Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Chocolate, Vanilla and Green Tea Cheesecake

Green tea n chocolate cheesecake

A request has came through for the titled recipe.

The bulb shone when I read Fish Fish post on her multi-talented sister's green tea marbled cheesecake. Thanks ya Fish for working my brain XD

What you need:
8 pieces digestive biscuits
50g butter, melted
zest of 1 lime
2 whole eggs plus 1 yolk
600g cream cheese
3/4 can sweetened condensed milk
60g dark chocolate, melted
1 tbsp cooking green tea powder
a few drops of madagascar vanilla essence
8 in springform cake tin

What you do:
1. Line the bottom of cake tin with parchment paper. Line the outside of tin with 2 layers of aluminium foil.
2. Crush the biscuits using food processor or put in bag and crush with rolling pin.
3. Combine melted butter with biscuit crumbs and zest. Press onto bottom of tin. Chill in fridge until needed.
4. Preheat oven to 175 degree celcius (use the right temperature for your oven)
5. In a bowl, using electric whisk, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add in condensed milk. Whisk till combined.
6. Add in eggs and continue to whisk till mixture is thick like thickened cream.
7. Divide the mixture into 3 portions.
8. Add melted chocolate in one portion, vanilla essence in second portion and green tea powder in third portion.
9. Pour in chocolate batter first, followed by vanilla batter and lastly the green tea batter.
10. Sit the tin in a bigger baking tray and bake bain-marie for 50 minutes. The middle should still be a bit wobbly. Turn off heat, open the oven door and let the cake cool in the oven for another hour. Let cool and chill before serving.

Tips:
1. If you don't have cooking matcha powder, consider increasing the amount.
2. If you can't get madagascan vanilla essence, forget it, don't put other chemically processed 'flavour' in.
3. Watch the cheesecake every now and then, if it starts to crack, lower the temperature by 10 or 20 degree.
4. You can increase the amount of condensed milk. Do taste the mixture after beating in the eggs. Adjust to your taste.

A Taste of French - Duck Confit

Duck confit served with mentaiko pasta

The making of duck confit is a laborious one. So it became obvious just to get it off supermarket shelves for a lazy cook like me.

Fine French cuisine do I like? I am afraid I have no such fine taste. This cooking method have drawn out all the natural juices and sweetness of the duck. What's left is just a mass of tender tasteless muscle. I believe the fat used to seep the duck has more taste than the duck itself XD


Give me roast duck, braised duck or even plain boiled duck and I wouldn't miss the confit. No it don't 'fit/feed' me.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Yummy Yum Yum

Neapolitan yummy
Neapolitan yum yum

There are only two British sweets I will eat, vanilla slice and yum yum.

Vanilla slice is just vanilla custard sandwiched between two sheets of puff pastry. Simple but delicious. I love all things custard.


It's a bit hard to describe yum yum. It's like doughnut but dough is drier and much like a wetter puff pastry and the surface frosted with icing. It comes in all sorts of flavour but my favourite is triple chocolate which is always SOLD OUT when I want to get a couple ><

I wonder if I can get them down under in Oz?

Princess - Ever So Funny

princess

She always make herself a make-shift shawl from mama's pants (mama one only).

Likes to make funny faces ^^

Likes to eat the unedible from plastics to oven door @@

She thinks the laundry bags make pretty head scarf XD

Friday, June 16, 2006

Old Fashioned Walnut Cookies


Cookies are cookies, why old fashioned?

Cos they are Chinese style cookies. Ever been to a traditional Chinese bakery? Don't everything just look ancient including the person behind the counter XD

Actually there is no walnut in walnut cookies. Beats me, I don't know too....

Recipe (adapted from Chinese Cookies Cookbook):-

Ingredients:
Cake flour 130g, icing sugar 70g, baking soda 1/4 tsp, baking powder 1/4 tsp, salt 1/4 tsp, shortening 75g, beaten egg 30g

Normal cookies making method, no, there is no special technique required.

