French Baguette

This is the recipe that I used and let me just say this....it is not as easy as following a recipe. It is difficult!

https://bakingamoment.com/crusty-french-baguette-recipe/


kneading the dough was difficult, the dough was very wet

molding it was difficult, as you can see in the pictures. The shape is weird.

The bread did not expand the way i expected

The crust was tough but it taste good

The crumb was okay

In other words, not good!

Carnitas Tacos

I made this a while ago and this is a repeat. The last adventure was documented here https://foodmolecule.blogspot.com/2017/01/pressure-cooked-deconstructed-carnitas.html

It is almost impossible to find soft taco wrap made with corn. The only corn tacos are the hard tacos which I was thankful for. I also bought some white cheese (paneer) to go with it. The closest thing to queso blanco

Tres Leches Cake (3 milk cake)

Make a sponge or chiffon cake, soak it in 3 kinds of milk and you get this cake.

Rather than making the sponge cake, I bought one instead, to save time and effort.

I mixed 1 can of evaporated milk, 1/2 can of sweetened condensed milk and 350ml of heavy cream and a splash of rum. Fast forward, I can actually reduce the amount of condensed milk to 1/4 can and it will still taste good. 

For the cream topping, i whipped 470ml of cream with 2 tablespoon of granulated sugar. 

I soaked the cake overnight; making sure I added enough milk mixture.

Ma Po Tou Fu 麻婆豆腐

I followed Fuchsia Dunlop's recipe found in her book titled "Every Grain of Rice". I followed the recipe very closely but, of course, introduced a bit of improvisation.

Since I can't find the internet link to her recipe, I will type it out here for those interested:

Ingredients (5 generous servings, if you have meat)

500-600g plain white tofu (I think she is referring to the semi-firm tofu but I used soft tofu - two packets)

4 baby leeks or spring onions, green parts only (I find it a bit wasteful to use green parts only so I used the entire spring onion)

2 1/2 tbsp Sichuan chilli bean paste (this is a must-have but I did not use 2.5 tbsp. You'll need to adjust it according to your own taste)

1 tbsp fermented black beans (this falls under the optional but nice-to-have category)

2 tsp ground red chillies (optional, I did not use this)

1 tbsp finely chopped ginger, 1 tbsp finely chopped garlic (this is just a rough estimation, I think I used a little more than that)

1/2 cup vegetarian stock or water (I added half a piece of chicken stock cube to my water since I do not have any vegetarian stock)

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

2 tsp potato flour mixed with 2 tbsp water (I used corn starch and it is all an estimation)

1/4-1/2 tsp ground roasted Sichuan pepper (any purist would say this is a must-have but I did not have any in my dish)

200 g of ground pork




Instructions:

1. The original recipe recommend to par-cooked the tofu but I did not since I am using soft tofu.  I can see how that is necessary if you are using semi-hard tofu.

2. I browned the ground pork first then take it out of the pan.

3. In a clean pan, I fried the chilli bean paste until fragrant, then added garlic and ginger. Next I added the fermented black beans.

4. As Fuchsia warned in her cookbook "take care not to overheat the seasonings; you want a thick, fragrant sauce and the secret of this is to let them sizzle gently, allowing the oil to coax out their flavors and aromas".

5. Next I added the browned ground pork into the pan and stir fry it a few times. This is also when I added 90% of my chopped spring onion.

6. Finally, I added the soft tofu in the pan. I stir fried all of these very carefully. I broke apart the tofu but I dont want it to turn mushy, or as Fuchsia says it "dont damage the tofu".

7. Season with salt and pepper

8. Add the cornstarch water to thicken the sauce until your desired thickness.

9. Sprinkle the remaining scallion and serve. 




I can't say I have tried the most authentic Ma Po Tofu in my life since I have not been to the motherland of Ma Po Tofu; but this dish is surprisingly delicious. All the flavors blended together seamlessly. The chilli bean paste brings the heat, which makes the dish especially appetising. 

Lemon Tart Round Two

Having made deconstructed lemon tart, now is the time to make a proper lemon tart with...a tart base.

So good!

Biscuit crumbs cannot compare with a proper tart base.

