Baileys cream pudding

Bailey is nice. It is a cream with small amount of alcohol, very flavorful. Sometimes, I like to use it to make dessert. Here is one simple experiment.


Recipe: Bailey cream pudding (make around 4 mini puddings, each 1/8-cup sized)


Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoon (TB) Baileys
- 3 TB evaporated milk
- 2 teaspoons (tp) cocoa powder
- 1 TB sugar
- 3 TB water
- 2 tp gelatin


Procedure:
Dissolve gelatin in water. Place mixture on low heat until simmer. Add sugar and cocoa. Stir until dissolve completely. Add evaporated milk and Baileys. Stir to mix thoroughly. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Then pour into mold and chill for  2 to 4 hours. The pudding should be soft with a creamy jelly-like texture,  and yet it holds together well enough to be picked up by fingers.

Vegetables pesto

One thing that the Italians are very proud of is their food, and rightfully so. I like the Italian pesto sauce very much. It's a paste of olive oil, basil, garlic, pine nut and spices. It generally goes with pasta. I've discovered that pesto goes very well with cashew. I think it's because of the pine nut in the pesto itself. Now I'd like to try it with vegetables. And I pick long bean because it is quite a taste absorber. 


Recipe: Mixed vegetables pesto (for 2)


Ingredients:
- 15 long beans
- 1/2 small carrot, chopped to 1/4" cubes
- 1/2 small leaf of purple cabbage, sliced to short 1/8" thin strips
- 2 tablespoon (TB) broken cashew pieces
- 1-2 oz cooked pork or turkey, thinly sliced
- 2 TB pesto sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon chilly pepper
- salt to taste


Procedure:
1. Trim off 1/4" from each long bean's head and tail. Cut to 3" long pieces. Boil for 15 minutes (to remove toxin). Drain and cut into 1/2" long pieces. 
2. Heat 2 TB of pesto sauce with chilly pepper in a pan on medium heat. Add meat, carrot and purple cabbage and let heat up. Stir occasionally. Then add long beans and cashew and stir. When all the ingredients are hot, allow to sit on very low heat for 30 minutes to let the flavor get absorbed into the vegetables. Add 1 TB of water and mix if the pan seems to dry out. Note: vegetable absorbs flavor more slowly than pasta, so it's necessary to let the mixture sit for a while in warmth before serving. 

Spicy stuffed cucumber

A lot of the times, the excitement of food comes from the contrast of tastes and textures, that gives rise to the senses unlimited surprises. Here is a dish I tried out, that toys with the difference between cucumber and meat, heightened by a strong chilly taste. 


Recipe: A light dish of Cucumber stuffed with pork and dried shrimps (for 2)


Ingredients
- 1/2 a cucumber, cut at cross-section, seeds removed
- 3-4 oz ground pork, 80% lean
- 2 teaspoon (tp) small dried shrimps
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 slices ginger
- 1 tablespoon (TB) spring onion chopped
- 2 tp strong chilly paste
- 1/4 tp salt
- 1/2 tp vinegar
- white of one egg
- a little sesame oil


Procedure
Mix pork and dried shrimp with 1 tp water and salt. Let sit for 10 minutes. Fry pork (without oil) in a pan on medium to med-high heat. Add garlic, ginger, spring onion and let cook until pork is light brown. If too dry, add some water. Mix vinegar and chilly paste and add to pork. Cook until water dries off. Let cool. Then add some egg white to the pork mixture. Stuff into cucumber. Bake in oven at 300F for 30 minutes or less. When done, the cucumber should look only a little cooked on the surface, remaining crispy and juicy, giving out its mild and refreshing smell. Sprinkle a few drops of sesame oil on top and serve.


To serve this dish as a summer appetizer: add 1 TB water with 1/2 tp cornstarch when cooking the pork mixture on the pan. Let thicken, then stuff into raw cucumber. Skip the egg white and the baking. 

