Tom Yam Goong

Talking about soup - this is surely on the top of my lists. I like the hot and sour taste and the freshness coming from the kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass. It's refreshing (and maybe good for your sinus, hehe)! And It's Tom Yam Goong! I'm still curious though, what is the meaning of "Goong" in Thai. Anyone knows?

From Kitchen Runaway

So, here are the ingredients, you can use prawn/ squid/ chicken/ or even mushrooms only for pure vegetarian style.  

• 5-6 large prawns, shelled and deveined
• 1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 2 inches in length
• Few straw mushrooms
• Few slices of galangal
• 3 kaffir lime leaves
• 5 sprigs cilantro/ coriander leaves
• 2-3 red chilies/ chili peppers
• 1-2 tsp fish sauce (optional)
• 1-2 limes
• 1 ½ cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
• 2 cups water
• 1 tsp shrimp paste (optional)
• 1 tbsp finely sliced lemongrass

Start boiling the water and stock. Peel and de-vein the prawn and set them aside. Cut lemon grass into pieces, 5-6 inches long. Use the back of your knife to pound the lemon grass, just to bruise it to release the flavor. If you want, you can tie the lemon grass into a knot to make it easier to manage. Drop the lemon grass in water and let boil for 5 minutes.

Put the fish sauce and 1 lime's juice into the bottom of the bowls you will serve the soup in. Crush chili pepper and add to the bowl.

Remove the stems from the kaffir lime leaves and add the leafy part to the pot. Clean and halve the mushrooms and add them to the pot. Add the shrimp and turn off the heat. Shrimp gets too tough very quickly, and will cook even when it is just sitting in the warm broth. Scoop the shrimp and liquid into the serving bowls immediately. As soon as you add the liquid to the serving bowl, you will see that the broth becomes cloudy because of the lime juice. Add the nam prig pow. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.

Be very careful, the peppers can be hot. Take a small sip at a time. Add more fish sauce and/or lime juice if it tastes bland.

Challenging Vegetarian Dim Sum

Dim Sum has always been my favourite dishes. The fresh dumpling with minced pork, or fresh shrimp and leek has always been on the top of the lists. However, this is not easy for the Vegetarians style. No pork or meat, no seafood, no leek or anything from the garlic kingdoms, but still delicious (not only edible). So this is a big challenge!

At least we, from Kitchen Runaway, managed to prepare some: 

1. Steam "5-Sticks" Dumpling

(beancurd skin, baby spinach - optional, carrot stick, stick yellow beancurd stick, bamboo shoot stick, dried shitake mushroom stick, and celery stick)
For the filling and dipping sauce: kikkoman soy sauce, hon-mirin, sesame oil, lemon juice, sugar, chili, ginger, fresh/dried parsley/celery leaves.

2. Boiled or Deep-Fried "Monkey-Head" Dumpling
(ready-made dumpling skin, beancurd, monkey-head mushroom, salt, pepper, celery)
For the dipping sauce: kikkoman soy sauce, sesame oil, chili, ginger, fresh/dried parsley/celery leaves.
For the deep-fried sauce: it goes well with chili sauce or even mayonnaise.

3. Steam "Shrooms" Dumpling

(beancurd skin, variety of mushrooms - button/straw/oyster, carrot, lemon, zest, salt, pepper, corn starch)
For the dipping sauce: beurre blanc sauce - white wine, butter, lemon, salt, pepper.

4.  Pan-Fried Perkedel Potato

(potato, salt, pepper, ground celery)
For the dipping sauce: red chili, tomato, lemon/lime, zest, salt.

5. Green Chili Congee

(rice, vegetable stock, green chili, salt, pepper, celery for garnish)
Optional toppings: peanut (steam/fry), mushroom floss, you-tiao (dough fritters).
 

Desserts:
I believe Dim Sum also need some great desserts :-)

6. Herbal White Mushroom Soup with Almond (Dessert)

(white mushroom, red dates, ginseng roots, dried almond, rock sugar)

7. Grass Jelly Drink (Alternative for Guīlínggāo aka Tortoise Jelly or Turtle Jelly)
(ready-made grass jelly, rock sugar, young ginger)

8. Seriously Mango Purée

(fresh mango, whipping cream, mint leaves for garnish)

From Kitchen Runaway

9. Sedately Durian Purée

(fresh durian, whipping cream - optional, ice, mint leaves for garnish)
Guarantee: Feeling good - serene, sober, solemn, composed.
Disclaimer: NOT for the high-blood pressure folks. 