Lemon Spongecake with Lemon Icing

Continuing with exploring desserts with lemon, we've decided to make a simple lemon spongecake. We followed this recipe very closely to make the spongecake and kept a very close eye on the cake. I took the cake out after 35 minutes; I think I could have taken it out at the 30 minutes mark.

Next up, make the lemon icing. For that, I use this recipe. The lemon that I used was big so I added too much lemon juice. The better way to do it is to drizzle in the lemon juice slowly while stirring until you get the consistency right. I saved the lemon icing by adding a bit more butter and a whole lot more icing.

Creame caramel

When you tried once and it is a success, what's more to tweak?

The recipe that I used was this.

There wasn't any real trick in making this if you follow the recipe closely. I cooked the caramel under low heat and it took a while for it to turn to this maple colour. I am not sure if I can cook it at higher heat but I am okay with taking more time to let the colour develop.



One thing to note, when the caramel colour began to develop, it comes fast so you need to pay really close attention at the first sign of change in colour.

The next trick is to determine the doneness. Again, I have to rely on these words "until the custard has set". I am not sure what that means so I relied on my instinct. The custard was, how should I say, slightly jiggly when I took it out after checking it a few times and setting the timer for another 2 minutes, another 2 minutes, a another 2 minutes.



You would never know how it would turn out until you flip it over. The custard was smooth and the center was still custardy.

Now the real trick is to replicate this.

Lemon Tart (Tart Eu Citron)

Deconstructed lemon tart to be precise.

I am scared of making a tart because of the complication so I decided to make a tart-less tart. Since I need the crunch, I decided to use digestive biscuits.

The recipe for the filling that I used is this. 

I made three lemon tarts.

First tart: Make the digestive bottom based on this recipe, which was not pre-baked. The tart was overbaked. I misjudged what "wobbly in the center" mean. The sourness and sweetness were balanced but I did not get the silky filling. The digestive biscuit bottom was completely soggy. Not crunch.

Second tart: Repeat the above. Baked the digestive biscuits on a side until crispy brown colour. I omitted the sugar from the digestive biscuits. Didn't need that much sugar in my diet. I also reduce the sugar from the filling. Bad mistake. I misjudged "wobbly in the center" again and this time I underbaked. The tart was too sour. I also over-zested.

Third tart: I cut the ingredients of the filling by half. I used 3 eggs and slightly more heavy cream. I didn't overzest, I used the right amount of sugar. Baked the digestive biscuits on the side. The tart was set at around 16 minutes point, which was when I took it out. I thought I overbaked because the center was quite set.

But this was what I got...

Carbonara Pasta

I have always wanted to make carbonara pasta simply because it is a simple pasta to make. In pasta-lore, carbonara pasta is like a holy-grail and that is my own definition. I have not had real roman-esque carbonara pasta in my life so I can't say how authentic or good my pasta is compare to the real deal. Take on its own, this pasta is really delicious. It is creamy as it should be.

Now that I know how easy it is to make carbonara pasta, may I make a plea to all restaurants around me that serve carbonara in cream to STOP. Just STOP doing what you are doing. If you want to keep doing it, fine, but don't call it carbonara pasta. 

I will not spell out every step of how I made this dish. If you are interested, check out my main source of reference: Cook's Illustrated. Here, I will simply emphasise a few areas of note:

1 lb pasta (most websites say 1lb of pasta feeds 4 people. They must have been talking about feeding                  4 giants. The way I see/eat it, 1 lb of pasta yields about 6-8 regular size servings)

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 1/4 cup of cheese

3 eggs + 1 egg yolk

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp salt

6-8 strips of bacon

1 tablespoon of fat, I used ghee

I used cheddar cheese, not the fancy cheese (read: Pecorino-Romano). Before you cry "sacrilegious!", hear me out. It is not only expensive, it is also very difficult to find fancy cheese here in this part of my world. Invite me to cook for you, I will buy Pecorino but you pay! :)

Although I have heard of this way of cooking bacon, I have not done it before. The main problem this method solves is - oil splatter. I fully agree with the effectiveness of this method in creating crispy bacon with much much less oil splatter.

The carbonara sauce sans cheese. That will go in soon.

I toss my pasta over a double boiler.

The black bits that you see are not charred bacon. They are the brown bits of good stuff that caramelised on the pan. Millard reaction!

