Hosting my nephews and niece

Took the 3 kids out today. Then back to the house, where Jon (the older) said he wanted to help cook stuff. 

So I went through some simple stuff with him. He cut and peeled the vegetables, helped to brine and prepare the chicken and potatoes. I've seen worse knife skills in my At-Sunrice course. Curiously enough, he cut his nail on the vegetable peeler!

Dinner with family

On the menu:

1. Pork Rib stew with barley and lentils.
2. Roast potatoes.
3. Blanched French Beans with sesame dressing.
4. Basmati pulao (rice).
5. hard boiled egg on toast with balsamic vinegar and truffle essence.
6. Cucumbers and cherry tomatoes with a clarified butter and sour cream dressing.

The pork rib stew was very nice. Basically, as mw pointed out, it seems like a version of my lentil soup but with pork ribs :-).

Roast potatoes and the blanched french beans were good and fast becoming a regular feature for me I think.

The basmati rice dish apparently was pleasing - last minute concoction though it is.

The egg dish was slightly disappointing. The toast was bad (I should buy better bread or make my own). The yolk was not buttery/moist enough. I think I can do this next time with poached egg.

The cucumber and cherry tomato salad was not pleasing. I think my dressing is just plain wrong. I might have done better by simply tossing them with the sour cream alone.

Roasted with clarified butter, salt and rosemary

hard boiled eggs on toast with balsamic vinegar and truffle essence

Pork rib stew. Unfortunately, the ribs are hidden in this picture.

Pulao (onions, ginger, star anise, cardamon, cinnamon, cumin and tumeric powder thrown in with a light hand)

second time with the french beans. Has a pretty refreshing taste.

No chickens were harmed in the making of this movie part 4

With a 60 sec rolling boil and a 11 min stand time I think I got what I want internally. 

The peel is as per part 3. So the only regret is the membrane at the moment, which I will let go for the moment since it doesn't really affect taste.

Barley and Lentil Pork rib stew

Doesn't look like much, but its quite nice. I prepared this for tomorrow - hopefully even more delicious tomorrow. The ribs are falling off the bone after a 3.5 hour stew at 100C.

Addendum : 3.5 hours might be a bit too long : the meat may need more bite to it. As it is, it is a bit too tender. Perhaps check for doneness at the 2.5 to 3 hour mark. 

This is pork rib stew, thickened naturally with barley and lentils. So I guess you could call it barley and lentil pork rib stew.

1. In dutch oven, brown all the ribs at high heat. This is about 1.3kg of pork ribs (bone in).
2. with all the ribs done and out of dutch oven, fry a small amount of bacon. When bacon browns, lift out and add to the ribs.
3. Add mirepoix and fry at medium heat for some minutes and then add garlic slices. The mirepoix in this case is : 1 onion, 2 carrots, 1 celery stick and 1/3 stem of large leek sliced finely.
4. Fry with garlic for a bit more, then add some white wine and use it to deglaze bottom of pot.
5. When the wine is dried up, add 2-3 tablespoons of tomato paste. Fry this till paste caramelizes.
6. Add back the meat. Add one can of tomato dice with most of the fluid. Add water to just slightly cover the meat. Add remaining white wine (in total I used about 200ml).
7. Add spices : several thyme stalks + 2 wan sui roots tied together. 4 more whole garlic cloves. 3 medium bay leaves. Add some salt (not too much - can adjust later).
8. Add a handful each of lentils and barley (they will expand).
9. Bring pot just to a boil. Then insert into preheated oven at about 100-110C.
10. Leave it there for 3.5 hours (less if the pork ribs are small - mine are fairly large).
11. Taste for seasoning and adjust salt if necessary. Remove thyme, bay leaves. Leave to cool (if keeping it for overnight).

No chickens were harmed in the making of this movie part 3

No, I have not been eating all these yolks (though apparently yolks are not thought that unhealthy nowadays). They have been sacrificed in the interests of science.

For part 3, I'm using the second egg from part 1. The yolk result is already known. What I'm after is the peel.

The egg has been sitting in the fridge for a few hours now. I took it out, cracked it all over, then let it swim in some iced water for a few minutes, massaging the egg gently.

Result: the egg peels cleanly. In some parts, entire portions of shell fall away naturally. Nice! The only slight issue is that the some of the egg membrane (which normally sticks to the shell) now sticks to the white instead. There is no discernible taste difference, but the look is slightly unexpected (basically parts of the surface look rough).

