Strawberries and Cream!

This post is more about the cream more than the strawberries. I wanted to perfect a pastry cream recipe for a cake I am imagining. I tried a few recipe and some were too eggy, while others were not thick enough. I am still working to perfect this for the cake but this is a tasty version I came up with. Here's what I did:

3 egg yolks

1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar - I used 1/4 coz not a big sweet fan and it was perfect. I wouldn't go more than half a cup. 

2 cup half and half, or heavy cream if you want river or half milk half cream for less richness

3 tbsp cornflour

1 vanilla bean

1 tsp vanilla extract 

2-3 tbsp butter

How to make: 

In a saucepan add cream, vanilla bean and some sugar and heat it until it's scalding but not boiling. 

While the cream is heating up, seperate te eggs and save whites for later. Beat the yokes with rest of the sugar and cornstarch until pale.

By this time the cream should be ready. Take it off the stove and remove vanilla bean. Add this to the egg yoke mixture in a slow stream at the side while beating the eggs vigorously. Don't dump it all in, in case the egg scrambles. Pour the pale yellow liquid back into then and cook on medium heat, until it thickens and stirring constantly. This is fairly quick. 

To store put cling wrap on top of the cream right away to prevent it from forming a crust on top. 

Chill in fridge and enjoy with some strawberries and Kahlua or Irish cream. Or as a cake filling!

Cornwall Pasties

I have been fascinated by English pasties since I used to this show called "Two Fat Ladies". The show not only fascinated me about English food which I quite frankly thought was pretty plain before but also with traveling all over England/Ireland, their history, culture and food. And the ladies are super entertaining! 

So on a very busy day like today when I get home and just want to plunk and do nothing, I was delighted to find some pasties I had made in the freezer. Oh yeah! They freeze well. Pop in the oven for about 20 mins and done.

I had made them last month when we had some out of town visitors and we went out to eat at an Irish pub and they were equally fascinated with pasties AND they had recently visited England. Did I really need a bigger sign than that? Oh if you are into Asian culture at all, it was fate! (More on that some other time!)

So what did I do? My usual... A little bit of this and little bit of that. Here are the details. 

Pie dough: on yeah your basic pie dough or empanada dough recipe. I like the recipe found in Epicurious here.

Filling: I decided to make it with turkey so 1 lb gd turkey, 1 medium onion diced, 1 large or 2 medium carrots -diced, 1 small potato diced, seasonings (I used worcestershire sauce - wor. sauce, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper and some brown roux that I froze but feel free to add flour). 

What I did?

In a pan add a little oil, sauté onion till translucent, add garlic and potatoes. Cook for about 5 min and add carrots, thyme and some salt and pepper. Cook veggies until a little tender and add meat. Break it up with you spoon and mix until there aren't any big chunks. Add wor. sauce, salt and pepper. Let the water dry from the turkey and to help with this add Roux or flour. Cook until water dries and it's done. Let it cool. 

To make the pasties: Roll dough, add filling and crimp the edges. Make some small incisions and bake for 25 minutes until golden brown. Enjoy! Yumm...

My quest for fluffy white cake!

I made this beautiful cake here and it was devoured pretty soon. However the cake was a little dense for me. So I searched for white cake recipes. I was not satisfied with any of the recipes I came across so I decided to do the unthinkable. I came up with my own recipe...for baking a cake...from scratch :O

As you can see the first batch was a little burnt, overcooked and oozing out of the cups (although guinea pigs told me it was pretty awesome) so I adjusted the recipe again with the baking time and temperature and I was met with success!! Out came perfect fluffy and moist white cakes! Yay me!

And I can't give out the recipe links for this one, so here goes:

White Lemon cupcakes

Ingredients: 

3 cups flour

1.5 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt 

2 eggs

1/2 cup veg oil

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup and 5 tblsp milk

1 pack white chocolate pudding instant mix (can be skipped... Increase sugar by 1/2 cup)

1 tblsp lemon zest

5 tblsp lemon juice 

To make:

Preheat oven to 325 F

In a bowl mix all dry ingredients - flour, salt, baking powder and soda, pudding mix and sugar and mix well

In another bowl beat eggs, add all the other wet ingredients and mix well. Add to dry ingredients and beat until mixed. Don't over beat. 

