Crème Brûlée

I had my first crème brûlée in Paris and it was love at first bite. I especially love that first bite when you break into the crispy top to dig into the silkily smooth and creamy mixture underneath. Yum! Good food is so much cheaper in Paris in my opinion. Many of the restaurants serve what would be prix fixe menus in the US, perhaps because eating is more a ritual to the French and should be done right and a meal is incomplete without dessert. Even the tiny shops selling paninis give you deals where you get a panini and a nutella crêpe for lunch for, when I was there, 3.5 euros. That's about the cost of a 6-in subway in the US but I suppose most people would take a panini and a crêpe over a 6-in subway anytime, right? 

Well, I am rambling. My point was that while crême brûlée is available at reasonably-priced restaurants in Paris, it is expensive (costing about $10 in Chicago area) and really only available at somewhat fancy places. But it is really very easy to make at home once the proper gadgets are acquired. You will need a kitchen torch, and a few ramekins. I prefer the shallow ones, but you can certainly use the regular 6-oz ones.

INGREDIENTS:

Make 6 servings (using the shallow ramekins)

2.5 cups heavy cream

4 large egg yolks, at room temperature

1 vanilla bean
1/3 cups sugar + more for the top
1.5 pints raspberries
Lemon zest (optional)

METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 325º. Split the vanilla bean, scape the pulp. Put the cream, pulp and the bean itself in a sauce pan over medium heat until the mixture about to boil. Remove the pan from heat, cover and let it cool for about 10-15 minutes. Remove the bean.

In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar until the color about to lighten. Slowly add the cooled cream to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.

Pour the mixture into the ramekins before placing them into a larger baking pan. Pour hot water into the pan up to about half the height of the ramekins. Cover the pan with aluminum foil (after many trials, I found that covering helps create the perfect top, you can bake without the cover but the heat will create a little burned top, although it's still okay since you will torch the sugar later on anyway but if you allow your guests to do the torching, the foil is a great addition) and bake for about 30 mins (more if you use deeper ramekins) until the crème brûlée is set but the center still jiggles. Remove the ramekins from the pan and chill in the refrigerator for about 2 hours.

Remove the crème brûlée from the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving.

Clean the raspberries before macerating them with about 1 Tsp of sugar and lemon zest.

Spread granulated sugar evenly on top of the crème brûlée, use a kitchen torch to brown the sugar. Add some raspberries on top and serve. I want another one as I'm writing this but I think I have to wait for a while before the next intake of heavy cream :((

Pan-Seared Scallops and Braised Mushrooms

The other day I decided to treat myself to a 3-course dinner right at home. Well, it was almost my birthday so I felt it was justified. That means you get two recipes today. For appetizer, I had a simple green tomato salad with some toasted chopped walnuts so I'm just going to give you a photo. 

Then came something I've been looking forward to making: seared scallops. I have always loved seafood, perhaps because I grew up rather far away from the sea and seafood was often a rare treat as it was (and still is) expensive. But I never got to eat scallops until my last few months in Singapore. Even then, it was dry scallops. Then came graduate school with its wonderful feature called "stipend". Well, I tend to think of it as salary for my teaching duties but whatever it is, it's an income. I think I first had scallops at Spring - a restaurant that is now closed. So this dish is a much simpler version of what they served there.

INGREDIENTS:
Make 1 serving

3-4 large scallops
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp butter
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

~15 small dried shiitake mushrooms
~7-8 fresh shiitake mushrooms
~7-9 dried wood ear mushrooms
~4 oz chicken broth
3 Tsp of white wine
3 large cloves of garlic
1 inch of ginger
Oyster sauce
Soy sauce


METHOD:
Soak the dried shiitake and wood ears mushrooms in a bowl of warm water for about 20min. Cut off the stems off.

Bruise the garlic cloves and remove the skins. Peel the ginger and slice it into slices, bruise the slices with the end of a knife, or whatever you prefer.

Put the rehydrated mushrooms, garlic cloves, ginger slices into a small sauce pan, add the chicken broth. Carefully pour about 1 cup of the water used to rehydrate the mushrooms, be careful not to pour the sediments that have settled onto the bottom of the bowl. Add the oyster sauce and soy sauce (how much you add should depend on how salty the chicken broth used is.) Put the pan over medium heat until the water boil, reduce the heat to the lowest setting possible, cover the pan and let it cook for about 20 minutes.

