Eat and Be Happy

Going the Italian Route.

thecoffeesnob — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:20:00 +0000

From making roasted tomato soup and penne pasta with seafood to gnocchi with roasted tomato sugo, I suppose it was only in due time that we tried our hand at making some thin crust pizzas.

So that’s pretty much in short how GT and I found ourselves in the kitchen on Saturday morning, covered in flour as we prepared our ingredients and rolled out pizza discs between laughing and teasing about our very amateur rolling skills.

As it tends to be with me and my having to make everything myself (I mean really, if I’m gonna make pizzas, I might as well make it all from scratch right?), I insisted that we make our own tomato sauce (glurgs of white wine stirred in some tomato paste, minced garlic, fresh rosemary and thyme) and barbeque sauce for our mixed mushroom and barbeque chicken with red onions pizzas.

The trick we found to rolling out the crusts as thin as possible, with much thanks to Peter Reinhart, was to work with a small amount of dough. We chose to take the easier route out and used rolling pins instead of tossing them in the air, like Peter Reinhart very impressively demostrates in the book, and pressed the dough gently with our fingers to stretch it even further.

Also, another thing that I think helped us get that crackly, paper thin crust we were after was baking the crust on an inverted baking tray, much like a pizza stone.

And that was in short how we came about to have two glorious thin crust pizzas, that between GT and my brother just flew off the plates, for lunch.

I’m truly pleased I can now have thin crust pizzas whenever I want, however I want.

Pizza Dough [Taken from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice]

Ingredients
4 1/2 cup bread flour
1 3/4 tsp coarse salt
1 tsp instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 3/4 cups iced water

The day before baking Combine the flour, salt, yeast, olive oil and water in a mixingg bowl. Stir well until a dough forms. Using an electric mixer with a dough hook, knead the dough on medium speed until a smooth, sticky dough forms. The dough should stick to the bottom of the bowl but should clear the sides of the bowl. Add more dough if the dough’s too wet or more water if the dough clears the bottom of the bowl.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Shape the dough into a flat disk and divide the dough into 6 equal portions. Place the dough balls in a lightly oiled pan and cover the pan with clingwrap. Place the pan in the fridge overnight. To freeze any excess dough balls you might not need, lightly coat the dough balls in oil and place them in individual freezer bags. They will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.
On the day of baking Remove the pan from the fridge 2 hours before baking. Turn the dough balls out to a lightly floured surface and shape the balls into small, flat disks. Let the dough disks rest for 2 hours.
Preheat the oven as hot as it will go. Invert a baking tray and line the tray with baking paper. Roll the disks out to about 9 inches in diameter, making sure to loosen the base of the disc from the work surface regularly. Transfer the pizza dough to the lined baking tray. Lightly top it with sauce and toppings of your choice. Bake the pizza in the centre of the oven for 8 to 10 minutes until crust is lightly browned and toppings are cooked. Makes 6 thin crusted 9-inch pizzas

Cupcakes To Celebrate.

thecoffeesnob — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:06:46 +0000

I first made these banana cupcakes for my best friend’s sister a couple weeks ago to welcome her back to our sunny island for the Singapore leg of her wedding ceremony.

Since then every time I’ve seen her, she has asked me for more before quickly changing her mind seeing as how she actually has an upcoming wedding dinner.

So no surprise what I delivered to her place the day after the wedding- her cupcakes with a special message, which were received with much delight and happily eaten within minutes.

Now all I need to do is actually give her the recipe so she can make them herself when she’s back in the US with her new family. Unless of course, she wants to fly me up to make them for her then I would be more than happy to oblige

For the Love of Quails.

thecoffeesnob — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:20:35 +0000

Much as I love the idea of cooking over the weekends, it very rarely ever translates into a reality.

My typical week goes something like this- I start the week dreaming of having the luxury of sleeping in over the weekend, rolling out of bed and into the kitchen where I spend a couple of hours chopping and stirring before sitting down to a nice, relaxing lunch. All sounds really good and optimistic right?

As the week progresses, I find my energy level sapping so much so that by the time the weekend actually arrives, that dream becomes a very distant, hazy dream that takes a backseat of my other pressing priorities like sleeping and hitting the books for my looming examination that I’m nowhere near prepared for. Before I even realize it, the weekend has flown by and it’s back to work.

Reality, pfft, what a killjoy.

But last week, oh I knew last week was gonna be different from the moment I laid eyes on this site (thanks to the magical wizard that is Google and seriously, have you seen the daylight robbery prices the local butcheries are charging for the tiniest of quails?). I knew come hell or high water, I was gonna be cooking that weekend.

So last weekend found GT and I in the kitchen.

