Thursday 27 December 2012

Steamed broccoli 蒸西兰花


Ingredients:

1 stem broccoli
1/2 tsp oyster sauce
1/8 tsp light soya sauce
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
100ml water
1 tsp potato starch

Direction:
1. Wash the broccoli and cut into floret.

2. Soak in salt water for 5 minutes before steaming.

3. Drain the broccoli florets and steam in high heat for about 5 minutes if you like them crunchy, or 8 minutes if you prefer softer. Remove from steamer and set aside.
If you prefer more flavour, you can prepare a light gravy to pour over the cooked broccoli.

4. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a preheated pot. Pour in a mixture oyster sauce, light soya sauce, salt, sugar, water and potato starch. Stop heating once the sauce thickens.

5. Pour the gravy over the broccoli and serve warm with rice :)



steamed in rice cooker






Wednesday 26 December 2012

Happycall seaweed omelette


Ingredients:
1/2 rice bowl fresh loose seaweed
2 eggs
1 tsp white sesame seeds, roasted
1/8 tsp black sesame seeds, roasted
1 tsp oyster sauce
1 tsp corn starch

Directions:
1. Rinse seaweed as instructed by seller. Cut the seaweed into bit size.

2. Add seaweed, white and black sesame seeds, eggs, oyster sauce and corn starch in a bowl. Mix well.

3. Heat the Happycall ceramic pot with 1 tsp of olive oil. Pour in the egg mixture and pan-fry till both sides become golden.

4. Serve with warm rice :)





Add potato starch to the mixure

Saturday 22 December 2012

Glutinous rice balls in milk syrup 椰奶汤圆



Serve 4 small bowls

Ingredients:
100g glutinous rice flour
10g rice flour
80~90g warm water
2 drops red food colour
1/2 drop green food colour

30g trim coconuts milk
50g low fat milk
100g water
1 pandan leaf
40g raw sugar

Direction.
1. Mix glutinous rice flour with rice flour in a mixing bowl.

2. Pour in 80 g of warm water, and slowly add in the remaining 10g of water to adjust the consistency of the dough, and mix well.

3. Divide the dough into 3 portions.
Keep 1/2 as white
Add 2 drops of red colour to 1/3 dough
Add 1/2 drop of green colour to 1/6 dough
Blend the colour with the dough evenly.

4. Keep the white and pink doughs into 2 separate sandwich bags. Keep the green dough in a covered container. Let the doughs rest for about 15 minutes.




5. While resting the dough, start boiling a pot of water to cook the rice balls later.

6. Heat up the coconut milk, low fat milk, water and pandan leaf in a separate pot. When the mixture about to boil, add in the sugar. Stir well and set aside. This will be the syrup to serve with the rice balls.


7. After 15 minutes, roll out both the white and red dough within the bags using a rolling pin.


8. Cut open the sandwich bags from the centre. Keep the plastic sheet on, so as to help you maneuver the dough sheets later. Overlap the pink dough over the white dough. With the help of the sandwich bag, roll up the white and pink dough. Press tight.



9. Open up the plastic sheet, pull to break the long dough into small portions.
Roll the small dough between 2 palms to form a ball and drop into the pot of boiling water. Remember to stir the rice ball to prevent it from sticking to the base of the pot and get char.

10. Roll the green dough into a long dough. Then pull to break it into small portion. Apply the same method as step 9 to cook the green dough.

11. When the rice balls float to the surface of the boiling water, they are about cooked. Let them stay in the water for 5 minutes before transferring to a bowl of icy water.



12. To serve, scoop the rice balls into a bowl of warm milk syrup :)



Thursday 13 December 2012

Happycall Victoria sandwich

Yield: 1x18cm cake

Cake ingredients:
100g butter, softened
80g raw sugar
2 eggs, beaten
100g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp icing sugar for decoration

Direction:
1. In a clean mixing bowl add softened butter and sugar. Use a whisk to mix till the butter turn pale white.

2. Blend in the beaten egg in 5 separate portions. Mix well before adding the next portion.

3. Sieve in the flour premix with baking powder in 3 lots and fold in using a spatula. Minimize the number of strokes to prevent breaking the air bubbles.

4. Line a non-stick ceramic pot with parchment paper and preheat the pot before pouring the batter in.

5. Pour in the batter and use a spatula to even out the surface. Cover the pot with lid wrapped with steamer's cloth to prevent any condensed water from dripping to the cake surface.

6. Heat the cake in medium low heat for about 15 minutes, then continue to heat at low heat for about 5 minutes. Stop heating when the surface of the cake is dry.