My conclusion is : the blowtorch is spectacular (I couldn't resist playing with fire), but unnecessary. This method appears to peel quite cleanly provided the white is reasonably held together. I realize that some parties out there in the internet dictate the use of "old eggs", but my purpose is to get the egg I want and peel cleanly without necessarily having to set aside "old eggs".

I'm nearing my target. Now, to get the custardy yolk with firm white outside and peel cleanly. I've already gotten my custardy yolk in part 2, and my nice clean peel in part 3.

No chickens were harmed in the making of this movie part 2

This time, the rolling boil was for 50 seconds, and the stand time in hot water was 11 minutes. I also covered the pot in the last 3 minutes to stop the water going below 74C.

Result. The yolk is custardy and lovely - what I was looking for. Unfortunately, the white broke apart on peeling (it went well at first, then in the last half of the peel, it started coming apart).

Next iteration for this is : 60-65 second rolling boil and 11 minute stand time. This assumes that the heat has not properly conducted into the yolk and the rolling boil affects mainly the whites.

No chickens were harmed in the making of this movie part 1

I love eggs, so I regard this as a long term investment.

I wanted to make a hard boiled egg that is firm on the outside, but very moist on the inside - almost oozing. Also, I want it to be easy to peel.

All eggs are 60g and past the age of consent.

Experiment 1.

1. Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil at high heat. The water should just cover the egg.
2. Carefully deposit egg in pot and keep the fire going.
3. At the 45 second mark, turn off the fire. (the theory is that the initial phase will firm up the egg white on the outside).
4. With lid off, just keep the pot on the stove with fire off for 12 minutes.
5. At the 12 minute mark, lift egg out and shock in ice water for several minutes.
6. Take egg out and put it on a grate. Then carefully, using a blow torch, keep playing flame over the egg shell all over (not staying in any one spot for more than a split second) until shell turns brittle (there is a small color change). This step is from modernist cuisine.
7. Peel the egg.

 Results below.

Next things to try.

1. Boil egg same as above, but hold egg in fridge several hours or overnight. Crack egg all over and wash in a little cold water before peeling. No blow torch used.
2. At step 5 above, hold egg only for 11 minutes. Then repeat all else.

Almost there. Only a small corner peeled off.

Almost there as well. There is some watery white internally (ok), the outer shell is firm (ok), but the yolk is slightly too dry (I want it to be glistening moist).

Lovely egg dish for supper

As far as I know, this is my own concoction.

This is just barely hard boiled egg with several drops of balsamic vinegar, pinch of salt, pepper, and a few tiny pieces of truffle/mushroom essence.

My one problem is that the egg shells were very hard to peel with the inside being so soft/barely set.

Second try loh ark

Decent try. However, with good loh ark being available in many places and my Father-in-law being a specialist in this, not sure if worth the effort.

Meat is nice and tender. My carving skills have improved too. Loh is undersalted (that was deliberate but not kosher) and the oomph is not there (FIL actually said too much dark soya sauce? I did not use light soya sauce at all - maybe that would have gapped the difference in balance and saltiness).

Here's the revised  recipe (taking into account the improvements I intend to try the next time).

1. 1 tbspn salt, 1 tbspn five spice powder, 4 tbspn dark soya sauce. Mix well and then rub very well into duck, including internal cavity. Refridgerate overnight.
2. In dutch oven, put some oil and fry ginger (about 100g galangal and 100g ginger in thick slices) with 2 cinnamon sticks, 4 star anise until fragrant. Then put in 4 tbspn sugar and fry until sugar turns brown.
3. Put in half a cup of dark soya sauce and stir a bit. 
4. Put in duck and baste.
5. Put in 1/2 to 1 cup of light soya sauce, 1 bulb of garlic (broken apart into cloves), and enough water to just cover duck.
6. Bring briefly to boil, cover, and then insert into oven (at about 80 degree C).
7. Cook in oven overnight for at least 8-10 hours at this low temp.
8. Remove duck from dutch oven, skim off oil. Check tenderness - if necessary return duck legs and thighs to dutch oven for a further 1-2 hours (and turn up heat a little). Check seasoning and reduce liquid if necessary (after all meat is cooked).
9. Now braise eggs, tau kwa etc in the liquid. Reserve the meat in fridge. When serving, warm up in braising fluid then cut.

Useful kitchen equipment

Got new toys.

Background is a large container with a tight lid. I can use it for brining or marinating large items (such as the duck in this picture) or to put bread dough for proving.

