with vinegar. 

5. Place in brown onions and garlic and saute till fragrant and onions has turned translucent.

6. Place in browned beef cubes and stir well. 

7. Pour in beef broth and stir well, then add in red wine and water.  Stir and let it come to a gentle boil on medium high heat. 

8. Add in potato and carrot, dried parsley and thyme leaves. Stir well, cover and let it come to a boil.

9. Turn down heat and let simmer for the next 1.5 hour to 2 hours or till beef cubes turn tender and come apart when pressed in with a fork.  When ready to serve, add in cornflour mixture to thicken stew gravy if required. 

10.  Serve with rice or sliced baguette.

Simple Lean Pork Soup with Huai Shan and Qi Zi

A simple and healthy soup recipe I came across in Chef Eric Teo's soup recipe book.  I used the double boiling method for this using my thermal pot and got 2 yummy pot of healthy soup for dinner. Quantities of ingredients were kinda halved to cater to 2 pax.

According to Chef Eric's recipe, this soup is supposed to cure chronic eye problems caused by asthemia, like blurry vision and for eyes that get tired easily.

Simple Lean Pork Soup with Huai Shan and Qi Zi
Recipe By Chef Eric Teo - Simply Soup recipe book (汤滋味)

50g huai shan (I used 10 pieces, 5 in each deep stew pot)
20g qi zi (2 tbsp, 1 tbsp in each deep stew pot)
500g lean pork, rinsed and cut into pieces (I used 300g pork ribs instead)
2.5 litres water (I just filled my stew pot to the brim)
Salt
I added 2 dried figs

Note: My individual stew pot size is just enough for 1 pax.

1. Rinse huai shan and qi zi, set aside.
2. Add 2.5 litres of water and all ingredients in a soup pot. Boil over high heat for 15 minutes. Switch to medium heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt.

(I placed a steam rack in my thermal pot, placed in 2 of my stew pots. Blanch the washed pork ribs in a small pot of boiling water, rinsed briefly with water and divide the ribs into the 2 stew pots. Place in dried figs, huai shan and qi zi, top with boiling water to brim.

Pour boiling water into thermal pot, put on thermal pot lid and put on high heat for 15 minutes. Turn off heat and place thermal pot into thermal pot holder. When ready to drink, put pot back to heat up and season with salt. Serve.)

Sweet Potato Balls with Chin Chow & Green Bean Soup

Do you love desserts? I do! Hot or cold, just give them to me hehe!  I cook desserts once in a while during weekends when we are going no where or when my family are over at my place for a mini gathering.

I came across Table for 2..... or More's taro balls recipe and did them soon after. I tried making the sweet potato balls instead of taro as I just wanted to try it out.  It was yummy.  I paired these chewy balls with a bowl of green bean soup, and another serving over some store bought chin chow. Both were yummy. I had them on different days la! Hehe~

One cold, one warm. Different pairing. I love them all.

I will try making taro balls another time :)


Sweet Potato Balls
Recipe by Table For 2..... or More

60g sweet potatoes (peeled, any choice of colours) - I used Japanese purple sweet potatoes
15g tapioca starch
1 tsp potato starch
2 tsp sugar
Water as needed

Taro balls
Recipe by Table For 2..... or More

80g taro, peeled
20g tapioca starch
5g potato starch
1 tbsp sugar
Water as needed

1. Steam taro and sweet potatoes until cooked. Turn off the heat, and keep the potatoes in your steamer so they stay warm.
2. Mix taro and tapioca starch and break it up by rubbing.  It could be quite hot.
3. Add in sugar and if a dough cannot form, add in water little  by little.  If you accidentally add in too much water, zap it in the microwave for 20sec, it will partially cook the starch and make the dough firmer.
4. Knead the dough until smooth, while it is still warm, roll it into a thin log, and cut into your preferred size.

5. Repeat Step 2-4 with other sweet potatoes.
6. To cook, bring a pot of water to boil.  Put in the small balls and cook until it floats.  After it floats, let it cook for another minute.

7. Prepare a big bowl of ice water.  Ladle and strain the cooked dough balls, and dunk them into the ice water.
8. Serve with syrup of choice / chin chow.  (I served it in 2 different servings - one with ready-bought chin chow & another with green bean)

Note: If you made too much of the taro or sweet potato balls, you may freeze the uncook cubed balls for up to 2 weeks. Bring them out from freezer and cook in boiling water like in Step 6.


Green Bean Soup
1/3 pack of small sago pearl
1/2 pack of green bean (washed & picked, free from black beans & dirt)
5 pieces of pandan leave (roughly tied)
1.5 litre water (add more if you prefer a watery consistency) - remember that sago pearls tend to absorb water, and make the green bean soup thick in consistency
Rock sugar, as desired

1. Put a pot of water to boil and pour in sago pearl.  Stir with a spatula or wooden spoon to loose sago pearls and prevent it from sticking to the bottom.
2. Lower heat and let simmer for 10 minutes or till sago has turned partially translucent.  Turn off heat and cover pot to let sago heat and cook further to become completely transparent.
3. Rinse cooked sago through a sieve under running water to remove excess starch then leave in a bowl of room temperature to keep it from turning gooey.
4. Put washed green beans in the big pot of water with pandan leaves to boil and cook for about 20 minutes.
5. Add in sago pearls and stir well to break up big balls of sago pearls.  Add rock sugar to taste.
6. Serve.