Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

I haven't disappeared but just been quite busy writing my 3000-5000 words philosophy of science assignment and now that I am near 'the light at the end of the tunnel', I wanted to share with you one of my favorite cheesecake, and from my favorite baker, Alex Goh of course!

I remembered I first tasted this cheesecake when I was 19 years old, at my first holiday job while waiting to enter university. This cake is so soft that it is referred as cotton cheesecake (not because there's cotton added to it :p). It's sort of like souffle - although I have not tasted one before but I can imagine it. A slight change I made was to use 50-50 ratio of milk and cream or you can stick to either one if you like but I used to buy one and leave in the fridge to enjoy a small piece the whole week. I think it was at first only available at Raffles City basement supermarket, they had a small counter outside and under Fiesta. Now I think it has changed it's name but what's distinctive about it is the cute cow embalm on top of the cake. I haven't figured out how to do that yet (Evelyn! maybe you can teach me!) but once I do, I'm going to put Singlish Swenglish on it! Heh! I did a green tea version before this too and it's really good too!! It will come up soon but stick with this one first.One step you should do properly is the beating of the egg white because that's the only thing that's helping it to raise. I find this website very useful if you want to be a bit more scientific about baking.

Ingredients
160g cream cheese
25g butter
60g milk
60g whipping cream
40g flour
30g cornflour
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
100g sugar
pinch of salt

Steps

1. Place in the bowl which you will be using over a pot of boiling water the cream cheese, butter, milk and cream. Using a whisk ( I like this one from Ikea, gets out all the lumps), stir over the double boiler until it is thick. Remove from the heat and set aside.
   
   
   
2. Mix the flour and cornflour in a separate bowl first, then add it gradually to the cheese mix, making sure to whisk constantly and ensure all the lumps are gone before adding more.It should be a smooth mixture after all the flour is added in.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees or 170 degrees if your baking pan is dark-colored.Separate the egg yolks and place the egg whites in a clean stainless steel mixing bowl. Add the egg yolk one by one into the cheese/flour mixture. Make sure each yolk is well incorporated before adding the next one.
   
   
   
   
4. Next, beat the egg whites with the mixer until it is foamy first, then add the cream of tartar, and then the sugar one tablespoon at a time until it is all added in. The eventual result should be at soft peak.
   
   
   
5. Add about 1/5 of the beaten egg white into the cheese mixture first to loosen up the mixture. Then fold it back to the egg white mixture. Don't mix it like you are stirring coffee! Be gentle and use a figure 8 motion. This should be what it looks like:
   
   
   
6. Pour it into a round 24cm pan which you have greased and lined. Wrap the outside of the pan with aluminum foil because its going to be baked in a water bath. Bake for about 40-45 minutes. I find that it does matter if you are using a light colored or dark colored baking pans because the latter requires a bit more time. And this is how I set up my water bath, by filling up one baking tray with hotwater and placing the cake pan in the middle of it.
   
   
   
7. Once it has turned firm (test with a skewer through the middle of the cake) and golden brown, remove the cake from the oven and from the mould immediately to let it cool. It will shrink if you let it cool in its mould.
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Be patient and wait for about 30 minutes if you can before slicing it. Here it is:
   
   
   
   
   and here
   
   
   
   and here's one that while I was eating it, it sort of just peel away showing the creamy softness, so I had to show you again!
   
   
   
   Ok, I got to go have one piece now :)
   
   
   
   
   
   

Beef with Cumin

I've only tried making this dish once but Johan seems to like it - reason being the cumin taste reminded him of Mexican food. It was a tad too strong by my taste but if he request for it, it can be easily whipped up even as you use the kind of beef usually reserve for braising by just cutting it against the grain. This is taken from Dunlop Fushia's 'Revolutionary Chinese Cooking - Recipes from the Hunan Province'

Ingredients

340g beef, sliced

2 teaspoon fresh ginger, finely chopped

1 tablespoon garlic, finely chopped

2 fresh red chilies, seeds discarded and finely chopped, or 1 chili padi, chopped finely

2-4 teaspoon dried chilli flakes

2 teaspoon ground cumin

salt to taste

2 spring onions, green parts only finely sliced

1 teaspoon sesame seed oil

400ml cooking oil.

