Curry Triangles

It has been ages (probably more than 10 years) since my last snacks or dim sum making using this cookbook with recipes on baked, fried or steamed snacks and some other meals. I don't have a conventional oven in the kitchen then. So I could only make some fried/steamed dim sum occasionally like Siu Mai (烧卖), Shrimp Dumpling (虾餃), BBQ Pork Buns (叉烧包), Fried Taro Turnovers (芋角) etc. for afternoon breaks or family gatherings where I could contribute some snacks.

Past few years I've been too "engrossed" with baking of cakes and pies during my free time .... searching or using recipes on websites, browsing cookbooks in the library etc. etc. Gosh ! I have totally forgotten its existence until I "accidentally" found it amongst the pile of books on the book shelve. 

Decided to bake something using recipe from this cookbook .... Curry Triangles to bring some over to my sister's place for our coffee/tea gathering. 

Curry Triangles (adapted from the cookbook of Judy Lew, some slight modification made in blue)
Ingredients: makes 22
Pastry
187g all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar (I used caster sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
113g cold butter
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons cold water
 Glaze : 1 egg yolk & 1 teaspoon soy sauce

Filling (A)
225g boneless chicken breast, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine (I used brandy)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon finely minced peeled fresh ginger
1 garlic clove, minced.
Toss and marinate chicken with ingredients (A) and let stand for 2 hours.

For frying the filling:
1 tablespoon oil
Some minced onions (about 1 tablespoon)
2 teaspoons curry powder
2 tablespoons oyster sauce (vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon rice wine (omitted)
1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in 5 tablespoons of chicken stock (water)

Method:
1) Heat wok or pan over medium heat, add oil. Stir-fry chicken and onions until chicken is opaque.

2) Add remaining ingredients,  bring to a boil and thicken with dissolved cornstarch mixture. My total cooking time about 8 mins.
Set aside. (Can be prepared ahead).

3) Prepare the Pastry
Combine flour,  sugar and salt in a big bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and blend into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or two knives. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs.


4) Combine egg yolk and cold water.  Beat together with a fork just until combined.

5) Add egg mixture to flour mixture and stir with a fork to moisten. Flour mixture should just come together.  Add a little more water if mixture is too dry.

6) Cover and chill mixture for 15 minutes.  Turn dough out onto a light floured surface. Gently knead just to smooth out.

7) On a floured surface, roll dough into 1cm thick sheet and cut out 10cm rounds. (I used a 8cm cutter).
Use flour to keep fingers from sticking during handling of the dough. Place *1 tablespoon filling in the center of round. (*amount may vary depending on the size of your rounds)

8) Bring up / fold up the edges to form a triangle.  Can also be made into a crescent by folding round in half and crimp edges to seal. Place on a baking sheet, brush with glaze. Bake at 190°C (180°C) until golden brown (25 - 30 mins).

Maybe I didn't roll the dough thin enough,  I could only make 18 Curry Triangles puffs. But overall, the pastry crust is buttery fluffy, not too thick. My boy took a piece and he commented "nice & tasty, the curry is not too hot & spicy,  just nice !" ^-^
Okay, packed some to share with my sisters.

I'm linking another BUTTER post to the 'Little Thumbs Up' event and the theme for June is 'Butter' organized by 

Zoe of  'Bake for Happy Kids',  Doreen of  'My Little Favourite DIY' and hosted by

Jozelyn of   'Spice up my Kitchen'.

And

I am also linking this post to Cook-Your-Book#13 organized by Joyce (Kitchen Flavours).

Black Pepper Mushroom Mini Pies & Fun Bake-Along

I have baked chicken pies a few times ... big and mini ones. With variations like chicken  + button mushroom + potatoes, chicken + mixed veggie like corn, carrot and peas. Sometimes we take as main meal with some salads and soup. At times we enjoyed as our weekends afternoon snacks or warm breakfast. 

You can either do big pie or mini pie. Just need to roll out the dough, cut the size required and place in a pie dish. I preferred mini pies using the small aluminium tart cases.

I had a fun baking gathering with some good friends recently and we baked black pepper chicken pies. It thus gave me an idea to make black pepper mushroom pies instead.  As my good friend hasn't sent me her recipe (aiyoh she's soooo busy), so I used the pastry recipe I've attempted before and estimated the sauce and ingredients for the filling. Baked these for our weekend tea/coffee break.