Within an hour- most of it roasting time- we had ourselves rosemary (fresh from the garden!) and garlic marinated roast quails (with the pan deglazed with white wine to make a sauce), crisp roast potatoes and a salad of sorts (basil, carrots, cucumber, lettuce and cherry tomatoes, tossed in a light vinaigrette) ready for lunch.

It really wasn’t much and certainly didn’t require much effort but with the clean, simple flavours and my sweetheart for company, it sure made for a really nice weekend lunch.

And hell, it really did feel good to be back cooking in the kitchen.

Next up? I’ve got my eye on that Japanese cookbook that has been by my bedside forever.

The Birthday Cake (Or How Plan A Isn’t Always The Best Plan).

thecoffeesnob — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:02:48 +0000

When I thought about making an ice cream cake for my best friend’s birthday, one of my first thoughts I have to admit was that it didn’t seem so hard. I mean all there was to it was to make two cakes, sandwich them with ice cream and frosting. Really seems pretty easy doesn’t it?

Boy, is ignorance bliss.

What I completely didn’t factor in was the weather. I literally couldn’t take the filled ice cream cake out of the freezer two minutes before it melting over the sides of my cake and threatening to turn into an absolute mess on my hands. Long story short, a lot of cursing, swearing and wishing I had a walk in freezer later, I decided to just chuck it, run back to the supermarket to grab another tub of ice cream and fall back on Plan B.

Thankfully, Plan B- hollowing a sponge cake and filling it with ice cream before putting the top back on and frosting it- was a lot easier and less painful- and really should have been Plan A had I been a little wiser. But that’s how we learn right? Or at least that’s what I tell myself to feel a little better.

So yeah the next ice cream cake I do (if ever), I’ll either have invested in that walk in freezer (and probably churning out ice cream cakes for a living) or go with Plan B. Plan A shall forever be damned in this weather.

In the meantime though, I’ll be enjoying what’s left of it in my freezer.

Happy birthday babe with tons and tons of love.

Waffles On the Weekend.

thecoffeesnob — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:05:45 +0000

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a morning person by any means. I’m more likely to be crawling into bed in the wee hours of the weekend than jumping out of it.

Lately however, I have been all about slow leisure breakfasts on weekend mornings. Which I suppose should really be what the weekends are about- taking things slow, recharging and refuelling for the looming week.

So magical to me are the weekends that I often find myself starting to dream of the things I would accompolish over the weekend during the mid of the workweek.

This weekend, in particular, was a cause for celebration for two reasons- a. there was no need to go back to the office over the weekend like I initially planned to and b. GT was finally back from the trip he took to Melbourne for his convocation. So waffles were naturally the order of the morning.

It was a first we were having waffles made with a yeast batter. I have heard good things about yeasted waffles but when I found a recipe in the Cake Bible, I knew it was time to get off the ledge and actually make the waffles.

In typical Rose Levy Beranbaum style, we weren’t let down. Even with our experimental issues with the new waffles machine, (the top of the waffles doesm’t crisp up as well as the bottom side does if there’s not enough batter), the waffles were really light and mostly crisp.

Much to my amazement, they stayed crisp throughout the good twenty minutes it took to cook all the waffles and even while drenched in maple syrup. If that isn’t a sign of a good solid waffle recipe, I really don’t know what is.

As icing on the cake, the recipe is incredibly simple. The batter (sans the egg and baking soda) has to be mixed up the night before and left to rest overnight. So come morning, all you really have to do is whisk the egg and baking soda in and you’re good to go. It doesn’t get much easier than that, does it?

So here’s introducing my new favourite waffles recipe.

There are no prizes for guessing what I’ll be making for weekends to come (hey after all, someone has to kink out our batter issues right?).

Yeasted Waffles [adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Cake Bible]

Ingredients
1/4 cup warm water
1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/8 tsp active dry yeast
1 cup warm milk
60g butter, melted and cooled slightly
Pinch of salt
1 cup plain flour
1 large egg
1/8 tsp baking soda

To be done the night before Combine the warm water, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Whisk in the milk, melted butter, salt and plain flour. The batter will be very thin. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the batter rest in the fridge overnight.
The morning itself Whisk the egg and baking soda into the batter. The batter will be very thin.
Preheat your waffles maker till it’s hot enough to sizzle a drop of water. Pour the batter onto the centre of the waffle plate and cook till golden brown. Makes about 7 five inch square waffles

Granola Love #143.

thecoffeesnob — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 06:32:45 +0000

The best kind of weekends, if you ask me, are the kind you stumble out of bed bright and early, head down to the nearby reserviour for a gruelling walk and jump into the pool the instant you get home before settling down for light brunch with the morning papers.

Brunch for me came in the form of homemade granola (a slight variation of the recipe can be found here) thrown together with some Greek yogurt and sliced bananas. The thick, tangy yogurt complemently the crunchy, wholesome granola and soft, sweet banana slices perfectly.

