Honey Citron Custard Tartlets

And I thought I was not ever returning to this Blog!

Phew...what a hectic time since my last post. Disappointment, Frustration and Tiresome all bundled up and filled those days and still on going with my next Home search. Never did I realize that this House Hunting process can take up so much of my time and even Sundays are spent somewhere looking besides baking.

Easter will be here soon and Spring indeed is lovely this year. The warmer weather brings more energy and I am now counting to the days when my kids and I can go to the fruit farms again to pick up some berries. Spring cleaning is in the process and time to re-arrange things here and there and throw out the old and hoping to get new ones. De-cluttering is the new and next therapeutic thing to me and so far, I have managed to junk out all ugly bottles and containers from my pantry and the next is to throw out old and extra baking stuffs that I placed around only for sentimental value and no more purpose at all!

To get away from all the craze, I made these tartlets using some left over Honey Citron that was sitting at the back of my fridge. This particular blend of Honey and Citron peels and juice are widely drank in Korea and even in Japan for extra intake of Vitamin C and usually I mix it with Hot water for a quick warming drink during cold nights.

The recipe for these tartlets are fairly easy and should yield one 8 inch tart by itself and I made them with smaller 4 inch tartlet pans. The most important thing is not to overwork the tart dough and the batter for the custard filling is a cinch to make. I ran out of heavy cream and used Almond milk instead of regular milk, hence giving the tartlets a creamier and heavier nutty taste. I am glad that I have not lost my baking passion despite most of my tools have been packed away for the future moving. Sometimes people do lose interest in things they once loved to do over a period of time and since my last bake in early February, I was almost at that brink of losing it already. Till my own daughter asked me if I still remember how to bake bread! Well, I made these tartlets and she chowed down one before dinner and said I was Still good :).

Recipe (yields one 8 inch deep tart OR six of 4 inch Tartlets)

Ingredients
Tart Dough: 300g All Purpose Flour; 180g cold soft butter; 1 tbsp sugar; 1 large egg

Custard Filling: 225g Neuchatel Cream Cheese; 2 large Eggs; 160ml Heavy cream or Milk; 100g sugar; 5 tbsp of Honey Citron blend

Method
Tart Dough:

• Crumble and rub the butter into the flour and sugar. Using fingers, crumble and mix these 2 ingredients till evenly coated and light and airy. About 2 to 3 mins.
• Beat in the egg and stir to mix. The dough will feel cool and work quickly with your hands to mix it into a ball. The dough must not look cracked or dry, if so, add 1 tbsp water at a time till the dough is like cookie dough. Place in plastic bag and let it rest in the fridge for about 30 mins.
• Take out and roll out to line the tart or tartlet pans. Prick the bottom and return to the fridge to rest a further 15 mins. Preheat the oven to 375F.
• Line the tartlet dough with parchment paper and baking beans. Bake for about 20 to 25 mins in the middle rack. Remove paper and beans at the last 5 mins of baking and complete baking. Remove and cool completely.

Custard Filling :

• Beat the neuchatel Cream cheese with the sugar till creamy. Beat in eggs one at a time to mix.
• Spoon in the Honey citron and stir to mix in.
• Pour in the Heavy cream Or milk. The batter will be like pouring custard, heavy and thick.
• Lower the temperature of the oven to 350F.
• Using a ladle, scoop the custard batter and slowly fill up the tart or tartlet pans to the rim. Place the tartlet pans on a larger baking sheet and insert into the oven.
• Bake for 30 to 35 mins till the filling is set.
• Let them cool completely on rack and chill for 1 hour, tastes better chilled. Garnish with powdered sugar.

Bento Days

February kicked off busier than January. As kids grow, priorities changed, and now I need to look for a bigger house and this time I am definitely sure that the biggest room for the new house shall be the Kitchen! When I first moved to my present house, never had I imagined that cooking and baking will take up most of my time and if jotted down and recorded, the time I spent in my kitchen far extend and outnumber the days I spend in any other parts of my house. There are times when I fret and curse about my present small kitchen and now when I have to put it up for sale, my heart beats and feel longing and attachment to it. There is no Kitchen island and I only had 3 very limited separated counterspace top to work all my ingredients, cakes, elbow grease and photo session, but somehow I survived! As evidenced from this blog, I have indeed done Alot in my little humble kitchen and I shall miss it when it is time to say goodbye. It is strange how one can get attached to a space, no matter how crowded, small or unfriendly it is!