BLACK PEPPER MUSHROOM PIES

Pie Pastry recipe adapted from christine's recipes

Yield: 3 to 4 servings (7-inch round removable bottom mould) 

Ingredients :

160 gm plain flour / all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp salt

90 gm chilled unsalted butter, diced

1/4 tsp lemon zest

3 Tbsp iced water

2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

To make pastry: 

Sift flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. 

Add diced butter and stir with a knife. Rub the butter into the flour with your finger tips, lifting the flour from the bottom up on top, until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs. 

Mix in lemon zest. Add 2 tablespoons of the chilled water and lemon juice to flour mixture. Add the rest of the chilled water bit by bit until the mixture comes together into a ball. The dough should leave bowl clean.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and lightly knead by hand until smooth. 

Don’t over knead the dough. Divide into two balls, one larger in size for making the base, with another one smaller for making the top. Roll into two disc shapes. [If making 1 big pie dish]

Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in fridge for about 25 to 30 minutes.

Filling:

While dough resting in fridge, prepare and cook and filling ingredients:

Some chopped onions about 35g

3 tablespoon Black pepper sauce

2 cloves garlic, crushed & chopped

7 button mushrooms about 70gm, diced

Shimeji mushroom about 60gm - cut small pieces

1 teaspoon sugar

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoon cooking oil

About 4 - 5 tablespoons of water

1 teaspoon cornstarch mix in 1 tablespoon of water

Dash of pepper

1) Heat frying pan / wok in medium flame,  add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil.

2) Lightly brown the onion. Pour in the shimeji mushroom stir fry about 1 minute. 

3) Pour in fresh button mushroom. 

4) Pour water, black pepper sauce and stir fry about 2 - 3 minutes.

5) Add in sugar and salt and continue cooking. 

6) Add in the cornstarch mixture and stir to thicken. Dash of white pepper, last few stirring and switch off the flame. 

Total cooking time about 5 minutes. Set aside for later use.

Adjust the black pepper sauce or seasoning according to your taste & preference.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough, cut the size required and place in a pie dish. (I used mini tart case). 

Poke holes at the base using a fork. 

Put fillings in fill slightly above 3/4 full.

Cut another piece of dough to cover the top.

Crimp edges to seal

Poke a few more times using fork on the cover of the pie. 

Brush with 1 beaten egg yolk (usually I don’t use egg yolk but didn’t want to waste the left over from previous day's baking .. kinda regretted)

Baked in a preheated oven at 180°C for 25 - 30 mins.

Freshly baked Black Pepper Mushroom Pie

My Chicken Pies baked few months ago

BAKE ALONG GATHERINGS
Pen down some fond memories of my baking journey in my blog,  I would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this post to my baking good kakis (friends).  Also sharing with my baking cyber blogger pals our fun bake along.

We've known each other for almost a quarter of century ... yes 25 years of friendship. We were colleagues in the same department ... pioneers of a startup MNC company. A 'bunch' of pretty & young ladies then (don't LOL as we really were 'the young & pretty ones'). And over the years, we got married ... busy with families / children ... working life ... parted to join different companies ... pursuing different career etc. etc. Yes we knew our existence and doing fine, occasionally in touch via emails, FB etc. but could hardly meet up as a group due to our very very busy schedule and other commitments.

We haven't met for so many years. I would say it's baking that has brought us back together again ... killing 3 birds with 1 stone : baking, laughing & eating.

It started last year when we organised a coffee/tea gathering with our bakes. Those whom couldn't bake would just buy some drinks. Among us there's a chef (we call her 师父 master) but she couldn't join then. So we arranged another gathering with her ... teaching & sharing some baking tips with us. So we had one "bake along" session at my place where we had some fun Quiche baking. From then on, we would excitedly looking foward to another round and recently had one at her house, baking Black Pepper Chicken Pies and BBQ Pork Puff Pastry (char siew soh 叉烧酥).

Here's the short profiles of these 'students' and you can really, really imagine the fun & hilarious time we had in the 3-4 hours of our baking cum gathering session :-
1) Home Managing Director - Her specialty : bread baking with bread machine
2) Successful career women - don't cook at all but able to fry eggs only.
3) Busy working moms - could cook decent meals & bake occasionally {hee hee.. I'm one of them}

"Here's the aprons ... take one each & put on" ...  "yeah I got a matching colour cute apron leh"
"Wah say ! So pro ... we need to take test or not?" Opps ^0^ ha ha!
"No test lah, but don't tell me we need to flip the dough like roti prata style !?! ... dusting all the flour around us" ha ha !
"Oh let me sift the flour ... easy peasy my job .. but why sift flour huh?" Ha ha ha !
"Puff pastry dough 2 types ... 水皮 and 牛油皮 .." "huh 牛皮? Cow skin? .." wah ha ha!
"You remember the last time hor, aiyoh forgot to brush with egg wash... quick ..." wah ha ha !

