01012011 - New Year Eve's Dinner - Beef Wellington

This was actually my 2009 resolution - i.e to try making beef wellington after hearing it all the time in Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen. I don't love the show but I do choose to watch food-related shows most of the time - didn't enjoy his swearing attitude very much to be honest. However, this seems like the perfect dish to bless our friends with for a 3-course New Year Eve's dinner and thankfully, it turn out quite well except the beef is medium rare while I would have preferred it well-done. The prosciutto can be quite salty, so go easy on the seasoning for the mushroom duxelles and try to taste your prosciutto if you can and balance the saltiness for the dish as a whole. Johan loves it though but he knows it's probably going to be a dish I will make only once a year. 

I watched quite a few videos (including Gordan Ramsey's F-word) to be sure of the process, the direction which to place the beef fillet etc and came across this one - which is quite funny, especially the part which involved the fan. Cooking's about trial and error, just don't be afraid to make a mistake :) I got the recipe from BBC's website, so this one is my version with some changes in ingredients

Ingredients

Beef fillet around 1kg
3 tbsp olive oil
250g button mushrooms with some chestnut mushroom
half an large onion
2 cloves of garlic
Some mustard
Salt & pepper for seasoning
50g butter
1 teaspoon dried thyme
100ml white wine
10 slices prosciutto
500g pack puff pastry , thawed if frozen or 1 sheet of fresh puff pastry
1 egg beaten

Steps

1. First, prepare the beef fillet by trimming off any sinews and choosing the part that is a whole, even block that will fit the length of your fresh puff pastry, if using.
   
   
   
2. Season with salt and pepper while you are firing up a really hot pan to sear the beef. I used a mushroom seasoned sea salt flakes that I got from Ikea, they are really good for roasting chicken too!
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. After searing the beef, bake it in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, depending on how well you like your beef to be done. This part of the recipe differs from versions you might find on the web but you should note that it is complemented subsequently by a longer or shorter roasting time. For my version, it turned out mostly medium rare which is the way Johan likes it (but not me). For my portion, I might leave it roasting a while more at this stage.
   
   
   
4. Place the beef fillet on a rack to rest and smear on the mustard while it's still warm and let it cool while you prepare the mushroom duxelles.
   
   
   
5. Chopped the mushrooms and onions in a food processor but not too finely. You can, of course do it manually but I was making for 12 portions. Watching or reading the tips from the BBC recipe will help at this point too.
   
   
   
6. Heat up 1 tablespoon of butter and add in the mushroom mix. It is at this stage you need quite a bit of patience, the recipe said to fry it until the moisture evaporates and you should get a paste that should hold its shape. I find that it took me longer than 10 minutes, since it was a larger portion but you should really play it by ear and make sure its not wet and definitely not too dry before you add the wine. Just imagine that it will be resting on a layer of prosciutto, surrounding the beef and you wouldn't want the moisture to soak through the pastry.
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. When the mushroom duxelles is ready, add the wine and repeat the frying and extend your patience a little more until you reach the same consistency as before. Let it cool before assembling.
   
   
   
8. Prepare a two-layered cling film that is larger than the pastry sheet and overlap the prosciutto carefully in a double row. This part takes some time too because the prosciutto I bought were very thin and already overlapping in the package, so it took sometime to separate them and put them together. There were some parts at the bottom that broke off, but the overall idea is to form a sheet of prosciutto that is larger than your beef fillet when laid vertically between the two rows and it should not have any gap showing since it is supposed to surround the beef fillet.
   
   
   
   
   
9. Spread the mushroom duxelles on the prosciutto layer, you may need the help of a butter knife and your fingers to make it an even, unbroken layer.
   
   
   
10. Then lay the beef fillet in the direction as shown in the picture and lift one side of the clingfilm across the beef fillet tightly, then overlap the other side by doing the same so you get a prosciutto-surrounded beef fillet.
    
    
    
11. Twist it tight like Gordan Ramsey shows in his video and let it chill in the fridge for 20-30 minutes.
    
    
    
12. Spread out the puff pastry on a non-stick surface and brush one side with egg wash, then place the beef roll on, brush egg wash on the other part of the pastry and drap it over the beef roll, making sure there are no air pockets between the pastry and beef roll.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
13. Use the handle of a teaspoon and indent the sides of the beef wellington roll. Score the top part with the back of a knife if you wish to be fancy. (I did, haha) However, don't press too hard or you will risk cutting through the pastry layer.
    
    
    
14. Place on the baking rack/tray you will be baking it in, and put it back into the fridge to chill for 3 hours, or up to 24 hours.
    
    
    
15. Brush it with egg wash when you are going to bake it. Bake it at 200°C for 25-30 minutes, and let it rest for 10 minutes before slicing it thickly to serve with mash potatoes and some green things.
    
