Bak kwa (aka. "rou gan" or pork jerky!)

I whipped up a batch of bak kwa last night, using Karen's recipe over at Citrus and Candy. Chances are you've already frequented her site, which is filled with beautiful, drool-inducing food pornography photography, but if you haven't I highly recommend you do so soon! Her recipe and tutorial for bak kwa, or (South)East Asian-style pork jerky (I'm trying really hard to be politically correct) is straightforward and easy to follow, but nonetheless produces an authentic bak kwa that really took my mind back to the street food of Hong Kong.

When I say "a batch", I really mean 2kg of pork mince's worth.To be fair, my local butcher was doing a special of "2kg for $12". All the Asians out there know what I'm talking about. A bargain's a bargain, even if it means you end up with more (perishable!) food than you know what to do with. When I emptied the mince out into a bowl, I experienced genuine fear at the sheer amount of PORK in front of me.

Once everything was done grilling, though,  I realised 2kg was just the right amount to prepare. First of all, when you have a large family like mine, even a mountain of food pretty much disappears in a short while, provided it tastes good. Secondly, even though the method for making bak kwa is simple, and doesn't require a lot of technique, the whole process from marinating the meat overnight to drying it out at low temperature to grilling it in high heat is time-consuming. So go for broke, and cook (and eat) as much of it as you can in one go!

I've made bak kwa once before using quite lean mince. I prefer the result from the fattier mince I used this time round. The bak kwa was definitely juicier, and the combination of caramelised sugar and fat is always a winner. I would recommend eating it hot though, since the fat congeals into an unsightly mess once it gets cold. But eaten right out of the oven (or off the grill)...oh fatty pork, why must something as delicious as you be so bad for my cardiovasculature?

Bak kwa (Asian-style pork jerky)
Recipe from Citrus and Candy; refer to Karen's site for a wonderfully detailed tutorial

Valentine's Day Madeleines

Facebook was positively a-buzz yesterday with updates about Valentine's Day, with accompanying pictures of impressive arrays of flowers sent by the Significant Other of the owner of the updates. Being my usual competitive self, I parried the onslaught of nauseating expressions of luuurve with photos of these:

That's right, they're Valentine's Day Madeleines! I did start off referring to them as "red velvet Madeleines", but have decided to switch tags since, upon careful consideration, these aren't really "red velvet" as they lack the usual ingredients of cocoa powder. They're still red, though. Clearly!

To be honest, I only made some of the batch red as an after-thought; the real objective was to try out my new Madeleine pan, purchased impulsively during a recent shopping spree in Balmain.

Most of the madeleines were of the natural hue, as I feared that the artificial colouring may turn people off. To get the red colour, I simply dissolved a bit of powdered colouring in water, and added that to the remaining batter.

That's some powerful stuff! Like love. Okay, I'll stop it.

The natural-coloured ones I dusted with a bit of icing sugar, to great effect:

Making these also presented another opportunity to use my beloved, new KitchenAid. As you can see from the picture below, I added lime zest to the madeleine batter. The original recipe called for lemon zest, but I found that the lime flavour went very well with the honey in the batter. And anyway, green zest is fun-ner than yellow zest!

The recipe was for 12 big madeleines, or 72 small ones, but I ended up with enough batter for 15 big ones, meaning that I had to bake the final 3 in a second batch. And, even though I adhered to exactly the same baking times and methods as the first batch, my red madeleines came out browned around the edges. Definitely not as pretty as the first batch:

First batch on the bottom; the more browned, second batch is on the top.

Perhaps it had something to do with temperature adjustment? My oven has been acting up lately. However, regardless of the disparity in visual appeal, all the madeleines had the same, wonderful lime fragrance standing out against the richness of the butter, eggs and honey. The lime and honey combination is a definite winner; I'm excited to apply it to future recipes. Madeleines are best eaten fresh out of the oven, since that is when they're crunchy on the outside but moist within. They do have a tendency to become a bit chewy after cooling completely, but are still great as a snack. My siblings certainly gobbled them up when they came home from school. There almost wasn't enough for me to make a gift package out of them - for my friend, of course, rather than a genuine Valentine xD

Hope those of us with romantic attachments had a great Valentine's Day!

Recipe for Lime & Honey Madeleines

Adapted from From Donuts to Delirium

Makes 12-15 large madeleines

Ingredients

3/4 cup all-purpose/plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar

Finely grated zest of 2 small limes

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Red food colouring (dissolve in few drops of water if in powder form): Optional

Confectioners'/icing sugar, for dusting

Method

1. In a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

2. In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer or hand mixer to whisk together the eggs, honey, white and brown sugar, and lime zest. 