We were super efficient in 'multi-tasking' skills ha ha ... with our hands doing the work ... chit chatting about anything ! Wah ha ha ! Then realised we had missed some steps! Ha ha !

Ta da ... our freshly baked pastries ! ENJOY! Yeah lots of hee hee ha ha ! We truly enjoyed our catch up with freshly baked pastries and hot beverages ! Of course ... needless to say, we would take-away / pack some home for our families to enjoy too !
Our next fun "bake along" session is scheduled in August ... till we meet again ! ^o^

Bake-Along #62 : Theme - Savoury Pie/Tart

I'm submitting this post to Bake-Along event hosted by (Joyce, Lena or Zoe)

And

Submitting another BUTTER post to the event Little Thumbs Up (June 2014 Event: Butter) organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Jozelyn Ng (Spice Up My Kitchen)

Lemon Blueberry Bread

Saw some 'Quick Bread' recipes in Joy of Baking Read through and was wondering why no dry active yeast added as in most bread recipes I've come across. Google search some information and found out that Quick breads are breads that are prepared with leavening such as baking soda or powder, rather than yeast. As a result, the bread does not have a long proofing and rising time, like yeast breads. 

Decided to bake this for brekkie as I've got 2 packs of blueberries (bought on special offered price 2 for $XX in supermarket). I forgo the lemon glaze. Both my big kids made almost the same comments :
"the cake tasted good,  got lemon ... but too much blueberries and it doesn't taste like bread". 
Both didn't quite like blueberries ... they preferred banana. But still, they each took 2 slices for breakfast.

I love the sweet & juicy blueberries, moist texture with lemon & butter fragrance ... it tasted more like a pound cake actually. 

Recipe adapted from Joy of Baking with slight modification made in blue adjusted to our taste. 

Lemon Blueberry Bread Recipe:

Ingredients (Makes 1 loaf : loaf pan (9 x 5 x 3 inch) (23 x 13 x 8 cm).
195 grams all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (outer yellow skin of the lemon)

240 ml fresh blueberries

113 grams unsalted butter, room temperature

150 grams granulated white sugar (90g caster sugar)

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

120 ml milk

Lemon Glaze:

2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated white sugar

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 180 degree° C and place the oven rack in the center of the oven. Butter (or spray with a non stick vegetable spray) the bottom and sides of a loaf pan (9 x 5 x 3 inch) (23 x 13 x 8 cm).

2) In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest. 

Remove 1 tablespoon of the flour mixture. Place the blueberries in a separate bowl and toss the berries with the 1 tablespoon flour (this will help prevent the blueberries from sinking to the bottom of the pan during baking.)

3) In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter until softened (about 1 minute). Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. 

4) Beat in the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture (in three additions) and milk (in two additions) alternately, starting and ending with the flour. Mix only until combined. Gently fold in the blueberries.

5) Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 55 to 65 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Lemon Glaze: In a small microwaveable bowl, stir the sugar with the lemon juice. Place in the microwave for about 20 seconds or just until sugar has dissolved.

When the bread is done, remove from oven and place on a wire rack. Pierce the top of the hot loaf with a wooden skewer or toothpick and then brush with the hot lemon glaze. Cool the loaf in the pan for about 30 minutes then remove from pan and let cool completely on a wire rack. This bread is best served on the day it is made, but it can be stored several days or frozen.

Submitting another BUTTER post to the event Little Thumbs Up (June 2014 Event: Butter) organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Jozelyn Ng (Spice Up My Kitchen)

Banana Peanut Butter Muffins

BPB Muffins ... Banana Peanut Butter Muffins

My sis-in law bought a big tub of peanut butter recently. I find that the texture is too crunchy and coarsely as spread on bread. My first thought was to use it for baking or cooking. Ah ha ! BINGO ! "Preparation and uses: try on crackers and crumpets, add to cakes and bakes".

So, using the muffin recipe that I'm familiar with, I quickly tweaked some slight changes and made a batch of BPBM = Banana Peanut Butter Muffins for our brekkie.

