Hainanese Kopi-O

Someday I am going to try the the No-Knead Bread Project.
See demonstration on You Tube and some recipes at NYT

NYT Recipe

Bread machines:
Bluesky from CarreFour
http://www.zojirushi.com/ourproducts/breadmakers/bb_hac.html

Recipe #3 from YatCuisine

INGREDIENTS:
1 package active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water (105°)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup undiluted evaporated milk
7 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup soft shortening
oil for frying
confectioners’ powdered sugar

PREPARATION:
In large bowl, sprinkle yeast over water; stir to dissolve.
Add sugar, salt, eggs and milk.
Blend with beater.
Add 4 cups of the flour; beat smooth.
Add shortening; beat in remaining flour.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill overnight.
Roll out on floured board to 1/8-inch thickness.
Cut into 2 1/2-inch squares.
Deep fry at 360° 2 to 3 minutes until lightly browned on each side.
Drain on paper towels and sprinkle heavily with powdered sugar.

Yields 5 dozen.

 End of Recipe #3

Recipe #2 from New Orleans Cuisine

INGREDIENTS:
1 Envelope Active Dry Yeast
3/4 Cup Water (110 degrees F)
1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Beaten Egg
1/2 Cup Evaporated Milk
3 1/2 - 3 3/4 Cups A.P. Flour
1/8 Cup Shortening
Vegetable Oil for Frying
Powdered Sugar in a shaker or sifter

PREPARATION:
Combine the Yeast, Water, and Sugar in the work bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook
(You could also make this in a food processor, or the old fashioned way, by hand).
Let this sit until frothy, about 5 minutes, then add the Salt, Egg, and Evaporated Milk.
Mix on low speed, then add half of the flour until it starts to come together, then add the shortening.
When the shortening is incorporated start adding the remaining flour, a little at a time until most of it is incorporated.
At this time I always turn the dough onto a floured bench to finish by hand, just like when I make bread; it’s a touch thing.
Knead the dough adding just enough flour as necessary to make a non-sticky, smooth dough.
Place the dough into a large oiled bowl, loosely cover and let rise
(I made mine last night and let it rise overnight in the refrigerator).
After the dough has doubled in bulk, punch it down and turn it onto a floured surface and roll out into a rectangle that is about 1/2″ thick.
With a very sharp knife working at a diagonal to the rectangle, cut into 2″ wide strips.
Now cut into diamond shapes by making diagonal cuts in the opposite direction.
Place the Beignets on a floured baking sheet to let rise about 40 minutes in a warm place (I place them in a barely warm oven).
When the Beignets have risen, heat 2-3 inches of vegetable oil in a large saucepan to 350-360 degrees.
Place 2-3 Beignets into the hot oil at a time, being careful not to smash or deflate them.
When they are golden brown, flip them over until golden brown on the other side (They go pretty quickly so start checking them right after they go into the oil).
Remove to paper towel lined plates to drain.
Serve hot topped with plenty of powdered sugar (because the dough doesn’t contain much sugar, you will want a lot!).
Best served with Cafe au Lait. Enjoy!
Makes about 2 dozen.

End of Recipe #2

Recipe #1 from About.com

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 envelope active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (approx. 105°)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 7 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup shortening, softened
• oil for deep frying
• powdered sugar

PREPARATION:

In large bowl, sprinkle yeast over the warm water; stir to dissolve and let stand for 5 minutes.
Add sugar, salt, beaten eggs, and evaporated milk.
Whisk or use electric mixer to blend thoroughly.
Add 4 cups of the flour; beat until smooth.
Add shortening; gradually blend in remaining flour.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 4 hours or overnight.
Roll out on floured board to 1/8-inch thickness.
Cut into 2 1/2 to 3-inch squares.
Deep fry at 360° for 2 to 3 minutes until lightly browned on both sides.
Drain on paper towels and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar.
Serve hot with coffee.
Dough can cut and frozen, separated in container with waxed paper.

Makes 4 to 5 dozen.

End of Recipe #1

(from EGGS by Michel Roux, page 268)

20g Softened Butter, to grease tin
125g Plain Flour, plus extra to dust
4 Medium Eggs, at room temperature
125g Caster Sugar
30g Butter, melted & cooled to tepid

1. Preheat the oven to 190degC/Gas 5.
2. Butter & lightly flour a 20cm cake tin.
3. Put the eggs & sugar in a bowl, immediately whisk them together for about 12 mins, until the mixture leaves a ribbon trail when you lift the whisk. You can also do this in an electric mixer.
4. Shower in the flour, delicately fold into the mixture with a rubber spatula.
5. Add melted butter, fold in carefully without over working the mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into the cake tin, bake for 30 mins, or till it is cooked.
7. To test, lightly press the centre of the sponge with your fingertips; there should be a slight resistance, the sponge should “sing”, emitting a a soft “zzz”.
8. Invert on to a wire rack, giving the sponge a quarter turn after 10 mins to prevent it sticking.
9. Leave to cool for 3-4 hours.

Note: Before the cake could cool down, while it is still warm, it has found its place in our tummies.

