Home made Hawaiian Pizza - Yamaha Lunch

On Thursdays, Ethan goes for Yamaha keyboard class.  Due to the early start time for his Yamaha class, I have to pick him up early from school and give him his lunch on the way to class.  And that's where the fun starts, because he gets a different lunch each week that he really really looks forward to.

This week's Yamaha lunch is by Ethan's special request, a home-made Hawaiian pizza with lots of pineapple and a little bit of ham (in view of the latest findings about processed meats being carcinogenic), with his favourite Gouda cheese.   Ethan must have found it good as he gobbled the entire pizza up and kept on mumbling "what a delicious meal" in between mouthfuls.

Pizza base made using this recipe, tried and tested since 2007.  Try making your own pizzas!  They are really worth the effort (think crispy and fragrantly yeasty, bread pizzas just don't make the cut) and don't take that much time either.  My cheat trick - I make the dough and pre-roll the bases in advance, then pop them in the freezer to be used whenever there is a request for pizza.
http://emmaelephant.blogspot.sg/2007/05/homemade-pizza.html

Tiramisu

Dusting off the recipe books that had not been used for months, I made this reliable tiramisu dessert for an evening poolside party hosted by S and D. Easy-peasy and a real treat. Even if it was a lot less boozy and coffee-laced than I would have liked (ran out of kahlua).

Whipping cream: 300ml
Icing sugar: 60g
Mascarpone cheese: 250g
Sponge ladyfinger biscuits: approximately 12
Strong expresso coffee: (approximately 1 cup)
Brandy / Tia Maria (I used kahlua)
Cocoa powder for dusting

Mix the mascarpone cheese and sugar together well. Whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks; be very careful not to overwhisk (which leads to curdling and separation). Add the whisked cream to mascarpone cheese/icing sugar mixture. Dip the ladyfingers into the coffee + alcohol mixture and arrange in a container, alternating with the cream/mascarpone cheese/icing sugar mixture. Chill in fridge. Dust with cocoa powder just before serving.

Spanish-style Fried Fish?

Spanish is currently the flavour of the month in our home, all thanks to the irrepressibly exuberant José Andres, celebrity chef and host of the PBS programme "Made in Spain".

In one of the episodes, José whips up a easy dish of fried fish which we replicated using a red snapper fillet. It's as simple as rubbing some salt and lemon juice over the pieces of fish, dunking them in flour, dredging in beaten egg, and then deep-frying till they are golden. Upon frying, the egg-flour coating forms a crispy crust which protects the fish inside from the high heat, ensuring that it remains beautifully succulent, moist and juicy. I don't think this technique is particularly Spanish since there are practically identical methods used elsewhere (British Fish and Chips, anyone?) but it was certainly yummelicious, easy and quick!

http://www.delish.com/cooking-shows/famous-chefs/andres-fried-monkfish-video

Pork Chops ala Julia Child

Don't you just love that feeling of extreme satisfaction when recipes turn out successfully? Well, Julia Child's masterpiece, MtAoFC, is really proving to be a real treasure on my bookshelf (next to my treasured Neil Perry's The Food I Love). Here are two simple recipes for pork that I tested out a couple of times over the last month since we were getting tired of our usual old standby (marinated in self-improvised "char siew" marinade and grilled). The pork chops tasted simply wonderful - fragrant, buttery, savoury and oh-so-tender. Lovely!! The recipes are reproduced here for the benefit of a dear friend W who has recently had to cook a lot more than she used to!

Salt Marinade with Herbs and Spices (per pound of pork)
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/4 tsp ground thyme or sage
1/8 tsp ground bay leaf
Pinch of allspice (I skipped this)
1/2 clove mashed garlic (optional)
Mix all the ingredients together and rub them into the surface of the pork. Marinade for at least 2 hours, 6 even better (I have tried 30 min before and it works too). Before cooking, scrape off the marinade, and dry the meat thoroughly with paper towels.

Casserole Sauteed Pork Chops (for 2 - 3 chops, about 1 inch thick)
Preheat oven to 325F (160 deg C). Dry the pork chops on paper towels (important: if the chops are not dry, they will not brown as they will end up steaming / poaching instead). Heat some cooking oil in a casserole and brown the chops on each side for 3 to 4 minutes. As the chops are browned, transfer them to a side dish.
Pour the oil out of the casserole and add 1 tablespoon of butter (with 1 halved clove of garlic,if you like). Return the chops to the casserole, overlapping them slightly. Baste them with the butter. Cover and heat the casserole until the meat is sizzling, then set in lower third of preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Arrange the chops on a hot platter.

