Stuffed Cucumbers and Bourbon Whoopie pies

Posted on June 12, 2011
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I always eat fresh raw cucumbers, it never occurs to me that I would eat cooked cucumbers.
I tried the Vietnamese style cooked cucumbers today and to my surprise, they taste delicious.

Cooked stuffed cucumbers


2 persons

1 cucumber (I used Dutch cucumber, it was huge compared to small cucumbers in Vietnam)

50g minced pork

1 ear wood mushroom

6 small dried mushrooms

500ml  chicken broth

500ml hot water

salt, pepper to taste

5g glass vermicelli  (optional)

Vietnamese fish sauce

Methods:

Soak vermicelli in water (normal temperature) for at least 30 minutes.

Soak dried mushroom, ear-wood mushroom in 500ml hot boiling water until they soften enough (about 30 minutes to 1 hour or so). Keep this water to cook with chicken broth later.

Finely chop both vermicelli and all types of mushrooms.

Mix ground pork with all the other ingredients until they blend by chopsticks or any other kitchen utensils. Add a tsp and a half of fish sauce, pepper.

Use a spoon to scoop out the inside of the cucumber, stuff it with the pork mixture above.

Bring a big pot of chicken broth and mushroom water to boil over high heat, reduce to medium heat, gently put the stuffed cucumbers in the pot. Cook for about 10 minutes.

Serve cool so that the crispiness of cucumber remains the same while it was added with the extra taste from the filling. This is a cool summer dish to me.

A happy ending between bourbon biscuit and whoopie pie

Though Bee, a blogger I recently made friends with and I eagerly planned to bake a pear tart together last Saturday, we both did not manage to find proper pears for the cause. Bee ended up baking some pretty strawberry tarts instead while I was busy holding a wedding party for bourbon biscuits and whoopie pies. I was craving for bourbon biscuits and was interested in the whoopie pie stories.

An article from the Sunday Times titled “The cupcake is dead. Long live the whoopie!” had funny interesting descriptions of the whoopie pies. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/real_food/article7097540.ece

 

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Beer steamed Shrimps and Garlic Shrimp Stir Fry

Posted on June 10, 2011
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It was raining today, for me I know it might sound selfish towards people who catch a sudden rain but it ‘s quite nice to sitting indoors eating good food, enjoying wine while rain is tapping gently on your big windows.  One thing I love about apartments and houses in the Netherlands is they have huge transparent windows, which makes me feel closer to the sun, the wind and it looks pretty.

Shrimps were on sale a last week so I bought immediately 2kilograms, which pretty much partly cool down my constant craze for seafood. After a few days of steaming shrimps with simple lemongrass, ginger and lime leaves, I added some beer today to change the taste a bit and also made another type of shrimp dish with lots of things to spice them up. To me shrimps are delicious on their own and way too quick to prepare but the dish can be much improved and even more tempting when they were added with different herbs.

I’m from Vietnam (or at least Hanoi) where eating seafood on the streets is really popular, we have so many streets that are known for selling all kind of shrimps, snails, clams, sun-dried calamari and so forth. Among them, I love shrimps, blood clams and snails the most… there are many methods to prepare them but for shrimps the most typical method is to steam, char grill, fry, stir fry or braise. I love steaming or grilling the most since the sweetness of shrimps to me are more original. For Vietnamese, lemongrass, lime leaves and ginger enhance and give shrimps the best flavor and fragrance. Besides, ginger is hot will balance the cool nature of shrimps (?)

Beer steamed Shrimps (side dish)

500gram shrimps

10 lime leaves

1/2 tsp garlic power

10g ginger peeled and sliced

3 lemongrass chopped

1/4tsp salt

1/3 or 1/4 cup beer

Cook for 3 or 4 minutes.

Garlic Shrimps  (can be served as main dish as it goes great with white rice)

500g shrimps peeled, de-veined

2 lemongrass finely chopped

5 cloves of garlic

1/2 tsp salt (to your taste)

1 or 2 tbsp olive oil

7g butter

1/2tsp freshly crushed pepper (or more to your taste)

2tbsp ketchup

1tsp parsley (half to season, half to marinade)

2tbsp dry white wine

Method:

Marinade your shrimps with 2 crushed garlic cloves, white wine, garlic powder, parsley, salt, ketchup and pepper. Marinade a few hours or just 30 minutes is okay but it tastes better if it is marinaded long enough.

Heat olive oil and butter on medium high heat, stir in minced lemongrass, stir for a minute, add in minced garlic, stir until you see the surrounding of the garlic turns yellow brown or you can smell the great smell from your pan.

Increase the heat to high, add in the shrimps and all the marinade water. Stir quickly in the pan for about 2-3 minutes. Stop right when the shrimps turn red and ready.

Add more pepper at this point if you prefer.

Serve hot with white rice, please remember to eat with the shrimp sauce it’s amazingly delicious.

