Category: Recipes tried and tasted

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Macaron Recipe

Need a quick pick me up on a dull day? Macarons are delectable treats that will definitely satisfy your sweet tooth!

Do you know the difference between a macaron and macaroon? Macarons are meringue based pastries while macaroons are actually coconut based. If you wish to find out how to bake macarons, we have a video down below.

What you’ll need

100g Icing sugar

100g Ground almonds

2 Egg whites

A pinch of salt

150g of Unsalted butter

75g of Icing sugar

Any flavouring of your choice(for the filling)

These pastries are really sweet so don’t forget to drink more water!

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Mango Sticky Rice

Mango Sticky Rice or ข้าวเหนียวมะม่วง, is one of Thailand’s traditional desserts. The sweet glutinous rice, accompanied with refreshing mangoes, is the perfect boost on a hot day!

Craving for it? Why not make it yourself?

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Beauty and the Beast inspired dinner

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Unlike many people of my generation, I was not one that looked to Disney classics for it’s happy endings and dreaming of leading a life of a princess. Instead,  ever since I was a child, my preferred Disney animation of all time was Lilo and Stitch. As peculiar as it may sound, Stitch’s devious yet feeling character struck a cord with me and remains to this day my favorite Disney character.

Speaking of Disney, Beauty and the Beast was released on 16th March in Singapore; fearing that the movie tickets would be sold out for the later showtimes, I decided to go to a lesser known cinema to secure seating further from the screen and away from the crowds for a better movie experience. Pssst if you are like me and prefer to have less disruptions, do consider a cinema that is slightly older or out of the way. An example of such a cinema would be Shaw Plaza located in Balestier. Moreover, the cinema at Shaw Plaza offers free smells for it’s popcorn, you wouldn’t feel the need to physically consume popcorn.

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I went into the movie without having any expectations lest I get disappointed but it certainly was not the case. The movie addressed some loopholes like how the townspeople from villages could have forgotten about their prince  and his subjects the moment he was cursed by the enchantress. Not to mention the amount of detail and choreography in the famous scene where Belle was served dinner by the palace servants despite the prince’s ultimatum “If she doesn’t eat with me, then she doesn’t eat at all!”

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Thereafter, all I could think of was the song Be my Guest sang by Lumiere and of Belle’s  Beef Ragout, Cheese Soufflé , Pie and Pudding.

On to the recipes…

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Beef Ragout

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Ingredients

  • 300g of Beef chuck
  • Half a large Onion (minced)
  • 3 Tbsp Tomato paste
  • A bulb of Garlic (minced)
  • Salt and pepper
  • Italian Herbs Mix
  • 500 ml Beef stock
  • 2 splashes Red Wine
  • 1 Carrot (diced)
  • Butter

Recipe

  1. Slice beef into strips and pan-sear till edges are brown. Add butter, salt and pepper as needed. Set aside
  2. Sauté onions and garlic till fragrant.
  3. Add diced carrots and tomato paste. Mix well.
  4. Return beef to pan, add beef stock and Italian herbs to pan.
  5. Add red wine to pan.
  6. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook covered until beef is tender. (1 hour)

Snapshots of the process

OOhhh how tantalizing is that beef…

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Add all the other seasonings and voilà !

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Cheese Soufflé

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Having not made soufflés prior to this, I decided to find a recipe online that was both quick to make and did not require many ingredients lest this turns out to be a flop. Thankfully, the Cheese Soufflé came out of the oven alright and taste and texture wise it was cheesy and fluffy. One mistake I made was that I waited for the soufflé to cool, resulting in a slightly sunken soufflé.

The recipe I followed was from Eugeniekitchen http://eugeniekitchen.com/cheese-souffle/  and it requires only 7 ingredients, many of which you may already be able to find in your kitchen.

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (30g)
  • 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour (20g)
  • ¾ cup whole milk, at room temperature (180ml)
  • 2 oz cheese of your choice (60g) (I used Parmesan cheese)
  • Salt, pepper, and/or nutmeg for seasoning
  • Extra butter for brushing the baking dishes
  • 2 eggs

Recipe

  1. First, brush the baking dishes with softened unsalted butter. Brush from bottom upwards. This will make the soufflé to rise evenly. Set aside.
  2. Over medium heat, add 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter in the sauce pan and melt it. Add in 3 tablespoons of all-purpose flour and cook for 1 minute stirring with a wooden spoon. This is white roux.
  3. Remove the pan from the heat, add ¾ cup of whole milk at room temperature, and stir until smooth. Back to the heat stir constantly until it comes to a boil. The sauce should form ribbons. This is béchamel sauce. Remove from the heat.
  4. Add in 2 oz of cheese of your choice: Parmesan, cheddar, Gruyères, etc. Today I used grated Emmental cheese. And stir until cheese is melt and homogeneously combined. And don’t forget to season with salt and freshly ground pepper. This is Mornay sauce. And let cool.
  5. Now separate 2 eggs. Beat the egg whites until peaks form.
  6. And add the egg yolks into the now cooled Mornay sauce: one by one stirring until homogeneously mixed. Now add a whiskful of egg whites into the Mornay sauce and whisk to combine. Then pour all Mornay sauce into egg whites and fold until combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared dishes.
  7. Bake in the oven preheated to 360 degrees F. (180 C.) for about 35 minutes, or until well risen.