The eggs, honey, white and brown sugar, and lime zest

3. Beat until mixture is creamy and light in colour. Add the dry ingredients from step 1, and whisk until just combined. Pour in the melted butter, and stir in until well-incorporated. Cover the mixture in the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

The madeleine batter

4. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius (400 degrees Fahrenheit), and place the baking rack towards the bottom of the oven. Grease well a 12 mold madeleine pan. Use about 2 tablespoons of batter for each madeleine, or fill mold until two-thirds full. If you want to make some red like I did, reserve some batter to mix with the food colouring.

Madeleine pan, about to be filled with the chilled batter.

5. Bake for 5 minutes, before reducing heat to 150 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit), and baking for another 5 minutes. 

Fresh from the oven.

6. Remove from oven, and remove madeleines either by inverting the pan and tapping it against the counter, or gently prying the madeleines loose (don't burn yourself!) 

Serve madeleines warm, dusted with confectioners' sugar. If packaging in plastic, wait until completely cool. 

Skinny Nutty Biscotti

Happy Monday, y'all! I, too, am susceptible to the bout of blues that follows a sensational weekend spent having fun with friends and family, and absolutely dread the prospect of returning to the tedium that is "real life" (read: the weekdays). However, I am a firm believer in the maxim, "fake it till you make it". Perhaps a sense of genuine enthusiasm towards hard work and having to make an honest living will naturally follow my presently ersatz cheer. One can only hope.

In the meantime, how about a few of these Skinny Nutty Biscotti to go with your morning cuppa on this dreary Monday? I call these "skinny" for no other reason than the fact that it rhymes with "nutty" and "biscotti", and I happen to be teaching poetry analysis to my little protégés at the moment. I have no idea if these are low-calorie or "good for you", but I suppose the use of only egg whites may be a point of attraction for some. I personally find the notion of "healthy" desserts to be absurd. Eat your no-frills meat and vege during the week, and splurge on the good stuff on weekends. Why bother with the fat-free, sugar-free, taste-free substitutions? Honestly!

So that's my little Monday morning rant. Anyway, it just occurred to me that there's actually a better reason to call these "skinny"; look how thin the slices are! I've been on the look-out for the longest time for a biscotti recipe that produces the paper-thin (okay, cardboard-thin) cookies I've seen sold in Italian delicatessens. Prior to these, the biscotti I've made have been the chunky ones (see: these). And whilst they were crunchy and delicious dipped in coffee or tea, I do love how refined and delicate these Skinny Biscotti look:

I've adapted the recipe I found here to include quite a few different nuts. How many can you spot? 

Ready for the answers? We've got: macadamias, pistachios, walnuts and cashews, oh my! :D

Worry not about trying to slice through the nuts after the first baking. Learning from my disastrous attempt at slicing bread fresh out of the oven, I left the biscotti loaf to cool overnight before slicing it the next morning. My serrated knife made short work of the loaf, and within minutes I had a pile of beautifully spotted, soft slices of biscotti to return to the oven to crisp up. Do keep an eye on these around the 20 minute mark during the second baking because, as you can see from the picture above, these brown around the edges quite easily. And you wouldn't want to sully that pale, white canvas, studded with flashes of green and cream, would you?

Recipe for Skinny Nutty Biscotti


Adapted from the recipe found here


Makes 25-30 biscotti, depending on how thin you slice it


Ingredients


4 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
100g caster sugar
120g all-purpose/plain flour
2 1/2 tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon almond extract
50g roasted or raw macadamia nuts
50g roasted pistachio kernels
50g roasted cashews
50g roasted or raw walnut kernels


Method


1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit). Line a loaf tin with non-stick parchment paper.


2. Whisk egg whites and cream of tartar until fluffy, and soft peaks form. Slowly add the caster sugar, tablespoon by tablespoon, and whisk until stiff peaks form.


3. Sift in the flour, and stir gently to combine. Add in the canola oil, and fold gently into the batter. Add all the nuts, and stir in.


4. Pour mixture into the lined loaf tin and bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the surface is light brown.


5. Remove from oven, and allow to cool in tin slightly before placing on cooling rack. Allow to cool overnight, or for 5 hours at least.


6. The next morning (or whenever the loaf has finished cooling), preheat oven to 120 degrees Celsius (250 degrees Fahrenheit). Cut the cooled loaf into thin slices, around 5mm in thickness, with a serrated knife. Place on lined cookie trays and bake in preheated oven for 30-45 minutes, flipping the biscotti over halfway through. The biscotti are done baking when they feel dry and crumbly to the touch, but may be slightly soft and springy. Do not let them brown.


7. Remove from oven and cool completely before serving. Biscotti are great for dunking into a steaming cup of coffee or tea. Store in an airtight container to keep the biscotti crispy.

