Sambal Ikan Bilis Buns ( using Tangzhong Method)

I'm not happy this week photos.  Note the out of focus, bad lighting photos-yes, three almost similar photos up there. The buns are relatively good, despite the after-baked meh look. Soft. They are pillowy-soft. And who can say no to sambal ikan bilis? Sweet, salty and spicy. Reminds me times I had in Bintulu where Gardenia's Ikan Bilis bun were the most sought-after souvenirs from the Peninsular. I never bought one for my colleagues though. Sorry guys, I couldn't find them. Which part of KLIA is selling it again? Anyway, most of the recipes I googled call for bread improver. I couldn't find a halal one here, so I pursued with the Tangzhong method. Result as discussed above. Pillowy-soft. I believe everyone is already familiar with this method. No further explanation needed. This will be my go-to sambal ikan bilis bun. Might have to repair the looks somehow. 

Sambal Ikan Bilis Buns. 

Soft Buns recipe is taken from Kokken69's Yukone Method Sweet Soft Buns

Water Roux

50g Bread Flour 

75g Boiling water 

Mix water roux ingredients together in a bowl. 

Cover bowl with cling wrap and store in fridge for 12 hours.

Bread Dough

6g Active Dry East 

160g Bread Flour 

40g Plain Flour 

50g Sugar 

2g Salt

50g Water 

1 Egg 

40g Butter 

In a mixer fitted with a bread hook, add flour, yeast, sugar, egg and water. Start mixing at slow speed for 2 mins. Add salt and continue to knead until dough lifts from the wall of the mixing bowl. 

Add water roux mix and continue to knead for 3 mins. (speed 2)

Add butter and increasing kneading speed to speed 4.

Continue kneading for 15 mins on speed 4 until dough is no longer sticky and does not break when pulled to perform window test. 

Place dough in a slightly oiled bowl. Cover with cling wrap and leave to proof in a warm area for 45mins.

With lightly floured hands and table top, knead (6) to form a smooth round ball. Divide dough into 12 balls – about 40g each.

Roll each small ball into a round ball and leave to proof for 10mins.

Flatten each ball and roll out to a circle with a rolling pin. Place sambal ikan bilis filling in the center of the dough and wrap and seal the edges of the dough to form a ball. 

Leave to proof for 1 hour. 

Brush with egg white and decorate.

Bake at 185C for 8-10mins until brown.

Leave to cool.

Fig Galette

Dear A, 

The Turkish figs are back. They show up only once or twice a year as far as I can remember. My dream ritual of picking it myself-choose one, pretend to smell, and put it in basket-is so not going to happen here. Yes, they're imported, and they come in box, which I bought two. I have eight plump and purplish figs in my fridge, lie idling for almost a week. Hubs even made a complaint of having too many fruits in the fridge. Well, I’m hopeless when it comes to beautiful produce. I'm a whatever-nice-in-the-grocery hoarder. I buy and store them in my fridge/pantry and wait for the right moment to use it a.k.a near expiry date. Get some tips to make them last longer here. Anyway, I have nothing sprang on my mind for these figs. I turned them into tart few years ago, blogged, and that's about it. I think I prefer to have them as it is nowadays. Couple it with my oatmeals, or slice them up and threw it in my salad. Our house was due for HIP (House Improvement Project) inspection and some electrical work that day, and I wanted the house to smell nice when the guys come. Not the right guest but why not. I need something quick, and a galette is perfect. I'd like to think galette as a free-form of tart/pie. It's less tedious obviously, provided that the dough you're working with is not temperamental. The hot breeze of September would give me no help if I were to stick with my go-to pastry recipe. So I searched for a new one. And ended up with Deb’s site-Blueberry Galette recipe. I choose hers for its sour cream call (she used ricotta, but suggested to subs with yogurt/sour cream). I have about half tub of it, left from my last use. Her recipe is quick and that's one thing I love about it. Very easy to 'handle'. I froze it for merely 10 mins and it harden. Had to left it on my counter while searching for my rolling pin. Adam used it for his kitchen-play last week and didn’t put it back in the drawer. I searched and searched as the hot ambiance started to soften up my dough. I gave up and used a cup instead. And it worked. The dough was nearly back into its initial state, but it didn't stick on my fingers. Great. We have an hour of no fans, no wifi, no TV, etc. Yes, they shut down the main power off. As they did their job, I sat on my dining table, guiding Adam on his English exercise, while working out a piece of galette. Adam loves the crust but not so much on the filling. He's excited for the blueberries tho-I threw in a few just to get that pretty purple bursts. Refused for more when he bit just a tiny piece of fig. Hmmm. More for mommy then.  