Marinade

1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon light soy sauce

1 teaspoon dark soy sauce

1 tablespoon potato flour

1 tablespoon water

Steps

1. Marinade the beef for about 10-15 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients.
2. Heat the cooking oil to about 140 degrees C, or on high. Add the beef and stir gently. Once they have separated, remove from the oil and drain well.
3. Pour off all the oil leaving about 3 tablespoons and heat over high flame. Add the ginger, garlic, both chillies and cumin and stir fry briefly until fragrant. 
4. Add the beef into the pan and stir well so it coats evening, seasoning with some salt.
5. When all the ingredients are sizzling fragrant, add the spring onions and toss briefly. Turn off the heat and stir in the sesame seed oil and serve.
   
   
   

Mum's Soda Bread

No, it's not my mom's but Tony Tobin's mum's recipe for soda bread. I've always wondered about this bread which I've heard quite often and finally made it two months ago. It's not as daunting as it seems and actually keeps quite well. If its your first time making bread, this should be something you can master pretty easily. I got this recipe from a collection of recipes of UK cooks in a book called 'Saturday Kitchen Cookbook - The Top 100 recipes from the TV series'. I didn't get to see the show since I'm in Sweden, but some recipes seems quite interesting. The only thing is not all the recipes come with a picture, which I kinda of like in cookbooks, because you have something to expect and maybe less easy to go wrong? Or I'm just a picture person :)

The interesting tidbit about this bread is about the cross that's made on top. According to Wikipedia, it was suppose to a) ward off the devil or b) let the fairies out of the bread (??) or c) help air circulation so the cook rises and cook better or d) helps when slicing the bread to even out the portions. Which would you think it's true?

Ingredients (for 1 loaf)

450g wholemeal flour

225g self-raising flour or if you use ordinary flour, add 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder plus 1/4 teaspoon salt to every 140g of flour. (I got this tip from Joy of Baking)

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar

pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of sugar

600ml milk

250ml plain yoghurt

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Mix the wholemeal flour in a bowl with the self-raising flour, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar, salt and sugar.
2. Mix together the milk and yoghurt in a separate bowl and add to the flour to make a soft dough. Flour your hands generously and the work surface and knead lightly until the dough is smooth.
3. Shape the dough into a circle about 4cm deep, take a sharp, floured knife and cut a deep cross on the top.
4. Place on the baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes until crusty and brown, it should be ready when you hear the hollow sound when you tap on the bottom of the bread.
   
   

Taiwan Lu Rou Fan - Taiwanese Stew Pork Rice

Since I started my studies one month ago, I haven't really had so much time to explore recipes and this is actually a good time to catch up on my postings which are lagging a bit from when I made the dishes. This was done in early August for the first time, and I think it went really well with a dollap of Lao Gan Ma :). However, as this dish is quite oily, what you should/can do is to filter the top layer off, which you can do with one of those oil sieve, or sit the pot in the fridge for the top layer to form and you can take it off easily with a spoon.

Ingredients

1 medium onion, minced

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced

3-4 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked and diced

300g semi-fatty pork with distinct fat layer you can cut off separately, or pork belly. Diced the meat and fatty parts separately.

1 star anise

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

2-3 tablespoons light soy sauce to taste

Sugar to taste

2 whole hard-boiled eggs, peeled

Side dish

2 leaves of suancai, diced into large chunks

1 cloves of minced garlic

Sugar and salt to taste

Steps

1. Heat up a pot over medium heat and fry the fatty portion of the meat first, over medium heat until it is browned sufficiently. According to some videos I watched, this part is essentially to obtain thick gravy that is characteristic of this dish.
   
   
   
2. Add the onions, garlic to the pot first until slightly browned, then add the mushroom and the rest of the pork and stir fry the mix until the pork changes colour.
   
   
   
3. Add enough hot water to the pot to just cover the mixture and the soy sauces and bring it to a boil before turning down the heat to simmer for about an hour or until the meat turns tender. Add the eggs halfway so they are stewed at the same time.
   
   
   
4. While waiting, using a separate small pot, fry the minced garlic in a little oil until they are fragrant, then add the diced suancai and fry them until they seems a little dry, then add enough water to cover them, salt and sugar to taste and simmer over low heat until they just lose their crunch.
   
