Food For Four

Cute Bento # 2

Posted on | April 8, 2010 | Asian, Japanese, Kids friendly, Recipes | 4 Comments

Cute Bento

I made my first cute bento a couple of weeks ago and I think I’m becoming obsessed with cute looking food.

Today I use two rice moulds shaped with faces of a girl and boy. On the rice moulds you can see facial features but when the rice comes out it’s just a nicely packed blob of rice. I also cheated and use jasmine rice which didn’t really hold together very well. The trickiest part is cutting out the hair and facial features using dried seaweed. It was fun but also a bit time consuming. For a second-timer, I think I did a good job with the faces.

Cute Bento - faces

My bento looks very colourful but it’s also so busy with so many different types of food. I believe that healthy eating habit starts young and I always give my kids healthy food. This is similar to what the kiddies usually get for their normal meal but not as nicely presented (everything tossed in a bowl). The tomatoes, okra and lettuce was added for the presentation only as the kids don’t like eating them.

This is what is in the bento:

steamed broccoli, cauliflower, okra and carrot
sliced tomato
lettuce
boiled egg
pasta
fried rice
sauteed marinated salmon
black and white sesame seeds

Cute Bento 2

4 Comments

The Cookbook Challenge Week 20: Sticky Orange and Vanilla Upside-down Cake

Posted on | April 5, 2010 | Cookbook Challenge, Recipes, Western | 12 Comments

Sticky Orange Upside-down Cake

Theme: Tangy

I love anything citrus. I decided to make the orange upside-down cake for this week’s Cookbook Challenge theme of “tangy”, as I couldn’t resist the look of the caramelised oranges on the cake.

IMG_3178

The sweet, tangy, vanilla, citrusy, caramelised oranges is the star of this cake. I thought using two oranges was too much and I only used one, but I wished I have used two oranges because every bite of cake needs this great tasting caramelised oranges. The orange peel makes this cake really tangy. Even my husband who is not a big fan of eating oranges really likes the caramelised oranges. I also love the sweet fragrance and taste of the vanilla bean in this cake.

Sticky Orange Upside-down & Vanilla Cake

Sticky Orange and Vanilla Upside-down Cake
From Seasons by Donna Hays
Serves 8

Ingredients

4 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup self-raising flour
150g butter, melted
1 cup almond meal (ground almonds)

sticky orange topping
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup water
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped
2 orages, very thinly sliced

Method

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

To make the topping, place the sugar, water and vanilla bean in a 2.5 litre capacity (10 cup) 20cm non-stick ovenproof frying pan over medium heat. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the orange and simmer for 10 – 15 minutes or until the orange is soft. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Place eggs, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk for 8 – 10 minutes or until the mixture is thick, pale and tripled in volume. Sift the flour over the egg mixture and fold through. Fold through the butter and almond meal. Pour the mixture over the orange and bake for 40 – 45 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Turn out onto a platter to serve.

Cooking Notes:

Instead of baking the cake in the ovenproof frying pan, I transferred the orange mixture to a 20cm x 4.8cm baking pan to cool and then to bake the cake in it.

Upside-down Orange Cake

12 Comments

Almond Cookies Using Alphabet Cookie Cutters

Posted on | April 3, 2010 | Asian, Recipes | 4 Comments

Almond Alphabet Cookies

A couple of months ago I bought a bucket of alphabet cookie cutters hoping to make some cookies with my 3 year old. I thought it would be fun to teach her words using yummy cookies. She has been asking me to make cookies ever since I bought the cookie cutters home but I haven’t had time. Cooking with a young child means a lot of mess so I have to make sure I have plenty of time and patience to do this with her.

Today I promised my daughter that we are going to make some cookies and that she can use her alphabet cookie cutters and decorate the cookies with sprinkles. She heard the words “cookies” and “sprinkles” and started running around the house squealing. It’s amazing how simple things can make a child excited.

I decided to make almond cookies as it’s one of my favourite cookies. Using the alphabet cookie cutters may have not been appropriate for this type of cookie dough as the dough is too crumbly and delicate. It was not easy to remove the dough from the cookie cutters and sometimes the letters breaks. After making a couple of words I didn’t have much fun and decided to use different cookie cutters to speed up the process.

The almond cookie dough does not like to be decorated with toppings. None of the toppings we had stick to the dough unless you press it down a little but it loses its shape easily.

In the end my daughter had more fun eating the toppings (especially the choc chips and sprinkles). She also had a lot of fun playing with the left over cookie dough. We had a huge mess afterwards with a lot of cookie dough all over the ground. I knew better and set up the cooking activity outside so I don’t have to worry about the ants invading my kitchen.

The cookies turned out great. I love how it’s crumbly and nutty.

Almond cookies

Ingredients

250g butter
80g caster sugar
300g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bi-carb soda
100g ground almond

Method

Cream butter with sifted icing sugar on medium speed for 1 minute. Scrape the side and bottom of bowl. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes till fluffy.