Thanks to Michel Roux’s Eggs that now I can learn to bake confidently. I have always dislike handling greasy buttered utensil, let alone trying to figure out how to be an “oven whisperer”. My oven or toaster oven is a leftover from MIL. I sent it twice for temperature and timer calibration and servicing but still could not get accurate temperature setup. I gave up and bought an oven thermometer to check.

I love Genoese Sponge Cake from Michel’s Eggs  book. In fact was obsessed with it for the past continuous 3 days, baking before and after dinner. I am happy with my progress. Tomorrow I shall bake again if my fever is gone. Like it so much that I have the recipe in my heart all the time. The basic ingredients makes the recipe a safe choice to start learning baking again as I don’t like the idea of wasting food.

Pan fried potatoes, spinach saute with garlic and a failed poached egg for kids starter at dinner.

IK members, these are the Lego stuffs that I bought. It has no indication of maximum temperature for the baking tray.

Six Flavoured Soup  六味汤
Chinese Barley Water 生熟薏米水
Chrysenthemun 菊花
Dried Fig with Chinese Red Dates
White Fungus, Chinese Almonds & Chinese Pear
Sweet Corn Brew

A local friend told me there are 2 types of popular edible fern (is it a type of fern?) here. Cheaper and bigger one is Pucuk Paku and the other twice expensive and finer is Milin (Mandarin: Mei Ling). Pucuk Paku is fibrous and obvious “greenish” after taste. Milin on the other hand is crispy, sweet and tender.

Aunty Yochana made some fantastic French Doughnuts that melts my heart the first time I saw it. The yummy picture is at here.

It has been a while MIL’s buns sitting inside my fridge. So ’sayang’ to gobble them up. MIL bun wrapping skills has improved. It used to be quite gross looking. I finally made up my mind to steam all and eat with my 3 boyfriends. Taste damn good with Aik Cheong’s ‘kopi O kosong’ on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

For mental note, today I bought 2 medium purple potatoes, 1 large pink potato, 3 new potatoes and 1 local sweet potato. Cleaned and steamed all potatoes together till soft but not mushy. While they were still hot, peeled off the skin. Break all hot potatoes by hand into bite size. Put all onto a plate. Squeeze some japanese mayonaise and sprinkle generous amount of finely cut spring onion. Mix and enjoy.

Steamed pumpkin flesh mixed with rice porridge that is still cooking with dried fig. Add a dash of soy sauce. Kids favourite. Today’s thick porridge is cooked by my other half with these instructions. So easy and tasty vegetarian porridge. Forgot to snap photos. Next time…

I love the result but hates sweet taste and overwhelming orange flavour. I baked about 200 mini muffins in the smallest cupcake casing for my faithful baking fan.

Close up of orange poppy seed mini muffins.

My little fan

I did not have enough ingredients to make souffle but there are some for this ready mixed muffin. Yucks… this is how my muffins looks like and they are all sticky. I’ll do some muffin research to find out why muffins are sticky. The blueberries are fantastic!!!

I have gone mad recently, over fishes. Both of my sons enjoy any style of cooked fish. My younger son Chris went even madder over them - dead or alive.

I bought all the fishes I had on this post from Jusco. I could not resist my temptation, ended up buying 2 kinds of fishes for dinner. On cod fish, I decided not to use any sauce - not even soya sauce, I used wolfberry or gei chee (regretted not putting more) as it is good at drawing the freshness of cod fish. Each bite of cod fish with wolfberry tastes sweet and melt on your tongue sensation.

This second fish dish (forgot the fish name), as you can see, I had slices of ginger on top to steam and later added crispy pickled radishes as topping after steaming. The taste turned out to be so-so.

I tried to recreate cold young wood ear fungus in ginger and green onion sauce that I had in Hong Kong. I found some wood ear fungus stock in my stock cupboard from my confinement period. These wood ear fungus kept well in dark and dry condition. The type which I had were quite mature.

Unfortunately I had frozen spring onion and garlic as emergency stock. Luckily the young ginger is fresh. I blended everything till the texture that I like. Smooth texture does not provide me the excitement of biting into the ingredients.

The mixture is slowly cooked in peanut oil til fragrant as I find sunflower oil is not as flavourful. I forgot to snap picture of the finished product as I was too engrossed in eating it. Anyway, I boiled the soaked woodear and mix with the ginger mixture. Sort of like chinese salad. I wished I had fresh ingredients for the sauce and better wood ear fungus. The original dish that I had in Hong Kong was superb in terms of flavour (for both sauce and wood ear), texture, chewy-ness and after taste. The sauce may sound oily but you may appreciate its role in making the rest of the ingredients mely in your mouth.

This is my new rice cooker. My old rice cooker and slow cooker (both Panasonic ) can retired into the darkest corner in my kitchen. It has become an essential equipment for me to prepare meals for my husband, 4-year old and 2-year old. When I reach home I can expect food hot, ready to be serve at anytime. I tried slow cooking red kidney bean (without having to soften beans in water beforehand) soup after the kids went to bed at 9pm and next morning it’s ready to be serve, soft and fluffy bean and sweet soup.

I must admit the instruction manual is disappointing. There are no recipes. I am a part time cook therefore instructions and recipes are very important to educate a user like me.