Coming up:

10. Yam Patty
For the dipping sauce: dark soy sauce, kaffir lime, chili.

11. Spring Roll
For the dipping sauce:  still thinking, but promise it will be awfully good.

12. Yam and Mushroom Congee

13. Vegetable Congee (still thinking of the toppings)

14. Seriously Mango Pudding
(Seriously Mango Purée, agar-agar (alternative for gelatine), sugar)

15. Almond Pudding

16. Durian Fritters


and still squeezing for ideas...
Any inputs/ suggestions from out there? All are welcomed.

A-lot-of-Mistakes Apple Crumble

My first attempt to make Apple Crumble was executed last night. I got home, feeling that I need to do some exercise, decided to go to the pool for few laps. Back home, took my shower, and oh~la~la dinner was ready. So nice of my Kitchen Assistants :-)

It was 8:30 pm and finally I decided that I should make the Apple Crumble. I always love Apple Crumble and I thought it would be worth trying. Anyway, I have prepared 3 different types of apple too in anticipation of this plan.

I started mixing the crumbs - 140g oat porridge + 1 tbsp white sesame seed + 1 tsp ground cinnamon + 25g ground almond, mixed with 50g melted butter and 1 tbsp honey. It tasted good and well you know I love cinnamon. The texture was about right too as it needs to assemble like bread crumbs. I wanted to make it more "crumbs" to I added another tablespoonful of honey (but maybe this is a mistake as some of the crumbs turned to be burnt when I took it out from the oven).

For the apples, I chopped and put it in the pan with 10 cardamoms (this is the first time I tried this species!) and 1 cup of apple-mango juice (not concentrate) plus half lemon and its zest. Actually based on the recipe I should use 1 orange and its zest, but I didn't have any in my fridge. So I just modified it a little bit. After about 10 minutes or so, I took out all the cardamoms, counting 10 of them, and added another pinch of ground cinnamon.... but oooppppssss.... it came out too much from the bottles. Oh well I thought it should be fine and I just mixed them all up. (Maybe this is the second mistake).

Last I scooped them onto the baking dish and covered with the crumbs and run it into the oven at 180 degC (I set it at 200 degC for my small oven). As soon as I shut the door, I screamed..... "What!!! Oh no... oh no...!!! I forgot the sugar". I supposed to sprinkle 1 tbsp of sugar (preferably brown sugar) on the apple. (This is the third mistake and perhaps the last one). So it was to late then, and I decided to sprinkle the sugar on top of the oat crumbs and rushed it back to the oven. (Actually this is also another mistake while doing baking - checking and opening the doors too often. I need to confess too that I changed the oven to the grill-mode, trying to "melt" the sugar or at least caramelize it. But it didn't work).

After about 40 minutes, I took it out from the oven. Sadly looking at my Apple Crumble, I still asked my Kitchen Assistants to take a photo of it. The crumbs didn't look golden-ish and some were burnt. Worst the sugar was still there. So I took a fork and started to messed them up slightly to hide the ugly truth.

Despite, I took a scoop of the Apple Crumble for myself and another for my Assistant, served with vanilla ice cream. It's still nice although not delicious. This recipe is supposed to be the healthy type so there is not much sugar.

At least - I made my own Apple Crumble and proudly call it "A-lot-of-Mistakes Apple Crumble".

About 11 pm, I prepared to go to bed, feeling unsatisfied. Honestly, I was not in a subtle mind. Something is bothering me :-(

Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon

From the kitchen of Julia Child

Servings: 6

Difficulty: Difficult

Cook Time: Over 120 min

This recipe is adapted from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck (Alfred A. Knopf, 1961)

I wish I had the oven to try this Signature Dish. Anyway, it's good to share with anyone out there to try this and hope they will share the experience. Bon appétit!