While my attention is shifted to the whole house now in cleaning up, junking out stuffs and bringing out space once stuffed to the ceilings, I haven't spend much time cooking nor baking. Only managed to do Bento, partly because they are necessary for my daughter school lunches. I hope to be able to keep cooking, baking and blogging till the day I move.

Mushroom Rice with Cut out Cucumber slices. Doesn't matter if you don't have any Bento cutters, a paring knife will do the decorating part as long as you use some Maths concept and imagination! I always love the idea of the Taiwanese eat egg immersed and cooked in tea and herb. For this Bento, I boiled an egg and gently cracked the shell without breaking off any after it is cooked. And then I immersed it into a mixture of soy sauce and water for 10 mins, so that I don't have to waste a cup of soy sauce and cut down the saltiness if I had used only the soy sauce. For the carrot, I thinly sliced them into sticks and par-boiled them for about 7 to 10 mins which brings out its lovely orange color. To season it, I used a bit of sesame oil and soy sauce and sprinkled with toasted black sesame seeds.

Just a simple chicken & mayo sandwich. With Side salad of peas and corn to add colors to the whole Bento Box. For the decoration, I used punches and dried seaweed.



Bento Days

Welcome February. I am finding less energy to do cute Bento and trying to keep it simple this year. My daughter seems to socialize more now and busy chatting away during her lunch time at school, sometimes only finishing half of the content of the Bento. My only choice is to use a smaller size lunch box for her and trying to squeeze in everything neatly. Small and mini cookie cutters together with cute food picks can brighten up a usual lunch.

Lotus Root is crunchy and fun to eat. Here I parboiled them for about 5 mins to soften their texture, and drained and then mixed them with a bit of light soy sauce and sesame seed oil. They added shape and a nice color to the overall combination of colors inside the bento Box.

There are more choices of mushroom in my local grocery store now and they stock up on these little ones, which are usually available only at Asian stores. This one was referred to as Beech mushroom or 'Bunashimeji' in Japanese and only needed to be sauteed in very little oil for about 5 mins to soften and bring out the semi firm and crunchy texture. They look pretty in a cluster. For the mini pork patties, I used some minced pork, mixed and stirred it with seasonings and cornflour and shaped into flat disks. Pan fried for about 7 to 10 mins, turning sides and they fit in with the rests of the mini baby tomatoes, mushroom, cucumber and cut orange quarters from wedges.

Chicken Wings in lemon & Oregano

 

Recipe

Ingredients:

6 chicken wings, dissected to 2 parts; Juice of 2 large lemons; 5 pip of garlic (grated); 1 small knob of ginger (grated to yield 1 tbsp); 1 tbsp dried oregano; 1 tsp cornflour; 1/2 cup water or lemonade; white pepper; Kosher salt

Method: 

• Marinate the chicken wings with the lemon juice, grated garlic & ginger, Kosher salt, white pepper and oregano. Leave it in the fridge for 2 hours.
• Heat the pan with 2 tbsp of cooking oil. Spoon in the wings Without the residue liquid from the marinate. Reserve the marinate liquid.
• Cover the pan with lid and let the wings cook on medium heat for 7 to 10 mins, turning the wings once to prevent over cooking/burning on one side.
• Add the 1/2 cup water/lemonade to the reserved marinate liquid and dissolve the cornflour into this liquid mixture.
• Turn up the heat and pour the liquid mixture into the pan and coat the wings evenly. The sauce will thicken, once bubbly, turn down the heat, cover with lid and let the wings cook for another 3 mins.
• Serve while hot.

Serves: 4 as side dish or finger food

Black Vinegar Braised Pork Hocks

Without realising it, January is almost coming to an end already. Is it me or the same with everyone else that the days and months seem to fly by so fast that I feel like I am always trying to squeeze in time for everything here and there and never have enough rest even during the weekends! While I long for Fridays to come by when Mondays start, the fact is I haven't even time to laze around when Fridays kick in and the alarm clock is already blaring 6am Monday morning. Oh well, like they say, time waits for no one and I will just have to run with the hours.

Today is the 7th day of the Chinese New Year celebration and I am almost a total failure this year for not having attempted any fancy Chinese cooking to celebrate the Dragon year. Not even made my annual Sticky cake that my kids love so much. Luckily there are still 8 days to redeem myself before the celebration officially ends on the 15th day which falls on Feb 6. On this 7th day, we are celebrating the birthdays of everyone. In short, it is celebrating and cherishing the meaning of life. Remember how I blogged about the Chinese being a very auspicious group that relates anything to everything, especially in terms of food? Well, I thought this dish will be very appropriate on this 7th day, not officially, but in my interpretation.