Recipe adapted from Joy Of Baking - Banana Muffins
with slight modifications in blue adjusted to our taste.

Makes 12 regular sized muffins.

Ingredients:
12 teaspoonful peanut butter
230 grams all-purpose flour
150 grams granulated white sugar (80g caster sugar)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
113 grams unsalted butter, melted and cooled (90g)
3 ripe large bananas (approximately 1 pound or 454 grams), mashed well (I left with only 2 large bananas)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and place the oven rack in the middle of the oven.

2) Line a 12 - 1/2 cup muffin pan with paper liners or butter or spray with a non stick spray.

3) In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon.

4) In a medium-sized bowl combine the mashed bananas, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla.

5) With a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, lightly fold the wet ingredients (banana mixture) into the dry ingredients just until combined and the batter is thick and chunky. (The important thing is not to over mix the batter. You do not want it smooth. Over mixing the batter will yield tough, rubbery bread.)

6) Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins.
Add 1 teaspoon of peanut butter onto each cup of batter. Lightly make 1 swirling with the teaspoon. 

7) Bake about 20 - 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

8) Place on a wire rack to cool for five minutes and then remove muffins from pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The trail of strong peanut butter aroma when I was transporting the muffin pan from the oven to the dining table. The weight of the each muffin seemed heavy when I removed them from the pan to cooling rack. I couldn't help but touched the peanut butter surface ... slightly rocky, hard and rough. MOST OF ALL ... I was rather disappointed with their appearance ... gave a hard stare at these muffins ...  they looked ugly don't they? :(  <Look like Predator alien face .... hee hee..>

But I was so tempted to bite it while it's still hot. Should I ... Should I not ? ... Yes ! Ahmm ... crunchy peanut butter not too dry ... bursting peanut butter fragrance, sweet banana & butter fragrance and moist texture in your mouth ... really delicious.  I shared half the muffin with my girl {cos I shouldn't have supper after 9pm... I need to loose some weight...} and she commented very nice !
Gosh ! ..still, I can't help myself to give a good laugh ... my ugly BPBM ^O^ !

This post is linked to the event Little Thumbs Up (June 2014 Event: Butter) organised by Zoe (Bake for Happy Kids) and Mui Mui (My Little Favourite DIY) and hosted by Jozelyn Ng (Spice Up My Kitchen)

Stir-fry dofu with luncheon meat and button mushroom

Usually for weekdays, I would take-away (打包 packet) food home for dinner and seldom cook. By the time I reach home would be between 6:00pm to 6:30pm (if I don’t have to work late).

But I would at least try to make 1 homecooked dinner on any of the weekdays. Quick and easy simple 1-dish meal and ready within 20 - 30 minutes.

Here's sharing one of my quick and easy stir-fry dishes (preparation about 5 mins, cooking time about 10 - 12 mins)

Stir-fry dofu with luncheon meat and button mushroom
Ingredients: serves 4
1 box of silken cold dofu (cut into big squares)
1 small can of button mushroom about 115g, drain away the water and rinse once.
(variation : shiitake mushroom)
3 - 4 thin slices of luncheon meat cut in cubes
Some onions, diced
2 tablespoons cooking oil
3 - 4 tablespoons of oyster sauce (I used vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce)
Some water (about 60 - 80ml)
Dash of pepper and some sesame oil.

Method:
1) Heat wok/pan with medium heat, pour cooking oil.
2) Pan fry the luncheon meat till fragrant (about 2 mins), add in the onions.
3) Add in the button mushroom, tossing a little.
4) Pour in the dofu, stir fry about 1 min.
5) Pour in some water, oyster sauce and continue to stir fry for another 5 mins.
6) Dash of pepper and pour some sesame oil (about 1 tablespoon), quick few stirring just before turning off the flame.

Serve with rice.

Could substitute luncheon meat with ham or sausages and variation of your choice and adjust the taste to your preference. If you prefer to use fresh meat like sliced/minced chicken or pork, do marinate them with some seasoning for at least 30 minutes. Alternatively,  prepare the seasoned meat, chill in fridge the night before.

Magic Custard Cake

Finally ...yes finally ! I pick up the courage to bake this Magic Custard Cake !

I read the recipe & video tutorial shared by Cheryl of Bakingtaitai (thanks Cheryl) and I also found another similar recipe by whiteonricecouple .