I served the chops plain and was perfectly happy. However, here's how to make a simple sauce from the cooking juices.

Sauce
(For 2 - 3 chops) The chops will have rendered about 1/2 cup of juices during their cooking; remove all but 1 tablespoon of fat. Pour in about 50 ml of dry white wine OR brown stock OR canned beef stock and boil rapidly, scraping up all coagulated cooking juices, until you have about 50 ml of concentrated sauce. Taste for seasoning and pour it over the chops.

Slow-cooked Salmon with Sundried Tomato Pesto

This looked so pretty and tasted so good! I was carrying out a trial run of the main course for our usual Christmas dinner with close friends and was extremely pleased by how easy but impressive this dish was. Truly for lazy cooks indeed. The secret is to cook the salmon on very low heat so that its texture will be melting and silky-smooth...it looks uncooked but it is indeed cooked through!

I was inspired by the "recipe" on Steamy Kitchen's webbie, which I modified by cooking my salmon at 100 deg C for 30 min (will try it at 80 deg C for 40 min for the actual dinner) and complementing it with a homemade sundried tomato pesto that I whipped up using our recent acquisition of sundried tomatoes from France. The pesto was superb, with all the concentrated tastes of tomato, blended with the piquant fragrance of fresh basil leaves and toasted almonds. Just so addictive and simply delicious that I kept on finding excuses to eat what we didn't use for the salmon, on toast.

Sundried Tomato Pesto (makes about a cup)
1/2 cup packed sweet basil leaves
1/2 cup toasted whole almonds (I used ground almonds)
4 garlic cloves
1 tsp lemon zest (I added some lime juice instead to up the tangy factor)
1/4 tsp coarse salt
1 generous packed cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (I left the cheese out)
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
(1 cup = 240 ml)

Drain the sun dried tomatoes. Toast almonds lightly in a dry shallow pan, about 5 min (they will turn light brown and emit a nutty fragrance). In a food processor, combine the basil, toasted almonds, garlic, lemon zest, and salt and process till coarsely chopped. Add the sun dried tomatoes and parmesan cheese and process further. Stream in the olive oil slowly and process until the pesto comes together. Scrape into an airtight container and leave in the refrigerator. The cook gets the privilege of licking off the rest of the sundried tomato pesto!

Sauce Veloute and MtAoFC

look, no lumps in my sauce!

I also bought the classic Julia Child cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking (MtAoFC). It unexpectedly got pressed into service for lunch when I was wondering what sauce I could serve with pasta, since we did not have any tomatoes on hand. Following Julia's instructions to the letter, the end-result was jaw-droppingly good for something so dead easy and fast (it takes all of 5 minutes). I have listed the recipe below for W's benefit, in case she is wondering what to cook for dinner (if you are wondering why I am up so late, I was rushing out those darned minutes!)

Simple Sauce Bechamel / Sauce Veloute, makes 2 cups

2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups of milk and 1/4 tsp salt heated to boil in small saucepan OR 2 cups boiling chicken / fish / clam stock (I used a mixture of scallop concentrate diluted with hot water, and some milk).
1 cup = 240ml

In a saucepan melt the butter over low heat. Blend in the flour, and cook slowly, stirring until the butter and flour froth together for 2 min without colouring. This is now a white roux.

Remove roux from heat. As soon as it has stopped bubbling, pour in all the hot liquid at once. Immediately beat vigourously with a wire whip to blend liquid and roux. Set saucepan over moderately high heat and stir with wire whip until sauce comes to boil. Boil for 1 min, stirring.

Remove from heat and beat in salt and pepper to taste. Spoon over chicken, fish, pastas, or use as a base for another recipe (a sauce bechamel is the base that is used for mac & cheese).

Note: Liquid to be poured into the roux must be very hot i.e. near boiling point. This will prevent lumps from forming. Variations of this highly versatile sauce - suggestions are to add cheese; onions; or fresh / dried herbs.