Simple, fuss-free and everything the weekend should be about.

A Glutton’s Trip Part I: Penang, The Food Paradise.

thecoffeesnob — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:27:31 +0000

I didn’t quite mean to completely disappear the last couple weeks but over the last week, I’ve been on a glorious two-leg holiday to Penang and Melbourne.

Since I have just about a million photos, I figure I would cover them in a couple of posts over the next few weeks starting with Penang, the glorious food paradise.

***

Now if there’s one thing to be said about Penang, it’s that the food there is just incredible. I mean really, whoever first described Singapore as a food paradise has never been to Penang. With completely no disrepect to my local Singapore cuisine, Penang is the food paradise.

Since I have a ton of photos to get through, enough with the talking and on with the photos shall we?

Straight out of the airport, our first stop was in search of some good food. And starting the trip on the right note, plenty of good food we did find.

Macalister Street food court

The food courts in Penang are essentially what we call hawker centres in Singapore; a cluster of independently owned food stalls selling dishes from an array of cuisines. The food’s cheap and (usually) good, you sit anywhere you can find an available seat and the food gets delivered right to your table.

Chee cheong fun

In our typical fashion, we of course ordered everything in sight and then proceeded to polish it all off, bearing in mind we had already been fed on the plane.

The chee cheong fun (steamed barbequed pork and prawns rice noodles rolls) came served in a really sweet soy sauce and fried shallots mixture. It was a little weird for me to have sweetened chee cheong fun, something I’ve always had and enjoyed as a strictly savoury dish. Having said that though, the rice noodles itself- incredibly soft and silky- was probably texturally the best I’ve ever had.

Pork porridge

Kway teow (rice noodles) soup

Now the pork porridge and kway teow soup, those I really loved. The porridge was really tasty and while thickened, still had texture unlike most porridges that are boiled so long the rice grains completely disintegrates into the porridge.

And the kway teow soup, oh it was so good! It was soft as silk and so damned tasty. Even the beef balls and pork slices were incredibly tender and unlike anything I’ve ever had in Singapore. I don’t know how they do it but I’ll be more than happy to just keep doing the eating.

Sisters Char Kway Teow

One of my favourite places we ate at was coincidentally also along Macalister Road, a little eatery housing the famed Sisters char kway teow.

The place was fully packed both times we were there and we waited at least half an hour for the char kway teow to be served. So it was a really good thing that there were plenty of other really tasty dishes to get started on while waiting.

Yam cake

Otah

And boy, the food was so good I wished I had a second stomach for the day. I have had probably a million yam cakes and otahs in my life and none could hold a candle to the ones I had here. Incredibly fragrant and soooo so soft, they were all too easy to scoff down.

Hae mee (Prawn noodles)

Char kway teow

But the highlights for lunch for me really were the hae mee (prawn noodles) and char kway teow. I’m not a big fan of the char kway teow you can find at practically every hawker centre in Singapore with the sweet thick black sauce it’s cooked in. But the one I had in Penang was right up my alley. Deeply savoury with a slightly salty undertone and none of that sweet sauce nonsense, it was right out of this world. And the hae mee, oh don’t even get me started on the hae mee. The stock was incredibly sweet and served with a generous amount of bee hoon, bean sprouts and prawns, it was everything every bowl of hae mee should aspire to be.

Of course, savoury food was not the only order of the trip. The desserts we had were quite something to shout about as well.

Tau hway (beancurd with soya bean milk)

Given my love for tau hway, I couldn’t go past the stall at a food court we were at one night without ordering one. As it turns out, that stall sold the best tau hway I had ever had. The beancurd was so silky and smooth it literally glided down my throat. If I could only eat one thing the rest of my life, this would be a really strong contender (up against chocolate and peanut butter of course).

Chendol

Ice kachang

I’m usually not a fan of chendol (too much coconut milk and way too sweet) and ice kachang (too much ingredients and funny flavouring when all I really want is the shaved ice and palm sugar syrup). But these two particularly two desserts I had in Penang had me singing a completely different tune. The chendol was surprisingly good, served with a generous heap of grass jelly and kidney beans slightly undercooked such that they still had that perfect, slightly firm texture.

What really did it for me with the ice kachang was really the tiny scoop of peanut ice cream served on top. It was light, faintly tasted of coconut milk and had tons of chopped peanuts in it.

It was so good in fact I had to enquire if they would sell me just scoops of the ice cream. As it turns out, they did (I was barely the first person to request for it) so I was one happy customer.

Anyway, that pretty much it for me and my food photos in Penang (click here to see really random, non-food photos). Would I go back to Penang? I definitely would in a heartbeat, if not only for a plate of that char kway teow and bowl of tau hway.

Until then, I guess I’ll keep dreaming of the deliciousness that is Penang while looking for that perfect bowl of tau hway on this side of the Causeway.