Guest 'Chef' #1: Simple Siew Mai

Siew Mai is a Must Eat when we go for Dim Sum. I have never thought of making Siew Mais before as they seem so delicate and quite difficult to make. I remember watching the Dim Sum episode in MasterChef Australia where the contestants flew to Hong Kong. One of their items was making Siew Mai, and they struggled quite a lot + their Siew Mai didn't look like Siew Mai. My boyfriend found a really simple and quick Siew Mai recipe yesterday and in less than 1/2 hour the Siew Mais were ready. They may not look as pretty as the ones in the restaurant by they were delicious! Not so difficult after all *grins*

Siew Mai (according to the boyfriend)

makes ~30

Ingredients (only a rough estimate)

Wanton Skin

500gm Mince pork

200gm Prawns, diced

+/- 3 Water Chestnuts, minced with excess water squeezed out

1 Egg, beaten [egg wash]

1/2 Carrot, diced [topping - alternatively you can use salted egg or fish roe]

Seasoning: (to taste)

Light Soy Sauce

Sesame Oil

Oyster Sauce

Pepper

Salt

1 Egg white

1 tbsp Tapioca/Corn flour 

Methods:

1.  Combine mince pork, prawns, water chestnut and seasoning. Mix well with chopsticks (use a pair of chopsticks and mix the meat in a uni-direction or use a mixer with paddle attachment), until the meat becomes sticky.

2. Brush one side of each wanton skin with egg wash

3. Place 1 tbspn of the filling onto the center of each wanton skin

4. Fold the skin such that the sides are nicely pleated and only the top of the filling can be seen. Sprinkle with chopped carrots

5. Place Siew Mai on a plate lined with parchment/baking paper. Put in steamer and steam for 10 minutes or until thoroughly cooked.

6. You can freeze the remaining uncooked siew mai for a few months, and just steam them for longer (15-20 minutes without thawing) next time.

uncooked Siew Mais

Siew Mais before steaming. Place on a piece of parchment paper.

After 10 minutes~ Tadaa~!

Really loved them! Will definitely bug my bf to make them again! 

Hope you will like them too :)

Easy Portuguese Egg Tarts

I have been craving for Portuguese egg tarts for a while but couldn't bring myself to pay AUD$1.80 for an egg tart. Too expensive! Back home an extremely yummy egg tart would probably cost ~RM$1.00. Hence i decided to make some myself :)

After going through a couple of recipes I landed on a very simple/quick recipe that my friend Wendy uses. To make things really easy I used ready made puff pastry, stuck them onto cupcake papers and baked them in a cupcake tray. I must say they don't look as pretty as the ones sold in the shops (especially the pastry >.< ), but gosh they are as delicious! Another beauty of making them yourself is you can control the amount of sugar going into those tarts. The whole preparation took <15 minutes so it is perfect if you have limited time and would like to have a quick snack!

Easy Portuguese Egg Tarts (courtesy of Wendy) 

makes 18 egg tarts with regular cupcake trays. 220 degrees Celcius for 25 minutes.

Ingredients:

200g Whipping Cream

300g Milk

80g Sugar

3 Eggs

3 Egg yolks

1/4 tsp Vanilla Essence

2 large squares of ready-made puff pastry

some sugar for sprinkling

Methods:

1. Place the whipping cream, milk and sugar in a pot and cook on medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves. Do not allow the mixture to boil (maintain ~70degree Celsius).

2. Once the sugar has dissolved, remove from heat and whisk in the beaten eggs, yolk and vanilla essence

3. Leave mixture to cool slightly

4. Prepare the pastry shells - mold the pastry onto the cupcake cases and place them in cupcake trays. Poke a few holes at the bottom of each pastry shell.

5. Pour in the mixture into the pastry shells, filling until 1~1.5cm from the top. Sprinkle some sugar on top of each egg tart. Bake in preheated oven at 220 degree Celsius for 25 minutes. The custard will puff up quite a bit in the oven so don't be surprised! The top should have a nice 'burnt' glaze when the egg tarts are ready. 

6. Remove from oven + cupcake trays. Leave them to cool slightly before eating!

Before entering the oven

Don't worry. The custard will puff up quite a fair bit during the baking.

As soon as it comes out the custard will start to sink.

Tadaa~! End product. 

Hope you will like this recipe! 

I shall try making normal egg tarts some other time!

 

Chocolate Mud Cupcakes with Orange Buttercream and Candied Orange

I promised a friend some yummy cupcakes and chocolate ones are her favourite!!! I have made several versions of chocolate cupcakes in the past and I found the cupcakes from this recipe to be incredibly rich and moist, yet fluffy (just how I like them!). In comparison to other recipes, this one actually demanded very good quality chocolate and many more ingredients, but I think it paid off well. :)

It took me quite a while to decide what frosting/decorations to go with it and I finally settled at the idea of a 'Jaffa' cupcake i.e. chocolate + orange combo; something I haven't done before. I was very worried the frosting & candied orange will overpower the chocolate but I felt the candied orange actually pulled the flavours together beautifully. Texturally it was great as there were 3 different layers. Big success for me! Try it out and let me know what you think *heehee*.