An evening with a seafood soup

It was during a biological experiment (to study the cholesterol content in a shrimp) that I discovered the best-tasting seafood soup comes from boiling the shells of shrimps! What a great lab session! The bonus finding at the end of that class was that shrimp shells have very little cholesterol. So if you love seafood, don't you love knowing this? Since then, I always save the shells of seafood to make stock. Seafood stock is easier than fish or meat stock. Just boil the shells in water enough to cover them for 1 hour. Add a teaspoon of vinegar to help soften the shells while boiling. Some people like to add a clove of garlic too. Usually the shells have plenty of salt in it. So it may not be necessary to add extra salt when using seafood stock.


Recipe: Seafood noodle soup (for 2)
- 1-2 oz rice noodle
- 3 cup seafood stock
- 9 oz tofu (about 1/3 package)
- 2-4 fresh shrimps, shelled
- 2-4 oz shark (or tuna) meat, cut to 1.5" cubes
- a large sheet of dried seaweed, crumbled
- 3-4 mushrooms, sliced

- 1 leave of kappa cabbage, cut to 1" slices
- 1 stalk of green onion, chopped
- 1 thin slice of ginger
- 1 small clove garlic crushed
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil


Procedure:
Boil rice noodle, garlic and ginger in seafood stock for 2 minutes. Add kappa cabbage and mushroom to stock and let boil for 1 minute. Add shark (or tuna) meat. Let boil for 3 minutes. Add tofu and seaweed. When soup is still boiling, add fresh shrimps and let cook for 1 minute or just before it completely turns pink. Serve the noodle soup right away with sesame oil and green onions. Keep the shrimps on top while serving. The shrimps will continue to cook in the heat of the soup. 

This seafood soup goes very well with a spicy appetizer of anchovies! 

Simple beef ball

I was going to make some comfort food for my husband's return from work when I discovered that I was running out of beef chunks. So I decided to try making some last minute beef meat balls as a substitute. My first experiment turned out pretty good. It was simple to make, and well fitted for a tasty soup. The baking gave the meat balls a nice smell and a lightly elastic feel in a bite.


Recipe: Beef balls (for 1 serving of soup)


Ingredients:
- 4 oz minced lean beef
- 1 tablespoon (TB) cornstarch
- 3 TB oil
- 1/4 teaspoon (tp) salt
- 1/8 tp pepper
- dash of sugar
- 2 TB water
- 1/4 cup flour for coating


Procedure:
Mix thoroughly beef, oil, salt, pepper, sugar, cornstarch and water. Keep stirring in one direction until the mixture forms a paste. Form ball with hand, and coat with flour. Then set on baking pan. Bake at 375F for 20 minutes or until surface is browned. Drain fat and cool. 

 

Eggplant fantasy for the finger

Unrestrained fantasy often goes in directions that lead to many colorful surprises in daily life. For a while I was so indulged with eggplant that I was trying all types of them and imagining everything possible to match with their individual uniqueness. Lately I just tried out both the Indian and the Thai variations. To better grasp their individual characteristics, I decided to make some appetizers and see how they match with various ingredients.

Recipe: An eggplant appetizer (for 1)


Ingredients:
- 1 Indian eggplant
- 1 Thai eggplant
- double gloucester cheese chopped to fine pieces
- bacon bits
- tangy cherry pepper sauce
- roasted rosemary oil
- a few pomegranate seeds
- a little of each of the following vegetables, finely chopped:
* white and purple onions
* parsley
* spring onion
* celery
* carrot


Procedure:
Halve the eggplants and broil them in oven at 450F for 10 minutes or until they are cooked. The Indian eggplant might need 3-5 more minutes.


The Thai eggplant has a very soft pastry-like texture after broiling. So I give it a heavier dress-up. First, spread double gloucester cheese and allow it to melt a little. Then add a mixture of white and purple onions, parsley, spring onion and a little carrot (for decoration only). Lastly, top with bacon bits and sprinkle roasted rosemary oil on top to smoothen the texture.