This dish is a type of confinement food served to Chinese ladies who have just given birth and the black vinegar together with the ginger are said to invigorate the body after labor and regulate the flow of the blood and the body system back to normal state prior to giving birth. I have eaten this dish too during my afterbirth with the 2 kids and I simply ate it by the pot. But eating too much of this can be heaty too and causes constipation. For people who loves the taste of pickles and fatty pork, this dish incorporates the best of both. I am not very sure on the origin of this dish as every ethnic group of the Chinese people do cook this dish. The black vinegar is only available at Asian stores, which tastes a bit malty and comes in sweetened or plain. Mine was plain and I had to add some brown sugar to the cooking to achieve a sweet and sour taste.

Recipe (Serves 4 with Rice)

Ingredients :

4 large pork hocks (about 2.5lbs), cleaned; 4 hard boiled eggs, peeled; 2 knobs of ginger, about the size of 2 thumbs, sliced thickly; 5 pips of garlic, sliced; 3/4 cup black vinegar; 1/4 plus 1/8 cups Dark Soy Sauce; 50g brown sugar (I used the Chinese block type); 1 & 1/2 tbsp Chinese cooking Wine; 1/2 tbsp Sesame Oil

Method :

• Heat 2 tbsp of cooking oil in a large pot. Tip in the ginger and garlic and saute for 1 min.
• Add in the pork hocks, sesame seed oil and spread them out and mix in with the ginger and garlic. Add in 1 tbsp of water. Close lid and bring up the heat and let the contents sit for 3 mins.
• Pour in the dark soy sauce and coat the hocks. Pour in the black vinegar and lower the heat to medium , close the lid and let the contents simmer for 45 mins. Open lid and stir the hocks around during the cooking to ensure even coating of the black soy sauce. Add 1/2 cup water .
• The hocks shall be cooked to a soft texture, where the meat is easily snip apart with a pair of kitchen shears. After 45 mins of cooking, add in the brown sugar and the boiled eggs and close the lid and let it simmer another 15 mins.
• Test and cut the meat, if it is falling off the bone, it is ready. Turn off the heat and let the contents remain in the pot for another 15 mins. This is so that the sauce will thicken from the gelatin released from the pork hocks and makes a thick gravy.
• Serve with steamed vegetables and rice with the gravy poured over the rice.

Kumquat & Tangerine Chiffon Cake

Today is the Eve of the Chinese New Year and as with all Chinese families, we will be having our Reunion Dinner tonight. I grew up loving and longing for Chinese New Year celebrations despite being a very westernized kid but there seems to be an underlying understanding in me that I am pure Chinese, only that I am illiterate in its language but everything else, I am almost perfect. I speak 3 Chinese dialects, have rice and soup everyday, watched Chinese dramas and movies since young, love Chinese pottery, porcelain and art, memorized Chinese songs to sing in Karaoke and now still trying to figure out how to learn the Chinese written language, which I doubt I ever can get it right!

At the time of this post, my family back in Malaysia and Hong Kong have eaten and enjoyed their Reunion dinners and possibly extending the hours into the early morning with the must do auspicious activities of all.... adults might be on the table rubbing the Mahjong tiles or blowing luck on Playing cards trying to win some while kids are all staying up digging out money from their little red money packet Ang Pow received from their parents, grandparents and immediate Uncles and Aunties. My kids have missed out on all these fun and no matter how we try to get together with friends here to celebrate the occasion, somehow the atmosphere back in Asia is exclusive and can never be replicated here. 

I didn't continue to bake anything after the last batch of Pineapple Tart cookies 2 weeks ago. And forseeing also that I don't have much time in the coming 2 weeks due to other commitments, I just baked this cake to enjoy on this Eve of the New Year. And with the ever auspicious mind of a Chinese, I planned and incorporated the colors and ingredients to reflect the hopes and thinking of the Chinese people, especially at this very revered new Dragon year, which is wishing for more fortune and good luck! In Chinese, the Tangerine sounds like the word Gold, and Kumquat is literally translated to mean Gold Luck. It is fun to attach  literary metaphorics this way, and trust me, the Chinese has a dictionary dedicated to all these manners of relating words to objects and vice versa. 

