Category: Yelly Eats

Everything and anything about food, cooking, baking, and recipe-testing

Yelly Eats

Chinese potsticker dumplings

Yelly

I’ve almost always bought the potstickers (which are similar to the Japanese gyoza), whether cooked and ready to eat or frozen.  I’ve never really made them myself.  Mostly because I thought the pleating would be a difficult thing to do.  I’m a perfectionist so anything that doesn’t look good to me is a disappointment (reminds me of the mini-melt down I had when I first made carrot cake whoopie pies.  It involved a quiet scream and the throwing of the poor, innocent ice cream scooper!).  To avoid the disappointment, I just don’t do things.

But lately, I’ve been fairly adventurous (helped along by Alan’s encouragement!).  Last week, I made siomai.  This weekend, it was Chinese pork potsticker dumplings.  I must have watched a lot of “how-to-pleat” videos on youtube to mentally prepare myself for the exercise.  The dumplings turned out really well and has (probably) been given the Alan seal of approval.  I used store bought dumpling wrappers – the next time I’m doing it, I’m doing EVERYTHING completely from scratch!

Ingredients:

  • 110g ground pork2015-02-21 19.00.12
  • 1 tsp fine sea salt
  • 1 tsp dark soy sauce
  • 1 tsp rice wine
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • ½ ground white pepper
  • 1 tbsp corn starch
  • 1 egg white
  • 1 clove garlic, grated
  • 1 tbsp freshly grated ginger
  • 1 heaping tbsp chives chopped finely
  • 18 dumpling wrappers

Directions:

  1. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together until well incorporated.
  2. Taking a dumpling wrapper, dampen the edges of the dumpling wrapper.  Place 2 teaspoons of the mixture in the center of the wrapper, and holding the wrapper like a taco, start pleating the edges of the wrapper, pinching with each pleat to seal the dumpling well.  Place on a parchment paper-lined baking tray and set aside until ready to cook.
  3. My version of cooking the dumplings might be different from most people, but it works for me.  There are other ways, so feel free to cook them any other way that works for you.  I place water and vegetable oil in a wok (or shallow saucepan) and allow the water to heat up to a gentle rolling boil.  Place 6-8 dumplings in the boiling water and allow to boil covered for 5 minutes.  Uncover the dumplings and swirl (carefully) around to make sure that the dumplings aren’t sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Allow the water to evaporate and add a little oil to fry the dumplings until they’re golden brown.
  4. Serve with your favourite dip!

Chinese pork dumplings

Yelly Eats

Cookies for the New Year!

Yelly

Did you see what I did there?  C-N-Y.  If you missed it, well, there you go.

Anyway, I baked Chinese almond cookies last night.  My way of celebrating the Chinese New Year.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Chinese almond cookies

Yelly Eats

Prawn toast

Yelly

If you order Chinese takeaway, and order the hors d’oeuvres, you will most likely get prawn toast.  Apart from the spring rolls, this is probably one of my favourite things from a Chinese takeaway (I love prawns, you see).  I’ve always heard about how easy it is to make, but I could never wrap my mind around how the prawn would stick to the bread!

All week last week, I googled recipes for prawn toast and pored over directions.  I put together what I thought were common ingredients and hoped for the best!  Which was, in itself, such a dangerous thing to do since I had never (ever) made prawn toast!  But it worked and all night, as I was wallowing in prawn toast, I was thanking the cooking gods for smiling on my experimentation!

Ingredients:

  • 200g prawns, peeled and deveined
  • 2 spring onions (the white part only), chopped finely
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground fresh ginger
  • 1 tablespoon cornflour
  • dash soy sauce
  • dash sesame oil
  • 1 egg white
  • 4 slices white bread (optional: crusts removed)
  • 500g sesame seed
  • 500ml vegetable oil for frying

Directions:

  1. In a food processor, add the prawns and the spring onions.  Blitz until a rough past is formed.  Turn the prawn paste out into a bowl.
  2. Add salt, cornflour, ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, and egg white to the prawn paste and mix until well incorporated.  The mixture should feel like a heavy paste.
  3. Divide the paste into 4 portions.  Using a palette knife spread a quarter of the prawn paste onto a slice of white bread evenly.  Dip the filling side onto the sesame seeds making sure all the mixture is covered.
  4. Deep fry the toast in hot oil, filling side down first, until golden brown.  Flip over to brown the other side and drain on a absorbent paper and slice into quarters and serve.

