Bread Fananza!

From bottom, clockwise:
Saffron and Honey Potato Bread, Savory Potato Bread and Banana Bread

I went into a crazy baking spree today. I made three types of bread; Banana Bread, Savory Potato Bread and Saffron and Honey Potato Bread. I love baking bread over all other types of baking. There is nothing more certain and satisfying than being able to pent your anger onto a helpless ball of dough and know that it will pleasure all of your senses when it comes out of the oven-fresh and homemade. I love you Bread.
The recipe for the Banana Bread is from this website. 
The recipe for the Savory Potato Bread is from here (I used Herb Mashed Potatoes).
The recipe for the Saffron with Honey Bread is included below (it's a variation of the Savory Potato Bread).

Banana Loaves

Saffron and Honey Potato Bread  

Saffron and Honey Bread

 

1 cup plain mashed potatoes

Juice of half an orange

1 tbsp honey

1 ½ cup milk

1 pinch of Spanish Saffron

2 tsp orange zest

1 tbsp honey

5 tsp active dry yeast

1 cup warm water

1 tsp sugar

5 cups flour plus extra for dusting

1 egg

4 tbsp milk

Heat milk, saffron, zest and honey in a small saucepan. DO NOT BOIL. Remove from heat and cool down to room temperature.

Place active dry yeast and sugar in a bowl. Add in warm water and whisk to dissolve. Set aside for 10 minutes.

In the mixer bowl, mix orange juice, honey and plain mash potatoes with a dough hook on low speed (or use a wooden spoon).  Add in the cooled milk mixture and activated yeast mixture. Mix on a low-medium speed with the dough hook until all ingredients is incorporated then gradually add in the flour, one cup at a time. Mix until a ball of rough dough forms. Stop mixer and turn dough onto a clean and flour dusted surface. Knead 5 times, shape into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Let rest for 1 hour until doubled in size.

When doubled in size, turn onto a floured surface and gently knead 3-4 times.

Divide into two balls, and roll each ball out into a rope. Place ropes side by side and twist from center until you real the ends. Tuck ends to the bottom, transfer to a baking sheet, cover and let rest for 1 hour.

Uncover and brush with a mixture of milk and egg.

Bake at 350 degrees Celsius for 35-40 minutes.

Savory Potato Bread Dough

The ready-to-bake loaves

Savory Potato Bread

Savory Potato Bread sliced

FLUFFY!!

Great for a Ham and Cheese Sandwich!

Lunar New Years (Vietnamese Customs)

So Lunar New Years has just passed but most Vietnamese households are still celebrating (such as mine lol).
In preparation for this huge celebration, my mom and I made traditional Vietnamese Glutinous Rice cakes (square, prisms, and log-shaped ones). Along with the traditional use of white sticky rice, my mom also used black glutinous rice, which gives a twist in color and in taste. Every New Years, my mom and basically the rest of the family set out to make these delectable cakes, a tradition that has been passed down throughout the generations of the Vietnamese people. A (variation of the) folk tale explains the origins of these rice cakes, and how they represented the Earth and the Heavens:
"There once was a King who was in constant pressure to choose an heir out of his several sons. A few weeks before the celebration of the Lunar New Year, he set up a contest for the young princes; their task was to individually prepare a special dish that is unique and delectable for the king to taste and which would make a fine offering to the ancestors. If the dish is successful and passes judgment, that respective prince will be the next heir. So thus, the princes split throughout the vast kingdom, in search of rare and exotic ingredients to prepare their dish. The youngest of the princes, stayed in the city. The Young Prince did not have as much wealth as his older brothers nor did he have any idea what to prepare because most of what he could think of did not seem unique or fitting for a king. The night before the contest, he decided to forfeit and not attend the taste testing. However, as he slept that night, a magical wise man came into his dreams and instructed him to make two different kinds of cakes made from glutinous rice. One would be in a square shape, wrapped in banana leaves with fillings of savoury mung bean paste and slices of fatty pork. This rice cake, banh chung, would be symbolic to the green rice patties fields found throughout Vietnam, thus representing Earth. The second cake, banh day, which is made from glutinous rice powder, is shaped into thick round patties. The whiteness of these cakes and it's blandness represent purity and the round shape represents how vast and full Heaven is. The magical wise man guaranteed that these cakes will impress the King and the court. The Young Prince arose from his sleep and quickly got to work that very night.

