Wholemeal Nori Bread Loaf

Wohooo....its weekend again! It means bread making time. Gosh, missed making these babies so much. I have tried quite a number of bread making method for the past couple of years and what I experienced was prefermented dough gives better texture to breads. Other than that gelatized dough too gives such unusual result to the texture. The moisture & softness of bread can be prolong through both prefermentation dough method. Though I seldom work with water roux after trying it a number of times, I found that water roux method too works quite fantastically as well. But if you prefer a hassle free prefermentation method, I think this should be the right one for you.

So, here's what I did.

Ingredients for Starter Dough :
230gm  bread flour
50gm   wholemeal flour
2 tspn  yeast
1 TB  sugar                            
200ml   milk
(combine everything to form a soft dough then set aside to rest for an hour or till double it size)

Ingredients for Main Dough :
120gm   bread flour
2 TB  Nori flakes
90gm   sugar
1 egg, do not beat
2 TB  milk
2 TB  heavy cream
1 tspn  salt
60gm  butter

Method :
(1) place starter dough into a big mixing bowl, add in the main dough ingredients except salt & butter and knead till combined.
(2) now, add in salt & butter and again knead till everything well mixed. Again, set aside to rest for an hour or till double in size.
(3) once it's ready, punch dough to release air and knead till smooth.
(4) place dough to a slightly flour working table and divide dough into 4 portions.
(5) let dough rest for 10 minutes then roll & fold dough follow the method here.
(6) place dough to a 10x4.5x4.5" tray or to two separate 8x4x4" tray.
(7) let dough rest for about 30-45mins (depends on room temperature), then brush on egg glaze.
(8) bake at preheated oven 180'C-185'C for about 25-30 mins or till brown.
(9) cool for 15 mins before releasing the bread from tray and always remember to slice the bread only after it has completely cooled.

The bread turns out really soft & moist.

My favourite toasted garlic butter bread with my nori bread. Slurppp.... Even hubby can't resist such aromatic toasted bread.
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I'm sending this to Wild Yeast Blog @ Yeastspotting.

Thai Green Curry Pasta

Thai cuisine is so distinct and just by mentioning the name "tom yam"......sure everyone knows where to look for it. Thai food is mostly spicy, sweet and sour which makes it even more appertizing. The ingredients used are mostly fragrant herbs, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, ginger flower...and also including all other ingredients like shallots, garlic, ginger and not to forget load of bird eye chilies. I really enjoy Thai food of its special & unique flavour & the unforgettable aroma. However, other than tom yam there's still many more fabulous signature Thai dishes you shouldn't miss out as well. For example this Thai green curry. I remember the first time I tried it was from "AYAM" brand canned green curry tuna.......on my pasta. Yeap...on my pasta!  Gosh, it was so delicious. I'm feeling guilty for not trying to make my own homemade green curry paste at home. >o<

So finally, here's the yummy homemade green curry gravy. By the way, for new readers.....just to remind you that cilantro and coriander leaves are both different plant.

(recipe adapted from here)
Ingredients :
3 stalk lemongrass, use only lower portion
4-5 cilantro root
1 inch galangal, only take lower part 2" & sliced
1 kaffier lime, sliced
1/2 TB  peppercorns
1/2 TB  cumin powder, toasted
1 TB  coriander seeds
1 whole garlic, skinned & washed
10 pcs  shallots, skinned & washed
50gm  shrimp paste (belacan)
1 TB  salt
1/2 cup  cooking oil

Method :
Place everything to grinder & blend into paste then saute blended ingredients over a preheated frying pan with more cooking oil till nice & fragrant. Set aside to cool & keep refrigerated if for storage.

Ingredients for Green Curry Pasta :
400gm  vermicelli pasta
1-1/2 cups  shredded leftover roasted chicken meat
handful of basil leaves (which I have forgotten to add in)
3-4 pcs kaffir leaves
3-4 TB  green curry paste
1 cup  water
1/2 cup  coconut milk
1 TB  sugar
2 TB  fish sauce

Method :
(1) bring a pot of water to boil together with 2 tspn of salt & a few lemon slices.
(2) throw in the pasta and let to boil till soft.
(3) once it's ready, drain pasta and add in some oil to prevent sticking.
(4) preheat a frying pan with little cooking oil, saute green curry paste a few seconds then add in water and bring it to boil.
(5) once the water started boiling, add in all other ingredients except pasta and cook over low heat till thick & creamy.
(6) now, stir in pasta and mix well. At the same time, remove all the kaffir leaves.
(7) off the heat and serve warm with parmesan cheese (powder form).