Potato Leek Soup

For whatever weird reason, I'd always say to myself "I am going to make this dish" every time I come across this dish on the internet. I can't say for sure how long that has been going on. At least a few years.





So yesterday I decided to "just do it". I turn to Kenji Lopez's Potato Leek Soup for guidance and I thought I would share my own general thoughts on his recipe.

1. A mix of butter and corn oil instead of 2 tablespoons of butter
2. 6 leeks instead of 2
3. Store-bought chicken stock (more on that later)
4. 3 large russet potatoes
5. 1 bay leave
6. no buttermilk (I don't have this laying around in my pantry)
7. no cream (more on that later)
8. no nutmeg (I don't have this laying around in my pantry)
9. I flavoured my stock first (see below) before adding it to the leek and potato. I then cooked everything for 15 minutes in a pressure cooker.



As with most cooking, there are a lot of "feel" that goes into it. In my opinion, whatever "timing" that was given is just for reference. I took me less than 10 minutes to soften the leeks.


Now, the stock. The stock is probably the most important ingredient of this dish. I didn't have the time to make my own chicken stock so I bought it from the store. The selection was minimal, more like, there was only 1 brand to choose from. I warmed the stock on a stock pot and tasted it. It tasted strange. There is a funny synthetic mushroom taste, like a can of you-know-what brand mushroom soup. The soup was thin and lacked flavour so I improvised by adding the following these two items - a fistful of dried anchovies and a chicken stock cube. Now before you scream at me, hear me out. I read somewhere that anchovies add umami flavour to any stock and I figured a fistful of anchovies can't hurt. It turned out to be the correct choice. Now chicken stock cube. I am not a purist. For something last minute and frill-free, I'll take it.





The surprising part of my soup is that it did not require any cream. The soup is already creamy after I blended it. Could be the extra potato in my soup. Anyway, I prefer it without the cream. I might lack some flavour but I can do without the extra fat in my diet.

Garlic Confit and Kale Chips

There isn't much in common between these two things. Funny that they should appear in the same post.

Oh wait, I do find one thing in common between garlic and kale. They both taste bad, to my own taste bud, when it is raw; but they taste amazing when roasted properly. There is also a fine line between toasted-yummy and toasted-not-so-yummy-anymore. 

Garlic confit is nothing but whole garlic cooked in oil under low heat until the garlic turned golden brown. There is some weird chemistry inside that, if explained, can fill pages in a chemistry article. Maybe there is already one out there. Whether it is garlic cooked in oil, roasted in the oven or pan-grilled. there is only one outcome, when done right, and that is golden goodness. 

Kale, was and probably still is, a "super food" according to organic-"foodista". The problem is, kale taste horrible when it is raw. Kale, when roasted, turns into something else. Again, this merits a chemistry textbook explanation.

The problem with kale chips is that it is very expensive. I have always wanted to make kale chips when I first had it many years ago.  This was my first try and I learned two things - 1) the kale must be very fresh when you roast it, 2) don't over-roast it. When it turns a bit black-ish like mine, it taste bitter. 

Kale is very expensive. I tried to make lettuce chips a while ago, which didn't turn out well. There must be some cheaper vegetable out there that would undergo similar transformation like kale. Let the hunt begins. Maybe I should start with vegetable that taste absolutely bad when raw. I know where I should start.

To many trials and failures!

Pressure Cooked-Deconstructed Carnitas Tacos with Salsa Verde and Guacamole

I am a big fan of Mexican food and tacos rank up there as one of my all-time favorite food. Not just any tacos but carnitas tacos served with fresh salsa on a piece of fresh tortilla. The best tacos have the most balanced flavor between the meatiness of the pork and the tanginess of the salsa. 

For the basic recipe, I chose the recipe by Kenji Lopez (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/07/no-waste-tacos-de-carnitas-with-salsa-verde-recipe.html)

As usual, I had to improvise. For one, I don't have fresh tortilla here. I also don't have 3.5 hours to spend. So whenever I see a recipe that requires 3.5 hours of cooking, I turn to my trusted kitchen equipment - pressure cooker. 

This is Kenji's recipe. My note is highlighted. Kenji listed recipes for the carnitas and the salsa together. Below I separated it.

