Korean Sauce Pineapple Cucumber Salad

This is a rhapsody to my previous Korean Spicy Cucumber salad recipe with the addition of pineapple chunks and my new found Korean SsamJang sauce. I love preparing this salad and refrigerate it before I head out to buy my Hainanese Chicken Rice meals 😋

SsamJang sauce is made by blending Deonjang and Gochujang
together to form a sweet, savory and spicy Korean condiment
This sauce can be found in Korean food store.

Serving: 3 to 4 persons

Ingredients

130g kyuri/Japanese cucumber, cut into thin slices
3g low sodium fine salt

90g honey pineapple chunks, squeeze dry

Sauce

20g Korean Ssamjang sauce
10g raw sugar
juice from one green lime
7g spring onion, finely cut
5g garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp roasted sesame seeds
1/2 tsp sesame oil

Directions

1. Cut Japanese cucumber into thin slices.

2. Cut honey pineapple into thin chunks and squeeze out about 30 to 40% of the juice.
 Keep the pineapple juice. I'll share with you how I make use of the pineapple juice at the end of the recipe 😊

3. Finely cut the spring onion and garlic. Set aside.

4. Add about 3g of low sodium fine salt to the cucumber slices.

Rub the salt onto all the cucumber slices. Cover and stand for about 15 minutes to drain the excess cucumber juice out.

Drain away the cucumber juice, and squeeze the cucumber slices to get rid of excess juice trapped.

5. Mix all the sauce ingredients together into a smooth paste.

6. Mix the sauce with the cucumber slices and pineapple chunks in a big bowl.

7. Transfer the salad to a glass container. Seal with double sheets of cling wrap.

Keep the container in an inverted air-tight container.
The garlic and spring onion in the salad have a pungent smell that will linger in the fridge and affect other food kept in the fridge. I found out by storing the salad in an inverted air-tight container, it cut down or slow down the "smell contamination" process. If you store the salad in an upright air-tight container, you'll find the fridge smell like garlic and spring onion after one hour.😉

Refrigerate for about one hour.

8. Serve it cold 😋

Yummy pineapple juice for the cook 😄

Add a little honey and an ice cube to about 30ml of pineapple juice collected earlier. Wait for about 5 minutes for the ice to melt. This is a small treat just for the cook - too little to share 😜

One-Egg Semolina Egg Tarts

I have to admit that I am not very skillful in shaping the tart shell - the base seemed thicker than the wall. Practice makes perfect, hopefully you would be able to see my improvement over time 😉

What makes this tart shell different from my previous recipe - I added some semolina flour to the cookie dough which gave it a distinct lightly sandy texture. The tiny grains of semolina makes the bite a little crunchy when your teeth land on the grains 😋

Yield: 4 egg tarts

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature
Using 55g Omega 3&6 egg

Tart Shell

30g unsalted butter, softened
15g  icing sugar
1g low-sodium fine salt *
10g beaten egg
36g all purpose flour

20g semolina flour/all purpose flour

4g rice flour/all purpose flour

Custard Filling

about 45g beaten egg, i.e. the remaining beaten egg
10g caster sugar

5g golden syrup/caster sugar

Pinch of salt

45g milk
10g whipping cream/milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

* this is the low sodium fine salt

Directions

1. Combine softened butter with icing sugar and salt till pale and smooth.

2. Mix in 10g of beaten egg.

3. Combine all purpose flour, semolina flour and rice flour in a bowl.

Sieve and fold in the flour mixture, and combine into a smooth dough.

Wrap the dough in a sheet of cling wrap. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes in room temperature. If you did not add semolina flour, you can let the dough refrigerate for 30 minutes straight away.

And refrigerate it for about 30 minutes.

4. While waiting for the dough, prepare the egg custard filling.
Combine the remaining beaten egg with caster sugar, salt, milk, golden syrup, whipping cream and vanilla extract in a small bowl.

Run the mixture through a sieve into a measuring glass.

I collected about 100ml of custard mixture. Cover and set aside.

5. Divide the dough into 4 portions and roll them into balls.

Use the "curve of your inner thumb" to press, and push the dough following the contour of the tart mould.

Prick the base of the tart shell with a fork to create some ventilation holes for steam to escape.

6. Place the tart moulds in a baking tray,

and bake at the second top rack of a preheated oven at 180℃ for about 12~15 minutes, or till the tarts turn opaque and you can smell the aroma of the cookies.

7. Transfer the tart shells out of the oven. Give the custard filling a few stirs, and pour into the 4 hot tart shells.

 8. Reduce the temperature to 160℃ and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, or till the custard is set.

To test whether the custard is set, insert a tooth pick into the custard, it should be able to stand on its own.

 9. Let the tarts cool down for about 10 minutes before unmoulding them. I find it easier to remove the tarts from the mould when it is still warm, otherwise the tart will stick to the mould.

 Serve warm or cold 😋