Italian-inspired Meatballs with Fresh Thyme

In addition to the tulips, E also brought back this pot of thyme from the nursery to add to our burgeoning herb garden. The thyme has a subtle lemony fragrance. I promptly used it in making these easy and tasty Italian-inspired meatballs for lunch. Mmm. There's nothing like fresh herbs.

Italian Inspired Meatballs (serves 3 to 4, makes about 16)

Chopped fresh thyme, 2 teaspoons

Chopped fresh rosemary, 1 teaspoon

Chopped fresh sweet basil, 2 teaspoons

Coarsely ground black pepper, 1 teaspoon

Salt, 1/2 teaspoon

200 g of minced pork (preferably a fattier mince, but add more oil if you only have lean mince. Alternatively, use a mix of beef and pork mince in a 2:1 proportion)

2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil

1 egg

Mix all the ingredients together and shape roughly into spherical balls, but not overly compressed (or the meatballs will taste tough and dry). Shallow fry in a non-stick pan with olive oil, until brown on both sides. Serve with pasta, topped with tomato sauce.

Oyster Omelette, "Or Luak"

I whipped up this easy one-dish meal as a Sunday lunch treat, seeing that I was having cravings for the hawker centre favourite of Oyster Omelette, which is better known as Or Luak. I modified a recipe featured in the Mar 2007 copy of Simply Her magazine - this is the low oil and healthy version which only has 180 calories per serving but still tastes good!

Serves 2 to 3

1/2 cup oysters (i used frozen)

5 tbsp sweet potato flour

100ml water

1 tbsp light soya sauce (i used fish sauce)

1 tbsp Chinese wine

1/4 tsp salt

dash of pepper

2 spring onions, cut into 3 cm lengths

chopped garlic

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3 sprigs coriander leaves (also known as chinese parsley or yuan sui), chopped

Chilli sauce and a wedge of lime, to serve (i used nandos hot sauce)

Season oysters with a splash of Chinese wine. Mix sweet potato flour, water, light soya sauce, salt, Chinese wine and pepper. Heat oil in large non-stick pan over a very hot fire, and saute garlic. Pour in sweet potato flour mixture, and wait for about 20 seconds or longer, until flour mixture becomes crisp at edges. Crack eggs over. When eggs are set, add oysters and spring onions. After 10 seconds, stir and break up omelette. Serve garnished with coriander and squeeze the lime over.

N.B. Use a large pan and hot fire, to ensure that the sweet potato mixture is spread thinly and can crisp well.

Baked Crab With Vermicelli

My dad is a very indifferent eater who doesn't bother one ounce about the distinction between good, average, mediocre or bad food. But the one dish that he does like quite a bit, is Thai style baked crab with vermicelli, especially when the vermicelli has been soaked through with copious amounts of sweet crab juice and chicken stock, and generously flavoured with garlic and chinese parsley. We usually order this dish at Thai Village Sharksfin restaurant, which is my mum's favourite restaurant, but it's not that difficult to make this dish at home.

So on Saturday afternoon, E and I made a special trip down to Tekka market (near the Serangoon road area) to buy live Sri Lankan crabs for this dish, as this type of crabs are much sweeter and meatier. [Note: we really like the newly renovated Tekka market. So much meat, vegetables and fruits of different variety, and cheap too! Can even get hard-to-find stuff like fresh bamboo shoots. ] This monster that we bought weighed a whopping 1.1 kg and cost SGD26, which was really reasonable. He put up a big fight, refusing to go to sleep even after 1 hour in the freezer and was a much tougher nut than we had thought to crack and clean, since his shell was super duper hard. E ended up having to use a hammer to whack at the shell before it gave way.

Eventually we managed to manhandle him into my largest claypot and cooked him up with vermicelli using this easy recipe from Ruth Lau. The baking takes about one hour but it was so worth it since the crab meat was really, really sweet and the vermicelli had soaked up the crabby juice goodness even if it was a tad fragmented (i forgot and left it soaking in hot chicken stock for too long, yikes). You can see my father relishing his crab in the background. My definition of simple happiness - cooking food for the ones you love and seeing them enjoy it so much, even if it is not quite up to restaurant quality (yet). It's really worth all the trouble!