For this recipe I used 10 kumquats, patiently cutting and slicing the rind of these little morsels and removing the flesh inside. It is the rind that gives out the sweetness and the oil that exudes the crisp clean citrus taste. And for the decoration, I peeled and used fresh tangerine pulp and red and white non pareils. Red and Yellow are definitely the favorite colors of the Chinese and with this cake , I think I have incorporated all the good meanings!  Gong Xi Fa Cai and Kong Hei Fatt Choi........ well, one day I will be able to type that in Chinese! Gather your Drive and Passion this Dragon year and all the best to everyone!! :)

Recipe

Ingredients

200g Cake flour; 75g sugar; 6 large eggs, yolk and white all separated; 1 tsp Baking Powder; 1/2 tsp cream of Tartar; 1/2 tsp Salt ; 2 tsp Orange Emulsion/Oil (use vanilla if not available); 80ml fresh Orange Juice; 80ml water; 110 ml Vegetable Oil; extra 50g sugar; rind of 10 kumquats , sliced thinly & flesh removed

Garnish: pulp of 1 tangerine; powdered sugar; Non pareils

Method

•  Preheat oven to 325F. Prepare a 9 inch tube pan.
• Sieve the flour together with 75g sugar, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
• Beat the egg yolks with the vegetable oil and add in the orange juice and water. Beat to mix.
• Pour the egg & liquid mixture into the flour mixture and with electric beater, beat to mix in.
• Mix in the orange oil/emulsion and Kumquat rind. Leave aside.
• In another clean bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar till foamy. Add in the 50g sugar and continue to beat the egg whites till soft peaks (holding onto the beater).
• Scoop 1 spoonful of the egg white and fold into the flour & egg yolk mixture. Fold in with quick strokes. The mixture will lighten, continue to add in the remaining egg white and fold in with quick strokes till no more white streaks.
• Pour the mixture into the tube pan, place pan onto another large baking sheet and bake for 1 hour 10 mins till cake is cooked, when gently pressed with finger, the top of the cake will bounce back.
• Remove from the oven , turn the tube pan upside down and let the cake cool completely inside before removing from the pan.
• Sprinkle with powdered sugar and decorate with tangerine pulp and non pareils.

Serves 6 to 8

Meyer Lemon Tart

Although it is cold winter now, my appetite somehow yearns for spring and summer flavors. Perhaps it was the overeating of meat, nuts and anything buttery during the prior holiday months of November and December, come January and February, I always feel like I have to trim down by eating more greens and fruits based desserts. I do enjoy dishes with heavy gravy but when comes to the sweet tooth, I love something citrus with the combination of tart and sweet.

Oranges are in season now and with the Chinese New Year looming, there are plenty of Clementines and Tangerines in the stores. I even managed to find Pomelo and to my surprise I saw these Meyer Lemons. I have seen alot of Bloggers bragging on how they were lucky to have neighbors with a Meyer Lemon tree and got a basket full to bake and cook with them while I look around and only found the usual sour pucker Lemon in my area. I was simply overjoyed and grabbed a packet of 8 and ran home clicking for recipes. Even before opening one up, I already loved the smell of this type of Lemon, which is a cross breed between a Lemon and a Tangerine, with a smaller tight roundish and smoother rind and loaded with juice. In my view, the grated zest of this Lemon is more pungent and doesn't fade even after baking. And the juice yields an intense taste of both sweet and tart, rightly combined and I only added a bit of sugar to the lemon filling.

This recipe creates pudding like filling rather than the firmly baked type. I adapted the recipe of Gordon Ramsey from BBC Good Food and tweaked it a bit to yield a smaller 6 inch tart with less quantities of the ingredients stipulated. Since the Meyers were partly sweet, I totally skipped out of adding any sugar to the tart dough and used only 100g of sugar to the filling. The tart is good served warm or cold and definitely a citrusy treat on a very Cold winter day.

 

For this 6 inch tart, follow the recipe Link above but reduce the quantities of ingredients to the following portions:

Tart Dough: Same as recipe given

Filling: 2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks; 100g sugar; 125ml Meyer lemon juice; grated zest of 2 Meyer Lemons; 150ml Heavy Cream

Baking Time: 

Tart Dough (Blind Bake): 375F (20 mins, lined & with baking beans) and reduced to 325F (10 mins, without baking beans)

With Lemon Filling: 325F for 55 mins.