Prawn toast

 

Yelly Eats

Chinese coconut tarts

Yelly

I’ve loved coconut tarts since the first day I tasted them.  Alan properly introduced me to them in Chinatown in London.  We had a favourite Chinese bakery where we bought our char siu buns, cocktail buns and egg and coconut tarts.  We called this bakery, the one with the pushy aunts because they were very…authoritative.  To be honest, these Chinese aunties scared me!  We’ve since then changed loyalties and we’ve found the perfect char siu buns from somewhere else, but after looking through at least 4 Chinese bakeries, one of my favourite things to order is the coconut tart.  I love the flakiness of the pastry that they use on the tarts.

It is widely known that necessity is the mother of all invention.  The trains to London are (to put it indelicately) buggered on the weekends until 22 March.  So I can’t just zip into Chinatown and get some coconut tarts.  Plus, Alan has been asking me to bake coconut tarts for a few weeks now.  At first, they were very gentle, subtle hints.  A couple of weeks ago, he asked me to bake them because he said my tarts were better than the store bought ones because I put more coconut in them!  So, of course, I had to bake them!

Sliced coconut tart

I’ve almost always used store-bought puff pastry because it was more convenient.  But as I am challenging my baking fears, I’ve been practicing my puff and rough-puff pastry making capabilities and flexing my muscles.  I can bake shortcrust and sweet shortcrust pastry fairly well now, so this was a new challenge.

I think I’ve found a puff pastry recipe that I can manipulate and work to fit my needs.  I’ve done a few tweaks to it so that it’s simple and relatively fool proof.

Shortcrust pastry:

  • 250g butter, VERY COLD and cut into cubes
  • 250g all purpose flour
  • 50g icing sugar
  • 150ml cold water

Directions:

  1. Because my hands are a still a bit buggered, I’m using a mixer.  In a mixing bowl, combine flour and icing sugar. With the paddle attachment, add all the butter and mix.  You should still see pieces of butter but they should be covered in flour.
  2. Add 2/3 of the water and mix until the mixture comes together and comes away from the sides of the bowl.
  3. Turn the mixture out onto a floured surface and knead gently until the mixture is relatively smooth and then form a rectangle.  Using a floured rolling pin, roll into a longer rectangle.  Fold the top third down towards you and the bottom third up (you should have a square-ish rectangle).  Flour the surface some more so that the pastry doesn’t stick.  Hold one of the corners and turn the dough 90º and roll into a rectangle and fold into thirds again.  Do this another 2 times.  Then wrap in cling film and chill for 30 minutes.
  4. Roll and fold the pastry into thirds about 3 more times chilling 30 minute in between roll and fold sessions, wrapping the pastry after each time.  This will create the pastry layers.  Keep the pastry in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.  This will line at least 2 12-hole muffin pans (24 tarts), depending on how thick you want your pastry to be.

TIP:  To use this pastry in a savoury recipe, replace the sugar with 1 tsp fine sea salt.

When you’re ready to fill your tarts, roll out the pastry to desired thickness and cut rounds to line muffin tins.  Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Coconut tart filling:

  • 225g dessicated coconutCoconut tarts before baking
  • 100g butter, softened
  • 175g sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 75g plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 100ml evaporated milk
  • 24 glacé cherry halves (optional)

Directions:

  1. In a bowl, combine coconut, flour and baking powder.  Set aside.  In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg to the butter-sugar mixture until well combined.
  2. Add the coconut-flour mixture and evaporated milk until the mixture is thick.  It will be slightly heavy.
  3. Fill the tarts until almost to the top of the pastry (which is about one tablespoon of mixture) and top with half a glacé cherry (if you wish, this is optional of course, but it makes it so pretty!) and bake for 20-25 minutes (depending on how hot your oven is) or until risen over the pastry and golden brown.
  4. Take the tarts out of the oven and cool for 5 minutes before moving to wire racks to cool completely.

Coconut tarts

 

 

Yelly Eats

Curry in a hurry?