The variety of rice cakes

The next morning, the King and his court assembled and began the taste testings. His many sons presented him with many rare, unique and impressive dishes such as shark fin soup, tortoise stew, and etc. However, none of the dishes could pass the King's approval for they were rare and impressive but they were too luxurious, something the King have grown accustomed to, therefore it was not unique. The last dish was tasted but the Young Prince had not yet arrived. The older Princes jeered and protesting, appealing for the King to go ahead and choose a successor without the Young Prince, as they thought he had probably forfeited. Just as the King was about to give in, the Young Prince arrived, black bangs under his eyes for the lack of sleep (the rice cakes take from 5-12 hours to cook). The court was silent as the Young Prince knelt before his father, and offered his two simple dishes. The Older Princes took one look at his platter and jeered and snickered, muttering among themselves at how ridiculous and stupid the Young Prince is for offering such a simple and common dish. The King, who was also skeptical, asked the Young Prince to explain his dish and its contents. The Young Prince explained the ingredients and the symbolic meanings of each rice cake. The King nodded and gestured the prince towards him for the taste test. With one bite, the King smiled as the aroma and taste of the sticky rice embraced him, along with the savouriness of the fatty pork and the smoothness of the mung bean filling. The rice patties where eaten with a slice of Vietnamese Sausage, which added to the simplicity of the patty. The King proclaimed that The Young Prince was the winner and to honor such a thoughtful and symbolic dish, banh chung and banh day were to be part of the offerings to ancestors for every Lunar New Year to come."

Black Sticky Rice Banh Tet

The square cake has been "re-modeled" into a different shape in Southern Vietnam (the folk tale happened between Northern and Central Vietnam). Southern Vietnamese use the same ingredients to make a variation of the original cake; the shape is log-like and sometimes black eyed-peas are added to the glutinous rice (called "banh tet"). My mom makes her own variation by using black glutinous rice or "velvet" sweet rice in her sticky rice mix, which is mixed with coconut cream for extra flavor and aroma. She also makes a vegetarian variation for me, which she uses raw cashews as my source of protein, along with the mung bean filling (no photos). I love cashews.


Other offerings for ancestors include a platter of fruit that contains a soursop, a coconut, a papaya and mangoes. According to tradition, each fruit represents a slang used as a word of prayer for abundance in the coming new year.

 

There are a lot of special dishes during the New Year for us. Another main dish is Braised Pork with Eggs. It's basically fatty pork, cut into HUGE chunks, and braised in mixture of coconut juice, sugar and fish sauce, along with hard boiled eggs until all has a caramelized color and the pork can easily be pulled into threads (kinda like pulled pork). The traditional method of cooking this dish is on a stove for several hours but since we are more advanced here, we used a slow-cooker (or crock pot) for it. The meat doesn't dry out and stays yummeh! The pork threads are rolled with pickled bean sprouts in rice paper and is dipped into the braise liquid. it use to be my favourite dish before I became a vegetarian. But I also had my own vegetarian braised pork and eggs (I found some veggie pork chunks at an asian supermarket and the meat had layers of "fat" (made from konnyaku starch). It was sooo yummeh!

Veggie braised Pork and Egg with rice paper and veggies

Veggie Braised Pork (close-up)

Braised Pork and Egg

Pickled Veggies

And of course, the best part after stuffing our faces out was the lucky money!! And with that money, GAMBLING!! har har har!!

This year seems like it will be awesome because my celebratory days were fantastico!

(I know the lucky envelope is yellow, live with it. It was cute.)

Matcha Tiramisu Charlotte Cake

So...I made a green tea tiramisu Charlotte cake a week ago and forgot to make a post (sorry!!). I followed a recipe on Youtube but it didn't turn out quite as I wanted/expected it to be (I think I may have to give it another try). But I also think I'll stick to the original espresso tiramisu nonetheless.
Garnished with white chocolate curls and sprinkled with matcha green tea powder.

The ingredients.
(I realized I took a picture of the half and half cream
instead of the whipping cream. My bad)

Boneless Cornish Hen with Wild Rice and Cornbread Stuffin'

 So, last night, I made something like a ballontine, a French way of serving meat, fish or poultry by completely boning the meat, stuffing it and then roasting it. I used a small Cornish Hen and I used a method of de-boning that keeps the whole bird intact, whereas I do not cut along the spine of the bird in order to remove the carcass.
 Stuffed with a mixture of cornbread and wild rice. Unfortunately, I used the rice and stuffing from a box because I was too lazy to make them from scratch...which didn't give me the exact results I wanted but what can I do? A mistake to learn from for next time lol.

VIDEO:

Tempura Udon and Unagi Maki

So, for dinner today, I made Tempura Udon Soup and Unagi (Grilled Eel) Makizushi for my brother.
Udon is a thick, Japanese wheat noodle, almost equivalent to the Shanghai thick noodle. Broth for the soup was made from shiitake mushroom concentrate and seaweed broth; it was then seasoned with mirin, sugar, soy sauce and sake, along with salt and pepper. I bought new bowls to make this specific dish (mwahaha! I am such a nerd). Toppings included kamaboko (steamed fish cake; I accidently bought the white kind instead of the 'aka' or pink kind), naruto-maki, spinach, chikuwa, egg and shrimp tempura. Perfect for a cold night. (The broth was vegetarian so I added my own toppings that were non-meat/fish to it for myself).
For the side, I made Unagi Maki, which was a sushi roll filled with cucumber and sliced ginger and topped with grilled eel. Seved wtih pickled ginger and wasabi (on the new plate that matched the bowls mwahaha!). Yum yum!! My brother loved it!!