Homemade Orange & Star Anise Infused Quail Salad

Despite being tired and all, i decided to cook quail for the first time! *YEY

Since it was my first time cooking it, I decided to stick to the fairly traditional combination of flavours - orange and star anise. Overall, the salad tasted nice but i wished the quail was a bit more moist =P. Here is a photo of how it turned out:

Mini Macha Chiffon Cake

Having recently bought a chiffon cake tin from a Japanese shop, i finally decided to use it. I decided to make a macha chiffon cake because i was craving for it and also because here in Canberra, macha cakes are not as common as Sydney. Yes, macha cakes are a luxury here!

The recipe yields two mini macha chiffon cakes and they turned out spongy and soft; it wasn't as sweet as i would have liked it to be because i ran out of caster sugar (fail!). I covered the cakes with whipped cream, sifted some macha powder on top and decorated with some multi-coloured cachous pearls. The cake tastes the best without being refrigerated because once you put it in the fridge, it turns dense (as you can see from the photos). I had to refrigerate the second cake as it was covered with cream and i was too full to eat it after finishing the first one.

Mini Macha Chiffon Cake (yields two 10cm cakes)

Ingredients

-100ml of full cream milk

-1 1/2 tbsp of macha powder

- 75g of unsalted butter

- 90g of low protein plain flour, sifted

- 4 eggs, separated

- 100g of caster sugar (this should give you the right sweetness)

- 300ml of whipping cream

- 2 tbsp of caster sugar

Method:

1) Whisk macha powder and milk in a saucepan until well blended. Make sure you there are no macha clumps left in the mixture.

2) Add in butter and put the mixture over a stove. Stir until butter is melted and allow the mixture to cool.

3) Pour the macha mixture into a big bowl and beat in the flour and the egg yolk alternately (do this in 3 batches).

4) In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until foamy, add in caster sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.

5) Fold in 1/3 of the whites mixture into the macha mixture, mix well. Then, fold in the rest of the egg white mixture and mix well.

6) Pour mixture into two chiffon cake tins and bake in a preheated oven of 170C for 25 minutes or until set.

7) Remove the cakes from the oven and invert them immediately on a cake rack.

8) Whip the cream with caster sugar and cover the macha chiffon cake with it. (Remember to only cover the cake with whipping cream once the cake has been completely cooled down)

Ready to be served!

Simple Banoffee Tarts

It wasn't long ago since i made these little and simple Banoffee Tarts, to be precise i made them on the day we had a hot pot. I wasn't intending to make them at the start, but since i ended up with a whole can of awesome dulce de leche (milk caramel), i decided to make something for everyone to share. Since i had some bananas, ready-made shortcrust pastry and cream why not make some bite-sized Banoffee tarts? Simple and easy but making the Dulce de Leche can be time consuming. Here's how:

First of all, you'll need 1 can of sweetened condensed milk; remove all the labels to minimize the messiness. Submerge a can of sweetened condensed milk into a pot of cold water (make sure that the whole can is covered with water). Place the lid on the pot and turn the fire on. Once the water starts boiling, turn the heat down to a simmer and leave it simmering for about 3 hours (IMPORTANT: Please check it often to make sure that the can is still submerged in water). I used a tea towel to take the can out of the pot after i've poured all the water content down the sink. Cool down the can of dulce de leche before opening them - i left mine in the sink after rinsing with cold water. Ta-da...done! Tip: they are good on toast! 

If you rather enjoy the dulce the leche by itself you can stop reading, but if you want the rest of the Banoffee tarts recipe, read on:

1. Using a cookie cutter (3.8cm), make little tart shells with the shortcrust pastry.

2. Whip about 250ml of thickened cream in a chilled bowl until soft peaks form. Add in 2 tbsp of caster sugar and 1tsp of vanilla extract to the cream. Whip until firm peaks form - if it starts to look grainy, you have most likely over-whipped your cream.

3. Cut the banana into 5mm slices

Assembling the Simple Banoffee Tart:

1. Put 1 tsp of dulce de leche in the tart shell

2. Put 1 or 2 slices of banana on top of the dulce de leche

3. Using a 2.5cm in diameter star noozle, pipe out some whipped cream on top of the bananas

4. Add some crushed peanuts on top of the cream and...Voila! *Oops,i took the photos before completing step 4.

Super Vitamin A Fried Rice

What to do when you have bits and pieces left in the fridge? By this i mean the bits of unused ingredients that were left from cooking the previous meals. So here i am standing in front of my nearly empty fridge staring at one carrot, half a butterbut pumpkin, one third of a sweet potato and a chunk of beef. Being tired after work (and lazy) i only had enough energy to cook a very simple meal, and decided to make a fried rice! I know it doesn't sound exciting but hey, it's no ordinary fried rice okaaaaay ?!! It's a very nutritious and yummy fried rice packed with loads of beta-carotene and vitamin A - which are both very beneficial (for your vision, for example)! So if you are tired and feel like having something nutritious and healthy, try making this richly vitamin A packed fried rice: SUPER VITAMIN A FRIED RICE!