The Indian eggplant has a rather rubbery texture, so I give it toppings that make a refreshing salad, using white and purple onions, parsley, spring onion, celery, carrot, and a little pomegranate seed (a surprise!) Then I add a little tangy cherry pepper sauce to give it a spicy and sour sensation.

Pork braised with apple and vegetables

Never had I thought of cooking meat with fruit until I was invited to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner some years ago, in which side dishes were sweet as desserts. I couldn't quite get used to that yet. But this exposure stirred up my curiosity in fruit. My first experiment cooking meat with apple left me with a very pleasant impression. Apple adds a thick sweet and sour flavor to the dish in its very-apple way, making the meat dish even more savory and juicy. It makes such a wonderful cooking material! (While I was typing away, my husband came behind and read today's food journal as he gave me a hug and a kiss. I just heard his burp...)


Recipe: Apple and vegetables braised pork chop (for 2)


Ingredients:
- 2 pork chop, 1.5" thick, about 6 oz
- 1 medium apple with skin, chopped to 3/4" pieces
- 1 carrot, chopped to 3/4" pieces
- 1 stalk of celery, chopped to 3/4" pieces
- 2 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1 cup turkey broth
- salt to taste
- 2 tablespoon (TB) oil
- 1 teaspoon (tp) cornstarch


Procedure:
Brown pork chops in 2 TB oil in a non-stick pan. Then place pork chop on a 1.5 quart sauce pot. Add in chopped apple and vegetables. Heat turkey broth with dijon mustard in the non-stick pan and mix with drippings of the pork. Then add to the sauce pot. Heat sauce pot until the liquid starts to simmer. Then turn heat to low and let braise for about 40 minutes. Place meat along with the vegetables and apple on a serving plate. Thicken the liquid on high heat to about 1/2 cup. Dissolve 1 tp cornstarch in 1 tp water. Mix into the liquid to thicken it into a gravy. Pour onto meat and vegetables. Serve hot.

I used a turkey broth from cooking a Shady Brook Farms turkey, which is already very salted and flavorful. This saved me from adding any seasoning.

Chickpea and beef stew

Being curious with beans, I decided to check out chickpea. I'd heard that it's used to make hummus. That's something I'd try out one day. I like chickpea's interesting taste, which matches very well with seasoned meat. I always soak beans overnight. Most beans require more than 1 day of soaking. But chickpea seems to be good enough with just one day. Moreover, it also cooks faster than many other types of legumes, though not as fast as lentils. 8 oz of dried chickpea, after thoroughly soaked, takes only 1 hour of low heat to cook to complete melting type of softness. That's "fast". Alternatively, when I want to cook it in the same day, I just boil dried chickpea for a few minutes and let it soak in hot water for 2 hours. The chickpea softens quickly after reheating. However, it feels more "chalky" when cooked this way.


Recipe: Chickpea and beef stew (for 2)


Ingredients:
- 4 oz minced beef, 90% lean
- 1 cup chickpea, soaked and boiled until soft
- 1/2 cup liquid from boiling the chickpea
- 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons (tp) rosemary grilling oil
- 1/2 cup red wine
- 2 tp of mixed herbs of oregano, basil, thyme, marjoram, rosemary, savory
- 1 tp paprika
- 1/4 tp salt
- 1/4 tp sugar
- dash of pepper

Procedure:

Brown beef in a sauce pan with garlic and rosemary grilling oil on medium heat. When browned, add mixed herbs, salt, sugar and pepper. Let heat for a minute or so, until the aroma of the herbs come out. Then add red wine. When the liquid boils, add in chickpea, the liquid from boiling the chickpea and paprika. Mix and let cook on low heat for 5-10 minutes. Turn heat off and allow to keep warm for 30 minutes so that the flavor of the juice is absorbed by the chickpea. Reheat briefly when served.

This dish is so tasty!!