Yelly

I have to write down the recipe for this curry that I made last week.  Because it is amazing and because I have this insatiable need to share!

Watch this space people!

Here’s a picture to whet your appetites!

Chicken curry

Yelly Eats

Baking for medicine

Yelly

I’ve been feeling under the weather for quite a while now and I’ve been battling this illness for a few weeks now.  Lurgy has been making its rounds in the office and so far, I’ve not gotten sick (knock on wood) except for sniffles and the occasional coughing fit.  But since Friday, I’ve been feeling really poorly and since Sunday night have not been able to sleep.  In 72 hours, I’ve only had about 7 hours of sleep in total, I think.

Baking has always been cathartic for me and I’ve always felt better after baking.  So last night, after Alan helped with the fruit prep, I made pear and apple crumble.  I was hoping that it would do the trick.

Pear and apple crumble

Not quite.  I woke up this morning – and I use the term “woke up” quite loosely as I only had about an hour and a half of sleep last night.  So tonight, it’s banana oat spice muffins.

Banana oat spice muffins

Let’s hope tonight I can catch some sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream…well, maybe not dream as I’ve been having nightmares lately.

Yelly Eats

The flat white from Flat White

Yelly

There are a lot of reasons why I’d love to live in London.  There’s something about the frenetic activity of a world-class city that makes one feel alive.  For one, the shops don’t close at 5 or 6PM.  There’s always something to do and there’s always something to happen.  What I love about my London trips is that you literally walk in history.  Each corner and cobblestone may have had a place in history!

And the food!  London is such a cultural melting pot that one is spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing where and what to eat.  You have a choice of going to a restaurant chain or going to an independent one-of-a-kind shop.

I love my coffee strong (some might say strong enough to stand one’s spoon in!) and while I will always somehow feel a certain loyalty to Starbucks (sometimes Starbucks coffee can leave me wanting more), London offers a wide variety of choice when it comes to places where one can get a brilliant cuppa.

One of my favourite street food purveyors of great coffee is Bean About Town.  Their coffee is strong and robust and you get the perfect caffeine hit.  I’ve been known to head to South Bank when a headache rears its ugly head just to stop a migraine from coming (obviously only when I’m actually IN London)!  I remember once my migraine really was starting and we were in South Bank  I was very disappointed that they’d run out of beans and I couldn’t get my caffeine fix.

One of my favourite coffee places of all time though is Flat White.  It’s this little coffee shop nestled in between vegetable stalls and fabric shops on Berwick Street in Soho.  It serves, well, flat whites (of course!), cappuccino, lattes, and a selection of other coffee based drinks.  They also offer a great selection of teas.  If you’re feeling peckish and need a little something to have with your cuppa, they’ve got a selection of bread-based eats and baked goodies as well.

I love Flat White.  Mostly because they make a good flat white – strong and not at all too watery or milky.  For those who haven’t had a flat white, a flat white is a coffee drink developed in Australia in the 1970s and further developed in New Zealand in the 80s.  It’s prepared by preparing steamed milk with small, fine bubbles into a shot or a double shot of espresso.  Flat White a smallish narrow restaurant that has a long L-shaped banquette.  But what I appreciate most about this little gem of a coffee shop is that even though seating is limited, the atmosphere is very laid back and no one rushes you to gulp down your drink, inhale your food and free up seating space.  You’re allowed to chill out and linger over your coffee.  The staff are wonderfully friendly (no question too silly!) and you are served with an amazing efficiency (the music is not too loud and brilliant to listen to!)!

Table Flat White

If you’re ever in Soho, and you’re dying for a cup of coffee, mosey on along to Flat White.  It will definitely be worth it!

Flat White's flat white

 

Yelly Eats

Pizza night!

Yelly

There are benefits wanting to bake more savoury things.  I had a portion of gammon joint left in the freezer from New Year’s Day lunch and a can of pineapple rings lurking in my cupboard and fancied a pizza.  So off I went and made a pizza base from scratch!

Ingredients:

  • 300g strong bread flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 7g yeast
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 200g hot water

Directions:

I am using my trusty Kenwood Chef because my hands aren’t well today (oh the joy of recovering from carpal tunnel decompression surgery!) but this can be done by hand entirely!

