Pizza and Bagels

When I turn my oven on, I aim to make the most of the heat by creating two delicacies. I started today thinking about pizza for dinner. And I have been thinking about bagel the whole week. Since I watched Bob Blumer (Glutton for Punishment) learn how to make bagels, I have been dying to give it a go. While my pizza dough was proofing, I made a batch of bagels.

The pizza dough is Jamie Oliver's recipe. I make half the recipe and use a wholewheat flour / bread flour mix. Both organic. I rolled the crust thin but it didn't turn out crispy. Probably because of the wholewheat content. Toppings were homemade bollognese sauce, pineapple, mushrooms, organic capsicum, tomatoes, onions, cheese. There was enough to make 4 pizzas. We ate 2.5 for dinner, that leaves 1.5 for lunch tomorrow. Wholesome and yummy!

I tried a new bagel recipe. My usual one is from The Arthur Flour 'A Dozen Simple Bagels'. Today I came across this one from Hubpages which I thought was really simple and fuss free (no mention of malt powder or substitutes). It actually uses the same technique which Bob Blumer was trying to perfect. Cool ! Cause that was the whole reason I wanted to get my hands dirty was to try this technique.

I haven't eaten any of the bagels yet but I must say the shape of my bagels are looking a lot better than batches before.

I am compelled to confess my boo boo. When one tries to do too many things at a ago, like make pizza AND bagels, one tends to make mistakes. Especially if one works like me, I look at a recipe, and try to memorize the steps cause I don't like to refer to a paper while I work. I shaped my bagel, dipped them in poppy seeds and then remembered that oops....... that should come after I boil them. Anyway, most of the poppy seeds stayed on.

A Hmmmm point: This recipe calls for the bagels to be turned over while baking. I have not done that before. I did it today. It was messy cause the bottom of those bagels had stuck onto the reasonably oiled tray and bits came off. When the bagels were done, those bits from the bottom got stuck to the top. So although, they are shapelier, they are looking a bit pock marked. I think I will skip that step the next time. After all, I didn't see Bob doing that.

Mee Ku

9 !

These turtle shaped steamed dumplings are special to the Chinese community. Usually a prayer offering on special occasions (see my previous post "The Jade Emperor's Birthday), 'mee ku's are scarce these days. They can be found at wet markets in small towns but hardly anyone makes them anymore.

To us who grew up on 'mee ku', they are special. To me, it evokes memories of an idyllic childhood. The plump turtle shape has a natural appeal for kids (and adults). Fresh from the steamer, it is warm, soft and sweet - the ultimate comfort food. A really special treat is to dip slices of  'mee ku' in beaten egg and fry them in a pan like French toast.

The recipe is from 'At Home with Amy Beh'. (I'll type it out later :)

The Jade Emperor's Birthday

The ninth day of the Chinese New Year is the Jade Emperor's Birthday known as "Pai Thee Kong". It is celebrated by the Hokkien Chinese. Having married a strapping man from this clan, I have a standing invitation to the party each year.

Being one for those for Chinese rituals since I was a child (I have always loved burning the gold and coloured paper for my grandmother cause it was the closest I could get to adult-sanctioned burning), I have secretly been making notes. This is also important as I am sure many of you have felt frustrated by the lack of written instructions / clarity on what must be done on certain Chinese family occasions.

Day -4: Make green bean filling for 'ang ku' (red turtles)
Ingredients: Split green beans, sugar
Soak 500g of split green beans overnight.
Steam with XX amount of water for YY minutes. ( I didn't get specifics. Excuse: I think it takes trial and error to get it right. Real reason: I went out gallivanting while mother-in-law (MIL) slogging away at the hearth.)
Blend with 350g sugar.
Fry in wok to mash up.
Refrigerate.

Day -3: Make 'ang ku' (red turtles)

Ingredients: ??? flour, glutinous rice flour, water, red colouring, oil, sugar - I don't know the quantities
Excuse: Hokkien is my fourth language. Real reason: I was not paying attention when my mother-in-law (MIL) was mixing the dough. Please don't tell her. For the same reason, I am guessing some of the ingredients. What I got was it was a mixture of two types of flour. One being glutinous rice flour and the other I am guessing is wheat flour. A total of 600g. I hang my head in shame - hardly living up to my reputation for being scientific and documenting facts.

The next part is confusing. MIL took hot water and mixed it with cool water (1:4). She later told me that she should have used boiling water. Add colouring, oil and sugar to the water. Mix flour and water.

