Taiwan Style Kimchi 台式泡菜

 

Thanks everyone for your regards on my son's rashes, he is getting better after medication, no more frustrated scratching :D. So lucky as I can't take leave to take care of him due to busy schedule this week for exhibition, extremely busy. I am stealing time to post this up for AFF event :P.

Recipe from 小小米桶,小米桶的零油煙廚房，第98頁

Ingredients :

500g cabbage

1/3 carrot

1/2 cucumber

1 chili

2 cloves garlic

Marinate Ingredients :

120g sugar

375ml rice vinegar

1/4 tsp salt

300ml water

2 sour plum (I increased to 4)

Method :

1. Boil the water and off the fire, add in sugar and stir till dissolve.

2. Add in rice vinegar, salt, sour plum and mix well, set aside to cool.

3. Julienned chili, smash garlic, peel skin and slice carrot and cucumber, tear cabbage into big pieces, set aside.

4. Add salt to cabbage, carrot and cucumber, set aside for cabbage to turn soft, use hand to squeeze or press out the vegetable juice, repeat a few times and rinse the salt away. Drain the water away and set aside.

5. Put in the cabbage, carrot, cucumber, chili and garlic in the glass jar and pour in the cooked marinated ingredients. 

6. Store in the fridge for at least one day before serving.

Verdict?
This is so appetizing, and so nice to eat after a full meal too, but my mil thinks is too sour for her lol.

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest, Taiwan Month,

hosted by Allan of Travelling Foodies.

I'm linking this post to Cook-Your-Books #15 organised by Joyce from Kitchen Flavours.

Easy Taiwan Style Steamed White Radish Cake 簡易台式蘿蔔糕

I am so tire now, didn't sleep last night due to dear son. Last night he got rashes suddenly, he was so itchy 't that kept scratching, he can't really sleep well due to the itchiness too and that caused him double frustrated. I need to pacify him, need to apply aloe vera gel for him, need to scratch for him until he fell asleep. And this cycle kept repeating a few times until dawn, rushed to bring him to consult doctor. Hope after medication, he will feel better today.

I always wanna make Chinese dim sum, more for my family as they are kind of "tire" of my cakes lol. Although I have more confidence and preference on western style of snacks but sometimes I have to make something to suit my family taste as well heeheehee.

Recipe adapted from Carol, 杨桃美食网, Cass, Irene, Ann.

Ingredients: 7" square cake tin, greased and lined

 (A)
600g radish grated

100g carrot, grated (about 1 big carrot)
1 tsp salt
400g water

(B)
300g rice flour

50g wheat flour (澄面粉)
1.5 tsp salt 

1.5 tsp sugar

600g water

Method:

1.    Toss grated radish with salt, leave aside for 20 minutes. Squeeze out excess water from grated radish. (I really squeezed hard and pressed all the water out which I think I had over do it ;P)

2.    In a wok, boil 400g water, add radish and cook for 5 minutes at medium low fire.

3.    In a large bowl, mix (B) ingredients together and stir mixture well till smooth. Gradually pour mixture into the radish.

4.    Stir mixture until it becomes thick paste until low flame. Stirring constantly to prevent mixture get burnt.

5.    Pour radish mixture into prepared cake tin and steam at high flame for 1 hour.

6.    Leave radish cake to cool before slicing.

7.    Pan fry the sliced radish cake to golden brown with some dusted rice flour on both sides. Serve immediately with some chili sauce. 

Verdict?

Due to my over squeezed of the juice out from the grated radish, My Mil commented that the radish taste is not strong which not suppose to be as I put in so much radish. On top of that, the radish is a bit hard so MIL said I squeezed out too much water from the radish that result the mild taste of radish and also caused the radish cake a bit hard, and probably due to my over steamed as well. As my family are those strong taste kind of person so this steamed radish cake to them is a bit blend but they are ok with the fried version, especially both of helpers actually love to eat with lots of chili sauce.

I am submitting this post to Asian Food Fest, Taiwan Month,

hosted by Allan of Travelling Foodies.

Japanese Chocolate Soufflé Cheesecake 日式巧克力舒芙蕾乳酪蛋糕

This was baked when I wanna clear my going to expire cream cheese, and also to bake for one of my closed colleague who love cheesecake a lot. I chose this recipe from my baking buddy which has quit blogging to spend more times on her kids, Jessie, I miss you!

Recipe adapted from Jessie Cooking Moments

Ingredients: for 7" square or 8" round cake pan

125g cream cheese, roughly chopped

60g unsalted Butter, roughly chopped

5 egg yolks (total weight is 77g)

125g milk (I used chocolate milk)

75g cake flour, sifted

35g corn flour, sifted

13g cocoa powder, sifted

5 egg whites (total weight is 178g)

120g caster sugar

Method:

1. Line the base and sides of the cake pan with non-stick baking paper. For the sides, make sure that the paper extends to about 1" higher than the pan.

2. Mix flour and cocoa powder together. Set aside.

3. Melt cream cheese and butter in a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Stir until no lumps. Remove from heat and leave to cool.

