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?

 

 

When the cat's away the mice will...

Mw is off for karaoke with her colleagues.

Did a quiche with bacon, carrot shreds - all I had in the fridge.

Crust not so good. But taste ok.

175g of flour made enough for 2 quiches.

Quick n dirty supper

Chickpea, lentil and barley stew with sliced fresh tomatoes.

The stew has been frozen for several weeks. Still good.

Nifty veg dish to add to repertoire

Taken at taka basement. Blanched french beans in sesame sauce and seeds. Then refridgerated and served cold.

Slow roasted pork shoulder

Did a slow roasted pork shoulder.
1. Cut the skin from the shoulder. Brine the meat overnight. Salt the skin separately, then wipe dry and leave in the open overnight in fridge.
2. Reassemble the skin and the meat, stuffing rosemary, onions, and garlic in between skin and meat.
3. Dry the skin as much as possible.
4. Roast 20 mins at 250C. Then cover the roast with foil and roast for 4 hours at 170C (the temp inside the covered roaster is actually about 100C.
5. Take out, then uncover and turn on the grill. Take out the meat and leave the skin on the roaster. Grill the skin until crackling appears (covering unevenly cooked spots with foil as necessary).

The pork was a hit esp with the kids in the dinner. For me, the pork meat was good. The crackling looks nice but slightly chewy - acceptable.

Did roast potatoes. I think I can repeat this.
1. Parboiled from cold water till boil for 6 mins.
2. Drain potatoes into colander. Shake the colander to fluff up potatoes. Leave for 3 mins to let the water vaporise off.
3. mix the potatoes into a portion of the pork fat and onions/herbs from the roast.
4. Roast about 40-45 mins, turning the potatoes around once or twice, at 190C, until parts of the potatoes turn brown.

Also boiled frozen corn in chicken stock, thyme and salt. Then pureed it in the blender.

Sister in law brought the chicken and salad.

Dessert was lemon curd with butter cookies, followed by papaya. My lemon curd was nicely sweet and tart and lemony but a bit watery. Will try this again. Saw later that someone made this in microwave in about 5-10 mins. First mixing the ingredients, then cycle 1 min microwave, mix mix mix, then repeat microwave+mix for 4 more times (total 5)

Bits of the skin on the left charred first, so I covered in foil and continued grilling.

2 new finds in vegetarian techniques

There's a technique for vegetable puree that I've successfully done 3 times now. I think its a keeper. Needs a pressure cooker.

Cut hard vegetable into small (say 3 cm slices) pieces. Put enough butter into pressure cooker to coat the vegetables, melt it and then mix in the veg. Then put in 0.5% by weight of baking soda (this is the same thing that provides for the browning effect in quick baked goods among other effects). Mix the baking soda well into the vegetables. Then close the cover, and cook under pressure for 15 to 20 minutes. Quick cool, take the mixture out and then blend into a puree (possibly with some liquid such as milk or cream). The result is a really smooth puree with a sweet, nutty flavor.

I've already done it with broccoli (with a bit of coconut cream and thai lime juice), pumpkin (pictured below), and onions. Obviously, for those who like crunch in their vegetables, this would feel very much like baby food. But mw has liked the result so far. She says this technique can make excellent dips.

I've done it with the veg in a mason jar and pressure steam. I've also put the veg directly in the cooker but there will be some stuck bits on the bottom (shake well from time to time during cooking). I finally settled on using a non stick pot that comes with my pressure cooker.

Another find is the corn dish on the top right of the picture below. Cheap and easy. Just boil some stock with salt to taste and some sprigs of fresh thyme, them simmer for a while to get the thyme worked into the stock. Then bring to a furious boil and dunk in some frozen corn. Boil till cooked. Surprisingly tasty.

Nice Steak dinner

Did a steak dinner with steak (of course), broccoli puree, mashed potatoes, homemade ketchup and boiled corn. My attempt at plating, was as usual, pretty bad.

The puree was broccoli pressure cooked for 15 mins with a bit of baking soda and butter to yield a caramelized mix, which I then blended with a bit of coconut cream, salt and thai limes (to taste). Was quite nice - I can repeat this.

The ketchup was tomato paste with water, salt pressure cooked and then mixed with tarragon vinegar, paprika powder, garlic powder,  sugar, and my orange liquer (limoncello variant). Taste was quite unusual and nice, but a bit too liquid.

Mashed potato was a variation of my usual where I added parsnip for a nutty, savory taste.

Steak was Australian ribeye at $5.5 per 100g. Pre-seared then cooked with a rosemary sprig at low temp for 2.5 hours. After it came out, I only put a pat of butter on top with some of the cooking liquid and salt. Nice and tender, and it goes well with the wine.

A pho'ish meal

Tasted pretty decent - esp the 2nd time around. Not exactly vietnamese pho but close in spirit.

Used the pressure cooker beef stock (http://jmfoodie.blogspot.sg/2014/07/beef-stock-in-pressure-cooker.html).

Then added equal amount of water, together with charred (over fire) blue ginger/onion, fish sauce, little bit of sugar, cinnamon, star anise, and lemon grass (forgot the proportions but should be able to recreate from internet recipes). The critical ingredient appears to be a good beef stock (got that), good fish sauce, and charring of the ginger and onion.

Anyway, put in about 200g of beef (with lots of "white stuff" on it) and pressure cook for 20 mins. Add carrots (and/or beef balls) and pressure cook another 5. Decant all ingredients and use the soup for cooking noodles and blanching beef slices.

The first time I did this, taste was decent. I had leftover soup, which I froze. Then the second time around (pictured), I used the frozen soup to make a second round (add water, beef and some of the spices again and repeat). Even nicer.

Good with Sriracha chilli sauce.3 kinds of beef here, flank steak (was boiled whole with soup but cut into pieces after), beef balls and shabu shabu beef slices (just barely blanched).