Add the cleaned fresh shiitake mushrooms with their stems cut off to the pan, cook for another 10 minutes.

Remove the cover, add the white wine and turn the heat on to low medium. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Remove the ginger and the garlic, put the mushrooms onto a deep plate/coupe bowl.

Clean the scallops, remove the side "foot" from each. (Wash them carefully if they came in packing liquid). Pat dry, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Put the olive oil and butter onto a medium skillet on medium high heat until the mixture is about to smoke. Carefully add the scallops, leaving room between them. Cook each side for about 1- 1.5 minutes until about 1/5 of an inch of each side is golden brown and the middle is still translucent.

Place the seared scallops on top of the bed of mushrooms, garnish with young watercress tips or sprouts. Serve immediately.

Bon appetit! The recipe for crème brûlée will follow.

Chilli Crab

So you have been enjoying your crabs steamed and served with some butter-based dipping or simply with a squeeze of lemon over them. Yes, they are tasty and satisfy your crabby craving but why not try something different for a change? It doesn't take much longer to prepare this dish than to steam your crabs.

Chilli crab is a Singapore signature dish. Albeit the name, it's not very spicy, well it's not served very spicy in Singapore but I'm sure you can add more heat to your own version if you want to. I lived in Singapore for almost 5 years but during that entire time, I could never afford to eat chilli crab. Only later on when I went back for visits that I get to enjoy this specialty. Recently, my friends who are still living in Singapore posted photos of them enjoying this dish and all of a sudden, the craving resurfaced! I'm going to be back there in less than 2 months but I just can't wait that long. Also, this is my last free weekend before I start teaching again. Yes, I know, my break is too short!!! Anyway, I decided I will spoil myself rotten this whole entire weekend ;) 

So here is the story. I went to Chinatown to get grocery. I was debating between frozen crabs and live ones. (The cost difference was huge, hence the hesitation.) What if I fail in my attempt to make the sauce? Then a live crab would be a waste. But then what if the sauce turns out amazing? Well, after about 5 minutes of my angelic side battling my evil side, the evil one won and I got myself a live crab. This is my first time dealing with live anything so you can guess my nervousness. I was hoping that somehow the half-hour trip back would kill the crab so I don't have to deal with it later on. 

The first thing I did once I got home was putting the crab, in the original packaging that the man at the store put it in, into my refrigerator. Hours later and it was time to get dinner ready. I took the bag out, carefully removing the staples at the top and alas! The crab is still alive!!! Turned out the hardest part of tonight's dinner was the actual killing of the crab. I will spare you the horrific details but let me just say that I felt like a psychopathic murderer afterwards. The feeling didn't last long though! By the time I was done cooking, I had forgotten about the "ordeal" I went through, that is until now when I sit here recalling the whole process. So here is what I managed to produce at the end:

For those of you who are not familiar with the dish, Singapore chilli crab is traditionally served with fried mantous, a kind of plain Chinese buns, pictured on the top right. But I think if you can't lay hands on those little things, sliced baguette or crispy Italian bread would make a fine replacement. Chilli crab in Singapore tends to lean a little bit over to the sweet side even though it's a savory dish. I didn't put nearly as much sugar and I'm not claiming that this is authentic but here is a recipe if you want to try:

INGREDIENTS:

For the crab:
1 large crab, ~2 lbs
4-5 plum tomatoes
1 Tsp tamarind concentrate
1/2 Tsp ketchup
1.5 Tsp sugar
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 small shallot, finely chopped
1 inch ginger, finely chopped
1-2 Thai chillis, seeded and finely chopped (keep the seeds if you want more heat)
1 Tsp soy sauce paste
1 tsp oyster sauce
Chicken stock (I eventually used half a 14oz can, i.e. ~7oz)
1/2 tsp freshly ground black/white pepper
1/2 a beaten egg (optional)
Cilantro to garnish
1 Tsp oil

For the mantous:
Frozen mantous, completely thawed (or make your own but I don't have a recipe on hand)
Oil to fry


METHOD:

Clean the crab carefully, keep the carapace to decorate later. Remove all the inedible parts. Cut the crab into 4, smash the large claws slightly.