Exciting yogurt marinate

In Indian food, yogurt plays a big role in many aspects. I like the way yogurt is combined with herbs the Indian way. I decided to try out some possibilities. So I decided to make a yogurt marinate for chicken tender. Chicken tender is to me one of the hardest to get tender result after cooking. So lets see whether the enzymes in yogurt can do a miracle.


Recipe: Broiled chicken tender in yogurt marinate


Ingredients:
- 3 oz plain non-fat yogurt
- 2 teaspoons (tp) ground lemon peel and dill mix
- 1/2 tp onion powder
- 1 tp basil
- dash of cumin
- 1 tablespoon (TB) salad oil
- 1/2 lb chicken tender, sliced to 1/4" thick


Procedure:
1. Mix all marinate ingredients in a flat pan big enough to fill the chicken tender without overlapping. Lay chicken tender flat on pan, on top of a layer of marinate. Then cover the top of chicken with another layer of marinate. Let sit in the fridge for 4-6 hours. If the marinate is to be cooked, leave the pan out of fridge 1 hour before cooking to let marinate warm to room temperature.
2. At cooking time, scrub off excess marinate to leave a thin coating on chicken. Set oven to broil at 450F. Place chicken on a rake with drip pan on the top rake of the oven. Broil each side for 5 minutes.
3. If there is a lot of marinate left, heat marinate with 1 TB salad oil in a sauce pan on low to med-low heat. Stir frequently until boil. As a better alternative, mix a sauce using the same seasonings for marinate and serve as a cold dip with the chicken.

The chicken does have a nicer texture! The yogurt marinate also gives it a thin coating that's rather flavorful. Good experiment.

Yogurt petite (At the beginning...)

My first time making yogurt was also my first culinary castastrophie. I was following a recipe at http://www.makeyourownyogurt.com/  which required me to heat the milk up to 180F in a double boiler. When the milk was ready and I was lifting it out of the water, the whole milk container fell upside-down into the pot of boiling water! Oh well! Subsequently, when I tried again, I had understood that the scalding of the milk does not have to be that complicated. It can be done directly on stove top, with just regular stirring. My second attempt turned out much better. I also compared the very scientific method with a traditional Persian method by a friend. The comparison helped a lot in making the connection between the science and the senses. And here comes my first yogurt, made with evaporated milk. The resulting yogurt has a rich taste of evaporated milk, which is so special! 

Recipe: Yogurt (make 1.75 cup)


Ingredients:
- 1 cup evaporated milk
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 teaspoon plain yogurt


Procedure:
1. Boil a glass jar, its lid, 2 spoons, and a saucer in boiling water for 15 minutes to sterilize. Use a clip to take them out to cool. Be careful not to contaminate them after sterilization.
2. Mix evaporated milk with water and let heat until it starts to foam (this process of heating is called scalding). Stir frequently and remove from heat once it foams. Else the milk may spill out. Transfer milk to the sterilized jar. Let it cool until the hand can hold the jar.
3. Use a sterilized spoon to place 1 teaspoon of plain yogurt curd in a saucer. Stir to break the curd into a paste. Mix the yogurt into the warm milk and stir. Then close the jar and let sit in a water bath at a water temperature that does not scald the hand. For this small amount, the milk will curd within 5 hours. Then place in the fridge overnight. Consumable the next day.

In subsequent experiments, I left the yogurt at a temperature much lower than 110F. Instead, I kept it for over 16 hours in a water bath that feels lukewarm to the hand. Wrapping the water bath in towel helps keeping it lukewarm overnight. This resulted in much thicker and more flavorful yogurt. 

Making vegetable pie (attempt #3)

Practice makes perfect. That holds in almost every field. My third attempt at making vegetable pie has proven much rewarding in terms of my control of moisture and taste. These elements are so much a personal preference that there's probably no master recipe for them.