Dessert:

Half of the banana flan yesterday after a day chilled in the fridge seems improved in texture and taste. Wow!!!

 

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Stuffed bell peppers and banana flan

Posted on June 9, 2011
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Stuffed Bell Peppers were made to finish paprika, ham and cheese in my fridge.

Ingredients including: two bell peppers, cooked white rice, ground beef, ham, gouda cheese, garlic, onion, oregano, basil, parsley, worcesterine sauce, ketchup, tomatoes, tabasco chili, olive oil, salt and pepper, topped with mozzarella.

Preheat 205C, bake 20 minutes until cheese melted.

This was albeit small quite filling!

However, I still made some dessert,

This is basically what I did to consume two over ripe bananas while I’m craving for crème caramel, a banana flan. I do not enjoy eating too ripe bananas, so I was thinking of what to make with them besides cakes ( don’t know why but I am not interested in baking either banana bread or banana cakes recently, just found them a bit too dry for summer) This banana flan was cool (after refrigerated), melted in the mouth and was fragrant with banana and caramel. Like it but less preferred than the classic creme caramel!!!

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Vietnamese steamed buns/ 包子/Banh bao

Posted on June 9, 2011
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包子

First time making these buns, I was quite successful to shape them, wasn’t I! The photo was taken by my phone, the quality was off.

To be honest, I have never been a big fan of dumplings even when I was in Vietnam. Let’s say if I am involved in a lot of  beautiful love stories with street food in Hanoi then dumpling was always a mere fling. The smell of steamed flour together with the tempting fragrance of pork and dried mushroom blend in, bringing me back to a street where I had the most dumplings in my high school time. I took a literature extra class there in late afternoon every two day.

Such a youthful and nostalgic fragrance!

Earlier last Christmas I bought a ready-mix dumpling flour in Paris but I decided to mix flour on my own as mixing flour is fun and not that difficult.

I have tried different recipes for the dough and this one below is the best, which gives you a soft moist texture and the signature smell of the buns sold in Vietnam. I learned the recipe from someone to whom I owe an apology for not having taken note her name. As I tend to read lots of recipe before I cook something and took note in different notebooks (well I’m not very well organized) I could not find the piece of paper that I noted down this recipe for the first time.

So this is my adapted version:

Yield 10-12 buns

Dough:

250g AP flour or bread flour

50g cake or  AP flour

1tbsp vegetable oil

1tbsp lemon juice

a pinch of salt

110ml milk

75g powdered sugar

1/2 tbsp instant yeast

1tsp sugar

1/2 tbsp baking powder

For the fillings you can use a wide range of ingredients that you want.

250g minced pork

12,5g dried mushroom, soaked in boiling hot water for at least 30minutes, finely chopped

1 scallion finely chopped

1/8 a dried onion or 1small  golden onion finely chopped

(1/2 can or 70g water chestnut) finely chopped

Chinese sausages thinly sliced

1tbsp oyster sauce

a pinch of salt

1/2 tsp fish sauce

1/8 tsp pepper (or to taste)

1/2 tbsp honey

3 hard boiled eggs (cut in quarters)

To make the fillings, just simply mix them together.

Method:

Sieve flour and powdered sugar.

Pour flour, sugar, salt, instant yeast, lemon juice in a food processor, pulse a few times to blend. Using plastic blade.

Keep the machine at speed 2, gradually pour in milk for 30-40second or until the dough form a ball.

Knead by hand 2,3 times. Let it proof in warm place (24-29C) for an hour until it doubles its size.

When done proofing. Sieve 50g flour with baking powder and mix with this proofed flour dough. Let it sit for a second time for 1 or 2 hours.

Knead it in a long tube, cut into 10 or 12 small even pieces. Flatten the pieces with a rolling pin. Stuff in the fillings and let it proof 30 minutes before steaming for about 12-15 minutes on high bubbling water. Don’t let your lid open during steaming.

Tips: To whiten the dough, pour some vinegar into the water.

 

 

 

 

 

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Cream puffs- Choux a la creme- chouquette

Posted on June 9, 2011
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Puff Pastry to me is one of the most simple recipes to prepare, isn’t it the reason why it does not require any machine to support your work? I have made sweet pastry for choux a la creme and chouquettes which is also a French sweet topped with pearl sugar, but left out the filling part, eclairs (puff pastry filled with whipping cream or ice cream). For savory pastry I was addicted to baking cheese puffs for quite sometimes. Since you can easily mix herbs and flavors so it took me a while to stop playing with the cheese puffs.

Choux is among the most popular sweet pastries in Vietnam, it must be a heritage from the French colonial time.

I have baked choux a few times and I had the habit of never making one dish twice which means I would definitely try to use different ingredients, different shapes or at least the amount of ingredients.

This batch was made in tiny shapes and was filled with Bavarian cream instead of normal custard filling.