4. Add egg yolks to the cream mixture, one at a time and mix with a hand whisk. The mixture becomes smoother after the 1^st egg was added.

5. Add milk, whisk to combine.

6. Add flour mixture gradually. Mix until well-combined. Do not over mix.

7. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until frothy. Add sugar in a few rounds &  beat until soft peaks.

8. Give the cream mixture a good stir, then add 1/3 of (7) into the cream cheese. Mix gently with a hand whisk.  Gradually add in the rest of (7) into the cream mixture & mix until well-combined.

9. Pour batter into the cake pan. Pour from a certain height slowly to help remove air bubbles. Tap the pan lightly on a table top to level up the batter and also to remove air bubbles.

10. Place the cake pan in a big baking tray, then put them in the lower middle oven rack. Carefully fill up the tray with hot water. The water level should just be about 1’’ height of the cake pan.

11. Bake in a 150C preheated oven(Bake only, not Fan-Bake) for 10 minutes, then reduce to 140C for another  10 minutes, if cracks happen, reduce to 120-130C & continue to bake for about 40 minutes(total baking hour is 1 hour).

12. Remove cake pan from oven and immediately drop the pan from a height of 20-30cm onto the table top. This prevents the cake from shrinking upon cooling. Remove the cake from pan immediately. To unmold, place a large baking sheet on top of the cake pan, invert the cake pan onto the baking sheet. Remove the cake pan and the paper on the base and sides of the cake. Turn the cake back to the top again on a wire rack. Cooled. Refrigerate overnight.

Verdict?

The cheese taste is very very mild, my colleague can't even tell is cheesecake lol. I think I had over baked the cake slightly too, so I felt that the cake is a bit dry as well.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from The Domestic Goddess Wannabe

Cream Cheese Vanilla and Rum Pound Cake

My laptop is giving me a lot of problem recently and just now when I was at blogspot trying to select the post to publish, the laptop haywire again and it runs the apps itself that even auto deleted some of my files, including those posts that I had pre-drafted during my sleepless nights. I nearly cry out, there gone my hard works :(.....

Recipe adapted from Singapore Shiok

Ingredients :

200g soft but cool butter, not melting

150g soft cream cheese

200g fine grain sugar (I reduced till 150g)

2/3 tsp fine salt

4 tbsp full cream milk powder

4 egg yolks

200g plain or all purpose flour, sifted at least 3 times (use self raising flour for a less dense cake)

1.5 tbsp pure vanilla extract or paste

6 tbsp dark or Malibu rum (use milk, your favourite liqueur or citrus juice if preferred)

4 egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

  

Method :

1. Preheat oven at 140C and grease and flour a 23cm (9 in) tube pan. (I used 10.5 cup)

2. Combine butter, cream cheese, sugar and salt in bowl of stand mixer and beat with paddle attachment on medium speed until smooth and well combined. Add milk powder and continue to beat on medium speed until mixture is very pale and fluffy. This will take at least 8 minutes.

3. Reduce speed slightly and beat in one egg yolk at a time, beating after each yolk until yolk is no longer visible before adding the next.

4. Turn off machine and scrape mixture down sides of bowl. Sift over a third of the flour and mix in on minimum speed, by turning the motor on and off until flour is no longer visible. Add the vanilla and rum (or preferred liquid) and mix in again by turning the machine on and off on minimum speed, until liquids are no longer visible.

5. Add the remaining flour in two lots (sifted over), using the same turn on/turn off method. Scrape down sides of bowl again. Do not over mix or you will develop the gluten in the flour and your cake may turn out heavy.
6. Combine egg whites and cream of tartar in another clean and grease free deep mixing bowl and whisk until peaks form but egg whites are not dry or grainy. Fold a third of whites into batter and fold in with whisk. Add remaining whites and fold in until whites are no longer visible. Do not overmix or you will deflate the batter and your cake may not rise well.

7. Scrape batter into prepared tin and and tilt pan to level batter. Bang tin once sharply on work surface to dispel any large air bubbles. If you don't do this, your pound cake slices will look like Swiss cheese.

8. Bake at lower centre of oven for about an hour. Test with skewer after 45 minutes and if not done, again at 50 minutes. When skewer comes out clean (a few tiny crumbs sticking on the skewer is fine), remove from oven and leave cake for 15 minutes before turning out onto a rack. 

9. While cake is still very warm, but not too hot to handle, wrap in cling film and leave until cake is cold. Keep overnight before slicing. This softens the crust and makes the crumb more moist, which is how I like my pound cake. If preferred, cool unwrapped cake completely on rack then keep in a lidded container and eat within 5 days.

Verdict?

As I was using pure vanilla powder so the cake looks much darker. I think I had also over fold the batter a bit and under baked the cake a bit which caused the wet stripes at the side of the cake. However the cake is is soft and moist and fragrance but quite strong milky taste which a bit too overwhelming for me. Perhaps my taste bud has changed, I used to be a butter cake fan but now, I will prefer much lighter cake such as chiffon cake :P.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from The Domestic Goddess Wannabe