5. To serve, scoop over a bowl of rice, the pork stew, hard-boiled egg and suancai. Yums yums!
   
   
   
   
   

Swedish Kalops or Beef Stew with Allspice

I have made beef stew before but this has a distinct flavor that I can only account for due to the use of allspice or kryddpepper. They look like black peppercorns but bigger and smells like a combination of cloves, star anise and other fragrant spices. I tried this when I went for lunch with my colleague at Finn Inn, a lunch restaurant near my office. It was on a Thursday since they were serving yellow pea soup and Swedish pancakes and this dish seems perfect for the cold autumn we have been experiencing. They served it with fried potato chunks instead of boiled potatoes and that was what I made too and seasoned them with salt, pepper and some chopped parsley. The other quite distinct feature about this is the pickled beet roots, which you can buy off the shelf or try making from fresh ones if you can't find any (I'll give you the recipe at the end). These recipes are from a book called 'Very Swedish' by Annica Triberg, Per Ranung and Tore Hagman, which we got as a wedding present from our dear friend, Lisbeth.

Ingredients (serves 2)

600g beef chunks for stewing purposes

2 medium size onions or 1 large onion, cut into large segments

1 carrot, cut into 3cm chunks

1 tablespoon or 15g butter

6-7 whole allspice

3 white peppercorns

2 small or 1 large bay leaf

1/2 cube beef stock

1.5 tablespoon cornstarch

salt, white pepper for seasoning

Steps

1.  Heat the butter in a pot and sear the beef chunks. 
2. Add the carrots and onions when the beef is browned and fry with the meat for about a minute or two.
   
   
   
3. Add hot water just enough to cover the beef and add the spices and beef stock and boil over low heat for about 90 minutes or until beef chunks is tender.
   
   
   
4. Just before serving, dissolve the cornstarch with a little water and stir into the stew to thicken it. Season with salt and pepper and serve with the beetroot and fried potatoes.
   
   
   
   
   
   To pickle your own beetroots (this should make you more than 2 portions):
   Ingredients:12-15 small beetroots, salt, 100ml spirit vinegar (12%), 160g sugar, 300ml water, 3-4 whole allspice, 3-4 whole white peppercorns
   Steps: Boil the beetroots in lightly salted water until they are soft. Pour off the water and peel the beets and subsequently placed in a jar. Boil the pickling solution of the vinegar, sugar, water and spices and stir in  the sugar until it dissolves. Let it cool before pouring over the beetroots and cover, store overnight before use. I haven't tried this yet so let me know if you do!
   
   

Banh Cuon or Vietnamese Steam Rice Rolls

Ok, for the second challenge its to tackle a classic dish from another culture - which is something I'm always up to! I love it that even when you try some dishes from some place you think would be familiar to you, like China, you can be surprised even with just marinating or cooking the ingredients in a different order than you are used to.

This is quite a classic dish from Vietnam, though I haven't been there personally myself, I do like their beef Pho and generous use of 'green things' in their cuisine. This dish is 'a mistake in disguise' because I actually wanted to make Chee Cheong Fan, which is another form of steam rice sheets but Chinese style, a bit thicker and more floury in taste and eaten with sweet sauce sprinkled with sesame seeds. I saw this mixture at the Asian stores in Malmö and bought them, only to realize it wasn't really the same thing. So, making the best of my mistake is to try making it and with some internet research and combining some ideas from here and there, this is the product of the experiment. The verdict is that its actually quite nice, but it's not as light as it seems and one should probably be happy with 2-3 rolls at most at any one time.

Ingredients
150-200g minced pork
A loose handful of dried black wood's ear (they expand quite a bit after you soak them in water, so be conservative)
Pepper, for seasoning
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
Fish sauce, a couple of teaspoon for seasoning the filling, and 2.5 tablespoon for the dipping sauce
1/3 packet of Banh Cuon mix or you can refer to ravenouscouple's blog for the appropriate batter mix
Water, as according to packet instruction or recipe
2 sliced chili padi
1 lime
sugar to taste

Steps

1. Mix the batter according to instructions and leave it to rest while you prepare the minced pork filling. It should be a cream-like consistency.
   