Mentaiko Pasta

We had bought some mentaiko (spicy cod roe) during the Isetan Hokkaido fair. After having mentaiko on toast for breakfast for a few days, a goody portion of it was still sitting in the freezer. Since we also had sakura ebi in the freezer, it was super easy to whip up some mentaiko pasta using this cheery recipe from Chubby Hubby.

10g dried Sakura ebi

1/2 small onion, diced

1 tbsp butter

2 sacs mentaiko (I used 1 sac and found that more than adequate)

1/2 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise1

1/2 tbsp prawn oil (I used normal oil)

cappellini or linguine for 2

Cook the pasta in a big pot of vigourously boiling, generously salted water. When al-dente, drain and set aside. While cooking the pasta, saute the diced onions.

Put the butter, prawn oil and the mayo in a mixing bowl. Scrape the mentaiko out of the sacs and into the bowl. Tip in the sauteed onions, and mix all the ingredients together. Mix the sauce with the pasta. Toast the Sakura ebi and toss. Garnish with nori (dried seaweed) strips.

A very umami dish full of the essence of the sea, although I think I was a tad too enthusiastic with the butter, and since I had no nori on hand, replaced that with the shredded bonito. Good for an indulgent weekend lunch.

Vietnamese-style Pork Terrine

This pork terrine is absolutely fabulous, and a hoot to prepare. This recipe from Sylvia Tan first appeared in the Mind Your Body supplement to the Straits Times, which means that it is also a good-for-you meal. Jam-packed with lots of herbs, with some spice from the addition of red chillies, onions, and garlic, this is so super fragrant and more-ish that I kept on sneaking little bits to snack on. Just use a food processor to chop up the herbs if you don't want to be chopping for the better part of one hour like the first time I prepared this dish.

Vietnamese-style Pork Terrine
A bunch each of mint, basil, laksa and coriander leaves, chopped
2 large red chillies, deseeded and chopped
1/2 cup dried black fungus, soaked to rehydrate and chopped finely
500g lean minced pork
1 red onion, peeled and chopped finely
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped finely
salt to taste (I personally find that 1/2 teaspoon works well)
1 tsp fish sauce
white pepper to taste
1 egg

Mix the finely chopped herbs, chillies, black fungus, onion, garlic, and the egg, together with the minced pork. Season with the salt, fish sauce and pepper. Mix well and throw the mixture a few times against the side of the mixing bowl to get a bouncy texture when cooked.

Preheat the oven to 160 deg C. Oil the inside of a loaf tin or ramekin (or use the non-stick versions) and pack the seasoned meat in tightly. Cover with a piece of foil to keep the meat moist during the cooking. Place the filled loaf tin in an oven tray and pour water into the tray until it reaches half of the tin, to ensure gentle cooking. Cook for about half an hour in the oven. Check for done-ness by inserting a skewer into the centre - when the juice runs clear, it is cooked.

When cool, remove the terrine and slice. Eat with warm baguette slices, accompanied by fresh ettuce, and fresh mint/basil/coriander leaves.

Home-Made Orange Marmalade

Felt like having a little bit of sunshine in my life, had nothing much to do at that point, and on a bit of a fender-bender about natural foods. Definitely not because I felt Martha Stewart-ish. So, whiled the time away by making orange marmalade! It really is awfully easy, but requires a bit of time and patience. Even the premium jams consist of at most 40% fruit (the rest is sugar and gelling agents!) whereas if you make it yourself, your own jam will consist of at least 60% fruit. And the end result tastes so much vastly superior to store bought jams. A good use of 2 hours of time.

The substance which gives jam its semi-solid consistency is pectin, which occurs naturally in fruits (and eggs too!) to different levels. You can use fruits other than oranges, but the pectin levels differ so additives may have to be used to make other types of jam. Citrus fruits (their rinds to be technically correct), blackberries, redcurrents have very high levels of pectin so no additives required while strawberries are low pectin fruits so you do need to use additional pectin to make strawberry jam, either by using commercially derived pectin (available in baking stores) or lemon juice.

Makes about 2 regular jam jars

2 oranges, 1 lemon

Lots of sugar

Scrub the oranges and lemon well, and cut into quarters, leaving the rind on. Soak in 2 cups (480 ml) of water overnight. The next day, cut the fruit into fine shreds or dice them finely if it is easier. Reserve the soaking water.