Looks a bit plain without the basil leaves. :o(  Yet it still tasty good. Me & my girl love it very much and my boy still prefer the original old fashion pasta. hehe.... However, hope you guys will love it too. Enjoy !

Sweet Pumpkin Soup With Nata De Coco

A couple days back, a friend of mine made a pot of sweet pumpkin soup for me to taste test. She said this pumpkin soup is now very popular all around KL city and it normally served warm on wedding buffet. This sweet pumpkin is normally boiled with water chestnut stripes which gives a nice sweet crunch to the soup. Since I couldn't get any water chestnut at the supermarket, so just simply replace it with Nata De Coco (as I like it very much too) or you may use canned longan fruit. It tastes as good. For an extra touch of colour, I added in some homemade tapioca starch jelly as well.

And here we go.
Ingredients :
4 cups  pumpkin puree (from about 1 kg of pumpkin)
4-5 cups  water
100gm  rock sugar
5 pandanus or screwpine leaves
1 canned Nata De Coco
Homemade Tapioca starch jelly

Method :
Combine sugar, water & pandan leaves and bring it to boil or till sugar dissolved. Then add in pumpkin puree and let it cook over medium heat for another 15 mins or till the fragrant. Once it's ready, off the heat and add in tapioca starch jelly. Serve warm with Nata De Coco.

Hmmm...yummm...the soup smells really aromatic. Just imagine the taste of pure pumpkin soup with the smell of pandanus and then with the little chewy nata coco & tapioca jelly. Who could simply resist ! Hope you guys will love it too. Enjoy!

Homemade CRoNut

Yeapie.... Finally, CRONUT has landed in Malaysia. haha.... Another challenging work in the kitchen of My Little Space. I first learned about cronut was long ago but have never thought of making my own at home. I always feel dizzy whenever looking at those layers....which also means lot of work is involved. :o(  However, after working on some danish bread recently I felt more confident and thought of giving it a shot. Cronut is actually comes from the combination word between croissant & doughnut. It makes sense cause CRO + NUT  >o< And also means making doughnut with croissant pastry. Gotcha !? But today, I would like to try it with a danish pastry dough. So, very much looking forward to the outcome.

Here we goooo....

Ingredients :
2 cups  bread flour
1-3/4 cups  all purpose flour
1 tspn  salt
1 TB  yeast
2 tspn  vanilla paste / essence
3 egg yolk
1 cup  milk
2 TB  cooking oil

*300gm  pastry margarine (for folding)

Method :
(1)  combine all ingredients except margarine, stir to form soft dough and knead till smooth.
(2) then set aside to rest for an hour or till double in size, keep dough cover.
(3) once its ready, punch dough to release air and knead till smooth.
(4) finally, place dough to a slightly floured working table and roll into equal square shape.
(5) place pastry margarine to the center and wrap & sealed it nicely with dough.
(6) now, roll dough into rectangle shape around 15x9" size. For further folding details, please click here.
(7) after completion, you can either keep dough refrigerated till the next day or you may roll the dough out straight away & cut it with a doughnut mould.

(8) then again leave dough rest for about an hour or till the dough puffs up.
(9) preheat wok or a pot with enough cooking oil and fry them over low heat till golden brown.
(10) finally, coat cooled cronut with cinnamon icing sugar & then top with frosting.

I think my homemade cronut is too crispy & crunchy which is NOT so right ! If not mistaken, it should be fluffy soft the inside and crispy on the outer layer. Wonder...my guessing is RIGHT???? Can anyone tells me? Anyway, the difference between the usage of butter & pastry margarine too will affected the result. I believe butter will gives softer texture to the dough. Maybe, will try the croissant dough the next time.
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I'm sending this to Wild Yeast Blog @ Yeastspotting.

Local Indian Curry Fish

I really enjoy our local curry fish a lot especially when having roti canai (flat bread). I only take the gravy not the fish. hehe... And that's what caused me soooo longing to make my own Indian curry fish at home. And again, I'm lucky enough to be able to learn making it from an Indian friend of mine. Guess what's the secret???? She told me that ginger & garlic are both not allow to use in this recipe cause it will kill all the fish curry flavour. AHHHha.... Finally ! Other than that, do not soak the tamarind slices. Just simply wash it, will do ! SO, get it ??? >o<

Now, here's what we need for the recipe. For people living out of the region, you can get these kind of curry fish powder at any nearest Asian food store. Here we go.