Foreground is a plain stainless steel tray (slightly larger than A4 size in my case). I can use it to hold all my prep vegetables, spices, etc food. Or, as in this case, use it as a tray so that I can rub marinate into the duck.

In place of the container, I used to use large sized freezer bags. A waste of plastic and also messy to insert wet stuff in. In place of the tray, I used to use multiple bowls/plates to hold food prep. Also it provides a surface for me to do stuff that I used to use the chopping board (which has no lip for liquids) or large plate for.

Roast pork porridge

Not too bad.

Here's what you can do with leftover roast pork.

(for 2 persons) : put 3 slices of ginger, one star anise, half a finely (fine enough to "melt" into the porridge) chopped leek, several drops of sesame oil, 2 garlic cloves, and a bit of salt with rice, water and rough cut pieces of roast pork.

When cooked, season to taste with dark soya sauce.

Nice cold vegetable dish technique

Used this link as a inspiration for this dish.

My sesame sauce is a little darker, but still nice. Besides the toasted sesame seeds, I also added some toasted pine nuts. Also a good pinch of salt.

Quite a nice dish and it is very transportable and able to make well before hand as it is a cold dish. Should be able to adapt some other vegetable (such as brocolli) to it.

1. Blanch vegetable in boiling water until tender but not mushy (al dente in other words).
2. Immediately cool down vegetables in cold, icy water.
3. Take out vegetables and dry them in vegetable spinner.
4. Add sesame sauce, seeds, other nuts, and salt to taste.

Nice roast potatoes

I like these roast potatoes. Its a keeper. The pork fat I used made them nicer, but there's no reason to believe it won't be nice with less rich stuff.

1. Use  Russet potatoes.
2. Try to cut potatoes in thick slices about 3cm thick. The rounded parts should be similar in size.
3. Parboil the potatoes in boiling water with colander. About 6-8 minutes (I did it 8 mins because the potatoes cooled the water when I added a considerable amount in).
4. Take the colander out. Over the sink, toss and shake the potatoes until you see bits of potato flaking off and the potatoes becoming "furry".
5. Lay the potatoes in a baking pan, with flat surfaces down (as much contact with pan as possible) and mix with seasoning.
6. Roast for about 25-30 minutes at 180C.
7. Take out pan, the turn the potatoes around to the other side (the side on the pan should be slightly brown). Baste potatoes if necessary.
8. Roast another 10 minutes, then turn on broiler for about a few minutes until potatoes look brown.
9. 
   

Roasted pork shoulder redux

Second time doing this.

With a 2.5kg pork shoulder, I did the low temp portion of this in 4.5 hours (for say 1.5 kg, should probably be 3 hours). For the stuffing, I used onions, rosemary, thyme, chopped and some fennel seeds. The pork shoulder was brined overnight in a water, lemon tiger beer mix (with bay leaves, garlic, and rosemary sprigs).

The crackling was a disappointment this time, possibly due to the fact it was prepared long before and was wrapped up for transport. But while rubbery, it did taste very nice, so I got that part right.

Rough procedure.

1. Get the pork the day before. 
2. Separate the skin from the rest of the meat. 
3. Brine the meat using favorite brine.
4. Salt the skin, leave it in fridge for a couple of hours. Return and wipe off salt. Leave it in fridge overnight with paper towels over it to let it dry out.
5. Next day, take out meat and let it warm up to room temp.
6. For the skin, wipe it down again and again (water will condense on the meat). I used a stand fan to blow wind over the skin in an attempt to further dry it out and defeat condensation.
7. Turn oven to 250C. 
8. prepare stuffing, arrange the meat, then lay the stuffing over it.
9. put the skin over the stuffing. tie the skin to the meat.
10. Put meat/skin into oven for about 30 mins or until the skin starts puffing up.
11. Take out roast. Turn oven to 160C.
12. Put a little bit of water into the pan below the roast. Double wrap the entire roast with aluminum foil. 
13. Reinsert to oven. For 2.5kg, I roasted 4.5 hours.
14. Remove from oven. Turn the oven temp to highest setting again. Remove all foil. Cut and remove all string. 
15. Put it back in the oven. After about 15 mins, turn on broiler in oven and keep a close watch on the skin. May need to protect faster burning areas with small pieces of foil. Take out when the skin is nicely crackled (is this a word?).
16. Take out of oven. Rest the meat.

Lemon tart

This is my first real decent application of doing a pie crust based item. It is based on this recipe, but because it is for a 28 cm dish and mine is 20 cm, I cut down all amounts by 2/3.