7. Remove the cake from the heat, and let it cool for about 15 minutes before inverting it out of the pot. Continue to let the cake cools to room temperature.

8. After the cake has cooled down, slice the cake into half laterally across the middle. Spread jam or Nutella over the cut surface. Sprinkle some icing sugar over the top to decorate.

9. Cut the cake and serve :)

If you so not have strawberry jam but strawberry syrup, you can follow the steps below to prepare the strawberry gel.

Strawberry gel made from strawberry syrup:

1/8 tsp agar agar powder
10g sugar
20g water
30g strawberry syrup

1. Mix agar agar powder, sugar and water into a paste.

2. Add in the strawberry syrup, heat and stir constantly over low flame. Remove the strawberry gel from the heat when it bubbles.

3. Cool the strawberry gel to room temperature before spreading to the cake :)





Thursday 6 December 2012

Happycall custard buns (water roux method)



Yeild: 4 small custard buns

Custard filling:
1 egg yolk
20g fine sugar
120g low fat milk
9g corn flour
A few drops of vanilla essence
1/2 tsp salted butter

1. Mix egg yolk with sugar with a whisk.

Whisk yolk with sugar

2. Add 2 tbsp of milk from the 120g of milk to the yolk mixture. Mix well.

Adding milk to yolk mixture

3. Add corn flour and vanilla essence to (2).

Adding cornflour to the mixture

Adding vanilla essence

4. Heat the remaining milk in a pot to just about to boil. Pour the hot milk into (3) and stir immediately.  Return the milk mixture to the pot to heat up again.

Adding hot milk to the custard mixture



Pour back the custard to the pot
to heat

Use a whisk to stir the custard

5. Stir constantly.  Stop heating when the custard thicken to coat the whisk.

6. Remove the pot from the heat and let it cools down for about 10 minutes.  Add in the butter and blend well.

Add butter to the custard

7. Cover the custard to prevent drying up. Let it cool down before use.

Cover the custard while cooling down


Bread:

The method of making the custard buns is similar to the Japanese An-Pan using HCP to bake.

30g water roux
40g milk
95g bread flour
2 tsp raw sugar
1 tsp dry yeast
10g salted butter

1. Mix water roux and milk. Keep warm the mixture in a rice cooker for 10 minutes if your ingredients are in room temperature.
If your ingredients are cold from the fridge, then keep warm in a rice cooker for 20 minutes. And let the mixture stand in the rice cooker for another 10 minutes.

Add water roux to the milk and keep
warm in rice cooker.

2. Pour bread flour into a clean mixing bowl. Dig a well in the middle, add in 1 tsp of sugar and yeast. Sprinkle the other 1 tsp of sugar around the flour.

3. Add about 4 tsp of warm milk mixture from (1) to the yeast. Let it rest for about 3 minutes to activate the yeast. Pour the rest of the milk mixture to the flour and mix well.

4. Add in the melted butter and mix well. When the butter is well incorporated with the dough, let it rest for 5 minutes.

5. After the 5 minutes rest, start kneading the dough for about 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic.

6. Keep the dough in a covered container pre-coated with oil. Let the dough proof for about 20 to 30 minutes, or until the dough double in size.

7. Deflate the dough and roll it into a ball. Cut the dough into 4 portions.

8. Take one portion of the dough to wrap the a spoonful of custard cream. Seal the opening and face the sealed end down on a piece of greased parchment paper.

9. Let the dough rest in the HCP for about 10 minutes before baking. Bake the bread for 8 minutes in medium heat. Flip and bake the other side for 5 minutes.


10. Let the buns cool down a while before consuming :)



























Tuesday 4 December 2012

Water Roux 汤种 for making fluffy bread


Water roux is used to enhance the fluffiness of bread. It allows the bread to stay fluffy and moist for a longer period of time.


Ingredients:
50g bread flour
250g water
 Bread flour to water ratio = 1:5

1. Mix bread flour with water, until all lumps have been dissolved.

2. Heat the mixture in a non-stick pot in low heat. Stir constantly to prevent charring at the base.

Stir the mixture constantly.

3. When the mixture starts to thicken, and a clear trail follow the spatula, the water roux is ready.

When spatula leaves a clean trail behind,
the water roux is ready.

4. Transfer the water roux to a clean and dry container. Cover the water roux using a food wrap. The food wrap must stay in contact with the surface of the water roux, in order to prevent drying up. When the water roux has cooled to room temperature, cover the container and keep in the fridge. It can be kept for a few days. Discard it when it turns grey.

Return the water roux to room temperature before use :)