Ingredients :
500gm  mackerel fish, cut into a few
4 slices tamarind (asam jawa), washed
1 large onion, sliced
2 tomatoes, wedged
5 lady fingers, cut about half finger length
2 medium size eggplant, cut in chunks
50ml  evaporated milk
3 cups  water
50gm   fish curry powder
1/2 tspn  vegetable granule
salt to taste

Method :
(1) preheat wok or frying pan with just 1/2 cup of cooking oil. Saute eggplant & lady fingers separately till fragrant. Set aside.
(2) by using the same work, add in more oil and saute onion till fragrant.
(3) then add in curry leaves & curry powder, let it saute till fragrant over low heat (about one minute).
(4) now, add in water, tamarind slices, salt & granule and bring it to boil.
(5) once it's ready, add in cooked lady fingers, eggplants & fish and let it cook for about 15-20 mins over medium heat. Make sure the fish is cooked.
(6) finally, add in tomatoes & milk and continue cooking for another 5 mins. And it's all ready to serve.

Here's another tips, make sure the eggplants is nicely brown. It smells better after cooked with curry. And for the usage of milk, very common that most people will add in coconut milk but coconut milk will caused a very thick gravy on it which is not so nice at all. And that's why evaporated milk is chosen.

I really enjoy having the gravy especially with toasted bread. Hmm....absolutely tempting, isn't it !  Hope you guys will love it too. Enjoy !

Water Roux Garlic Butter Bread

Oh yeah, another happy day eventhough I'm feeling a bit exhausted due to the flu. And I'm taking a few days off from work. How not to be happy to begin the day with bread making ! Don't worry, I'm not going to sneeze on the bread. haha.... Frankly, this is the second attempt on water roux method. I had to say it wasn't really convincing on my previous attempt but today it works just fine. The texture of the bread is fabulous.... really soft & moist. Probably, I'll try something else the next time to prove it good.

So, here's what I did.

Ingredients for water roux :
1/2 cup  water
2 TB  all purpose flour

Method :
Combine water & flour and mix well. Then cook carefully over low heat till thicken. Make sure you don't burnt the bottom. Set aside to cool. It looks like glue.

Ingredients for bread dough :
350gm  bread flour
150gm  all purpose flour
2-1/2 tspn  yeast
70gm  sugar
1 tspn  salt
1 egg
150ml  warm milk
50gm  cold butter, chopped

For coating : 1 cup sesame seeds & water

Method :
(1) combine all ingredients to form soft dough and set aside to rest for an hour or till double in size.
(2) once it's ready, punch & press dough to release air and knead till smooth.
(3) place dough to a slightly floured working table, then divide dough into 10 portions.
(4) flatten each dough and roll each of them into swiss roll, brush dough surface with water and then roll them over to sesame seeds.
(5) again rest dough for another 30 mins and then make a cut to the bread.
(6) place a teaspoon or garlic butter to dough and bake at preheated oven 185-190'C for about 30 mins or till brown.

Ingredients :
70gm  butter, at room temperature
1/2 tspn  salt
1 TB  heavy cream
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tspn  cilantro / parsley, chopped
(combine everything and mix well)

These little smiling bread smells so good. I couldn't resist and took one, and my kids each took three at one time. haha....OK now, before ending this post, there's an announcement to made. My previous contest winner Sue Low, till today she has yet turned up to claim her prize. However, I'm going to hold the prize till this Sunday. If she hasn't turned out by this Sunday, I'm going to give it away to someone else. So, do take not e of this.
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I'm sending this to Wild Yeast Blog @ Yeastspotting.

Egg Version Steamed Fatt Kuih & The Giveaway Winner !

The Chinese often prepare this kind of little steamed kuih every two weeks and also during special occasions but mostly made without eggs; cause anything serve to the god must be vegan during prayer. However, these egg version little steamed kuih can still feed the family. This recipe is actually inspired by Sonia. It's her mom private recipe. Thanks Sonia for sharing it. Other than that, let's us celebrate the winner for my giveaway contest with these little kuih as well. Now before heading further, here's the winner........

The winner goes to Sue Low. Congratulations Sue! Please kindly email me your details ASAP.

Ingredients :
(A)
250gm  all purpose flour
1 tspn  baking powder

(B)
200ml   boiling water
180gm  sugar
(dissolved sugar into water then set aside to cool)

(C)
1 egg
1 tspn  vanilla paste
2 TB  cooking oil

Method :
Beat together ingredients (A)+(B) & (C) till smooth. Then filled in paper cups about 80% full. Finally, steam at preheated steamer for about 20mins.

*Note : Do not open the lid while the steaming is on.

It's best to cover the lid with a tower or cloth to prevent dripping water.

The out come is pretty satisfying but the eggy smell is quite strong. Maybe still NEW to it ! hehe.... I think it's good to present these kuih to our ancestors. Bet they'll love it. >o<  Anyway hope you guys will have a great week ahead. And stay tune for more giveaways after this !