The crust was decent. But next time, I think I will brown the crust more, add slightly more butter, and do not knead the dough (I kneaded it a but because I was afraid it would break).

For the record, for my 20 cm springform container, I used 180g AP flour, 33g castor sugar, 60g butter (but I think I need about 80g), one full egg, and lemon zest.

The blueberry jam mostly did not add to the taste and just added a visual element. It was too much anyway.

Instead of doing the lemon curd in a water bath, I just heated the juice, sugar mixture to boiling, turned down the fire to tiny, and then added the egg in a stream, stirring all the while.

X'mas party

X'mas party was pot luck at someone elses place. But I went crazy and did a roasted pork shoulder, roast potatoes (with the pork fat), brocolli in cheese sauce, blanched long beans in a sesame dressing, a lemon tart, and mayonnaise (for the potatoes).

The roast pork had a better taste than my first try at this. In fact, pretty nice. However, the crackling turned rubbery - possibly as a result of cooking this well before the dinner and then covering it while warm for transport.

The brocolli in cheese sauce was not good. There's something quite off with the sauce (possibly because I added cheese first ahead of the cream), and I should have blanched the carrots before adding them in.

The long beans are nice and the technique is probably repeatable with different hard vegetables. Can keep.

The potatoes were really nice. The pork fat had something to do with it, but I think the technique can be adapted with simpler seasoning.

Lastly, the lemon tart was my first decent pie crust base item. There was a remark that the crust could have been more browned, more crumbly. The blueberry jam on top only added a visual effect and had no real effect on taste (anyway I added too much jam).

The "easier way" to make mayonnaise

I've just tried out the easier way to make mayonnaise as documented here. It seems very thick. The manual method may still yield a better textured mayonnaise.

No skill needed hollandaise

Found this link : foolproof-2-minute-hollandaise-recipe.html

It really works. I think the theory is this : you want to just cook your egg at about 70C or so and at the same time use the egg to emulsify the incoming oil. So what you do is pour in butter at about 100C  and the temp drops just nice when it hits the egg. 

It works for my handheld blender and my glass measuring cup. I put in the raw egg yolk, pinch of salt, teaspoon water, and a teaspoon of vinegar. I start the blender, and one or two seconds later pour in a little of the hot butter and then slightly faster several seconds later. Move your blend up and down a bit to make sure all the bits are mixed. Done in 40 secs!!

I also found this : two-minute-mayonnaise.html 

For mayonnaise, I think that the basic traditional method is still useful to know. You can make mayonnaise anywhere with nothing special other than a bowl and fork (if your hand is vigorous enough).  For the hollandaise, you need to assemble a water bath and deal with mixing and cooking at the same time, so this method may still be useful albeit hollandaise does not travel very well.

Fish dinner

Breaded deep fried fish on a bed of broccoli in cheese sauce. On the side are plain fried french beans, and home made mayonnaise.

The used deep fry oil was filtered and put into bottles and into the freezer for reuse.

M

Making mayonnaise

Don't think I've documented this yet so here goes.

"Vigorous" = if you don't feel a bit tired in your wrist after about a minute or so, you are not vigorous enough.

1. Use a large round bowl (round so that the whisk can get into the corners) and tilt it to one side using a towel (so that the whisk can reach all of the yolk in one short whisk).
2. Start with 2 egg yolks (1 is a bit too little to mix vigorously and I think prone to failure).
3. Blend the egg yolk till smooth.
4. Add about half to a teaspoon of vinegar. This is to help the emulsion. The tartness can be adjusted later. Blend again.
5. Then slowly slowly drop by drop add oil while blending vigorously. Eyeball the disappearance of the oil into the mixture before going to the next drop(s).
6. In about 1.5 to 2 mins, the mixture will begin to thicken. Increase the oil to many drops at a time and then increase again to a stream as the mixture thickens further.
7. About one cup of oil later, the mixture will thicken nicely and will drip slowly from your whisk.
8. Add seasoning at this point - more vinegar, djion mustard, salt, etc, and blend again. Esp with the djion mustard, the mixture will thicken further.

Lemon pie disastrous attempt

Here's my "lemon" pie. had a kitchen disaster when the "sugar" I was using to make the syrup turned out to be salt! Lucky I tasted it. 

So I had to make a new batch, only that I only had some remnant lemon juice, so I substituted tarragon wine vinegar. So this is really a vinegar pie 8-)

Damn I just discovered I inexplicably used salt in the pie crust as well. What was I thinking?