The ULTIMATE Chinese Sponge Cake recipe

Since making my granddad's birthday cake in July last year, I've had two occasions to try my hand at recreating some well-loved Chinese Birthday Cake classics: a taro cream cake for my dad's birthday:

 And mango cream cake for my grandmother's birthday:

Both turned out well...for a cake-decorating newbie like myself. Since I have no plans to open up a professional bakery business in the near future, I'm not too fussed about the uneven frosting, or the wonky piping, or the lopsided look of the finished cake (no doubt due to my rudimentary torting skills). As for the recipient of the cake - I think they were so moved by my gesture that they either ignored or were oblivious to the aesthetic faults of the cakes.

The Chinese-style sponge cake base

If there's a thing more nerve-wracking than cutting up a mango into paper-thin slices, it is the actual making of the sponge cake base. Or indeed, finding a recipe for the sponge cake base. There's a reason the Chinese-style sponge cake is known as "gai don go" or "ji dan gao" (literally: egg cake) - the recipe I chose uses a whopping total of 9 eggs! Imagine the horror of messing up and having to chuck away 3/4 dozen eggs :S Allow me to spare you the anxiety of trawling through the internet and present you with the ULTIMATE Chinese Sponge Cake recipe. No, it's not mine. But I have made it twice already and both times, the result was the lightest, most fluffy sponge cake I've ever tasted, so I do feel some sentimental attachment to it. 

The sponge cake, halved and ready to be filled with whipped cream and mango pulp.

Despite my harping on about it, there really are only two fiddly steps in the recipe: the whipping of the egg whites with cream of tartar and caster sugar (to form a meringue), and the folding in of the egg yolks and flour into the meringue. The air trapped within the beaten egg whites is what makes the sponge cake rise, although the baking soda does play a role. An extremely runny batter is a sure sign that you've deflated the egg whites, and the cake probably won't turn out as spongy as you would like. Just be gentle, and use a rubber spatula to fold in the sifted dry ingredients, and all should be well :D

The recipe I've included below is only for the sponge cake. I shall write up separate posts on the making of the mango and taro cakes.



Recipe for the ULTIMATE Chinese Sponge Cake


Adapted from Chinese Forums; original recipe provided by the user 'purplemama'


Makes one 25cm round cake


Ingredients


1 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted
9 eggs, separated
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup caster sugar (I used some ground-up homemade vanilla sugar)
1/2 cup water, around room temperature
1/4 cup oil (go for something without a pronounced flavour, like canola oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Method


1. Line a 25cm diameter springform cake tin with aluminium foil. Don't grease or flour the foil, since the foil gives the cake something to cling onto as it rises while baking. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius (or 350 degrees Fahrenheit), and place the baking rack towards the bottom of the oven.

2. In a clean, dry bowl, combine egg whites and cream of tartar, and beat with electric beater or mixer until foamy. Gradually add in the caster sugar while continuing to beat. Beat until egg whites are white and glossy, and stiff peaks form.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, water, oil and vanilla until creamy (you may also use an electric beater or mixer for this step).

4. Sift together the cake flour and baking powder.

5. Whisk the sifted cake flour and baking powder into the egg yolk mixture. Whisk well to stop lumps forming.

6. Add about 1/3 of the meringue (from step 2) into the egg yolk and flour mixture, and whisk in. This is to help loosen the egg yolk mixture.

7. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the rest of the meringue. Fold the two mixtures together with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the lined springform tin. Bake for 50 minutes - 1 hour. Cake is done when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

8. Once done baking, turn off the oven and open the oven door slightly. Allow cake to cool within the oven for 5 minutes, before removing and letting it cool within the tin for 15 minutes. Remove from springform tin, and allow it to cool thoroughly on a cooling rack.

Coconut Nutella Crunchies

I tested out a second recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly 'The Afternoon Tea Collection' yesterday. While my dough for the Melting Moments was chilling in the freezer, I got to work on these Coconut Nutella Crunchies:

These are essentially cookie sandwiches made from coconut honey oatmeal cookies, with a layer of Nutella in between. I substituted some ingredients in the original AWW recipe with what I had lying around. I used honey where the recipe called for treacle or golden syrup (although, I did find a jar of golden syrup in the cupboard right after I added the honey. darn it! :D), and used Nutella in the place of chocolate ganache, because I couldn't be bothered to make the latter.

The cookies were made with self-raising flour. This, combined with the eggs in the dough, makes for a crumbly, pillowy cookie. I'm quite happy with my substituting Nutella for chocolate ganache, since Nutella makes everything taste good and the hazelnut flavour adds yet another dimension to the cookie. However, I do believe that chocolate ganache will set harder, and maintain the structural integrity of the cookie, whereas the Nutella sorta just melted and smeared everywhere. A few hours in the fridge did help to rectify the situation.