Recipe: Long squash and okra pie (make one 8-inch-pie)


Ingredients:
- 1 medium long squash, about 1 lb
- 1.5 cup frozen okra, defrosted, soaked in salt water, and drained
- 1 cup crumbled feta cheese
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1.5 teaspoons (tp) baking powder
- 2 tablespoons (TB) dill weed and lemon peel
- 1 TB oregano flakes

- 1 tp marjoram

- 2 tp basil
- 1/4 tp salt
- 1 tp pepper
- 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded


Procedure:
1. Sieve flour with baking powder.
2. Grate long squash in a large bowl used for making the pie mixture, so that the juice of the squash can be saved for use. Squeeze okra off excess of water, add to the grated long squash and mix. Add feta cheese, 2 eggs, and all the herbs. Mix into a watery mixture. Add in the flour sieved with baking powder. Stir into a batter-like mixture. Immediately transfer to a greased pan. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes or until a knife stuck into the center of the pie comes off clean. The pie top will be still milky white, with only a little golden color. Sprinkle mozzarella on top. Return to oven. Turn heat off and let sit for 10-20 minutes or until top is golden.

This recipe yields a much moister pie than my previous 2 attempts, with more vegetables and less starch. But for a more stomach-filling pie, the recipe from my second attempt would be more suitable, especially for breakfast.

Experiment on veggie pie (attempt #2)

Having tried a vegetable pie with Chinese chive and spring onion, I wanted to see whether it would give better result using a different vegetable. This time I picked a long squash (or opo squash) along with eggplant.

Recipe: Long squash and eggplant pie (make one 8-inch-pie)


Ingredients:
- 1 small long squash, grated to 2 cups
- 2/3 medium Chinese eggplant, grated to 1 cup
- 3 eggs
- 2/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1 tablespoon (TB) dried whole oregano
- 1 teaspoon (tp) garlic powder
- 1 TB dried parsley flakes
- 1 TB dried dill and lemon peel
- 2 tp black pepper
- dash of salt
- 2 tp baking powder
- 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 0.5 to 1 cup water


Procedure:
1. Mix flour and baking powder. Set aside.
2. Mix grated long squash and eggplant with all the herbs, spices and seasonings. Add feta and egg, and mix well. Then add the mixture of flour and baking powder. Mix thoroughly to form a thick paste. Add water to make the paste flow freely.
3. Pour into a greased metal baking pan. Bake in oven at 350F for about 50 minutes.


This time, the use of long squash contributed some moisture to the dough. The pie rose nicely in the oven as an effect of the baking powder. After the first 30 minutes, it was nicely browned and a knife sticking into the center could already come out clean. I covered the top with foil and let it bake for another 20 minutes anyway, just to be sure it's cooked. When the pie came out of the oven, its top had fallen flat after rising. But it still looked pretty good to me. My next goal is to improve the flavor and keep the pie texture moist for a longer time---even a few hours after coming out of oven.

Because of the rich starchy content of this pie, it makes a great breakfast. I cut 1/6 pan of the pie, heat it up for 40 seconds in the microwave, and then move it to the toaster oven to heat at 250F for 5 minutes to get a hot content and crispy top.

Problem with baking a vegetables pie (attempt #1)

Someone put up a nice turkish baked vegetable pie recipe, which stimulated me to try a similar approach to other vegetables. This week's special was Chinese chive and eggplant. So I attempted baking a pie with them.


Recipe: Vegetables pie (8" pie of 1/2" thick)


Ingredients:
- 1.5 cup chopped Chinese chive, chopped to 1/4" long
- 1.5 cup chopped spring onion, chopped to 1/4" long
- 0.5 cup Chinese eggplant, grated
- 2 tablespoons (TB) small dried shrimps
- 2 TB vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon (tp) baking powder
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tp salt
- 2 eggs


Procedure:
In a small bowl, mix flour with baking powder. Then add oil and mix into lumps. Mix Chinese chive, Chinese eggplant, spring onion, salt and egg in a medium bowl. Then add in the flour mixture from the small bowl. Add dried shrimps. Continue mixing until fully incorporated (because of the vegetables, the dough is only loosely held together after plenty of mixing). Then pour into a 8-inch, greased pie pan and bake at 375F for 30 minutes. Cover with foil if top is browned but texture remains undone.