Roll for 20 minutes. Phew ! Tip: Try using the Knead function of the bread maker or Kitchen Aid. It is really hard work. I was sweating and my arms were aching. It is wasn't for my desire to stay in good books, I would not have completed 10 minutes.

You will also need to have a mould for ang ku and access to banana trees. Cut banana leaves into 3'x3' squares and paint with cooking oil.

Roll dough into strips. Cut into pieces. Dust mould with flour. Flatten dough with a rolling pin. Take a teaspoonful of bean filling. Place in the centre of the dough. Fold dough over the filling forming a ball. Put the ball into the mould and gently press the ball of dough to fill the mould. When you are satisfied with your efforts, tap the mould really hard so the dough drops out. You should get a lovely little ang ku taking the shape of the mould which I did not. Each time I got malformed orange lumps with filling spilling out of the sides.

Put the ang ku onto the oiled banana leaf square.

Steam for 7 minutes on high.

Day -2: Make 'mee ku'

A family of 'mee ku's

Ingredients: AP Flour 1kg (MIL has a large household), baking powder 1 tsp, sugar 300gm, yeast 1/2 packet, oil 2 tsp, vinegar 1/2 tsp, water XX

The night before, make the 'ibu' (starter dough) by mixing 400gm of flour with 1.5 bowls of water and 1/2 packet of yeast.

Err...mix the rest of the ingredients in and knead for 20 minutes or until dough is soft and shiny. At this point I left the house and went I came back I saw this (and a visibly tired MIL).

Abundance 
I bet the people at SEATRU (Sea Turtle Research Unit) wished the same on their beaches

Day -1: Make steamed egg cake (to replace commercially bought steamed cake aka huat kuih), sweet glutinous rice, red eggs, jelly
I deferred these modules to next year.

Purchase other party food which was not bought earlier - sugar cane, another type of glutinous rice cake (nee kuih), 5 types of fruits, pineapple (that makes it 6 types of fruits), flowers (which were my present to MIL). Staples from the Hokkien pantry which are included are 'mee suah', 'chai' - a combination of dried ingredients such as bean threads, black fungus, shitake, bean curd sheets which are used to cook a vegetarian dish, dried longan.

At 11:59pm, the table is set.

A feast fit for an Emperor

Offering of gold

Day 0: The Party
A few minutes after 12am, incense and candles are lit. Family members take turns offering incense and prayers. The generic prayer goes something like this. "Po pee peng aun....." Bless us with peace...

The gold is burned. The tea cups are refilled twice during the ceremony. We hang around the table chatting, comparing neighbours offering - waiting for our feasting to began.

At 1am, we bring the offering back in. My MIL makes us "mee suah" with a hot soup and XXL sized prawns. We tuck in. YUM !

Happy Birthday Thee Kong !

Chocolate please

It has been raining non stop since Monday thanks to Typhoon Megi and the northeast monsoon. It is downright miserable being cooped up in the condo. I can feel my mood going the direction of the rain - down. This calls for a serious dose of chocolate.

This afternoon we made chocolate cupcakes -  Martha Stewart's One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcake. Do they taste yummy ? Well, they provided a quick and hot chocolate fix and they are really easy to make. But I wouldn't call them yummy. Maybe it is the inferior cocoa powder from the local baking supplies shop. I did buy the imported stuff (from wonderful Malaysia). And mind you I wasn't being frugal there, the shop only carries have one type ! The next time round, I am going to try melting a good quality chocolate bar instead of using cocoa powder.

They could be prettier I suppose. I haven't learnt to ice cupcakes yet. I have been browsing the recipes. My arteries stiffen in protest of the amount of butter and sugar required. Between the 5 of us, we have to eat the 18 cup cakes I make. In my mind, I am always dividing the amount of butter/sugar in a recipe by 5. 220gm of butter divided by 5 is 44gm of butter per person. I can't bring myself to do that. Plus, I haven't enough confidence in my cakes to distribute them around the neighbourhood.

Since we are on the topic, here are the other pick-me-up goodies from my store cupboard / fridge.