As with the Melting Moments, I recommend chilling the dough in the freezer before shaping it. I made pretty criss-crossed indentations on each cookie with a fork before putting them in the oven, and I was saddened to see that the pattern was lost after baking. Oh well. When baking for family (and oneself), it's the taste that counts more than anything else. And these taste good, believe you me :D *wanders off to eat another Coconut Nutella Crunchy*.



Recipe for Coconut Nutella Crunchies

Adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly 'The Afternoon Tea Collection'


Makes 30-40 Crunchies, depending on how big you make them

Ingredients

For the cookies:
125g (4 ounces) butter, softened
3/4 cup (165g) firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon honey
2 eggs
2 cups (300g) self-raising flour
1 cup (80g) desiccated coconut
1/2 cup (45g) raw rolled oats

For the filling:
Large jar of Nutella or other hazelnut spread (no, you won't need the whole jar. I simply didn't take note of how much I used, sorry xD)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). Place baking rack towards the centre of the oven, closer to the bottom. Line baking tray with baking paper.

2. Beat butter, sugar and honey in a bowl with electric mixer or beater until smooth, light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs. Stir in the flour, coconut and oats until fully incorporated.

3. Place dough in fridge or freezer and chill until hard enough to roll with hands. Dust your hands with flour, then roll rounded teaspoons of mixture into balls. Placed on lined baking tray, with about 5cm between each cookie. Dust fork with flour, and use it to flatten the dough balls.

4. Bake cookies for about 12 minutes. Cool on trays, then transfer to cooling racks.

5. Once cookies are completely cool, sandwich two cookies with about a rounded teaspoon of Nutella.

My Hong Kong trip: notable eats! (Part 5)

I woke up surprisingly hungry and ready to eat, despite the meat and sugar feast from the previous night. The perfect solution to my growling stomach = xiao long bao! Lots of it!

And dumplings of another variety: the crispy-bottomed steamed pork buns!

This was also my first time trying a sweet xiao long bao. This batch had a sweet, red bean paste filling:

An interesting idea, but too much sweetness in one go in my opinion.

We got our dumpling fix at King's Dumpling, situated on level 3 of Windsor house. 

Some other dishes we ordered:

Jellied meat (sorry, I don't know the proper name)

Braised pork intestines

Chicken in broth

Beef brisket, sliced thinly and doused with chilli sauce and peanuts

Token greenery

'Crystal eggs': Smoked eggs with still runny insides. Amazing!

Pork cutlet with fried rice

Extra serving of fried crumbed pork cutlet!

Jelly fish and cucumber

Pork belly with chilli sauce

Some sort of cool, crunchy vegetable side dish

A semi-dessert: sticky red rice with glace fruits and beans

After eating, we watched the dumpling experts in action for a while:

Before spending the rest of the day...you guessed it!...shopping :D

We remedied the afternoon low blood sugar blues with frozen yogurt from Yo Mama on the third floor of Windsor House.

There was a choice of either the original frozen yogurt base, or a green tea variant. We ordered three cups to share, and tried out both flavours.

TOPPINGS! Someone went a bit nutso, and chose the unlikeliest of combinations:

Froot loops and mini marshmallows - urgh, my eyes smart from the food colouring

The green tea flavour came out very strongly, but the tanginess of yogurt (which I like) came out more strongly in the plain flavour:

Some sort of jelly, and urgh, those darned froot loops again

Another cup of the green tea!

Mini cubes of brownie and gummi bears(?!)

You'd think that we would be bouncing off the walls by this point, but it just so happened that we found ourselves in a ginormous food hall in the basement level of Sogo at this point...

There were many exciting things to be tried, most of them sweet. I continued with the frozen desserts by getting two scoops of ice cream from Milk Top. In my favourite flavours, of course - black sesame and green tea!

I love the shade of green.

The texture wasn't uber-creamy, but I kinda like it that way when I'm eating "Asian"-flavoured ice creams. 

Prettiness!

I also had a bite-sized Japanese-style cheesecake:

How can something be so fluffy and creamy at the same time?! This was delicious!

And some bite-sized "normal" cheesecake as well:

I really would have liked to try more things, but my pancreas was screaming in protest. So I just looked around some. There was a mochi promotion going on, with free samples to try. Okay, I had some :D

So many beautiful cakes:

And chocolates:

Dinner was quite non-descript. We did have something light and refreshing for dessert, though:

Strawberry cheesecake and chocolate fudge brownie ice cream from Ben & Jerry's

Oops, by "light and refreshing" I was actually referring to this:

HERBAL JELLY!!! Also known as "gui ling gao". From Hai Tian Tang.

This was the last night we stayed in Hong Kong. I felt very sad :(

The final instalment coming soon in Part 6!