The result was not as I had wanted. The texture was a little gluey (not sticky to the knife, but the pie had not quite risen much). I am not too sure whether this is indeed what I should get with a vegetable pie. I was expecting something closer to a bread-like texture. Perhaps the vegetables did not have enough water in them, so the dough did not rise enough. Or the problem might be that I did not cover the pie with foil at the beginning part of the baking, so the top was cooked too early, preventing the dough to rise.

Rose water cookies

I am so fascinated by rose water that I'm determined to find ways to enjoy it. So I searched for recipes, and tried out Vera's rose water almond cookies . Her recipe was perfect in the composition of rose water, almond, vanilla and butter. Moreover, I really love the small size of the batch created, not hundreds but just 2 or 3 dozens. Being laid back in my kitchen technology, it took me much more time to get the dough made. I froze the dough after making the cookie balls, then defrosted them in room temperature 30 minutes before baking. The result was a little more chewy than crispy. I'd try letting it defrost longer next time. I love the rose water and almond fragrance so much that I'm journaling it down myself.

Recipe: rose water almond cookies (36 mini cookies)

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup all-purpose white flour
- 1/4 cup Trader Joe's almond meal
- 6 tablespoon (TB) unsalted butter at room temperature (3 oz)
- 3/4 cup confectionary sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon (tp) salt
- 1/2 tp pure vanilla extract
- 1 TB Sadaf rose water
- 1 large egg

Procedure:
1. sift white flour and almond meal together.
2. Use electric mixer to cream butter in a deep bowl until it is pale yellow and soft (about 2 minutes). Be careful that butter may spread all over the kitchen.
3. Mix confectionary sugar, salt, vanilla and rose water together into a lumpy paste. Add the sugar paste, in batch, into creamed butter. Beat with a fork to incorporate before adding new batches. After all the sugar paste is added, beat the mixture with the electric mixer until it becomes smooth (< 1 minute). Then add the egg and use a fork to beat until fully incorporated. Watch out not to overbeat if an electric mixer is used to mix the egg, it will take only a few seconds. Then add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. I prefer using a fork, and it only takes a few minutes to do the job. The resultant dough is very soft, but it holds together pretty well.
4. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Dough can be kept refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 1 month.
5. Flour hands. Then pinch off small pieces of dough and roll them into balls of 0.8" diameter. Flour hands whenever dough gets too sticky to work with. I freeze the dough after rolling out into balls. This way makes it easier for me to bake small number of fresh cookies whenever desired.
6. To bake, preheat oven to 350F. Use the middle rack of the oven. Place the dough balls about 1" apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until cookies turn light golden around the edges. Then let cool completely on the sheet. Store in airtight containers for up to 3 days at room temperature.

Trying out chicken marbella

At the end of the year when people were busy preparing for the festival, I kept hearing about a dish called "chicken marbella". It's said that this is the best of the "Silver Palate". It got me really curious to try it out. One look at the recipe convinced me that it's going to be a very flavorful dish. The combination of ingredients in the marinate is simply splendid! Here is the recipe I adapted from a few online sites. It was pretty well received at our new year eve party.

Recipe: Chicken drumstick marbella (for 3)

Ingredients:
- 2 lb drumsticks (about 7), de-bones but skin-on
- 1 tablespoon (TB) dried oregano flakes
- 1 TB parsley flakes
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 tp coarse kosher salt (more salt may be added to the gravy at serving time)
- 1/4 tp ground black pepper
- 1/4 garlic, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup pitted prunes

- 2 TB capers nonpareilles with juice

- 2 TB spanish green olives, pitted

- 1/4 cup brown sugar

- 1/4 cup white wine

- 2 TB red wine vinegar

- 2 TB olive oil

Procedure:

1. Mix all marinate ingredients thoroughly. Soak the chicken meat in the marinate overnight in a plastic bag, in the fridge, making sure that all surfaces of the meat is in touch with the marinate and the herbs.