Ingredients

One 6-ounce piece of chunk bacon
3 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
3 pounds lean stewing beef, cut into 2-inch cubes
1 carrot, sliced
1 onion, sliced
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons flour
3 cups red wine, young and full-bodied (like Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone or Burgundy)
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups brown beef stock
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cloves mashed garlic
1/2 teaspoon thyme
A crumbled bay leaf
18 to 24 white onions, small
3 1/2 tablespoons butter
Herb bouquet (4 parsley sprigs, one-half bay leaf, one-quarter teaspoon thyme, tied in cheesecloth)
1 pound mushrooms, fresh and quartered

Cooking Directions

Remove bacon rind and cut into lardons (sticks 1/4-inch thick and 1 1/2 inches long). Simmer rind and lardons for 10 minutes in 1 1/2 quarts water. Drain and dry.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Sauté lardons in 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a flameproof casserole over moderate heat for 2 to 3 minutes to brown lightly. Remove to a side dish with a slotted spoon.
Dry beef in paper towels; it will not brown if it is damp. Heat fat in casserole until almost smoking. Add beef, a few pieces at a time, and sauté until nicely browned on all sides. Add it to the lardons.
In the same fat, brown the sliced vegetables. Pour out the excess fat.
Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly. Set casserole uncovered in middle position of preheated oven for 4 minutes.
Toss the meat again and return to oven for 4 minutes (this browns the flour and coves the meat with a light crust).
Remove casserole and turn oven down to 325 degrees.
Stir in wine and 2 to 3 cups stock, just enough so that the meat is barely covered.
Add the tomato paste, garlic, herbs and bacon rind. Bring to a simmer on top of the stove.
Cover casserole and set in lower third of oven. Regulate heat so that liquid simmers very slowly for 3 to 4 hours. The meat is done when a fork pierces it easily.
While the beef is cooking, prepare the onions and mushrooms.
Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons butter with one and one-half tablespoons of the oil until bubbling in a skillet.
Add onions and sauté over moderate heat for about 10 minutes, rolling them so they will brown as evenly as possible. Be careful not to break their skins. You cannot expect them to brown uniformly.
Add 1/2 cup of the stock, salt and pepper to taste and the herb bouquet.
Cover and simmer slowly for 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but hold their shape, and the liquid has evaporated. Remove herb bouquet and set onions aside.
Wipe out skillet and heat remaining oil and butter over high heat. As soon as you see butter has begun to subside, indicating it is hot enough, add mushrooms.
Toss and shake pan for 4 to 5 minutes. As soon as they have begun to brown lightly, remove from heat.
When the meat is tender, pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan.
Wash out the casserole and return the beef and lardons to it. Distribute the cooked onions and mushrooms on top.
Skim fat off sauce in saucepan. Simmer sauce for a minute or 2, skimming off additional fat as it rises. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of sauce thick enough to coat a spoon lightly.
If too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons stock. Taste carefully for seasoning.
Pour sauce over meat and vegetables. Cover and simmer 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce several times.
Serve in casserole, or arrange stew on a platter surrounded with potatoes, noodles or rice, and decorated with parsley.

Khao Niew Ma Muang

That's the Thai word for Mango Sticky Rice.

Wuuuiiiihhhhh.... Yummy!!! Yummy!!! Yummy!!!

I'm so excited to try this. I have been wanting to prepare this Thai dessert. Just to let you know, mango is my favourite fruit..... Hmmmm.... This is gonna be so good (provided I can find some nice ripe mango here).

Ingredients

• 5-6 ripe mangoes peeled and sliced
• 2 cups sticky rice, soak overnight or 5 to 8 hours and drain
• 1 cup coconut cream
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ cup sugar

Topping

• 3 tablespoons coconut cream and a pinch of salt

Method

1. Boil 3 tablespoons of coconut cream and a pinch of salt over low heat. Set aside for topping
2. Wrap the sticky rice in a clean towel and place in a double steam for 25 to 30 minutes
3. Dissolve the sugar in the coconut cream over a very low heat. Add salt. Stir well. Remove from the heat. Put the cooked sticky rice in a bowl. Gradually blend in the coconut cream. Stir with a wooden spoon, cover and let stand for 15 minutes
4. Serve with mangoes for 5-6 servings

Excited...!!! Going to try this soon.

The Making of Fresh Ravioli

My friend brought her pasta-maker from Jakarta and she let me use that for the first time. I was so excited and happy and I promised her some nice fresh pasta for dinner. I checked on the pasta-maker, she actually didn't realize that when she bought that, it doesn't come with the extension to make spaghetti or tagliatelle, so the machine is only able to make sheet pasta. I thought for a moment that I can actually buy the "cutter" and slice the sheet manually. I changed my mind then, it was just too much work as for now as that would only be my second time making fresh pasta, and I decided to make Ravioli instead.