More soon. 

Love, 

A

Fig Galette (Based on Smitten Kitchen's Blue and Red Berry Ricotta Galette)

Pastry

1 1/4 cups (160 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon table salt

1 1/2 teaspoons granulated sugar

Zest of half a lemon

8 tablespoons (4 ounces or 113 grams) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1/4 cup sour cream

3 tablespoons cold water

Filling

11/2 cups fig cuts

Few blueberries

3 to 4 tablespoons granulated sugar (use the lower amount if your fruit is especially sweet)

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Pinch of salt

Glaze

1 egg yolk beaten with 1 teaspoon water

1 heaped teaspoon coarse sugar for sprinkling

Make dough: 

Whisk the flour, salt, sugar and zest together in the bottom of a large bowl. Work the butter into the flour with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles a coarse meal and the largest bits of butter are the size of tiny peas. Stir sour cream and 3 tablespoons water together in a small dish and pour into butter-flour mixture. Stir together with a flexible spatula as best as you can, then use your hands to knead the mixture into a rough, craggy ball. Wrap in plastic and flatten into a disc. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour or up to 48 hours, or you can quick-firm this in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Assemble galette: Heat oven to 200 C. On a floured counter, roll the dough out into a large round-ish shape, about 14 to 15 inches across. Download and print Deb's star shape template here. Cut the dough according to the template. Carefully stir together all of the filling ingredients and spread them in the center of the dough, leaving a 2-inch border. Fold each of the 5 corners into the center. Pinch the outer corners closed, to seal in the filling and the shape. Whisk egg yolk and water together and brush over exposed crust. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Bake galette: For 30 minutes, or golden all over. Remove from the oven and let stand for 5 minutes, then slide the galette onto a serving plate. Cut into wedges and serve hot, warm or at room temperature. Serve it with ice cream.

Buttermilk Cherry Smoothie

Dear A, 

I love buttermilk. I think it's a clever use of leftovers. You probably already know, but in case you don't, buttermilk is a milk-leftover after making butter. And contrary to its name, buttermilk is actually lower in fat than regular milk. And some says, lower than yogurt. There are two types of buttermilk, traditional and cultured. Traditional buttermilk refers to the by-product from churned butter while cultured buttermilk is a cow's milk fermented using lactic acid bacteria. That is what lined in most grocery shelves nowadays. Frankly, I never knew its existence until I moved here. That was 6 years ago. That long eh. It now graces my Sunday mornings, being the most loyal companion to my eggs, flour and sugar, and end up as fluffy pancakes on my plates. Adam loves them. I never knew buttermilk can be drunk straight as it is. I We only do yogurt drinks. Yes, I remember. They both are actually two different dairy products. Similar in taste, tangy, but buttermilk has this bitter after taste. As for the cherries, I wanted to make something with them, by something I mean galettes, tarts or a pound cake (high hopes!) but I simply had little time to make any bakings this week. No regrets though. The smoothie tastes so good. The sweetness of the cherries combined with the tang of the buttermilk made me had it in seconds. While the banana make it rich and satisfying. The recipe is from Bon Appetit, which requires only three ingredients-buttermilk, cherries and banana. Just combine 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1 cup pitted cherries, and 1 peeled ripe banana in a blender. Purée until smooth. Give it a try, will you?