Lotus Leaf Wrapped Glutinous Rice

My kids absolutely love sticky rice and everytime we go to the Dim Sum restaurant, they will always ask for the Lotus Leaf wrapped Sticky Rice (Lo Mai Kai) alongside the Char Siew (BBQ pork) steamed Buns. Glutinous rice is high in starch and requires extra water to cook it and some people gets indigestion for having too much. There are sweet glutinous rice desserts in the Chinese cooking, which I have yet to attempt and doubt my kids will eat it since they have only been eating glutinous rice in this savory way.

I have made the Chinese dumpling in Bamboo Leaves and glutinous rice , where the dumpling contained uncooked rice stuffed with fillings, bundled and wrapped into triangular shapes in Bamboo Leaves which was totally immersed into water to boil to perfection while the latter was the same thing except that the uncooked rice was mixed with the cooked fillings and put into the rice cooker with enough water to cook it. The extra character of this dish now is wrapping the rice together with the filling in a large Lotus leaf and steaming it on high heat so that the aroma of the leaf infuse into the rice. And the difference is that the glutinous rice here is cooked in the rice cooker prior to mixing in with the cooked fillings which blends the ingredients all together better and resulting in an evenly cooked rice. This cut down the time of steaming.

Dried Lotus Leaves comes in a huge packet of 10 to 12 and each leaf has already been folded into a half of a fan shape and needs to be softened and cleaned in hot boiling water prior to use. In texture and appearance, they look like grape leaves. I cooked about 2 and 1/4 cups rice here and used 2 leaves to wrap it all up, hence my rice packets looked 2 times bigger than those in Chinatown.

The original version of Lo Mai Kai contains diced chicken meat rather than pork and also the dried shrimps that impart the extra Umami taste with the shiitake mushroom. I ran out of both these ingredients and substituted diced pork and Goji berries for an additional color and sweetness to the overall rice. The most important thing in this dish is the texture of the rice, which is soft and sticky but not mushy and watery and also that the flavor from  the combination seasoning of the dark & light soy together with the Chinese cooking wine, white pepper, 5 spice Powder and sesame oil must linger and present after the high heat steaming.

Recipe (serve about 4)

Ingredients

2 Lotus Leaves, Soaked in Hot Boiling Water for 5 mins & Rinsed with cold water after softened, Pat dry

2 & 1/4 cups Glutinous/Sweet Rice

Water

5 Dried Shiitake Mushrooms, Re-hydrated & Sliced thinly

2 logs of Chinese Preserved Sausages (Sliced)

150g Diced Pork or Chicken Meat (marinated with 1 tbsp soy sauce, white pepper, sesame oil and 1/2 tsp cornflour)

2 tbsp Goji Berries

3 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp grated ginger

1/2 of a Red onion Or 3 small shallot, minced

Dark Soy sauce, Light Soy Sauce, Chinese Cooking Wine, White pepper, Sesame Oil, 5 Spice powder

Method

Rice

• Run the rice under running water for 4 times, wash everytime till the water runs clear. Soak the cleaned rice in water for 2 hours.
• Cook the rice in the rice cooker, about 2/3 cup more water than the water required to cook normal Jasmine Rice. Turn off the rice cooker and scoop out the rice to cool.

Filling

• Heat a large pan with 2 tbsp cooking oil. Tip in the minced garlic, onion/shallot and ginger. Cook for 1 minute.
• Add in the pork or Chicken and cook for 5 mins.
• Tip in the shiitake Mushroom and Chinese sausages and mix in. Cook for about 5 mins. Add 1 tbsp water. 
• Fold in the Rice and mix up to incorporate all the other ingredients.
• Add in 2 tbsp Dark Soy sauce, 1/2 tsp White pepper, 1/2 Tbsp Chinese Cooking Wine, 1 tsp Sesame Seed Oil, 1 tsp Chinese 5 Spice powder. Stir and mix to coat the rice. Add more soy if color is not thoroughly mixed.  Turn off heat.
• Lastly, scatter the goji berries all over the rice and gently stir in.

Assembly

• Take one Lotus Leaf, open it up gently to its original round diameter, scoop 1 rice spoonful of the rice mixture near to the middle with plenty of space near the rims. Double Fold the rim if required and fold up to enclose the rice, like packing up a book. Ensure all sides are enclosed and tie up with twine to secure the filling.
• Place in a steamer (not inside the water but on a steamer plate standing over boiling water) and steam at high for about 20 to 25 mins.

Serve and scoop to individual plates.