Last Saturday, besides making the brownies, I made Ravioli with roasted red pepper and blue cheese filling. It was tiring as I was still not so familiar with the dough consistency, but believe me it was a lot of fun. We also don't have a table with the "right" edges to fix the pasta-maker, so I need my Assistant to hold on the machine while I rolled my dough in. So pity of him. I actually spent the whole afternoon from 1pm till 8.30pm in the kitchen, making lunch, baking brownies and making Ravioli. By the time we finished the dinner, it was almost 11pm. But I was happy. I think that's the most important thing.

It was too much work or too much fun, I was not quite sure, but I forgot to prepare the salad for the appetizer. Because I wanted the Ravioli to go with home-made pesto sauce, so there were a lot of ingredients to prepare. All the more, these days we are short-handed as the other Assistant has been working hard to prepare for her CPA Exam this coming May.

I hope we can publish the photos soon. The Fresh Ravioli with Creamy Pesto Sauce. Delicious! 

Kahlúa Brownies

So I had a bottle of Kahlúa sitting about collecting dust and figured that it needed to be put to decent use.

That being said, one must be creative and incorporate neglected liquor in other ways. I enjoyed eating vanilla ice cream with some Kahlúa but I think that will take a thousand years to finish my big bottle.
I'm not a coffee lover, honestly. I love the fragrant of coffee brew, but drinking coffee makes my heart beating fast. Despite that, I do take coffee occasionally and when I do take a sip, I like to have some nice chocolate cake to go with it. So is it any surprise that I poured a small amount into a batch of brownies?
I think not.
The addition of coffee liquor just gives it a nice bit of bitter flavor. If you don't have Kahlúa then using strong coffee or espresso is a perfect alternative.
To cut the long story short, I tried making this dessert cake last Saturday. I bought some nice 77% cocoa chocolate and tried my electric hand-mixer for the first time. Yeepee!
 

Ingredients

• 350g of dark chocolate
• 1/2 cup of butter, cut into pieces and at room temperature
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cups of sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of Kahlúa
• 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 3/4 cups of all purpose flour

Method

1 Lightly grease a baking pan (depends on the size of your over; my oven is quite small so I used the 17x17 cm pan). Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2 In a double boiler or using a bowl over a pot of simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter together.
3 With an electric mixer, beat together the eggs, sugar and salt. Add the chocolate mixture and the vanilla extract and Kahlúa. Mix until smooth.
4 Slowly sift in the flour.
5 Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Place on a wire rack to cool for thirty minutes.

The smell was so good and it just filled up the kitchen and dining area with the nice dark chocolate smell... but oh~la~la.... I forgot to check out on my brownies and it was burnt slightly at the top. I'm still not so familiar with the setting of this oven. It's not really good but I know I have to bear with it for a while and make full use of that until someone buys me one for my birthday present, hehe!

From Kitchen Runaway

Despite the slightly over-browned surface, the taste is pretty good. But I wonder why the texture is slightly too dense. Is that because of not enough power on the egg-mixer? Or too much chocolate-butter composition? Or too long mixing of all the ingredients? I'm not quite sure. Anyone out there can advice me? But I can call up my friend - a real baker - next week to get some advice. Now the brownies is our take-to-work breakfast or high-tea menu.

Cinderella

I wonder when Cinderella quoted this.... Anyway this is beautiful and this is what I referred to at the previous post.

Have faith in your dreams and someday your rainbow will come shining through.

No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep believing, the dream that you wish will come true.

Le Gordon Bleu

Today I decided to contact the Le Gordon Bleu's Admission Officer from the Ottawa Campus. Because of the 12 hours time-difference, it's a little bit tricky to schedule a call. Well that shouldn't be a problem as I don't normally sleep before midnight anyway. It's quite funny though, one of my Caucasian friends said that Asian doesn't need to sleep. Lol... What a crazy idea!

Anyway, I'll prepare the questions that I need to clarify with her regarding the programme that I'm interested in - the Cuisine Diploma. Will see how it goes, provided I can finance myself for 9 months!

Oh.... Le Gordon Bleu.... that I imagine is like MIT for Engineering... and maybe that could be the answer for my forbidden dream. I said it again, maybe.

I was talking to my sister earlier today, and she reminded me of the text message that I sent to her, my bro, and my youngest sister. I forget how it quotes exactly but tonight I'll check it out again. It's something like, "Never give up even if you have to grieve to achieve that, as one day the rainbow will shine through".