[If you do not like the slightly bitter taste of the rind, remove the rind from 1 orange, do not chop it up, but reserve it for cooking since the rind has very high pectin levels which facilitates the jam to coagulate and become gel like. Otherwise you will end up with runny orange syrup.]

Cook the diced fruit together with the soaking water at a simmer for 1 hour, taste to ensure that the chopped up rind has softened. Measure out the cooked mixture at this point and add about 60 - 70% of the volume as sugar (i.e. if you have 1 bowl of cooked mixture, add 0.6 of a bowl of sugar into your saucepan). Continue cooking the mixture together with the sugar, over a very low heat. Stir regularly as high sugar mixtures tend to caramelise and burn easily. After about 20 minutes or so, test to see if the jam is ready. Scoop up a teaspoon of the jam and place in the fridge to cool down. The jam is ready when it does not flow back when you part it in the centre using your finger.

Scoop your lovely jam into pre-sterilized jam jars. You can do this while the jam is cooking by simply pouring boiling water over clean jam jars and then heating them in the oven at 200 deg C for 15 min. Use tongs to handle the jars and their covers, do not contaminate them once they have been sterilized.

Bon Appetit!

Teensy Egg Tarts

Teensy meensy egg tarts. These took a little bit more effort than my usual "lazy" recipes but turned out not too bad at all. Buttery and crumbly crust, although not quite enough custard filling, and the custard could have been a bit more jiggly. However, E took many without prompting, and continued eating one after the other, so I guess that's a kind of endorsement.

The day after I made this, I was reading Thomas Keller's Bouchon, which had a lot of helpful explanations about how to make quiche and why .....and it occurred to me that....egg tarts are actually the same as quiche! In light of this revelation, I have modified the original hit-and-miss recipe below (from Simply Her magazine) to incorporate Thomas Keller's nuggets of wisdom.

Recipe (makes about 23 mini egg tarts)
Pastry Crust: 120g flour, 80g butter, 2 tsp ice water, 1 egg yolk

Custard: 1 egg, 170ml milk, 60g castor sugar

To make the pastry, combine flour and butter and rub gently with fingertips until resembling breadcrumbs. Add ice water and a little of the egg yolk (you will not need the whole yolk) and mix to form a smooth dough. You will find that the dough is rather crumbly so add more liquid as needed for easy handling. Try not to handle or knead the dough too much, as you do not want gluten to form and become elastic/chewy rather than flaky. Chill at least 30 min or overnight before rolling out (in fact, better results if you freeze the dough and bake it still frozen).

When ready, roll the pastry into about 0.5 cm thickness and cut into approx 7 cm diameter circles with a cookie cutter (I use a knife and draw freehand). Fill mini muffin pans with the cut-out pastry circles, and line with dried beans (to keep the pastry from puffing up when it's being baked). Make sure that there are no cracks in the pastry, otherwise, patch it using dough scraps. Bake in a preheated 200 deg C oven for 20 min, until pastry shells are light brown.

Meanwhile, stir the custard ingredients together, ensuring that there are no bubbles. If you like, sieve for a more refined and smoother custard. Do not chill the mixture, it is important that the custard mixture should be at room temperature so that it can start cooking once it is in the oven (or it will saturate the pastry and make it soggy). Pour the custard mix into the baked pastry shells, and bake at 150 deg C, for about 15 - 20 min. The lower temperature allows the custard to set smoothly and not curdle. The custard may sink slightly in the middle upon cooking, if this happens, top up with more custard mix.

Mac & Cheese

The humble Macaroni and Cheese seems to have been enjoying a sudden new lease of popularity. Once derided as humble nursery fare and indeed E's impression of it is "horrible dessicated re-hydrated Kraft instant TV dinner", the Sunday Times carried a feature a few weeks back about how different restaurants have been reinventing their own versions (Morton's of Chicago, Spruce, The White Rabbit).

The version here is from Nigel Slater's The Kitchen Diaries, and I loved it. The herbs make all the difference, and I find it really attractive that one can easily whip up something so tasty with ingredients that are likely to be readily available in your pantry, and with very minimal effort.