Blend in sifted caster sugar bi-carb sodium slowly. Then add in ground almond. Mix well to form a dough.

Roll the dough between plastic sheets to 4mm thickness. Cut out cookies with desired cookie cutter. Transfer to a greased baking tray.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 12 -15 minutes till light brown.

4 Comments

Lotus Root Soup with Pork Ribs

Posted on | April 2, 2010 | Asian, Chinese | 3 Comments

Lotus root soup

Brrrr. Yesterday we woke up to a cold 16°C. The reality of winter approaching suddenly hits. I guess we have been spoilt with a very warm autumn during the past month that I thought we were still in summer. Even with the warm weather, the kids and Husband were sick during the last two weeks. It’s always awful when the young ones are sick as all they do is whine and cry. Thank goodness I have a stronger immunity and escape unscathed.

Lotus root

The other day I noticed my local fruit shop was selling fresh lotus root. I was introduced to lotus root soup during my one month confinement after Baby S was born. My MIL boiled lotus root with red bean (or was it black bean?) Lotus root doesn’t have much taste but I love the crunchy texture and it is rich in dietary fibre and other vitamins and minerals. The lotus root has interesting hollow pattern inside and I think sliced lotus root looks very pretty.

Herbal soup is more of a Chinese thing but I started to cook herbal soups a lot more since I was introduced to it by my MIL. I also have a cookbook with lots of delicious herbal soup recipes which I’m hoping to make good use of during this Winter.

For this lotus root soup I have kept it simple with just pork ribs, red dates, lotus seeds and candy dates to give it that extra sweetness.

Lotus Soup Pork Ribs

Ingredients

1 rack of pork ribs
1 small lotus root
2 candy dates
1/4 cup dried lotus seeds
1/4 cup red dates
2 litres of water

Method

Soak the red dates for at least 30 minutes. Rinse it with water a couple of times after soaking cause I noticed my red dates left some impurities after soaking.

Soak the dried lotus seeds separately for at least 30 mintues. Then drain.

Cut the pork ribs into strips. Blanch the ribs in boiling water to remove any impurities. Boil 2 litres of water in clean pot. Then add the pork ribs. Skimming away any impurities.

Using a peeler, remove the skin of the lotus root. Slice the lotus root 1 cm thick. Then add the lotus root to the pot. Add the red dates and candy dates. Cover and cook on low heat.

After 20 minutes, add the lotus seeds. Cover and cook on low heat. Cook for another 1 hour to 1.5 hours or until the pork ribs falls off the bone and the red dates and lotus seeds are soft.

Serve the soup hot.

Lotus root soup with pork ribs

3 Comments

The Cookbook Challenge Week 19: Tomato Risotto with Mussels

Posted on | March 29, 2010 | Cookbook Challenge, Recipes, Western | 7 Comments

Tomato risotto with mussels

Theme: Rice

No matter how many times I’ve made a risotto, I have not been satisfied with how it turned out. My risotto always end up tasting stodgy. I use hot stock and constantly stirring and adding more stock once all the stock has been absorbed. But instead of a creamy risotto, I get really thick stodgy rice.

The theme for Cookbook Challenge is “rice” and I decided give a risotto another attempt. Practice makes perfect, right? During our last holiday we had a really nice seafood risotto and I wanted to recreate that dish. Unfortunately I started preparing dinner quite late and didn’t have time to prepare the seafood, so I decided to do a mussel risotto instead.

I don’t know how long you’re suppose to cook a risotto, but after 1 hour and 15 minutes of stirring and adding hot stock, the rice was still not completely soft. I had to abandon the cooking as I ran out of stock and also had to attend to the kids. I don’t think rice was suppose to take that long to cook. I can’t believe how much stock it soaked up. I use a lot more stock than the recipe and it’s still not enough.

I like leek and tomato base dishes so naturally I like the flavours of this dish. I must remember to use reduced salt stock because I find it was too salty even without adding any salt.

Making a good risotto really takes time and practice. My risotto was not perfect this time but I know if I persist I will get it right one day.

Tomatto risotto with mussels
From Off The Shelf by Donna Hay
Makes 4

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 leeks, chopped
2 tablespoons lemon thyme leaves
3.5 – 4 cups fish or vegetable stock (I used 6 cups)
1.5 cups tomato puree
2 cups arborio or carnaroli rice
3/4 cup white wine
1 tablespoon butter
1kg mussels, scrubbed
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
cracked pepper and sea salt

Method

Heat a heavy-based frying pan over medium heat. Add the oil, leeks and thyme and cook for 4 minutes or until the leeks are golden.

Plac the stock and tomato puree in a saucepan and bring to a slow simmer.

Add rice to the leek mixture and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the hot stock to the rice, 1 cup at a time, stirring until each cup of stock is absorbed and the rice is al dente.

While the rice is cooking, lace the wine and butter in a frying pan over high heat. Add the mussels, cover and cook for 2 minutes or until the mussels have opened.