Before popping in the oven brush with egg wash and stick half a walnut in the centre. Bake at 180 degree celcius for around 25 minutes. Turn off heat and wait for further 10 minutes before opening the oven door.

Not So Successful Egg Tarts

Chinese style puff pastry egg tarts

Will I ever have any luck with egg tarts?

The skin torn everywhere while I roll. Urghhhhhh......why are they so hard to master?

Chinese style puff pastry is made from lard or shortening, if you can't lay your hands on some lard. Not that it's any healthier........

Them tarts were still edible, if not I would definitely go crazy and kill someone. I spent whole afternoon just making 10 tarts.

It's just easier to buy lah.........

Friday, June 09, 2006

Tong Palace, Leeds

I spied this newly opened restaurant one weekend in April 2006 and made mental note to visit soon. It occupied the exact same spot which was previously Jade Garden which served awful food in my opinion so no prize for guessing why it closed it's doors.

One sunday, after our park rendezvous, I was in no mood to cook. So we made our way to the very posh Red Chilli for some northern Beijing nosh. There was a queue and not wanting to wait, we left. No further luck at the nearby Nando's (oh, don't the chicken smell good!). Fate brought us to Tong Palace, the restaurant was near empty. Oh oh, not a good sign. But 即來之,則安之.



Tong Palace dinner
I ordered roast meat platter, salted vegetable fish and belacan kangkong.

Roast meat platter included roast duck, char-siew and soy sauce chicken. Roast duck was surprisingly passable. Nice tender meat with cripy skin albeit a little fatty. Char siew was too salty. Chicken was of average standard.

I haven't had kangkong in such a long time. This version was ok but the squid was overcooked hence rubbery.

The favourite of the day was this deep-fried whole bass cooked in salted vegetable gravy. Seasong was subtle and the fish was juicy and soft.

High Tea at Betty's Harrogate

Betty's Cafe

Determine to enjoy a traditional English high tea for the last time before we left for good, we found ourselves in Betty's early April 2006. Betty's, a famous British institution for fine tea, coffee and pastries, is very popular with both locals and tourists.

Betty's Harrogate
Shopfront at historic Harrogate

We arrived a little after 2pm, there were only 2 parties waiting. Ten minutes later we were seated in a rather nice booth area. Princess were presented with not one but two TOLO toys which only kept her interested for 5 minutes :(


Princess at Betty's

I had, naturally, the high tea set for one GBP12.50

Betty's High Tea set for one
The scone was delicious! I mop it up with ALL the clotted cream!

Which came with full silver (plated?) tea service.

Tea service

Big King ordered Chicken wrapped in ham with rosti (a carnivore through and through)

Chicken with rosti

The ham was so salty but balanced with the unseasoned (read:tasteless) chicken. Rosti is nice and crispy. Salad tasted a bit weird, I guess it was pre-made in bulk and just dish out onto plates for every order. Ewwww, I don't like..........I can't remember what the sauce taste like. All in all, a rather disappointing dish.

The sister company, Taylors of Harrogate, stocks some rare single estate coffee, which some had made their way into Betty's menu. Yemeni Mocha Ismaili stood out like pop-up art cos I've never even heard of it (sakai, sakai). It came in a cafetierre, which I am not keen on.


Coffee

The coffee has an exotic taste, kind of acidic but will not linger long. I've never been a fan of acidic coffee like Blue Mountain. Blue Mountain leaves an acidic aftertaste which is unpleasant to me which of course other people appreciate how the perfume 'lingers' in your mouth after a sip. No no to me, I don't like lingering taste. Drinking this Yemenic coffee reminded me of drinking wine, it has a somehow liquor feel to it, very special.

A nice British experince but I must say there are other better choices with the same amount of dosh.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Alex Goh's Coffee Cheesecake

Fantastic Cheesecake by Alex Goh, a great read for all cheesecake lovers!

I've tried several recipes, all are good. Big King said this one is good enough to sell! :D



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