Pour 1/4 cup in each cupcake liner and put it in the oven. Bake for approx 22 minutes or until fragrant and stick inserted in the middle comes out clean! It makes about 48 cupcakes. Recipe can be easily halved! 

Spring Cake

Happy Spring Everyone! It has taken a long time for this season to arrive and generally I am not a big fan of spring (allergies anyone?) but this year I just welcomed it with the cake below. This is my first fondant cake because I have wanted to make fondant for a long time. I would say definitely worth it because the guinea pigs devoured it within an hour.. between 10 AM to 11 AM in the morning... Cake for breakfast anyone?

The cake I used is Lemon Buttermilk cake which I found on Epicurious. It was filled with raspberry cream cheese frosting. Iced with just cream cheese frosting (my own recipe... still perfecting it) and then covered with fondant. The fondant recipe can be found here. I found the cake design on CakeCentral but for the life of me I cannot find the exact link.

Just to give you an idea of the timeline, I made the cake and the fondant on day 1. Then made frosting on day 2 (which sorta bombed... more than in another post) and then on Day 3, made frosting first and then it took me about 2.5 hours to put together the cake: frost the cake, roll out the fondant + cover the cake + cut shapes+ add to cake, make bird and nest :)

Flatbread/tortilla pizza

Whenever I have tortillas or flatbread as I recently bought from Costco, I think quesadillas (another post) or pizzas. Easy and quick to make!!

Sorry for the blurry pic! Guess I was too hungry!

 

Preheat oven at 400. While it does put flatbread on your cookie sheet, top with marinara (or your fav tomato/pizza sauce), cheese and any veggies you want. I added mushrooms and onions. And Thai red curry sausage (from

Costco). FYI: just cheese or onion and onion and mushrooms are yummy too!!

By the time oven preheats, prep is done. Pop it in the oven and bake for 10-12 mins. Slice and devour!!

Aloo Parantha

Gumbo

Bhindi or Okra as you might know this vegetable as reminds of my sister. It's her favorite veggie. But since I have been to this country, okra reminds me of Gumbo. 

Gumbo is a scrumptious southern stew made with chicken, sausage and shrimp.

I first made it based on Emeril's recipe and since then I do my own thing and do what I like.  

Jeri

Or as my Indian friends would call it jalebi! Well bottom line it's a dessert which I realized is basically crispy fried dough dipped in sugar syrup instead of sprinkling of powdered sugar.  If you really LOVE IT then it's worth it otherwise it's time consuming and not something I would make frequently. 

I did coz I wanted to. Will I again? Ohh I would have to like you. A LOT. More than a LOT actually. 

Ingredients: 1/2 cup flour + 1/2 cup plain yogurt + pinch of turmeric (to make it yellow) + pinch of cardamom powder (optional.. Skip it). Equal parts sugar + water for the syrup

To make: Add all the batter ingredients and leave it outside (preferably overnight to ferment). I put it in the oven -turned off obviously... Perfect place. 

Now comes the fried dough part. First make sugar syrup by heating water and sugar together until sugar melts. Keep this warm. 

Heat veggie oil and while it's doing that add jeri batter into ketchup dispenser. To test if the oil is ready, add a drop of batter and if it floats, oil is ready! Then fry jalebis in all squiggly shapes you desire until golden brown. 

Take it out on paper towel and soak in hot syrup for a few seconds immediately. Ready to eat!

My verdict: I transported it and it was still crip and tasty. Just half cup of flour and yogurt make a LOT!!

Tamales with Black Bean and Avocado Salsa

I made this a while back but have been lazy to write it all down! I have wanted to make Tamales for a long time. The first time I tried them was in a small Mexican restaurant. It is definitely time consuming but so worth it. However breaking it down and cooking it on different days is always a good idea. 