    
    
    
    

01012011 - 3 Course New Year Eve's Dinner with Friends - Shrimps Bisque

2010 was a good year for us, Johan graduated and got a job almost immediately, I was blessed with a PhD position, we got a new puppy and we thought what better way to celebrate than have a nice 3-course dinner at our place with friends. So here's the menu we presented last night:

Starter

Shrimp Bisque

Main Course

Beef Wellington

Mash Potatoes with a dash of truffle oil 

Stir-Fried Haricot Verts & Carrots

Dessert

Lemon Fool

And we'll start off with the recipe for the Shrimp Bisque, which I got out of a weekly advertisement from Coop Forum, a supermarket chain here. I adapted the recipe a bit, with some other tips I picked up from websites, and also tripled the portion since there were 12 of us last night. This is made from frozen Artic Shrimps, which has lotsa of roe but after peeling, there are not much meat. However, it's really sweet and tasty and you can eat them fresh without cooking them and I liked this soup quite a bit, I think it will be equally good with fresh or tiger prawns.

Ingredients (Serves 4)
2 tablespoon butter
50g chopped shallots
2 cloves of garlic
100g celeriac, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato puree
400ml water
150ml white wine

500g shrimps, shelled but save the shells
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 turns of freshly ground black pepper
150ml thick cream
garnish with shelled prawns and parsley

Steps

1. Heat up the 2 tablespoon of butter in a pot and sweat the shallots and celeriac over medium heat until slight soft before adding the tomato puree to stir well together.
   
   
   
   Chopped onions, garlic and celeriac
2. Add the water and the wine and let it simmer while you prepare the shrimps. Save the shells and a few nicer shrimps for garnishing.
   
   
   
3. In a separate pan, heat up the 1 tablespoon of butter over a hot pan and add in the shells, salt and pepper and cook for about 5 minutes. Add it to the soup stock and season with salt and pepper and continue letting simmer for about 15-20 minutes.
   
   
   
4. At this point, you can choose to finely chop the remaining shrimps or leave them whole to add to the soup. If you decide to blend them, just remember the consistency will be like of a chunky soup, instead of smooth like pumpkin soup. Add some stock to help the blending.
   
   
   
5. Sieve the stock and get rid of the solids. Pour the stock back to the pot with the shrimps and add in the cream, season with salt and pepper to taste.
   
   
   
   
   
6. Garnish with prawns and parsley, and some shrimp roe if you have any and serve hot.
   
   
   

Gingerbread Cake

This may be a little bit late but I made this for our annual Donald Duck Fika - 3pm Swedish time when they started showing classic Disney cartoon snippets, and a few new ones in the end. It's how the Ljungströms do it every year before the Christmas dinner and I've come to love it, especially this year when the dogs (Disa and Wiki) chasing each other around the room proved to be more interesting during the not so exciting parts of the cartoon medley.

It's quite surprising to me(still) how the simple combination of spices intensifies so much after you bake the cake. The addition of lingonberry jam makes the cake slightly moist and sticky, a good thing I reckon.

I got this recipe from my mother-in-grace, which I think comes from some Swedish newspaper or catalogue some time, but its the same one as the one from Anne's foodblog, but I used quark and vanilla yogurt instead. Try it if you like the gingerbread taste, it's really good for winter tummy warmer, like our sweet ginger soup.

Ingredients

100 g butter
100 ml lingonberry jam
2 eggs
200 g sugar
75 ml quark
75 ml vanilla yogurt
180 g flour
1.5 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Steps

1. Melt the butter and when slightly cooled, add the lingonberry jam and stir well. 
2. Mix the flour with the baking soda, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and salt. 
3. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar until very fluffy. Add the quark and yogurt, mix well before adding in the flour mixture, and finally the butter-lingonberry mixture.
   
   
   
   
4. Pour everything into a buttered cake pan and bake at 175°C for about 20 minutes or until your cake skewer comes out clean when you try stick it in the middle of the cake.
   
   
   
5. This can be frozen and serve when you have an impromptu fika session. 

Swedish Gingerbread Cookies! eller Pepparkakor

Just four more days to Christmas! This year it's especially special since we are spending it with full Swedish Christmas works and I fulfilled a promise to myself from last year to make my own gingerbread dough from scratch, and I draw the recipe from Anne's foodblog who declared this to be the best recipe for gingerbread cookies. I think I will agree with her :) The key about baking this cookies is to roll them really thin, because they will rise and become a bit chewy rather than crunchy if you have them too thick. And this recipe really makes a lot, I even gave away some dough for my friends who came over for my Sugar-High Christmas baking session and here's some other goodies we conjured up last Sunday:

Gingerbread Milkshake by Rachel

Pecan, Peanuts and Sesame Brittle by Yaqian & Pan Wen

And there's a heavenly sticky toffee cake which Rachel made too that I forgot to take a picture of, but I will definitely try to make it again (soon!). On Thursday, I will try making the Swedish Knäck and Saffron buns again for the family who's coming over for Donald Duck fika at our place before the Christmas dinner.