2. Place chicken and marinate in a baking pan, making sure the juice comes up to no more than 1/5 of the meat. Bake at 350F for 50 minutes, basking often. Serve with the meat juice as the gravy when done. Season the gravy with more salt if desired.

This dish can also be cooked in a pan with lid on the stove top. When meat is cooked, save 3/4 of meat juice as the gravy. Then boil the remaining juice with the meat in pan until the liquid thickens and caramelize on the surface of the meat.

Stuffed baby bak choy

Baby bak choy is 3"-7" tall, with white thick, curled stems and very curly dark green leaves. It has never been my favorite because of the acidity in the stem, and the way it is usually cooked, that is in Chinese stir fry. When eaten by itself, the look and the acidity does not quite please my palates. So I decided to think of some different way to make the eating of it more pleasurable. Usually, if the leaves and the stems are cooked together, then by the time the white stems are cooked, the leaves have become slimy. So it's probably a better idea to cook the stems and the leaves separately. Here is an experiment that turns out to be pleasing to the eye and pleasant to taste. The idea is to complement the taste of the stems with something meaty, juicy and weighty. The baby bak choy stems are slightly blanched, then stuffed with a thick filling of white meat, seafood and congee. In my original experiment, I used a leftover congee cooked with rice, meat stock and seafood, which is very flavorful. Here I drafted out a recipe for the case when only cooked rice is available.

Recipe: Stuffed baby bak choy (make 3 as a light dish)


Ingredients:
- 3 stalks of baby bak choy (pick those whose bottom can stand or can be trimmed to stand)
- one long strip of salted kelp, 1/2"x6", soaked
- 4-5 oz cooked chicken or turkey meat
- half a dried scallop, soaked
- 1/4 teaspoon (tp) small dried shrimps, soaked and minced
- 2 small dried anchovy fishes, soaked and minced
- 1/2 dried black mushroom, soaked and minced
- 2 tp cooked rice, boiled in water until completely dissolved into a thick paste (or use 2-3 tablespoon leftover congee)
- a few ears of fresh sweet corn


Procedure:
1. Carefully remove the green parts of each leaf, and the core of each baby bak choy. Save the green leaves for other recipes (such as a salad). Then wash the white parts carefully, using a brush, if necessary, to remove any dirt trapped at the bottom of the stems.
2. Soak salted kelp in water for 20 minutes to remove salt. Then cut to three 1/6"x6" strips.
3. Place soaked scallop, small shrimps, anchovies and black mushroom in a saucer and steam for 5 minutes. In a small saucepan, mix chicken meat, cooked rice, sweet corn ears, and the steamed ingredients. Cook on low to med-low heat until mixture boils and becomes very thick, so that it can stand up as a heap. Turn heat down and let cool until it does not scald the hand.
4. Get a pot of water boiling. Blanch each baby bak choy for about 1 minute or until the white stems start to become a little translucent. Take out of water immediately and let cool on a plate. The bak choy will continue to cook and give out water while cooling.
5. When bak choy can be handled by handle, carefully scoop the white meat fillings into the core of each  bak choy. Then use a strip of kelp to wrap around the white stems and secure them together. Serve right away, or within 1/2 hours. Reheat in oven with water bath or microwave, if necessary.

I served the stuffed baby bak choy on the green leaves, blanched for 2 seconds in boiling water. The green leaves go well with oyster sauce in sesame oil.

Our new year hams

I thought heating up a pre-cooked ham should be easy. All one has to do is to buy a pre-cooked ham from the grocery store, place it in a baking pan, let it bake at 350F for 10 minutes per pound of meat, and serve when it's done. But then, after my first attempt, I discovered that there is more than the instructions say:

First, it's best to put the cut side facing down when baking, so that it will not dry out. This allows all the skin to be nicely browned. Do not cover the ham with foil. With a ham below 10 lbs,  it's not necessary to use a drip pan. The cut side actually needs to be in the juice when heating.