 

Chocolate Mud Cupcakes recipe (Adapted from Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook)

makes 24 regular cupcakes. bake at 160 degrees celcius for 22-25 minutes.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Instant coffee granules (Add more if you want a stronger coffee taste)

3/4C Hot water

250g Butter

300g Good quality dark cooking chocolate, chopped (i used Callebaut's 60% Dark choc)

4 Eggs

1/3C Vegetable Oil

1/2C Buttermilk

2C Plain flour

1/4tsp Salt

1&1/2tsp Baking Powder

1/2tsp Bicarbonate Soda

2C Castor Sugar

1/2C Cocoa

method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Prepare cupcake trays with cupcake paper.

2. Dissolve coffee in hot water. Put butter, chocolate & dissolved coffee into a metal bowl and place over a large saucepan of simmering water. Stir until chocolate has melted. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. [Chocolate Mixture]

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, vegetable oil and buttermilk until combined [Egg Mixture]

4. In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate soda, castor sugar & cocoa and mix well until combined. [Flour Mixture]

5. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the egg mixture. Mix well until combined.

6. Add in the cooled chocolate mixture and mix in carefully until well combined.

7. Spoon mixture into cupcake cases, filling to just over half full!!!

8. Bake for 22-25 minutes until fine skewer comes out clean.

9. Remove cupcakes from trays and cool completely before frosting.

Orange Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

3 tbsp Butter

1/2tsp Vanilla extract

3C Sifted Icing sugar

Juice of half a big orange (I used navel oranges)

Zest of half an orange

Method:

1. Cream butter and vanilla extract 

2. Add in 1C of sifted icing sugar

3. Add in 2tbsp of orange juice

Note: keep alternating between steps 2. and 3. until you achieve a desired consistency, mixing well in between. Add more icing sugar if it is too runny, or add more orange juice if it is too sweet/thick.

4. Mix in the zest when the mixture is ready.

Candied Orange Slices

Ingredients:

Remaining half of the large orange, cut into 1/4 inch thick longitudinal slices

1C Sugar 

3C Water

Methods:

1. Put 1.5C water and 1/2C sugar in a wide-based saucepan and dissolve the sugar on medium heat

2. As the water starts to simmer, lower the orange slices into the pan and place them flat on the pan

3. Simmer on medium-high heat for 10 minutes, turning them once or twice

4. Lower the heat down to medium-low heat for 30 minutes, turning them once or twice

5. Meanwhile, prepare another sugar mixture by dissolving 1/2C sugar in 1.5C water on medium heat. Add this sugar mixture to the orange slices if the syrup starts to run out.

6. When it is ready, the orange slices should still be intact but translucent, and has a nice coating of thick syrup

7. Turn off the fire and leave there for 10 minutes

8. Transfer onto baking paper carefully and leave until cooled completely before use

Assembling:

1. Pipe the orange frosting onto the cupcake (i used a big round tip)

2. Top the frosting with the candied oranges anyway you like!!!

Have fun :)   

Mamasita

My only encounter of Mexican food was a couple of years ago at Bluecorn in St Kilda. I don't know whether the food there was authentic but I didn't like it at all. Every dish tasted similar and too many beans were used. I stayed away from Mexican food since but the Mexican food that Top Chef Masters finalist Rick Bayless cooked looked so amazing I decided to give it another chance.

Mamasita is a Mexican restaurant bar and grill at Collins street that opened last year. The restaurant received great reviews from The Age but only mixed reviews from the general public.

We went at 3pm for 'afternoon tea' as we heard service can be quite disorganised during peak hours. The interior was simple, but I was not too sure why they picked that particular photo to put on the wall - a lady from the ?60s wearing bikini, with a funny dent on her abdomen. Hmm.

We ordered only three items. One of which is the "Street Style" chargrilled corn with queso, chipotle mayonnaise and lime. Queso is a type of Mexican cheese. It was the white stuff that coated the corn.  I actually had no idea what it was when I ate it as there wasn't the typical 'pungent' smell that normal cheeses have. I felt that the flavours worked very well together (especially the lime and queso) and we really enjoyed it. Cost aud$3.80 per cob.

The tacos on the other hand were nice but not fantastic. We ordered the pork and the fish taco (was too busy eating I forgot to take a close up photo of the fish one) and they cost aud$5 each. The menu said that the pork taco had roasted pork, pineapple, coriander and white onion, but I felt the flavours didn't really come through and was a bit bland. The other taco had grilled fish with lime, achiote paste & red onion salsa. I felt the latter tasted better but both tacos weren't very memorable. The accompanying salsa, however, was really good! (sorry didn't take any photos of it). I liked it more than the tacos.

Overall it was a nice snack and I really liked the corn. A bit too expensive for a snack (total of $13.80) and don't think i can be full even after eating 4 tacos (haha I'm a big eater :D). Will definitely go back and try the mains sometime.