French style chocolate cake

There's no flour in this. Easy recipe. Saw it on French Food At Home Seaon 1 episode 1.

End result: I find it decadently delicious taste wise. Texturally speaking, it was a bit too crumbly - perhaps bake a little longer or more eggs? Or perhaps I should not have used the scalloped springform dish (pieces just stuck to the bottom or the sides).

Instead of serving with ice cream, French Food At Home served it with whipped cream and raspberries.

Just equal amounts of dark chocolate (70% recommended) and butter. Melt and mix over a bain marie with 2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar (and any other flavoring - i used a bit of instant coffee and cinnammon). Then mix it into beaten eggs (4 eggs for 200g of chocolate).

Initial melted chocolate

Stirring in the lumps of butter

Adding the melted mixture to the eggs a little at a time and mixing it so as not to cook the eggs.

The mixture in the springform mould. French Cooking at home says to optionally sieve to remove lumps. I didn't.

Now waiting for it to bake (45-50 mins at 190 C). A bit nervous. Made the stupid mistake of forgetting that the chocolate should be unsweetened. But I did add less sugar than normal (regular recipes call for 1 cup) so maybe it will balance out.

Here it is with a dusting of sugar on top (I know I said I was afraid its too sweet but it really looks much nicer white on black.

After note. Ate with raspberries very nice

Homemade ipad mini kitchen mount

Bought a cheap plastic protective shell for the ipad mini. Then stuck it on the kitchen cabinet with velcro - quite sturdy.

Success with mayonnaise at last

Third time lucky with this after 2 prior failed attempts. Did this while waiting for mw to finish her afternoon nap.

Seems like the critical success factors are:
* don't rush. The prior 2 times, I was rushing around, cooking a complete meal. I also tried using a hand held food processor.

*  Mix by hand and watch carefully.

* put the bowl in the sink (possibly with a towel on the base). That way you can use vigorous hand action and not worry about the bowl or stuff spilling out.

Anyway, here's what I did (tastes good btw).
1. One raw egg yolk + teaspoon of djion mustard + a dash of vinegar + fine salt.
2. mix well for 20 secs or so, stirring vigorously.
3. really just add the oil drop by drop. Do not disbelieve the instructions you see on the internet. Stir vigorously all the while to incorporate.
4. After about 50 drops or so, the mixture should look smooth and creamy. Only then can you add the oil faster.
5. keep on adding oil and stirring. Stop when the mixture gets thick and smooth (basically like the end product).
6. Add lemon juice to taste.

Apparently, if the oil and egg mixture separate and do not emulsify in step 4/5, you can recover it. In another bowl, add a bit of water (tablespoon). Then treating the failed mixture as though it was the oil, and the water like it was the egg yolk, repeat the procedure from 3.

Afternoon snack with carrot sticks and mayo

PS. This is probably the basic recipe. Lots of people add herbs etc into it. But you do it at the end together with the lemon juice.

First attempt at Quiche

Recipe is more or less classic Quiche Lorraine with added broccoli and onion filling (onion fried with the bacon. Broccoli added raw before baking in not too small pieces to give a crunch to the veg).

Good and bad news.

The bad : pastry just was plain no good. Fail.

The good : very savory egg custard filling. Perhaps I should bake it a little less, but turn on grill to 

brown the top in last few minutes (with a bit of cheese).

For the filling, the trick is to have at least 3 cm depth of filling. This is to allow the bottom/middle part to be moist.

Dinner in 30 mins

Cooked a frittata with Parmesan, onions, tomato, broccoli, mushrooms and a single stick of lap cheong. With a plate of carrot sticks, olives and tomato slices on the side. There's a small splash of vinegar in the egg (should use lemon juice and zest if I do this again)

Not bad.

Note to self. Cook lap cheong, onions and tomatoes for quite a while at medium heat before adding rest of mixture.

The frittata was rather shallow and wide due to the oven safe paella pan I used. 4 eggs. In future, at least 6-8 eggs is better for the size of this dish.

Dinner on Hari Raya Puasa

Was rushed, did not take enough pictures (none of the Nasi Kuning).

Made Beef Rendang and Nasi Kuning. Both were well received by family as tasty.

For the rendang, I used 2 types of cuts of beef as an experiment - the first were the frozen beef cubes ($6 for 500g) from NTUC and the other was from the beef counter (beef shank) at $14+ for 550g. The first was still tough despite 4 hours of slow cooking while the other was very very tender : the cut of beef still is a significant choice which slow cooking does not erase.

Loads of beef rendang recipes on the internet. Finally I just did one with a spice paste similar to that I used for the otah, but without the prawn paste. I used coconut cream : just enough to wet the beef plus a little more water only. Note to self: you need a little oil to blend the spice paste (many recipes just say blend without stating you need a little fluid to get the blending going).

For the Nasi Kuning, I used coconut cream and chicken stock. Taste is nice but somehow the texture of the rice is not fluffy enough.

The chicken thighs were primarily for the children. I had one myself. Very simple recipe : just brine the chicken in 1 to 16 salt water brine with a little white wine for a couple of hours. Wipe the chicken down and rest in fridge for a couple more. Then roast in oven for 30 minutes, before basting in a djion mustard/honey/balsamic vinegar/oil mixture and turning on the grill for several minutes. Tastes great (kudos to brining as a technique). The black looking outside is just the basting fluid turning black under the grill - did not taste burnt.

Lastly did a veg puree (not as nice as last time I did one), but still ok.

Fail poached fish and aioli

I was trying poached fish today. I picked up hake. Bad choice. Tastes weird, metallic even.

My second attempt at mayonnaise (aioli). Still fail. I can't seem to get it.  Must be really really patient I suspect.

At least my mashed potato was decent.