Omochi ice cream



Happiness in a square- dark chocolate



There's always Kit Kat



My Daily Bread

Two weeks back, I tweaked my usual bread recipe and came up with this one. I like it so much that I have been making it each time we run out of bread. This is not fancy baking. We make this every 3-4 days at our house. Here is the recipe:

• 
  
  1.5 cups of water
• 
  
  2 cups of bread flour
• 
  
  1.5 cups of wholewheat flour
• 
  
  2 tbsp black strap molasses (BSM)*
• 
  
  1 tsp salt
• 
  
  2 tbsp oil
• 
  
  2 tsp instant yeast
• 
  
  1 tsp flaxseed
• 
  
  anything else you may fancy e.g. raisins, sunflower seeds

I put the lot of ingredients into the breadmaker and run a 'dough' cycle. Then transfer it to an oiled bread tin and let it rise for 60 minutes. Punch down. Let it rise for 40 - 60 minutes. Bake at 180C with a bowl of hot water. I have found that having a bowl of water in the oven makes a moist loaf.

The tweak*

I found a bottle of organic BSM left over from a liver detox which we did a few years back. It smelled & tasted ok, so I decided to use it in place of sugar in my bread. The aroma is heavenly and it imparts flavour without adding sweetness. Perfect for the kids who prefer sweet breads but minus the sugar. If I remember rightly, BSM is a good source of iron.

This is my daily bread. The beauty of the recipe lies in the simplicity. It is versatile, you can add anything you like. For weeks, we had raisin and cinnamon, then apricot, almonds. Today, its BSM and sunflower seeds.
I am going to have a slice for supper.

Lemonade 25 cents?

I find it hard to resist lemons. Who can when they are going at 25 yuan (around USD 0.75) for 9 ? I inadvertently leave the supermarket with lemons. I suspect my mother is of the same nature. She doesn't stop me. Frankly, I am not surprised because she is the one with the lemon tree on her balcony 10+ floors high up in the air.

There we were this morning with 9 lemons - 2 decaying, a couple yellowing but the rest still holding on and my mother in the background grumbling about having to throw them out.  (In case you are wondering, the local lemons are green). What do you do when your mother throws you lemons ? You have lots of fun !

Ew and I did our homeschooling lesson on lemons / lemonade.

Lesson : "How to make lemonade?"
First, we grated zest. Lovely, zingy zest that could go into a cake or muffins or add piquance to roast chicken.
Ew: "Can I smell it, mummy ?".
A: "Of course"
Ew: "Hmmmm. Eat some. can I ?"
A: "Er, sure - if you really want to. It doesn't taste... Well, try it."

This is kinesthetic learning at its best. Learning with all your senses. Learning when you're relaxed, having fun. I resisted the urge to control, to be frugal cause I really don't enjoy grating lemon zest that much and I have plans for the lovely zest.

Next, Ew tried to peel the skin off his lemon. He bashed it around for a while. I gave him a plastic knife which he grabbed with glee. The mutilated fruit is stabbed several times. I quickly added a tea towel under the chopping board. Yes, I expect such lessons to be messy but I am going to be smart about it. The mess has to be easy to clean.

I started rolling the other lemons around and execute a couple of bashes of my own. This gets the juice going. It is true. When I cut into the fruits the juice squirted out. Ew never got round to cutting his lemon. He bit into it instead and sucked whatever juice he got.

The fun fizzled out a little at this point. He had cut his finger earlier with the plastic knife and the juice was stinging the wound.  Ew expressed a need for cream. We stopped to wash his hand and apply some cream. He sat watching me, playing with pips. We had a jam jar full of lemon juice (for later use) and half a bowl for our lemonade. (If we don't get around to using the juice, we'll make ice cubes out of it. Great for when you need lemon juice but don't have lemons.)

Summary of lesson:
Lemonade = water + honey + lemon juice

Ae woke up from her nap at that point. She was hot and grouchy. Nothing a little lemonade won't fix. Soon, we were all drinking fresh lemonade from our cups. Everyone was smiling.

Ew: "Mummy, this is so fresh. Let's do it again tomorrow."

Ae: "Sumor (some more) Mummy"

Lemonade 25 cents ? No, lemonade priceless.



We had Lemon Drizzle Cake for tea. Yes, it's a cracked at the top. But heck, it tastes good. Like I said earlier, I find it hard to resist lemons.

Recipe from BBC GoodFood

We ate it while it was still warm

PS - the rest of the fruit went to my vinegar making. That's another blog for another day.

Sweet Potato & Rosemary Buns

Hot buns fresh out of the oven

We had these buns with homemade burgers, grilled pineapple, cucumber slices and wasabi mayo.


Recipe from The Fresh Loaf.

I used a lonely sweet potato that was lying in the kitchen for weeks. The bread maker did the kneading. I humbly admit that it does a much better job than me. But as you can tell from the irregular shapes which I find rather endearing, I shaped the buns and dusted Italian herbs on it for a more attactive appearance.