Boil the tomatoes, remove the skin and seeds, give them a rough chop and transfer them to a blender. Add the sugar and some chicken stock to blend until smooth.

In a medium/large sauce pan (a wok would be ideal), heat the oil over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook till translucent. Add ginger and stir till fragrant. Add garlic and chilli and fry for about 30 seconds. Transfer the tomato sauce to the pan, add more chicken stock if the sauce is too thick. Add soy sauce paste, oyster sauce, ketchup and give it a quick stir. Reduce the heat to low and let the mixture partner for a while. (I think people usually use the word "marry" but as of now, there are still a reasonable percentage of the US population and the world at large who are still fighting for the right to marry so I decided to use the word "partner" instead.) Taste the sauce, if it's not salty enough, don't worry, the crab will add some saltiness to the sauce later.

Add the crab pieces and let them cook till done. The juice from the crab will thicken the sauce so there is no need for thickening agents. Remove the crab pieces and arrange on a deep dish. Check the sauce to see if it's to your taste. If it's too thick, add water or chicken stock. Make sure you have enough sauce to dunk the mantous/bread slices later. Still keeping the sauce on low heat, add half of a beaten egg slowly while stirring. This creates another dimension to the visual effect. Skip it if you don't like.

Pour the sauce over the crab pieces, garnish with cilantro leaves.

For the mantous, give them a quick steam before you fry them to golden.

Serve the chilli crab with the mantous. The mantous, soaked with the sauce, are simply so yummy I wish I could send them to you via the world wide web. I have friends who swear they don't need the crabs, all they need are the sauce and the crisp fried mantous. But maybe they are pulling my legs, who knows!

So what are you waiting for??? Go put your bib on, roll your sleeves up and dig in!!!!

*If you want your sauce to have a brighter red color, season it with salt instead of soy sauce paste and oyster sauce.

Chè Trôi Nước

This is another sweet soup that I had made before I decided to start this blog so I didn't quite pay that much attention to the quality of the photos. Maybe one day when I make this again I will update the photos.

Chè trôi nước is similar to the Chinese tang yuan dessert except we use mung beans for the filling instead of red beans or black sesame seeds, and we add ginger to the syrup. It's served hot so is great for those chilly days. 

This dish is quite simple, the only difficulty lies in making the dough. It's the reason why Hồ Xuân Hương (1772–1822), female poet, arguably the first outspoken Vietnamese feminist, wrote a poem in which she used the image of the glutinous rice balls to talk about the fate of Viet women of the time (or even now):

 Rắn nát mặc dù tay kẻ nặn

which loosely/literally translate as "whether being whole or broken depends on the hands of the maker".

Well, that's a tiny little glimpse into Viet literary world. Let's start cracking, shall we?

INGREDIENTS:

Make about 4-8 servings

1/3-1/2 cup dry mung beans, soaked for about 2 hours

1 tsp vegetable oil

1/2 small shallot, finely chopped

Salt

Brown sugar, to taste

6 cups of water (less if you are going to serve 2 glutinous rice balls as 1 portion)

2-in piece of ginger, 2/3 cut into thin strips, 1/3 finely minced

1 cup of glutinous rice flour 

1/2 cup boiling water

White sesame seeds, toasted to golden

Coconut cream.

METHOD:

Steam the mung beans until soft, blend with 3Tsp of sugar and a pinch of salt till smooth. Heat the oil over medium heat, saute the chopped shallot until soft. Add the chopped ginger and cook for about 1min. Reduce the heat to low. Add the mung bean past. Add more sugar until the paste is slightly sweet. Cook until the paste is dry, stirring often.

Meanwhile, in a sauce pan over medium high heat, heat the 6 cups of water, brown sugar and ginger strips until the water boils and the sugar has completely dissolved. Reduce the heat to low and let the syrup cook to infuse it with the ginger flavor.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and a pinch of salt. Gradually add boiling water until a soft dough is formed, knead lightly till smooth. Divide the dough into balls of ~1-inch in diameter. 

Form the mung bean paste into balls that are slightly smaller than the dough balls. Flatten each dough ball, put a bean paste ball in the middle. Fold and edge and roll to close. Repeat until done. If there is left over dough, roll them into tiny little balls.