In a bowl, place flour, yeast and salt (making sure the salt and yeast are on separate sides so that the salt doesn’t kill the yeast) and make a well in the middle.  In the well, place the oil and water and mix.  If using a mixer, on low speed, with a dough hook, mix the ingredients together.  When fairly combined, scrape the sides of the bowl and, still using the dough hook, mix the dough on medium speed for 5 minutes or until elastic and smooth.  The dough is going to be sticky so I add up to 3 heaping teaspoons of flour while the dough is kneaded.  If kneading by hand, on a floured surface, knead for about 10 minutes.  Turn the flour into a ball and cover with a tea towel and allow to rest for 30-45 minutes until the dough has risen.  You don’t really need to proof the dough if you’re making thin pizzas.

pizza dough

Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C (fan).  Roll out the dough to your desired thickness (dough can be divided into 2 balls to make 2 10-inch thin crust pizzas).

desired thickness

Tip: I sprinkle a teaspoon of coarse semolina on the pan (which I line with baking parchment) so that the pizza dough doesn’t stick.  The semolina also adds an interesting texture to the dough.

semolina sprinkle

Top with whatever topping you wish.  I recommend using a pre-heated baking pan or a pizza stone if you have one for a crisper base.  Bake the pizza for 8-10 minutes until crisp.

topping favourites

When the timer buzzes, all you have to do is bring out the pizza, slice and enjoy!

pizza

Yelly Eats

First bake!

Yelly

I did say that my goal was to bake more so that I could blog more.

The first bake of the year is my take on the traditional stollen.  A stollen is described as a yeasted cake containing dried fruit and marzipan.  I love stollen!  While it is a joy to bake (the smell of dried fruit and mixed peel soaked in brandy is amazing!), sometimes, one needs instant gratification and a store-bought one provides the instant pleasure.  I was gutted however, when I found out that Lidl had run out completely of stollen AND stollen bites.  I don’t know about anyone else in the UK, but I think Lidl sources great stollen and panettone!  I’m not sure where they source their stollen from, but whoever makes that stollen, they have a cracking recipe.  The lack of store-bought stollen necessitated the baking (which wasn’t such a difficulty because baking stollen is a pleasure!).

I used Edd Kimber’s stollen recipe from his second book Say It With Cake (I have written about Edd Kimber’s recipes before.  I love his blueberry crumble pie and his red velvet cake recipe is to die for!).  Edd Kimber’s stollen recipe is probably my favourite recipe from all the stollen recipes so far.  I’ve been relatively successful with it (lately!).  But this year, instead of rolling the marzipan into a log to fill the center of the loaf, I’ve rolled the dough into a log with the marzipan forming a swirl pattern when the loaf was sliced.  I thought it would be good to spread the marzipan all over the bread to distribute it better so that you didn’t get a huge lump in the middle of the bread.  And I think it works!

I think this means I’m going to bake stollen again.  It doesn’t have to be Christmas for me to bake stollen, does it?

Stollen with marzipan swirl

Yelly Eats

The (Chicken) Bucket List

Yelly

I have always, always loved chicken: fried, stewed, roasted, poached, steamed, sautéed, you name a cooking process, I’ll probably say go and do it and I’ll eat the chicken.  I’d even go as far as saying that I prefer chicken to any other meat.

My all-time favourite chicken dish, however, is Southern fried chicken.  I loved it so much that everytime I hear of a chicken place that claims to serve “proper” Southern fried chicken, I ask Alan if we can go and try it out.  Thankfully, Alan is almost always too happy to indulge this particular obsession.

So after a lot of thinking, Alan and I have come up with THE list.  It’s a list of chicken places that we have tried and places that we want to try, mostly because they serve chicken.

Presenting our chicken bucket list!

  1. Roost
  2. Spit and Roast
  3. Mother Clucker
  4. Bird
  5. Clock Jack
  6. Wishbone
  7. Red Dog
  8. Jubo
  9. On The Bab
  10. Stax
  11. Ruby Jean’s Diner
  12. Joe’s Southern Kitchen and Bar
  13. Chooks
  14. Meat Liquor
  15. Rita’s Bar and Dining
  16. Eat 17
  17. Jackson and Rye
  18. Clutch

So watch this space as I write through the (chicken) bucket list!