70g all purpose flour (sifted)

2 large eggs

50g butter

125ml full cream milk or water

5-10g sugar

a pinch of salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp vanilla (optional)

– Sift flour+ baking powder together.

– In a small sauce pan, on medium LOW heat, bring butter and milk (or water), sugar and salt to simmer until they are melted but not boiling.

– Dump the sifted flour to the pan. Use a wooden spoon to stir quickly until it forms a dough that pulls away from the sides.

– Remove from heat.

-Let it rest for 1-2 minutes.

– Use a hand mixer to beat in one egg at a time. Beat until you have a shiny smooth mixture.

– Transfer the dough to a piping bag, pipe to the shape you want.

– Bake at 375F/ 190C 12-15 minutes

300F/ 150C another 8- 12 minutes (depending on the size of the cream puffs)

– Try to avoid opening the oven if you can.

CHOUX FILLINGS there’re two ways, either use custard powder or egg yolks.

This recipe using egg yolks:

400ml milk (about 1 2/3 cup milk)

80g sugar (1/2+ 1tbsp sugar)

4 yolks

30g corn starch (1/4 cup)

1 vanilla bean or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

—

25g butter

1 tbsp rum (optional)

–

Pour milk into a saucepan.

With a sharp knife slice the vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Using the tip of the knife to scape the vanilla d.

Whisk yolks and sugar till pale in a bowl. Incorporate flour.

Gradually add some hot milk in to the bowl. Add this mixture back to the saucepan. Bring this to boil while whisking vigorously on medium LOW heat.

When reach the desired consistency (check by seeing if the liquid can coat the back of the spoon), remove from heat. Let it rest 1 minute, add in 25g butter and rum to make the cream shiny.

seeds into the saucepan. Use both the bean and the seeds, bring it to a simmer with lid covered

IN VIETNAMESE:

Choux à la crème. Su kem
Phần vỏ bánh:
70 g flour/ bột đa dụng
2 eggs trứng
50g butter bơ nhạt
125ml water nước
5-10g sugar đường
pinch of sugar một nhúm đường
một nhúm hoặc a pinch to 1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of vanilla extract
pinch of kosher salt
Đun bơ, nước, muối, đường trên meidum high heat tới lúc lăm tăm sôi, hạ nhỏ lửa, đổ toàn bộ bột+ baking powder (đã rây cùng nhau) vào khuấy thật nhanh. Tắt bếp. Nghỉ 1-2 phút cho hỗn hợp bớt nóng. Đập từng quả trứng vào, dùng máy đánh trứng đánh mịn. Đánh rất nhanh, đánh lâu quá hỗn hợp sẽ bị vữa. Mình làm theo thói quen nên không hay để ý bao lâu. Nhưng cứ thấy trứng đã gần trộn vào hỗn hợp hết thì đập tiếp quả tiếp theo vào, một tay đập trứng, một tay dùng máy đánh.
Xong được hỗn hợp bóng mịn rồi thì cho vào túi bắt kem. bắt thành hình cho có hoa văn, hoặc không thì dùng thìa múc kem, múc ra thành hình tròn bất kỳ giống lúc làm cookies.
Phun hỗn hợp lên giấy parchement (non stick) nhớ để khoảng cách tương đối rộng vì bánh sẽ nở to.
Nướng vỏ bánh: 190 độ (12 phút) sau đó hạ lửa xuống còn 150C (nướng tiếp tầm 12-15 phút tuỳ bánh to hay nhỏ.
Nhân su kem:
2 lòng đỏ trứng (yolk)
10g corn starch
400ml+100ml milk
15g Bird custard powder (lọ của Anh Bird là ngon nhất)
—
25g butter
1tbsp rượu rum
Khuấy đều trứng+ đường+ bột, custard powder bằng phới, trộn với 100ml sữa.
Microwave or dun 400ml sữa tới khi ấm, đổ vào hỗn hợp 100ml sữa ở trên. Đun hỗn hợp này trên bếp lửa nhỏ riu riu. khuấy tới khi hỗn hợp sánh, cho thìa vào thấy hỗn hợp dính lại một lớp sau mặt thìa để thử. tắt bếp, cho 25g bơ vào ngoáy để làm nhân bóng đẹp, cho thêm 1tbsp rượu rum+ 1 ít vanilla nữa để tạo mùi thơm, và hương vị quyến rũ. Nhân bánh để nguội rồi cho vào tủ lạnh vài tiếng tới khi mát. Cho vào túi bắt kem.
Vỏ bánh nướng ở trên xong thì để nguội trên rack, đừng đè lên nhau. Vỏ bánh nhẹ, ruột rỗng, khô là đạt tiêu chuẩn.
Vỏ bánh có thể cắt đôi rồi phun nhân kem vào, hoặc dùng lọ đầu nhọn đục lỗ nhỏ và phun kem vào.

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