Love,

A

Green Goddess Smoothie

Dear A, 

I have been planning to write you a letter for years now, but, the right moment never came for me to just sit down and write. Well, different case this morning though. A lovely grey weather outdoors, such a fine day to work at my new workspace and start typing. It's such a long time since we'd last spoken. I try to forget and go beyond those upsetting words to come to this. Life has many different chapters. One bad chapter in life, doesn't mean it's the end of the book. I really hope we could pick up right as we left off. Like nothing ever happen. Let's start with Raya. We went back to Penang for Raya this year. Tried catching up with our relatives there, went to every single Mami's house (we're busy with the kids, they're really getting old), had the best Mamak food 24 hrs a day, it's been food, food food...can you imagine? Exactly the same Penang routine we had when we were small. I gained like 4 kilos in few days time. Oh well. That explains the green smoothie. I shall have this every morning, and I shall be punished if I ever skip one. #mantra Hopefully I could lose those unwanted kilos by end of the month (or year?). Not if I keep on eating like a mad cow! I have been consuming this drink for almost two years now, on and off, unfortunately. It's called Green Glowing Green by Kimberly Synder, but I prefer to call it Green Goddess Smoothie or GGS. It was a major trend in Instagram years back. It was shared by my IG friend, whom I had a chance to meet during my Germany trip with mom last year. I'm not a big fan of following what's trend or not, but this one's definitely a good trend, so I succumbed. Verdict: probably one of the factor that successfully lowered down my cholesterol level. 

Here's the recipe in case you feel like trying.

GREEN GLOWING SMOOTHIE ( POPSUGAR)

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups water
1 head organic romaine lettuce, chopped
3 to 4 stalks organic celery
1/2 head of a large bunch or 3/4 of a small bunch of spinach
1 organic apple, cored and chopped
1 organic pear, cored and chopped
1 organic banana
Juice of 1/2 fresh organic lemon
Optional: 1/3 bunch organic cilantro (stems OK) and 1/3 bunch organic parsley (stems OK)

DIRECTIONS

1. Add water and chopped head of romaine to blender. Blend at a low speed until smooth.
2. Add spinach, celery, apple, and pear, and blend at high speed.
3. Add cilantro and parsley (which help chelate heavy metals from your body).
4. Finish with banana and lemon.

I must go now. The kitchen floor is waiting to be mopped, the dish is still piling in the sink, and I got lunch to cook. More letters soon. 

With much love, 

A 

Sardine on Toast

One of the easiest brunch you can make in no time at all. The idea is this; an open faced sandwich consists of wholegrain toast, topped with cucumber slices, half of sardine dipped with tomato sauce & caramelised onion, and garnished it with a small sprinkle of salt, chili flakes, red onion and coriander. It's my so-called take on the local's favourite, sardine and cucumber sandwich, which is basically mirrored on Shira Bocar's Sardine on Rye. Perfect for everyday. 

Sardine on Toast
Ingredients: 

2 slices wholegrain bread

Corn oil (for sautéing)

1/2 thinly sliced red onion

One small can of Ayam brand sardines, packed in tomato sauce

2 tablespoons fresh coriander

Salt and pepper

Lemon wedge

Heat your saute pan over medium heat. Sauté the red onion until slightly caramelised. Put the drained sardine in, and let it cook for a minute or two. Pour the tomato sauce in and leave it reduce a bit. 

To assemble the sandwich; Toast the bread. Top with sardines, red onion, coriander. Sprinkle with some chili flakes. Make sure you drizzle it with some lemon juice before you take it to your mouth- that's the key that bind everything together. You can swap in the chili flakes with the real hottie, the bird's eyes chili. AYOR.

Pandan Chiffon Cake (with real Pandan extract)

   

Old-fashioned, soft and aromatic. 

Nigel Slater once wrote, "A single 'a' changes everything"-well, he was talking about getting a good custard with an easy addition of a single, or two ingredients though, but I could not agree more. Well, in my case, the 'a' means nothing more than swapping the usual pandan paste with the real pandan extract. Trust me, it brings a huge different to the whole awesomeness of this cake. I literally gobbled up four big chunks in a row. Ouch. I am sorry if you read this from any other parts of the world where pandan is gold. But if you are in SEA region, by all means, please use the real pandan extract. :)  

Pandan Chiffon Cake 

Recipe from The Little Teochew, original recipe from Indochine Kitchen

Make 1 cake, 22 cm in diameter, 8 cm tall. 

You need a 22-cm chiffon cake tin for this.

Ingredients A

7 egg yolks

75g coconut milk- I used freshly squeezed coconut milk. You can opt for fresh pasteurised coconut milk. Do not use packet coconut cream (Kara or Ayam Brand) because it's too rich. Your cake will spring out out of the pan while cooling.