Here is how: (very simple, trust me!)

1) Dice the carrot, sweet potato and the butternut pumpkin and roast it in the oven (around 200C) until it turns a bit brown (don't forget to drizzle a bit of salt and olive oil).

2) Heat up a pan with oil and put in some diced onion and garlic, cook until they start turning brown.

3) Add in the beef (cut into strips) and brown it as well.

4) Put in the roasted carrot, sweet potato and butternut pumpkin to the beef and stir.

5) Add in some cooked rice (i used brown rice here) and mix all ingredients until well combined. Don't forget to add some salt too! (to your liking). Voila, dinner is served!

Recipe for Shallot Pancakes

As I promised, here is the recipe that i've used for making shallot pancakes in my previous post. It's not hard and i hope you will enjoy making it as well as devouring it.

Shallot Pancakes (makes about 4)

Ingredients

- 1 1/2 cup of self-rising flour

- 1 tsp of salt

- 1/4 cup of hot water

- 1/2 cup of cold water

- 1 cup of chopped shallot (trim the ends)

- vegetable oil

Method

1) Put the self-rising flour and salt in a large bowl and add hot water. Stir with chopsticks until well combined

2) Add cold water into the mixture and mix it until well combined, it should start forming some sort of dough

3) Knead the dough until smooth and elastic and occasionally, you might need to add extra flour and/or cold water. Leave the dough to rest for around 30 minutes.

4) Divide the dough into four portions. Using a rolling pin, roll out into a 15cm diameter disc (roughly). Do the same with the remaining portions

5) Spread about 1 tsp of vegetable oil on the surface of the disc and sprinkle with the chopped shallots. (as pictured above)

6) Roll up tightly to enclose the shallots and make it into a cinnamon roll shape. (as pictured below)

7) Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and lightly grease the pan with extra vegetable oil. Cook each side of the pancake until golden brown (cook one pancake at a time). Press the pancake while cooking to expand it and also to make it thinner.

The result!

Enjoy!

Marlin Steaks & Shallot Pancakes for dinner!

Went to Fyswick Fresh Food Market on Sunday and as usual, i was immediately drawn by the fresh and colourful fruits & vegetables and the selection of gourmet food (It's silly, i know). What's hot? There is a deli shop that is having a competition to guess the weight of a massive cheese block and whoever guesses the weight, gets to bring that massive cheese back home! Awesome huh? I can donate half of the cheese to charity and with the other half, i can host a CHEESE FEAST! hohoho *currently daydreaming.

Anyways, the cool thing is that i ended up getting a MASSIVE bunch of shallots for only 99 cents and some FRESH FISH: a whole Snapper and Marlin Steaks! I steamed the whole Snapper a la chinese way (no pics! sorry) yesterday and today i had Shallot Pancake (recipe coming soon!) and Pan-fried Marlin Steak topped with sweetened soya sauce and shallots.

Shallot Pancake

Pan-fried Marlin Steak topped with shallots

I <3 fish! (Why isn't Toro found here...)

Pre-New Year's Dinner 30.12.09

Was invited to an auntie's place for a dinner to celebrate New Year! It was kinda like a potluck dinner and a group of people were invited. Usually in dinners like this there are heaps of good food, just because aunties are also mothers who prepare the best home-made dishes. For this occasion, I made pickled cabbage and beef stir-fry but for some reason, i forgot to take photos of it (silly me). There were heaps of food varying from noodles, stir-frys, finger foods and desserts.

There were Apple and Corn Muffins, Hong Kong-styled Salad (which is made of fruits, vegetables and eggs mixed with mayo), Braised lamb - which i didn't try because i am not a big fan of lamb (I just don't like the 'lamby' taste). I really liked the prawn spring roll because it looked very pretty and at the same time, it was very delicious - the prawn was wrapped with some basil and mint leaves and then with a spring roll skin and consequently, deep fried. The prawn heads were not spared either as they were deep fried a la japanese way.

Traditional dishes such as the fried hokkien noodles, chicken & black fungi stir-fry and chinese dumplings were also present. Despite being traditional pork & chives dumplings, they tasted different with the addition of dried shrimps - not bad.

I also liked the pastries and there were two flavours: vegetables and spinach & ricotta.The highlight for me was probably the Northern Chinese Cold Salad that the auntie made. The ingredients were fresh and the sauce just complemented perfectly with the salad - perfect for this HOT summer. It had chinese glass noodles, shredded chicken, carrots, cucumbers, black fungi, coriander and it was topped with basil and a bit of mint leaves. I am not certain of how the sauce is made but from what i heard it consisted of soy sauce, chinese vinegar, chilli, lemon juice, salt, pepper, sugar and a bit of chicken stock (don't know the proportions).

Pan-fried Chinese Pork & Chives Dumplings...with dried shrimps

My fave dish of the night...i think i had 3 serves =P

The whole table filled with yummy food: (ohhh...i can spot my dish!)