There's not much difference except a few drops of vinegar used to help stabilize the egg whites after they've whipped to stiff peak in the recipe of White on Rice Couple. 

I attempted this Magic cake in 2 different baking pans. 1 baked with a small 750ML rectangle Pyrex dish and another 1 in a square 8"x8" baking pan lined with baking paper. I just fill the square baking pan the remaining batter after I've poured batter on the Pyrex dish. I wanted to see which baking pan yields better texture. Also thinking that in case 1 failed,  I have the other 1 to fall back on (LOL), here's the results:
Pyrex dish : the 3 layers are visible ... However the top flour cake layer is fluffy and thicker than custard. The middle layer custard is slightly softer.

Square pan :  Gosh ! Ahrgg!! I realised that I didn't grease the baking paper with butter and the whole piece of cake got stuck onto it ! Haiz! How could I have forgotten !!! Unable to cut a nice piece for photo :(  But I could see the 3 distinguished layers are almost in equal proportion.

It tasted better when chilled. After this bake, I really got the 'hang of it' to try other flavour like chocolate,  pandan etc. Hope will do better 'Magic' the next round. ^-^

Magic Custard Cake
(Recipe adapted from White on Rice Couple)

Ingredients:

113g unsalted Butter
480ml Milk
4 Eggs, separated
4 drops White Vinegar
150g Confectioner's Sugar
(I used 145g)
1 Tablespoon Water
115g Flour (Plain flour)
1 teaspoon (5ml) Vanilla Extract
Extra confectioner's sugar for dusting

Prepared ingredients

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C)
2) Lightly butter or grease a 8"x8" baking dish.
3) Melt the butter and set aside to slightly cool.
4) Warm the milk to lukewarm and set aside.
5) Whip the egg whites and vinegar to stiff peaks. Set aside.
6) Beat the egg yolks and sugar until light. Mix in the melted butter and the tablespoon of water for about 2 minutes or until evenly incorporated.
7) Mix in the sift flour until evenly incorporated. Use a hand whisk and slowly beat in the milk and vanilla extract until everything is well mixed.

Big curds

8) Fold in the egg whites, 1/3 at a time.
Repeat until all of the egg whites are folded in. For folding in the whites, it is done with more of a gentle whisk/folding motion with the whisk since the batter is so runny. The whites will look a little curd like after mixing them in, just try to mix/fold them to the point where there is no big chunks. (I used spatula to fold the egg whites).
9) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45-60 minutes or until the top is golden.
10) Allow cake to completely cool before cutting and then dust with confectioner's sugar.

Linky another milk post to Little Thumbs up (May 2014: Milk) organised by Bake For Happy Kids, and My Little Favourite DIY, hosted by Tze of Awayofmind Bakery House

Dango (Japanese Sweet Dumplings)

I have some left over Anko (Japanese sweet red bean paste) 'hibernating' in the fridge and not sure what to do with them.

Saw this easy to make Dango Japanese sweet dumplings from the video tutorial of Ochikeron. I enjoyed watching her videos ... she's so cheerful ... most of her delicious and creative bakes/cookings are rather easy to follow.
Dango

I couldn't find Shiratamako in the neighbourhood Cold Storage supermarket ... opps ... so I decided to use the glutinous rice flour that I still have in the kitchen cabinet. I reckon that there may be difference in taste and texture slightly. I just wanna finish that few tablespoons of Anko.

Dango
Ingredients :
100g Shiratamako (I used glutinous rice flour)
150g Kinugoshi-dofu (lightly drained)
1 teaspoon sugar

Method:
1) Put flour,  sugar and dofu in a big bowl. Mix and knead the dough until smooth (adjust the texture by adding more flour or water), until the dough turns soft.

2) Divide the dough into 12 small pieces. Roll each piece into small balls. {I couldn't divide into 12 equal portion.  At first 8, then reshaped and divided again ... got 10 ... haiz!}

3) Boil a pot of water. Gently drop the Dango in the boiling water.

4) After a few minutes, Dango will float to the surface. Boil for another 1 - 2 minutes.

5) Drain and transfer the Dango into a big bowl of cold water. After a minute, drain well.

6) Put 3 Dango on bamboo skewers.

7) Pan fry the Dango on a non-stick pan or a pan greased lightly with oil until sides are nicely browned.

8) Put the Dango onto plate, put Anko on top and serve while still warm.

The texture ... hmm ... rather soft and chewy.  Quick and easy sweet snacks.