Second, I find it helpful to add some 20 minutes or more to the time given by the instructions, so that the meat is fully heated up to the bone. This is especially important if one plans to freeze some leftovers.


Third, after taking the meat out of the oven, it's good to drain the juice first, and allow the ham to sit on the counter for 15 minutes before cutting. This way, the heat is distributed more evenly into the meat. And the meat hardens up, so that slicing is easier. It's also easier to handle when the surface is cooler. I learnt this the hard way when the big hot ham fell off my hands, back into the juice of the pan, and spilled fat all over the kitchen floor!


Fourth, and I find this funny to me: the knife used to slice up the ham is the same one used to slice fresh bread! It's a long thin blade with sawtooth, and forked tip. The sawtooth is very good for slicing. The forked tip is good for pickup up the slices. Other than this long knife, a smaller knife with a pointed sharp end is needed to carve the meat off its bone. When cutting the meat, I actually find it easier to slice it up first before detaching the slices from the bone. The meat holds better this way.


Fifth, after cutting the ham, I realize it's a good idea to keep the sliced meat in a thin layer of the juice from cooking (skimmed of fat). This preserves the moisture of the ham. In fact, the ham soaks up the juice as it slowly cools down. Without the juice, the ham would dry off rather quickly within 30 minutes.


All these discoveries brought to our home a nice little ham for a party at the new year eve of 2010. It tasted so good... early the next day I went out to the store to buy a second one, cooked it and shared it with our friends who didn't make it to the new year eve party!!

It's such a joy sharing the abundance of life!

Pomegranate and pineapple tartlets

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above.

So thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all His love.

The Lord blessed our new year eve with a nice gathering of friends. We threw a small party and invited some good friends in the neighborhood. At first we were not sure if anyone would show up. The day before new year eve, we learnt that most of those invited would be coming. That really excited us. So I found myself busying for two whole days preparing food for a party of seven. As a treat for myself, I made some fruit tartlets. The tastes of pomegranate and pineapple go very well together as a combination of fruity sweetness, with just a juicy blend of acidity. So I made a cream that is rich and mildly sour to go with the fruity toppings.


Recipe: Pomegranate and pineapple tartlets (make 12)


Ingredients:
- 5 oz flaky pie dough (about 1/8 portion size of using Julia Child's recipe)
- 3 TB low-fat cream cheese
- 3 TB heavy whipping cream
- 1 TB white sugar
- 3 TB fresh pomegranate seeds
- 3 TB fresh pineapple, cut to 1/2" pieces


Procedure:
1. Roll out the flaky pie dough to about 1/4" thick and line the holes of a mini-muffin pan that has been greased and dusted with flour. Bake in oven at 350F for 5-10 minutes. Once the aroma of pastry diffuses into the air, it's done. Remove tartlet crust from pan, and let cool on a cookie rack. Set aside at room temperature for use. The tartlet crust will remain very crispy for several hours. 
1. Soften cream cheese by stirring with a fork until it becomes a paste. Add whipping cream and sugar. Mix and stir vigorously to form a smooth paste. The paste will have a sweet but slightly sour feel.
2. Fill the tartlet crust with the creamy paste. Then top with pineapple and pomegranate seeds. Serve right away. 

In another experiment, I decided to use heavy whipping cream alone as the cream filling. That's quite an experience. Since I was beating less than one cup of cream, the electric beater became really clumsy. So I resorted to hand beating with a fork. It was really quite a bit of work. But I really liked the result. There's something about seeing the cream form that made the whipped cream feel so tasty in the mouth. With hand and fork, it took me more than 10 minutes to get the foam started. Then I changed to a bigger bowl for more vigorous beating. The cream thickened slowly, and then progressively faster. Then all of a sudden, it became really firm. That's the moment of exuberant joy, and relief to my arm.