For the carnitas (the way I served it, as a main dish in a meal, it yielded 5-6 generous servings. To put it into perspective, if this is a road-side Taco truck or Taco stand, this would yield about 12 Tacos, as Kenji has correctly estimated in his recipe)

Half medium onions (I used yellow onion)

3 pounds boneless pork butt (shoulder), rind removed, cut into 2-inch cubes (I used 1kg of pork shoulder. I separated the fatty layer from the meaty layer. Everything was cooked together but the fatty layer was thrown away at the end)

Kosher salt

1 medium orange

6 cloves garlic, split in half

2 bay leaves

1 cinnamon stick, broken into three or four pieces (I substituted with 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon)

1/4 cup vegetable oil (this is crazy amount of oil. The meat itself is quite fatty so i just used a splash of oil)

2 jalapeño peppers, split in half lengthwise, stem removed (I didn't use this)

3 limes, cut into wedges (for the carnitas i used 2 limes)

1 cup crumbled queso fresco or feta (I don't have this)

24 corn tortillas (I don't have this)

Salsa Verde

1/2 cup chopped cilantro (I played by ear. I didn't use this much. It is all up to you)

6 medium tomatillos (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled and split in half (I don't have tomatillos so i bought 3 under-ripped medium size tomatoes)

Salt

Garlic 

Onion

Guacomole

3 medium size avocados

chopped onion

salt

chopped under-ripped medium size tomato

garlic

For the Carnitas

1. I mixed all the ingredients, according to the list above, in the pressure cooker.

2. Since I used a pressure cooker, I needed liquid so I added water until it barely covers the meat. 

3. Cooked everything on high heat until the pressure has built up then turn the heat low and cooked for 20 minutes.

4. Depressurize the pressure cooker. Stir the meat. Add salt if needed. Return to the heat.

5. Cook in the pressure cooker for another 20 minutes. 

6. Take the meat out and drain the juice. (keep all the juice)

7. Break the meat into small pieces.

8. Heat the cast iron pan until very hot then sear the meat until brown bits appeared. Don't over cook it.

9. Drizzle the meat juice and squeeze some lime juice to serve.

For the salsa verde

1.  A lot of what I did was based on feel. I like tomato so i added more tomatoes. I don't like raw onion so I added less. Add cilantro, salt and lime juice to your preferred taste. 

For the guacamole

1. I used three avocados. Could have used two

2. Also a lot of it is based on feel. Add the tomatoes, cilantro, onion, salt and lime juice to your preferred taste. 

In the end, I don't have tortilla bread so I ate it with rice. I must say, it is better with tortilla bread. It just does not feel right eating carnitas with rice. I think the sourness of the salsa does not go well with rice. 

As a whole, I think this dish is great. Kenji's recipe (at least the ingredient) works. My method is different but it is a tried and tested method that I often use. I think that's how Mexican taquerias cook their carnitas - in a big pot of juice.  

Lasagna

Can't believe it took me this long to make a lasagna. I made beef ragu/bolognese a few times for regular pasta and never for lasagna. 

The recipe that I followed came from The Food Lab with my usual modifications, of which I will only mention a few. 

Kenjis' recipe calls for three sets of ingredients - ragu, ricotta mixture, and besciamella. 

Kenji's recipe for the ragu is long and usual reader of my blog knows that I like to keep things to a minimal whenever possible. His audience is different from mine. I didn't use lamb (can't find ground lamb), chicken livers, celery (not a fan of celery), sage, red white (too expensive), fish sauce (don't feel like getting another bottle of condiment), and heavy cream. 

I didn't make the ricotta mixture because ricotta cheese are expensive.

If I a chance, I would like to ask Kenji or any chef friends "what's the point of besciamella?" I am sure their answer is "flavor" but does it make a whole lot of difference?   

I know the besciamella has a nutty flavor so I went ahead and made some but not with all the ingredients that Kenji used. Instead, mine consist of butter and flour, nothing more. 

The pasta looks a bit rigid in this picture, doesn't it? Well, you would be right thinking so. I used this lasagna pasta brand and the instruction asked me to use the pasta straight out from the box into the lasagna pan (did I read it wrongly?). I was sceptical about the non-cook step so I cooked the pasta anyway but I didn't cook it long enough.

I do not have a cheese grater or a microplane so my cheese came out in chunks!