In a different pot, bring water to a boil. Add the rice balls to cook. When they float to the surface, remove them using a slotted spoon and place them under running water for about 2 min. 

Put the rice balls into the syrup pan. Turn the heat back on until the liquid boils. Turn the heat off. At this point, you should get something like this:

You can serve the coconut cream straight up but I normally like to cook it for a bit before serving. Pour the coconut cream into a small sauce pan over low to medium heat, add a pinch of salt and 1Tsp of sugar, cook until the cream thickens. If you like really thick coconut cream, add some corn starch dissolved in water. 

Serve one or two rice balls in a small bowl, top with coconut cream and toasted sesame seeds. Enjoy the dessert, and remember to exercise afterward ;)

I think some people add pandan leaves to the syrup but I like the ginger flavor to stand out so I don't.

Very Bananary Banana Bread

I'm not quite a fan of banana breads; in fact, I am not a fan of bananas, except for this one dessert in Vietnam where a type of bananas that is not available in the US is coated with a thin layer of glutinous rice, then wrapped in banana leave and grilled over charcoals until the banana leave is charred. The leaf is then peeled off and the banana served with a coconut and tapioca sauce. Yum! Yum! (Gotta bring my train of thought back to the here and now before I start salivating.) Anyway, I have a friend who loves banana breads, her kids are even bigger fans so I decided to make it a while back. Then, the class I taught this quarter had their exam in the afternoon so I decided to bake them banana and zucchini breads instead of the usual cookies. I think I've got the recipe down, and it's super easy ;)

Let's get started, shall we?

INGREDIENTS:

Make 1 loaf

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, room temp

5 large overripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup of roasted walnuts, chopped

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 350º. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. 

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients. 

In another bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar. Stir in beaten eggs and mashed bananas until well-blended. Stir the banana mixture into the dry mixture, just until moisten. Fold in the nuts. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 50-55 minutes. Let bread cool in pan for about 10min before turning it out to cool on a wire rack. Cut and serve.

For the banana fans out there, enjoy!

Chocolate Soufflé

I've been busy and so neglected this page for a while, oops!

A few weeks back I tried making chocolate soufflé following a recipe from Food and Wine magazine. It's hard for me to say how successful it was cuz not that many restaurants have soufflé on their dessert lists, well, not that many affordable ones anyway. I'm quite easy to please when it comes to desserts, as long as they are chocolaty so I was pretty pleased with the outcome.

The soufflé wasn't served with the Sapporo in the background, my friend just had beer with dinner beforehand.

Here comes the recipe, let your chocoholic self come out and play!

INGREDIENTS:

Make about 5 6-oz servings or 8 4-oz servings

2oz chocolate wafer cookies, finely crushed

1/2 cup + 2Tsp granulated sugar

3 Tsp unsalted butter, softened, and more for brushing

6oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped

4 large egg yolks + 6 large egg whites, at room temp.

Pinch of salt.

METHOD:

In a medium bowl, combine the crushed chocolate wafer cookies with 2 Tsp of granulated sugar. Brush the ramekins with softened butter and coat them with the cookie mixture, pouring out and keeping the excess for later use. Place the ramekins on a baking sheet and refrigerate.

Melt the 3Tsp butter and chocolate over simmering water, stirring frequently until smooth. Remove the chocolate mixture and let it cool completely.

Preheat the oven to 400º. 

In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks with 6Tsp of sugar at medium speed until pale yellow and thickened. Gradually beat in the cooled chocolate mixture.

In another large bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until the whites form soft peaks. Gradually beat in the remaining 2Tsp of sugar until the beaten whites are glossy. Beat in one-fourth of the whites into the chocolate mixture before gently folding in the remaining until no streaks remain.

Carefully spoon the batter into the prepared ramekins, filling them almost to the top. Sprinkle each soufflé with 1/2 tsp of the cookie mixture. Run your thumb inside the rim of each ramekin to smooth the sides of the soufflés and help them rise evenly. (I didn't pay much attention to this step, hence the sharp edges in the photo above.)

Bake in the center of the oven until they are risen and firm around the edges but still soft in the center, about 15 minutes, serve immediately.

Bon appétit!