Ingredients

300 ml cream (35-40% fat content)
300 ml golden syrup
700 g granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon, in powder form
1.5 teaspoons cloves, in powder form
1 teaspoon cardamom, in powder form
1/2 teaspoon bitter orange peel, in powder form
2 teaspoon ginger, in powder form
1.5 tablespoon baking soda
1 kg plain flour

Steps

1. In a large bowl, mix the cream, golden syrup and sugar together well, until it becomes this golden sugary mix.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Add the spices to the sugar mix and blend well.
   
   
3. Add the flour gradually until a nice supple dough is achieved, it shouldn't be too sticky but it should  hold together well on its own.
4. Divide up into portions and wrap in plastic wrap, keep it in the fridge (not freezer) for a week or two for the spices to intensify.
   
   
5. Roll out the dough thinly, cut with cookie cutters and bake at 160°C for 7-10 minutes until golden brown and crunchy.
   
   
   
   
   

Spicy Stir Fry Zucchini with Crispy Dried Shrimps

西葫蘆 or Zucchini or courgette is something I've never eaten or seldom cook though it is readily available here in Sweden. It looks like a cucumber but it does not have as much water content and the flesh is kinda...like that of an aubergine when you cut it. The real surprise is that when you Wikipedia it, botanically it's an immature fruit and the ovary of the female flower.(Bet you didn't know that!)

I only knew how to use it in the Korean Dough Noodles, I've made Zucchini Muffins (will post it soon), and I've seen my mother-in-law use it in her Ljungströms grönsaker mix (green things mix, basically a mix of root vegetables that goes very well with slabs of meat). My current favourite, however, is this dish which I tasted when a fellow PHD colleague, Yaqian cooked it for her birthday meal which I was honored to be invited to. The meal was delicious but this was a dish that made me went back for seconds. She learnt it from her mom who is a great cook (auntie I was to try your cooking one day!) and who produced a good disciple :) Yaqian is also one of my faithful fans at this blog and Singlish Swenglish Facebook page. I've made a slight addition of crispy fried shrimps and it just seals the deal for me, but it is good without it as well.

The beauty about mandarin is that is only takes a few lines to describe how to make this dish but much longer in English:

先热油 然后放花椒 等有香味后 把花椒捞出来扔掉

再放干辣椒 和葱段

有香味后 放zucchini 炒一炒

然后加生抽 和糖 再放醋和蒜末 最后放点盐和味精 就好了(Direct quote from Chef Yaqian)

Ingredients

1 zucchini/courgette, washed, cut lengthwise into half, then sliced it thickly into semi-circle pieces

1-2 spring onions, white-green parts only sliced into 3cm sections

1 clove of garlic, minced

Small handful of dried shrimps, washed and dried

4-5 small dried chili, cut into halves and remove the seeds

2 teaspoons of Szechuan peppercorns, whole  

Soy sauce, sugar, chinese vinegar and some chick stock granules for seasoning
Oil for cooking

Steps

1. Heat a pan and without adding any oil, stir fry the dried shrimps first to remove any moisture. Add about 1 tablespoon of oil subsequently to fry over low heat until it is crispy. Remove and set aside for use later.
   
   
2. Add in about 2-3 tablespoon of oil to the pan over medium heat and add the Szechuan peppercorns until you smell the fragrance and the peppercorns turns slightly brown and remove it from the oil. Be careful not to burn it! The pan should not be smoking.
3. Next, add the dried chili and spring onions, stir fry until the spring onions are slightly wilted before adding the minced garlic.
4. Fry for another 5 seconds and add the zucchini to stir fry until they just turn soft. If the flesh are translucent, they are already cooked all the way, so this part depends a bit on your own preferences if you like it slightly crunchier or with a slight bite. 
5. Just before they are done, add in about 2 tablespoons light soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon vinegar, a sprinkle of chicken stock granules, the dried shrimps and mix it up well, taste and adjust accordingly. There's no need to add water at any stage because the zucchini should produce just enough to coat all the ingredients. Serve hot, goes very well with rice!
   
   

 

Saffron Bread Cake / Saffranskrans med vanilj

The first weekend of December in Sweden always makes me feel good because that's when people starts putting up the Christmas stars and candles at their windows and it makes the dark winter days/nights seem just a tad warmer. 