Recipe (adapted from The Kitchen Diaries), serves 2

Small macaroni, penne or other short hollow dried pasta - 175g

full-cream milk: 500 ml

small onion, peeled and halved

a bay leaf

butter: 30g

plain flour: 30g

white peppercorns: 5 (I substituted this with a tiny pinch of dried mixed herbs)

Fontina cheese: 75g (I used aged mature cheddar which was what I had in the fridge)

smooth Dijon mustard: 0.5 teaspoon (I skipped this, not having any mustard)

grain mustard: 1 teaspoons (I skipped this)

fresh white breadcrumbs: 40g (I grated homemade bread to make breadcrumbs)

grated cheese - 2 tablespoons

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water until tender, about 8 -9 minutes, and drain well. Warm the milk in a saucepan with onion and bay leaves. Turn off the heat as it comes to the boil. Melt the butter in another pan, add the flour and stir over moderate heat until a pale biscuit-coloured paste forms. Gradually pour in the milk and whisk till there are no lumps, then simmer over a very low heat until the sauce is the consistency of double cream, stirring continuously all the while. Crush the white peppercorns and season the sauce with the white pepper, a good grinding of black pepper and very little salt. Fold the drained pasta, the diced cheese and the mustard into the sauce.

Tip the mixture into a gratin dish. Toss the breadcrumbs with the grated cheese and scatter over the top. Bake for about 35 minutes. Check after 25 minutes for burning.

Grilled Shishamo on Toast for Brekkie

In Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, he writes about having sardines on toast for a yummy breakfast or snack. Suitably inspired by his diary entry and since I had bought a huge pack of frozen shishamo - a type of small saltwater fish which is usually packed full of roe - I decided to panfry them and have them with the toasted delish home-made bread.

These little fish are a little hard to fry! (sorry, no pun intended). Use a non-stick pan, lightly oiled to prevent sticking. But bite into them and they are crispy and fragrant on the outside, and full of soft oozing savoury salty roe goodness on the inside. What could be more perfect for a slow and indulgent Sunday morning breakfast?

(Note: This breakfast might have been even more heavenly with a teeny squeeze of lemon juice and some chopped Chinese parsley. Try it out. )

Easy Home-made Bread

When I first came across this Artisan Bread in 5 minutes (Abin5) recipe concocted by a doctor, I was extremely sceptical. What, home-made bread without kneading and minimal proofing times??!! Being somewhat of a lazy cook prone to shortcuts, I had considered even Mark Bittman's famous no-knead bread (first made famous by the New York Times) out of the question, as it required lots of fiddly handling, messy towels and burns from hot cast iron pots aren't exactly my thing.

But back to Abin5 as its fans fondly call it. The basic recipe is absurdly simple, the time and effort needed, a mere doddle! My first attempt didn't turn out well - maybe my oven isn't that hot and has some cold spots? - while my second attempt was much, much better even if I did have to bake it for half an hour longer than the prescribed 30 minutes. It was nice and crusty (could be a bit more crusty, maybe I should add more steam into the oven), and had a slight sourd0ugh taste as I had left it in the tupperware container for 4 days (with an airtight lid! Oops! didn't read the instructions carefully) by the time I baked it. The inside of the bread was soft with nice crumb, and stayed soft the next day after re-heating. Slightly more dense than commercial breads, which use lots of nasty chemical stabilisers to achieve that effect anyway.

I think I'm onto something here....only, I'll have to remember not to use an airtight cover (let the gases released by the hardworking yeast escape!) and to bake the dough within 2 days if I don't want sourdough bread :-) Brilliant.

Recipe: Yields 4 loaves

1.5 tablespoons yeast

1.5 tablespoons sea salt

6.5 cups plain flour (1 cup is about 240 ml)

cornmeal for dusting

In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm water (slightly above body temperature). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours). See my dough monster below. It TRIPLED in size in 2 hours.

Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 230 deg C; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times (be liberal with your dusting of flour, otherwise the knife can't cut through the dough). Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Note: You don't have to use a baking stone. I baked mine in a oiled normal baking tin.

Meiling's Awesome Cheesecake Recipe

So here it is, Meiling's awesome "no-bake" cheesecake recipe. Turns out perfect every single time.

Crust

Crushed digestive biscuits, 150g

Unsalted butter, 50g

Honey, 1 tablespoon

Melt butter in a pan and add the crushed biscuits and honey. Mix while hot. Press hard onto a 7" or 8" springform pan or detachable cake round placed on base., ensure that base is compacted. Chill in refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Cheese Filling
Gelatine, 15 g. "bloom" in 75g of cold water for 20 min.