   
   
2. Diced up the wood ears, then heat up about 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan over medium heat and add in the minced garlic and shallot first, frying till they are slightly brown before adding in the minced pork. Fry till they are almost cooked through and add in the fish sauce and pepper to taste. When done, dish it up and set aside to cool.
   
   
   
3. Prepare the dipping sauce by mixing 2.5 tablespoon of fish sauce with 3 tablespoons of sugar, 4 tablespoons of lime juice and 150ml of water, together with the sliced chili padi, and if you like a clove of minced garlic. You can adjust the taste of the sauce according to your preference, example if you like it spicier, add more chili. Set aside for the final assembly.
4. Next, prepare a steamer for the rice sheets. I did a few trials, firstly by using a cheesecloth as portrayed some blogs I saw, and ladling the batter on top to steam, but it was too difficult and they get stuck onto the sheet. In the end I used my trusty 555 metal plate  which I got from Singapore and set it in my bamboo steamer, oiling the plate a little first, (or any steaming equipment you might have) for it to get hot first. Then, pour in 1 ladle of batter (which should be sufficient to cover the base of the plate not too thickly) onto metal plate and cover it, steaming over medium heat for a couple of minutes until it turns translucent and there are no uncooked batter on the sheet. You have to repeat this process until you use up your batter.
   
   
   
   
5. Using a spoon, tear off the steamed rice sheet off the plate onto an oiled surface and you can add the fillings at this point. The amount is dependent on your preference and I like a hearty roll, as you can tell ;)
   
   
   
6. Sliced up some cucumbers to be served with the rolls and the dipping sauce.
   
   
   
   
   

The Muffin Project - Cheese and Ham Muffin (Ost & Skinkmuffins)

I finally feel confident enough in my Swedish to buy a Swedish cookbook, and this book is all about muffins. I've decided I want to make all the muffins from this book because it has very unusual muffins recipes like broccoli and onions or asparagus muffins. The idea that muffin is not only a sweet product sits strange with some and I want to try to break that conception. And I think that's what defines my food blog - being able and willing to try new things from different cultures and keeping an open and excited mind on the possibility to know new ways of cooking and taste. O and if you are interested to vote for my entries on Project Food Blog, you can click here :)

And of course the fun thing when having such an experimental project this time round is I get to buy all sorts of new and healthier flour to use according to the recipes in this cookbook by Johan Åkerberg. I'm going to try the muffins as and when I have all the ingredients available and the first one is based on my Johan's two favorite ingredients - ham and cheese. Our verdict of this muffin is that while it is a bit dry, it's quite a healthy and filling muffin to have and one is sufficient to get you through lunch.

Jag känner mig äntligen säker i min svenska för att köpa ett svenskt kokbok, och den här boken handlar om muffins. Jag har bestämt mig jag vill göra alla muffins från den här boken eftersom det har mycket ovanlig muffins recept som broccoli och lök och sparris muffins. Tanken att muffin är inte bara en söt produkt är kanske konstigt med vissa och jag vill försöka bryta denna uppfattning. Och det roliga sak är att jag får köpa mer hälsosammare mjöl som man använda enligt recepten i denna kokbok av Johan Åkerberg. Den första är baserad på min Johans två favorit ingredienser - skinka och ost. Våra åsikt av denna muffin är att  det är lite torr men det är en ganska sund och fyllning muffin att ha och en är tillräcklig för att ta dig igenom lunch.

Ingredients (Makes 6-8)

3 dl wholemeal flour (fullkornsvetemjöl)

1 dl  graham flour  (grahamsmjöl)

1 dl rye flour (rågsikt)

2 teaspoons baking powder (bakpulver)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon chili powder (chilipulver)

100g cheese, grated (ost)

100g smoked ham, cut into strips (rökt skinka, strimlad)

2 egg (ägg)

2 1/4 dl milk (mjölk)

3/4 dl rapeseed oil (rapsolja)

Grated cheese for toppings (riven ost)

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Sieve the flours into a large mixing bowl, together with the baking powder, salt and chili powder.
3. Add in the grated cheese and ham into the mixture.
4. In another bowl, mix the eggs, milk and oil together until well combined.
5. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and combine thoroughly.
6. Line the muffin pan with muffin cups, and add fill each to about 3/4 of the way, and top it up with some grated cheese.
   
   
   
   
   
7. Bake for about 20-30 minutes.