To serve, stir parmesan, pepper and salt through the risotto and spoon onto serving plates. Top with the mussels and their pan juices.

Risotto with mussels

7 Comments

Bánh Xèo – Vietnamese Sizzling Crepe

Posted on | March 28, 2010 | Asian, Recipes, Vietnamese | 5 Comments

Banh Xeo

Whenever I see the abundance of Vietnamese herbs growing in my parent’s backyard, I always crave for a refreshing Vietnamese dish served with lots of fresh herbs.

I decided to make bánh xèo (sizzling crepe) to make use of the fresh herbs. Bánh xèo is made from rice flour, coconut and turmeric, and is pan-fried with pork, prawns/shrimps, spring onions and filled with lots of bean sprouts. The crispy crepe is served with lots of fresh herbs and dipping fish sauce.

I prefer to use the packaged bánh xèo flour. It’s easier to follow the instructions on the packet instead of trying to remember the measurements for the ingredients. I also prefer using milk instead of coconut just to be healthy.

My preferred method to making the crepes is to fry the prawns and pork as part of the crepe, and this gives the crepe a golden brown colour. Unfortunately my photos using this method didn’t turn out well. For better presentation I decided to just do a plain crepe and then filled it with cooked prawns, pork and bean sprout.

banh xeo - vietnamese sizzling crepe

Bánh Xèo – Vietnamese Sizzling Crepes
Makes 10

Ingredients

1 packet of bánh xèo flour
600g prawns, de-shelled
400g pork neck, sliced thinly
1.5 bags bean sprouts, blanched in boiling water and drained
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 cup spring onions (green part only), thinly sliced
Oil for frying, put in a small bowl
Pinches of salt, sugar and pepper
Lettuce
Vietnamese mint
Perilla leaves
Dipping fish sauce

Method

Prepare the bánh xèo batter according to the instructions on the packet. Add the spring onions to the batter. Leave the batter to rest for 30 minutes before use.

Marinate the sliced pork with pinches of salt, sugar and pepper.

Have the batter, prawns, pork, onion, bean sprout and bowl of oil nearby when you are ready to fry the crepes.

Heat up a non-stick frying pan. Pour a tablespoon of oil into the frying pan and swirl the oil in the pan so that it is coated with oil. Grab a small handful of onions and add to the frying pan and fry until just soft.

Add 3 pieces of pork and fry until half done. Add 2 – 3 prawns and fry until cooked.

Spread the pork and prawns out evenly in the pan. Give the batter a good stir with a ladle. One hand hold the pan and the other pour in a ladle of batter and tilt the pan in a circular motion so that a thin layer of batter covers the whole pan. Fill up any holes with a small amount of batter.

Fry until the batter changes colour and dries up and is crispy around the edges. You can check for doneness by lifting the edge to check. Add a handful bean sprouts to half of the crepe. Using a spatula fold half of the crepe over the bean sprout. Let the crepe cook for another couple of seconds then remove crepe to a plate.

Serve the bánh xèo on a plate with lettuce and lots of fresh herbs and dipping fish sauce.

Banh Xeo Sizzling Crepe

5 Comments

The Cookbook Challenge Week 18: Garlic and Mustard Beef Skewers

Posted on | March 21, 2010 | Cookbook Challenge, Recipes | 8 Comments

Beef Skewers

Summer is still lingering on, temperatures are still in the low thirties. With the Cookbook Challenge being “barbeque” we decided to have a simple barbeque lunch in our backyard. The lunch was not anything special – just the four of us and the electric health grill. Our electric grill is now the barbeque substitute as our four burner bbq was put away in storage since it’s too big and is a pain to clean.

I always tend to marinate meat with asian flavours but thought I’ll try something different this time. I decided to do a garlic and mustard beef skewers to make use of the wholegrain mustard which we got at the “Breakfast on the Bridge” event.

When I see the word mustard always reminds me of the yellow mustard which I don’t really like. I don’t think I have ever had wholegrain mustard before. This particular brand was very, very mild. I feel the need to double the amount to get more flavour. I’m really liking wholegrain mustard now.

My skewers was a little dry compared to the picture in the cookbook as I did not add the red wine vinegar, but did not substitute it for anything else since the mustard already has vinegar.

I really like this marinate on beef and I think I would do it again.

garlic mustard beef skewers

Garlic and Mustard Beef Skewers
From Seasons by Donna Hay

500g rump steakk, cut into pieces
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon seeded mustard
rocket (arugula) leaves, to serve
mountain bread or flatbread, to serve
aioli, to serve

Method

Place the steak, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and mustard in a bowl and toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Heat a char-grill or barbeque over high heat.

Thread the beef onto skewers and char-grill or barbeque for 2 – 3 minutes each for medium rate or until cooked to your liking.

Serve with the rocket leaves, mountain bread and aioli.

garlic and mustard beef skewers

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