I researched what is accompanied with it and came up with black bean salad, avocado and tomato salsa. I combined it all into one and came up with a black bean and avocado salsa (laziness or sometimes accident thy name is invention).

So here's what I did:

For the filling:

Ground meat (I did turkey but hey take your pick)

Onion, garlic, taco seasoning (make your own -totally worth it... Recipe? Google it folks!) and mushrooms well coz I had some in the fridge

To make it: sauté onion, add garlic and cook until fragrant, add meat + taco seasoning and if it is too dry a little water. Cook until the water is dried. Add mushroom and cook until all the liquid dries up. Add salt to taste. It's simple but totally worth it. You can even eat it as a taco. 

For the masa dough and tamales: Here is a blog that has recipe with pictures - 

 http://www.hispanickitchen.com/m/blogpost?id=3365338:BlogPost:70594

What I did differently? I skipped the sauce she mentions and added equal parts water + masa and added the taco seasoning + cumin+ cayenne. 

For the Salsa:

Ingredients: 1 can black bean (rinsed and drained), tomatoes, avocado, tiny bit garlic, lime juice, cilantro, salt and pepper and pomegranate seeds (coz I needed something sweet and I had some :D)

How to make: mix all together in a bowl. Really! As simple as that!

Paella

Oh yeah!! I went there. This was basically inspired by my laziness and my desire to not make Jambalaya. I wanted a one pan rice dish and I have not yet attempted Paella... so I thought why not? I happened to have all the ingredients in my fridge (believe it or not) so I gave it a shot. Boy am I glad I did!

Ingredients: chicken, raw shrimp (deveined but leave the shell on), chorizo (yup I really had some), onion, tomatoes (I used some fresh and some canned), garlic, green pepper, oregano, paprika, bay leaf, saffron, salt, some scallions, chicken stock or water and rice. 

Here's what I did:

Marinate the chicken: cut up into little pieces, add lil paprika and oregano oregano and little oil and let sit. (Maybe 15 mins if you are in a hurry but an hour if you are not)

In a big cast iron pan (paella pan if you have it but ofcourse I don't), add tiny bit of oil and brown the chorizos. Take out, add some more oil, add chicken and sauté for a little while (don't cook this can be skipped). Take out and reserve. 

In the same pan, add tad bit more oil if necessary, add onion, peppers and garlic and sauté until the garlic smells mellow. Add tomatoes and bay leaf and rice and toast for a little while. Add stock or water (note to self: add water according to rice you measure and DONT add any extra), saffron threads (crumbled in your hands. The more you add the yellower the rice would be but this is an expensive spice. Use your discretion but maybe no more than 1 tsp) and cook for about 3 minutes.

Add sausage and chicken and cover and cook until rice is almost done. Then put shrimp under rice and cook until done (raw shrimp takes approx. 8 mins to be done).. You can let the rice stick at the bottom a little and get crunchy. 

And because it's me and you cannot use up cilantro fast enough, top with some cilantro! Tada! Very yummy!!

Kimchi Jigae

Aaah... I cannot say enough how a warm bowl of this deliciously spicy stew can warm you up even in the coldest of weathers. Clue in big blizzard, old jar of kimchi I made long time ago and ding ding... We have a winner!!!

Basic recipe is very simple which you can Google (I can't be doing all the work here :)). This is what I did:

Ingredients: bacon, half onion, kimchi, gojujhang, eggs (regular recipes I found calls for tofu but I wasn't gonna drive in the blizzard) and water.

Here's what you do:

- Sauté bacon until it starts rendering fat, add onion and sauté until tender (can be done with tuna but I didn't want any)

- Add kimchi and some juice + gojujhang for taste (this makes it salty and spicy so if you want less spicy add soy sauce)

- Add enough water to cover everything and simmer for about 20 mins

- Meanwhile, beat about 3 eggs in a microwave safe dish. Microwave for abt 2 minutes. Add ten seconds as necessary. Don't overcook. Slightly under cooked is better. Cut into big chunks. 

- Add to the stew in the end and simmer for about a minute. 

Serve hot and eat! YUM!