Good idea for starter

Food diary time.

While in Tokyo recently, ate something of a Japanese-Italian persuasion. I think I will try to find an occasion to test it.

Do a Japanese style rolled egg (ie. Egg with stock, a bit of Mirin). Then drizzle blue cheese dressing over it.

Second try steamed pao

This time, the buns were a little too big. I think the right size is 35-40g of dough : next time.

I tried slicing some lines on the buns, but didn't come out right.

Anyhow, froze the lot and using it for breakfast or supper.

Pasta lesson

Went for a pasta making lesson. Made spinach, crab ravioli in seafood sauce, potato gnocchi with pesto and a sort of alio olio linguini with Chili, lemon and bottarga (not very successful the last one).

My fav was the ravioli and the gnocchi a close second. I think I will try both again. 

Lessons learnt.

1. Don't overwork the dough. Else it will crumble. 

2. When doing a pasta olio style, should add bit of stock at the last bit, else the pasta will be too oily (the pic below has too much water in it - a bad example).

3. For the first time, I have done a roux and bechamel sauce. Fairly useful techniques.

Seafood sauce for the ravioli - worth repeating.

1. Get some shellfish (big prawn heads, crab, crayfish etc).

2. Fry the shellfish on high heat for a while. Then add onions, leeks, garlic and herbs (thyme, Bay leaves etc). Turn the heat down a little, then fry for a while till fragrant.

3. Add about a finger of brandy and flambé it.

4. Then add water and some tomato paste. 

5. Bring to a boil and simmer (I think 30-40 mins) with cover opened to let it reduce.

6. Sieve stock through strainer.

7. Put stock back in clean pot, bring to boil again and add some roux (previously prepared).

8. Stir until sauce has thickened. Salt and pepper to taste.

When making the ravioli, add the cooked ravioli to the sauce to warm through. Then serve.

This ravioli is seriously tasty. The filling is spinach wilted with garlic and bechemel (I think cheese next time). The sauce is as above.

I think this is not bad and easy to make as well. Chef said the inside should be more salted, but I thought it was ok. Next time, just add more parmesan I think.

This looks bad. The linguini strands are all broken up and there's too much water. Curiously enough, it wasn't so bad that my partner finished it all up.

PIle of gnocchi 

Ravioli and the pile of semi broken linguini.

CNY morning brekky

Had porridge in the morning.

1. Omelette with sakura dried prawns. 

2. Nozawa Onsen picked veg. 

3. Picked mushrooms.

Didn't actually do much cooking, but in this case, less is more.

Ugly but tasty chestnut steamed buns

The buns were not terribly good looking, but taste nice. Next time, I will be less ambitious in trying to get a really thin skin and lots of filling. Also, I'd knead the dough a bit more to try to make it more "stretchy".

I bought some unsweetened chestnut puree. Then caramelized some sugar with lemon juice in a small pot and then mixed the puree in. I added a bit more sugar and lemon juice to taste. 

The dough was basically my standard soft bread dough plus 0.5% by weight of baking soda and baking power respectively. I also added some lemon essence oil to the milk - just enough to taste the essence. 

I put the filling into 25g dough and made them into balls, and steamed the result for 18 mins. I then froze the lot and re-steamed it for reunion dinner the next day.

The resulting taste is nice (mw gives it a thumbs up. I think the family at the reunion dinner liked it). But the dough collapsed a bit in some places and in other places, the dough was too thin - resulting in it bursting out of the pau. It has the savouryness of the chestnut, but lightened by the lemon juice and lemon essence in the bread. It has a good mouth feel.

8 treasure duck

Did a 8 treasures duck for CNY reunion dinner. 

Marinated the duck with a dark soya sauce and five spice mixture overnight. Then deep fried it (just the outside) to set the skin. Stuffed the stuck with "8 treasures" - glutinous rice, gou ji, dried longans, lap cheong, dried mushrooms (and their soak fluid), hae bee, dried scallops, and a Japanese seaweed mix. Added some water to the cavity, then steamed the duck for 2.5 hours. I also steamed the remaining glutinous rice mix in a tray underneath.

Not too bad, but not sure if I'm going to be repeating this. If I do, i'll be lengthening the steam to 3 hours or so for a tenderer meat.

The final result. The steaming has caused the rice to expand and break apart the cavity a little. 

Overnight marinate with five spice and dark soya sauce. The neck is retained for the deep fry.

Deep fry the duck to set the skin. The neck is used to easily manipulate the duck. I forgot that the duck itself would displace the oil so I used too much (it almost overflowed the pot). There was also some initial splattering, but with my hand firmly on the neck, I took it out and slooowly lowered it again.

After deep fry. The duck has a nice even "tan".

Stuff the cavity as fully as possible with the 8 treasures. I used a sharp knife to make the cavity larger toward the breast. I then poured some hot water into the cavity.

Forgot to take pic of the finished product, but here's a pic of the "before". This rice went under the duck to take its drippings.