Concentrated fresh pandan extract- I used 30 fresh pandan leaves + 1/2 cup water and blitzed in a food processor. Squeeze out the juice from the pulp and leave it in a glass overnight in the fridge. Use only the green stuff that settles at the bottom of the glass. Wendy of Table of 2.. or more shows us how it's done here. 4g or 1 tsp if you are using pandan essence.

150g flour

4g baking powder-1 scant tsp

95g sugar-can reduce to 75g

3g salt

83g vegetable oil-it's about 83ml

Ingredients B

- 7 egg whites

- 100 g sugar

Preheat oven to 160°C.

Combine egg yolks, coconut milk and pandan extract in a mixing bowl. 

Sift flour, baking powder and salt. 

Add flour mixture and sugar into the bowl. 

Add vegetable oil and whisk everything to combine.

In a separate and clean bowl, beat egg whites and sugar together till it forms soft peaks.

Slowly fold egg white into egg yolk mixture in 3-4 additions.

Pour cake mixture into an ungreased tube pan.

Bake for 45 minutes.

Flip the pan upside down against a bottle on kitchen counter.

Let cool for 25-30 minutes. 

Loosen side of cake with a knife. Eat!

Hot Chocolate Pudding

Have you ever had a sudden crave for chocolate and could not tolerate anything less than what you had in mind? I did. And this fixed it just the right way, at the right time. PMS... why do women have to suffer from it? 

Nigel Slater's Hot Chocolate Puddings (recipe taken from here, Simmer Seasonal Recipes. Thank you)

7 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
5 tbsp unsalted butter, diced
1/4 cup granulated sugar (Nigel Slater calls for 1/2 cup – add more if you like sweeter)
3 eggs, separated
2 heaping tbsp nutella, or another chocolate hazelnut paste

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and butter 4 6oz ramekins.

Place the chocolate and the butter in a metal bowl set over just simmering water (or use a double boiler if you have one.) Stirring occasionally, leave it to melt.

Meanwhile, combine the sugar and the egg yolks in the bowl of stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and whisk until creamy, frothy, and pale yellow – this will take a minute or two. You can also use a handheld electric mixer to do this.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peak form.

Once the chocolate is melted, add the nutella and stir to incorporate. Remove from the heat and fold the chocolate mixture into the beaten egg yolks. Gently fold in the beaten whites – make sure there are no visible streaks of whites left.

Divide the mixture between the prepared ramekins and bake 12 to 15 minutes until risen. The tops should be cracked, but the centers still melty. Serve warm, topped with a little cocoa or powdered sugar. Leftovers are delicious cold with a small pour of cream.

Japan Trip:Tokyo, Dec 2013 (Day 5,6,7&8)

After almost 5 months, here I am, finally updating the last leg of our Japan trip. Procrastination at its best. lol You can visit my first update here, and second one here. This is the final episode of the saga. Enjoy the pix!

We left Yokohama on 7th Dec 2013 for Tokyo. 

Our luggage before we reached Tokyo. We left Japan with a huge add-ons from Muji. :P 

Gigih.

We stayed at this small ryokan for 5 days. It's just a small place yet so warm and cozy. I forgot the name of the place by now. Located in Ueno. I'll update on this later. 

the neighbourhood. 

We purposely got ourself nowhere aka lost while searching for a Halal Japanese Beef BBQ restaurant "Gyumon" somewhere in Shibuya, Tokyo. 

We were wandering around the area where the restaurant is supposed to be. I was kinda give up until a Malaysian guys informed us that the shop has been closed for several days. 

The shop mentioned above.

In front of ryokan view.

It was raining cat and dog the day we went to Disneyland. I wanted to take a cab, but my hubs, being an 'adventurous' himself, wanted us to embrace the weather and feel the rain. T_T

Still raining. Had probably the best toast ever while waiting for the rain to slow down. 

At Studio Ghibli Museum, Mitaka. The most whimsical place I've ever been. I wish I could freeze the whole moment I was there. This place is magical. Unfortunately, we could only take photographs of the exterior. Sobs much.

 I did steal few snaps though. :P

 Rambut :P

 Muat!

:P

Sayonara!