Something Simple for a Change

Last night, going home exhausted, nobody was in the real mood for cooking. I still insisted that I need some home-cook food as I have been eating out for the past Easter weekend. So I thought I just need something simple and healthy for a change. It was only a mixed vegetables of bean-sprout, fresh red chili, carrot, celery, and shitake mushrooms. All were sauteed with olive oil, Sake, Hon-Mirin, salt and Kikkoman soy sauce. Served with warm brown rice. Voala!

The Swiss Roschti

Talking about potatoes, this is also another food that I like. The Roschti. The easiest way to get it, served nice and warm, is from Marche. It's not that I'm promoting Marche, but yes I always get Roschti (with some other stuff) when I hit there.

It was last Saturday, after we finished baking the cakes, we had the urge to eat Roschti. So I looked that we have some potatoes in the kitchen and some cream leftover from the baking activities too. I "ordered" that the (5 med-sized for 3 persons) potatoes were peeled and then shredded, seasoned it with some (1 tbsp) cream, salt, pepper, and baked it in the oven for 15 minutes or so to get the seasoning absorbed and to make it slightly cooked. Some Swiss actually recommends to use day-old-baked potatoes, but we were too hungry to wait until the next day!!!

Applied some butter or olive oil onto a flat non-sticky pan and transferred the baked shredded-potatoes. Pan fried with low heat. Stirred occasionally and pressed down. Served it hot with some mustard and sour cream, or even tomato sauce.

And for me, I like to eat it with Bratwurst (I bought some from the Pan Pacific Hotel) since no one travels to Germany recently. I enjoyed it a lot. Mmmmm.... 

From Kitchen Runaway

Corn and Sweet Potato Soup

The past few weeks, somehow, I started enjoying sweet potato again. I just steam it and have it for breakfast. It's sweetly nice and filling too. My Mom used to tell me that sweet potato is healthy and so nutritious and She even told me that if I wanted to become smart like the Japanese, I should eat sweet potato. Really? I just did some simple search and yes this food is really nutritious and of course somehow, somewhat, somewhere it links to our brain too :)

Sweet potatoes are rich in complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber, beta carotene (a vitamin A equivalent nutrient), vitamin C, and vitamin B6. Pink and yellow varieties are high in carotene, the precursor of vitamin A. The purple breed is high in anthocyanin content, which is a pigment that presents the purple color in the vegetable. The pigment can produce red, blue and purple colors depending on the source's chemical structure, such as in foods like blueberries, red grapes and red cabbage. The powerful antioxidant agents from this anthocyanin help to prevent diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. They boost immunity, are anti-inflammatory, and keep bones and skin healthy. I ever read it somewhere too that even the name is "sweet", it is also good for the diabetics. 

Hey, maybe this is just TMI (too much information) but even Oprah Winfrey is advocating increased consumption of sweet potatoes both for health benefits and because of their importance in traditional Southern cuisine.

Ok, I stop now. I realize that I have drifted so much from the cooking of my Corn and Sweet Potato Soup. So back to the story again, since I enjoy eating steam sweet potato, we often have some ready at home. As the name suggests, it's just carrot and sweet potato, sauteed with butter, blended it and added some sour cream. Serve it warm. Best to have it with some nice bread or baguette.

From Kitchen Runaway

It's really sweet, isn't it?

Good Friday with Good Chocolate Fondant

We didn't have any egg-dishes this Easter, but surely we ate a lot of eggs from the Good Friday dinner. I wanted so badly to give it another try baking the Chocolate Fondant. The last time it was failed because I put it a little too long in the oven. The taste was still really good because the ingredients and especially the dark chocolate is really good quality. So since I still have some dark chocolate left, and some guests coming for my dining table, I decided to try it again. This time, I think it was really good. It was served warm and the most important thing is the middle part was still melting. Creamy and yummy.

From Kitchen Runaway

But of course there is still rooms to improve so practice more and it will become better!

Besides, we also cooked Cream Snapper Fillet stuffed with Salmon Fish Mousse for our non-Vegetarians friends and Beancurd Skin stuffed with Mushrooms and Carrot Mousse for the Vegetarians menu. Both served with Beurre Blanc sauce and steamed carrot and broccoli.

It was a pleasant night spent with good friends and good white wine. Unfortunately there are no photos of the food.