Berry Pie

Ingredients

  • 1 Packet frozen puff pastryjamtart
  • Berries of your choice (about a handful)
  • A lemon wedge
  • 3 Tsps of sugar
  • I used strawberries and blackberries

 

Recipe

  1. Chop the strawberries into small pieces.
  2. Put half the strawberries and whole blackberries into a pan on low heat.
  3. Add the juice of the lemon into the pan along with the sugar.
  4. Take the pan off the heat when the berry mixture has reduced to a jam consistency.
  5. Line the tart pans with puff pastry.
  6. Fill the tart pans with a tablespoon of jam and top it off with the chopped strawberries and blackberries.
  7. Cover the tart with puff pastry and remove the excess overhanging from the sides of the tart pan.
  8. Cut slits in the pie to allow air to escape when baking.
  9. Put into a preheated oven for 30 mins at 200ºC.

Snapshots of the process

Making of the jam

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Filing of the pies

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Mango Pudding

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  1. Dissolve Mango Pudding Mix in water as per instructions on box.
  2. Pour the pudding mix into moulds.
  3. Refrigerate for an hour.
  4. Remove from mould, cut strawberries to garnish and plate up.

The Mango pudding mix I used in this recipe is Hollyfarms.

Till next time!

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Lapis Sagu

 

For some reason I fail to comprehend, I have always taken a liking to objects arranged in an order that seems to transcend from one color to the next in a sort of fashion that mimics the rainbow. Growing up, I would often annoy the daylights out of my younger sister when I broke into a never ending ramble of how pleasing it was when everything was to be positioned in accordance to the color wheel. Needless to say, one of my all time favorite snacks would be none other than the Lapis Sagu or as I call it – 九层糕 (Jiu Cheng Gao).It can also be directly translated to 9 Layered Kueh.

The Kueh Lapis Sagu is a colorful multi-tiered Nyonya Kueh that is as much fun eating as it is tasty. There are two kinds of people in the world; one that is afraid to make a mess- preferring to take a swift bite of the kueh and the other that takes pride in peeling the kueh layer by layer, savoring the kueh little by little. Needless to say, I belong to the latter. Where’s the joy in eating if we are too conscious of how we appear to others?

As intriguing as it may seem, the Lapis Sagu does take quite a bit of time to make but it is worth all the hassle. For those who are yet to be convinced….

Firstly, as the name suggests, the 9 Layered Kueh is stacked layer after layer in various colors; so pretty that any child would not think twice before popping it into their mouths. Secondly, it is the perfect marriage between coconut milk and pandan; a match made in heaven or at least it made me feel like I was in a blissful heaven. Thirdly, it is an irresistible snack simply because it brings back memories of childhood innocence and worry-free days.

After careful consideration, I decided to attempt making the 9 Layered Kueh following a  Recipe I found on the net.

If I could turn back time, I would have used a piece of string to cut the kueh  to achieve cleaner slices.

 

       

 Ingredients

  • 200g Tapioca flour, sieved         
  • 40g Rice flour, sieved
  • 500ml Coconut milk
  • 200g sugar
  • 750ml of water
  • A pinch of salt
  • Pandan leaves
  • Food coloring

Recipe

  1. Boil the sugar and pandan leaves in a pot of water. Add a pinch of salt.
  2. Set aside to cool completely after all the sugar has dissolved.
  3. Mix sieved tapioca flour and rice flour in a mixing bowl.
  4. Mix to combine the pandan infused sugar mixture until a smooth consistency is achieved.
  5. Sieve the coconut milk into the mixing bowl until a silky consistency is achieved.
  6. Divide the mixture equally into 6 bowls and add coloring to each bowl.
  7. Coat the cake pan evenly with oil.
  8. Lower the cake pan into a steamer.
  9. Steam each layer for approximately 5 mins, taking care not to drip the water vapor into the cake pan.
  10. Leave the kueh to cool completely before removing from the cake pan.
  11. Coat a piece of string generously with oil and gently slice down as you would with a knife.
  12. Slice the kueh into serving sizes.
  13. Brush the slices of kueh with oil to prevent them from sticking to one another.
  14. Individually wrap the slices in baking paper.

Snapshots of the process

Boil the sugar and pandan leaves in a pot of water. Add a pinch of salt.

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Mix sieved tapioca flour and rice flour in a mixing bowl.

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Mix the pandan infused sugar mixture and sieve the coconut

milk into the mixing bowl until a silky consistency is achieved.

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Divide the mixture equally into 6 bowls and add coloring to each bowl.

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Coat the cake pan evenly with oil.

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Lower the cake pan into a steamer.

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Steam each layer for approximately 5 mins, taking care not

to drip the water vapor into the cake pan.

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Slice the kueh into serving sizes.

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Till Next Time!