Lime Juice (Peel Fresh or other brand), 120g. N.B. You can use other types of fruit juice, e.g. pink guava, orange juice. Or even better, use freshly squeezed orange juice, as I did.

Cream cheese, preferably Philadelphia brand, 1 pack of 250g (leave at room temp for at least 1 hour to soften)

Castor sugar, 80g

Egg yolk, 2 (very clean, no egg white)

Whipping cream, 300g.

Steps

Boil "bloomed" gelatine mixture together with gelatine, juice, cream cheese and sugar. Stir and mix well until cheese has fully melted and there are no lumps. Use a little of the hot mixture to stir into the egg yolks, then pour back the hot egg yolk into the pot, stirring well (if you don't do this and add the egg yolks directly into the pot, you will end up with scrambled eggs). Cool the mixture while carrying out the next step.

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks (caution: DO NOT overwhip cream). Pour the cooled cheese mixture into the fresh whipped cream and mix well. Pour the cheese filling onto the prepared chilled crust, and chill for at least 2 hours or preferably overnight.

Slice and serve. Eat and enjoy.

Bouillabaisse, my way

It was 1230 pm by the time we got home last Saturday from an trip to Fassler seafood factory in Woodlands (another post, another time), and stomachs were growling angrily. What is fast to cook and good to eat, besides instant noodles?

Answer: Bouillabaisse, a traditional french fish stew made with a variety of firm-fleshed white fish and shellfish. A bottle of fish soup bought from Carrefour had been sitting in our pantry for some time. What could be simpler than to bring it to the boil, and add in chunks of fatty salmon belly, succulent oysters, and firm sweet prawns? (So I deviated from the "traditional" style of using non-oily fish. So? Tastes good to me. ) Sprinkle with chiffonaded parsley, and mop it up with chunks of crusty bread.

Bouillabaisse definition, from Wikepedia

Bouillabaisse is a traditional Provencal fish stew originating from the port city of Marseille. It is a fish soup containing different kinds of cooked fish and shellfish and vegetables, flavored with a variety of herbs and spices such as garlic, orange peel, basil, bay leaf, fennel and saffron. There are at least three kinds of fish in a traditional bouillabaisse, typically scorpionfish; sea robin; and European conger; and it can also include gilt-head bream; turbot; monkfish mullet; or silver hake. It also usually includes shellfish and other seafood such as sea urchins, mussels; small crabs; spider crab or octopus. More expensive versions may add langoustine. Vegetables such as leeks, onions, tomatoes, celery and potatoes are simmered together with the broth and served with the fish.

Handmade Dark Chocolate Orange Truffles

After a hiatus of three weeks caused by "work-related lack of sleep syndrome", I went back into the kitchen this weekend. First product - these handmade truffles, as a little Valentine's Day gift for E. Very easy to make and super tasting, but rather time consuming and fiddly. Labour of love indeed.

Dark Chocolate Orange Truffles

400g dark chocolate, chopped (I used 73.5% cocoa chocolate coverture)

300 ml full cream or whipping cream (at least 35%)

2 tablespoons of orange essence (or rum, kahlua, coffee, orange liqueur)

Heat up the cream until just barely boiling. Turn off the heat and put in the chocolate. Mix well, and allow to cool. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, till firm enough to roll. Using two teaspoons, scoop out a small quantity and shower with cocoa powder (this allows easy rolling so that the chocolate doesn't stick to your fingers and melt). Using the teaspoons and your fingertips, shape the truffle into a round ball and put into a candy paper cup.

Baked "Risotto" With Sundried Tomatoes

Facing a weekend of excesses where food was concerned (Michel Roux lunch and two wedding dinners), I decided to rest our poor stomachs for Sunday lunch and cook something healthy and simple, which was why I cooked a vegetarian baked risotto, the recipe of which I had stumbled upon a few months ago here. Despite me making so many modifications - for instance, I used jasmine rice instead of arborio rice, and omitted the cooking sherry - this was still really, really good.

The rice was fragrant and fluffy, slightly sticky and moist, sprinkled through with bits of sundried tomatoes, fresh herbs and sauteed onions. Served with mushrooms grilled in extra virgin olive oil with a sprinkling of sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and balsamic vinegar reduction. Yums! This recipe is definitely a keeper.