I also decided to make my apartment a little warmer by baking this, saffron buns but in a cake form. Saffron buns are typically eaten during Christmas in Sweden and this version is much richer than the normal saffron buns which are just sweet plain buns with a saffron addition. This one is kinda of made like a cinnamon bun and then squeezed into a round mould and baked and it feeds quite a few people. This was taken from the local supermarket free Christmas baking magazine.

Ingredients (makes 10-12 pieces of buns)

50g butter or margarine

1 packet of saffron (about 0.5g)

2 dl or 200ml milk

15g fresh yeast for sweet dough or equivalent amount of dried yeast

1/2 dl  or 50ml of quark/curd cheese

1/2 dl granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

5-6 dl plain flour

Filling

75g softened butter or margarine 

1/2 dl granulated sugar

1-2 teaspoon vanilla sugar

Almond paste (optional)

Decoration

1 egg

Pearl sugar

Steps

1. Crumble the fresh yeast in a bowl. Melt the butter/margarine in a small pan and add in the saffron and milk and stir together and warm/let it cool to 37°C before pouring and mixing well with the yeast.
   
   
   
   Butter/margarine, milk and saffron mixture (looks like curry I know!)
   
2. Add in the quark/curd cheese, sugar and salt and blend well. Gradually add all the flour except for some to be used when working the the dough later. Work the dough until it comes together for about 5 minutes in a machine or 10 minutes by hand. It should be a soft, but not sticky dough. Cover with a towel and let it proof for 30-45 minutes in a warm place in the kitchen.
   
   
   
   Before proofing
   
   
   
   After proofing
   
3. Prepare the filling by mixing the butter/margarine, sugar and vanilla sugar together in a bowl. It helps if the butter/margarine has been soften quite a bit. Grease the cake mould (24cm) and line the bottom with baking paper.
   
   
   
4. On a floured surface, roll out the dough out to a rectangle about 25 X 50cm. Spread the filling equally and roll it up from the longer side. Cut into 4cm bits and put them in the cake mould flat side up.
   
   
   
   
5. Cover the cake form with a towel again and let it proof for about 40 minutes. The buns should filled up the cake mould nicely by now. Preheat the oven to 200°C during the last 10 minutes.
   
   
   
   
6. Brush with eggwash and sprinkle the pearl sugar over before baking at the lower rack of the oven for 20-25 minutes. Cool before serving.

Korean Mee Hoon Kuay / Korean Dough Noodles

Nothing warms the heart or a cold body more than a pot of pipping hot noodles in soup, and this is a healthy (in my opinion) version of the popular Mee Hoon Kuay. This was being made while we were learning the fine art of kimchi making with Ajin, who's back in Korea right now, but soon will be joining the team of Doctors without borders program in pursuit of her passion.

The thing about Korean cooking is not just about using natural ingredients but that they celebrate the colors of life, which is why many of their food are so cheery and colorful. the combination of carrots, potatoes and zucchini in this manner is for me a strange one at first but definitely one I came to like very much. I bought the Korean stock ingredients at the Korean store at Bencoolen Street and Cineleisure. They were not very cheap but can last for quite a while.

Ingredients (for 2-3 servings)

Peeled and finely grated carrots (about 2 small or 1 medium)

Plain flour, about 300g, or as you see fit for two servings

Half a zucchini, peeled if preferred

2 small or 1 large potato

3-4 pieces Korean anchovies (they are the XXL version of what we normally eat for chinese/malay dishes, innards intact)

3-4 pieces Korean dried shrimps (also large version)

Dried Korean kelp sheets or Japanese Kunbu, about 3-4 squares

Salt and pepper to taste

Steps

1.  In the same manner you would mix the dough for mee hoon kuay, just add in the grated carrots into the flour, add a bit of salt to taste and add cold water gradually till the dough comes together without feeling sticky.
   
   
   
2. Cover the dough and let it rest for about 20 minutes, it will make it easier to stretch the longer you rest it. Set aside while you prepare the stock.
   
   
   
3. Bring a pot of water to boil, about a liter and placed the anchovies, shrimps and kelp in a stock bag (you can get those at Daiso or supermarkets in Singapore) and add it to the boiling water and turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes. The longer you let it simmer, the better the stock will be, the same as if you were to increase the stock ingredients. It should be a light clear stock.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Peel the zucchini, or like me, I peel it in alternate stripes so some skin are still left. Peel the potatoes completely though, and cut them into large chunks of equal sizes and add it to the stock. Let it simmer till the vegetables are al dente before taking the dough and stretching it with your hands into bite size pieces and dropping it into the stock.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Cooked it until the dough noodles are done (they should float up and look softer and more 'gooey'). Add some salt and pepper to taste and serve hot!
   
   
   
   Before
   
   After